It's 6:40 in the morning. I am packed and ready to go-Indiana, then Kentucky and drive home through Ohio. I so need a break from Michigan life. Candice said, "Are you really the same girl who wouldn't leave her own backyard a few years ago?" In some ways, yes I am that girl. But, in reality, so much has changed. There are just times when I forget how different things are now. Facebook kind of reflects your life. There are people on there from every part of my life and it's creepy. There are also pictures from every part of your life on there. The two most recent pictures people have put up of me are the two extremes of my life. In one, I am a teacher in a black skirt and the other one I am in jeans, tennis shoes looking quite gay. I prefer that one.

I have amazingly brilliant students this year. They are cordial to one another and are willing to face the difficult assignments I have them. So then why does my dislike of evil child make my days seems long and, at times, intolerable. If the kid would stop getting high I am sure we could make some progress, but right now I think we aren't getting anywhere. AHHHH

I am not decorating for Christmas because 1) I am the only one who lives here 2) I will be gone for Thanksgiving weekend and hopefully another trip right after Christmas so it won't be up that long 3) I don't have the time to get it up and down and get the reading, writing, and lesson planning done. However, I did go through my Christmas stuff for the student council Christmas event and in the process realized the same thing I realized at Halloween time. I have a lot of crap in those boxes. There was a point in my life when I didn't have money and still wanted a million decorations so I bought cheap stuff to put up. But, now that I have some money the junk stuff looks like junk stuff. Which makes it more painful to sort through. There are only a few things in my Christmas stuff that I am truly in love with. The rest is just a mess of things. Someday I will get settled and start recreating my collections, but for now they can sit in the garage.

Woah....again more of Candice's books. Here is an excerpt from Girl Walking Backwards.

"I pressed the pin again my skim. Cutting myself would change everything. The skin that held the dreams in would break open. Blood would only come in a trickle but something else would flood the room from wall to wall. Dream sludge. Truth and Lies.....Don't draw on the body, don't make it speak your temporary thoughts" (p. 200).

"Sometimes you can like someone so much that you want to pretend nothing in your life happened before you met them. You say nothing about the past because you want the person to erase you and remake you into something completely new. Jessica was that kind of person for me. Lorri, on the other hand made me want to talk about everything. I wanted to start with Jessica, to conjure up her memory and offer it to her as a way of saying, "This is something I love, see this and you will know a secret place in me that I can't describe in words." (215).

Friday Night=three hours sleep
Saturday night=bed time at 6PM
Sunday morning=Get up at 2 A.M.
Here are my thoughts....

"You'll miss me if I am not around."
"Maybe."
I wonder if that was a maybe yes or maybe no.
It's quieter now, especially in the mornings.
Nobody else is up when it's 3 A.M. here.
This time when I talk are you listening?

Yes, it is three in the morning. Yes, I have to be up in three hours. Yes, I realize that is going to suck. I just finished making an I-Movie for school and apparently Youtube completely sucks now and you can't upload ANYTHING with music on it. I tried posting it, but it ate my sound. I would say my music choices are improving. This one is cool.

 How did it get to be 9:30 and why do I have a million more hours worth of work to do???? 
I am taking Monday off to play catch up with my real life.  

The voice I want to hear so badly right now is probably not the one I need to hear from.  When my e-mails get cryptic it generally means there is waaaaay too much going on in my world.  

 Talked to Heidi today.  It makes me sad. As Helen would say anything about England right now stirs stuff up in my head.  :(

Suffering through a workshop today  Someone please tell this woman to put on a bra.  She is old and she needs one.  She also has a squeaky voice.  She is making me crazy.   

 My party is this weekend.  I didn't sleep much last night. I woke up about 2 with tears in my eyes.  It's a problem when the tears start during a dream then when you wake up you can't pretend they aren't there.   I was up for about two hours.  I am glad Questers don't sleep.  Halloween, as Helen would say, stir stuff up.  I go back to being a little kid and thinking, "It's not fair.  You should have been here."  She got it in a way nobody else did.  Every year the it's not fair list has a least one name, but generally there are  additional names make guest appearances.  

Okay, if my stupid phone alarm rings it's obnoxious sound one more time i am going to throw it against the wall.  My patience today well this week rather seem to be most closely matched with Stormy's.  Now there is a person who at least gets that much.  Three weeks or so till I get a vacation.  I need one now and I am not sure if it's a good thing or not that  I only teach part time next week.  I have to go because that obnoxious sound is screaming at me again.  

My thoughts at the moment



"I doubt that you have ever dared to love anyone that much...."

"You're terrified of what you might say."  

I wish I could go hiking today.  It was amazing weather yesterday.  Field trip today.  If I don't get moving I will be late.  

Trunk or treat with the boys today.  My little skeleton and Spiderman.  

Party this weekend with all of the kids.  

Need to move on to revising chapter 3.  

I just want to sleep.  

 I got my first question for my exams in February.  The professor said I have a ton of time to study, but I am not sure she is aware of my schedule.  I got my second set of readings from another professor and was thrilled to see that I have read about half of what is on that list.  At the moment things are starting to make sense.  I hope that it stays that way.  It's an amazing fall day.  Can we keep it like this?  I don't want winter to start.  

