road trippin'

I am now in the beautiful Commonwealth of Virginia! I love it here; even in the winter it's breathtaking.

Yesterday I woke up at 5:20 (I had my alarm set for 6am but for some reason my body will not allow me to sleep past 5:30 anymore!), loaded up my car, made a Starbucks run (grande triple shot nonfat latte, yum!) and hit the road for 17.5 straight hours. I stopped every couple of hours for a quick break and 30 minutes for lunch, but pretty much drove the whole time. It was horrible! I never, ever want to make that drive by myself in one day again! I will say it is nice to wake up this morning in my mom's house instead of a hotel somewhere, but I am so exhausted. I pulled in at 2:30 Eastern time.

Why am I awake now? Who knows!? I'm completely exhausted but I can not sleep. I woke up even before my mom! So, as I wait for the orange rolls to bake I thought I'd give a quick update.

I hope everyone has a wonderful and blessed Christmas! I love you guys!!!

Christmas time is here again!

What a week! School finished yesterday and I literally wanted to do cartwheels down the hall, similar to the scene from Bring It On when Missy is trying out. Too bad I never learned how to do that...Anyways, I have been sick since last weekend which totally stinks. I have to admit, it's been nice not getting sick until now. Last year I was sick so many times I lost count.

I was going to leave today for my uber-long drive to Virginia, but after thinking about it, I decided that it might be wiser to let myself have a full day of rest before heading out. Why was I in such a rush anyways? So, today I slept in, now I need to pick up a few items for the road trip and clean up my apartment a little, drop off the keys to a friend who will be taking care of my kitties while I'm away, and pack. I may throw in a nap somewhere as well:)

I'm excited to be going home! I love Virginia! Here are some things I'm looking forward to:

*seeing my nephew!

*laughing with my sister

*opening fun presents and watching people open theirs

*seeing Kelli:)

*seeing the mountains again; even though they won't be as pretty this time of year, it still beats the flatness of Texas!

*visiting my Grandma

Have a very Merry Christmas, everyone!!!

happy

God is so good to me! ;-D

TAG!

A - Available or taken: available, very available...any takers?:)

B - Best Friends: Dawn, Kelli, Karen, Summer

C - Cake or Pie: that's a hard choice, both are so tasty! i do really like pie, especially the crust

D - Drink of choice: Woodchuck

E - Essential Item you use everyday: lotion; it is so dry here!

F - Favorite color: blue

G - Gummy Bears or worms: worms

H - Hometown: Rocky Mount, VA

I- Indulgence: chocolate, and lots of it!

J - January or February: neither

K - Kids & Names: 2, Simba and Ginger

L - Life is Incomplete Without? God.

M - Marriage Date: ???

N - Number of Siblings: 3; one bro, one sis, and one half-bro

O - Oranges or Apples: apples, especially pink lady, yum!

P - Phobias or Fears: the dark (i know, lame)

Q - Fave Quote: i can't think of one...

R - Reason to Smile: it's the weekend!

S - Season: depends on where i live; in Texas, fall or winter

T - Tag 3 or 4 people: um....

U - Unknown Fact about Me: i'm not sure...i don't have an appendix anymore

V- Vegetable You Don't Like: califlower, yuck!

W - Worst Habit: self criticism

X – Xrays: yes, but never had a broken bone

Y - Your Fave Food: chocolate, and berries

Z - Zodiac Sign: gemini

service

One thing I have learned about myself is I love to do community service projects. My church has partnered with a church in South Dallas which is committed to seeing its community changed for eternity. I have done things on various Saturdays, from scraping paint off houses to raking up poison ivy, and I have loved it. Before it sounds like I'm tooting my own horn here and allowing you to believe that I'm this wonderful, altruistic person, I really don't do enough. This is such a small contribution and I have been convicted to do more.

Today some members of the single's ministry I'm involved in went around to the homes of some lovely elderly women to decorate for the holidays. It was such a joy to be able to provide lights and wreathes and goodie baskets! At one house in particular, the sweet lady almost started crying she was so touched.

I want to do more! I want to do as Jesus did and reach out to those in need. There are so many hurting people in this world who desperately need God's love and I just pray that I can be His instrument to give that love to others. I'm excited to see how God will use me for His glory!

amendment

As you can tell, I deleted my previous rant session. It's funny how God works. He has answered my prayers in some interesting ways. Over the last few days and weeks, I have come into contact with some cool Christian guys. I'm not saying there is any potential in anything beyond friendship, but I am thankful that God is allowing me to meet these men and restore my faith that they do, in fact, exist. As far as if they will become a permanent fixture in my life, that remains to be told...

Holy Frostbitten Toes, Batman!

BRRRRRR!!!! It's 28 degrees right now. In Texas! We are experiencing an "Artic Blast" and boy, is it chilly!

