awkward is as awkward does

My blogging has suffered, yes. I made the wise decision (mistake?) to get the swine flu shot this weekend at the local walgreens. The flu shot totally got me sick, which is confusing to me, as the internet says it should not get a person sick unless that person is a young child immunized for the first time, which I, presumably, am not.

I’ve also stepped into dangerous territory at my job: sex-ed talks with my freshman biology classes. We’re studying cell division, see, which is directly related to reproduction, stem cells and cervical cancer from HPV. These are all topics of conversation from the past 3 school days. I have to admit that I’m not very good at it. I turn red and start to sweat and then I forget basic facts about STD’s and biology (not to mention grammar) and feel incredibly ridiculous. Some teachers are naturally gifted in this area, while I am certainly not. I’m trying to get warmed up for the month of May, when I apparently have to do an entire sex-ed unit centered on HIV/AIDS. It’s so scary! I have to say stuff to teenagers about sex! My brain sort of short-circuits because I’m not sure what I can and can’t say. What things get a person fired these days? I feel like everything, so I tend to say things that I don’t even MEAN. I’m so liberal, but I feel this URGE to tell them not to have sex until marriage. Why is this? I think this has to do with my general fear of Republicans and their fear tactics. At any rate, I had an actual student come after class and ask when the right time for sex was (in a totally earnest way). It took me off guard and I told him it was a personal decision (which I agree with, but then started to wonder if that was the right thing to say not because I didn’t believe it, but because I just don’t know what the party line is in schools these days. I’m not a biology teacher! I have no idea! Argh!). Anyway, I guess I’m trying to say that I’ll probably be taking a lot of personal days in the month of May.

best christmas present wrapping job of '09

My dad actually used tape in order to get this ribbon to stay in it's awesomely designed place.

Best Christmas Theme: Apocalypse

Apocalychristmas

For the past few months, I’ve been having regular, weekly conversations about emergency preparedness with my parents. This started because of the intense “hurricane season awareness” they undergo each fall as citizens of south Florida. Having lived through a hurricane (my mother is more than willing to tell you) teaches you that you need water and canned goods on hand. My parents built an emergency box in response to this need. This emergency box changed, however, after my dad read The Road. Now the emergency box is not just for natural disasters, but also for disasters of an unnatural kind, namely, the apocalypse. The box that held food, water and duct tape now holds guns, ammo, flares, entire medical kits and books on how to build electronics and recognize edible plants.

In celebration of the abrupt change in Pruett family mentally, my dad gifted me with an assortment of things to prepare myself for the coming end of days. I got hot pink mace and a mini-emergency kit as gifts this holiday season. In response, I gave him a solar powered battery charger (optimistically assuming, of course, that the sun WILL actually be able to penetrate our atmosphere of ash).

Best Reason to Live in Downtown SJC

Would have to be the park events put on by the city of San Jose. During the summer there is music in the park, between November and January there is Christmas in the park, and during less exciting times of year, there are various weekend festivals, like the Tapestry festival (did not sell tapestries). Christmas in the park included rides, funnel cakes, robotic Christmas-ish scenes, and lots of trees decorated by local high schools.

best part of going back to work

(Definitely not the early morning or total confusion, which included leaving my lunch at home, thus requiring me to brave the wilds of my HS cafeteria in search of the one vegetarian option-PB&J)

Curmudgeonly 15 year old kids telling me they missed me over the break. I will have to remember this irony if I ever happen to find myself the progenitor of a teenager.

best movie seen by me in the past two weeks

I saw the following movies over the vacation:
500 Days of Summer
Avatar in 3D
The Road
Up in the Air
Sherlock Holmes
Star Trek
Mirrors (some old movie my father OnDemdanded)
Drag Me to Hell
Obsession (Beyonce for president!)
The Strangers
(Also, third season of Big Love)

I didn't feel particularly strong about any of them. None of them elicited crying and wistfulness. The Road was good, though of course, the book was better (and did include crying). I think I'm going to say Avatar was the best movie I've seen in the past two weeks because it was fun and had a message that I can't fathom middle America liking (save the forests and aboriginal peoples! corporations and war are bad!), which is always a plus.

Best dog (duh!)

Over the festive season, my cousin Joe was in town, along with his very large dog, Ozark. Ozark and Albert both received chew toy presents--Albert got an edible postcard for his small stature and Ozark got a large bone.

Albert repeatedly snatched Ozark's bone away, displaying an immense amount of bravado and charm.

He also eats cat poop.

Here we go again

Apparently, NaBloPoMo is going hard-core and is now a movement for people who want to blog everyday, all year long. They provide, "support, inspiration and camaraderie" in addition to monthly themes. Since I like themes (mostly for the fun, game-like quality inherent in doing anything with parameters), I'm going to go ahead and try daily blogging for January as well. The theme is "best". I'm not sure what this is going to mean for me, but for this post, it refers to the best dead tree I've ever had in my house, which would of course be this year's Christmas tree! It's 8 feet tall, weighs at least 100 pounds (requiring the Herculean efforts of me and my companion to get it inside our house), and STILL gives off a wonderful smell (which is why it's still up).


It looks really nice from the outside too: