It's Official!

I'm going to marry a bona fide lawyer in just one week! Today, Jamie graduated from law school (with honors) and is now officially has a J.D. Very excited.


That's Jamie hugging the Dean...because a simple handshake doesn't suffice. Jamie even got a shout-out from the Dean in his commencement speech. As you can probably tell, I'm very proud to be marrying this guy.

The highlight of the (long) graduation ceremony was the singing of the National Anthem by my fiance. Seriously -- he sang the National Anthem in front of thousands of people today and he sounded amazing. Wanna hear? Of course you do...

That's going to be my HUSBAND in one week! Okay. Enough with the cheese...I am just very proud. Here are some more pictures from today...

The State of Affairs.

So I know that almost one week before my wedding I shouldn't be writing downer posts...but this article in the LA Times today sort of prompted me to. Not only because it's such a terrible, horrible thing to happen at any school, but that it happened at my school.

I have felt increasingly sad about our schools. Things like the story above happen relatively rarely at a school like Harvard-Westlake, but they happen too many times to make the news at schools like where I now work. Last week we had the fourth murder within 3 blocks of my ELEMENTARY school since January. That is almost one murder a month within 3 blocks of my school.

I have watched as one of my most intelligent (albeit difficult) students from my first year of teaching has become the recruiter for a local gang at our ELEMENTARY school. When 10 year olds are recruiting more 10 year olds to join their gang I cannot help but feel like what I do is pointless. Any amount of knowledge or character that I can teach my kids in the 7 hours I have them, is erased on their way home when they are exposed to the dangers of our neighborhood.

It's sad. And I have no answers.

Nerd Corner.

My life has been devoid of Conan O'Brien for too long. What a triumphant return. I, personally, am a fan of "Herniated Disc C3PO".

So Soon.

Yikes. I'm lame. Here's the quick update:

1) The wedding is SO SOON. Things are falling (have fallen) into place and I'm just so excited for the chance to finally be married to this guy.

2) After a check-up with the vet it turns out that our little Junior is actually one of those rare female orange tabbies. Good thing we didn't try to get her neutered right away -- that would have been embarrassing.

3) The wedding is soon.

4) I have vowed to post more often. Maybe even daily? I figured that even if everybody has given up on this blog, I'll be able to look back at it someday and remember this period of my life right before Jamie and I got hitched. So with you as my witness, I promise to post more often...at least until I'm completely overwhelmed, grouchy, stressed, etc. with wedding plans. If that happens. (It probably will).