We got a puppy. She's a 1.5 pound, 12-week-old yorkie puppy, and she's precious. We're in love.

She's my dad's early Mother's Day gift to my mom. My dad had been looking around for a yorkie puppy for a while and had contacted Lolli's breeders. Thursday morning, my mom answered the phone and the man on the other end asks if she's still interested in the puppy. Needless to say, it took my mom a minute to realize what the man was talking about, but once she did the man felt really bad--he didn't know it was supposed to be a surprise. Oops. I don't know why my dad gave the breeder our home phone and not his work phone.

I was really apprehensive at first since I think you should always adopt your dogs. There are so many homeless animals out there that it's hard to justify buying one. But as soon as we went to see her, I was hooked, and so was my mom. :)

So, here she is. We've had her since Thursday (5/3) evening, and she's really come out of her shell. She was so timid at first but now she bounces around like a bunny and acts like she's a big huge dog. She's got to be the cutest thing I've ever seen.


Lollipup! For more pictures, check out her set on my Flickr stream.

I just saw a new Insight Broadband commercial claiming their sevice was "fastester." I will repeat: Insight Broadband's new slogan uses the word "fastester."

Although the woman in the commercial does admit that this is a made-up word, it is all I can do to keep from vomiting. Seriously, what in the hell are they thinking?

Today I felt pretty good, so I sat down and took a lot of self-portraits. I'm sure I should feel vain and egocentric, but I don't. I don't ever feel like I photograph well, and I'm plain and boring and my skin isn't always clear and my features are awkward and I usually feel completely unattractive.

But today I took dozens of pictures, and the least I could narrow it down to was 26. Today I have 26 pictures of myelf that I'm so pleased with, I can't delete anymore of them. Today I had so many good pictures that I couldn't hardly choose just one to post. Today I felt really pretty, and I can't remember the last time I felt that. It's a great feeling, and I hope it happens more often.

Until then, there's plenty of self-portrait options that don't include a face. :)

My paid subscription to LJ expires in a few days. I don't plan to renew it.

I'm back at work, at the radio station. I love the music, and we've recently added a whole bunch of great music--some old hits, plus some new upcoming artists' stuff. Honestly, for a music lover like myself, you can't get a job much better than this. But with my best friend no longer working here with me, I'm going to have a lot more free time on my hands than I'm used to. Maybe I'll kill some time with more LJ posts. Or maybe not. I think I'm about done with LJ, considering I never have anything worth saying. I'm almost positive I lead the more boring life in the world.

Favorite songs of the day that I recommend:
Damien and Stephen Marley - All Night
Blessid Union of Souls - That's the Girl
Rolling Stones - Sympathy for the Devil
Blur - Coffee and TV
Tom Petty - Mary Jane's Last Dance

Oh yes, and I just watched a friend of mine on The Price is Right. He graduated the year after I did--he was in a lot of theater productions with me, and was always really sweet. He made it to the showcase, then guesed a whopping $8000+ under. I'm terribly jealous of him, even if he didn't win, but excited to think that I actually KNOW someone who got to meet Bob Barker!

I have no good photos on Flickr, but I'm becoming more inspired by the day. Like I said earlier, it's taken over my life. I'd damn near become a prostitute for a Nikon D80 or a Canon Digital Rebel XTi. But it makes me all the more certain that my two and a half years as an education major are futile. I've been thinking about it for several months now, and I'm pretty certain I don't really want to teach. Of course, it's too late now, so I'll finish this degree and make the best of it. What was I thinking? Well, I think I'd gotten it in my head that becoming a teacher would be the next best thing to what I truly want to be--a stay at home mom--that I'd convinced myself it was the career for me. Sure, I'd have the same schedule as my kids, but what good is that if I'm not happy?

Never before has the phrase "living for tomorrow" been so true for me. I'm so close to a complete emotional shutdown it's crazy, and I'm just hanging on by reminding myself that tomorrow I'll have a welcomed, although entirely too short, break. I intend to make the most of this break, catch up with friends (especially friends with boys in other countries!) and not think about school as much as possible.

I feel like I haven't updated in forever. I read everyone else's posts avidly, but I simply don't have anything worth saying. Mostly.

