So proud

First I am elated that I have taken the lead in the Biggest loser contest over at Mean Girls but really it wasn't fair I was really sick for 2 days and then went to a country that outlaws spices and flavor of all kinds. So now that my apatite has returned I have a feeling I will level off or start gaining back. So get off my ass this week and go to the gym is my mantra.

Now the Biggest reason I am so proud is that my String Orchestra had their Spring Concert last night. Granted it was a short concert and there were barely twice as many people in the Audience as there were in the ensemble, but They did amazing! Do they have some work to still do? Yes, but they have come so far in the last few months. I am very proud of how well they have been doing and progressing. I really can't say enough about it. I even called mom last night to tell her about it. Even though I had all but lost my voice. I know they still have a long way to go but I am down right giddy. The fact you could recognize the turn that they were playing was a big plus. Trust me at the last one when it was Christmas music and you couldn't follow along it was bad. I had a lot of parents come up and thank me and tell me how good they were. So yes I do like what I do and I do enjoy when the kids succeed. So kudos to them.

Spring Break fever

14 more class periods and one concert before my spring break officially starts. When did it start in my head? Oh, somewhere around January 13th give or take a month or two. Yes I know I was just in Ireland and yes that was nice and all but really what I am in desperate need of is time away from the kids, their parents, and of course Special K. Thus why I am on a count down to the end of this. I have a concert tonight and then two days of classes. You can tell I am super done because I am doing something I have never done before in a class. The orchestra performs tonight and so for the next two days instead of rehearsing for our next concert which is more than a month away we are watching a movie. I know it is the teachers cop out. But they have been really good as of late and the majority have never seen Edward Scissorhands and we are playing music from the movie for this concert. So I am being super nice and taking a few days to watch it. Yes see I can be nice from time to time. I can also be just plain tired.

So last night I got home laid down and took a nap before heading to BGB rehearsal, and woke up sounding like this.
I was beginning to wonder when my smoking habit had gotten so bad. I sound completely awful, but I don't feel bad. If you do anything really other than teach or telemarketing you can get away with a day of no talking. I found out today whether the kids liked me or not. Because I had to ask almost all of my classes to please don't make me shout over the top of them because it hurt and exhausted me to do so. Not that I frequently yell at my classes but I have to get louder than their playing most of the time so I simply asked that when I say stop they do so. And much to my surprise and delight they did.

I am really glad that all I have to do tonight is introduce the group and conduct and then I can come home and rest my voice.

So yea my body has checked out and so has my mind so I am really asking the question of how I am actually making it to school every day. One of those mysteries of life that we may never have an answer for.

Back home again in Indiana

So I am back from my Irish adventure. Overall the trip was fun and I wouldn't mind going back. Of course without the students or the parents. I have a lot of pictures from the trip and here they are.
This is from The Rock of Cashel, which now is ruins of a cathedral. Before there was a Cathedral there was a Castle. Oddly enough a place that gives us drunken Irish Brawls and soccer Hooligans had what has been described as a peaceful transition to Christianity. I have to so I was surprised by that. When the Christians came in the Irish pretty much gave them one of the strategic castles for them to build a church. Who knew? Of course it had to be up hill. much everything in Ireland is either up hill or up many flights of stairs. None of these places I would ever call handicap accessible. It's really a good thing that we don't have these in the US we would have ruined them all by now with ramps and elevators in old castles. Anyway moving on.
Hey look a castle. This is Blarney Castle, home of the famous Blarney Stone. It is said that anyone kissing the stone would be gifted with eloquent speech. I don't know about that but the could have put the stone in a far more convenient place.You see the top of that. Yea that's where it is and you have to hang upside down over an open hole to kiss the damned thing. I would post a picture of me kissing the stone but I did it so quickly that only one person had time to click a photo and it wasn't on my camera. Again had to go up hill and what I would say about 5 flights of spiral stairs that were not made for anyone with feet size 5 or bigger. Also I am convinced that people in Ireland 6oo years ago were tiny people. I barely fit in most of these places.
Now we are off to the Cliffs of Moher, these are some of the tallest sea cliffs in the Atlantic. It is also hella windy up there. The wind gusts were 80-90 mph. The fun part was that the winds are coming from all directions. Stories being told of people getting to close to the edge and being blown off. So this is what I was trying to avoid in the pic below.
It was nice that they gave us diagram of what to avoid. I would have never guessed that I shouldn't get to close to an edge of a cliff when there are 90 mph winds, that could blow me off the edge.


