IIIIIII-IIIIIIIII-IIIIII'M ::boom boom:: HOOKED ON A FEELING

I've watched Guardians of the Galaxy three times since I bought it.

I mean, I've been doing other things with my life, lots of other things actually, but yeah that's probably the top news.

This semester of grad school is DONE. Oh thank goodness I have never been so excited for a semester to be done and I was only taking one class. One horrible, horrible class.

Now there are just a few days of work left until winter break! w00t w00t!

Other big news is that we had a mouse in our house that has now perished:

He who must not be named.....is DEAD.

The sad news is that I have finally really decided to give up Bilbo :(

"What is this thing?"

"And who is that gorgeous creature inside of it?"

"If I twitch my nose at you, can I stay?"

It was inevitable, and this way he's going to a nice family for Christmas. It's actually a family that I know pretty well, so I feel much better knowing I can trust them. They have a little girl who is going to give Bilbo so much attention and love. Of course I'm sad about it, but Bilbo helped me out and chewed through my fan cord yesterday, so I feel less sad about it :p

I'm getting pretty excited about Christmas, thought I have noticed in the past few years that it's getting less and less exciting...maybe that means I'm growing up? I do have a lot more money this year than I normally do, so that made Christmas shopping more fun, and honestly all I want to do is watch "It's a Wonderful Life" and wrap presents while it snows outside. Not getting the snow, but I think I'll finally get the rest this weekend once work is done and I can relax.

Obviously I'm not updating this blog like I thought I would. The past month and a half has just been insane, I feel like there is always something more to do and I'm not used to such a lack of down-time and me-time. I suppose I should get used to it, I know most of the world is usually busy like that. Next time hopefully I'll have a fun story or something so this is more like a blog and less like a badly-kept journal.

A vacation from my problems

Loooooong break there. Let's toss that up to a few mental breakdowns, a holiday, several IEPs, and a mouse currently living in my bedroom.

Okay? Okay.

Work and school are so overwhelming, sometimes I feel like I can't breathe. Thankfully this semester is almost over (2 more weeks) so that will be over soon and I'll get a break. Work will never end though. Just when I think I've gotten ahead of it, something else comes up. You'd think with a caseload of only 6 students I wouldn't be this stressed, but they like to keep me on my toes. Thanksgiving wasn't even really a break, just stress on a different level of being at my parent's house for a week and dealing with that whole situation. I love my family, I really do, but my idea of a "break" is being by myself, and I didn't get a whole lot of time for that.

I've thought several times over the past few weeks of what I could write as a blog entry, a silly story or something, but now that I'm actually sitting down to write, I'm drawing a blank. I should be doing homework right now, so that's probably for the best.

I'll think of something constructive to write this weekend.

There is no singing in Supernatural!

We interrupt this very important blog to tell all of you that the 200th episode of Supernatural aired last night and Liisa's life is now complete.

That is all.

this is a side effect of not being on tumblr anymore

Stop right now, thank you very much

Alright, I am going to write one, ONE very SHORT post about my annoying IA and then I am going to stop.

Okay so when I do something wrong or someone reminds me about something or even if someone casually comments on my actions, my first reaction is to apologise. I spend a lot of my life apologising, not always for the right reasons, but that is me. My IA, his first reaction is to come up with an excuse for EVERYTHING. Even if it's something just so trivial. Everything has an excuse. I just want to scream at him "OMG PLEASE JUST APOLOGISE FOR SOMETHING. I AM SORRY FOR YELLING AT YOU LIKE THIS."

I asked him today to prep an art project for tomorrow and he was like freaking out because he only had three hours. Are you kidding me? Three hours to prep one project??? He just kept saying "Well I just found out about this, I didn't know this was happening" and I was like "Um, we discussed this last week so yes you did know and just STOP because you will finish this in an hour and if it takes you longer I swear I will get the principal to fire you for incompetence at being a person."

Everything this man does is annoying.

And then on the other hand, he is just a sad, sad person. I don't know for sure, but I'm pretty sure he has no life outside of his job. He has no family around, he lives alone, and all he talks about is work or how he's trying to jog on the ankle that he twisted 3 months ago (he's still talking about his ankle, like, every other day). Apparently he goes to the school on Sundays (wat) because there is a sign in sheet for the church that meets there and his name has been on it. This man probably just needs a friend but he is so ridiculously awkward and unsociable that he just turns people off. If I was actually a good person I would be trying harder to just be his friend, but as his boss I find that very difficult : /

UGH.
Done.

Far too eager and curious for a Hobbit, most unnatural.

My bunny is a lot like a baby in a number of ways.

If you try to clip my nails I will destroy your world.

For one, thing, it's really helpful that he's cute, because most of the time that's all he's got going for him, and that's the only thing keeping him from being, well, nevermind.

