Spring Clean and Cranky.

This new and fantastic layout is courtesy of a great little blog template designer named Gisele! In even truly more wonderful fashion (even more wonderful than an adorable free layout) she helped me out a lot with the file unzipping and all that. I sent her a few widget questions, so those should be back and up and running, too! All in a matter of time, and you don't have to look at my stupid face in the corner, just a cute little spring bird. 

Right, well in the past week I have: 

• Gone to a bridal shower, felt uncomfortable at a bridal shower, and have just been generally confused about all things bridal for my best friend's wedding (in no relation to the film) in May. 
• Saved my cousin's wedding in October by discovering that the dress for her wedding was discontinued by David's Bridal. 
• Discovered I'm starting to become one of those organic, granola, eco-lovers. Seriously though, organic does taste better and plastic bags are such a pain in the ass. 
• Become hopelessly addicted to Nutella. 
• Been told thousands of complicated facts about officially entering my MAT program in the fall. So complicated I can't even figure out how to put them in print (thus, bullet list). 
• Received my dad's birthday gift in the mail, and blown Amazon.com's list of books for me to read's little mind. I can go in more detail on this one after we celebrate dad's birthday (which is Saturday) on Easter (the next time he'll be here). 
• Read Mary Shelly's Frankenstein on an exercise bike at the gym and received looks of judgment. 
• Realized Frankenstein didn't get any better since the last time I read it. 
• Started learning to play tennis
• Didn't get post-wing night indigestion (I didn't go). 
• Spent a lot of time very sleepy and angry at the weather. 

This week has been a myriad of emotions and I feel like I need a haircut as a result. On deck for this weekend is a cheap weekend of: Friday movie night with Kelly and Zack and Miri Make a Porno. Possibly walking around the flea market on Saturday, trying to organize Earth Hour games (8:30-9:30 p.m. local time wherever you are, turn off your lights!) and then going to a concert to raise money for a memorial scholarship Shepherd started last year. Happy Friday. The sun is out. 

Now, back to my Nutella, oatmeal, coffee, and flash cards. Will tinker with the blog layout later. 

We all need heros.

I woke up to this and a number of dedicated facebook statuses this morning. RIP Mr. Cooper, and countless reactions similar to my own - Really? FALLSTON'S Mr. Cooper? I sort of sat at the computer screen blankly, a few tears on my face, things like this are such a shock. 

I never actually had Mr. Cooper, but he was a part of the dynamic team that made up the Fallston High School English faculty. I didn't like much about high school, but I always enjoyed the conversations I had with the faculty when they all got together in one of my teacher's classrooms. He had an incredible sense of humor and such a genuine personality. He left the school in 2002 to teach at a school in England. He was supposed to stay for two years, but fell in love with the school and decided to stay. In the first article about his death, it says he was believed to be American. I think that, more than anything else, really got me.

My education was made what it was because of the teachers I had along the way. My high school was a rough place - not because of violence or bullies - but because of cliques and trends. There were a lot of kids in a lot of designer clothing that gave you a hard time if you weren't, but the teachers, namely the ones in the English cluster, were amazing. When I went back to visit after I graduated, I was frequently asked when I was going to give in and start a program for English education. When I envision my perfect classroom - so many aspects of their teaching enters into my mind. Those teachers are the reason I want to teach high school English. 

At the end of the day, though, those teachers didn't treat us like high schoolers - they treated us like people. We had "big people" conversations with them, we had opinions and tastes in music and popular culture. We liked books, we didn't like books, we thought books were boring. All of these things were open for discussion, and no one told us not to think anything. 

I've spent a good portion of today reading the memorial messages to Mr. Cooper on various facebook groups, leaving a few of my own. His U.K. students and his U.S. students all had the same sentiments - he was a great person and a wonderful teacher. He will be missed by a slew of international colleagues and students and has touched students on both sides of the Atlantic. So few people can be able to leave that sort of legacy. 

Rest in Peace, Mr. Cooper. 

ETS - Crushing my hopes and dreams since 2002

The people who know me in real life know that I truly only have one goal - to overthrow the ETS and establish a system for judging education that is not a standardized test. 

For those of you who do not suffer test anxiety and argue that it's the only way are probably not as familiar with the ETS, or the Educational Testing Service, as I am. ETS is actually a non-profit organization that claims to give a "public service" to the education system. I'm uncertain as to exactly what this public service really is. 

Doing rough, hyperbolic math, I've realized that by the time I am finished with my education (I want a PhD, folks) the ETS will have taken what could be my first year's teaching salary from me. 

ETS creates everything from the AP tests, to the SATs, to the GRE, to the TOEFL, and everything in between. ETS kept me out of my first choice colleges and graduate schools, despite having a good GPA and personal references. In fact, the only graduate school I was accepted to was in London where they didn't care to learn about my standardized test scores. Shepherd was okay with my GPA, and didn't really want my GRE score, either. 

Every time I take one of these, I tell myself that I won't get freaked out, but I do. These tests do this magical thing called deciding the course the rest of my life will take after the test is over. If that sounds exaggerated, go talk to the Elon University admissions folk. Their first letter to me said I needed to improve my SAT score to improve my consideration. That was it. Graduate school admissions people will tell you that you can kick your course work's proverbial ass during your undergraduate career, have a flawless personal statement, but if someone else has these same qualities and can regurgitate information on a multiple choice test better than you...FAIL, try better next time. 

