Top Ten March Madness

I was thinking about doing an all "College" edition of the Top Ten, but I think I'll save that for May.


Erin Lee's Top Ten Songs she Currently Sings In the Car or Shower
1. New Shoes -Paolo Nutini
2. Irreplacable -Beyoncé
3. Crazy -Gnarls Barkley
4. Old Devil Moon -from the play called "Finnian's Rainbow"
5. Killing Me Softly -Lauryn Hill version
6. Bossy -Kelis
7. Rehab -Amy Winehouse
8. Push -Matchbox 20
9. True Blue -Madonna (I learned this one back in the mid-1980's when I was in daycare! The workers taught it to me!)
10. Beautiful Things -Andain

Erin Lee's Top Ten Albums she Looks Forward To In 2007
1. They Call Me Ms. Hill -Lauryn Hill
2. Introducing Joss Stone -Joss Stone
3. Memory Man -Aqualung
4. Elliot Yamin -Elliot Yamin (American Idol)
5. Como Ama Una Mujer -Jennifer Lopez
6. Untitled -Gavin DeGraw
7. It Won't Be Soon Before Long - Maroon 5
8. Spanish Album -Nelly Furtado
9. Untitled -Whitney Houston
10. Untitled -Radiohead
Notable mention to the Backstreet Boys and 98 Degrees...LOL!

Top ten favorite soups
1. Chicken Noodle
2. Tomato
3. Sweet and Sour
4. Clam Chowder
5. Cream of Mushroom
6. Split Pea
7. Potato Leek
8. Chill
i9. Egg Drop
10. Motzeball


Top ten "Peanuts" characters
1. Charlie Brown
2. Snoopy
3. Linus
4. Lucy
5. Pepperment Patty
6. Schroder
7. Woodstock
8. Marcy
9. The Great Pumpkin (He is real!)
10. The little red headed girl


Top ten things that happened because of alcoholic influence
1. The assassination of Abraham Lincoln
2. Boston Tea Party
3. Exxon Valdez Oil Spill
4. The battle of Little Bighorn
5. Failed Soviet Coup
6. The Death of Princess Diana
7. Founding of Alcoholic Anonymous
8. The writing of A Clockwork Orange
9. "Yours truly" doing kareoke (although it doesn't take much :)
10. This....http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wB6s2U1pS0w


Top ten things that are temporary
1. Youth
2. Romantic Infatuation
3. Six-Pack Abs
4. Your Job
5. Your Troubles
6. Professional Importance
7. Relationships
8. Debt
9. Hemorrhoids
10. Life Itself

Top ten things to bring ambiance to your pad
1. A fireplace in winter
2. Candles when it rains
3. Air conditioning in summer
4. Soft Lighting
5. Good Music
6. Multiple Pillows
7. Clean Windows
8. A Warm and Cozy Bed
9. Plants and Flowers
10. Art


Lucille Ball's Top Ten Favorite television shows
1. M*A*S*H
2. The Carol Burnett Show
3. The Honeymooners
4. The Dick Van Dyke Show
5. The Mary Tyler Moore Show (Ted Baxter rules!!!)
6. The Jack Benny Show
7. National Geographic Shows
8. The Milton Berle Show
9. Hallmark Theatre
10. I Love Lucy (Of course)


Federico Fellini's Top Ten Favorite movies
1. Anything by Charles Chaplin (The Circus/City Lights/Monsieur Verdoux)
2. Stagecoach by John Ford
3. Any Marx Brother or Laurel and Hardy film
4. Rashomon by Akira Kurosawa
5. Le Charme Discret de la Bourgeoisie by Luis Bunuel
6. 2001:A Space Odyssey by Stanley Kubrick
7. Paisan by Roberto Rossellini
8. The Birds by Alfred Hitchcock
9. Wild Strawberries by Ingmar Bergman
10. 8 1/2 by Federico Fellini


Top Ten Favorite Jazz Musicians
1. Charlie Parker
2. Louis Armstrong
3. Miles Davis
4. Kenny Clarke
5. Billie Holiday
6. Duke Ellington
7. Charles Mingus
8. Elvin Jones
9. John Coltrane
10. Dizzy Gillespie



Top ten things I WILL be doing the next four(!) months
1. Getting my B.A.
2. Travel to China
3. Surfing (FINALLY!!!)
4. Seeing "The Police"
5. Getting accepted into the credital program
6. Going to the Grand Canyon
7. Going to Vancouver
8. Moving (not far though)
9. Sailing the Pacific (That's in three weeks!)
10. And a top secret thing I have not told even my close friends yet! Bwah haw haw!

