Anna Log

The other day, I went to an orientation for a new program we're having installed on all the computers in the English classrooms. It's a freakin' Godsend. It enables the teacher to freeze, power down, spy on and completely usurp control over any and all student computers. That may sound totally Big Brother to you - and it is - but trust me, if you've never taught in a class where students have net access, then you won't be able to sympathize. I think I'm a pretty lax teacher. I tell my students they don't have to listen to me as long as they don't make too noise and don't do anything inappropriate or illegal online. And what do my students do? Gamble. Download all sorts of weird things (which I suspect are NC-17 in nature) and talk so loudly, the ones who do want to listen, can't. And MSN. Goddarn MSN. That constant click-click-click of them chatting online is enough to drive even the most determined teacher crazy, and I'm not that determined. But now - I have the power! With one tap on the mouse button, I can blank screens at a whim. Mwahahaha. You can't see it, but I'm rubbing my hands in glee like an imp. Loud, chatty students? Haha, you're blanked! Checking illicit email during a lesson? Well, lookie, here, I got my 1984-style access on and I am logging you out. Hey, in the war to educate young minds, you take what you can get.

Final thought: It's the small victories that add up.

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Whew, what a long day. We had our teaching orientation today, and had to endure three hours of a textbook presentation. It was vaguely interesting, but towards the end, I had to tinkle too much to care, hahaha. Then, after lunch, all I could think was, "Oh my God, Supernatural's on tonight. Oh my God. Tonight. Supernatural. TONIGHT! OH MY GOD!" I think I'm a little ill. I had to make a bunch of slides to go along with my lesson plan, and hahaha, I put a pic of Sam and Dean on one and my friend turns to me and says, "Hey, aren't those the guys from...?" And I immediately said, "Supernatural!" Yeah, I gotta get a life.

Final thought: Supernatural!

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It's been a whirlwind week. Lots and lots of meetings, and lesson planning, and more meetings, and lesson plan editing and lunch my university colleagues and all sorts of errands. I've been running around like a chicken with its head cut off. Phew. Still, managed to read two books and boy, did they blow me away. The first was Myla Goldberg's Bee Season. I didn't catch the movie and didn't feel compelled to, but the book...oh my God. The first couple of pages blew me away. I got that chill I got when I was starting out Memoirs of a Geisha. Didn't last; the story quickly lost its momentum, but I ended up really liking it anyhow. I especially liked this little truth, which is such an acute little dose of reality:

Eliza only half listens as Bergermeyer works her way down the rows of seats. In smarter classrooms, chair backs are free from petrified Bubble Yum. Smooth desktops are unmarred by pencil tips, compass points, and scissors blades. Eliza suspects that the school's disfigured desks and chairs are shunted into classrooms like hers at the end of every quarter, seems to remember a smattering of pristine desks disappearing from her classrooms over spring and winter breaks to be replaced by their older, uglier cousins.

The other book I read was The Prophet, by Kahlil Gibran and I wasn't surprised I loved it. I'd already heard so much about it. It's a classic. I loved the entire chapter on love, of course, it's lovely - and the one on teaching, since I am one. But my favorite line of all, which is just so real to me - "And ever has it been that love knows not its own depth until the hour of separation." I almost cried when I read that, because it touched me and resonated with me so deeply, it was like it was drawn from my own soul. Sigh. I hate feeling so deeply. This is my problem. I can get drawn into anything. Like a book. Or a TV show. Or someone else. Until I can't separate myself and I get swallowed up and feel like I'm drowning. Sigh.

Final thought: Emotions need boundaries.

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Ever heard that song If I Had a Million Dollars? Love it, it's so playful. There's a lyric that goes "If I had a million dollars, we wouldn't have to walk to the store. If I had a million dollars, now we'd take a limousine coz it costs more." Gives me a great idea for a list! So, here are my totally unreachable plans, in no particular order.

