NYC!!!!!!!!!!

I'm going to NYC tomorrow! And it's my 25th birthday which I've sort of forgotten about in my excitement for NYC. And now....

MY TOP 10 REASONS FOR BEING PSYCHED OUT OF MY MIND TO GO TO NYC TOMORROW:

10. If I get blamed by ONE MORE parent for being a racist as a cowardly and ignorant way out of their crappy parenting, I will seriously go crazy on someone.

9. I need me some NYC shopping something awful. H&M, Zara, SoHo... *sigh* Shopping makes me feel better 99.9% of the time. The other tenth of the time is usually just because sleeping is a better option.

8. I need to be able to wear heels and fabulous clothes for absolutely no reason other than because I'm in the city.

7. I'm missing the craziness. The cabs, the people, the subways... Even the crazies. A little, I guess. But not the one that told me that I was going to burn in the outer realms of Hell. Not so much that one.

6. I need some NYC food! I'd kill for some hot dogs or chicken rolls right about now. For that matter, I'm close to killing someone for no reason, so at I'm focusing my anger...

5. I miss walking around with my mp3 player and creating soundtracks for everywhere I go.

4. I need a break. Because my job has basically sucked. A lot. And often.

3. I miss the going out! I miss Jon and Gin Mill and Silk Road. And the craziness that typically ensues.

2. I miss my little Bronx babies. I need some BWA, MS 323 love. Although I don't encourage it, I'm not going to lie and say that it doesn't make me feel better to hear them call and tell me that they're going to mess up my present students. Because when Bronx kids talk about messing you up, they aren't kidding. And that's their way of showing how much they love you. :) And they love me an awful lot, even if they are little hellions in class.

1. I miss my FRIENDS! My NYC loves! Let's go out! And now! :)

Freaking facebook...

I went out with Bryan and Kevin tonight and also met up with Jared for his birthday. Bryan and Kevin suckered me into also doing Facebook so now it's 2:15am and I'm up filling out another distraction... No more I say! No more! :)

Bryan and I- I look so tired because... I am.

Karan, me, and Jared

Saturday nonsense.

I got sucked into doing Myspace. I couldn't help it. I am physically unable to resist the temptation of anything related to socializing. This is also the reason why the following scenario often takes place:

Setting: Middle of the night, me in bed, cell phone rings

(Insert random friend's name here): Come out with us!
Me: I'm in bed asleep. And I have stuff to do tomorrow.
Friend: Put some clothes on and come out!
Me: Ok.

I am very easily convinced.

On another note, I talked to my principal for a long time after school yesterday. Obviously I am not a racist and she told me not to worry about it- them's the breaks sometimes when you're a white teacher in a primarily black school. And anyway, calling someone a racist who has only had teaching experience in inner city schools, lived in Harlem last year, and taught in the South Bronx is completely ridiculous. Be serious.

Favorite comments this week at school:
-On my wearing a skirt, heels, and conservative fishnet stockings to school this week one 5th grader said to me, "Ms. Hinshaw- You're looking fancy today!"
-One of my 6th graders said to a friend, "What the Hello Kitty are you talking about?"

And funniest kid this week goes to Mikey- a 2nd grader who stutters (it is still considered cute at this age) and once stole a quarter from the Hurricane Katrina class fund while I was subbing in his class- has taken to hugging me everytime he sees me. While this is normal, he has recently begun grabbing my... a@@... while doing it. I mean, a hand on each cheek. At first I thought that it was just his height which is level to my butt, but now I'm starting to wonder. It reminds me of Billy Madison when Billy pretends to fall on the bus and grabs Ms. Veronica Vaughn's boobs. :) That's gonna need to be addressed...

Crap.

Today at school was horrendous and culminated in my principal telling me that the parents of one of my students is accusing me of being a racist. Today sucked. A ton.

Reasons I miss college when I had a core group of houses of 5 or more guy friends.

1. They were always willing to let me curl up and be sad on them for a little bit.

2. Their efforts at cheering me up usually involved an inappropriate comment about a bodily gas or sex which only made me laugh because of the inappropriateness.

3. Often they weren't sure what to say, (particularly if crying was involved), and some of the following comments would be made which would make me feel better in an "Well, that's not really going to help, but your effort at making me feel better is" kind of way:
"But you're hot!"
"Want me to beat (insert offender's name here) up?"
"What a (insert explicative here)! I'm going to go find him and take him out!" (If the offender was of the male gender.)
"Sit here and watch Simpsons with us."
"Come out with us tonight! I'll buy you some drinks."