71 days and counting!

The Church of Assumption

What I love about living in the middle of nowhere is the awkward sense of humor people have. I was driving through the "Victorian village" of Ferndale where I came upon "The Church of Assumption." I should go in there just to see what they preach (Jesus, we assume, died for our sins.)

Meanwhile, in Crazyville, the letters have been coming in. "The letters?" you ask. Yes, the letter that tell you when your interview for the credital program will be. This would be that big turning point I've been crying about would be. I haven't gotten a letter yet, which sort of sucks because I need to know what I am doing for the rest of my life. My plan right now is if I don't get a letter then I start looking for jobs ASAP.

Where? I'm still writing that blog.

CSET PASSED!!!!! And that is the end of the testing!

The last four days have been completely nuts. But hearing that I passed the CSETs is the big monkey off my back. To be honest, I didn't think I would pass these last couple because, well, I took a couple of them. See normally the CSET is a super large test broken into three parts. I did one part back in October, and decided to hit the other two on Jan. 20th. My peers thought I was nuts, and I was. But this was worth it! I don't think I haven't been this happy in many years. When I was younger I was never that good at test taking, and while that happened many years ago it sort of follow you (like some regrets do, whether you wish to accept them or not is your choice), and today I have moved on passed that! And yes, I am off to celebrate after I write this blog.

So how have the last few days been crazy. Instead of just telling you I'll break them into categories like a sports caster would at the end of the year with sports highlights. What the hell!

Most embarrassing moment of my life: Saturday I was hit on at a bar, by a professor, not a professor in my major, but it was quite a moment. My college chums continue to remind me of the incident.

Silliest play ever: OK, I was going to do a blog about this, but I've lost interest. Let's just say that even if Shakespeare wrote a play with all nude actors. And the greatest actors who ever lived agreed to do it. It wouldn't matter because all we remember is watching naked people. The play's message was "We are all born naked, we all die naked, so we should always be naked." My response...have you ever lived in a place with a real winter???

Best local band: Saturday I also saw a great Bluegrass band called "Devil Makes Three" who were just fantastic! If they come to your neck of the woods I highly recommend them.

Most "A's": 5 for 5! Which is good because I wanted to get as close to that 4.0 as possible. And even though I can never reach it (because of my days in community college) I will at least be well over the 3.0 mark!

Most relaxing weekday in 12 years: Monday my classes were all cancelled, I didn't work, and it was nearly 70 degrees. So I went to the beach and chilled with a book...a REAL book (as opposed to a school book!) It doesn't get better!

Most heartbreaking video: It's called "A girl like me" by Kim Davis. I hope the link below works. If not please copy and paste. It is a slap of reality.
http://reelworks.org/watch2.php?classs=Spring%202005&description=I%20wanted%20to%20make%20a%20film%20that%20explored%20the%20standards%20of%20beauty%20imposed%20on%20today%27s%20black%20girls%2E%20How%20do%20these%20standards%20affect%20her%20self%2Desteem%20or%20self%2Dimage%2E%20Through%20making%20this%20film%20I%20learned%20a%20lot%20about%20where%20some%20of%20these%20standards%20might%20stem%20from%2E&filmer=Kiri%20Davis&title=A%20Girl%20Like%20Me&fName=a%5Fgirl%5Flike%5Fme%2Eflv

Biggest decision of my life: I have made the final choice on what to do after college. But that will require a blog. So "To Be Continued..."

The Nude Bomb

There are a lot of things I have been meaning to write about (The lady who sat behind me at the Los Lobos concert and was putting down LA even though she never lived there, how there are two people in two different classes who raise their hands and talk and talk just so, they think, they will get better participation points, Valentine's day...or lack there of, or how one of my teachers has talked about doing drugs when she is retired just to see what they are like...all these topics are winner.), but instead I will talk about how this Sunday I have to drive to the middle of nowhere and watch a play to write about for my acting class. That's not interesting you say? Well, it's not. Expect that the actors will be nude and dancing the whole time.