If I had a million dollars, I'd...
1) ...fly me and my family to Italy and eat authentic pasta and pizza. Today. (Well, if I didn't have anything else going on.)
2) ...build my mom a whole room entirely for her many zany collections (which I am also guilty of contributing to!)
3) ...hire a personal chauffeur. So I wouldn't have to cram myself in with sweaty commuters.
4) ...donate a portion to charity.
5) ...actually pay people to shut up. Especially bureacrats. I'd be all pretending to listen to them yammer and then I'd whip out some thousands and say, "Be quiet." I bet I get more than one taker.
6) ...close out a nightclub and a have a swinging Supernatural-themed party for all my friends!
7) ...petition for a black credit card. Although I think you have to have a billion dollars to even contemplate one of those. Oh, and I think they're by invitation only. So, maybe just get a normal platinum card then.
8) ...buy my own website domain, something with "supremeannarocks&qu ot; in the address.
9) ...treat my parents to a nice day at a spa. Though I think my father may balk at that one. I might just set him loose in a hardware store then.
10) ...put half in the bank. Yes, I am that sort of cautious spoilsport.

Final thought: Oh, the things money and fantasy can do!

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Darn busy. I'm on the lesson planning committee for next term and we are all over the place. Sloshed through like fifteen hundred links today, trying to see which are useable. Yesterday, ran The Sound of Music for my baby-sitting gig. Okay, so it wasn't really baby-sitting, but it felt like it. My students were kids fresh out of high school and the provinces and they were soooooo obedient. It was refreshing change from my more self-assured but cocky freshman and sophomore classes. I like that my kids have confidence, however, I wish more of them could accurately assess their own abilities and act accordingly. Some of them think they're better than they are. Those are a problem. Some of them think they're worse than they are. That's also a problem. Course, if they were able to evaluate themselves, I'd be out of a job, huh?  Worked like a fiend all day, then dawdled on Facebook a bit and of course, haunted the Supernatural forum over at the CW Lounge. Depsite my best efforts, I was unable to stop myself from watching the complete second season of the show. I'm so weak. I blame it on the fantastic-ness that is the show. It's so addictive, and yeah, there's gonna be a third season. Let's hope it gets the number of seasons it deserves (not like Tru Calling, which had the plug pulled waaaay too early!). My graduation is coming up. Doesn't have quite the same kick as my graduation during my bachelor degree days, but it's something. I can't believe I'm this old and still something of an idiot. It shocks me still how immature and silly I can be sometimes, how petty and stubborn. Then again, I think I'm justified a lot of the time. So, who knows, maybe it's a toss-up between my craziness and other people's. I know it's made me unpopular (don't really care about that) and cost me at least one good friend (pretty hurt about that, but what you gonna do?), but it's like a reflex with me. It's like Dean, and his shoot-first-ask-questions -later policy; you can't exactly turn it off overnight. Sometimes I think things would be better if I had a thicker skin. Or no heart. But not in a dead or icky way. Don't know. Tired and nerves jangled after Supernatural's kick-a$$ finale.

Final thought: Mulder was a total jerk sometimes. How did Scully stay with him so long? Oh yeah...fiction!

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I haven't really had a list in a while. I'm always looking for an excuse to make lists. Was stuck doing lesson planning the whole day. Kinda helped dissipate my listlessness...kind of.

Current:
1. Thing on my mind: Sam Winchester. And I haven't even watched the second season finale yet!
2. Drink I'm raving about: Mirinda Berry Punch. It's blue. It's berry. It's the bomb!
3. Craving: Pineapple. Juicy, tongue-slicing pineapple. Weird for me, coz I don't usually like it, but there it is.
4. Gripe: When the heck is the second season of Supernatural gonna start?
5. Book: The Godfather, Mario Puzo. Yeah, yeah, I know, it's a classic, but I never read it before. It's good.
6. Guilty pleasure website: Television Without Pity. They make a career out of hating - what's not to love?
7. Song repeating on my playlist: Over It, Katharine McPhee. I'm adding it to my heartbreak mix. It's perfect. Darn, and she's pretty cute, too - she'd be great as Dean Winchester's love interest!
8. Song I sing in the shower: Renegade, Styx. It rocks!
9. Network all my friends love: Facebook. Yeesh.
10. Dean I love: Big Bro Dean, the Dean who would do anything for his baby brother. I love protective guys.

Final thought: Living in the here and now has its perks.

