ok so this is where,

i totally think, wait, what did i agree to? why am i here? wait, oh god, for a year? shit, really? god, that's long. it's the downside of being able to spend the morning staring at the ocean- which is at the moment terminally angry, aggressive and relentless. fun to watch until you start to fear it. you fear the wind beating at your windows all night, and the snow that is wisping everything white. who wants to go out there? i don't. please don't make me go out there. that's how i woke up. a sort of false dread and the weather antagonizing me, howling at me over the bleak churning ocean. public schools apparently were cancelled but we weren't. whatever. and this is where i get the contagion that 1/2 of everyone has and i get sick of the flux of the environment- of that dude leaving, of those other 2going just yesterday (to work in australia/to have a baby), and those 3 others with the cold. that leaves only 2 more and i never see them but for 20min in the breakroom and they're the korean teachers. and the constant, do you have a full schedule? as the sick teachers all eye me as an easy fix and i'm saying not yet! not yet! and sg gets impatient- lucky she's intuitive when i suddenly got that wounded look across my face when she suggested that a. the curriculum was straight fwd and easy... and im thinking i'm still martialing my forces up the hill. give me a fucking break. as according to her previously i would have plenty of time. 2 hours is plenty of time to design classes you've never taught before and do not have a giant bag of activities up your sleeve for, which will soon be alternating 5-8? at least, and we would take it easy until the dude leaves she said, but now with people coughing, aching and nauseous my newness is inconvinient and why dont i just get over it already because after all i am a natural born teacher, she is convinced, she knows. i secretly know to but i am slow, and i don't like rapid movement. perhaps i'm just a little seasick. that's probably it. she apologized for being direct? or something... when really it shouldve been maybe for setting up false expectations, and i said, there's just a lot of pressure and i want to do it right- she said, oh but those lesson plans if you sub the teachers are very clear-- when it all looks like cryptic goo to me- hhhSB pg38 lxwxrx2x4x5, flashcards, object,... seriously. oh right, phonics. oh,k. and vocabulary. right. ok. and let's not discuss the baitandswitch of 8-12 to now 6yr old kindie class that i have every-day. that one poor kid, he didn't even come back. now only after i don't know- 5 days i'm all TGIF. it's a little too soon. i'm not sure if it has to be such a frenetic environ or if i'm just so disturbed at the molecular level that i can only take so much agitating before bad reactions start ocurring? poss-iblee? oh well bedtime for me. tomorrow lessonplanning at home so im not all gah, leave me alone!at work, and hopefully snapping this coldBS right off my back. can't buhlieve it. cruel world. and then i'll be all oh, smiles, and goodjob! whoever youare, you poor confused little one. me too, little one. me too.

notes

1. Ever pensive, my mind has been *brewing* as of late, to the point of great distraction. You should see how packed my DVR is—between this new side jobby of mine and all the brewing, I haven’t even had time for all the crap I watch! My usual solution for peneloccupations is to blog about them, but frankly, I think these matters are a bit of a drag-down for the three existing blogs of Pen&M, LoCo, and Smartini. Too serious. I’m quite sure that if I started linking a bunch of articles on any of these blogs, y’all would very soon tune me out, and/or banish me from your blogrolls. So think of my fourth blog as yet another Thought Receptacle for Penelope. J.Lo (and possibly m) will have a fit about it, wondering how in the eff I’ll have the time, but I argue that I’m so consumed with this stuff anyway, this blog is my outlet for it. Put it out there and be done. Plus, who doesn’t want an even deeper look into the multi-faceted mind of penelope? So, please, if you’re interested, check it out and join the conversation. Or else I'll just speak to the void. Whichever...
   
2. As noted in the sidebar, I’m in love with our new set of jumbo coffee mugs. They’re big, can be used as soup and cereal bowls. We had about a million coffee cups already, but none this shape and size, and I ultimately justified the purchase by getting rid of some sincerely ugly ones. Mugs from J.Lo’s bachelor days. I was a tiny bit nervous I’d hurt his feelings by bringing my festering, five-year disdain of these mugs to light, but it turns out these mugs were purchased with… Marlboro Miles. I have no words.
3. I haven’t been doing Survivor Fridays, not because we’re not still obsessed with the show (clearly we are), but I just haven’t felt inspired. One of the tribes, named Fang, has to be one of the worst tribes in the history of Survivor, and it doesn’t seem to matter who’s on the tribe. They’ve switched it up a few times, and they.just.stink. One of the chicks (bitchy Corinne—cute, but can’t really stand her) even changed the pronunciation last episode from “Fong” to “Fang”… didn’t help.
4. I heart Mario Kart for the Wii. I haven’t really played video games for years, not since the days of the old Nintendo. I’m pretty terrible, but it’s a fun, mindless buzz nonetheless.
5. The side jobby: It’s also thrown me for a loop. I had a not-really-minor meltdown last week, just trying to sort out expectations. I work from home, drafting some (I’m learning, J.Lo is teaching) and doing some admin work. Right now there’s much more admin than drafting. Adding anything like this to one’s life is always an adjustment, and of course there’s always a learning curve. Anyway, I think I’m over it now. Still don’t know what I’m doing really but feel more comfortable with my direction, and my chosen method of muddling through.