He also has decided that approximately 1:30 am is the PERFECT time to thump his foot loudly and give me a heart attack. I imagine his thought process is something like this:

"Well, that was a nice nap.
Hummm...It's been dark for a while now...
I can't really hear anything...
I can't hear Liisa...
oh no what if Liisa is dead?
WHAT IF SHE'S DEAD??"
::thump::
"WHAT IF I'M DEAD?"
::thump::
"What if she's dead and she'll never feed me again?"
::thumpthump::
::Liisa throws something (like a shoe or her phone) at the cage::
"ARE WE UNDER ATTACK??"
::thump::
"Wait where is my food?
Do I have food?
Will I ever have food again?"
::rustles around cage until he finds his food dish::
"You know what the best way is to eat food?
ALL. OVER.THE. FLOOR"
::throws food dish across his cage::
"I haven't heard Liisa move....
WHAT IF SHE'S DEAD??"
::thump::

This usually continues until I get fed up enough that I pull myself out of bed, walk over to his cage and kick it a few times.

His other most annoying habit is this constant reinactment of "The Great Escape". No matter where I put him, large or small areas, he will spend the whole time just trying to get out of any area - testing the fences for weaknessess like a Velociraptor, amiright? And when he's not testing the fences for weaknessess, he's marking his territory in every corner ever. And if I put something in the corner he will either attack it until he manages to move it and then he will pee in the corner, or he will jump on top of it and then somehow manage to jump over the gate that it's next to. UGH YOU DEMON BUNNY.

I keep reminding myself that a baby will be different. I mean, after two years, a baby will definitely be giving me some sort of feedback. All Bilbo does is run up to me and attack my jeans if he sees I have treats.

This is my bookshelf. There are many like it, but this is mine.

 I even chewed off the cover of Liisa's copy of "The Last Command" to make sure that she knows that it is mine.

But when I had to chose between death and kissing him, totally kissed him instead of dying.

Yesterday was my day off, so of course I spent the majority of it doing stuff for work - making progress reports and typing up new data sheets for the quarter. Today I got home early with nothing to do and I was like "I wanna make a video."

This is more complicated than it used to be.

Reason number one being that I'm not caught up on any shows anymore. I haven't watched the new season of Doctor Who and only a few of Supernatural. And the second reason is that I've stopped downloading shows in an effort to actually stop breaking laws (I know, it's crazy, what is happening).

So considering my lack of options, I edited about 10 seconds of an Amy/Rory vid.

That was fun.

Oh and we totally got our school pictures back. My eyes look stupidly small when I smile. Do I look like a teacher yet?

One of my brothers called today and we chatted for a while. I miss my brothers :/ One by one they all moved far away. When my oldest brother moved away a few years ago, I went one last time to tell him and his family goodbye and he gave me the tightest, longest, best hug I've ever gotten. Have you ever gotten a hug like that? One where no one tries to pull away and they hold you so tight it almost hurts, but it's a good hurt because it feel so awesome to be loved like that. Best hug ever. You guys don't even know, I have the best brothers ever.

All are tales of love at heart

So around 1:30 in the afternoon, I have four kids who fall asleep in my class.

I mean, it's preschool. We help them fall asleep otherwise it's like a madhouse in the afternoon.

Anywho, our newest kid has been having a hard time falling asleep, understandably cause it's a new place and new things, oh so many new things, especially for an autistic brain.

We had gotten everyone else to sleep and this kid was still just laying there, quiet and pretty still, but eyes wide open as he stared at the ceiling.

My IA reached over and started rubbing his arm to kind sooth him into sleep and she whispered, "It's okay, you can sleep. We love you. You're safe."

She got up and went over to the other classroom to help, leaving me there with him. I looked down and he just had the most beautiful smile and was looking straight at me and I was just kinda smacked in the face with how much I loved this kid.

I mean, I've only had him in my class for a few days and I honestly have no idea if he knows who I am or even cares.

But I love him.

I looked over at the other sleeping kids and my heart just swelled with love for all of them in the midst of this long, tiring, crazy day that we had just gone through together.

It was like Heavenly Father was patting me on the shoulder and saying "Don't worry. I'll help you remember why you're doing this job."

Oh, how they drive me crazy.

But oh how I love them.

Attend me now...

Today is the first time in a loooong time that I really wish I was on tumblr again.

Not really cause I miss it, but I need an outlet other than facebook.

Cause, you know, people.

Let's just start with how crazy our school system is.

I am getting a new student.

Nothing weird about that. I like new students.

But this kid is three years old. This kid is autistic. And this kid already started going to another classroom last Thrusday.

Apparently there was a mix-up in the paperwork and it was sent to the wrong school and noone figured it out until the poor kid had already been in school several days and was just starting to adjust and now we're moving him???

WAT.