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It was a national holiday yesterday and I was still bloody bored, so I accepted an invite from some university acquaintances to go out. We ended up watching Spiderman 3 at Yuppie Hell (a.ka. Siam Paragon) then had a fifteen-minute debate as to where to grab a bite. One of the group was dying to try the new Japanese burger joint Mos Burger, but that meant traipsing a ways away to Central World and most the group vetoed that. We finally ended up MK Suki, ugh, which was just common enough not to provoke any sort of culinary revolution. I don't like suki much - what's the appeal in a sloppy mess of veggies and stuff you have to boil yourself anyhow? But I was too tired to refuse and so I just sat there poking at some roast duck. I try not to fuss about food too much anyhow (thanks to my folks who are all like, "If you were trapped in the jungle, you'd have to eat bugs to survive." Let's hope I'm never trapped in the jungle). Being out and about with other human beings reminds me...just how much I don't like it. Okay, don't get me wrong. Get me out with my friends and I am a freakin' riot. But put me with people I'm not too sure about and I feel like an open can of soda that's been left out too long. Sigh. Plus, I feel fat. I mean, I am fat, but I don't usually feel fat. I felt totally bloaty-bloat fat yesterday, and boring (and bored, too) and just twitchy. I went halfsies on a popcorn and soda set, and I ate half the popcorn before the movie even started and the guy I split with turned to me and gave me this face, like, "You glutton." Yeesh.  I zoned out at dinner; couldn't tell you what they were talking about for my life. At one point, this girl turned and was like, "Hey, you gonna pass those eggs or what?" She'd been asking me for like four minutes or something and I was just checked out. It's weird. I think once I get started in earnest on lesson-planning, this limbo thing ought to pass. For now, I guess I'll avoid other human beings and just focus on Supernatural.

Final thought: The movie was good, at least. Not as tight as the other two, but entertaining.

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I've been experiencing an intense case of listlessness lately. It struck out of the blue. It's funny, coz I'm pretty busy. Still holding down two jobs, on a committee to prepare a class for next term, and got this gig coming up I can only describe as a glorified baby-sitting assignment, but still - my life is full. Yet, I sometimes catch myself thinking, "God, what the heck is it all about?" I guess it's perfectly natural for that to happen every once in awhile, huh? I feel this weird sense of...I guess ennui would be the only way to describe it. I look at things and I just think, "I don't care." Seriously, the only thing that gives me any sort of thrill is Supernatural. The only time I feel anything nowadays is when I'm watching Supernatural. Perhaps I'm sublimating. The only thing that snaps me out of my ennui is the show. My head is full of Supernatural. I shot through all of the second season episodes (minus the two finale eps, which have yet to air). I did not think I could love the show more, but I was wrong, and thank goodness for that. The second season kicks full-on @$$! I was actually sitting there, hand clasped over my mouth, trying not to cry. I do not cry when I watch TV. Hell, I don't cry at anything that's not real, but can you believe, when Dean Winchester starts wailing on his car because that was his way of expressing all the pent-up rage he has at his father's death, I practically bawled. No joke. And it would've been fine if they'd left it at that, but they just kept hurling emotional boulders my way. Episode after episode, it's all this sadness and desolation, and hope and comic relief - what the hell, it was a freakin' emotional rollercoaster, and I loved every second of it. And oh my God, they played Styx's Renegade. Best use of music in a TV show. Ever. I was swooning after every ep. You know, I firmly believe that the first season of a show can never be its best. After all, everything's still brand-new. Actors are just getting to know their characters, writers are trying out plotlines and gimmicks, production is trying to establish a look. It's like moving into a new neighborhood.  You're not really settled in yet. But second season - that's when a show that can shine will burn your retinas. Take the X-Files. First season, fun, standalone stuff, Mulder and Scully asserting themselves, showing you who they are. But second season? Scully's abduction! Drama, suspense, angst - keep the audience on emotional eggshells. And I see the same thing happening here with Supernatural. And it's brilliant. I love Dean Winchester so much now, I can declare myself a total fangirl. He keeps showing up in my dreams - you know, the blue variety. He's the only person I feel like getting intimate with lately, sad at that sounds and seems. My email and cell are flooded with dinner and hang-out requests, but I just don't feel like it. I don't think I'm shutting people out, I'm just not up for doing anything as of yet. There's my busy schedule, of course, but also, I don't know, with all my core friends out of the country, and Goldfinger busy scrambling to finish his thesis, I'm not really in the mood to socialize. Sometimes, I think my life would be easier if I was cruisin' along in a '67 Chevy Impala fighting off ghosts and demons with rock-salted loaded shotguns. Maybe.

Final thought: I get what he means.

"I’m tired, Sam. I’m tired of this job, this life, this weight on my shoulders, man. I’m tired of it." Dean, Supernatural

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