wii. my thoughts

spiritual gifts test

we have been doing spiritual gifts tests this week in 8th grade. it has been really interesting to see the students fill them out. looking at some of the results as we went along was kind of cool because i got to see some of the students realize things about themselves for the first time. some of the students are realizing that they havent given any thought to what they are called to and what they excell at, while other students are figuring out the focus they always had.
one of my students came up to me after class while we were filling out the test and said 'am i doing this wrong? i seem to be getting really high numbers in a lot of these categories. is that right?' it was funny to me because it was absolutely right. hes just starting to realize how blessed he is by God. this guy loves to serve, hes an amazing leader, he constantly encourages, and he is passionate about scriptures and prayer. the only thing hes missing is pride. not too bad, huh? seeing his response to this test has been cool because hes gaining some self confidence and is realizing what God is calling him to. there are quite a few other kids who are begining to understand and figure out how to put their gifts to use.
its great to see these kids begin to step out and own their faith, it makes it all worth it!

sick. but funny.

i was talking to a friend last night about how much we like pets. she has a cat and loves it but sometimes gets sick of it. we started talking about if i have ever thought about getting a dog. i said that i would love to, in fact, i really want a dog. the big problem for me though is the committment end of it. not that i have any fear of committment, i just travel around a bit on the weekends, and would get really sick of trying to find a place for it every time i needed to go away.
as we talked about it more i also said "one of the biggest things keeping me from getting a dog is the fact that its not just a committement for now, but actually for ten to fifteen years!"
she said "thats true..."
"i could easily do it if it meant for just a year or two" i told her
"maybe you should get a 14 year old dog then!" she laughed
i said "but its when they are puppies that they are the best, i dont want someone elses old dog." its at this point that i came up with one of the sickest, most depraived suggestions ever as a solution: "i know, what i really want is a puppy with cancer!!!"

lawn work

wow, i really hate lawn work. i, unfortunately, spend most of my saturday doing lawn work. sure, it would have been a lot easier if i had actually not procrastinated and instead mowed the lawn a week ago. but no, i decide to wait until the grass is about as tall as king kong before i finally cave in and mow.
i started off putting the bag on to catch the grass. that didnt last long. instead i ended up going over everything twice (there by taking longer, and making me hate it more).
as i was mowing i decided to make a few changes to my back yard. first, i guess for some reason the old residents thought they could grow a garden in the back. so, i ripped out the 'rabbit keep away' fence and junk. second, i figured i would get rid of the fire pit my other old resident decided to put in. i didnt mind having it, but ive never used it, and im not so sure about its legality. so out it went.
after taking far too long and making me far too annoyed, i finished up the lawn. the problem is i know that beast will reer its ugly head again way too soon.

finally!

phew! this has been a very hectic couple of weeks! i have been keeping way too busy these past two weeks (well, except for the good friday vacation day...) i have been swamped with extra activities that took a lot of extra time and effort (two things im not used to). last week i had to plan and coordinate the easter chapel for school. i plan most chapels at school, but this one was for all the grades, so it has to be 'extra special'. it was alot of details that needed to be taken care of- kids needed to practice skit, we needed a set, helpers to work the set, people to set up, a power point slide show for the songs and graphics, etc. it went over well, so i guess its all worth it right? also, yesterday our school had an extra fundraiser and i was tapped to take care of the decoraions for it. sounds easy, but i really hate using cheesy decorations you can buy in stores. i typically prefer to make them myself. which takes alot more time and alot more stress... but that was last night, so thats out of the way too! the other thing that has been looming over my head was redoing my bathroom. i had started last weekend and i finally got it done this weekend (well, i still need to install the new door knob). also i had a bunch of friends over monday night so i wanted it finished and the place cleaned up as well.
but now all that is taken care of. now i can sit back and relax. at least until the next stressful event shows up.

good friday

It was now about the sixth hour, and darkness came over the whole land until the ninth hour, for the sun stopped shining. And the curtain of the temple was torn in two. Jesus called out with a loud voice, "Father, into your hands I commit my spirit." When he had said this, he breathed his last.
when the centurion, who stood there in front of Jesus, heard his cry and saw how he died, he said, "Surely this man was the Son of God!"
Luke 23:44-46, Mark 15:39.

