Things I Did Today

Today was pretty laid back. I hung around in my jammies and made some homemade soup. It was tasty :D

I also spent some time with my friend Wikipedia. I know it is not an academic source, but I do kinda enjoy the random things you can learn off it. Like today, when I started by looking up Steven Strait and 10, 000 BC and ended the session by reading about the Dionne quintuplets. It was an interesting afternoon for sure.

I plan to spend this evening watching movies and possibly Skyping. So if you need me, you know where I'll be.

The Wave

It's a book. My grade 10s are reading it and in order to keep up with things that the teacher is talking about, I've begun reading it as well. The thing is though, that it is kind of a terrifying book.

It begins with a question asked by a student in a history class in high school- Why did no one try to stop the Nazis? The teacher decides to try an experiment on the class: He wants to show them why the Nazis were able to take power. From there, things go down hill at such an incredible rate. At first no one sees what is happening: not the students, not the teacher conducting the experiment, not the parents.

The experiment explodes out of control. People start to get hurt. It becomes a replay of a totalitarian society but in small town America. And that is what makes the book so scary- because the author shows just how fast and easy it is to fall into that trap. Which then makes you re-consider Germany's actions and see how easy it would have been for them to fall into the trap. Which then might cause you to stop and think.

It could have happened anywhere.

This book was based on the real life teaching experiment The Third Wave, conducted by Ron Jones in Palo Alto, California at Cubberley High School in 1967.

Names

1. YOUR SPY NAME (middle name and current street name):
Jessica Jean Rose-Street

2. YOUR MOVIE STAR NAME (grandfather/mother on your mom's side and your favorite candy):
Martha Haribo

3. YOUR RAP NAME (first initial of first name and first three or four letters of your last name):
E-Bru

4. YOUR GAMER TAG (a favorite color, a favorite animal)
Blue Dawg

5. YOUR SOAP OPERA NAME (middle name, and city you were born in)
Jessica Jean Tofield- hmmm. clearly based on the awkwardness of this name, I am not cut out to star in the soaps. darn the luck

6. YOUR STAR WARS NAME (first three letters of your last name, last three letters of mother's maiden name, and then the first three letters of your pet's name)
Bruyck Nor

7. JEDI NAME (middle name spelled backwards, your mom's maiden name spelled backwards):
Acissej-Naej Kcyd - wow, that's pretty intense. I guess that's what two middle names will do to your Jedi name :)

8. PORN STAR NAME (first pet's name, the street you grew up on)
Jake RR201. I think this classifies me as having the least popular stripper name ever. Although I could get lucky and start a trend with it. Move over Candi and Bambi--> Jake RR201 is coming through.

9. SUPERHERO NAME: ("The", your favorite color and the automobile your mom drives)
The Blue Impala- this one is pretty sweet. i wonder what my super power would be though?

10. YOUR ACTION HERO NAME (first name of the main character in the last film you watched, last food you ate)
Juno Gouda. seriously random

Classics

I was feeling kinda sick this afternoon, so I spent it wrapped up in blankets watching classic movies. First up- X-men 3. not so much a classic but i enjoyed it anyway. After that I watched Adventures in Babysitting, which was one of my favorite movies when i was younger (please no Twister or Jurassic Park jokes!) I'd forgotten how much I enjoyed it.

Another movie I watched this afternoon was Juno. I know it's not really old enough yet to be considered a classic- but I'm pretty sure given time it will be. I think Ellen Page does a good job and I also think the dialogue is pretty funny. What I didn"t realize is that Ellen Page is also in X-men 3. Interesting and random. Just thought I would point that out.

Now all I need is some popcorn :)

Did You Seriously Just Ask That?

I would just like to point out that when someone comes up to me and asks me what I am doing when it is completely obvious,they usually get the You're-an-idiot stare of death.

However, this morning I was so taken aback by it, I couldn't even form a sentence.

As I was midway through cleaning the bathroom, Quentin came in and said, "So you're cleaning the bathroom this week?"

No dumbass. I just thought I would come in, do most of it and then not finish. *sigh* That child is clearly suffering from a bad case of Captain Obvious Syndrome.