And moving him to a school that is 30 minutes away instead of letting him go to his school that is 5 minutes away because, and I quote "The bus driver doesn't want to take SpEd kids across Route 50."

ARE YOU JOKING?
WHAT. ARE YOU WALKING THEM ACROSS ONE BY ONE? CARRYING THEM ON YOUR SHOULDERS? YOU ARE A BUS. I DO NOT UNDERSTAND.

So since this kid literally lives on the wrong side of the street, he is being shoved into a new school with a staff that did not work on his caseload and his poor parents have no idea how to react. His mother doesn't speak English so she asked the interpreter to talk to Transportation about the change and how they don't want the change and transportation literally was like "Yeah, that's a bummer but no, we're moving him to another school" and of course if she fights him on it she'll just lose services for her son because she doesn't have the right connections to make the case and UGH PEOPLE ARE SO ANNOYING I DO NOT UNDERSTAND THE WORLD.

I am so upset about the whole situation, I really do not think I've been this upset about anything in a long, long time.

In an effort to calm down, I've been eating since I got home and watching Supernatural, which I haven't done in a long time.

Of course now I have Supernatural feels, so that kind backfired on me.

The pets are dead. The butler's been discharged.

My last post was really depressing. Here's some laughs:

I'm terribly sorry, I didn't know. If I see one, I shall inform you immediately.

Rambling post....sorry.
edit: wow this came out a lot longer than I thought it was going to be.

I spent the majority of my weekend ignoring every responsibility I have.

Let me just put it out there: This is not a wise thing to do.

Saturday was not all bad. I went to our school "Color Fun Run 5K" where I did not run, but threw colored chalk on the kids that did run. Yay look at me being involved. I went over to my parents house to yet again help them pick out carpet. 12 hours later they, of course, had changed their minds, so we could call that useless. The rest of the day definitely was. I spent money I didn't have, watched movies I'd already seen, and ate too much food.

Then came Sunday. Sunday is never a great day for me. It's supposed to be the best day. It used to be the best day. Now it's just gives me too much time to think and dwell on all the bad decisions I've ever made.

Sunday is never a great day.

In an effort to stop thinking and dwelling, I random chose a book from my "shelf-of-books-I-haven't-read-yet". It was "The Selection".

Let me tell you right now that that book is exactly, and I mean EXACTLY what you think it's going to be.

To be fair, it was been a while since I've read a book that wasn't my textbook. Like, months. So I ate, it, up. I read the whole thing in a matter of hours and despite how predictable it was and how annoyed I was at almost every character, I went on my kindle and bought the sequel.

Stupid kindle.

Today at work I thought I could snap myself out of this stupor, and whoa did I.

I had my evaluation interview with my principal which consisted of me crying in front of her for about 45 minutes about how horribly I was handling my Instructional Assistants, She was very sweet, very kind. I know she believes in me far more than I believe in myself. She gave me some great things to work on and I went back to my classroom still feeling down on myself, but with more confidence that I could do better. I had to duck into the bathroom on the way back and splash water all over my face, but that still did nothing to hide the genetically-induced-blotchy-face that showed I had been crying. (seriously, I even think about crying and BAM! it's all over) Then I spent the rest of the afternoon working on paperwork (endless paperwork, ohmygoodness I am killing so many trees, why) and when I came home I should have worked on my project that is due on Thursday. Did I do that? Pft no.

I ate a big dinner, played games on my phone, put in a load of laundry and went right back to ignoring my life by reading the next book in the Selection series called "The Elite".

After I finished this second book (yes, I finished it), I kinda sat in my bed staring at the wall, listening to my bunny hop around under my bed and trying to find the incentive to go work on my homework or at least, you know, do something.

Already twice while I've been sitting here typing up this post, I've gone on youtube and watched videos.

My leg won't stop tapping and there is a pile of unfolded laundry on my bed and an elliptical machine sitting literally one foot away from me and yet I still am unmotivated to accomplish anything.

I mean, this side of last week I was bringing paperwork home with me and studying for my test and answering parent emails and now...nothing

It's like, I'm good at accomplishing things up to a certain level, But if suddenly there is just one thing too many I shut down and my brain is like NOPE. But that can't happen any more. I have responsibilities. I have people depending on me. I have a career and a path for my life and stopping in the middle of everything doesn't work anymore. Maybe I could pull it off at Interstate when literally nothing mattered to me, or maybe even while I was an IA where I had so few real responsibilities...but not now. It can't happen now.

After my meeting with my principal, I went out to the preschool trailer to ask another preschool teacher something, and we ended up commiserating about working with hard IA's. One of them said "You know, it's never going to be perfect. You'll probably always be working with at least one person who is just hard to get along with." I almost started crying again.

