(no subject)
Ah, what a ride of a three weeks. School was naturally tumultuous; lots going on, with students slowly but surely losing their motivation to do anything. I gave my classes a good gift on the last day; after a short lecture (about 40 minutes or so) I showed them a few Strong Bad emails and treated them to a Decemberween presentation. (If you don't know what I'm talking about, go to homestarrunner.com. You'll see what I mean.) The Astronomy class watched 'Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy' and were able to comment that the astrophysical ideas are complete crap. It was a fun day.
Then, things got really busy. We had most of our Christmas shopping done on my birthday (another snowday; Happy Birthday to Me was playing in my mind the whole time), so we basically took the time to clean house, call people, and dub around.
Christmas was okay this year. I got much more than I wanted on my wishlist, and it's been working out that way for several years now, since I hardly put anything on there. Shannon really only wanted a blue Red Sox hoodie this year, but I couldn't find one, so I got her a Dustin Pedroia jersey instead. In the pile of stuff that I didn't ask for (but was very grateful for nonetheless) was:
One (1) 12-pack of Guinness;
Two (2) iTunes gift cards, totaling $45, with which I bought:
--Sam's Town, by The Killers;
--The Hard and the Easy, by Great Big Sea;
--Icky Thump, by The White Stripes;
--Pac-Man.
One (1) Seattle Mariners baseball cap (for our next trip out to Seattle), sized 7 3/4;
One (1) set of four Guinness pint glasses (I think my relatives think I'm an alcoholic, but I just like beer);
One (1) set of six Pilsner glasses;
One (1) iPod alarm clock;
One hundred and fifty (150) dollars from Shannon's grandparents for towels (or ezPasses, which is what we actually used them for);
Six (6) Maine Lottery scratch tickets, winning me $22;
One (1) nice set of pens.
So, that part of Christmas was okay, although I insisted that nobody had to go to those lengths for my gifts. I'd have been happy with the two iTunes cards, but that's another matter. I felt pretty good about Christmas this year until something ruffled my feathers the wrong way. Shannon's brother took into his own hands the role of jerk-for-the-day when he took one of our nephew's presents (the nephew is one, by the way), played with it before he got a chance to do so, and broke it (I think it was a truck with a kinetic engine). He spent the rest of the day quickly and curtly opening his presents and throwing them away (not trashing them, but getting rid of them) in favor of going back to try to fix the broken truck, and decided to cap his tirade by letting their dog (one who is insanely jealous of the two boys whenever they're around) into the house and pissing their mother off.
It was enough to send me off the deep end, and it did...about 45 minutes later when Shannon and I were in the car. I kinda took it out on her, mostly because she's silent about it and I hate it. However, I have this immense character flaw that comes with being an older sibling: I always feel the need to fix things, particularly other people's problems, and I don't like to back off when the fight is inevitably un-win-able. Therefore, I took the incident out on Shannon when I shouldn't have, and that kinda made things tense for a while. I intend to make up for it today by getting Shannon's Red Sox hoodie (I figure if Shannon's going to be a Red Sox fan, she has to do it right) and cleaning the house (which hasn't been done since before Christmas).
Shannon and I were stressed out about not only that, but also about having to run around to four different places and see tons of people, but we dealt, and things were going pretty smoothly, for the most part, save for the jerky nature of our transitions and for her brother's testosterone-based pouting and flailing. Shannon also is very allergic to cats, so we had to make quick exits from my father's house and my grandparents' house before she died of suffocation. We stuck around at Shannon's sister's at the end of the day, playing our PS2 and Scattergories until we went home. That was a nice wind-down.
Now, it's December 28th. We're over the Christmas euphoria, Shannon's back to work, and I'm finding other ways to occupy my break. Yesterday, I helped my sister, brother-in-law, and nephew move out of their place into base housing in Brunswick, which involved me renting a U-Haul for the first time (rides like a van, my ass!). I need to grade papers today, clean house, get dinner ready for when Shannon comes home, and call my sister to find out if they're going rug shopping today and if they want me to join them. I went swimming for the first time in a month, and I am hopefully going to continue to do that every day as I once did. School starts again on January 2nd, and mid-terms are coming up soon, so I also have to go down to the wood shop of another of the physics teachers and help to build some of our mid-term apparatuses (long story). I have a ton on my plate, but for some reason, I don't even feel the slightest rush about it. It feels good not to rush.
