Waiting For The Year To End

For these last two days of 2013, I think I will continue what I have been doing for a long time now... read books, drink coffee, and wait for the year to end.

Happy New Year, all the best in 2014 to you and to me.

Best Brunch of the Year

Every year it amazes me that we consolidate so many schedules around the holidays (when some of us work in the restaurant industry and the Open-365-Days-A-Year Disneyland) to get together for brunch, but we pulled it off again this year!

My sisters and I, plus Luke, got to go get our annual brunch with our cousins, plus three of their significant others this morning. Thank goodness we made reservations, that place was mobbed this morning, but the cousins were already seated at around 5 past 11 o'clock when Shannon, Luke and I rolled up.

We had our typical coffee, mimosas, and French cuisine (or was that just me?), hearty tabletalk and after-meal photoshoot.

The girl cousins... with a photobomber! At least she was female too. She fit right in the picture.

All da cousinsssss

Da boys

Cousins again! Can't have too many of these good-looking genes

One big happy group

Can you say good-looking group ?

South Orange County Life

Yesterday I went down to south Orange County to visit my bestest fwiend since 2nd grade, Alice. Her husband was able to watch her kids while she and I went to go get pedicures and go to the mall. When we got back, her husband had their three-year-old son James outside riding his bike without training wheels for the first time! It was cute. Apparently their naps don't sync up, and while James was sleeping, she and I went into the playroom with Chloe and were having the best time! Chloe is so quiet and self-sufficient, and she even let me organize her entire little kitchen, which, by the way, was so adorable. Look at this little face and pigtails!

I know no one else probably cares about my friend's kids, but I think she's just adorable. My favorite moment was when I was telling Alice how surprised I was at Chloe's demeanor, Alice mentioned that Chloe was pretty independent, and preferred active toys to things like dolls, and then picked up a huge stuffed doll next to her and said "Watch this... Chloe!" and threw the huge doll at her, which hit her, made her stumble, but continue about her life, walking her little supermarket cart around the playroom. I couldn't stop laughing about that for awhile. James later came down asking for his Uggs and Alice told me he had major first world problems... he's usually saying "I don't want to wear my Pumas, I want to wear my Uggs!" and he's three. I love it.

And I love my pedicure too! I got it gold and sparkly in preparation for New Year's Eve. Yeah man.

Christmas 2013

It never really felt like Christmas this year, maybe it was transitioning to the heat after spending the past few in snow weather, but despite going to the Mission Inn Festival of Lights (a few times!) in Riverside, making a gingerbread house, decorating the tree, wrapping presents, watching Love Actually and listening to Christmas music, it still never really felt like Christmas! So now that it's over, it rrrrrreally doesn't feel like Christmas, but it was still pleasant in passing.

On Sunday the 23rd, I went downtown in Riverside with my friend Marisa and her fiance Nate to a whiskey bar. Downtown was pretty packed with families looking at the lights, but I was surprised there weren't too many people in the restaurant and bars. I know it was Sunday but weren't there more people on vacation or teachers or anyone else just enjoying the general season??

Come on Riverside, get it together. Selfie Sunday.

I was happy to see that my Christmas cards made it out in time too, and my friend Anja even sent me a picture of her having received it in London... just before going home to Munich, and sending me a picture of the Christmas markets there. Gahhhh I miss Europe at Christmastime!

Anja and my card in London!

Weihnachtsmarkts in Munich

On Christmas Eve, Shannon, Luke and I went to my Aunt Patricia's house, and it was so wonderfully nice! They had almost the whole family there (minus one of the four kids, but plus two grandkids) and we got to visit, have lunch, sit around over coffee and talk and laugh. My Aunt Patricia is always so good at creating a warm, loving and welcoming environment, always so encouraging of our pursuits and uniqueness, offering humble advice without any personal agenda and always loyal. She is someone that you know you can always turn to who is patient and loving and non-judgmental. I don't get to see her much outside of emailing her pretty often, so it was nice to be able to see her finally (maybe the first time this year!) afterwhich, I took Shannon and Luke for some last-minute shopping. At home we gathered round the table with our computers and did our usual internetsstuffsies together, and I got to play with my little baby Khaleesi!

