| Gay |
[May. 21st, 2009|07:38 pm] |
I just had a close call. I almost collided with a Hooters Girl because I was staring at this cute guys legs when I came out of the bathroom. Posted via LiveJournal.app. |
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| (no subject) |
[Jan. 31st, 2009|08:15 pm] |
Went snow showing got the first time ever today. It was a good time. Got Carleen to come too. We thought that she would probably last 5 or 10 minutes ... We went for over an hour. It was great to be out there and it was great that Carleen lasted so long. Bob and Lance came. Bob was great because he pointed out deer tracks and we actually saw 5 or 6 deer. Lance of course was great company. More on them later. All and all ... a good time. Posted via LiveJournal.app. |
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| Technology can Sometimes Suck |
[Jan. 13th, 2009|11:10 pm] |
| [ | Current Location |
| | bed | ] |
| [ | mood |
| |  cranky | ] |
| [ | music |
| | buzzing or my annoyance | ] |
Work computer .... virused. I am starting to think that too many people use the thing and that is why I keep having trouble. It probably is not true but it makes a convenient excuse for me. The thing is tehre are times I would like to use it and there is someone else doing something maybe important but maybe not.
Parents' secxond TiVo ... dead. Spent 90 minutes trying to fix it or have it fixed. No luck. This means that it will cost $156 to replace it. After I told them to ship it, my parents said "Well we probably don't need it. we really only use the one in the living room."
Not sure what to do. Either just install it for them when it arrives or ake it over to Carleen's and show here how to use it. She might enjoy it more.
I didn't even try for a second day to set up my new wireless router. I imagine something would have been thrown into a wall or trhough a window. |
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| New years |
[Jan. 9th, 2009|06:10 pm] |
Brilliant new years. Horseback riding on new years day and hang gliding the next. Also the best go-karting I have ever experienced. It had slicked corners. Whoaa Horseback was an experience. It was 34 F. I had to drive from Kill Devil Hills to Cape Hatteras. They gave me Jack, a massive horse. They told me Jack could be trouble but that story later Ya Posted via LiveJournal.app. |
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| New Years |
[Jan. 3rd, 2009|12:58 am] |
1. Go-kart racing. Never tried anything like it before. The corners are slick so the cars go into skids and slides as the turn. It was a simple oval court but it was the best go-karting I have ever done. We went every day all three days we were here on the outer banks. Today, just after it rained we raced and the guy who works there joined us.
2. 1 January - Horseback riding. My second time on a horse. 45 minutes in the woods, 30 minutes on the beach, and another 45 minutes back through the woods. They told me that my horse, Jack, was a notable slacker and even gave me a riding crop in case I needed to whip him a bit. We got along great. I never had to use the crop. Jack and I got along great.
3. 2. January - Hang Gliding. Finally I was able to hang glide. Spectacular. Well the flights were very short but there was lots of taking off and landing. It went so well that I had to ask the instructor if he was holding me up. We he said all he was doing was holding the tether so I didn't fly backwards ... I was thrilled. The best part is that not once did I land on my face. |
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| Catching up is hard to do |
[Dec. 26th, 2008|01:02 pm] |
There is very little chance of my doing this in an interesting way so instead I will try to look back at 2008. This seems somewhat fitting for this time of year. Hopefully, even with all my time on FACEBOOK I will be able to write here more often. I think I need a place to dump my stress.
1. Carleen
The cancer is under control. She is off chemo and the difference between last December and this December is incredible. Although she has almost no ability to use her right arm she still can paint and teach. The biggest problem is her fitness. Of course she wants to be fit again but she gets tired so easily that it frustrates her. This is an on-going project. She talks of dying or wanting to die which quite honestly .. I don't know how to react to. I know I will miss her. But is that selfish of me? I also believe that she can get through this now and live quite happily for some years so I will continue to encourage her.
2. BAE
So much. So much.
TEACHING - Love it. Things in the classroom are fantastic. I have been working with higher groups and they are goin really well. I am thinking of branching out into some different arras such as a book reading section. Summer classes were crazy. We had 250 students at the school. Classes were 12-16 strong (this is somewhat disappointing since our literature says max. 12). We had groups from Spain, Italy, and Kosovo. I have become enamored of Kosovo. They were from American School Kosova, a place I am seriously thinking of applying to.