Well, I'm off to Olympia Sports next door. That hoodie's not going to go home on its own. :)
Then, things got really busy. We had most of our Christmas shopping done on my birthday (another snowday; Happy Birthday to Me was playing in my mind the whole time), so we basically took the time to clean house, call people, and dub around.
Christmas was okay this year. I got much more than I wanted on my wishlist, and it's been working out that way for several years now, since I hardly put anything on there. Shannon really only wanted a blue Red Sox hoodie this year, but I couldn't find one, so I got her a Dustin Pedroia jersey instead. In the pile of stuff that I didn't ask for (but was very grateful for nonetheless) was:
One (1) 12-pack of Guinness;
Two (2) iTunes gift cards, totaling $45, with which I bought:
--Sam's Town, by The Killers;
--The Hard and the Easy, by Great Big Sea;
--Icky Thump, by The White Stripes;
--Pac-Man.
One (1) Seattle Mariners baseball cap (for our next trip out to Seattle), sized 7 3/4;
One (1) set of four Guinness pint glasses (I think my relatives think I'm an alcoholic, but I just like beer);
One (1) set of six Pilsner glasses;
One (1) iPod alarm clock;
One hundred and fifty (150) dollars from Shannon's grandparents for towels (or ezPasses, which is what we actually used them for);
Six (6) Maine Lottery scratch tickets, winning me $22;
One (1) nice set of pens.
So, that part of Christmas was okay, although I insisted that nobody had to go to those lengths for my gifts. I'd have been happy with the two iTunes cards, but that's another matter. I felt pretty good about Christmas this year until something ruffled my feathers the wrong way. Shannon's brother took into his own hands the role of jerk-for-the-day when he took one of our nephew's presents (the nephew is one, by the way), played with it before he got a chance to do so, and broke it (I think it was a truck with a kinetic engine). He spent the rest of the day quickly and curtly opening his presents and throwing them away (not trashing them, but getting rid of them) in favor of going back to try to fix the broken truck, and decided to cap his tirade by letting their dog (one who is insanely jealous of the two boys whenever they're around) into the house and pissing their mother off.
It was enough to send me off the deep end, and it did...about 45 minutes later when Shannon and I were in the car. I kinda took it out on her, mostly because she's silent about it and I hate it. However, I have this immense character flaw that comes with being an older sibling: I always feel the need to fix things, particularly other people's problems, and I don't like to back off when the fight is inevitably un-win-able. Therefore, I took the incident out on Shannon when I shouldn't have, and that kinda made things tense for a while. I intend to make up for it today by getting Shannon's Red Sox hoodie (I figure if Shannon's going to be a Red Sox fan, she has to do it right) and cleaning the house (which hasn't been done since before Christmas).
Shannon and I were stressed out about not only that, but also about having to run around to four different places and see tons of people, but we dealt, and things were going pretty smoothly, for the most part, save for the jerky nature of our transitions and for her brother's testosterone-based pouting and flailing. Shannon also is very allergic to cats, so we had to make quick exits from my father's house and my grandparents' house before she died of suffocation. We stuck around at Shannon's sister's at the end of the day, playing our PS2 and Scattergories until we went home. That was a nice wind-down.
Now, it's December 28th. We're over the Christmas euphoria, Shannon's back to work, and I'm finding other ways to occupy my break. Yesterday, I helped my sister, brother-in-law, and nephew move out of their place into base housing in Brunswick, which involved me renting a U-Haul for the first time (rides like a van, my ass!). I need to grade papers today, clean house, get dinner ready for when Shannon comes home, and call my sister to find out if they're going rug shopping today and if they want me to join them. I went swimming for the first time in a month, and I am hopefully going to continue to do that every day as I once did. School starts again on January 2nd, and mid-terms are coming up soon, so I also have to go down to the wood shop of another of the physics teachers and help to build some of our mid-term apparatuses (long story). I have a ton on my plate, but for some reason, I don't even feel the slightest rush about it. It feels good not to rush.
Well, I'm off to Olympia Sports next door. That hoodie's not going to go home on its own. :)