what teachers do when they've mentally checked out for the summer:

1. forget to make photocopies.
2. try to get other teachers to cut during preps to get food.
3. conveniently forget to bring home appropriate work documents.
4. play wargames in class.
5. have DAYS OF FUN away from designated work zones.

my day of fun ...
1. chilling with ev -- besides the fact that her apt. is a dumping zone right now, there is nothing like evelyn, coffee and old reruns of 90210 to get a morning going. everyone bug to her to play a rousing game of chucky chucky.

2. have lunch with cuppy -- christine is SO FUN. she goes to cool places (read: israel) and she's blunt enough to give me a hard time about some things and balanced enough to KEEP IT REAL. cuppy -- always a pleasure.

3. josh and naomi's bridal shower --

okay. i have an earful about this. first of all, let's stop calling concord concord and call it what it really is: ALLERGY. omg, it was ridiculous. couldn't take my head out of the kleenex box. nothing like meeting a friend's dad with a handful of snot.

i love josh and naomi to pieces. i am very excited about them getting married. they are wonderful people (be sure to check out their hiphop ghetto fab pictures -- HILARIOUS) and not only are they both gorgeous and geniuses, but they love the Lord and watch a lot of dave chappelle. so i was glad to be there to celebrate with them.

the bridal shower itself was pretty nice. besides the fact that i HATE TULLE PASSIONATELY and ridiculous games that are usually played at such events, it was pretty relaxed. lots of white concord moms who were josh's sunday school teachers ... etc ... but it was great, especially when julie soderlund nee DOBIE led a devotional about what marriage was ... it was nice.

except ... what do i know about marriage? that's the thing with bridal showers. i feel like it discriminates against single people! all these moms were busting out with the relationship advice, while all the engaged people were providing commentary on registries and honeymoon details and i had NOTHING TO CONTRIBUTE. i felt like a total fish out of water.

one particular moment when i didn't know what to do with myself (when i wasn't blowing my nose) was when i was sitting in a circle with all the girls my age (most of us went to cal together). naoms, jen tsou, karina gorbunoff, julie formerly dobie ... and they were all flashing ice together, and discussing the merits or demerits (i didn't really know the difference truthfully) of wedding bands that didn't quite fit together with the engagement ring. and everyone was going around sharing whether or not they were going to wear their wedding bands, or just engagement rings, or both ... and i had NOTHING TO SAY. and then the conversation turned to wedding planning timetables and wedding dresses and catering and what a pain registries are ... and i had NOTHING TO SAY.

most of the time, i actually like being single. i do what i want when i want, and i don't have to tell anyone what i'm doing if i don't feel like it. (this could be contributing to my antisocial nature.) but in this particular context ... it wasn't on purpose or anything like that at all ... but i felt really pressured and off the wedding bandwagon. i couldn't tell if i was anxious about not being engaged like everyone else or what. shoot.

hideyo says that when it happens to him (hanging out with the relationshipped) that it feels like hanging out with gate kids and being a special ed kid yourself. that is SO TRUE. i felt like big time special school bus.

so, i don't think i'm going to hang out with people like that for a while. so if anyone that is left wants to go to the shooting range/batting cages with penny and i ... you let us know. shoot. we gotta stick together and LIVE IT UP if or before we get sucked into the marriage vortex.

so in order to balance out spending a few hours in Allergy with the gate kids, i had to ...

4. chill with hideyo -- and it wasn't just about passing off prom pictures either. he is one cool cat, and it's always nice to have another special ed kid to hang out with and talk about books, life, and high school drama.

5. the day of fun leaks over into the next -- i LOVE MY CHURCH. people rock. they make me laugh. and they're so much fun and so laid back. two sets of props to baylight church community. come see for yourself. a sliver of heaven to tide you over until the real thing.


other tidbits:
1. movie bill: mean girls
2. soundtrack: jason mraz, waiting for my rocket to come
3. avoiding stupidity: gustave flaubert, madame bovary