Yep!

I will be watching nude actors and dancers in the middle of the boonies on Sunday (God's day, mind you), and I will pay money for this. My original thought before signing up for this was to get all my papers done now (as in before April/May) so I can have a lot more fun toward the end of the semester (more on that later.) This play will be one part Brando-style acting and one part ballet/salsa dancing...again, all nude.

I can only imagine what bounders they think they are pushing when they came up with this idea. And, from what I've been told, these will not be the most attractive people, but I think this will be one of my most memorable moments. So I will make the most of this....and before you ask, no I don't know I can make the most of this. So just "bare" with me. *snicker*

Oddly enough, I expect this to be better then the theatre I've seen in Los Angeles. ;)

Back to "the college normal"

This was my first "college" weekend. On Friday I hung out with my neighbors and watched "Waking Life" (A decent movie, if you are a fan of "What the Bleep Do We Know!" then you will like it). Saturday night was college party after college party. It's sort of funny to bump into my fellow teachers at parties. We talk about education, but we gossip about how we would improve it if we were in charge. Actually what is really funny is when I see the teachers with all their piercing! At school they only wear earrings (one girl keeps her nose ring on). Also, I have to say teachers do know how to party. We don't go out and drink that often, but it seems when we really do we will put these local lumberjacks to shame!

At one of the parties some college kids were playing "Street Fighter". Now while I am a big kid at heart there are some things I don't do that certain peers I know do. I know adults (some that are even older then me) who collect comic books, action figures, and video games. I haven't played Street Fighter in over a decade, (Hell, I haven't played video games in nearly a decade...karaoke not included). I must say I can see the addiction. Once I started playing it was soooo much fun.

One of the parties was for a friend who just finished school last semester and leaves for Spain this Saturday. This would be the second person I know that has moved to Europe, last year I had a girl who moved to Italy to play professional softball and now works at an art museum on the off season. (That's hella cool!)

The St. Valentine Top Ten List

School is crazy, and this was one of my more difficult weeks.


Erin Lee's Top Ten Favourite Male Artists (who are still alive):
1. Jonny Lang
2. Paolo Nutini
3. Jamie Cullum
4. James Morrison (check him out for sure! Wonderful World and Better Man are my fav songs)
5. Ray Lamontagne
6. Gavin DeGraw
7. Ludacris
8.T.I.
9. DJ Tiesto
10. John Legend

Top 10 movies of 2006
1. United 93
2. Letters from Iwo Jima
3. A Scanner Darkly
4. Babel
5. The Departed
6. The Queen
7. The Good Shepard
8. Little Miss Sunshine
9. Pan's Labyerith
10. Thank you for smoking

Top 10 animals the pre-school students love to talk about
1. Rabbits (Go figure)
2. Cows
3. Lions
4. Dog (mostly a personal pet)
5. Pigs
6. Sharks
7. Horses
8. Cats (also mostly a personal pet)
9. Ducks
10. Elephants

Top ten (or eleven) inventors of common things
1. Margaret Knight- Flat-Bottomed Paper Bag
2. William Painter- Crown Bottle Cap
3. Whitcomb Judson- Zipper
4. Johan Vaaler- Paper Clip
5 Cecil Booth- Vacuum Cleaner
6. Jacques Brandenberger- Cellophane
7. Wallace Hume Carothers- Nylon
8. Carlton Mage/Gerald Hale- Parking Meter
9. Sylvan Goldman- Shopping Cart
10. George De Mestral- Velcro

Top Ten "Dear Abby" most unusual problems
1. I'm a bus driver and want some information on how to become a shephard.
2. I want to have a child but don't even have a boyfriend. Can you line me up with somebody?
3. I hear there is life after death. If that is true, can you put me in touch with my Uncle LeRoy Albert from Victoria, Texas?
4. WIll you please send me all the information you have on the rhythm method? I'm learning how to dance.
5. I'm a 50 year old widow and my doctor says I need a husband or the equivalent. Would it be all right?
6. My husband burns the hair out of his nose with a lighted match. And he thinks I'm crazy because I voted for Goldwater.
7. I can't trust my husband. He cheats so much I'm not even sure my last baby is HIS.
8. I've been married only three months and ever since our honeymoon our sex life had become anonymous.
9. Is it okay for the mother in law of the bride to give her a shower? She could sure USE one.
10. I heard there's a sex revolution going on. Can you tell me where it is and how to get there?