this weekend

im not entirely sure what i have up this weekend. my folks first said they wanted to come down with my sis, bro-in-law, and the kids. but i guess tim has a lot of work to do, so he cant afford the time off, so he cant come. my sis then says maybe she should stay home with the kids then, my dad then says he doesnt see the point in coming down just the two of them, and my mom wants to go to their church for easter. so maybe they wont come down. or maybe they will. so, my weekend is still rather undecided at this point. if they come down it will be alot of fun, but if they dont maybe i can actually get caught up on my school work and other projects. either way im sure it will be a busy weekend!

gameworks

another fun thing about the trip up to minneapolis was going to a place called 'gameworks'. its a big video arcade for adults (i dont mean 'adults' as in bad stuff, i mean an arcade with a bar in it). the place was big and they had a lot of games to play (most of them were sega games, but i tried not to complain too much...) with tons of driving sims and stuff. we had some coupons so we got to play 10 or 15 games for only five bucks each!
they even had ski ball! certainly one of my favorites, and, as i guess is manditory, that game gives out tickets that you can trade in for crappy stuff. at one point while we were playing, robbs ski ball machine decided that he had won it all and just started spitting out the tickets! and then it kept going. and going. and going. eventually the machine emptied out and robb got about 350 tickets when he should have only gotten about 8! the only problem was this: even with 350 tickets all you can get is crap! so, we figured we would be nice and we found a young kid who was there and we gave them all to her.
after a while we got bored and we headed over to coldstone for ice cream, which is always top of the line!

ps. the next day we heard on the news that someone was shot and killed on the street corner in front of gameworks about 20 minutes after we left. yikes.

fixin up the place

it was a really busy weekend, even though i didnt do much at all. go figure. saturday i spent most of the day repainting my bathroom. i painted my bathroom just a year or two ago, but i did a really poor job of it. i didnt repaint the ceiling or trim, i had alot of paint spots on the ceiling, and i didnt sand very well before i started. also, the color was horrible! bear in mind that when i picked it it looked good on the paint card... let me help you imagine what it looked like: take mint chocolate chip ice cream color, then add pee. im surprised i waited this long to repaint!
the color i got now is a lot darker green and actually looks good. now i have to find all the other bathroom stuff to match it. or maybe ill just pace myself. it took two years to paint, why rush the process now?

march madness- no wait, march craziness!

my life lesson for this week has been this: you dont have to know a dang thing about sports to guess who will win. a few weeks ago one of the teachers offered the students and the rest of us a chance to fill in an ncaa bracket. she would keep track of who was doing well and give the winner a prize. on a whim i decided to fill one in. now, keep in mind that i know nothing about college basketball. in fact, the only reason i know much about basketball at all is because when i lived in utah they would pay us to do the score board at games (and on that salary, i needed all the help i could get...)
anyway, i filled in a bracket and figured i would really embarass myself. not knowing any of the teams, i just picked based on whatever i wanted to. for example, i thought the name villinova was stupid, so i had them loose quickly (ranked number one or not, thats a stupid name for a school!) miraculously i did really good- i had ucla going all the way. i even managed to beat every other person who filled in a bracket!
the moral of the story is this: dumb guesses are sometimes better than informed opinions. i guess...

consecutive numbers day

happy consecutive numbers day! dont forget to celebrate at exactly 1:02:03 04/05/06!

crunch crunch crunch!

i am a collector. i like to collect stuff. among my interests are such collections as comic books, rocks, cds, dvds, toys, etc. one of the silliest things i collect are pressed pennies. have you ever seen one of those penny cruncher machines? they usually have them at touristy type places. you put in a penny and fifty cents and you turn the crank and out comes a penny with an imprint of the image on the machine. stupid, i know. but for some reason i think they are totally cool. it all started years ago when my buddies and i went to disney world. we were there and we spotted one of these penny crunchers. i was enamored! we laughed at it for a while, then i decided i would give it a shot. i really dug it, and have gotten one every time i see one of those cruncher machines. i think ive got quite a few crunched pennies by now. i know, im a loser. ive made peace with that long ago...

