Another IKEA Showroom.

I had been planning to wait until I actually had time to clean the apartment before taking pictures of it for the blog...then I realized that that day would never come. Therefore, I will give you pictures now...even though the apartment is kind of a mess. Please forgive. But for now...be content with these:


Jamie (playing the part of "Law Student")in our IKEA living room.


View from our couch and our very lovely $30 "we-may-be-too-poor-to-buy-cable-but-that-doesn't-mean-we-can't-find-other-(expensive)-means-of-entertainment" entertainment center. Also, we are not uncultured, but rather, we have three big boxes of books being shipped our way via media mail. I swear.


Jamie gazing fondly at our massive CD collection. After six years, we decided it was time to consolidate. It was like a union of two great countries -- although his was much more substantial than mine. Believe me when I say that there are many more CDs in this apartment.


Our ugly-70s-wood-paneled kitchen. Although I have grown to like it more and more... Also, you may spot "Crush" our pet plant.


Where the magic happens. I tried to get a better picture of our study, but really, the room isn't that interesting yet. Not much studying going on around here.


The $100 bed that I love. IKEA is what dreams are made of.


A better lit picture of our bedroom. Ten points if you can identify yourself in any of those pictures.

And finally...last, but not least:


The shower curtain that I love and that Jamie hates. Now you know who is the boss of this house.

(Me).

Chomping at the Bit.

No, I still haven't started teaching. I start next Tuesday (after Labor Day). But, I am doing my morning commute tomorrow -- setting the alarm for 5:45am and getting to school at 7am. So begins my life as a sleep-deprived teacher...

I have more training this week at my school -- getting to know the people and the neighborhood. I'm really excited about that and I'm even more excited about getting the room ready for my kids. I have the class roster in my hand right now...18 (!) lovely scholars. Of those names, I can actually pronounce 7. I'm thinking of making their locker and desk tags tonight! Wee! Artsy!

Apparently, my school has been burglarized every weekend for the past six weeks. Tomorrow will be the moment of truth to see whether or not it is going to be seven weeks in a row. The officials suspect kids...I do too, if only because they stole all of the candy out of the vending machine in the Teacher's Lounge. It is interesting to note that they left the Almond Joys. Nobody likes those. The police said something about only kids being small enough to fit through the ventilation shafts (which is how they think they got in -- ha!).

My room has been doing okay...I only lost one of my two computers which I think wasn't functioning anyway. A colleague of mine lost her stereo, a BIG television, and two computers. The burglars took the time to search the cabinets in all the classrooms for anything of value.

It's sad when a school that has so little gets robbed of what it has. All the equipment that was stolen had just been donated...

The Great Escape...

...from California. I finally got around to transfering the pictures from my digital camera to the computer. It's still faster than going to the photo store and getting them printed there. Sort of.

Anyway, below you may find pictures of my trip with Jamie across this grand country. You may also notice that the locales are suspiciously all on the West Coast. Two reasons for that: one is that the middle part is really flat and isn't particularly photogenic from a car. Not to say that it isn't lovely in its flatness, but that it would have just looked like highway. Second (and probably 90% of the reason) is that my camera got buried under the mountains of crap that accumulated in the car as the days passed.


The trip began where I had started: New York. Sort of. Our first destination was the New York hotel in Las Vegas which was graciously paid for by my parents. No luck on the slots.

The next day we hit the road and made it to the base of the Rockies...

Jamie was proud of himself because he caught the reflection of the road in my sunglasses. We both know it was an accident.



A good night's rest and a morning later, Jamie and I made a pit stop at Devil's Canyon and took some shots of the view. Here's one of Jamie looking particularly goofy.


Our next stop was the Betty Ford Alpine Garden in Aspen, Colorado. I must add that it is quite the lovely mountain town.





I know this is a picture of a flower. While, I often make fun of people who take pictures of flowers (mostly because they look stupid while taking the picture), I actually liked the way this one came out.


Same goes for the daisies.