Top ten most underrated pleasures
1. Floating in the ocean
2. Afternoon Cocktails
3. Sleeping in
4. The foot massage
5. Making out in the rain
6. Dirty Dancing
7. Reading in a hammock
8. Candlelit bath for two
9. Sitting in silence
10. Uncontrollable laughter


And while I'm on the subject of pleasures


Top ten pleasureable things to do before you die
1. Go on an adventure vacation by yourself. You'll learn about yourself.
2. Fall passionately in love. Emotional safety isn't all it's cracked up to be.
3. Visit the tropics with a lover. Whether it lasts or not, you'll always remember.
4. Camp out in the desert. Escape from civilzation and clarity will come.
5. Ride in a hot air balloon. But don't jump up and down.
6. Spenda week at a retreat. Enjoy the sheer indulgence.
7. Throw yourself a spectacular birthday party. It doesn't have to be a big, just grand.
8. Assemble a photo album of your life. You'll see that your life has a story.
9. Have a portrait of yourself done. Everyone should be immortalized for posterity.
10. Let go of the past. It's there to remember, not to cling to.

Top ten oddest jobs
1. Ant catcher
2. Back washer
3. Ball Picker (Think Golf Courses)
4. Boner (Inserting stays for garmets, sicko!)
5. Bosom Presser
6. Brain Picker
7. Can Catcher (Think "I Love Lucy" only cans instead of candy)
8. Egg Smeller
9. Fish Housekeeper
10. Santa Clause impersonator

Top ten greatest children novels
1. Tom Sawyer
2. Huckleberry Finn
3. Treasure Island
4. Oliver Twist
5. Harry Potter (series)
6. Swiss Family Robinson
7. A Tale of Two Cities
8. 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea
9. Lord of the Ring (series)
10. The Story of Babar

Top 10 most original movies ever made
1. Citizen Kane
2. 2001:A Space Odyssey
3. Freaks
4. Eraserhead
5. Au Hasard Balthazar
6. The Wizard of Oz
7. Breathless
8. The Rocky Horror Picture Show
9. My Dinner with Andre
10. The Seventh Seal



Top 10 movies franchises I am just sick of!

10 way tie. I am sick of all movie franchises. Let's make some original movies already!

Tick Tock Tick Tock

I'm in the middle of writing a "character study" for my acting class. I'm a bit bored by the person I observed and will have to do a scene as for class. So I'm thinking I should mix things up a bit.

For example, although I observed some guy at a party. I think I will make him a Astronaut/Bounty Hunter/Model with a heart. Born in the wilds of Siberia, his parents were killed by Walrus's. He floated on ice for many years till a tribe of pygmy pirates found him and taught him to kill without using his five senses. By then he made his way to Harvard getting three PhDs, and a fourth at M.I.T., just incase. He worked for NASA where he did missions he can't talk about. Then he worked for various government agencies before he went to Milan and brought back Bellbottom pants with a twist of the hip. Then, he turned 20 years old and retired. Today he is a cannabis farmer in Humboldt County with his wife Apple, and children Pear and Orange.

I smell an A!

The Mighty 100!

100 days and counting. And it became real today when someone mentioned to me that most of the hotel rooms in Humboldt County are booked up! (I forgot when a college is the biggest employer for a whole county certain big events are going to create a stir!)

This weekend includes my first real homework, my first true study time (Got a test on Monday), and my first peaceful time (with the packet turned in, a weight has been lift off my shoulders!).

I think my strange story of the week comes from last night's parent pot-luck. It wasn't so much that I didn't have fun, eat a lot of good food, and got paid for it. The parent didn't talk to me as much as I thought. It comes down to two reasons. 1. Because I am a male teacher and they don't know what to make of it, or 2. They don't know what to make of a male teacher. The parents didn't talk to the teachers too much, but I felt a bit more "odd man out." The parents treat me ok when I see them one on one.

A group of people (the people who played flashlight tag with me at the corn maze back on a lovely October night) want me to play flashlight tag with them tomorrow in the forest. However, the "teacher of the year" speaks tomorrow and I'd rather hear her speak.