Parent/Teacher Conferences. A task that nearly every teacher has to live through. You teach all day, then wait around all evening for parents to show up so you can talk to them. Being the chemistry/physics teacher, I don’t get a lot of requests for conferences. I only asked for 1 student’s parents to confer with this time, though they apparently declined. And I had one group conference last week with a student (and her parents) I was going to be having soon. So I usually find other useful things to work on – like finishing up a classroom that should have been done this summer.

Normally during these evening (long long evenings, might I add) conferences, the high school principal organizes some sort of food. It’s best when we get pizza. Last week we got cold meat sandwiches. Not ideal, but good enough to get you through the evening. Tonight? Nada. The elementary had a snack carry-in. Folks brought in cookies and crackers and cheeseballs and things. (I had a couple of no-bake cookies while I was up working on that classroom – yum!) But we high school folks had nada. Tsk tsk – points off from our new principal’s overall score! What’s worse is that, since I felt deprived of sustenance, I got this overwhelming urge to eat McDonald’s when I was done for the night. Eep!

So yeah, I went to Macca’s after work and stumbled home to find a cat who missed me. (And wanted my french fries, damn cat.) But I’m hoping that the next time we have to be at the school until 6:30pm, we’re actually fed something!

gregmce posted a Photo Challenge that his friend todc created last Friday. It intrigued me, so I thought I’d give it a go as well. Here’s the challenge:

The requested photos are:

1. A view from a window: Show me what you see.
2. A reflection.
3. Some item you wore today.
4. Show me: Something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue

View from my dining room window. That tree is on my parent’s property. I have mentioned they were my neighbors, yes?

Reflection on a clean room… OK, so when I was taking the picture, I was thinking “reflection” in physics terms, hence the mirror. When I did go to the original LJ post, I discovered it was meant to be something like a self-reflection. Still, I wanted to show off the artwork that I’d recently hung. Perhaps I can think of it as a reflection on hanging up artwork… (Note the cat… where he’d come from? Notice I didn’t fix his eyes – there’s reflection there as well. Heh.)

My Goofy watch! This was a Christmas present from Amy from many years ago. I still wear it and it still goes backwards. Thanks, sissy!

As I was thinking about this challenge, I realized that my three recently hung portraits over my bed would take care of 3 of the 4. So I hunted around and managed to find the fourth object to add to my photo. Something Old: [far left] photo of Peter Falk from The Cheap Detective. Something New: [far right] Ink drawing of Sylvester McCoy by dark_pheonix – see, I told you it was a great piece of art! Something borrowed: [bottom right] foot stool that I borrowed from my folks years ago and still use. It does *not* sit on my bed’s headboard usually. That was just for this photo. (Leo loves to play with it, actually.) Something blue: [center] Another great Christmas present from my sister. Eric Idle performed in Minneapolis shortly before my folks and I went there for Thanksgiving last year. Amy, ahem, rescued the poster from a cafe/restaurant she saw it at and had it framed. And gave it to me for Christmas last year. I love my sissy. 🙂

There was one photo I took yesterday that I forgot to post. I know, I know, pet-owner syndrome here… But this’ll be the last Leo pic for awhile. (Gotta get back to proper Sylv-gushing or computer bitching or I’ll get out of practice.)

Leo loves drinking straight from the tap! So I will turn the water on to a trickle and he’ll jump up and drink. Being the himbo that he is, he’ll often forget how he successfully did it the last time, and come up with some other method for drinking without getting too wet. Sometimes he’ll hop up on the sink and mew until I turn the water on. He’s got me well trained, that’s for sure!

1. Stop talking about politics for a moment or two.
2. Post a reasonably-sized picture in your LJ, NOT under a cut tag, of something pleasant, such as an adorable kitten, or a fluffy white cloud, or a bottle of booze. Something that has NOTHING TO DO WITH POLITICS.
3. Include these instructions, and share the love.