A few years ago the University of Maryland took a pool of their freshman class and split them up into groups based on students accepted with high, average, and low SAT scores. At the end of the students' first semester, they compared their overall GPAs. Lo and behold, there was no correlation to how well the students did on their SAT to how they performed their first semester of college. 

Shock, truly. 

The rooms are probably the worst part. When I took the Praxis I over the summer, I drove there popping a few breath mints because they're supposed to stimulate the brain and help you focus. I had one in my mouth as I was going through the sign in process and I had to either chew it up or spit it out before I was let into the room. Please, tell me, how do you cheat on a test with a breath mint?! The rooms are incredibly quiet and filled with the clickety clack of computers and there are giant sound canceling headphones for your sanity's pleasure. You can't bring in a sweat shirt, you can't look around, you can't talk, you can't sigh, you just vomit random information all over a computer. There is no rhyme or reason to the questions they ask you which is why the ETS has come out and said you can't study for their tests. How does a test you can't study for show how prepared you are for college where you're, you know, supposed to study?!

Someday, I will find the monkeys and hamsters that sit in a big building on Mount Olympus and set them free from their test creation and scoring bondage. All high school students will praise me, and I will finally be popular and I will completely revolutionize how kids get into college forever. And then I'll dance, because, you know, a revolution without dancing is a revolution not worth having. 

I'm going to step off my soap box and study for a test I can't study for. I'm going to fill my heart with rainbows, ponies, and flowers and have something more pleasant to say tomorrow, or the next day....

Iced in?

It's been a snowy, icy, cold mess the past few days here in the Eastern Panhandle of Wild, Wonderful West Virginia. I headed to school yesterday, only to find that my little Cobalt and the snow do not have a good relationship. I didn't want to be that asshole who only lives a mile from campus and doesn't show in bad weather, though. So I slip-n-slid all the way into town, into a parking spot and ice skated to class. Every year I tell myself I'll invest in some snow boots, and then I don't. Birkenstock clogs make for very wet heels. 

Brit lit was a pretty terrible experience, so I stopped in to Mellow Moods for the sweet nectar cure to a bad day--a berry buzz smoothie and a blueberry bagel--complete with a conversation with Phil, the owner. We talked about trains, organic farms and Shepherdstown's need for more sidewalks so I can ride my bike into town without risking my life. I told him he made me feel a lot better and he told me, "that's what Mellow Moods is all about," and I told him to stay safe in the snow. 

I found a new nook in the library, which remains a secret because I don't want any one stealing it the way they steal my other hiding spots. This spot comes equipped with its own outlets and such things, and it's darker than the rest of the library. Prime napping, indeed. 

During my women in arts and lit class, the entire class got the text that school should be closing immediately. At the end of the lecture, I slip-n-slid back home because the Lost Dog was closing early due to the weather. I did some homework and fell asleep early. 

No school today and I wouldn't have had it anyway. I'm pretty useless when it comes to snow. I blame it on my North Carolinian upbringing, even though I've been back in the mid-Atlantic region since I was 12. Luckily, my roommate purchased a shovel and boyfriend cleared off my car so I don't flip out trying to drive back to campus tomorrow. I've spent the day with the Lilliputians and need to start reading the pop cultural feminist blah blah criticism for my abstract due Tuesday. 

Oh, and did you know frozen chicken pot pies take an hour to cook? This better be good. 

If not, my roommate is making red velvet cupcakes! YUMMM! 

Are you bored? I'm done. Back to Lilliput! 

Oh, hey school.

Last week, I joined the 20-Something Blogger community (soyoushouldbemyfriendthereifyouaren'talready!) and was very excited. 

"Hooray!" I thought to myself, "A new chance to blog more, find new bloggers and help people find me!" 

So, what do I do? Neglect my few readers for about a week because of the stress excitement of starting classes and getting back to school. So, that's what this entry is going to be about. How stressed excited I am to be back at school taking twelve credits of English courses.

At first, I thought twelve credits would be nothing. To get out of college in four years is quite a feat, especially if you change your minor as much as I did, and to do so I averaged nineteen credits a semester for four years. Twelve, schmelve, I can handle that. 

Pause not. I'm very glad the English professor I spoke to about my course load this semester told me not to pile on that extra British literature class. I think she used the term death wish. 

I was a communications major. Our semesters started gradually and we only really started to get stressed at the end of the semester when we suddenly realized that we still only had fifteen computers for the entire department to do their final projects on. The semester leading up to editing in Final Cut while standing on your head and working in Dreamweaver with your toes was typically pretty simple. 

Apparently, English majors have it a bit more difficult. I guess that's because they assume you can read right off the bat. I rented a small fork lift to get my books out of the book store. Moll Flanders? You're due next Thursday. Weekly re-reads of favorite childhood classics are due weekly and I'm going to D.C. (Inauguration weekend? Good plan!) for my women in arts and lit class on Friday, missing my first quiz in into to lit study. This is going to get really interesting. 

Luckily for me, I'm addicted fond of caffeine and my ability to all-nighter it up seems to be creeping back to me slowly. I didn't take a sub job today so I can settle myself and not feel like I've been run over by a Mack truck full of syllabi. Syllabusses? Being hit by a sylla-bus?! Awesome.

I promise, I won't write a review of Moll Flanders or require you to participate in any more of my scholastic horrors. (Or any more of my puns...maybe...) I just needed to pop in and explain why I have sucked at blogging in this past week and shamelessly promote myself as a new member to the 20-Something Blogger community. 

Now. Back to British prostitutes.