One day!!

One of these was supposed to be my trailer....

Guess not. For now we'll be squishing three into one trailer. It'll all work out.

Ah... the night before departure. The Focus is filled to the gills yet again. I would like to complain about how much I hate packing, but I realized while going through and trying to tag my old posts that I already have numerous posts about how much I hate packing, so you can just look back on those if you've forgotten. Man oh man. Moving again. Am I crazy? Yep, pretty sure that I am.

So, what have I been doing the last couple weeks at home? About the same thing I usually do when I'm home. Sleeping late, bumming around with friends and family. I've also been collecting massive amounts of books books and more books. My bumper is going to be scraping the asphalt there are so many books in my trunk right now. Most of them are for my future classroom library. Some of them are teacher books for me that I've been browsing through trying to figure out how to teach English, or rather how I want to teach English. I've got lots of ideas that will hopefully solidify over the next few weeks.

Oh, also a bridge collapsed which you probably all heard about. It's pretty crazy. I wasn't anywhere near it nor did I know anyone on it. I did see it last week when we went downtown to see a play. It's totally unreal.

Samantha Brown is on TV right now showing me around Madrid and I remember two years ago when I was sitting here watching her holding a beer in Munich just a few days before I moved there. So exciting! I miss Europe a little bit.

But- I couldn't be more ready for South Dakota! Ok, that's a little bit of a lie. I could be a lot more ready, but I think I'm ready enough. I don't think I could be totally ready. And really that would be pretty dull anyway, right? I'm excited and confident that I can do this and that it's going to be a great two years. Extremely challenging, but all the greater for every challenge to overcome.

Timing goes something like this- driving to St. Francis tomorrow to hopefully unload stuff into our trailer. Saturday morning- leave with 2o something other SoDak TFAers for a fun filled camping trip somewhere in the Black Hills I think. Monday starts four long weeks of teacher in-services at my school. Thankfully that will give me some time to settle in and to do lots and lots more planning for my classes.

Nervous? anxious? stressing out a little bit? Ummm, yeah.

This is scattered and has been written in chunks over the course of the day- forgive me. It's time to go to bed, not that I can ever sleep the night be for traveling, but I'll give it a shot. Call me tomorrow if you're bored because I sure will be (if you've ever driven though southern MN you'll understand)!

Institute: Week Three- Plus Bonus MN Mini-break!

Week three over and we're already halfway through summer school! Ah!! Two more weeks! We gave our class a mid-term on Wednesday which went fairly well. We're on our way to significant gains! (never mind that the data is marginally worthless.... the whole testing and data collection they do here is pretty silly and has little to do with actual student achievement). Anyway, so after the testing we started a play with them on Friday which I'm pretty excited about. We're reading the Glass Menagerie and it's going to be cool. Short stories are not really my favorite literary genre, they can be good, but I couldn't take only reading short stories all summer. This way they get involved in reading in class. I started Friday by having them do 10 second auditions to decide who would read in class. It was awesome, they're totally hooked. Or as hooked as unbelievably apathetic teenagers can be...

Speaking of apathetic teenagers... how cute are my brothers and I? Yes, Scott is as tall as I am and he's about to be a ninth grader!! I can call him for some lesson planning tips next year :) In case you're confused, I went to MN this weekend for my Uncle George's wedding which was so fun, I'm really glad I made it. I'm getting sick of missing important family events because I'm far away, I'm ready to be closer to home. The wedding was great and they are so happy and cute, I can't wait to have more baby cousins!!

I heart Minnesota so very much. This morning I was cruising around the lake on our pontoon boat with my two bestest friends... now I'm back in hideous moody towers working on lesson plans. Sigh. Two more weeks!! Then one more week in SD and THEN finally a three week vacation at home. I. Can't. Wait. I need a vacation like whoa. It's time for life to slow down for a minute....

But not quite yet! Gotta get ready for week 4 and some classroom drama (in a theatrical sense only I hope).

eine kleine Pause

I spent all day today sleeping, watching tv with my little brother and pretending to pack, and yet my body and brain still feel like mush after the crazy crazy week of NAFSA conference madness. It was fun it was hard it was overwhelming. I'm so glad I stuck around long enough to actually go, but I'm not at all sad about not sticking out for the next one, it's a lot of work! It's HUGE. I don't think I could ever have wrapped my mind around the hugeness without seeing it, I still don't think I can. Seeing Colin Powel was cool, though I'd have to say some of the other speakers were more focused and inspiring. All in all everything seemed to go pretty smoothly and I'll be ok if this is the last time I ever see that NAFSA logo ;)

Tomorrow I finish packing up and leave for South Dakota. What???!! Oh how I wish I could take a week off and hang out with my friends and family here... it's always so hard for me to leave MN. I was a little sad to be leaving DC, but ready to go, it was a great experience but not my city. I've only been home in Minneapolis for a week and I already don't want to leave. Sigh. There's always 2009! Teach for America is going to be amazing I know. I'm so glad I got in and I'm doing it, I just still can't really believe it! I'm leaving tomorrow! I'm so scattered, I hope it all works out. I have definitely not finished all the pre-institute work that they sent me. Oh well. I don't think they'll kick me out at this point. I'll catch up, or maybe have some time to finish it next week in SD before we drive down to Houston. Could my life be a little more insane and exciting right now? Never a dull moment... I'm too distracted to be writing this right now, but stay tuned!!

