Cleanliness is next to Godliness

Today is a holiday. I'm spending it by cleaning my room. It's my bi-annual cleaning which means it takes several hours and is quite labor-intensive. My mother is camping this weekend so I haven't had to deal with her nagging and guilt-trips and constant questions about what I'm doing. It's quite lovely. I also got to watch a horror movie the other night on the big TV. Every once in a while during my cleaning I get the feeling that I should be at a BBQ or something with others. But then I think about how much progress I've made on my room and I think that it's okay that I'm inside cleaning on a holiday. And I'm used to being left out. During my cleaning I went through the boxes under my bed and realized that there were a whole bunch of sweaters and long-sleeved shirts that would have been useful this past winter. That's why I don't like under-the-bed boxes for clothing cause I forget that they're there and have stuff I could wear. But it's currently inevitable since I live in a 12'x10' room. All space must be utilized to capacity. Sometimes I look around my room and wonder what investigators would think if I was ever killed and they were searching my room for clues. I have 8 bottles of body lotion on my window sill. What would they infer from that? I have a fake skull next to a statue of the Virgin Mary on my television. Oh, and the Virgin Mary statue has a pink mini-boa around her neck. I have a cross with dirt from the Holy Land hanging on one wall and posters about sex and drinking on another wall (promoting it, just in case you were confused).

Hire Me!

I hate this whole job application process. It's so tedious. I have to write an essay for all these applications about why I should be employed by the school district and I'm stuck. I know once I get the first sentence down it'll flow and I'll get it done in little time but I can't get that first sentence. When I first went to write it I was going to start with, "I love being in the classroom." but then I decided that was a horrible way to start it. And how should I sound? I mean I don't want to be boring and ambiguous but I want to look like I'm a professional and taking it seriously. Gah! I just want to teach French! I WANT to be in a high school classroom with high school students and I don't have a criminal record and I'm certified. Shouldn't that just get me in right away? Most people cringe at the thought of spending 7 hours a day with teenagers. I'm asking to do it on a daily basis.

Blech. Job hunting sucks.

Playing the Game

I can't check my yahoo email at work so I don't get emails about things going on until I check it at night. And if there's an email about that very night then I've already dropped the ball. When I checked my email tonight I saw messages about going to Xochimilco's and then when I grabbed my phone to call about said email I noticed that i had missed a call. I think I was outside chasing Raffi when I missed the call. So no mexican food for me. It's okay though, I have papers that need to be graded. And speaking of grading, I found out yesterday that the teacher I'm covering is not coming back until after Memorial Day. I'm both happy and not happy about this. I'm happy cause it means mo' money but I'm not happy cause it means a week or two more of this hellish subbing position.

I know I'm selfish but sometimes I wonder if I'm more selfish than others or if we're just selfish creatures. Don't we all want it to be about us? I want to be somebody's muse. I want to read something and know that it's about me.

Yesterday for Mother's Day my father instructed the children of mothers to write a poem for their mother to be read aloud at dinner. He gave us this assignment like weeks ago and I was the only one who actually did it, everyone else just went up to the podium and said kind words about their mother or the mother of their children (yes, we had a podium). So I read my poem aloud to everyone and they all look impressed yet shocked. Barbara says to me, "Wow. That was really good." And then she gave me a hug. And my father says to the group, "Whew. I think we were all a little afraid about what Jessica was going to have written but she didn't talk about death or this cruel, cruel world at all. that was actually quite touching." I hope I don't lose my street cred.

Into the Great Wide Open

I went into the bathroom today and one of the knobs on the étagere was crooked and I looked at it for a moment and thought to myself, "huh. the knob is crooked . I wonder how that happened. " Then I twisted it back into the correct position. Afterwards I felt like everything was right in the world.

I think that I just hurt my mother's feelings. But it's her own fault. She's so emotional and sappy. I'm pretty sure that I'm going to have to move out of state for a teaching job and I have mistakenly expressed this fact to my mother. So now she keeps telling me about all the people she knows in other states. I think that she thinks I'm upset or worried about the possibility of moving out of state but I'm not really. I mean of course I'll miss my friends and family but I'll be visiting and once Michigan starts hiring more teachers I'll come back. I'm also 30 years old and can handle moving to another state. Tonight she was having dinner with her best friend and their family and she comes home and is telling me how everyone was asking about my job search. Then she starts saying how everyone was saying that if I move out of state there are trains and planes and ways to visit. And I'm sick of her telling me this everyday and so I'm like, Jesus, Mother, I know that. I'm not thinking about teaching in Siberia. I know that I can frickin' come home and visit." Then she saws that it was more about everyone coming to visit me and said that there would be a mass of people coming to visit and so i frowned and said, "yeeeeahhh, I'm not really a people person." Then she looked sad and walked out of my room. But seriously, the woman is making me want to move out of state by constantly reassuring me about it.

This post took 20 minutes to write because the letters appeared 30 seconds after I would type them. It's fucking annoying.