Lazy Sunday

What to do with my lazy day? I have not showered and I have not been out of the apartment yet today. I'm also low on food, so at least one of those two things is likely to change before long.

School Report:

Last week was my first week at the Middle School. My cooperating teacher has only 7th graders. They're awesome. They don't hate everything yet, and they still do goofy shit (like sneaking around the classroom pretending they're secret agents). I haven't officially started teaching them yet -- I've just been the "classroom helper" while establishing my relationship with them -- but I'm trying to keep hope that I'll still like them once I have to get them to start working for me. One thing I find interesting is that the worst 7th graders behave about the same as the average 9th graders at the last school. I'd love to know if this is a result of their age or of their environment. One thing that I'm sure helps is that there's about 10 fewer students per class here. Everyone gets a lot more attention, and nobody feels like they can just hide in the crowd.

Book Report:

Finished Tarzan and Beyond Discipline. 30-ish pages to go in the Choice Theory book. I can only partially recommend the Choice Theory book. It makes a lot of the same points as other books about what motivates students, and it offers some cool cooperative learning ideas, but it rationalizes all of this with a bunch of psychology talk that is counterintuitive and, as far as I can tell, completely unresearched and unsupported.

Sex report:

I'm saving myself until marriage.

Dating report:

I'm also not dating anymore until I get married.

Phone report:

Thanks to my mom, I'm the first person in the world to have a hand-me-down iPhone. Her complaints about it were, to me, silly. But whatever. It's a sweet little gadget and I didn't have to pay for it. It's also much better than my Motorola POS. And I no longer have to carry around a separate iPod, which is great for when I'm jogging.

It's too bad I'm refusing to take calls anymore until I'm married.

Marriage report:

When has a running gag gone too far?

The 11-year-ex got engaged in February. This is completely surreal to me. I can't believe she's marrying a LARPer -- a druid, no less. And I mean not only is he a druid when he LARPs, but his real-world religious affiliation is to Wicca and Druidism and other weird pagan-ness. It's all terrifyingly nerdy. Like the worst of social awkwardness. But the 11-year-ex finally seems genuinely happy, so I am happy for her and will go to the wedding. In 2010. Which is a long-ass engagement, but whatever.