HOUSING - This is not as difficult as others seemed to think. The summer was mad crazy because for July and August I had to place 180 people. The entire city was booked. I took in some Home Stay Families that were very bad. Of course I was learning on the fly and so I fell for some old tricks (such as cleaning the house for me but never cleaning it again) but I also found some great houses the we will use, I hope, for a long long time. Students are interesting in what they want for housing and what they like and dislike. I sometimes have trouble with the balance of student expectations and Home Stay Family expectations. The hardest part for me is that I am very uncomfortable tellin people bad news. It kills me every time a student wants to change homes and I have to tell the family. Just as bad is when a home stay is arranged but then the student's visa is denied. People are depending on the money they get for hosting and I have to tell them that money is not coming.
An interesting thing from this summer was the amount of work I had to do with the BAE Residence. We had a Resident in charge but she was spectacularly useless. The students didn't like er, she didn't like the students. I spent hours trying to fix things or tryin to calm people because things weren't fixed. Of course the students were not perfect. The cmplained that they would get yelled at for having parties and I would remind them that the BAE Residence was alcohol-free. A very interesting balancing act.
MYRNA - I have no real relationship with her now. I distrust her and worry that she will drop me as soon as I make a mistake. She has proven (with Sue this summer and David recently) that if people disagree with her or she has a personality conflict with someone that she will change the rules to get rid of them. She told Sue that she had to let her go because even though "K" had been a teacher for only 2 months (Sue had about 30 years), "K" had started at BAE before Sue and everything was strictly on a seniority system. For David though she told Jennifer not to give him classes if we had to cut teachers because of low numbers. David had been teaching only one class (with their full approval) but he has also been here longer than al but ONE other teacher. In effect Myrna had Jennifer fire him by emailing him to say he didn't have a class to teach. She didn't even have the decency to call or email David and tell him herself. So why was Jennifer doing classing? Because Myrna was so hopeless at it that at first she paid a teacher to sit with her and read names while she clicked the name in the database. When she got confused about the new classes she would just restructure all the classes with no thought as to which students already had which teacher. After a couple months of this, and knowing that during the summer we would have to create new classes each week Jennifer and I took over the classing. Often times in the summer I arrived at work around 7 or 7.30 a.m. and worked until midnight. This was so I could do Myrna's work as well as mine. What never occured to me until November was that Jenifer, as a per/hour employee was paid for classing. As a salaried employee I was not paid, however because it is part of her job description, Myrna technically was getting paid for my work. What else did I do for her work? All summer she rolled into work around 8.55 or 9.15. Classes start at 9.00. This meant that when I new teacher was brought in or there was a sub it was left to me to show them around and explain all of the paperwork and assundries. I feel that she is by head and shoulders the worst person I have ever worked for. So I work my ass off to make sure she will not have anything to fire me for. I assume though that at some point I will make a minor mistake which she will blow out of proportion and have me sacked. This sucks because I love this job and all of the other people I work with.
3. HEALTH
I am still 40 pounds heavier than I want to be. I hate being fat but I am not strong enough to fix it. I keep trying though.
Now I am bored. I will write more as I see fit but hopefully more often. |
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| Good News/Annoying news |
[Apr. 17th, 2008|07:59 am] |
| [ | mood |
| | annoyed | ] |
First the good news. Carleen is doing very well. She is still in a sling but she cut and orange the other day. It seems odd to think that is a big big improvement but it really is. Also she is up to 101 pounds. Her doctor said she will stay on the "hunger medicine" until she is up to about 110 after that the hope is that she will stay wired to crave sugar and carbs. The other good news is that she will be off chemo in 4 to 6 months. To quote the doctor "as soon as your cancer doesn't stress me out". haha gotta love that medical terminology. This was a huge relief because Carleen had thought that she would be on chemo the rest of her life and as such would live out her life without hair. Another interesting thing is that we learned when you don't have cancer but you are doing chemo, it makes you very ill but when you DO have cancer and are doing chemo, it makes you feel good.
So Carleen feels good. I feel good. Maybe one or two more weeks and I will be home.