This is one of the battlements of yet another Castle. This is Bhunratty Castle, we had a medieval banquet in the great hall that night. I left my camera at the hotel so I missed some good pictures. This of course was eating with no utensils. And what did they feed us? Ribs. Yes it was a bit of a mess. Overall it was fun and the kids had a lot of fun with it.

So those were some of the highlights from my trip. I would have rather been on a trip that would have required this afterwards
But I didn't only one night of drinking and even then I wasn't too bad off. Maybe someday I can have the Irish Pub crawl.

My drunkeness translates

So our tour group had to split for the night and I, the Student Teacher, and the Guard Instructor were shipped off for the night with the parents who were not chaperons. So, we without children tonight. Thank god. Because with dinner I could safely have a Guinness that I have been craving since before the plane tickets were printed. So after dinner we walked down to the center of Cork and to a very nice pub where I proceeded to have another Guinness and 4 Jamison's, and because those are served as double shots I had actually 8 shots of fine Irish Whiskey. It was a good night and we took a cab. I am right now not just a little tipsy. This is exactly what I needed. Granted if I had been with the kids the entire time and not made it to a pub I would have been fine. But with the kids safely on the other side of the city it was all good.

Oh and blah, blah, blah the Rock of Cashel, important Irish landmark of great significances. Yada Yada Yada. I am going to bed. ":)

Gather round boys and girls for a little story.

A story I like to call "How I Almost Died In Dublin".

So when I left for Ireland the travel company said all was taken care of and that they would have additional information for me later. The flight from Indy was fine and paid for, great. The flight out of Chicago was fine and paid for, great. Since I hadn't heard from them I assumed someone would be at the airport to pick me up and get me to the hotel in a city/country I have never been to before. As the old saying goes assuming just made an ass of me. I get there and thought I would wait around because surely Travel Guy who I know would be there to spot me and whisk me away in time to make it to the parade you know the one thing we were there for. I waited. I waited and I waited some more. At this point I have been trying to get my phone to work and alas it is failing miserably. I try the pay phone to call Travel Guy, no answer... hmmmm? Now I am worrying, it's nearly 9am and the buses where loading to head to the parade in like an hour and I have been in the country for 2 and all I have seen of it was the airport. So I run outside to check how much a cab to my hotel would cost 50 euros and if you can't do the math that is roughly $75 I say fuck that. Plus I only had 30 euros on me. So I go to the ATM and my card is not working. So I go to the foreign currency exchange and my card doesn't work there either. A big WTF. It's now 9:30 and I am looking at all the people holding signs just in case I am one of them, nope.

10 am swearing and talking to myself in the airport I go to the tourism desk and ask how much the bus would cost and if it would get me to the hotel. "Well the 748 WOULD take you right to the Hotel but because of the parade it will drop you off here." The nice man at the desk marks on the map. "And then you just walk 4 blocks to catch the 69 bus that will take you to your hotel."
"Great, how much is a bus pass?" "6 euros and it's good all day and all buses." Even better. I head out jump the bus chat with the also very friendly bus driver and we are off. I get downtown Dublin and the driver directs me to the bus shelter. The 69 bus will stop here in 5 minutes at 10:30. I wait no bus at 10:30. The next one is at 11:30. I wait, no bus. Next one is at 12:05. I wait, no bus. Though in that time Bus 66 stops 8 times, Bus 25 4 and Bus 67 6. I hope on the nest Buss 66 and ask the driver if 69 was ever going to stop. "No, that route was canceled to due to the parade."

Shit, Shit, Shit.

"Does this bus go to my hotel?"

"No"

Fuck, Fuck, Fuck!

