AWKWARD ZOMBIE

Work was more than OK, actually. THey let me off early but the head bossman told me to still put in 8 hours for the time reporting. 10/10

Got my Learner's Permit first try and I also have a working phone now (my old one stopped charging).

I made 5-Spice Chicken last night in the slow cooker and it was pretty daisies good.

Used too much ginger though. I didn't realize the Five Spice we had included ginger or I wouldn't have added so much.

Finished moving all the heavy stuff. Just need to go back to the old apartment tomorrow to finish cleaning and snag the last few things, and we are done moving.

Soapbar wrote:Got my Learner's Permit first try and I also have a working phone now (my old one stopped charging).

Wait, the one for driving a car? I don't keep track of ages much, but if it is the car related one, then consider yourself ahead of me, who probably won't learn to drive in a year by choice, and probably won't get a car 'til I graduate high school.

But on the bright side, I get to listen to 2 randomly nice songs from YouTube for an hour all the days I go to school, so that's neato still.

I like the new apartment, aside from the kitchen and dining/not-a-pantry being notably more cramped than my previous location, and there weirdly being no lights in the bedrooms.
Non-kitchen room size and layout is good, they have hard floor where it makes sense to have hard floors (for easier cleaning), the lighting is good, everything works, there's never a struggle to find parking, the AC/Heating is god-tier, the pool and grassy sitting areas are always well-maintained, none of my neighbors smoke next to the building, the management is very nice, and it's ridiculously close to everything except my job. Which is weird for me, since I've never actually lived "in town" before.

For real though, this kitchen. Can't have anything open at the same time as anything else. So putting large dishes away gets...interesting. (for fuck's sake, the entire thing fits in a shitty vertical shot, and bear in mind a phone camera's tendency to mess with perspective to make rooms look bigger)

Now that I will regularly have weekends off, Auntie Riku's Tiny-Ass Kitchen may make a comeback. I mean, there are only like, four people who actually post here anymore, but eh.

These hot shorts i just bought

i know i just posted about them in the Pics or GTFO thread, but im really fucking excited to finally own a pair of shorts like these, you dont even know guys

Bought a new laptop I AM THE BEST BUYER

Even though school has started for me, Video Production looks like it's gonna be pop fuckin' fly.

The other classes are just mild at the moment.

Hung with craaaaaazy old and racist grandma the other day, went through her collection of OLD STUFF and HISTORICAL FAMILY STUFF - pictures of relatives from back when cameras were invented, and tons of neat stuff belonging to her parents and grandparents and great grandparents.

I love old stuff. Antiques are my JAM.

Just gotta schmooze her so when she finally drops (and makes the world a better place as a result), I get some of that awesome old stuff. CIVIL WAR MEMORABILIA (on the good side), JEWELRY FROM 1790, FOUNTAIN PENS AND KITSCHY TRASH FROM THE 1920S!
I love it all. <3

I was invited to spend the evening with people I had not seen in over a year and everyone was so nice and it was fun and uncomplicated and not awkward and it was nice to be included and to not feel like a colossal fuckup

So I use a stoplight graphic as a visible behavior gauge, and last Wednesday was my roughest day of the first week, as far as behavior/personalities went, with only one class out of six getting a green. This week, only two didn't!
And my sixth graders, the ones I was warned would give me the most pushback from hating music last year, haven't strayed from green, save for one little pocket of assholes in the Monday morning class, which I've only gotten to see once, for 15 minutes, on the first day of school (assembly cut the class short, and Labor Day eliminated it this week.)
The fourth graders have been acing everything in regards to both behavior and content as well! They're a bit behind on actual concept comprehension, due to inconsistent teachers from previous years, but they've been trying everything I ask, and most of them are attempting to decipher any challenges I throw at them. That last point is especially important to me, because that's a rather disturbing personality trend I've been noticing more and more, the younger the kids are: A lot of them have been so sheltered from actually experiencing failure and real difficulty, that they shy away from attempting things that they aren't absolutely certain of. That's normal to a certain extent in most people, but I've been noticing kids up to adults about my age that just immediately give up at everything. Instead of "I'll work on it/I'll figure that out later," it's "Iunno. this is stupid."

Anyway, enough self-righteousness. I am so thrilled that the majority of my kids (even a few of the ones I've been particularly stern with) seem to like me and my class more than what I was set up to expect.


Also, if anyone's wondering about the stoplight behavior gauge:
Green indicates that everyone is giving full effort, listening well, being safe/kind, generally following the expectations for the situation.
Yellow alerts the class that a lot of people have stopped following the expectations for what we're doing, and it's dragging the class down. They need to check what they're doing, and see which of their many neighbors are being a good example still. (I usually don't move it to yellow until at least a third to a half of the class is being too unruly to proceed.)
Red is when everyone/virtually everyone is off-task, and refusing to adhere to expectations. And I mean it has to actually be everyone or all but one person. This basically never happens after kindergarten, although I did see it happen for first grade ONCE.

If the kids manage to end the class on green (either by staying there, or by fixing whatever the yellow problem was), they get a green sticker. Or a red or yellow. If they get a certain amount of green stickers on the class chart, they get a party day. However, only greens can count toward the party day. Each yellow the class gets has to be covered up with a green later on, and reds have to be covered up twice (with greens, not yellows). Some degree of modification gets applied to each class as I get familiar with how completely bonkers they go in which ways. Like I've got all my tiny kids at the very end of the day, when they're at their squirrelliest, and if I get a class with four assholes in it, they can manage to derail half of the students in the class simply through proximity. So my choices end up being to punish the whole class for the four assholes (not gonna happen), adjust the expectations and basically do my best to shut the assholes down until they participate, or exclude them altogether (very reluctant, unless there's a safety issue).

I managed to convince the newest dude at work that we have assigned parking spaces and he was parked in someone else's spot. I told him to go talk to the manager to get it cleared up. I can't believe I kept a straight face the whole time.

- Its finally raining so the unbearable heat (40°C! In september!) should be over.
- As it began raining I went to close the window in my bedroom and I spotted a cute skunk hopping around the parking lot and it walked just below my window.

Jesus fuck, you guys hit 40 in September that far north?! It was snowing in Montana last week!