Now the annoying news. Last night we had a concilation match indoors. There are six teams in the league and the top 4 teams make the playoffs. Having won ZERO games we obviously were in sixth. Last night I knew we would be short so I asked Claudio and Andrei (two students) if they wanted to play. Both went with me. Also our captain had asked the guy who works at the arena if he wanted to play. With these three guys we had 2 subs. The other team had no subs so said "if you are bringing in players we would like one so that we can have a sub". No problem there and as a matter of fact the guy who works at the arena went over and said he wuold play for them. Their captain said no thanks then asked for Claudio (who is much better). Not knowing someone from our team had already volunteered and been refused I said okay. This gave them 1 sub. Then after we went up 3-0 they recruited someone else from the stands to play for them giving them the same number of subs as we had and by half time they were winning 5-3. Even now they didn't offer to let Claudio come back to us. In the end they won 11-8. Claudio had about 5 goals for them. Andrei had about 5 goals for us. The annoying thing is that we had won ZERO games all season, we were nice enough to lend them a player, and then they screwed us by asking for one of our best players and not offering him back to us at the half. Dicks. |
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| NY Tournament |
[Mar. 29th, 2008|11:35 pm] |
Well we didn't make the playoffs. I had said at the beginning that if we drew all six matches we woul dgo through, as it was we got 5 points and were eliminated on goal difference. The thing that sucks is that we had a -5 goal difference and the team that finished ahead of us had a -4 goal differential. Of course I have spent the time thinking about the goals I let in. Just one more save and we would have made the playoffs.
Well it was pretty fun. |
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| (no subject) |
[Mar. 29th, 2008|11:34 pm] |
After 4 matches we are 1 win - 1 draw - 2 losses. Not too bad. If we can manage 2 more points in our last 2 matches we should get into the playoffs.
Didn't play poorly in the last match. Didn't make any saves I shouldn't have made but made all the ones expected of me. |
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| Friday Fiver |
[Mar. 29th, 2008|03:05 pm] |
1. What have you sold?
Myself (not literally I mean I have spent my life getting people to think they can't do without me and I am the best person for what they need.)
2. What do you want to change?
My weight (is this selfish?)
3. What does your answering machine / voice mail message say?
I can't remember but I know it ends with .... "Cheers"
4. Where did you go to school?
Gloucester High and Northeastern University
5. Friday fill-in:
If you'd like to reach me, be honest and intersting. |
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| NY Tournament |
[Mar. 29th, 2008|02:58 pm] |
2 games into our tournament and we have 1 oss and 1 draw. The draw was a little ugly because although it was a 1-1 score, they scored when I tried to kick a ball and it hit their guy then bounced off him, over me, and into the net. Bad bad bad.
There are 20 teams of 11 people here. It is hosted by the NY gay soccer club so it means about 99% of the players are gay. Incredible really.
Hopefully we will play well enough to make the playoffs. Fingers crossed.
By play so far on a scale of 1 to 10 .... 4 |
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| Some Happiness |
[Mar. 24th, 2008|08:29 am] |
This is me at the BAE Karaoke competition. Serena asked me to join her in doing this. I wish I could say I thought up the moves myself but I copied them from Johann Lipowitz. Still, it was fun to do. |
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| Life in General |
[Mar. 16th, 2008|03:18 pm] |
Things are good.
1. Soccer - going well. Playing well. Had to great games this weekend. Looked like I am a lot better than I actually am. hahaha but that's okay.
2. School - Classes are wonderful. Did a project for the owners to recruit a Spanish tour group this summer. It came out great. I got to do some creative writing to describe activities. Lots of fun.
Good bunch of students. Had a Karaoke Competition on Friday. trying to getthe videos up. I promise it's worth the laugh.
3. Body - I have lost about 10 pounds since the beginning of February. Got to wear 34 inch waist pants for the first time in weeks. I was quite pleased with myself until I saw the videos from karaoke and soccer. I am still too fat. All my life I have thought I looked like Johann Cruyff but each time I see myself I look like Diego Maradonna. What a disappointment.
4. Politics - Very excited about an "Open Convention". It's never happened in my life. This is all good. Also it makes the Dems fight and fight and fight. They look ridiculous regarding Florida. Good chance for Hilary to lie again though.
Why is it "Republican Larry Craig" but "Gov Elliot Spitzer"? Until two days ago I thought Spitzer was a Republican. Do people take joy in pointing out a republican peccadilloes but feel it unseemly to do the same for a Democrat.
That's all. I am out of her. |
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| Carleen Update |
[Mar. 16th, 2008|03:16 pm] |
Surgery on Wednesday. Replaced 90% of the bone in her upper arm. No way the surgeon in November could have replaced her shoulder and NOT seen all the cancer in the bone. Idiot.
Home on Friday. Up and about. Walking without a cane. Getting her sense of humor back. Starting to kind of get her appetite back. I will be there for at least a couple more weeks. |
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| take a breath |
[Mar. 9th, 2008|04:48 pm] |
It's strange not having computer access. Carleen has internet but I usually get to her house after she's in bed and since the comp is near her bedroom I feel bad using it.
