overheard in the lounge, during a conversation about the show "john and kate plus 8."

anonymous teacher that's not me: "i really like that show, they don't make about them trying to draw attention to themselves or anything, they're just minding their own business."

anonymous teacher that may or may not be me: "yah, looks like they minded it eight times."

life is good.  thanksgiving was great, come and gone if you can believe that.

*tashard choice is a man.

*i wish PBS would release a comprehensive mr. rogers' neighborhood DVD collection.

*all my guys made the finals this weekend, 180, 189, 215 and 285.  we rolled the rockwall invite by like 40 points.  it was s'posed to be a down year.

*oscar de la hoya's finally been put out of his professional misery.

*my mighty wheaton thunder football team are in the D3 national semifinals.

there's probably more, but i can't remember it right now.  stick that in your juice box.

dear immigration and naturalization services,

if you ever need to just clean up, cause you've got a quota or something like that and maybe you don't feel like getting up early enough to catch them at home depot in the morning, just wait around til lunchtime and show up at any 7-11 in DFW.

it's all the same to me if you do or you don't, just saying is all.

welcome,

riqui

i don't work this week.  not at school anyway.  and i'm absolutely terrified that this week is gonna get away from me before i realize it and i'm gonna have to wake up and be at work way before i want to be.

terrified.  for real.

my first job ever was working maintenance at the high school that i graduated from.  it was a summer gig, one that i did after my junior and senior years there.  i made five bucks an hour that first year and a whole five-fifty the year after that.  i was rolling, like for real. 

the guy i worked with the most was named jose, a guy from michoacan down in central mexico who still works there at st. mark's and who i see every once in a while.  his son is at SM now, playing ball and wrestling and in the wrestling room here lately,  he's been my workout partner.  he's a big kid, with about six inches and fifty pounds on me and like i said, he's a sophomore, so he's pretty green and most of the time i'm able to use my experience to get an edge on him.  

so anyways, i'm talking to jose today and saying that he's getting better, but i'm still beating him pretty good and he says to me "en los anos que vienen, you nogannadonathing."

it was genius.

we hired a new counselor at work, mostly on account of the old one moved to portland.  anyways, the guy we hired is a guy, which is different and means there's three of us on campus now, as opposed to just me which has been the case at least half the time i've been there.

so it's cool there's another guy around, what's less cool though is that his name, first and last, bears a remarkable resemblance to mine.  i got my first taste of confusion whenever i got asked by a parent if i was in charge of career day.  i'm thinking "wtf?  where would they get that idea? i've never had anything to do with career day in the historyof ever," and all of a sudden it dawned on me.  that guy, the counselor, sent out his letter to parents asking for volunteers and suggestions and stuff like that, and obviously, had signed his name on the bottom.  i realize what had happened, write her back and tell her no, it's not me, the new guy we hired to be counselor just has almost exactly the same name as me, and he's the one in charge of career day.

on the bright side, i don't have to give the fifth grade boys the puberty talk this year.

i'm not a countdown guy, but there's a week left before i don't have to go to work for a week.

i'm trying really hard not to lose focus on this here, but it's a bit difficult given the pace.

no complaints though, i love life.  for real.