My students were disappointed that school was not cancelled. They kept waiting in anticipation for the announcement that school would be closed early. No such luck.

I'm not sure what will happen tomorrow. I want to have school because if we miss, we will have to make it up in the spring when we will desperately need a day off. But I do hope we go in late; that would be nice...

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone! I hope your day is filled with lots of yummy food, great memories, and tremendous amounts of love.

What am I thankful for this year?

*God, and His amazing grace! I can not express how much I love God and how thankful I am that He is always with me, allowing me to be called His child. I just hope that I glorify Him through my life.

*My beautiful friendships! I love all you wonderful ladies--Dawn, Kelli, Karen, Summer, Megan, Christy, Alice, Jaye, Lau, Angela, Amanda, Germana--you are all so beautiful and amazing:)

*My family, especially my adorable nephew! He is so dang cute!

*My job--I am so thankful to work in the school I do, with all the diversity and cultures represented. My students are awesome and I love working with them. I never thought I'd love high schoolers, but God has shown me that they are full of hopes and dreams and I want to see them reach their goals.

*My amazing church! I love IBC! God has blessed me with an amazing church family. I love the pastor and the Holy Spirit always touches my heart through his sermons. The singles' ministry I am involved in is fabulous and I am thankful for so many new friends who are on this same journey through life, seeking God's glory and desiring to live full out for Him.

*Hard lessons learned--I know, you are thinking, "what?!" but God has been faithful through some hard situations this year and I am thankful that if I had to go through them, God was with me, leading me, guiding me, and reassuring me of His presence. I have learned so much about God's character as well as what I am made of, and I feel stronger as a result.

*The upcoming roadtrip home! I am so excited to be able to drive 1100+ miles home for Christmas. It will be a good time of reflection, not thinking about work, and seeing the country.

I am thankful for so many things, but I will end my list here. God has been so faithful and good to me this year. I hope you are able to rejoice in all that He has provided for you. And even if you don't believe in God, I hope that you are able to reflect on life and be thankful for the many blessings that you have:)

What are you most thankful for?

oh, no, she didn't...

Ah, the joys of teaching. Last week, we reviewed the differences between the verbs ser and estar; they both mean "to be" in Spanish but are used at different times to express different ideas. For their warm-up at the beginning of class I had simple questions on the board for my students to answer in complete sentences. One of them was "Como eres?" which means "What are you like?" I was looking for answers like "I am tall" or "I am funny", simple things like that. One overly confident kid answered with "Soy caliente." The Spanish speakers around him started to chuckle and I kind of hid my face. I told him, "You never want to say that in Spanish." He asked why and I decided to humor the class. "Because it means you are horny." The class burst out into laughter. He was embarrassed, but I knew he could take it because he is one of the class clowns.

This would have been a good story, but wait, it gets better! In the midst of all the laughter, a girl says to me, "Miss, that's not what it means." She's Hispanic, kind of a rough girl, in a gang, etc. I looked at her and asked, "Excuse me?" She said, "That's not what it means. It just means he's hot, like good looking." I replied, "In Spain and Venezuela both it means the other." I decided to give her the benefit of the doubt and added, "It could be different where you learned Spanish." She said, "How do you even know? You're not from those places." I told her that I lived in Venezuela for 2 years and studied in Spain. She gave some sort of sarcastic reply and I told her to go outside. She said, "Why? Because you are wrong?" and I said, "No, because you are being argumentative and I will not have it in my class." As she got up to walk outside, she said, "Stupid b****!" I looked at her and asked, "Would you mind repeating that so I can make sure to get it right on your office referral?" So she repeated it in a much higher volume. I asked, "Anything else you'd like me to add?" to which she responded, "I don't give a f*** what you write." Nice to know.

I wrote up the referral half expecting her to not be there when I opened the door. She was waiting. I handed the referral to her and said, "I'm not even going to discuss this with you; you know what you did was wrong." Later on, I confirmed that she actually went to the office. Her punishment? 1 day out of school suspension, 1 day in school suspension.

As I was writing the referral, the other students said, "I can't believe she would say that to a teacher, especially you!" Everyone else in the class likes me, she's the only one I have trouble with. Hopefully one day she will turn her life around...

Texas State Fair (finally!)

At Jason's Deli, before the fair. Yummy!

Meg and I enjoying Fried Coke.

cutest nephew ever!

I know I'm biased, but just look at that face!!!

road trip!

I'm thinking about driving half way across the country to visit my family at Christmas. 1100 miles. That's a long way! Flights are ridiculously expensive and I thought it might be fun (or at least interesting) to drive the 17+ hours. Lots of time for books on cd and good car tunes. I'm kind of getting excited about it!

What do you think?

random post

For some reason I can't get my Texas State Fair pics to upload, sorry. I can email them to you if you'd like. Just let me know.