Khaleesi Bug!

On Christmas morning we did our gift exchange, and were shocked at the amount of giftware exchanged! From tea mugs to coffee cups, iced drink tumblers and protein shake blender bottle, we all had liquids at the forefront of our minds this year. LULZ. I got the added bonus of being able to open presents from Cousin Bobby! Kitty mugs and a garden sign, I loved it!! Also, we have a tradition of us taking pictures with our animals in front of the Christmas tree, and I finally got to do that with my bug!

Too much goodness!

Khaleesi's First Christmas!

Then of course, the usual Christmas festivities at Grandma's in Seal Beach, and is it just me, or was it very small this year? Sadface! But, it was great to see everyone there and the usual staples were in place, like the Uncle Carls and the photoshoots! Plus, everyone there got to meet Shannon's betrothed, and Tawny got to win our ca$h monies in LRC!

Santa baby's got his arm around me

I'm a California girl again

Some guy in the room was laughing while we did this

Text back... kind of

Missing Heather for this picture!

Some of the girls with Grandma!

Everyone looking at the Christmas pictures slideshow!

The day after Christmas, Kathleen and I went to hike the Box Springs mountains behind UC Riverside up to the C (the hike I did with my hiking partner Marisa last month) and yeesh! It was HOT, and we got a late start so I worried we would run out of sunlight so we were trying to kick it into high gear and it was exhausting!

That's me mid-step in the mid-ground

View from the top!

Yeah the Knicks rule all!

Kathleen and her Deathly Hallows!

And, as anticipated, we did run out of sunlight and had to go down the mountain face and finish in the dark and I hurt my knee pretty bad, but the hike was fun! And it was Kathleen's first time at the C, and we got to make our first protein shake in her blender bottle afterwards, and then went to the mall. A full Christmas Eve, Christmas and Boxing Day!

Disneylando

Tis the season for Christmas fun! With Luke in town, Kathleen generously offered to get our family into Disneyland last Friday for a day full of Disney fun! It was a nice day, although it got chilly at night, but we had lots of fun going around the park with all it's Christmas cheer, and got to do pretty much everything we set out do to, in Disneyland and California Adventure alike. Shannon's tendonitis started acting up so she was pretty cranky towards the end there, but we still stayed til almost midnight, sheesh!

Funsies

Age Order

Splash!

2 kute 2 talk 2 u

Where you be at?

Hurr we come!

Welp. There goes Bill.

Round and round

Purrrrdy. The lanterns over the teacups

Italian Vogue.

Shannon was SO HEPPAY at that hour

The Beast's Library in the Sorcerer's Workshop all to ourselves!

Kat says we all noticed one by one as we came down the stairs and stopped and posed the same way

There we are!

Group shot on Main Street

Beignets, popcorn, mint juleps later, with dinner at Cafe Orleans, it was a success. Yaysies. Wouldn't really be Christmastime in our family without a trip to Disneyland at some point...! Luke has been initiated then, I suppose...

Chinese Gamble

I've been fortunate enough to be able to sub for my former teacher, who has given his classes over to me when I sub for him, so I got to experiment and try my own lessons with them. This week I was in his classes yesterday and today, so I took the liberty of assigning more in-depth assignments requiring homework, which I regretted last night as I stayed up past bedtime, trying to watch Game of Thrones between grading their papers and being so horrified by their spelling that I was sure I was going to get nightmares, but it was still fun. I had an ESL learner from China, which meant that he was pretty much SOL since we didn't have any translators that I was aware of, although he had some resources on his iPad which helped him out. I didn't expect much from him (how could I?) but I was pleasantly surprised by the effort he put forth, and to show him, I ran "very good effort" through my translation app (the first app I ever downloaded, who said I wasn't a linguist?!) and wrote it at the top. I am actually terrified. I don't really believe in these AI translators anyway, and have heard and seen horror stories of them, and I can only hope it did not fail me now! I probably said something really offensive. Oh well, I'm just a sub!

I was also inspired to wear my authentic Indian kurtha that Palak had given to me a year or two ago. The last time I wore it around her was out to an Indian restaurant, where I proceeded to immediately stain it with drips of curry. So I took a picture to send to her again.

