Is that you, Jabba?

What is that thing in our living room?

Silly putty?

Jabba the Hutt?

We're not even big Star Wars fans.

Merry Christmas Eve!

The first weekend of December, Tyler and I went to Vegas. It was a pretty last-minute trip and considering that I had 90 papers to grade that weekend, it may not have been the wisest of decisions. Still, we had a blast and I finally got to see a Cirque du Soleil show. Ka was amazing and had the most incredible stagecraft I've ever seen.

We even got to see the MGM lions being active for once. They came up so close!

We spent most of our time just walking around the casinos and checking out all of the great Christmas decorations. Bellagio is always my favorite.

Last night we went to Zoolights at the Phoenix Zoo and almost all of our pictures came out something like this:

Then there were Komodo dragons, my childhood animal obsession.

Now I'm off to get ready for the next two days of Christmas family gatherings,

church, presents, and too much food.

Merry Christmas!

Edit: Oh yeah, I graduated. :)

Playing with Pixton

Today I went to a conference about after school programs and the first workshop session that I went to was really informative. I learned about all sorts of new, cool, free web-based tools that I'll be able to use with my students (maybe even my freshman this semester). I started playing around with pixton.com, a website for making comics. It's so easy to use that I might have my students make comics for our Greek mythology unit...

Snow snow snow...

This is a video from one of my first times snowboarding last year.

I am really looking forward to going again this winter.

Hopefully toe side will start coming a bit more naturally this time around.

Halloween meets Christmas

Aside from eating ungodly amounts of candy corn and discounted chocolate, the only Halloween tradition we partook in this year was pumpkin carving... and this is what we have to show for it.

I present you with Jack the Pumpkin King, glowing hot pink.

Lucky

I'm lucky that all it takes to cheer me up is a hummingbird.

Etymology & Entomology

Me: Okay, so I'm starting class with etymologies--

Tyler: Entomologies!

Me: No. Etymologies.

Tyler: But you probably accidentally say entomologies sometimes.

Me: No. I don't, because it's et-y-mol-o-gies.

Tyler: Entomology. The study of Entenmann's.

HP 7

26 days...

I remember the first time I saw the trailer for the very first Harry Potter movie. It gave me chills and even now, nine years later, I still get chills and grin from ear to ear like my 13-year-old self.

The circle of lif-- er, hair.

My thesis

This is what my last three months of work look like.
Hundreds of pages of scribbled drafts. So many trees.
Just a few more things to tweak and then it will be over.
I'll finally be finished researching
censorship and its connections to African-American literature and high school students.
Yay!

My afternoon

My afternoon consisted of

dishes (without the luxury of a dishwasher),
candy corn,
and Amelie.

And I've spent the better part of this week looking up pictures online of short haircuts.
I love the haircut I got back in August, but it's growing and getting puffier every day, so the time has come to cut out the rest of my leftover perm from last December.
I have a hair appointment for Friday morning. I'll probably go back and forth between a short bob and a pixie cut about a million times before Friday, picking whichever one happens to be in my mental rotation once I get to the salon.

Camping

Our family went on an awesome camping trip last weekend,
but I think it would have been even more awesome if we'd slept in a tent like this.

We still had an amazing time celebrating Mimi's 75th birthday all together.

Hair. Again.

Finally cut my hair! Haven't taken a picture of it yet, but it turned out something like Marion Cotillard's in Inception but lighter brown. It didn't turn out exactly how I expected, but I'm pleased. It's just hair, right??

Awkward Family Photos

I'm seriously considering sending one of these pictures of my siblings and me to awkwardfamilyphotos.com.

Seaworld circa 1997 (click the photo to magnify the awkwardness)

I'm not sure why my baby brother looks so ticked off...
Maybe he wanted to be on the bigger Shamu?
Separation anxiety from my grandma's candy bag?
Was he too short for one of the park's rides?
I guess we'll never know.

That time of year.

It may or may not be time for me to cut my hair...
I saw Dinner for Schmucks (which was awful) and the actress in it had the most adorable haircut. She's the last picture, Stephanie Szostak. I've been thinking about cutting my hair for awhile now and I think it's time to take the plunge. I've found that I look more mature with short hair, so maybe that will be good for my student teaching coming up next week. Now for how short I'll go...

Up

I think that Up is my favorite first twenty minutes of a movie ever. The rest of the film is great too, but the beginning is so strong. With its gorgeous colors and a score that sounds like it's made to come out of a music box, the movie always brings a grin to my face and tears to my eyes. Inspiring.

A late thank you note.

Thank you Harry Potter for
helping me appreciate the anticipation of a new book,
showing me that with a bit of persistence, I can get through an entire 800-page book in one day,
being there for me when the "hard" literature gets me down,
and for entertaining me via audiotape on my commute to work.

With the series over for three years now, I've been looking forward to seeing Deathly Hallows brought to life... but at the same time, I'm sad that I won't have the movies to look forward to anymore.

I guess the next step after the movies would be to go to the Wizarding World of Harry Potter in Florida... but then what?

Read all of the books in French? Start reading fan fiction? Start writing fan fiction? Yikes.

Happy Birthday Tyler!

Happy Birthday Tyler!
I made these cupcakes today for the birthday boy since they're his favorite cartoon character.
Great success. :) Love you babe.