I just had my Mayumi date for the week and had Thai Ocha green curry. Mmmmmmmm.

Now begins the fight to stay awake to grade papers. I hate grading papers.

I don't know if I've said this before, but man, I am *so* grateful for my education. I realize that so much of "smarts" is circumstantial. The biggest factor in student success ( according to my education classes ) is parental income. Think about it. I think it would be unfair to say one causes another, but it's all correlated. Stupid money. I'm glad I had teachers who knew what they were doing and added their own flair and philosophy to things. I'm glad my mom cared enough to take me to the library during the summer and say " you ARE joining the summer reading club". I'm glad that even though my parents divorced, that my dad was there to check up on things...that he gave me the opportunity to go to Paris when I was 16. I really wish I could completely change things around for the majority of my students, but I mean...so many things are just luck. Think about that experiment with the caged mice...the little mouse with the toys and other mouse friends had the most neural connections ( and you know I'm all about those crazy neurons).The lonely , bored mouse had significantly less connections. But it wasn't his fault he didn't have toys or friends. Circumstance. And I guess that's just how the world works...much to the Bleeding Hearts' dismay.

I had a good weekend. It was hard to get back into teacher mentality today. I need to find my happy medium. I overdid it on the partying sunday night. I had many a fascinating conversation though. I love Denton; I don't care how much of a dump it is. I love its drunks, its musicians; its apathetic kids getting sucked into overpriced overeasy classes. I know I need to leave soon though, or I'll never grow up. This is my Neverland. Awwwwww

I started working on making the house look not-so-much like a frat house. I took "before" pictures and will have them on flickr soon. Be lookin'!