It's been such a crazy couple of weeks. I know I haven't blogged in a while and it's impossible to try to catch up. Homecoming was fun but stressful. Last week I was asked to step down from my student council co-sponsor position. I was actually ready to resign (I had letter in hand when asked to step down). There is a whole big long story involved with this, but since I don't know who reads my blog I'll skip the details. If you want to know, I can email you the gruesome story...And just to be clear, I am still teaching, just not doing student council. A guy at church thought I had been asked to resign my teaching position! Can you imagine!? I'd be a mess!!!

My phone finally bit the dust. And I ordered a new one just in time! The old one broke in half last night (went to reach for the alarm to make sure it was set and knocked the already broken phone on the floor; that was all it took). The new one arrived this afternoon, yay! Actually, I take the yay! back because I'm not super excited about it. It's bigger than my other phone (although it does have a camera so that's kind of spiffy) but it's not as cool as I hoped. But what do I need all those gadgets and bells and whistles for, anyways?! I think I've been hanging around high schoolers too long...

I desperately need to go grocery shopping. I have nothing to eat. I feel like such a college student! After work I am so tired that I don't want to go and then on the weekends it's such a madhouse that I make excuses not to go then.

So, that's life in a nutshell. I'm going to keep seeing about adding those pictures because they are super fun.

another student comment

I promise to blog more soon; it has been so crazy lately! Being the Student Council co-sponsor is a huge job and whew! am I tired.

Anyways, this was just too funny to not blog right away. Last night we had an officers meeting. The girls and I were chit chatting about the Homecoming dance (which is tomorrow night!) and I asked them how I should fix my hair. One girl said, "Oh, Miss K, can we make you pretty?!" and then when she realized what she said, she quickly added, "--er than normal?" I laughed until I was crying! She is so sweet and I never would have thought she was saying I wasn't normally pretty, but she wanted to make sure she fixed it. Too much!

I'll post my fun Texas State Fair pics soon!

addiction

My name is Annette and I am a Lostiholic.

I am addicted to this show! And the funny thing is that I have no clue what the heck is going on!!! Each week I have more and more questions and as I watch a new episode, those questions are not answered, just more and more get added. For example, where are Michael and Walter? What happened to Locke and Eco and Desmond in the hatch? Are they still alive? Who are the "Others" and why are they torturing Sawyer and Kate? Can Sawyer look any hotter?! How did Ben get a copy of the 2004 World Series to show Jack that the Red Sox won? What do the heirogliphics in the hatch mean? Will I ever get all the answers? Ugh!!!

I also found some cool merchandise that I would love to have! Check these out:

A new requirement for my classroom journals.

Anyone want to try to beat me?

My kind of dollhouse!

But don't forget all the dolls to go with it...

And lastly, I really, REALLY want this!!!

suffering continued...

It's good I had all those verses handy last night because I went through one of the harshest periods of suffering this season! All I can say is...nothing; words completey escape me. I can't even muster up a "go H-word"...it's too painful...

Someone pass the bottle...

ouch!

The process of being beautiful is oftentimes painful. That's all I have to say about that.

suffering

I have been learning a lot from God's Word recently about suffering and enduring through it. I wanted to share some verses that have been encouraging to me that I have come across or others have pointed out. I hope they encourage you in the same way.

1Peter 1:6-7 "In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. These have come so that your faith--of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire--may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed."

Acts 16:25 "About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the other prisoners were listening to them." (this is after they are arrested, stripped and flogged, then thrown in prison, feet put in stocks so that the only position they could put their bodies was to lay flat on their backs that were just ripped open)

Psalm 40:17 "Yet I am poor and needy; may the Lord think of me. You are my help and my deliverer; O my God, do not delay."

Psalm 43:2-4 "You are God my stronghold. Why have you rejected me? Why must I go about mourning, oppressed by the enemy? Send forth your light and your truth, let them guide me; let them bring me to your holdy mountain, to place where you dwell. Then will I go to the altar of God, to God, my joy and my delight. I will praise you with the harp, O God, my God."

Ecclesiastes 1:18 "For with much wisdom comes much sorrow; the more knowledge, the more grief." (you may wonder why I find this one encouraging; in a weird way, it's nice to know that as I grow in knowledge I will experience more sorrow as I realize more and more that this earth is not my home)

My prayer is that when I do go through times of suffering that I remember and cling to God's truth and rely completely on Him.

movie review

I watched Syriana tonight. Do not watch this movie unless you are fully awake and at full mental capacity! It was good and fast paced, but very confusing in parts. Or maybe it's just that I'm not that intelligent and it was too hard for my feeble mind to follow. Either way, it was good and I felt somewhat informative, although I have to wonder at how accurate it really is. But I can't complain too much; Matt Damon was in it for crying out loud!

comment from a student as he left my class...

"Miss, if you get a hangover this weekend, make sure to drink lots of water. Not that I know from personal experience or anything..."