Five Happy Things

Because I'm having trouble falling asleep (definitely work jitters, sigh) and sometimes internalizing the good in the world helps. So:

Boyfriend's redownloaded Bumble and has been talking to a couple people, most notably Emerald, who has met up with us to play Magic once and is coming over for dinner on Saturday. I'm making chicken tortilla soup, which is always a winner. She's a sweetheart, and I look forward to getting to know her better. Next order of business is softening her up enough to get my grubby paws on her tumblr url. I always say that the best way to tell whether a prospective friend is a keeper is to put them in a room with my stoic and silent fiance and see if they recognize how lovely and befriendable he is in spite of his retiring nature. So we shall see.

I mailed a care package to my dear friend Robin, whose birthday was Sunday. She's in grad school for accounting in Michigan after taking several years off to recover from a pair of strokes. I'm SO proud of her, and I was glad for the excuse to send her something nice. She loves foxes, so the package was fox-themed. Stickers, two necklaces (one handmade, one store bought) an art card, and a lemon candle that came in a nice box. She seemed very happy to receive it, so I think I'll try to repeat the trick after spring break even if all my finances can support at that time is a nice  handwritten note.

I've officially progressed to the first interview phase for the alternative teacher's certification program I'm applying to. The internet says that that puts me in the top 50% of applicants. My fate isn't yet assured, but I'm closer! Tomorrow night, I have a webinar where they'll talk through what the interview will look like. The interview itself is next week (eek!) and will be about two hours long. The interviewer sent me a nice email after I booked my time, which feels optimistic. He mentioned that he's interested to hear about my study abroad experience, so I'll see if I can dig up my notes from that time. I also need two recommendation forms filed by this upcoming Monday. I've got my former thesis advisor and an ex boss working on them. Tomorrow I'll shoot them polite emails thanking them and making sue they haven't forgotten.

One of my favorite people in the entire universe is my neighbor, who I've known for almost a decade now. The other day I wandered into a little antique shop while waiting for a hair appointment and found a shelf of vintage cinema books. I spotted one about All About Eve, his favorite movie, and nabbed it. This afternoon, my neighbor came over for movie and writing time and brought the book along to read. Apparently he's really enjoying it, so that's a win. He's starting a new job next week, but we made plans for me to cook him dinner next Saturday. I need to riffle through my cookbooks and pick out a good recipe for it.

This morning when I woke up, the cat had worked my bedroom door open and curled up at the foot of my bed. He stayed there until I got up and spent the day following me around and sitting in my lap whenever I sat. He's the first cat I've ever lived with, and it's nice to be friends with him.

I have now tried to embed an image of the cat three different times. I am confident I can figure this out in the long run, but right now I need to sleep. So here's a description.

He's a hair overweight for an adult male cat, but the vet assures us that he's mostly just muscular. When she first saw him, she exclaimed, "Oh! A cream-colored cat!" Like most people who live with cats, I'm pretty sure he's the best and most attractive one. His eyes are on the green side of olive, and his chest and the very tips of his paws are white. His stripes are very faint, most evident on the hindquarters and tail.

As I type this, he's loafing at the foot of my bed. In five minutes, once this is posted and I've gotten under the covers, he'll pace the hallway, scratch at each of our bedroom doors, and meow plaintively for ten to fifteen minutes before giving up and sleeping on the living room couch. Sometimes, for variety, he climbs into one of the dining room chairs, pulls the nearest tablecloth corner into it, and nests in an irritatingly decadent fashion. He'll meow at my door about twenty minutes before my first alarm goes off at six a.m. Then, when I stagger out of bed, he'll follow me into the kitchen and hover while I eat breakfast. 

He's surely not dissimilar from most cats, but I have a sample size of one and I dote on the lad.

Trashsplosion!

What did this week need more of? Who said, "Giant messes that aren't your fault that no one else is going to clean up?"

Scene: the height of medium-city rush hour. We live at a fairly busy intersection just off the highway, so cars are whizzing by. A truck pulls up to pick up the recycling for the first time since the big ice storm at the end of January. Three or four weeks' worth of accumulated recycling.

Suddenly we hear an enormous crash, punctuated by the distinctive sound of breaking glass.

Near as I could tell from my peek out the window, something went wrong with the mechanical arm that lifts the cans up to be dumped into the truck. Our can was stuck halfway up for a bit, and the poor driver had to trigger some kind of manual release to get it out. He scooped up 75% of the fallen debris by hand, then moved on down the street, where a similar issue happened with our neighbor's can. Luckily, the driver was able to release it before more than a few pieces of cardboard spilled out. At that point, he seemed to give up on finishing out the rest of the route, and I can't blame him. Rush hour traffic was making everything about the scenario worse. The truck sped off, leaving our recycling cans and a massive heap of trash in the middle of the street.

During the ice storm, my fiance got really into collage. For the last few weeks, he's been bringing home all kinds of bits and pieces from work and generating lots and lots of teeny tiny paper scraps. Those scraps were all over the street now, mixed in with flattened soda cans and jagged bits of broken glass. We threw on pants and went out with a broom and dustpan to make the situation slightly less miserable.

The road in front of our house still looks like Oscar the Grouch threw a temper tantrum, but at least the glass, metal, and plastic is swept up. We got as much of the paper as we could, and I'm telling myself it's better than nothing. Sobbing, wailing, shrieking, etc.

At least our roommate is picking up pizza for dinner, so I don't have to think about cooking when I get out of my webinar.

(no subject)

In twenty minutes, I'm signing on to an interview prep webinar for the alternative teaching certification program I'm pursuing. Hopefully it'll give me good things to work towards ahead of my interview next week.

I keep reading up on what program alumni say its major cons are. Luckily all of them so far seem to be the obvious pitfalls of getting your certification in one summer instead of over a few years of university and student teaching. I badly want to get a proper degree long-term, but, well, I can't afford to take on more student debt at present, and with my fiance's job on the rocks due to his bosses' ongoing divorce, we could really use a second, more stable salary in this household. I hope that my previous experiences will help with the lesson planning side, and the more substitute teaching I do, the more practice I'll get with classroom management. If I actually get in to the program, I'll have a mentor during my first few years. That ought to help.

In the meantime, I'm reading a lot of library books about classroom management and related disciplines. If anyone has any beloved parenting or teaching books with useful perspectives on establishing routines and setting meaningful consequences, I'd appreciate recs!