I, Detective

Half Price Trip

Generally I can find a good book or two for the kinder class at work cheap at Half Price. Last week, however, I really hit the jackpot -- all the textbooks for my Latin class (college) for under $40, plus I found three Fisher Price Learning Fun books in the $1 bin. I actually grabbed Preschool I & II and a Kindergarten-level one, and I want to start working them in next week. They're bilingual, which is great -- last year I tried adding in some Spanish vocabulary at the end of lessons, but a 45-minute class time is not enough to do that on top of everything else. Instead, I'm going to try using numbers and some words every now and then with the lesson. Living in Texas, I think all the kids should know at least a little of the language, and it seems like some of them are already learning it at school.

I'm also doing the teen homework time pretty much every day now, which means finding worksheets for them, too. My boss gave me some Language Arts, Analogies, and Math Practice books, which seem to be working well so far. I'm considering throwing in some checkbook sheets, although I don't know if they'll actually need to know how to write checks (I'm biased; I write checks for everything.

In non-work-related news, I went to the mall the other day (not a big deal unless you realize I hadn't been to one in ages). I got new shoes (black, to make a change from the three pairs of Converse I own) and my brother's birthday present. I'm not going to post it here until after his party, but I do think it's really cool. No props to the sales clerk and the manager of the Discovery Channel Store who, despite being surrounded by gizmos and gadgets of every shape and size (I want one of these!), couldn't come up with a good recommendation for a 16-year-old boy.

Sarah and I spent yesterday catching up on "Season 1" of Doctor Who -- I didn't start watching regularly until David Tennant showed up, and I realized that we missed a lot. As much as I enjoy watching Tennant, Season 1 has some really good episodes; for example, the Charles Dickens Episode was a lot of fun for me.

Assuming Vulcan has the next dvd, I can finish watching the season today, before school/work start again.

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ETA: Didn't go to Vulcan OR grocery shopping today. My grandmother called to forbid me from going out in this weather (hehe), and then when I did go check on the car later it had ice all over it, and the lock was frozen shut. With his phone inside. The up side is that school's probably going to be cancelled tomorrow for me.

Also, I have to call my grandfather/dad and thank them for teaching me how to open deadbolts with credit cards (they both claim credit). Sarah locked herself out in the cold today and I totally got her back in in under a minute with my CVS card.

EPD Estela Ernestina (Estella López) Alvarez Barrero. Nació en Manzanillo, Cuba noviembre 11 de 1908 y murió en Anaheim, California enero 10 del 2007. Le sobreviven su hijo Leonardo, su nuera Carmen y sus nietos Leo, Carmen D. y Ron con sus respectivas familias. Condolencias para todo sus familiares y amistades alrededor del mundo.

El cuerpo de Estella será expuesto en la capilla del Fairhaven Memorial Park del condado de Orange de 4 a 8pm el miércoles 17 de enero y el entierro en el cementerio del mismo lugar a las 2:30 pm del día siguiente.

Rest in Peace Estela Ernestina (Estella Lopez) Alvarez Barrero. Born in Manzanillo, Cuba, November 11th, 1908 and died in Anaheim, California January 10th, 2007. She is survived by her son Leonardo, her daughter-in-law Carmen, and her granddaughter Carmen D. and grandsons Leo and Ron with their respective families. Condolences to all her family and friends around the world.

Estela's body will be shown in Fairhaven Memorial Park in Orange County on Wednesday the 17th of January, and interred in the cemetery of the same place at 2:30pm the next day.


(feel free to correct my Spanish if need be)

For Jyan

In the Relative Merits Debate:

Hugh Laurie
- House, M.D.
- Flight of the Phoenix
- Stuart Little
- The Piano Tuner
- Carnivale
- Blackadder
- The Man in the Iron Mask
- The Borrowers
- Sense and Sensibility
- A Bit of Fry and Laurie
- Jeeves and Wooster
- The Adventures of Mole


John C. McGinley
- Are We Done Yet?
- Scrubs
- Puff, Puff, Pass
- A.W.O.L
- Kim Possible
- Spider-Man
- Stealing Harvard
- Office Space
- The Rock
- Born on the Fourth of July
- Platoon
- Sweet Liberty

hint: Hugh Laurie wins

New Year's Resolutions for Work

Since I didn't post any personal ones, resolutions for work:

- Get back into doing a thematic movie day once every other week or so
- More hands-on activities, fewer worksheets
- Figure out a way to engourage more reading
- Figure out a better way to keep track of class "points"

Watching The Stand with whats'-his-face-who's-always-on-the-scifi-channel. Stephen King needs to not do parts in his own movies. This is pretty bad, but for some reason I can't stop watching.

