Erase Cincinnati Boy? Yes

So today was the longest day EVER what with starting at 8 a.m. (30 minutes earlier than my appointed start date, people! I am SO DEDICATED) at my high school, going pretty much nonstop and NOT EVEN EMAILING FOR FUN in that time, running to college to pick up materials for a thing I had to go to tonight, frantically doing 12 things at once that all need to be done by Friday (create my class's final exam, create my next lesson plan, create and do a mailing...), going off to the aforementioned evening meeting and a) driving, b) eating my dinner, and c) talking on my cell phone...I am SO GOOD at multi-tasking. Anyway, I got to take a minute to slow down by sitting through the endless parent meeting that was full of blah dee blah dee oh my GOD I am going to fall asleep from the endless babbling of these pointless people. How the panel (which included my boss--I was just observing in the audience) stayed conscious was beyond me. My method was to text 3 different people and hope someone would respond (none did), then wade through my cell phone contacts and determine if they should be kept or not. Friend from my internship in NYC (2003-2004) I haven't spoken to in...oh gosh, 2 years? Keep. Former student from Cincinnati I haven't spoken to since this summer? Keep.

With that laissez-faire attitude, well, who DIDN'T make the cut, you ask? Cincinnati Boy. I haven't talked to him since...oh gosh, October or so, 100% because of my decision to stop responding to emails and texts. I partially feel guilty for cutting him off so rudely, but not so guilty I feel inclined to ever communicate again, even just to say "I don't want to communicate with you anymore." Before now, erasing him from the phone felt weird and like putting a final nail in the coffin and I'd resisted doing it before now. But tonight, for whatever reason, I hit the erase and watched his name fly into the virtual trash can. How do I feel? A whole bunch of nothing about it. It's weird, but I feel more bitter and have more mixed feelings about the debacle from the boy who broke my heart back in September than the boy I moved to another state for and spent almost five years of my life with. I don't know what that means, but for whatever reason, the past with the Cincinnati Boy is ready to be in the past.

Continuing the theme of ghosts revisited, when I arrived at my destination tonight (one of my high schools for a junior parent meeting about college), I found myself transfixed by one of the panel members who looked, I shit you not, like a female to male transgendered person. Seriously, this person looked even less like a male (short, slight build, weird feminine features) than Max on the L Word, who supposedly is so convincing his boss set him up with his daughter. So I look at the name to see if "Pat" is a man or a woman, and it's the name of someone I went to high school with. I do the approach. "Are you the "Pat" who went to 'High School Name Here?'" "Yes, I am." "I'm Mrs. Pinchloaf's sister!" since I knew Mrs. P was better friends with him than I, since he was two years younger than I...okay, so he remembered her, and even claimed to remember me when I said my name (which is unsurprising, since I was in his sister's graduating class and we were both on the same track of classes in school). We talked for a few minutes before I went to sit down, and guess what? Still the annoying douche I remember from high school. He redeemed himself slightly in his presentation, since he's the only one of the SIX panelists who didn't make me want to gouge my eyes out...but one-on-one? Still a suck.

There is no point to that story, except maybe to say ruefully that as much as I would like to think I have changed and grown since high school, maybe people who encounter me leave thinking "Yep, still a loser/dumbass/bitch/whatever." Who knows.

Teen to English: The Official Translation

So all the naysayers who said my Creative Writing degree would be for naught--ha HA! That Translation Workshop came in mighty handy when providing the annotated version of yesterday's entry. By popular demand, an interpretation of What The Kids Are Saying:

Original Dialogue: is dat 1 boi dat go here Glen related 2 u?
The Translation: That fine gentleman, Glen, perchance might he be a relation of yours?

Original Dialogue: NOT Even I herd he try-n 2 fight my brother is he n our lunch?
The Translation: No familial ties bind us. Regrettably, there is talk of combat between my brother and him. Does he dine at the same hour as we?

Original Dialogue: 2 me n my cuz man i ont no dat n-word
The Translation: His midday meal is during the 2nd hour. My relation and I do not know that foul-mouthed troublemaker.