Things are going well with her. More surgery on Wednesday to replace the shoulder replacement and take out the cancer riddled bone in her arm to replace it with a metal rod. So it looks like more time at her house. No problems really.
Was sick for the past couple weeks. Slight flu then major flu on Friday. Miserable all day and everyone at work was telling me to go home. A funny thing actually. I got to work at 7.00 and slept on the couch until 8.15. Dragged myself into the teachers room and the first person to show up was a student teacher who wanted to observe my first class. Since it was too much effort to keep my head off the desk for more than 5 minutes I told him I might not be able to give my "A-game" so I hope I didn't disappoint him. Took 3 aspirin before class and the energy of the students lit me up. I forgot all about being ill for the next 90 minutes and it was a great class. I think Ben (the student teacher) must think I am crazed.
Feeling better now. Life is fine. Played two great games of soccer yesterday and even though Man U lost .. Chelsea lost too so I am happy. |
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| Quick note |
[Mar. 4th, 2008|08:09 am] |
Not updating much because I am house sitting for Carleen. She is at hospital but doing very well. The problem is she doesn't have wireless and the idea of not being able to watch TV and eat dinner while posting kind of bores me. haha
Today Carleen is supposed to return home. I'll continue to spend nights there as long as she needs me. she seems to think it'll be a couple weeks so that's what I am believing. Her last check up was with an Osteopathic-oncologist who was very upbeat about her treatment and longevity. So good news so far.
Carleen's hip replacement surgery went off without a hitch and she is walking quite well, albeit with a cane. |
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| Cancer IV |
[Feb. 26th, 2008|09:18 pm] |
The roller-coaster continues.
Carleen is in the hospital waiting to have one final scan and a consult at Mass General before heading to rehab. The docotrs are concerned because the cancer is so widespread that they fear her falling at home and breaking more stuff.
When Carleen asked her oncologist today for a time frame she was told "2 to 3 years, or 8 years, or 1 year. You can't tell with cancer".
I will be staying at Carleen's starting on Saturday until her son returns from vacation and then after she is released to home. It won't be a problem and I hope I'l be a little more relaxed when I can see and check on her every day.
The good/saddest news is that today Carleen told me that "I am not afraid to die." |
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| The Gemini in Me |
[Feb. 26th, 2008|09:08 pm] |
Last Wednesday as we were sitting, waiting to play I mentioned that some of the people hadn't seen me really play on the field because I play keeper for the team. Caitlan looked surprised and asked if I also play in the field. When I told her I had only been playing goal for a year she was shocked. For the people on that team I am only a keeper and a pretty good one.
On Sunday Erin (who I've played with for almost two years) saw that my finger was taped and asked how it happened. When I told her I did it playing goal she was shocked ... "You play keeper?".
That's me, the good Gemini. Two people for two situations. |
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| Footie News |
[Feb. 23rd, 2008|03:04 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| |  happy | ] |
Friday Night - Cancelled. Bummed out but probably for the best because of the snow.
Saturday morning - Arsenal drew 2-2
Manchester United crushed Newcastle 5-1
Saturday after - Got Lance to play with the Strikers.
Strikers won 14 (or something liek it) - 2
Won in Newton 5-0
Sunday morning - Chelsea lost to Tottenham 1-2 in the Carling Cup Final.
Happiness Happiness Happiness (as Mike would say) |
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| Cancer III |
[Feb. 23rd, 2008|02:33 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| | optimistic | ] |
A day of good and bad with news today.
Carleen had a scan Friday afternoon and learned the reason her leg has been hurting so much is that she has a broken femur. That explains why it didn't hurt while she was sitting. Anyway the doctirs asked her to wait around until the doctor was available to check her out and decide if she needed surgery. We talked several times while she waited and it was very frustrating. At times someone who wasn't her doctor would come by and in an effort to calm her they would scare her even more. By 6.30 we thought she might have to spend the next 6 months in bed just waiting for her femur to heel. Finally she was able to speak to her surgeoon who was very optimistic.
On Saturday Carleen had a partial hip replacement and a metal rod implanted in her leg. Her doctor promised that she would be up and walking by Sunday.
Today Carleen walked. It was painful but not as painful as walking on a broken leg. She will have to spend about a week in rehab which she i slooking forward to as a week in which she doesn't have to struggle down 6 steps every 20 minutes to let her dog in and out.
Once more it has been days of sadness and optimism. I suppose it will continue this way for quite some time. |
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