4. They would invariably do something stupid and hilarious such as:
-Fart
-Break something
-Tell stories about farting or breaking things
-Make prank calls
-Wrestle each other
-Watch Discovery Channel and laugh when baby animals got eaten or, generally, when anything was massacred
-Shoot bottle rockets up/down stair cases
-Talk about girls they'd seen that day and rate/critique their butts, boobs, hair color, makeup...

5. Make fun of me for being a girl and being upset over something silly. While this sounds mean, it often worked better than any of the other methods and did, in fact, make me stop being a girl. The only time this was not used was when it was another guy who had hurt me in which case they became intensely protective and then mostly just talked about different ways in which they could beat him up.

So, I guess what I'm saying is that I really miss my boys being around to make me laugh, do something dumb, and/or offer to beat people up for me.

Somebody please offer to beat someone up for me. Okay, thanks.

V-Day, Shmee-Day.

Happy Valentine's Day!

Here's a thought for you, courtesy of this month's National Geographic:

"Love and obsessive-compulsive disorder could have a similar chemical profile. Translation: Love and mental illness may be difficult to tell apart."

I have enough mental illness characteristics. Thus, I will avoid furthering my mental demise by remaining single. I will also pretend that I am not bitter. I am pretending very hard. :)

P.S.- If you received my mass email this morning, you probably noticed that the subject was "Valentine's for Everyone!" While I meant this in the same way that I have been known to say, "Christmas for everyone!" it dawned on me when I saw it in my sent box that it does, in fact, look as though I am using the word Valentine to mean the card as opposed to the holiday, which would need your good old plural s instead of the 's. As you might have read in my blog a couple of days ago, the misuse of the apostrophe and s drives me crazy. Thus, even now, I am bordering on the brink of insanity thinking about my subject line being misconstrued. Basically, this obsession is further proof that I am crazy enough on my own. Have a fabulous VALENTINE'S Day and I hope you get lots of VALENTINES. *sigh* I feel a little better now...

Cute parents.

I met with my Mom and Dad today in Marshall for my early birthday dinner. :) Here are some pictures a) because they're good and b) because I typically do anything and everything I can find on Sundays to do other than lesson plan.

Things about my personality that might make you reconsider hanging out with me:

1. I talk to my cat. I do not mean like, "Here's your food, kitty." No. It is more along the lines of, "Catboy, I have no idea how I am going to pay these bills. How come I have no money?" or "Crap, Catboy. I totally forgot to buy hotdogs today." or "Where did I put those candles the other day?"

2. Sometimes when I'm having a bad day, (or sometimes when I'm not), I like to run through in my mind where all of my clothes and accessories are from. I realize that this makes me sound incredibly shallow. I'm ok with it. For instance, "I got these jeans from France, my shirt is from H&M in NYC, my necklace is from Italy, my bra/underwear set is Victoria's, my watch is from Switzerland, etc..." It sounds even more shallow when I actually type it out. However, doing this makes me feel much better, as though I am saying "Yeah, whatever Bad Day. Have you been to France to buy cute jeans? Yeah. Didn't think so."

One of my favorite shallow books has this part in it.
"I don't look bad, I think. I'm wearing my black skirt from French Connection, and a plain white T-shirt from Knickerbox, and a little angora cardigan which I got from M&S but looks like it might be Agnes b. And my new square-toed shoes from Hobbes. Even better, although no one can see them, I know that underneath I'm wearing my gorgeous new matching knickers and bra with embroidered yellow rosebuds. They're the best bit of my entire outfit. In fact, I almost wish I could be run over so that the world would see them."
-Confessions of a Shopaholic, by Sophie Kinsella

When I read it I thought, "I can't believe someone else does that!" It was a bit of a relief, honestly.

3. I can't tell time very well. I especially get nervous when a stranger asks me the time. Instead of telling them, I will awkwardly turn my wrist so that they can read it off of my watch, which really just results in an even more uncomfortable situation because usually they can't read it very well and have to sort of stoop over to be able to see the face. Probably most times they don't even get the time, but walk away pretending like they did just so they don't have to deal with my weirdness.

4. Whenever I cry, I always end up in the bathroom, sitting on the toilet. I have no idea why this is. Perhaps because I'm always running out of Kleenex and need the toilet paper? I don't think so though because even when I do have it, I'm in there. It's like sitting on the toilet when I'm bawling makes me feel better. It's weird.

