Monday, March 1, 2010

Further Evidence

Confession: I am an idiot.

Exhibit A

I teach at a community college. In one of the classes I teach, speeches are required and a lot of my students are apprehensive about being in front of the class. To help them I have a few non-graded, practice activities I do with the class.

This past Friday I did one of these activities with my class. Basically, each student gets in front of the class and speaks about something for 2 minutes. Usually they talk about a childhood memory or a goal they have after graduating college.

This kid- let's call him Frank. I once dated a guy named Frank who was into the drug scene a bit too much for my liking, but from now on every time I meet someone named Frank, I think he must also be into drugs. Name association is a terrible thing, although in this case, I was not far off.

Frank's turn comes up for this impromptu speech and he starts talking about how much he LOVES chocolate. Said he didn't have it until he was 12, but he fell in love with it right away. He was going on and on about Belgian chocolate, dark chocolate, wanting to make chocolate professionally- on and on.

Everyone is giggling. I thought they were giggling because he was clearly very passionate about chocolate, which did not fit into what we already knew about him from previous activities.

I even asked "What was the first chocolate you had? Like M&M's?"

More giggling- growing in intensity.

He replied, "No it was some foreign shit." P.S. I had just got done telling them that cussing in a presentation is largely frowned upon and will affect their grade negatively.

Later another student came up to me and said, "Mrs. Phillips you are so funny. You know he was talking about pot and not chocolate, right?"

It was then that it hit me, he was NOT (?) talking about chocolate. I gave her a look that could have been taken as- of course I know OR as- huh? Then I said, "Meg, do you have a question about the project?"

Oh, why did I have to ask the M&M question?

Exibit B

Josh and I are college educated people who have good jobs- until Sunday we thought we were smart.

We took a family trip to Ikea so we could purchase affordable things to fill our lovely new house with. Our new house with new furniture and new Ikea-like items. Can't you just hear the heavenly harp softly playing in the background?

We were on our way to the check out when I saw an easel.

Pdoodle likes, no- LOVES to draw. I usually tape a bunch of paper to the table and let him go to town. He usually stays on the paper, but that is what washable markers are for right?

So when I saw this $15 easel, I thought it would be a stroke of genius to purchase it and earn a little more unpacking and laundry time for myself- just another day in the life of an American Princess.

As Josh and I were working on hanging the final round of blinds, we commented on a very quite Pscribble. Then we saw it, well him.

Brandishing a red- RED marker Pdestoryer ran to the (new) chair and began scribbling.

Our living room furniture is orange and olive.

Thank you to the good people at the Coppola Winery and the angels who manufacture Goo Gone the marks are mostly...not totally, but mostly gone.

Looking back, I cannot believe I trusted a 20 month old with markers and paper and the general newness that is our house.

In other news, I have this site linked to a sight that emails me every month to tell me how many people read the blog, the average length of the visit and a few other things. It told me for February I had over 200 visits. Why then have my follower numbers held steady at 25?

Followers make me happy.