Here was the sunrise on the way to work yesterday. I am continually impressed. Also, not sure if you can really see it, but I had the sunrise glowing in front of me, and the moon was still setting in a dark sky behind me, as I could see in the rearview mirror. It was really quite beautiful.

And, who could ever neglect this little bug?

Khaleesi is, after all, the mother of dragons! Rawr.

Truckers!

A friend of mine from New York was in LA for work this past week, leaving early Saturday morning. I was able to drive out there Friday night to get dinner and drinks before heading back home. I had a pretty free and easy road on the way there, so I expected the way back to be more than a breeze, and it was... until somewhere around Puente Hills I hit massive, massive traffic (past midnight!) due to construction. The lanes kept merging, and I kept getting over, thinking we would stay at 3, until it came down to merge yet again into two lanes.

I got stuck in a very awkward spot, and the Jeep Liberty next to me was being absolutely awful. I tried to speed up to go ahead, and they would speed up enough so I couldn't get in, then slow down to go behind them, and they would slow down. It was unreal. I wasn't trying to be rude and cut her off (and believe me, I've been aggressive; once in Manhattan leaving the Holland Tunnel I had a showdown with a really rude cab driver and I leaned out and slapped the hood of his car, and he stopped after that) but I couldn't get in here. It was so bad, I started to wonder if this lady even realized I was there, because I wasn't seeing what my options were and what she expected me to do with her acting like this, but because of the merge I was already a quarter of the way into her lane, and still she wasn't letting me in anywhere. I rolled down my window and stuck my head out, trying to make eye contact because, come on lady, but she didn't so much as glance in my direction.

Then it happened. I saw her gasp and slam on her brakes. I saw a huge diesel truck from the lane to the left of her had crudely cut her off from the other side. All the action and surprise made me slam on my brakes too; what did they need to get over for and what was going on? There were two of them, a driver and a passenger in the diesel truck, and they stay angled, half in her lane, and honked, getting my attention, smiling at me and waving me into the lane. Apparently they had witnessed this ridiculous showdown and helped me out by forcing her to stop and allowing me into the lane! I was so happy and so thankful! I wished I could have given them something, like told them a joke or performed a magic trick or given a hug, but I had to settle for a honk of thanks, and all of us waving and smiling at each other as I got in the lane. Who ever said California was full of mean drivers?

And then I got a glimpse of the meteor shower on the rest of the drive home. It was pretty. It had been a long time since I had seen a falling star.

The CSET

Well, I did one of the dumber things of my life today and registered to sit for the next CSET test. The CSET is the California Subject Examination for Teachers that has to be passed in addition to earning a credential to be able to teach. Because I can NOT teach elementary school, and could only entertain the idea of middle and high school, I would have to get a single subject credential and pass the CSET for that subject, and since really the only subject I am interested in teaching with any sort of longevity is French... here I am, now signed up for a 5 hour French test that includes reading, writing, speaking and listening. This is not going to be pretty. It might be one thing if it was one long multiple-choice test on French grammar with an essay question or two, but unfortunately it's plenty of essay questions, a recorded speaking prompt (and I have not spoken French in YEARS) and the multiple choice questions range from grammar to geography, history, politics, culture and more in France and the entire Francophone, meaning I will also need to study geography, history, politics, culture and more for Guadaloupe, French Guinea, Haiti, Martinique, Senegal, Algeria, Tunisia, Cote d'Ivoire and beyond. Ain't nobody got time for that! The worst part is that the study guides are non-existent. I couldn't find anything in any bookstore, and online all my searches only yielded a thin practice exam that is riddled with typos and horribly outdated (one question asks who the current French president is and is labeled 1995). I can't find any real information about what will be on there and what to study, most of my knowledge is from this joke of a practice test.

Why the hell am I taking this? Honestly, I have no idea. I figure, I won't get any better the longer I wait, and may as well just jump in, sink or swim, and see how well I can tread water or how much further I'll have to go. I do love teaching, but I couldn't fathom teaching anything I'm not passionate enough about, and nothing else is really doing it for me, except maybe Health, but we all know that's a dying breed too. So, come January 11, I will be significantly humiliated and mentally exhausted with taking a test I am sadly unprepared for.