skywalking

this past weekend i went up to minnisota to visit a few old college friends. i headed up on thursday and stayed until sunday. on friday robb had to go to work and tracey had to go to work stuff too, so i was on my own for the day. it was alot of fun, i had no idea where i was, and i had tons of time to waste. so, i decided to drive downtown minneapolis and see what there is to see. for a while there i was the driver that everyone hates- i had no idea where i was going so i drove extra slow. i rationalized it to myself by saying 'its ok, i have out of state plates...'
i ended up parking and checking out the skywalk. for those unfamiliar (which was me before i discovered it), the skywalk is this cool collection of shops, stores, department stores, and restaurants that are downtown. but the catch is that all of it is on the second story of the buildings! there are tons of crosswalks going from building to building over the streets. its really fun and a totally confusing crazy maze. i got lost for a couple hours in there!
miraculously, i found my way back to my car and back to robbs place.

junk mail tally

i deceided to do a little experiment this past week. i have an email account through yahoo, and i wanted to see just how much spam email i would get over the course of my spring break. i did check my email over break, but i decided not to empty out my bulk mail folder. it turns out that over the course of 9 days i received a total of 351 emails of spam in my bulk mail folder! wow, i didnt expect it to be that high! im not really annoyed by spam mail, since it has its own folder, but that is just plain rediculous! maybe ill let it keep going and see how much i get over the course of a full month...

car problems?

it happens every time, doesnt it? my car has been acting up again, so i figured i should bring it in. today i get a call from the car place and they say 'i dont know what your talking about, it seems fine to us.' arg. why is it that things only go wrong when no one else is watching? i was having some issues with my power stearing and my heater, but of course it was just fine and dandy when they looked at it.
i guess i shouldnt be mad, after all, its better than if it were majorly broken and it costed a ton of money. at least i feel safe for my road trip on thursday.

just a quick heads up

ive recently added another page to the 'poke it with a stick' family. its a place for me to collect odd thoughts, questions, or jokes i like. pretty random stuff really. its right over there -----> along with my other pages under the 'poke it with a stick contents' section. check it out!

spring break!

ah, i love this feeling! its spring break and i get a week off of work! remeber that feeling of sheer joy you always felt when you were in middle school and it was time for spring break? well, i get to have that feeling every year for the rest of my life! this rocks! how do i plan on spending my break? wasting it!!! actually, im going home to michigan this weekend to see family and friends, and then to minneapolis for the second weekend to see robb and tracey and some other old college friends. its going to be a great week, i just know it!

the new kid

today in 7th grade we got a new student. its strange that we would get a new student this time of year as we just finished our third quarter. but on the other hand its really cool. the new student is actually from south korea, which i am really excited about!
back when i lived in salt lake city my school had quite a few students from korea. i really enjoyed these students, they always had a unique perspective to add, and they often had the craziest sense of humor! one of the guys, Juno, could crack me up so hard! (man, i really loved that kid!)
i have an interest in korea in the first place, so i was always curious about what life was like over there. i actually got juno to teach me the korean alphabet and the sounds each of the characters make. its surprisingly easy, much easier than english. i think i still have those sheets somewhere in my house. i should try and find them, maybe brush up on my korean and surprise the new student with some korean!

a new world record

this morning i was quite excited when i woke up. ok, maybe excited is the wrong word. how about pissed. yeh, that sounds better.
i have been having quite a few issues with my heater for a while. ive written about it before, but this morning i achieved a new record: my place was at a whopping 49 degrees last night! that beats the old record by a good two degrees! congratulations to me! (hopefully you note the bitter sarcasm...)
i should get it looked at, but this late in the season, i keep thinking that maybe it will just warm up and it wont be a problem till next year. i dont know, but i am sick of freezing to death every morning while i get ready for work.

the countdown begins...

im quite excited for this week to end. not because i have any sort of beef with this week or anything. its not like if i saw this week walking by i yell over to it 'yah, you better keep walking, or else ima gunna kill you!' you know, i dont wish ill will on this week's mama or anything, but...
next week is spring break!!!