Over the past month or two, I've felt myself spiraling down into a depression deeper than I've felt since freshman year in high school. I know full well that my life is going great. I finally have a good, close friend to talk to, I'm making other friends as well, Brandan's still a dream come true, and my grades are good. Yet no matter how much I remind myself of these good things, the depression has consumed my entire being, leaving me lonely, unfulfilled, and thoroughly miserable. I feel the blame is entirely on this semester's classes. I've never had such a worthless bunch of classes. Specifically, my education classes are wearing me down to the point where I feel like giving up. I am learning nothing. I am doing nothing. I tell people how I never have homework, how I spend hours upon hours of every evening surfing the net or watching tv, trying to find something to keep me from being completely bored. They tell me they're envious and that I'm lucky, and that when they took these classes with another professor, they were always up to their eyeballs in homework. What they don't understand is that I'd rather spend several hours a night doing homework that will actually benefit me and my teaching career. I'd love to be doing homework, so that I felt I was actually being prepared for becoming a teacher. But mostly, I'd love to feel like I'm learning how to be the teacher I want to be, so that I can truly make a difference in my students' lives.

After two and a half years attending countless education courses, I feel no better prepared than when I graduated from high school. I've learned the occasional vocabulary term and some of the legality issues with teaching. But when it comes to actual teaching techniques, I've got nothing. This semester has been the worst at this by far. I am tutoring a second grade student who doesn't even know all the letters of the alphabet, and I know I could really help her out. Were I able to do it my way, had I some actual instruction on HOW to teach reading, I could really get this kid reading. But I am terribly restricted by my professor's ridiculous lesson plan guidelines, and as a result I doubt this girl will show any improvement at all. My professor outlines each "activity" (the same retarded activity every session) we do, expecting the children to learn from the same activity day after day. But my student is becoming bored with this activity, and it's done nothing to help her learn the alphabet. I am so limited by what my professor tells me I MUST teach that I cannot teach this girl what she truly needs to learn. I worry ithis is showing me a little of actual teaching will be like: Teachers are so harshly limited to what and how they can teach, no thanks to the Indiana Academic Standards and the No Child Left Behind Act. Regardless of what the students actually need help with, teachers are forced to teach only what is necessary to help pass the ISTEP. Sure, a student might know the difference between a noun and a verb, but how far is it going to get them if I can't teach them how to comprehend what they're reading? There are so many outlines of what a teacher MUST teach that there is no room left for what a teacher actually NEEDS to teach. It makes me not want to teach anymore.

All this makes me not want to teach anymore. I'm immensely discouraged and fed up with education in general. I want so badly to teach and interact with students, but I'm realizing that people cares less and less about helping the children and more and more about making school statistics look good. It's cliche, I know, but I really do want to become a teacher to make a difference in kids' lives. But with what I'm being taught, I'll never be able to do that. And I keep wondering why I'm pursuing something that is so disheartening when I could do something I love that people would actually appreciate. Something that I will actually be competent and well prepared to do, without all the terrible restrictions of these crappy professors, like photography or animal-assisted therapy or speech pathology.

I say all this not because I expect anyone to care. I don't, because I understand that this is boring and sounds like nothing more than complaining, but it feels good to tell this to someone. I'm afraid to admit it to anyone else.

I've got the most perfect puppy I could ever ask for, but I can't figure out how to get someone to keep her until after this year and I can get an apartment. In nine months to a year, I'd be out of the campus apartments and could keep her. But no one can keep her for me till then, so after today she'll be gone forever. I've been wracking my brain trying to figure out how to make it work, but it won't.

This is awful.

There's a small, small glimmer of hope after all. We'll see what happens.

Per request of abient, here's some pictures!

( Poppy the hedgehog. )

1. I think I'm losing interest in Livejournal. Flickr, on the other hand, has my undevided attention.

2. You know people don't consider you friends anymore when they leave your Facebook fan club group.

3. If you're doing a group project and I am nice enough to volunteer to put the Powerpoint together, be considerate. If I asked to have your part of the presentation by 9pm the night before (a reasonable time, I thought), do NOT stop working, leave to go watch the Project Runway season finale, and then finish afterwards, so that I'm up until midnight waiting to on you so I can finish the slides.