Original Dialogue: It sounds 2 me like Glen started everything
The Translation: If what is said is accurate, the instigator of this conflict is Glen

Original Dialogue: Ill talk 2 u bout dat after class cuz its 2 much--so eah wats goody with u n Jennifer.
The Translation: We will discuss the details further at a later time, for now the emotions are too great. What ho, friend, can you discuss your interest in the maiden Jennifer?

Original Dialogue: Me aint shit just boking 50 Mr. right yeah no but dont got my eye on no one for da moment so yeah who u gotyo eyes on not 2 b n yo diz just a question
The Translation: A serious engagement, it is not. My prospects and interests, they are few. And you, my friend? I inquire out of concern for your well-being and general happiness, but recognize you might feel such matters of the heart are private affairs.

Original Dialogue: yeah I no n no 1 look right
The Translation: Regrettably, while I appreciate your discretion, no one catches my eye as of late.

Original Diagloue: sik U Ugly (LOL) just playin I used 2 like yo old light bright ass when I was I think 9 or 10th grade
The Translation: An amusing comment: you are physically unappealing. (A careless laugh ensues!) I am merely existing to amuse. Perhaps you do not know, when I was younger and more foolish my heart belonged to you.

Original Dialogue: LOL so yeah no u noe I did
The Translation: I too laugh carelessly. I am aware of your previous emotions.

Original Dialogue: say wat dats Jessicas boo y he said something
The Translation: The young man who has spent time with Jessica, for what reason did he make comments to you?

Original Dialogue: no im sayn though my gurl tryn 2 get wit him.
The Translation: You misunderstand me. An acquaintance of mine, whom I know through a fair maiden, is attempting to develop a romantic connection with Jessica's beau.

Original Dialogue: I aint talk 2 dem n a min cuz of work o I herd u like Johanna
The Translation: Such news I had not heard, for my labors have prevented me from speaking with them. My friend, a rumor has reached me that the comely Johanna has caught your eye?

Original Dialogue: ot o let me find out if yall do
The Translation: I respectfully request the opportunity to investigate such matters further.

Yes, it really does skip around that much without many connections from one thought to the next. MTV, my friend, it's singlehandedly causing ADHD to sweep the nation.

The Generation That Will Help Me Age Gracefully

Since I most likely, barring some unforseen circumstances like falling madly, totally, 100% gobsmackingly in love with someone who cannot live without a child and me deciding that despite a lifetime of being mildly to outright Freaked Out about the idea of childbirth, I'd rather be a mom with a gobsmackingly awesome partner than without him, be a child-free elderly person, I am in the delicate position of having to rely on kind strangers to care for me when I become incapacitated. And for the most part I am down with that. Hey, it's the sacrifice you make when you give up furthering the species, you know?

However, my sanguine attitude about this prospect took a serious nosedive after I found a student's planner in the career center of today's school. Transcribed verbatim are the notes I found. Before I share with you these pearls of wisdom, I need to state three things:

1). I did not bother to [sic] spelling and grammatical errors, because the whole thing would be one long [sic]

2). The student did not write "the n-word;" that's my censoring. Student used the version of the n-word that ends in a. The slang version, if you will.

3). I stopped transcribing when it became a debate about whether or not one student "had some fried rice" in her because she "looked Chinese." They weren't being malicious, but...it was weird.