Have you ever seen the Disney version of Alice in Wonderland (of course of you have). You know the part where she is all small and is lost in the garden and the flowers talk to her. At first they are all nice and welcoming, but then they a fearful when they find out she is not a flower and that soon turns to hate as they run her out of the garden and into the big, bad forest? Yeah...this picture reminds me of the head snooty flower because she had those big droopy petals that looked like a floppy hat...but maybe it was supposed to be hair?


No more pictures of flowers...but I have to say in my defense that it was a flower garden. I have plenty more pictures of Jamie looking goofy though...


And a hummingbird.

And of course...the alpine meadow.

Check back tomorrow and you may find some pictures of our final destination -- the apartment. It's not really all that exciting yet -- bare walls and floors. But soon friends...

Fuzzy Olympics.

On Saturday Jamie and I invested in rabbit ears for our cable-less television with the faint hope that we may be able to catch some of the Olympics without having to shell out 50+ (!) dollars a month. After having watched the women's beach volleyball semifinal and individual gymnastics everything is fuzzy with purple dots. This can't be good for my new eyes...but the Olympics is good for the soul.

Still haven't started teaching. It's soon though -- next week -- and my room is a total mess. It's HUGE -- seriously, I think it may be larger in square footage than my two bedroom apartment. AND, I only have 18 students! I feel as though everything is working out for me, but that sort of makes anything short of success completely and totally my fault: I have a small class, a supportive principal, so many support systems, a lovely school, and plenty of space. It's all about the teaching now.

Today we started our Baltimore City new teacher orientation. It wasn't anything new, really, but we did get another tote bag and several more packets of reading that I will never get around to reading. I also joined the Baltimore Teacher's Union. Heh...I'm part of AFL-CIO now. First perk? Yet another tote bag, bring today's total up to two bags in two minutes. I will never need another plastic grocery bag again.

Aside from the totes, we did get spoken to by the mayor of Baltimore. There were all these news casters there, like, talking over his speech! I felt as though that should be considered bad form...although maybe it just seemed loud to me since I was sitting right under their cameras. If you catch the story -- which you won't unless you happen to be watching local news in Baltimore during the 10-second segment -- you may just see me since the camera guy was all up in my face. It's strange to pretend like you don't notice the huge 30-pound camera pointing directly at you when it's less than a foot away.

In other news (no pun intended), apartment is now fully settled. Today Jamie bought the final piece to our living room -- the coffee table. Now I am content. Pictures as soon as I clean this place up a little -- I promise.

For the One Person Who Is Still Checking My Blog.

Whew! After a long hiatus -- maybe my longest one yet? -- I'm back. While I have had access to the internet (my nerdy-internet-dependency led me to schedule the installation weeks in advance for the day after Jamie and I were scheduled to arrive in Baltimore), all free time has been sucked into getting the apartment tolerable for inhabiting and getting otherwise situated to my new life.

What this has consisted of has been: IKEA. I had four glorious days of IKEA since it is very nearby to our apartment (a few minutes). In that time I have grown to love the store even more -- even though most things are still out of my budget. Suffice to say, Jamie and I were able to put together a pretty swank apartment. Come by and look! (Or maybe I will post pictures soon...if I'm feeling generous).

Our furniture is minimalistic...but I like it that way. I feel as though our best bargains were our brand new queen-sized bed for $129, our dining set (which included four chairs) for the same price, and our fine entertainment center for a whopping $30. The last one wasn't from IKEA, but rather a friend of mine from TFA. I feel so grown up and our apartment smells like plywood....mmmmmmmm.

After several trips back and forth carrying huge boxes and assembling many pieces of furniture, I think we are moved in for the most part. We just have to unpack said boxes and organize it. Now that I have started TFA post-induction this process will be much slower. But it'll get done.

Too much money has been spent. I'd rather not think about that: moving on.

