sleeplessly updating

august is here, which means summer vacation is mostly over.
that's a bummer.

but we do have 25 days until we need to be back in the school buildings, and about 30 until kids arrive. i'm looking forward to meeting my new kids. i'm hoping that their internal filters, sense of decency and morality, and self motivation levels are all set a few notches higher than at my last school. hopefully they'll happily surprise me.

i've been brainstorming some ideas for the upcoming school year. anybody know any middle school teachers in the UK? i'm not sure what they call middle school over there, but it would be in the realm of 11 to 14 year olds. drop me a line if you do, i've got a podcasting/american revolutionary war/global classroom project in mind.

d and i are taking our first vacation ever together. it's only taken me 2 years to get her to agree, but i'm really glad she did. we're headed to my old stomping grounds of western mass next monday and tuesday. i'm pretty psyched to have the opportunity to show her northampton and amherst, the farms of hadley, the back roads of sunderland and belchertown, and maybe head up to deerfield or greenfield for a hike. eddie is accompanying us...poor little guy has an eye infection which we're treating with an antibiotic ointment that he'd prefer we not smear in his eye twice daily. i'm going to check into a multivitamin for him. maybe he needs a little immunebooster.

my car has been doing this finicky occasional refusal to start. it began over the winter and i thought it was cold-related, but it continued into the warm weather. i suspected it had something to do with dampness and/or humidity getting under the hood and causing a disconnect from the battery, or that the battery had some type of leak, or the electrical system was improperly grounded and something was draining it. turns out with my model jeep, the battery terminals are located directly on top of the battery, exposing them to all the air flow that enters through the grill. this causes the terminals to corrode more quickly than most cars. as long as i clean them off every few months the car should start and i can avoid this ridiculous problem that's plagued me since november. baking soda, coca cola, or a wire brush should do the trick. that's my latest installment of cartalk.

so while it's nearing 2am, and i'm wide awake despite having taken xanax earlier, i can likely attribute this to the 3 hour nap that d and i had following some really exhausting gettin it on time. the fatigue from the lex withdrawal is SO worth the fading away of the sexual side effects which have been source of frustration for me. i'll admit that part of my decision to stop taking the lex revolved around curiosity regarding sensitivity, stamina, libido, and getting turned on.

i set up a googlereader today. i often find out about these cool new technologies and procrastinate about using them until it's way too late. but i'm really trying now to stay more up to date so i can show my new students cool tricks this year without having to hear them yawn and say, god ms. a, that's so last year. and stuff. i added all my favorite subscriptions to the reader and now i can read all my blogs in one place. convenient. it even recommends other blogs that i might enjoy. one of them was spot on - nyc educator. hysterical.

my sis is in town for the weekend. i should be seeing her sometime tomorrow or tomorrow night with her boy. she might even be spending the night. my first overnight guests! now - to find a drinking establishment we can all agree upon. the criteria are: must serve a variety of unusual beers. candidates meeting the prefered criteria will receive extra attention: indoor and outdoor space, serves food, casual, walking distance of the slope, not overly crowded, gay friendly, and dog friendly. suggestions are welcome.

time to bond with the neglected cat.

xoxo
w