(no subject)

Comment to this post and I will give you 5 subjects/things I associate you with. Then post this in your LJ/Blog and elaborate on the subjects given.


My items came from roseleaf

Teaching
I are a teacher. A teacher who's normally a grammar nazi but lapses into LOLspeak or other non-grammatical structures here and there. Teaching wasn't something I always wanted to do; I was actually terrified at the thought of standing in front of a class until near the end of college. I love kids though, and eventually found teaching was something I wanted to do. I'm in my 4th year now. The profession is only about 20% in front of the class like you'd expect, and the other 80% is enough to drive a person insane if you let it. I'm currently procrastinating the pile of work I brought home with me. I love 4th grade. Kids still give you hugs and don't have much attitude. It's funny, I don't know what to say about this. It's a tough job but I have no idea what else I would do (especially since I can't have Samantha Brown's job). I think I've gotten a ton of parenting training the last few years, which might be considered a bonus.

Phoenix
I actually live in Mesa, but to out-of-staters it's just easier to say I live in/near Phoenix. I've been here since July 2005, and it is home. I have a job, I have a place to live, I have a church, I have friends. Yes, my family is back in CA but I've lived away from home for so long that being in another state didn't really phase me. The winter weather is great, right now it's trying to jump back toward summer heat, boo. You get used to the broiling hot summers after a year, but monsoon season is miserable. Three months of muggy heat punctuated by the occasional downpours/mini-hurricanes. Sometimes I think the Phoenix area is isolated, as outside the valley the cities and towns are pretty spread out. Still, there's much of the area I need to see. Some friends and I did a sight-seeing day last month, and we had a blast. If teaching didn't leave me so tired on weekends, I'd try to get around more. Break is coming up - road trip time!

British literature
Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! Let's see here. My obsession with Britlit, which honestly includes both books and movies, started in December 2006, after I fell in love with the movie Pride and Prejudice. I read the book in 3 days, then over the next year and a half I read and watched the rest of Jane Austen's novels, the second one being Sense and Sensibility. After that, couldn't decide what to read next, and decided on Jane Eyre which immediately became my favorite book ever. I read it 3 times in less than 2 years, plus the countless times I randomly opened it and read parts. I attempt other books upon recommendation, though my efforts with Charles Dickens have been less successful. Our Mutual Friend was just too difficult to get into, but listening to Bleak House on audiobook was a success. Movies sometimes lead to reading books, and sometimes vice versa. North and South was a fantastic movie, and even better book. I've no idea what my next movie or book will be. Recommendations?

Coffee
A timeline/progression of my coffee consumption, from childhood till now.
-I loved the smell of coffee, and loved smelling the bean bins at the store
-I'd drink a mocha with a bunch of added sugar when there was an espresso machine at McDonalds back in the early 90s. Yes, before Starbucks took over the world.
-I drank the more sugary espresso drinks at the coffee shops that kept popping up.
-Occasional stops at the Starbucks that opened near my high school. It was still a novelty back then, and I occasionally tried coffee with cream.
-I discovered iced vanilla lattes in college, which became my favorite thing. I found a balance between sweet and coffee-taste that I liked.
-Being poor but having 7:30 a.m. classes made drip coffee a necessity (lattes took longer and cost more). I still only bought coffee, since I didn't have a coffee maker at home, and lattes were an occasional luxury. I also loved to embarass my roommates by running up to the bean bins at the grocery store and just smell them.
-While in school for my credential, the early mornings made coffee a necessity. Yay for Java City on campus! A few months into school, I got a job at Starbucks, which was my downfall. Before that, Starbucks was a once a week thing; twice felt like pushing it. Free coffee while working plus 30% discount otherwise...and the rest is history. I became a coffee snob.

Am I addicted? Yes, probably. However, it's not just the caffeine, it's the taste. I could go decaf if necessary, but if I had to give it up, I'd really miss the taste. I still love half-sweet iced vanilla lattes, but drip coffee is cheaper. Even after all the coffees I had to sample as a barista, I still prefer coffee with cream to black. Darker and bolder coffees are better than mild, and I make it quite strong. It doesn't have to be Starbucks, but whatever the brand, it better not be weak.


80s TV
roseleaf, what made you choose this?
In the 80s, I watched cartoons, soap operas, daytime tv and primetime sitcoms. I'll just list what favorites I can remember: Mork and Mindy, Voltron, Guiding Light, As the World Turns, Smurfs, Scooby Doo, Knight Rider, The A-Team, Full House, Perfect Strangers, China Beach (or was that 90s?), game shows... I guess I watched a lot of tv as a kid, though I can't remember it all. Oh! In second grade, when everyone else was watching MacGuyver, I watched Highway to Heaven. I remember asking people the next day if they had seen HtH and they would say no, then talk about Mac.
Oh yeah! Sound of Music was on tv every year, and then there was the tv movie about Nadia Comaneci. I watched my tape of that movie so many times it started to wear out. I still have the tape, but I don't know if the vcr Alyssa gave me works.