Anyway, without further ado, I present the conversation:

* is dat 1 boi dat go here Glen related 2 u?
* NOT Even I herd he try-n 2 fight my brother is he n our lunch?
* 2 me n my cuz man i ont no dat n-word
* It sounds 2 me like Glen started everything
* Ill talk 2 u bout dat after class cuz its 2 much--so yeah wats goody with u n Jennifer.
* Me aint shit just boking 50 Mr. right yeah no but dont got my eye on no one for da moment so yeah who u gotyo eyes on not 2 b n yo diz just a question
* yeah I no n no 1 look right
* sik U Ugly (LOL) just playin I used 2 like yo old light bright ass when I was I think 9 or 10th grade
* LOL so yeah no u noe I did
* say wat dats Jessicas boo y he said something
* no im sayn though my gurl tryn 2 get wit him.
* I aint talk 2 dem n a min cuz of work o I herd u like Johanna
* ot o let me find out if yall do

I'm not sure which is worse...the grammar, spelling, etc., or the fact I pretty much understood all of it. That really is how students talk, yo. My only hope is that my sister's children will not mind caring for their elderly aunt, and I fully intend to attempt to buy their love through gifts their parents won't buy them, and keeping the secrets they don't want to tell aforementioned parents, etc. Because I have to think Celery, Trixie, and I forgot the other planned name will be more literate than those two.

Bring Out the Gimp

Because I am the Queen of Rationalization, I talked myself out of going to the gym on Friday night because hey, it was the end of a work week (nevermind the fact it was the easiest work week EVER since I got out at noon on Tuesday, had Wednesday totally off, and went into the college on Thursday and Friday to do nothing but surf the web and IM rather than going to my high schools since public schools were still closed) and who wants to spend 2 hours at a gym on Friday night? Not me. So as I stuffed myself full of cadbury cream eggs and other assorted junk I promised myself I would do a step aerobics class, a weightlifting one, and then a kickboxing one on Saturday to make up for my slackerdom that day. Start time for this adventurousness? 7:30 a.m. Hey, since I was home at 5, I could certainly get to bed at a decent hour and make the 10-minute drive the next morning just fine...

...Which I did. And I was still planning to do all of those things until about 10 minutes into the first class, when I felt something in my calf stretch and then snap. I then proceeded to spend the rest of the hour sitting on my step clutching an ice pack to my leg and trying to blink back tears of panic that, if I had to put into words, were basically something like: "ohmygod ohmygod ohmygod I am SO fucked I'm going to be incapaciatated forever and it's never going to heal and I'll never run again nevermind the half-marathon and I'm going to gain a ton of weight and ohmygod ohmygodohmygod"...

Yeah, it wasn't pretty. Especially when I then had to call my parents to come rescue me since it was my left leg, and I drive a stick shift, and no freaking way was I going to make it back considering I couldn't even have my leg touch the ground, much less put any weight on it. So they came and got me, and my dad drove my car while I stretched out in the backseat, and they gave me crutches, and I iced and elevated and in despair stuffed my face with more candy. Because when you know you're not going to be running for awhile? Eating candy is a good thing to do.

On the happy side, my initial panic and freakout seem to have been largely (surprise!) an overreaction, because while I am still not 100% recovered, I am certainly more mobile than I was two days ago. Yesterday I dragged out some of the old tapes I used to do and did 20 minutes of arm exercises and then some pilates. Today I even drove my car! I went to the gym and did something that was basically a combination of tai chi, yoga, and pilates, and while I thought I was going to faint from boredom by the end of the hour, it felt good to be moving a little bit. So the plan now is to keep trying to do stuff that does not involve using my leg at all (arms, yoga, pilates), and then when I can get back to putting 100% weight on my leg (right now it's about 40%), start SLOWLY working my way back up the running thing by walking on the treadmill for a bit, and if that seems okay running maybe for a mile, doing a couple of days of only running 30 minutes or so, etc. And I'll try to both cut back on the stress eating and not sweat any incidental gain in the meantime, because as long as I allow myself enough time to recover, it will fall back off as soon as I'm back to my usual routines. I hope so, at any rate. The aerobics instructor and my sister and my parents have all assured me that it is early enough that this will not be a permanent setback to my half-marathon attempts, but of course I am still a teeny bit panicked and anxious about it. But I have to tell myself NOT to push myself because that will only make the setback longer than it has to be...or something like that.