To update on the NBC thing: I'm not doing it. *HUGE sigh of relief*. I'm a bit surprised, though, at the twinge of regret that I feel for a lost opportunity to possibly affect more change on a grander scale. This will surely pass when I want to jump out a window in October and it crosses my mind how much happier I am that there will not be a camera crew to capture my student-induced hysteria.

For now, I have to get back to doing all of those papers that I was supposed to be doing over the summer for my Johns Hopkins courses. Five 10 page papers...due tomorrow. I have done one -- rather hastily, too. Ahhh....it feels like Williams again.

On the Road.

Have lots of pictures...but no means of putting them online yet. You'll have to wait for those. But in the meantime: "Heeeeellllllllllo from Hays, Kansas!" Jamie and I are halfway across the country after spending an evening in Las Vegas and Grand Junction, Colorado. Tomorrow, we're going to stop by the Long family farm in Kansas City! Exciting.

On Friday night, Jamie and I got to see the Cirque Du Soleil show which was amazing. I cannot get over how much money they spend on the set...truly amazing. Afterwards, we went to a pretty amazing dinner at Nobu. So delicious. So expensivee. So glad that my dad loves me.

Anyway, I have to go, but I just wanted to check in...expect more updates in the near future...

Voyage

Today is my last day in Los Angeles for a while. Tomorrow morning -- bright and early -- Jamie and I will be starting our voyage back across the country to our new apartment. Tomorrow's destination: Las Vegas. So it's a short leg of the trip, but we figured it was worth it as my parents would be able to come with us (and pay for our hotel and buy us one last nice dinner) and we could meet up with the brother and sister-in-law. We are also going to see another Cirque Du Soleil show...and Jamie will not be put in a box. I think I'm going to drug him beforehand so he won't be quite so perky and volunteer-worthy.

I'm probably not going to be able to post as often...but stay tuned anyway for pictures of our wacky cross-country adventure!

Now I See.

The surgery was a success! Definitely not all that painful (except for one or two “pinches”), more along the uncomfortable side. Since I was pretty much blind without my glasses, I must say that the whole process was definitely worth it for me. I still don’t have my full vision back, but I’m almost 20/20 right now. Cool.

The actual procedure was really quick. I was in the operating room for maybe ten minutes at the most. My only qualm about the whole thing is that I probably wouldn’t want to know exactly what he was doing before I walked in there. Sure, it’s good to know what all those tools are for…but I would have been just fine with: “this won’t hurt a bit”. What was the most uncomfortable about the whole process was knowing that that little squeeze of pressure on my eyeball was them lopping off my lens. Since I they were operating on my eye, I could actually see them coming at me with their eyeball tools. This wreaked havoc on my thinking:

Melissa’s Inner Monologue: This is very Clockwork Orange. What if I make a superhuman blink and I bust off the clamps on my eyelids?? Oh my God what is that thing?? He must be getting ready to open my cornea. WhatamIdoingherewhatamIdoinghere?? Oh! That wasn’t very painful at all…look there it goes and now everything is really extra blurry. So now I have to watch the yellow light…ack! There’s the laser! It smells like burning…that’s my cornea burning. Gross. Ooh! There’s a green light too! I wanna look at that light too…No! I can’t because then that laser’ll totally burn a hole in the wrong part of my eye. Don’t look at the green light don’t look at the green light don’t look at the green light. But it’s so shiny.

Anyway, the process continued like that. I feel that had I not known exactly what was going on it would have been more like “look at all those lights”!

Butterflies.

So I'm heading into the operating room real soon. I'm a little nervous but also excited. If all goes well, I'll be able to crush those disguting glasses that I've had since I was 12. Actually...maybe I will crush them anyway.

Still haven't come to a final decision about the NBC thing. I called the lady and left a message but didn't give a definitive answer. Thanks to all who sent me emails and words of advice...right now, I'm leaning towards doing it. That can all change very quickly though.

Okay. Now I'm going to go have my eyes cut open. Cross your fingers for me!

Goodbye Glasses.