Leo looks below. (Sorry it’s out of focus!)

Flat Leo.

Leo plays pussy pool.

It’s fun to have the folks over for dinner and a movie from time to time. Since I just purchased Shrek 2 on DVD this weekend and they’d yet to see it, it was the ideal choice. I picked up subs & chips from Subway and dad took his antihistamine, and they showed up at 5pm for Dinner and a Movie. The food was good, the movie was good, and the folks behaved, too. 🙂 Leo was very interested in what everyone is eating and it wasn’t until later that I realized that was because he was out of food. Whoops!

The rest of my day has been fairly productive. I’ve been video editing and am trying to get my first “real” DVD made. I did a test one last night and it worked peachy keen. So today I was capturing video from my better Ghoul Lashed tapes (plus 2 eps of Space Cadets and the Knorr soup cube commercial that Sylv was in). This allowed for other time to do things like straighten the house, clean the kitchen, and even mow the yard. 🙂 It feels good to have a productive day, I must say. (The weather was gorgeous, which certainly helped, I’m sure.)

Anyhoo, back to video editing. The Ghoul Lashed eps *nearly* fitted on the DVD, so now I have to chop a few minutes here and there to get them to fit.

My dad has an aluminum canoe and a small motor boat that he keeps on the Lake during the spring and summer. (He also has a fiberglass canoe, but it usually stays on land since he’s dock can service only 2 boats at a time.) The folks tried to get them in earlier this week, but it was raining and the dock was slippery, so they didn’t. So today, dad and I went to the Lake to bring in the boats. (Mom had to work.) Dad’s pump finally bit the bullet, so we had to bail by hand. I started on the canoe and got it to a state where dad could pull it out and then get all the leaves out. Then I bailed out the boat (which I had to do by laying down on the dock since it’s lower in the water than the canoe). Once the boats were landside again, it was lunchtime! Dad took me out for General Tso’s at the nearby Chinese place. Yum! Best of all, there were leftovers, which I just finished for supper.

While I was bailing, I remembered a song that the Muppets had in one of their magazines. Alas, I don’t think I have my old Muppet Magazines anymore. But I remember 2 of the 3 verses, and I shall quote them now. It was sung by Janice.

Like, Well, Row The Boat, Fer Sure
(Sung to the tune of “Michael Row The Boat Ashore”)

Like, well, row the boat, fer sure
Hey it’s cool, yeah.
Like, well, row the boat, fer sure
Hey it’s cool, yeah.

Floyd had hoped to trim the sail,
Hey it’s cool, yeah,
But we need all hands to bail,
Hey it’s cool, yeah.

Like, well, row the boat, fer sure
Hey it’s cool, yeah.
Like, well, row the boat, fer sure
Hey it’s cool, yeah.

We’re in the drink and I do wish,
Hey it’s cool, yeah,
We didn’t drill that hole to fish,
Hey it’s cool, yeah.

Like, well, row the boat, fer sure
Hey it’s cool, yeah.
Like, well, row the boat, fer sure
Hey it’s cool, yeah.

If anyone remembers the other verse (it’s either the first or second verse – I know that last one was the last verse) let me know. I used to know it, too!

I don’t “entertain” all that often. Mostly that means that elsaf and judiang come to visit and we stay at mom & dad’s cottage at Lake Loramie. But tonight, I had 12 guests over! And none of them were from the Internets! (How long will it be before I get tired of calling it that, I wonder?)

Actually, the guests included my first grade, second grade, geometry, and industrial arts teachers, my sister’s first grade and art teachers, and the third principal that I worked for. Most of these folks are or have been colleagues of mine at Newton. They’re wonderful folks and next summer we’re heading off to Italy together. So we’ve been meeting once a month or so to iron out details. I volunteered to host the November meeting. So if you wondered why I was cleaning last night, *that’s* why. 🙂

The meeting was a success. Folks brought some munchies (pasta, tomatoes w/ mozarella, veggies, brownies, pumpkin bread) and I provided Bailey’s Irish Cream ice cream and bittersweet chocolate ice cream. (Both were a hit.) I warned folks that I didn’t have a huge selection of booze, so most folks brought their own. (I even made ice! But turns out I didn’t need a lot of it. I drink water straight from the tap, in case you wondered.)

