Messy Jessie

So my parents created some kind of self-fullfilling prophecy when they decided to start calling me Messy Jessie as a baby. Some (mainly my parents) might argue (and do argue) that the name created itself based on my dirty diapers. But what started as the semi-cuteness of baby poo grew and developed into a 24-year-old this:



Yes, Friends, that is my bedroom. And that is my bedroom after I carted out 4 stuffed hampers of laundry that looked something like this:



which is now in the family room.

Honestly, it's embarassing. And it is interfering with my life in the form of stress, because I don't want to be in my room and therefore have nowhere peaceful to disappear to, I can never find anything clean to wear (despite the additional pile of unfolded clean clothes on the pool table-- that was hamper number 5), and my lack of organization is leaking into my career in the form of not being able to find things for lessons right before I have to use them, and being late for meetings with the principal.

So upon my graduation, my mom decided to get me a personal organizer so that I may live the rest of my life the way a normal, un-chicken-with-its-head-cut-off person does. And so she was looking up organizers online, and guess who is now my personal organizer?

My 1st grade teacher.

There is something very surreal about sitting at your dining room table with your first grade teacher when you are 24. You start to remember things, like when Courtney decided to smell birdseed and got one stuck up her nose and she had to go to the nurse, or when Tom accicentally opened the door to the classroom bathroom and shut it right away when he saw you were in there, but then reopened it to watch you pee, or how you used to always get in trouble because the boy Zach who sat next to you was SO funny, but his jokes were quieter than your laughter.

I wasn't going to submit these pictures to you until I had an 'after' to put next to it. But I think that in the same way blogging is a little theraputic, this will also be. It's like I'm coming full circle. Mrs. G. was an important influence in my life as a child, and now she will be the same for me as an adult.

It says on her brochure, "Creating order out of chaos is truly theraputic and empowers a person to gain control over his or her life." I'm not sure if you can really understand this if you are not a disorganized sort of person. But as someone who has created an identity out of a nickname, it gives me hope.

Advice for Parents:

Hide your porn very well. Someday, your kids will thank you for it (even if only in their own minds).

Go Finger...

So the gym teacher took a picture of my class last Thursday, and it has been hanging up by the gym, and this Thursday I asked her to email me the file so I could print one out for myself. And so as I'm getting ready to print it, I have it up all big on my computer screen, and I notice this:



Yes, you are seeing correctly. Your eyes do not deceive you. Little E, my precious 8-year-old student with cerebral palsy who walks down the hall holding my hand and loudly humming the wedding march every day because he swears we are going to get married, is giving the camera the finger.

And so because I think this is pretty freaking funny (though shocking!), I am now having to make the very hard decision of whether or not of let it go and pretend like I never saw it, or ratting his ass out getting him in big trouble. And I suppose as the teacher, I could actually be the one to inflict the punishment on him...

But then he might not want to marry me anymore.

I know I'm a teacher...

... because I come home like this:



and don't even realize.

That Confounding "New Math"

So Thursday night was Back to School Night. It pretty much went off without a hitch, until we got to the math part. My district participates in a curriculum called Everyday Math, which basically teaches kids to do math unlike the way any of us have learned. All problems are done from left to right, like reading, and there is no carrying. I'd give an example, but the alignment won't work right on Blogger. But from what I hear, it actually works. First graders are able to add things more quickly in their heads than an adult using a calculator.

Try telling this to an adult who is attempting to help his 8-year-old with his homework.

After we were finished our presentation and parents were either leaving or hanging around to chat, the father of one particularly mischief-making child approached me.

Dad: This makes no sense!! I knew the answer before she even started writing the second part! Me: I know, it seems weird, but eventually the kids are able to do it in their heads very quickly.
Dad: No! It is way more complicated! This is not the way the real world works! What’s going to happen when he gets into the real world and he is adding numbers like this?!
Me: Well, the thing is, he’ll be able to do it in his head, so—
Dad: (interrupting me) YOU KNOW IT’S MORE DIFFICULT!! YOU KNOW IT IS!!
Me: Well, I don’t really think it is, it’s just diff—
Dad: YOU KNOW IT IS!! THE REAL WORLD DOESN’T WORK LIKE THAT!! (Storms out of the room.)

Hm. Okaaaayyyy… I can see why your son has anger issues.

But anyway, the thing is, I was just impressed that that kid’s parents came at all. Less than half of the parents came, and most of them were parents who you would expect anyway. And that was really the only incident. Had I been there alone, I’m not so sure how it would have gone. I was nervous, and still don’t know a lot about the goings on in the school, so I deferred to my coteacher a few times. And that was that. There were two sessions, but we only had parents during the first session, and then we went home.