5. It really bothers me when people misuse 's. When things are plural, you just put an s on the end. Cats. Dogs. Apples. When you are showing ownership, you put an apostrophe and an s. Sar's apartment. Catboy's litter box. When I used to work at VG's Supermarket in high school, the bakery would write on their chalkboard sign, "Roll's On Sale." I would always walk by and erase the apostrophe off. Seriously. Get it straight. You're annoying me.

6. I talk out loud and say mean things to people when there are people being all coupley on the tv. For example, when watching a show involving a date or a wedding where the people talk about how much they love each other and blahblahblah, my response is usually something sarcastic to the effect of "Oh, I'm so happy for you" or "Yes, I'm very excited, too." This is typically accompanied by me making a mean face at the tv and then turning the channel. I bet they can feel it. That'll teach them to be disgustingly cute when I'm sitting here watching tv alone and talking to inanimate objects. Or to my cat.

That's enough for now. I have to save some things for myself you know.

The hooker dance at my school today.

Today, we had a school dance for grades 3-6 at the end of the day. A hip-hop dance. Picture the following with me, if you will...

The day starts off with one of my boys coming in wearing a red do-rag on his head with a red bowler hat over it- complete with a feather stuck in the band. He is wearing a red sweatsuit, but has a suit in his backpack that he changes into before the dance. This suit is a pimp suit. I am not kidding. It is a bright red pimp suit, complete with shiny, black dress shoes. Someone in this kid's family bought him a HEAD TO TOE PIMP SUIT. And he's got this walk that goes with it that is ghetto-fabulous. Please allow me to remind you that this is a dance for THIRD to sixth graders. As one of my more level headed students pointed out, "Seriously Donjaih. It's not that big of a deal. It's with the little kids too you know." He didn't care. He couldn't have been more proud.

So anyway, we all go down to the dance. The classes are all sitting on the gym floor- probably about 200 kids. Our principal announces that we are going to have a performance by our dance team- a group of about 10 girls from the other 6th grade class. Ooooookay. Here is break down of the dance:

1. Girls do semi-choreographed dance moves. One girl appears to be double jointed and terrifies me a little. It reminds me a bit of what demon possession in the Old Testament must have looked like. She has a scary face when she does it too.

2. They split into two lines, facing each other.

3. They start a thing where a girl from one side goes over to the girls on the other side and 'insults' them by doing one of the following:
a) holding a piece of her hair up and then throwing a bottle of hairspray at her. (I don't know where they hid these props, but they were definately there somehow.)
b) flicking her shirt and then throwing a new one at her.
c) holding her arm up and throwing deodorant at her.
I can't remember the others, but there were at least 5 different ones. The kids in the audience were oooohing and catching on right away. Meanwhile, I'm thinking, "Why are they throwing things at each other? And where did that deodorant come from?"

4. More poorly choreographed dance moves. More scary demon-possession imitations.

5. And the finale.... These girls each take a dollar out from their secret stash and THROW THEM AT EACH OTHER. For those of you who aren't in the know on such important matters, this is basically saying "You are a hooker" or, in the more appropriate terminology of our younger generation, "You're a ho." Then they all fall down on their backs to the floor which is even more confusing to me than the deodorant tossing.

Hmmm. Apparantly this little treat was not previewed and was a nice little surprise for everyone. In an effort to brush this under the rug, the music was immediately turned up and the dance begun.

Horrible, horrible, mass chaos.

The dance team girls start dancing again and kids form a tight, 5 kid deep circle around these dancing marvels. My pimp kid is pimp-walking around and kids are trying to knock his hat off. A couple of fights break out. The little kids start playing tag and running through all of the nasty dancing older kids.

At this point, the principal announces that this was a terrible idea and everyone has to leave. Also, that we will never again have a school dance.

Thank God.

Apology.

I need to apologize for my lack of posts lately. I've been a disappointment, I know. Basically, my job sucks right now and yesterday when my kids were at music I sat on the floor behind one of our secretary's desks so the kids coming in couldn't see me and cried and she handed me chocolate. I miss my little hooligans from last year. Even with the *ahem* little anger management issues, there was nothing but love in that room. Come back my little Bronx babies!

I'll find something entertaining to write about real soon, (probably about the suspected porn star who wanted to sublet my apartment), but right now I am going to be responsible and go to work.