4. I've gotten more sleep this week than most, but I feel more tired. I must be crazy. Or nocturnal.

5. I want my hedgehog to like me.

I guess they weren't spaghetti straps. But thank goodness I stumbled on this girl's Facebook photos!

As promised, here's the whole story about my Saturday gone crazy. I'm cutting it just because it's so long, but I really think it's worth reading if you've got a minute and want some entertainment. Honestly, this story is the kind of thing you see on TV. BUT IT'S ALL TRUTH, BABY.

( Saturday adventures with the tranny and AU Security. )

Bordering the university campus is The Driving Center, a facility offering Driver Education courses. I believe it to be the only such place in Anderson. That is fine and well, as I fully understand the need to teach aspiring drivers the do's and don't's of traffic. And I remember well how important Driver's Ed seemed to be to me and what a landmark it was in my high school career. Everyone wants to be able to drive. But for the love of goodness, why must every driving instructor have their student driver practice on the AU campus? They've got the whole city of Anderson to explore. Why can't they go be a roadblock and a nuisance somewhere else, for a change?

Today was the PAWS Pool Party. It was a blast! I was the PAWS DJ, keeping music going during the event from noon to four. I got tons of compliments about how great the music was and what a good job I did. I did play some darn good music, if I do say so myself (all summery/animal-related songs, mostly 60's and 70's). In fact, I'm so proud of the playlist I used, I'm saving it for future reference.

Anywho, it was very entertaining to watch all the dogs swimming. They were either completely gung-ho and dove in every chance they got, or completely terrified and refused to swim unless dragged in their merciless owners. And watching the owners was almost as fun--scolding your dog for sniffing another dog's butt is like scolding a person for shaking another person's hand. That's just how they say hello.




( Nothing's more fun than pictures of wet dogs. )

FOR SALE: 10-GALLON FRESHWATER AQUARIUM.

I've had this aquarium for about a year and just don't want to fool with dragging it back up to school in a month. It's in excellent condition, all fish are extremely healthy, and everything is in perfect working order.


Includes: 10 gallon aquarium with lighted hood, power filter, heater, thermometer, gravel, plants, all water and maintenance supplies, and eight fish. $50 or best offer.


1. Blue and purple betta.
2. Red-eye tetra.
3. Red-eye tetra.
4. Red-eye tetra.
5. Dwarf coral platy.
6. Hybrid hi-fin platy.
7. Very special, amazingly robust, nearly indestructable banjo catfish, "Tank".*
NOT SHOWN: One small, shy oto catfish.
*Tank has a story to explain why he looks so funny, and why he's my favorite fish ever. Ask if you're interested.

If interested:
--leave a comment.
--or call 317-679-9426.
--or email me at rnthomas(at)anderson(dot)edu.

I'm working on making my own mood theme, but I'm stuck. Help, please? Here's the stats:
1. I've made all the icons 60px by 60px, which I don't believe to be too big.
2. I've uploaded all the icons onto my Photobucket account.
3. I've gone through and painstakingly copied/pasted the URLs onto the Mood Theme Editor page.
4. I hit save, and everything went bye-bye.
What am I doing wrong?

[/edit: It's all good, I did it! Hooray! Man, I'm lame. What do you think? Too much? I'm not a fan of all the white background on them, but I'm not sure how to get rid of it. Ideas?]

Does anyone know how to take a screencap of a DVD?

Thanks.

So, like the rest of the world, I like Harry Potter. I admit it. I'm not a psycho fan--I didn't wait at Barnes and Noble until midnight so I could get the first copy in Indiana, I don't wear costumes on J. K. Rowling's birthday, and I don't own a wand, but I do find great enjoyment in reading the books. So, as is customary, I must read HBP.

My dad bought it for my sister and me yesterday, and I realized a dilemma that must be fixed before I can read it. As I have pretty much the worst memory in the history of the world, I don't remember much of what happened in Order of the Phoenix at all. It's terrible.

So, LJers, I'm asking:

Can someone remind me about what happened in The Order of the Phoenix?

I guess it goes without saying that if you, in any way, reveal anything about HBP, I will be forced to hunt you down and slice your throat.

Thanks!