In other news, I went to the Dictionary and looked up "useless lumps" and found this picture in it

Hot or not?

...coincidentally it's exactly what is happening in the other room of the house right now by my sisters!

Gingerbread Houses & Snapchat

I'm really adjusting to this teacher's schedule in the worst way possible: waking up at 5am is getting easier, about 2p doesn't seem too early to be off anymore. After running a few errands, it's all I can do to save enough energy when I come home to get ready for the next day and either work on something with Shannon or Kathleen or read for a little bit. Kathleen and I pulled out a puzzle for our yearly holiday tradition, but this one is quite the obstacle. Not only is it somehow one of the most tedious ones we've ever done, but our animals keep sniffing, laying and jumping on it and messing it up every chance they get. I honestly have lost track of how many times I've had to re-do our work now.

As for working, subbing has been awesome lately. Firstly, it's been such a benefit to be subbing near home, where I have so many friends and connections already in the system. I got to spend a few days subbing for my old teacher, and more than that, he gave me the opportunity to really teach. He told me that he wasn't going to leave any lesson plans, he didn't want a report of how the classes were, he said they were going to be my baby goats to teach as I see fit, to plan and deliver my own lessons and play and experiment with it and see how I really took to being a teacher. I was extremely honored and felt so lucky. That's not an opportunity that a sub really gets, especially for a teacher that is already so well-respected and his classes are so great to work with already.

Then, I got to go back to my own alma mater to teach for the first time, and what's more, it was for none other than my old tennis coach, which meant that on top of knowing the ins and out of that whole place, I got to take over for one of my favorites, and even spend the last class coaching the tennis team. The word got out quickly that I was a former lion, a former student of this teacher, and a former tennis player, and so we all bonded right away. When the students would ask if the rumors were true I would say yes and add "I'm up in these pictures..." because all the former teams were still up on his walls. I don't think they ever really found me though.

Last Sunday was the Gingerbread house decorating, and it was fun! I loveeeee gingerbread houses, and it was fun to see how different and unique everyone's came out, but I was endlessly jealous of Tawny's gingerbread club!! Those disco balls really did it for me, and it brought out a whole new meaning to the idea of our gingerbread house making!

In other news, today I was subbing for what was once my rival high school. It was an early release day, so they just had a worksheet, and the kids were pretty restless, but not at all disrespectful. They were going about their usual antics when I heard the chiming beeps of a FaceTime call. I blew a fake gasket (meaning, enough to make them shut it off, but usually adding in some joke, facetious remark or other facial expression to soften the blow) and I said something like "What is that noise?! Put the phones away, there's no Skyping, or FaceTiming or Vining or Tweeting or Snapchatting or whatever else you've got." They laughed and shut them off. In a few minutes I was giving them a 15 minute warning and started by saying "Listen up my snapchatting friends" to which one boy said "Are we snapchat friends?! Can we be snapchat friends?! Please will you add me on snapchat?" I was so taken aback that I just started laughing. Suddenly voices from all over were pleading with me to add them on snapchat. I kept saying no, no, no snapchat, but instead of listening to me, they all starting putting a list up on the board of their snapchat and Instagram names so that I would find them later and follow them. I kept insisting that I wouldn't, but I couldn't help taking a picture because of how funny I thought they were. They make the job worth it.

Last thing: I think I finally figured out what it is about Riverside. The smog has cleared. I haven't lived here in ten years, and I'm finally seeing that in those ten years, the smog has lifted, and the consistently sweeping and beautiful views are so beautiful, they make me not want to go anywhere else, and just really, really, really love Riverside. Every morning my drive starts with a sharp-focused view of a purple-and-blue-hued snow-dusted mountain in the distance (so like a wintertime morning), and I get sunburst sunrises over the Box Spring mountains where you can see all of Jurupa Valley and everything south of the 60 freeway, between all the hills and the Santa Ana river, and I usually leave with clear blue skies, puffy winter clouds and palm-lined silhouettes in every direction. It's truly breathtaking what it's become with the better air quality these days.

(As the saying goes, these pictures don't do it any justice). Until I find time again my friends...! Enjoy this holiday season