josie

I love that.

Aww! Tarantulas are great and mostly harmless. The girl who sits next to me at work has a pet tarantula. She lives in a little terrarium thing on our desk, eats crickets, keeps to herself, and occasionally enjoys being allowed to walk around on our arms or whatever. She'll perch on our shoulders like a parrot and just hang out. Her name is Queen Gohma. Zelda fans, anyone? Oh, like the time I lived in an old house/apt downtown and woke up covered in baby spiders one night... Now THAT sucked. Little tikka tikka legs everywhere.... . Never again. You guys want terrifying spiders? Check out the harmless Huntsman of Australia. Or the bird eating Goliath Birdeater of Brazil. Now those are big boys. It's those little tiny brown recluses I'm terrified of.

He'd better not tell me. I'd be disappointed in him. All those fine ass men in the NHL and he chooses that one?

It feels good to be working on my freelance stuff again. Quite a lot to do in the next week or so before I feel confident enough to start applying places. Just want to be as up to date/as good as possible.

Dude. We need to rename you Wheaties.

Did a quick n messy Burnsie.

Lotta dry heave hail storms today, with the regularity of one suffering from the flu. It's sunny for this ten minutes, and I have run around the house opening blinds to catch every drop of sunlight. Had to bring in all the damn plants... they are beginning to look in a sorry state without good sun. Probably won't put them out again until tomorrow evening. I hope they survive- I put time and money into my little apartment balcony container garden each year.

update. Rode the horse. The trainer, a really accomplished guy, does everything the complete opposite of everything I've ever learned. I felt like a complete fool, was so embarrassed. Just finished off my week of failure. But. He had me ride one of the horses that knows western pleasure lope- a very very slow, stylized jog. And as soon as I switched horses, everything went well. My reining came together. He prefers you learn to do EVERYTHING with your legs and not even really use the reins. Which is super neat but reallllllly difficult. My legs are super damn sore today. And my body. You forget that riding a horse is a full body workout if you do it right.

hahaha that is adorable AND awesome. Ok, no joke, when several of my coworkers started having kids, they all got into Yo Gabba Gabba. And I have spent many days at work, happily letting a playlist of YGG music acts go. Bootsy Collins singing about going to parties, Of Montreal singing about brushing your teeth... Really quite enjoyable.

Tried to find a disgusted pic, well, ended up being sophomoric instead.

Maybe I did. You're right. Well, I could always get a new one if I had to haha

Oh. Wow. d4rk WOULD leave me for meat... Anyways, because everyone who came in today is disgusted with the bosses, we all said screw it and took the afternoon to go wander around and hit up coffee shops and enjoy the spring flowers. It's days like today I really like my coworkers, even if it's complete irony that we're enjoying the company because we're all miserable together. Got back and ... still no bosses! Cocktail revival night must've been GOOOOOOD.

It is fun. I acknowledge that. It's so goofy, if it comes on when I'm with friends, you best believe we all break it down. Especially a bunch of older dude hockey players. When it came out I wanted to rip my ears off because it was EVERYWHERE. That and Fergie's London Bridge and lady lumps my humps whatever. Woof. That album had some good stuff on it. Just very pop and not very No Doubt. And that's ok. Love them for their differences :)

Massive potluck at work today. There's some darn good cooks here, I will say. It's been general knowledge for awhile, a couple people smoked their own brisket/pork and brought it in. One of the girls made potstickers. I made baked ziti. All that and much more. And the bosses still aren't here because they're all at home hungover from drinking too hard last night. Shame. They're missing out.

It's been a staple to most of my playlists since I was about.... 11. Means something a little different to me every year or so. Goes well when paired with Trapped In a Box and general anxiety. Not sure I'll ever fully forgive her for that Hollaback Song, though.

My whole life. I've got the black belt, the catsuit, but not a tragic backstory.