 Whatever attitude my nephew picked up when he turned 5 he needs to give back to someone else because right now I can't stand it.  "Kattie, you don't do nothing for me."  or "I not going to church."  And the tone he has with people is intolerable.  I was supposed to take him to two Halloween parties next weekend, but I think I am going to pass on that.  I can't deal with pissy attitudes from anyone lately.  

 Ah...sleep would be nice.  Sleep and I don't see eye to eye when there is too much going on in my brain.  This weekend is going to be insane and so will the next two.  On the 24th I have 4 Halloween parties/activities to go to.  The 31st the party is at my house.  Three weeks later it's Thanksgiving.  December 5th I am trying to do a fundraiser for the school.  Where did 2009 go????  

 Okay, so someone tell me why I am just NOW discovering all of these amazing things that I probably should have explored/known about at 18.  I feel exceptionally far behind, but also completely amazed at things.  It's like woah....I didn't know that was possible.  In my teaching I feel like a student teaching again.  With the new teacher I am teamed with I have more time to plan activities-field trips, fundraisers, crafty experiences.  It's not teaching, minus the one hour I am in co-teaching in science.  That teacher is a bit bizarre so I it's hard to focus on anything in there.  We were talking about the inner core, outer core, crust mantle, etc. and she was talking about microwaves.  I have no idea what the connection was but she is working hard to try to keep the kids entertained.  I walked in today and she had them playing with a black light.  Again, I have no idea what the connection was but I just roll my eyes and move on.  

 I had an amazing, amazing, amazing weekend.  I cuddled with my new born nephew, who is perfect.  It's not surprising though he comes from my sister who was coined Ms. Perfect growing up.  I sang with my niece.  I think she thought I was a CD as she said over and over again-"More", "more".  And then I hung out with a cool friend.  I don't get to see her often and our conversations typically occur late at night so they are very different from the casual conversation of today.  Sometimes I am not sure where she stands on things so I bounce around the issue, but I had to giggle when she was describing the complications of flirting.  Her and I are similar in our independent-I can do this all on my own,-I don't need anyone attitude.  So, it surprised me when she talked about flirting and knowing that situation would not work out but flirting is fun.  She always has the words to describe when gets scattered around in my brain.  Independence is nice, but cuddling seems amazing.  

I feel like I am an 8th grader sometimes and write about relationships way too often.  Between dissertations, relationship pondering, teaching, and watching children that aren't mine you pretty much have my life summed up.  Anyway, this time the relationship world is different.  Usually I sit in aw at cuteness of someone.  "Don't you get it....I care about you." I will type out, the words seem much more comfortable moving through my fingers than through my mouth.  The people I choose to admire are usually a different time zone away-my sleep schedule shifting to find a space for them in my world.  My crushes usually remain hidden and are rarely mutual. 

My new world found world started innocently enough.  "I'll text her."  I said as a group of us waited for our food to arrive as we in a resturant that looked like its own frat party-semi-naked sorrity girls saddled along side the guys who looked like they had stepped out of the pages of a Hollister magazine.  One of the girls we were with had with wandered off to the bar. The texting was an attempt to see if she would pay any attention to me.  Her and I have always had this weird dance of talking about very personal things and laughing together and then going months without seeing one another.  In the three years since I met her I have only hung out with her a handful of times because she is the girlfriend of one of my friends, kind of.  It's this messy, on again off again thing where they don't kiss, don't sleep in the same bed, and rarely speak civily to each other but continue the relationship for convince sake.  Okay, before I get the lecture and the glaring eyes.  I know don't flirt with your friends girlfriends or exes.  I get it.  I am not stupid.  And yet I continue to flirt with her. She understands I much better at typed words than speaking so i will get random texts from her.  She flirts too.  I would never act on it, but to have someone flirt with you it's like woah....this doesn't happen to me.  It's weird because the appeal of a relationship, never seemed something I wanted till I get it in bits and pieces and think and think, "this really could add up to something amazing."  Not with this girl because obviously I can't, but with someone who actually pays attention to the fact that I am around and doesn't leave me in this weird place where I care and they seem to live in their own world of not noticing. 

I have more to say, but this morning starts early and I have to go. 

 It is almost 5 in the morning.  I can get up now without an alarm clock. The girl I am in doctorate classes with said, "You're right when you are thinking about your dissertation you don't sleep.  When does that end?"  I am not convinced it ever will.  I hate writing groups when you have stupid people in your group because I can get abrasive.  The professor looked between me and the girl I was "arguing" with last night and just said to the other girl, "You need to listen to Kattie."  Thank God.  

Devin turned three today.  On the day he was born I held him and his mother asked, "So, when are you taking him home."  When I was holding him and went to him him to my brother, his dad, my brother was playing on his phone so Devin stayed in my arms and became known as my baby.  At five days old he started spending weekends at my house.  Although I loved him there were times when that child even drove me crazy.  He was  not particularly suited for baby world. He screamed and cried for hours.  He needed constant attention-bottles every four hours, he never slept through the night for the first year of his life as he cried for the pacifier he endlessly spit out.  He threw up over and over and over again.  It was a miracle he managed to gain any weight.  I think he is much better suited for three.  As much as I love my baby I think my sister is right when she says it's my turn to have one.  I texted her back, someday.