Since I haven't been able to do anything but ice and elevate, I have watched more television than I did in all of January 2007. At 26% full, compared to its previous 80+%, the tivo is almost empty. A partial list of some of the things I have cleaned off are:

Lincoln Heights, some show on ABC Family (shut up!) that actually is half-decent. About a black family who moves into the 'hood (their words, not mine) because of the affordable housing and all the adjustments that come with that.

Countless episodes of MASH, because they're in the best season--the first one with BJ and Potter. Why do I say it's the best season? Because two of my top 5 favorite episodes aired last week (BJ arrives in Korea, the army mistakenly lists Hawkeye as dead). I prefer Winchester to Frank, but BJ to Trapper, and he's just so damn sweet and funny I wish he weren't married to Peg with a new baby, but real and someone I could actually meet in real life.

The most recent episode of Heroes, which, while I go back and forth on in terms of interest level was really really good this week, I think because they featured the characters I like the most (Greg the psychic cop, the cheerleader, Sylar) and minimized the ones I hate the most (stupid Peter who can only copy others' abilities and whose main acting tic is to push back hair that is too short to ever actually fall in his eyes, Adrian Pasdar whom I loved in Profit but find boring here, and that annoying twat Mohinder).

The new episode of Degrassi, which sucked, because they seem to have decided to regress into the 1950s and introduce a completely ridiculous storyline about a rivalry between two high schools. The fuck?

Amazing Race All-Stars, which, screw you CBS and starting it late because it cut off 30 minutes in meaning I had to try to track it online and realized belatedly after typing cbs.com/amazingrace that even if it were available to see there they'd have who was eliminated on the front page, which they did, and even though I averted my eyes and quickly fled I still had enough of a view to know who it was when there were still about 20 minutes left. (I did eventually get it elsewhere, fret not! But it was less riveting once you knew who lost, as is always the case with such things.)

Three episodes of the Office I'd already seen but had saved because the Office is awesome.

Ditto 30 Rock which better come out on DVD because I love love LOVE that show. And this is from someone who decidedly did NOT love love love Tina Fey before now.

Law & Order: SVU which I don't usually watch but taped this time because it featured hot Cary Elwes, who, tragically, in the 20 years since Princess Bride has now become somewhat swelled up Cary Elwes, which would be okay except his face wasn't so hot anymore either. Alas.

Survivor: Fiji which is really Survivor: Dullsville, but as long as cute Anthony is on, I guess I'll be there. FOR NOW, at any rate.

Still left to watch: one more 30 Rock, a Janis Joplin documentary (that I taped IN AUGUST), Catch Me If You Can, a Jim Jones documentary, another L&O: SVU, another Lincoln Heights. Shockingly, I have not yet felt the need to claw my eyes out from boredom and being sick of sitting in front of the television. I am, however, happy I am mobile enough to get back to work tomorrow because I think a fourth day would most likely kill me.

A Commercial I HATE. HAAAAAAAAATE.

Random kid calls home and asks mom for permission to eat dinner at friend's house. Mom is like, "Dinner? With the parents? Dinner? The parents will be there? That is crazy talk. Let me talk to friend's mom." Kid passes phone to Friend's Mom and says, "She doesn't believe me." Friend's Mom: "Yep, we're all having dinner together!" Beatific smile as she puts the phone down and sits down at the table...FOR HER FAMILY DINNER OF KFC.

Point the First: KFC is nasty. Even when I would eat fast food with joy and happiness, if I were going to eat fried chicken, it would NOT have been KFC. Popeye's, baby, popeye's!

Point the Second: Ordering a giant bucket of KFC is NOT the same thing as a home-cooked family meal. So cut out all the impressed looks, self-satisfied smiles, and pats on the back. Because really, by those definitions, I have a family meal every night (turkey burgers, frozen pizzas, chicken tacos with chips and salsa....no. I ain't gonna kid myself, that's not cooking).

Point the Third: Is it REALLY that hard to have a family dinner? I mean, we all ate dinner together EVERY NIGHT when I was growing up. Except band rehearsal night. But seriously, is it really that rare?