And if there was ever a week when TGIF applied, it was this one.

The Way We Were

It's amazing how almost half a year can go by, and things don't change.

My brother has been in the United Arab Emerates for four months on a tour with the Air Force. Don't let the serene pictures on the website and the fact that the only 20-star hotel happens to be in Dubai fool you into thinking the place rocks. It's still the Middle East.

In the time that he has been gone, I worked as a teacher's aide, I worked as a high school special ed teacher, I got matched up with a Little Sister, I worked as a nanny, I kinda finished grad school, I started a real job as a 3rd grade teacher, I dated a few people... You know, I did stuff that kind of changed me.

I spent all of yesterday telling people how my brother was coming home from UAE after four months, and how I was so excited to see him. Last night was Back to School Night (more about that later), and I complained that I had to miss picking him up at the airport because of it. I came home exhausted and set up shop in the living room waiting for the big arrival. They took awhile to get home because one of his bags was lost, but eventually

Dan came home.

And he gave me a hug. And he took a shower. And we went out with his friends.

He was standing at the top of the stairs waiting for his ride, talking about how much muscle he gained since we saw him, and flexing his muscles, trying to show off his newly hardened arms, and he said to me, "Jess, why are you giving me dirty looks still, like you used to, four months ago?"

Because some things just don't change.

Real Life: Day 1

Because you were all interested, I figured I'd give you the update on the first day...

But actually, it went great. So there isn't much to say. Kind of a no-news-is-good-news kinda thing, though that makes for incredibly boring blogging.

I can tell you that I am constantly amazed at the street smarts of children living in a low-income urban area. For example:

Me: Who can tell me what a contract is and why we might use one?
LittleGirlC: It's like this paper that you sign... like if you're gonna get a tattoo or something...

Hm. Did I know anything about tattoos when I was 8, other than the fact that you could use baby oil to rub them off?

But yeah, that was about it for today. I suppose I'll have plenty more anecdotes as the year goes on, but let's hope this venture into the real world doesn't take me too far away from what's important. Like partying and blogging. I figure, if anything, it'll make me more of an alcoholic=more drunk stories=more fun stuff for you to read!

Class dismissed.

Waking Up in a Cocoon

So I just went into the downstairs bathroom to look at myself in the mirror (yes, I'm that vain) while I was waiting for my dog to come inside after her nightly going-out. And I looked over, and I saw this:



Ohholycrapthatthingisfreakinghuge!!! Like seriously, I'm not exaggerating, it had to be the diameter of... hmm... what is something round and universal? A wine glass! The spider was the diameter of the bottom part of a wine glass. If I had had a wine glass to smash down on him, he would have squished out, and I bet when flattened, the tips of his legs would have actually stuck out around the sides a little bit! But I cannot stand the feeling of a bug squishing inside a tissue, and he was in a little bowl thingie, so I couldnt smash him with a shoe, and so I tried to pick up the bowl so I could take it outside and fling it and hope the spider would fly out and not attach itself to the bowl by a web string, but it just ran around the bowl whenever I tried to do that and I kept getting scared that it would jump out at me or run over my hand or something!

It was the blog that saved me.

Because I thought to myself, I need to take a picture of this thing! I need to show it to my worldy readers! (And since none of them are Australian or African, I feel confidant that it is the hugest spider they have ever seen outside of captivity.) And so I left the light on and ran upstairs as fast as I could (lest the spider be missing when I got back... then we'd have a real problem on our hands!) Luckily, he was still there when I returned, and apparently he didn't like the flash of the camera, because after taking a couple pictures, I tried again to pick up the bowl and the thing played dead! And I kept nudging the bowl, prompting him to move. Go ahead spider... run around that bowl in circles! Spin a web in there! I'm not scared of you!* But he didn't move.

Then I took him outside, and tried to shake him out of the bowl... except he still wouldn't move. And I banged the bowl on the flower pot (see? I'm nice- I was trying to give him a new home in a dying hybiscus!), but he still wouldn't move.**

And so finally I just turned the bowl over and banged on the top, and when I turned it right-side-up, the spider was gone, leaving nothing behind but a small trail of web.

And now I totally have the heebie-jeebie creepy-crawlies, even more than before because I was trying to identify the spider on the web and saw waaaay too many creepy-crawlie pictures. I itch, and I will probably have yet another dream about waking up in a cocoon of spider web. Great.

* Except I really was.
** Can you tell I'm 4 days away from teaching 3rd grade? I'm starting to write like a repetative children's book... "And he STILL wouldn't move!"