I got back home on Saturday and spent my first night at the beach house. On Sunday morning, there were so many dolphins playing in the water just off the beach in front of my house. They were doing flips and splashing around for hours. Or so I'm told: I was there...I could see the blurry little flashes of gray and frothy splashes of white, but I couldn't see the dolphins clearly. It was sad and I was bitter at the oohs and ahhs of Jamie and my parents who could see them clearly.

It's okay though, because tomorrow (technically today) at noon I will be going under the laser. That's right...my eye surgery. I had my consultation with the doctor today -- apparently I'm blind. I'm also so blind that I'm not eligible for Lasik surgery. Luckily, my eyes are healthy enough and my cornea is thick enough, that I'm good to go. The only drawback is that I may not be able to get all the way to 20/20 to stay. Meaning...somewhere down the road, I might need to get glasses again...but they would be for minor corrections and not the thick lenses I have now. Also, I would be perfectly functional without them...I would just need them if I were going to a theater and wanted to see the action from the back row or driving long distances at night.

Wish me luck! I will let you know how it goes!

I Need a Show of Hands.

This morning at 7am I got a phone call from TFA: apparently they have chosen me to be the subject of a NBC Dateline story about TFA. This would require me to be followed by a camera crew for my entire first-year of teaching. Luckily, I wouldn't be filmed every day -- they are aiming for once a week, but it is more likely that it would something along the lines of once a month. To make up for the times that a camera crew couldn't be in my classroom, I would be given a handheld camera with which to document my classroom antics.

This is a great opportunity. I am terrified.

I need advice! I need suggestions! I need someone to tell me what to do. So far, the overwhelming response has been YES. All day, I have been dreading it for several reasons. Let us weigh the pros and cons:

Cons:

- Having a camera crew in the back of my classroom would be distracting to both me and my students. Although, from my experience thus far, I don't think my teaching would be affected all that much. I tend to zone everything else out while I'm teaching. Over the summer, I would finish up a lesson plan and realize that there had been five people observing me the whole time. I have also been assured that my kids wouldn't be too distracted by the cameras...since most kids tend to have short attention spans, they would quickly forget that they were there at all. Last, teachers are videotaped all the time anyway -- mostly for their own professional development or to give the principal a chance to check up on your work.

- The added stress on the first day. It is challenging enough -- adding a camera crew and the stress of appearing professional on the first day is something that would just up the ante. Blech.

- I am squeamish about seeing myself on t.v. I can barely stomach rereading some of these blog posts -- I can't imagine what it would be like to have to watch myself on television. Seriously...I cannot watch home videos with me in them.

- Time. I'm not sure how much time the whole thing will take...probably not that much at all. Still, it will be my first year teaching, I will be getting my masters at Johns Hopkins, and I live a good distance away from my school. Time will be something I lack.

- The very good chance that I will fail and bring embarrassment and shame to the Umezaki name. My teaching could be a total and utter failure next year. My classroom may not jibe with me, I could completely break down, and it will all be captured on film and broadcast throughout the U.S.

Pros:

- The opportunity. They don't come very often, and when they do come, I hear you're supposed to seize them. Also, it is kind of an honor and it might be bratty for me to turn it down.

- Affecting Change. So, if the whole reason that I got involved with Teach For America was to try and make some positive change in a child's life, wouldn't this documentary be another avenue for me to make even greater changes. Before, I would be able to work with my students and their familes within our little classroom bubble. Maybe this video is the opportunity for me to reach outside that bubble and into the lives of other people. If I could inspire one more person to consider and apply for TFA, than I might be positively affecting their lives and those of their future students. If I'm really true to the TFA mission than this pro should trump all cons -- especially the con about my insecurities. Of course, there is the risk that I will be so crappy that I will actually disuade people from applying...

- I'd be helping TFA. And we all know that I'm fond of TFA.

- It's a good opportunity for me to grow as a person and as a teacher. What better way to learn from my mistakes than to have them documented on film for me to review?

- I would have an incredible collection of memories for my first year.

So...should I do it? Comment and let me know...I'm supposed to tell the lady today...I'm scared.