Minnesota style

Hi. I am currently alone in what now seems to me to be an enormous house. A few hours ago it felt so cramped and tiny. Then everyone left (Thank goodness) and now I think I hear the echo of a tapping keyboard in the other room. The family madness continues this week. Aunt Nancy and her husband and three boys got here Saturday, my cousin Tommy is still here, plus I have two brothers of my own. That adds up to a heckuvalot of boys. I'm totally whiped out. All these crazy California visitors seem to think that there should be tons of exciting Minnesota touristy things to see and do, and while I guess there are, that's not really what we do. I mean, there's a lake. Can't you just sit and look at it for a while? It's pretty. Slow down. and for heaven's sake, be quiet! I elected to once again stay at the house house tonight where I get to actually sleep in a room with no one else in it. Bliss. I had a lovely evening watching pay per view movies and eating the best ice cream in teh world (from Graters). I finally saw Brokeback Mountain, which was really good, great characters, but horribly sad and depressing. Really, pretty much nothing good happens. But the scenery looked awfully nice on that big wide screen tv.

I'm going to Wicked on Friday!!! yay! AND.... next Thursday I'm going to Virginia and I'm finally FINALLY going to see my sweetheart again. YAY YAY YAY YAY! I may or may not actually explode before then. We'll see.

Meanwhile... unpacking? job applications? being lazy and doing nothing because it's July and it's flipping HOT out here? stay tuned to find out.

PS. Germany got third! woo! Which totally means I get to leave the flag on my car for at least a few more weeks in celebration :)

Suburbia and Beyond

Whew. I feel like I've been on a constant high since getting back a week ago. I can't believe it's only been a week. The jet lag finally caught up with me the last couple days, but was nothing a few unplanned afternoon naps couldn't fix. It's been a full week of family and friends and driving my car (I love my car!) trying to get stuff done, but mostly avoiding things I should be doing, like unpacking for example. Oh well. On the fourth I got decked out in my Germany gear and went downtown and meet Lindsay (von Dusseldorf)at a Brittish pub to watch the football game. It was actually packed and there was a big screen set up and fans from both sides, we even spotted a real italian and a real German! Great atmosphere, heartbreaking game :( We wandered around after and got lots of "sorry for your loss" from passers by and were generally finally feeling a little better about not being in Germany at the moment. We ended up hanging out downtown long enough to stick around for the Minneapolis fireworks, which I had never seen before. They were quite nice and we had a great view with the skyline in the background.

Sunday I went out and ran some errands. Shopping! on a Sunday!!!!! crazy. I even went grocery shopping which was pretty exciting. Last night was Music in Plymouth, which means more fireworks! which we had a not so spectacular view of directly behind a clump of trees. OH well, at least we saw the AMAZING (ly cheesy and horrible) laser show.

Now I'm hanin' out at home because Mom is on a buisness trip, Bob is at work and the rest of the family is at the lake and it is blissfully quiet and peaceful around here. Maybe I'll even unpack sometime. or not.

On the whole, it's nice to be back, I love Minnesota, but I can't live here, not now anyway. I just can't do it, I thought I might want to, but after the first day here I knew I was going to have to leave. So I'm plugging along with the job search, I have a few good looking prospects, I'll let you know how things turn out.

Sweet Home Minnesota

I made it. And it's kinda like I never left. The flight was long and uneventful. Being back in the US is a little strange, but I'm getting used to it quickly. I few thoughs I've had, in chicago O Hare- Holy Diversity! I forgot how many different people are all americans. The diversity thing went away however upon arrival in MN where everyone pretty much looks German. I forgot how it's acceptable for americans to walk around in public wearing sweats and T-shirts and generally looking scrubby. I guess I can stop trying to look presentable now :-P I also forgot how much I love skim milk. mmmm. Yesturday driving up to the lake house I stoped at Target. It was confusing and disorienting. I bought batteries, flip flops and cereal all at the same store! Insanity! Also at Target (in Buffalo, which is beyond suburbs and into small town Minnesota) I realized how incredibly Minnesotan everyone sounded. Please tell me I don't have that accent! Now I'm at the lake, hanging out. My cousin and her boyfriend are here, Uncle Nick and his family should be here soon. It's a busy place. Fishing, swimming kayaking, it's nice to be home. I gotta get outside now, it's too nice to be in here. I'll write more later. Ciao.

Oh! the Germany game friday was amazingly intense and awesome, I can't wait to watch the next on the 4th, they're going to smash Italy!