Okay, last time, I promise!

I swear this isn't going to become a blog about sushi. But since my adventures at the conveyor belt, I'm hooked. This is my dinner tonight:



[Yearbook style] Top Row (left to right): Maguro (tuna), Sake (salmon), Saba (makerel)*, Tekka Maki (tuna roll), Bottom Row (left to right): Tamago (omelette), Himare (halibut)*, Ebi (shrimp), Kani Kama (crab stick)

Along with being an International Superstar (And have you noticed my audience is spanning all the way to the lower regions of the country, and all the way to Northern Ireland?! No offense, Canadians, but that dude is from across the ocean!!), I am also a cultured, sushi-eating ______**_______!

And I promise, that's all I have to say about that.


* I think... at least, that's what I'm guessing by comparing my picture to this one. That's also where I got all the Japanese names... You didn't think I actually knew them all without cheating, did you?
** Insert Offical Slang for "a really nifty girl" here. I can't find my deck at the moment.

On the Loss of 50¢ at Target

So I’m in Target today purchasing some items for my classroom, and decide upon checking out that I’m mighty thirsty.  So I’m standing on line at the little Taco Bell/Pizza Hut/carnival food thing they’ve got going there, deciding if I also want a snack.  And there are two girls in front of me-
Girl 1: You gettin’ a taco?
Girl 2: Psssshhhhhhh!  Taco Supreme, girl!
(Girl 1 walks away, over to the table)
Girl 2: (turning around to me) Yougotthirysevcent?
Me: Huh?
Girl 2: You got thiray seve cent?

At this point, within a matter of 1 second, I am thinking in my head, Did this girl who I don’t know seriously just ask me for thirty seven cents so she could buy a Taco Supreme instead of a regular taco?  I know if I only had one dollar, I’d just get something I could afford, like a regular taco, because lord knows I don’t really need the calories in the blob of sour cream that turns a regular taco into a Taco Supreme, and frankly, she doesn’t need those extra calories either.

And then because I am kind of stunned, I say, “Uh, um, 37¢?” and then I take out my wallet and give her 50¢, because I don’t feel like fishing around in all my change to find exactly 37.  And then I get mad at myself for not saying, um, no, I don’t have 37 cents, why don’t you ask your friend, since she obviously just spent some money in this store?

And so the girl orders her stupid Taco Supreme.

Lady behind counter: Oh, we don’t have any Taco Bell stuff today.
Girl 2:  Oh.  Ummmmm… okay, I’ll have the popcorn meal.
LBC: Okay, that’ll be $1.06

Girl 2 forks over a dollar of her own money and 6¢ of mine, and KEEPS THE CHANGE!!!

And yeah I know it’s just 50¢, and it’s not like I’ll miss it, but it’s just the principle of the thing, ya know?  I would never have the gall to ask someone I didn’t know for 50¢ to get something that was not very important (like make a phone call or buy a beer), and if, by chance, the person gave me more than I asked for out of the goodness of her heart, and I did not even use the amount that I asked for, I would certainly return the change.  Even if it was only 44¢.

Conveyor Belt Sushi

This weekend I had the rare privelage of eating sushi from a conveyor belt. It was actually pretty cool... you sit at like a bar, and the sushi passes by you- different kids of rolls or whathaveyou- and you just pick up the one you want, take the plastic lid off, and eat it. Any other plates you eat, you just stack on top of the one you just had. The color of the plates tell you the price of the dish. I had 4 or 5 plates and spent like $10. AND I ate eel. Mad props* to me and my bad, new-food-trying self!

* Official slang

Memories of New Orleans

• The bridge that took forever to get from one side to the other


• India House Hostel, which had alligators and a vending machine with beer in it (a big deal for a  not-yet-legal-to-drink-year-old)


• The cabbie who said "New Joysee"


• The Voodoo Museum with the freaky shrunken heads and the video that was just a little too long


• The set of salt & peppers that started off my collection, purchased at an antique store in the French Quarter


• Inadvertantly flashing a webcam at 711 Bourbon Street


• The crazy people who convinced us to do it (who, at the time, we thought were just friendly, but looking back, they probably worked for the place)


• The vomity/alcohol smell of Bourbon Street with infinite crappy souvenier shops full of beads (anywhere else, it would be a nasty pairing, but in New Orleans, it was fun)


• The awesome food, which I still crave today, 4 years later:


• Gumbo and jambalaya at Remoulade


• A muffaletta from Central Grocery


• Beignets and chicory coffee at Cafe Du Monde


• Hidden gardens


• An all around unforgettable 3 days