Well, I usually let some of it slide. But when I say attendance, I mean they were not turning in projects or turning in half assed embarrassing crap. They were not providing inner dates that were required for grades. They were missing in class grading opportunities. Don't believe I just hand out A's like lollipops because someone showed up to every class but turned in . It's art school. If people want to pay 30k+ at RIT to go to art school and in their dorm room instead of haul their ass to class or send me progress and actually do the work, well, that's their choice. I don't have to give them an A for it, either. I've given good grades to kids who didn't come in that much- attendance is only 5% of their final grade. But I grade based off effort and progress, and none of those students showed effort, and none of them had progress. The kids who did show up??? Their work was consistently the best. Whether that's related or not, well, I'd have to graph it, but generally, it's always been the case in my classes. It's disrespectful to the professor, too. In a class as small as mine, it's hard not to take it personal. I don't have a big exam at the end of the semester where their knowledge could save their butt. I'd likely not give a crap about attendance in that case. And my classes are less rigorous than most of the other professors in this major. They could save the money, not go to school, stay home and self teach themselves how to paint digitally and be fine, but they CHOSE to be there at school, to have my guidance, and then blow it the off. Or their parents did or whatever. Also, there were 14 people in my class. Not like I had a lecture hall full of kids. It's very one on one. You don't show, you miss out. I go out of my way to make it not matter, but it sucks being blown off. I was disappointed that they didn't want to learn. You have to work at art. You can't just leave it till the 11th hour and suddenly turn out an A project IN A MEDIUM YOU'VE NEVER WORKED IN BEFORE. I gave them 6 hours a week to work and ask me a million questions and watch demos and do exercises. They didn't come in and then had the gall to tell me they "didn't have time" to do their work. Sorry sweetheart, I have no sympathy for you. Such a waste of talent. Such a waste. Be better off not being in school. I hope they figure it out soon, or the student loans won't be worth it. Good lord I'm ranting again. I'm just so mad. I work my butt off. I can't imagine NOT working my butt off. Students usually LIKE to work their butt off for me. It's a huge slap in the face.

Yeah. Just about. We rode maybe once a year after we started dating, so maybe it's more like 4 years. But still.. been a looong time.

Yessss

Rolled the wrong way in trapeze tonight and tangled myself severely. No, it is NOT fun to hang upside down from your kneecap with your neck stuck and a metal bar wedged into your thigh with ropes pulled so tight your brain is just solid alarm signals. Ugh. But uh, my lifts and control are improving significantly :/ And I get to go ride a horse for the first time in five years tomorrow!

bold 1- You have NO idea. Luckily I've never had it too bad, but I have asked trusted students/the interpreter to stay late with me because of strange behavior a few times. The sob stories. So, if they're true, most of my students are dying of rare diseases and have no grandmothers left. And their computers explode at every possible moment and delete the work that they "swear was done! i swear! it was great!" Saw this, it fits. yup. Second bold- Good LORD it makes me feel better to see someone else say this. What the heck was in the air this semester? Spring is always kinda bad but maaaan.

holy crap, what kind of porn sites are YOU cruisin'? Woof!

haha yeah, I definitely knew kids who left nasty reviews for great professors. It's usually the really happy or really angry ones who leave reviews. I've never had a bad review before- the big thing is "would you take the class again or recommend it to others", I've always had unanimous yesses. If that changed, and I wished to teach again, it could mean they don't hire me back for another semester. Negative reviews en masse means no job, no references, burnt bridges. My coworker taught a class and was so horrible that he got 100% "would not take again" and multiple comments saying how little they learned. Never was asked to teach again, earned him a bad rep, too. Bad opinions spread like wildfire among college people. I asked for feedback. I always get the comment "wish she'd be harder on problem students", but other than that, it's usually just asking for more demos or emphasis on something different and nice comments/praise. So I guess we'll see this time. My former prof (a well liked guy) told me that when reading the student/prof evals, to have "a good beer and a box of tissues" ready to get through it. I'm dreading them this time.

Had to make a negative speech in our final class yesterday. I've never had to do it before, but there was a massive attendance problem throughout the semester, the worst I've ever had. Final crit. Literally half the class showed up 25 minutes late. Strengthened my resolve to say something, non confrontational nerve basket that I am. Talked about effort and interest. I offer full revisions until the end of the semester (next wednesday), no penalty. Not ONE student has taken advantage, and this has been my lowest scoring class. Interest- I told them to contact me/professor evaluation if there's a reason they weren't coming to class. Made some real world analogies as well. Several of my students came up after class and told me that the kids who never showed up also never show up in their other classes, that I was just unlucky in getting 8 of them in the same class. Some of the ones the speech was directed at came up and apologized and promised to do revisions. So in the end, I don't think it was entirely me, but man. This semester was hard for me. I'm very proud of a few of them, and very disappointed in the rest. I don't enjoy feeling that way. I'm used to making a difference- I feel like I failed half these kids. I can only hope that my speech lit a lightbulb for at least one of them. Having such a dismal session at least makes moving to Buffalo and giving up teaching a little easier, I guess. I'm glad I got the balls to say something, though it was probably too little too late and may negatively affect my prof reviews. I asked for it I guess.

Oh, I've got buttloads of car pics. I've been going to car shows since before I could walk- and I have a whole series of Carter Powell Looking at Things at Car Shows. It's extensive. I'll post more at some point!