Random bits of commentary on random things

1). This Anna Nicole stuff is OFF THE HOOK. Seriously, you can't make this stuff up. Who is NOT saying he's the babydaddy at this point? What is up with the fact when I was at the gym Fox News kept breathlessly saying "Less than 30 minutes until the hearing over Anna Nicole's body! Less than 20 minutes!" lather, rinse, repeat as the countdown continued? Occasionally they'd say "Less than 10 minutes until W's conference about the conflict in Iraq," but it was like, "Oh yeah, since the word "news" is in our name, we probably should mention this conference." Don't lie to me, Fox News, you care more about Anna Nicole than you do about The War!

(Please note: this commentary is not intended to condone the positions Fox News often takes. It's just that's what the big TV in front of me was cued to, and I have no option to change it. So I watched the crawl while listening to music while running.)

2). How I Met Your Mother knows its shit, yo. Monday night's episode featured Doogie Howser, hetero stud (ha! ha!) running the marathon, then found him unable to get off the subway because his legs stopped working. Oh, how I can relate. After yesterday's inspirational nearly 7.5-mile run, I stretched, ate a banana, took a shower (in other words, did all the right things to prevent a similar thing happening), and then spent a good two hours in front of the computer doing this and that. When I stood up? I nearly fell over as my legs gave out on me. So just imagine after 13 miles how it's gonna be...hoo boy.

Relatedly, I got the first season of Doogie Howser, M.D. from Netflix, because I am not embarrassed to tell you I watched the show throughout its run back in my later years of high school (in fact, I also remember my trigonometry teacher telling us one day he wasn't going to be grading our quizzes that night "because Doogie Howser was on," but no matter). Uh yeah, it sucks and blows. Could only make it through one episode and 10 minutes of the next before turning it off yesterday. Another cherished show from my youth bites the dust...the only ones that have truly held up for me are Family Ties and Different World. Argh.

3). I don't know when I turned into my grandmother...okay, I do, it's when I started doing needlepoint on a semi-regular basis and for Christmas 2003 or so gave my sister some embroidered pillowcases and Cincinnati Boy's mom a needlepoint pillow that took me approximately 4 months to complete. But if wasn't then, it was today, when my dad brought me the girl scout cookies they'd purchased for me. It's bad enough I requested TREFOILS (the shortbread ones), but then when I opened the box and ate one? Manna from heaven, gentle readers. Yes, they were my grandmother's favorites, but that doesn't mean they can't still be a hip and happening cookie....right?

On a similar note, I made the error of ordering a box from someone here at work, the "All Abouts." What are all abouts? Some sort of non-shortbread saltine-like cookie with a chocolate coated bottom. NOT recommended. Tasteless, I tell you, tasteless! Le sigh. I don't know what I was thinking except I actually have grown tired of the usual suspects (tagalongs, thin mints) and wanted to try something different...but I should have just gotten a second box of trefoils. Yuck.

4). It is icy and crappy here and first I couldn't get my car out from its little icy enclave until my Daddy came to rescue me, which kind of sucked. But what sucked even more was when I was innocently sitting at a traffic light en route to work and I got rear-ended by some idiot on her cell phone in a giant mini-van. I'm not sure how that happened because I'd THOUGHT we were both innocently already at a full stop and the light certainly hadn't changed yet...but I was not very happy. Nothing is wrong with my car (outwardly), but I am an unforgiving person and her lack of concern and remorse over what happened irritated me more than anything else in that whole drama. I think I jinxed myself because yesterday I was trying to think back to the last time I had a car accident, and I think it was when I was 19 and sailed into another car in the parking lot at King's Dominion (now PARAMOUNT's Kings Dominion, but no matter). At least it wasn't worse, I know.

Plateaus (Plauteaux?)

So it has not escaped my attention that my posting frequency has, shall we say it delicately, gone down in flames. Pragmatically speaking, of course, one has a lot less to say when one is busy living life vs. thinking about someday living a life (as in, having a job vs. not). But also...I don't know. I go back and forth on what I'm feeling and thinking about everything and while my private, non-published diary writing frequency has increased (as in, I am keeping one and writing in it once a week or so for the first time since 1994)...I am often hesitant to write about what's on my mind online for a few reasons:

* One, whining is boring. Nobody wants to read a whiner!