I remember the first teacher I worked with, and how when I told her I was going into the Early Childhood Special Ed program, she was excited for me, but she also said "Make sure it's what you really want...you have to get a whole other degree to teach any grade levels." At the time it wasn't really about what I wanted, it was about what was available to me, and on some level I did want it. I do want it. I want to teach kids. I want to work with kids. Work with other adults....it's really hard. It's not something I really thought about when I "signed up". I really want to work with my little autistic preschoolers...but I really want to work with older kids. and I really want to work with typically developing kids. And I really want a lot things I don't have.

Many times over the past few months I've found myself very content with my life, with who I am and where I'm at. But I still get pulled down into this depression every once in a while and it's like my mission all over again and bleck, I want to wipe that out of my mind but every Sunday I think about it again and again, and how is that every going to stop?

Those who do not complain are never pitied

I could probably spend the next several hours typing up all the complaints I have about my life this past week cause I basically have spent most of this week in this perpetual state of "UGH".

Is that a thing? "Perpetual state of UGH"

You don't want to hear about my problems. No one really wants to hear about other people's problems. The only reason we listen to other people's problems is so we have an excuse to tell them about our problems. But it's a stupid cycle because nothing gets solved by gossiping or complaining about it. In fact, most of the time I feel worse because I have this crazy genetic guilt-thing where I immediatly regret complaining or gossiping and I'm just like "UGH LIISA BE A BETTER PERSON."

See I just wrote that paragraph and now I feel like a horrible person. Why don't I delete it? To punish myself by constantly remembering that I am a horrible person.

Soooo, I'm not going to complain about anything. Well, nothing more than I've already complained about.

I'm going to tell you a happy story from this week.

Wait here while I figure out a happy story.

...

So we took all our preschool kids on a fieldtrip to Ticonderoga Farms this week. w00t! Field Trip! 

There was this incredible, giant pillow-thing in the ground that you could bounce on.

I don't know if you can tell from that picture, but it is HUGE and after a minute of watching one of my kids jump I was like "Um, I need to jump on that."

So I did. For like an hour with one of my students. 

It was SO. MUCH. FUN.

It's like a trampoline but there's really no edge and kids were falling down all the time but I don't know for some reason they never really got hurt and I could jump SO high, it was awesome.

Also, I'm loving my new phone with it's panoramic picture settings.

Also, 159 days till DISNEY. 

But I was going to the Toshie Station to pick up some power converters

I got an iphone 6!

Turns out I could get it for free, just turning in my old iphone for a new one. Pretty slick. And I'm on a cheaper plan now, so that's awesome

I was pretty busy this weekend being sick, and then spending hours with my parents as they argue about carpet swatches. I'm not that excited about going back to work tomorrow, but I got all the testing done last week for my kids and my teacher evaluation stuff is all done, so this week should be pretty painless. Of course we are taking 40+ preschoolers to a pumpkin patch on Thursday, so there is that.

Um, no actually that's going to be awesome. I LOVE MY JOB.

In other news, there now exists Starburst flavored Candy Corn. It...confuses my mouth.

ps. Still haven't watched Supernatural. Though I did see a few pictures on FB and wow Dean is not allowed to be that attractive.

I don't feel right, I feel like I'm leaking.

I actually reached that point today where you feel like death warmed over, but you still have to keep doing your job. Around one-o'clock I just suddenly hit this wall where I was so tired and achey and the rest of the day was like this blur of "clean up the room" and "remember to put jackets on the kids" and "you just have to keep them alive until the bus comes".

Ugh, why did I have to become an adult.

Excuse me while I eat chicken noodle soup and hibernate for the weekend.

my wall calendar is still on September

Today I had an all-day training which means I was not in my classroom and I missed my little guys. I'm a teacher in a Preschool Autism Classroom so I spend about half of my life and the vast majority of my waking hours either with my students or thinking about my students.

One of my IAs called me after school and told me that one student in particular was really throwing a fit when he came in - wouldn't stop screaming and just seemed all around really "off". Finally, she took him outside the classroom and said:

"Do you miss Liisa?"

She said he immediatley dropped his head and said "Yeah..."

So she said, "I miss Liisa too. You can say that. You can say 'I miss Liisa'."

And then he said "Miss Liisa...."

And apparently he was fine for the rest of the day.

DON'T I HAVE THE BEST JOB EVER?

Wow I love those kids.

No I have not seen the new Supernatural episode, thanks for rubbing it in.

Hoo-Hoo

My goal for this blog is a post every Sunday, Tuesday/Wednesday, and Friday. So three posts a week. No topic required.

This is not going to be a profound or earth shattering blog. In fact, I will probably post rather pointless things that only I care about, but it'll be something. And while I know this blog isn't going to be the same as tumblr, at least it will give me some kind of outlet, a way to shout into the void, if you will.

Feel free to shout back.