And I just realized I go back to work next week -- to start it off, there's a planning meeting Monday morning, yay.

Things are going really well, though; got all my Latin textbooks for less than half price, found a bunch of DVDs at Vulcan I'd been looking for to rent (especially Sherlock Hound), and have today off to not do much of anything. Except finishing my thank-you cards; I got mosst of them done in one fell swoop, and I've been kind of slacking since then. Boo me.

School starts on the 16th! My very first class is at 8am. Whooooo.

Saddam and Storm Warnings

Doing laundry is actually less fun when it's raining with lightning outside. Poo.

I'm taking a break from cleaning my place to watch CNN's coverage of Saddam's pending execution. I'm torn between following the story (it is news in the making) and switching over to Cartoon Network because I'm so squicked by the whole affair (I fully accept that he's a murdering dictator, but the thought of hanging turns my stomach).

EDIT: CNN is running a "tour" of the chamber where Saddam will be hung, complete with a play-by-play of what will probably happen -- complete with model skeleton to show how his spinal cord will be severed.

"The next thing is the compression of the major vessels that supply blood to the brain [. . .] At three minutes, the brain will be dead from lack of oxygen [. . .] When the brain runs out of oxygen, the person will be declared dead, although the heart may continue to beat."

WHY?

Update

Turns out, Borders.com is having a huge sale. With my $25 gift card, I got

The Beauty Myth

The Working Woman's Legal Survival Guide

Teachers Have It Easy: The Big Sacrifices and Small Salaries of Our Children's Teachers

Grand total, I have $23 left in gift cards to spend. Yay!

Also, my grandfather got the complete Mission Impossible (TV show) boxed set for Christmas. It's pretty great.

Weekend fun

Today was fun -- went to breakfast and out shopping with the family; I even got to distract my brother while mom and dad got his gift!

The weekend challenge on the Puzzle Pirates forum is to caption a few "cartoons" drawn by other PP members. I've submitted two, but this one's my favorite (ignore the typo; we're not allowed to edit it once submitted):

Oops.

Did I say "I'll update soon?" Because by "soon" I must have meant the obscure Middle English meaning "much, much later."

Anywhich, almost as soon as I got back from the house things got busy, so now it's time for a nice long update. Yay for me. It will be in list form, viz.:

Things I've Done in the Past Week:

1. Latin tutoring - I met with the girl on Sunday, and am pleased to announce that she's doing pretty well for having been a whole year behind on the language not too long ago. All my doing, of course :-P
2. Taught kinder kids about the Solar System. Last week and next week's theme is Astronomy; I'm still debating whether or not to include Pluto, given that the poster we're using lists it.
3. Bought a book of crosswords. To make it even more interesting (I stink at crosswords), it's a book of Latin crosswords. I'm five in at the moment and haven't managed to complete a full one without looking at the answer key at least once. Fun, though.
4. Watched Doctor Who. The Satan Pit was on last night, and it was teh greatness. Because only The Doctor can be five feet away from Satan and not notice right away.
5. Watched Van Helsing. I'm actually currently watching it right now. Dad was right. It blows. Even the dramatic rescue swing from the rafters is done in horiffic CG.
6. Started my most final of final papers I have to write this semester. That's right, after this one (due Tues.), I have no more papers to write until next semester. This one is, of course, a three-page proposal on how I would design a project to study the effects of the Peloponnesian War on Athenian art.
7. Decided on my Halloween costume for next year.

Kiwi

Alright, you all know I love kiwis. So, when I saw the YouTube video named "Kiwi!," I had to watch it.

And, yeah. It's AWESOME. Go see.

Afterwards (it contains spoilers), you can go see the interview with the creator.

Free Comics!

Man, Thursday and Friday went by reeeally slowly, and then the weekend just whizzed on by. Typical.

Thursday we had the Halloween Festival for the residents at work. It added an extra hour and a half to my work hours, but I had a lot of fun. I did face painting with a woman from one of the other centers, and halfway through the Festival we had a line of kids literally out the door. Awesome. The other woman wound up doing all the "girly" designs, like hearts and flowers and rainbows, but I got the fun designs: skull and crossbones, dragons, ghosts, and for some reason broken hearts.

The party was awesome - Ivy brought Evil Dead II and an Italian zombie movie, and my brother brought Army of Darkness. I have polaroid photos tacked around the door to my bathroom, and I may just leave them up until the next party -- I'm planning something for before Christmas next month. Fun theme ideas, anyone?

Links to see:

Hellboy comics free on the web!