Ok the Parade is downtown and should be starting soon I can't be that far away and there are a ton of people heading in that direction so I follow dragging 40lbs of luggage behind me. 15 blocks later I hit the parade and luck would have it the were running late. I asked which way the parade was heading and I was off to out run it. My biggest fear at this point was that I wasn't going to be able to catch them and be stranded in Dublin and die here. I started off trying to stay right on the route but with the luggage I decided side streets would do better. Because the people count for this parade was 500,000 people I bumped into roughly 450,000 of them. I did on accident find Temple Bar. For those who don't know it's an area of the city that between the ages of 18-22 I would have lived there, wall to wall bars and drunken revelry also some very cool shops. For Indy folk imagine Broad Ripple down and alley and cooler. So anyway, seriously thought of popping in for a pint but didn't. Seriously thought of chucking my luggage, my arm hurt. After 7 hours after I land I finally find the charter buses and and waited for the band. 36 hours after I got up on Sunday I was finally in bed.

Lets recount, 9 hours on a plane, 8 hours in airports, an hour and a half at the bus stop and a 2 hour self guided walking tour of Dublin and that was my day, to say the least my dogs were barkin'. I really thought I was going to die there. Kudos to me for still not feeling all that great and trudging I would guess 5 miles through downtown Dublin. But now I know the place so if I ever go back I am golden.


Fucking travel company.

Oh how I really, really hate to fly.

Yes I like to travel by myself the one draw back being I don't know the people sitting next to me. That can also be the draw. In the case of my flight from Indy to Chicago it is not. I found myself sitting next to an older gentleman easily a 3rd of my size. The way he splayed out in his seat one would assume he was the size of Andre the Giant. I felt the visual
was needed. Beside the fact that his legs were clearly in my space it was fine because once we took off I could just let my legs loose into the isle which is what I had planned regardless of my row companion. What really bugged me was the elbow in the ribs. No I know I am not the petite individual I was when I was 18 but still I am not so large that one small elderly man cannot contain himself to a seat. I from time to time would subtly drop my elbow onto his and he would sigh drop his book slightly look at my arm and go back to reading. I hate invasion of personal space so I make the effort to make myself as small as humanly possible. However when you are 6'1" 224 (thank you new flu diet) it is difficult to will yourself into a smaller package. The only saving grace to all of this was that the flight was a mere hour. So I got over it.

The take off was fine, the landing was fine, but I really forgot the sudden swing in temp in the cabin and how stale the air can be. But again 1 hour. The up shot to this was one row ahead was a hottie frat boy and the flight attendant that fawned over him was also very attractive. So I guess there are somethings that can make it worth it.

Now I am waiting for the check in counter to open so I can check in and wait another 3.5 hours to board for a 7 hour flight. I should just stop thinking about the time I have to spend in a small tube filled with people going over a large (cold) body of water. hmmm. Maybe I shouldn't have watched Lost last night.

Oh how I hate to fly.

Forgot how much I actually hate flying. Especially when I am looking at the puddle jumper I am about to board for my flight to Chicago. It is actually better going by myself than with a bunch of kids and their parents. Don’t get me wrong I love the kids and I stand their parents I just don’t need to be spending 7 hours and 19 minutes with them. I am hoping that I can take my Tylenol PM and just zonk out for the trip. If that works then I will be doing the same on the way back. I am usually fine but about 5 hours in I am super uncomfortable if I am awake. The longest flight I have been on was about 5 hours this will test me if I don’t sleep. And that could happen. If I think about it too much I will make it happen so this is the last I will talk of it.

I am actually looking forward to this. I was always wanted to go to Ireland. I also would love to go to many other places but this is a start. Xena, S and I a week or so ago talked of the possibility of going to Barcelona. Oh god how much fun would that be. Spain also being on my lists of places I would love to see, so this will be great. I did ask a very important question though, “Do any of us speak Spanish?” S looked up from her knitting and said “Is this your way of weaseling out of going?”

“No, I think it is a legitimate question, I mean I know enough to ask where the bathrooms are but that is the extent of my 3 years of High School Spanish. Not a requirement just would be nice to have someone who can navigate for us.” We never established if anyone in the proposed party actually did but I think though between all of our high school knowledge we can make it to the hospital and bathrooms ok and beyond that what more do we need.

For the most part the objects of destination have always been English speaking countries. One of the students Thursday before we left asked if they spoke English in Ireland. I would like to think that he was joking but I am not entirely sure that would be true. We said yes, and then followed it up with a far better question “Do they like us over there?” In these days that was a very valid question. The answer was yes just do not mention Bush or that your parents voted for him.