The gathering lasted from 7pm until nearly 10:30pm. I got to show off my house to folks. My first grade teacher was pleased to see my reading room. As Amy’s first grade teacher told her “Isn’t it nice to know that the people you teach to read end up still reading years later?” They also witnessed my obsession with Sylvester McCoy. (The huge binders full of photos is a bit of a give-away, as are the numerous photos on the den walls.) I was impressed that my second grade teacher figured out that he was from Doctor Who. 🙂

So anyhoo, the place is a mess again, but it’s a happy mess. I’ll clean it up tomorrow. (And boy is my recycle bin gonna be fun with all of those bottles of booze!)

I actually have guests coming tomorrow, so what am I doing? Avoiding cleaning. I have to vaccuum, dust, clean, and other stuff before 7pm tomorrow. Plus make some Bailey’s Irish Cream ice cream. I have already made the bittersweet chocolate ice cream. Yum!

So anyway, help distract me from my work. Tell me what things you like to do when you want to avoid doing another kind of work… (Oddly enough, back when I used to have to write compositions for English, my distracting behavior was to clean my room! Maybe someone should assign an English composition for me…)

Not pleased with the results of the election. Every frickin’ thing I voted for failed yesterday. Ohio now has an ammendment to our constitution which reduces the rights of Ohioans. Ohio now has 4 new Supreme Court Justices – three of whom don’t give a rat’s ass about Ohio’s schools. (When I said “every frickin’ thing” I was exaggerating a little. The people who ran unopposed that I voted for all got their positions. At least one of the 4 Justices that I voted for was unopposed.) And of course you know the results of the Big Daddy of elections.

So what does Trina do in times like these? Watches Sylv! Last night I watched “Oot,” the episode of Still Game which guest-starred Sylvester McCoy as Archie, a man who’s been in his apartment since 1966. He finally has to come oot because his building is being demolished. So the lads show Archie what’s become of Craiglang and the local pub while he’s been in. The series itself is very funny and this episode is no exception. The story of how Archie became a hermit is cute – and the bit with the “moose” that becomes his housemate is quite hysterical.

As you might guess, I nabbed a few screen captures from the show for your enjoyment. And you’ll note my new LJ icon. (It isn’t animated – amazing!)

Archie comes oot.

Archie on the water slide.

Another view on the water slide.

Archie tells of how he became a hermit.

Goofy expression.

I think I’ll manage to survive these trying times as long as I keep watching my DVDs. DVDs are my friends. I love my DVDs.

Dad always told me to “vote early and often” and I did that today. We had a science department meeting scheduled for 7:30am today, so I went into the polling place (the First Brethren Church at the other end of town) a little after 7am thinking that it would be less than half an hour like usual. I didn’t get done until 7:40am! Well, I was pleased that so many people were out and voting, but I know that the majority there were not voting as I did. (Ah well…)

They were having a Mock Election at school today. The senior government class divided up into 7 different parties and came up with their platforms and campaigned and had a well-run debate yesterday. I was pretty sure which party I would vote for before, but after the debate, I was convinced. And so I voted in the Mock Election and got my second “I Voted Today” sticker. Go me!

Computer/DVD-wise, btw, I’ve got Winders back on my computer and some of the more essential programs on (Pegasus & Firefox, for example). And I’ve watched some of Still Game – will watch the Sylv ep one today. Funny show. And easier for me to understand than Rab C. Nesbitt. 🙂

So, how do I think this election is going to go this year? Um, I think I just wanna stay in bed tomorrow. 🙁