* Two, the privacy factor. I am not a person who will express my feelings to any yahoo who comes down the pike, and writing about them online has an element of exhibitionism I'm not 100% comfortable with.

* Three, the humor factor. I like to be funny and random, and Really Deep Thoughts? Not so much.

That said, we had yet another snow day and this time both public schools AND my college closed down, meaning I had NOWHERE to go today. Whoohoo! I knew I had to run, because I hadn't since last Friday, and my half-marathon training has been...well, virtually non-existant. The problem with the treadmills at the gym is that they do not lend themselves to long stretches of training, choosing instead to make you go into cool-down mode after running for an hour, whether you like it or not. Yeah yeah yeah, I can just reset and keep going...but there's something very pavlovian about the whole process. The treadmill wants me to stop? Well then, by gum, it MUST be time to stop. So anyway, that factor combined with the fact it is snowy and icy and I am lazy made me trudge over to my apartment complex's "gym" (it of the two treadmills) and run there. And, quite shockingly, I managed to run 7.45 miles, the longest I have run in my whole life. That's RUN! Not warm-up, then run, then cool-down...the running part. So that was positive and affirming and optimism-rebuilding (not a word, but whatever).

But while I was running and before I had that inspirational moment I was thinking how so much of my life these days is in stasis. I have a job now and while I know there are enough downsides to it that I won't want it forever, it's a well-paying job in my field with enough about it that I DO like that it would not be tragic to have if I am unable to find a school counseling job for awhile. I no longer wake up every morning and want to burst into tears, or have a hard time contemplating getting out of bed and facing the day, but I am still shying away from venturing full force back out into the world of social activity (friendship, dating, whatever) and Trying New Things, out of fear of getting burned just as badly as I did last fall by heartbreak and generally making an ass of myself. Little steps forward, big steps back. And while I was on mile 3 or whatever, the word "plateau" leapt into my mind, and that's exactly what it is. I made it through the initial hard times of a move and worked my way up to about a 5 or a 6 on the Happiness Scale of Day to Day Living. But I don't want to be a 5 or a 6. I know one can't be a 10 on a regular basis, but isn't an 8 manageable? Isn't it possible to have occasional days of 10?

The awesome Colon wrote this awesome entry awhile back that I never commented to her about, just because it resonated with me on a really, perhaps embarrassingly so, personal level, but I still think about it a lot. I've never seen School of Rock and (sorry, Colon!) have never wanted to, mostly because with the exception of John Cusack's second most awesomest movie ever, High Fidelity, I find Jack Black kind of annoying. Small doses, people, small doses. Anyway, back on track, the idea of the worst coming true is something I think about all the time. But you have to be willing to risk that on a daily basis to achieve anything meaningful. And I feel like this year I've experienced the downside of risks that fail and taken them to heart way too much and haven't been able to move past them. They still seem real and accessible, and they can't. Not if you want to do anything that means anything, at least not for me.

So part of me gets annoyed with myself for not pushing through the anxieties, and part of me is trying to be patient with myself and see progress, however imperfect. No, my self-imposed regiment of training for the half-marathon (upping my distance 2-3 minutes every Sunday) has not worked...but hey, I made a big leap forward today. No, I'm not yet doing every social activity that looks remotely interesting yet...but I AM trying less hugely scary things. And when someone I barely know invited me to do something last night at the last-minute when it was snowy and crappy and it was going to involve interaction in a way that was pretty nerve-wracking, okay, I declined...but I actually got changed out of my pajamas and ALMOST went. And while ALMOST famously only counts in horseshoes, for me I have to be okay with the ALMOST and know that next time, I probably will go.

And that's a good thing....right?