Mad Skillz

I just thought I would take a moment to brag about my mad skills for a second here.

Yesterday while riding my bike, with a backpack full of groceries and another bag of groceries hanging off the handlebar, I managed to pull a mitten off and dig my pop out. I finished my pop, put the lid back on and managed to balance all the groceries and myself as I continued riding and reached out for the garbage can I was passing. I then neatly dropped the bottle in without stopping OR falling.

Did I mention that this was accomplished in the semi-dark too?

I shit you not- no way could I even make this up. Also, I'm not going to lie- I felt kinda like a superhero. Thinking about it now however, I wonder what my superhero name would be based on this? Maybe the Balance-anator or Mad Skillz? Any ideas?

Fantastic

At the time of this post I had:

28 Days, 15 Hours, 23 Minutes remaining until I am at home (according to my Facebook countdown)

Also- this is awesome because apparently the countdown clock keeps ticking :D
Fantastic. I will see you then.

Ikea in Cologne

Last week Meg came to visit and we wandered up to Cologne to visit Elise. Most of our day was spent at Ikea. We wandered and took a bunch of pictures and saw some stuff in the store. i think our favorite part was the kids toys :) We went to Elise's house afterward and she shared some of the really tasty muffins she baked. We then wandered down to the train station to catch our ride home.

I have some pictures, but i can't make them work- so i will again later.

Getting It Out

I am a bit angry. Mostly at my blog. Thus, no posts for over a week.

The purpose of this blog is not to write stories that are only humorous and lighthearted for the folks back home to read. This blog is to tell you about what I have been up to and new things I've seen and done. This blog will also be used to rant.

Dear reader, if you don't want to take my bad stories WITH the good- don't read. It is that simple. Do I tell you what to write? No? Funny how that works, isn't it?

Thanks for letting me get it out as passive-aggressively as possible. Have a nice day.

Only Average

Just before Christmas, I wrote an English exam with one of my grade 10 classes. It took me substantially less time- but, in the end- I came out only average :( Ironically, it is apparently quite possible for me to fail English.

Playing with Food

The result of playing with my food:

There is nothing more satisfying than finding a bag of letter shaped gummy candies and then using them to refer to yourself in the third person :D

Blackout

I work at a pretty nice school, but it has a lot of power outages. Like yesterday when the power went off 3 times within 2 hours. It was bunk. Part of the problem is that they are constructing a new wing at the school. I think another part of the problem is that the construction company keeps tripping breakers and cutting the wrong wires.

Efficiency at its finest.

Monkeys

I couldn't even make this up. One of the kids in my 9th grade English class had a couple small fuzzy looking toy things on his desk. We were doing a writing assignment when he put up his hand to call me over. I should have known better, this kid is not known for his work ethic. Even so it was still a surprise when I got to his desk and the following happened:

Student- Oh Teacher, I'm glad you came over- I wanted to show you my monkey.
Me- Excuse me? what Monkey?
Student- my little Monkey- I like to play with my monkey, see- I am kissing the monkey. (picks up fuzzy monkey toy thing and kisses it)
Me- You do know that monkey is also English slang for man parts?
Student-Monkey? Really? Oh crap- I feel like an idiot.

I was laughing so hard I almost had to leave the room.

(Repeating this conversation in the staff room led to me learning at least 5 new German slang words for man parts- It was almost as awkward as the original conversation about the monkey)

Another Frustrating Day

I was going to tell you a funny story that happened this morning in one of my classes, but my last class of the day kinda ruined my good mood and then i got locked out AGAIN. So right now i am pretty unimpressed with the whole situation here and the funny story will have to wait until tomorrow at least, because i am in a pretty foul mood now.

sorry to disappoint.

Ewww.

There are a lot of new flavours that i have come across in the last 4 months. Kiwi yogurt was one of the more untasty of these. but i have also had lime-raspberry flavoured things as well.

However, yesterday i came across something even more out of the blue than normal and i wasn't even in a hippie type store like planet organic. i was just at the regular grocery store when i came a cross Aloe Vera-Rose flavoured yogurt. Being not particularly adventurous when it comes to food, i gagged a little and quickly walked away. it was disturbing to say the least :s