Howard K. Stern, (alleged) murderer

Everybody thought I was full of shite and a big dorky dork when I first posted back in October that I thought Howard K. Stern was responsible for Anna Nicole Smith's son's death (read the original post here, in the October archives). A snippet from that post:

I am completely serious when I say that at this point I really do believe HKS knocked off Daniel in the final effort to completely isolate her and make her completely dependent on him so that he can be a rich, rich man.

I also seem to recall a derisive comment or three when I then posted she had pneumonia (also in the October archives) and better watch out. A snippet from that post:

Seriously, I write like I'm joking, but I'm halfway not. I really do think he's going to kill her. Or at least bleed her dry via power of attorney status (which you KNOW he has now that he convinced her to marry him, if he somehow didn't manage to get it before).

And now I read she died earlier today and all I can think is, question Howard K. Stern, man. Seriously. Not even being funny. He (allegedly) did it.

And it's not even 7:30

Public schools...closed! My college...won't open until 10! Could this day get any better?

Working Harder, Not Smarter

Yes, it's a cliche but in my case it happens to be true. I finally made the marathon mix, put it in order, etc., and prepared to transfer it to my mp3 player. The problem? I did it in windows media player (yeah, yeah, yeah) and couldn't just send the file over to the player because it was a .wpl (playlist) file rather than a folder filled with individual .wmas and .mp3s. I couldn't think of any way to just right click and send it on over without burning it to a CD, then ripping the CD to windows media player, then renaming all the files because even though I did the burning in the same program I did the ripping, it would still say "unknown song," and THEN right-clicking the newly created folder from the burned CD. But since the playlist was 2:15.20 in honor of my goal time, obviously that was a non-workable solution anyway, given the fact my CDs only hold 80 minutes of music.

So what did I do? Copied each individual file, pasted it into a folder I created on the desktop, renamed each file so that it would say "01 Baby Got Back," or whatever (in other words, rename them so they started with the number they should be played in), lather, rinse, repeat. I did this for 40 files, toggling between windows media player to see what song came next, over to the my music folder where almost all the songs were, then over the mp3 file where there were some tunes I...um, didn't illegally download, then to the folder I was creating.

Seriously, that was undoubtedly the dumbest way ever to do it. But I didn't know how else to do it and I'm not really computer-savvy enough to know. I don't know if itunes would have made it easier, since the mp3 player I use for running is NOT my ipod, but one of those little 1GB jump sticks. It just seemed less time-intensive to do it my long, hard way rather than spend a huge amount of effort trying to find a shorter way to do it.

But the whole thing is a big symbol of how I persistently do things that are undoubtedly much more work than they need to be, simply because I am unable or unwilling to find out the easier way. It's like in my job, where I'm supposed to be doing all these group presentations with students. Guess what? I am rabidly phobic of group presentations when it comes to high school students. This is 100% because, much as I loved them individually, the kids at my former school were TERRORS when it came to doing stuff in front of them not one-on-one. Even if you were a strong teacher with good classroom management skills, they would talk all through whatever you were saying. And whenever I had to be in a classroom, it was for something they decidedly did not want to do, and they would drag their feet and complain and whine and talk back and generally be really unpleasant about the whole thing. They nearly made me cry on at least 4 different occasions, and the only reason I never succumbed was knowing that if I did, I'd lose all credibility and they'd run right over me until the end of time. I finally gave up and would do things like call all 200 juniors down, one at a time, to register them for the SATs rather than spend a day in the classrooms doing it because it was just too horrifying a prospect and if it was just one person and me, we'd get along just fine with no problems.

So even though I never had a problem speaking in groups before the previous job, and still don't as long as they're not high school students, I am doing everything possible to avoid having to do a group thing, even if it means much more work for myself. Yes, it will take longer, but ultimately it will less emotionally anxiety-provoking (for me).

Except when you consider the fact I am anxious about whether or not I'll be able to effectively reach all of them, thus compounding the drama, because now not only am I still stressed, I'm stressed with more work for myself. It's all ridiculous and stupid. Argh.