An Office Pet

This afternoon, I've spent most of my office hours flitting between grading tests, planning lessons, and writing tests. Throughout the afternoon, I've had a constant companion: a little orange ladybug with 14 spots, 7 on each side. I'm convinced that it wants my job. I lift a test to grade, and it's beat me to the task. I go to pick up my pen - there's the ladybug perched on the tip, perhaps tasting a bit of the purple ink. (In solidarity with my mother, a spunky 4th grade teacher, I prefer to grade in purple... but, alas, with considerably less spunkiness.) As I type this, the ladybug crawls perilously across the keyboard, barely dodging my impulsive key-punching. It just attempted to ascend my headphone chords ("whatcha listenin' to?"), but got scared away by my hair (and, honestly, who can blame it?). Now, it's disappeared... maybe it's responding to those e-mails I've been neglecting. (Well, it could at least make itself useful!)

Okay, back to those tests...

A Little Forced...

It's been a long while. I haven't really relished the thought of blogging for a few months - I've sort of been on autopilot. And this probably wouldn't be my favorite way to begin a blogging "come back", but my friend Amy tagged me, and I've decided to cooperate... mostly. :)

4 Things I did yesterday:

1. Ate breakfast and played Settlers of Catan with Shannon and Caryn. (That was yesterday, wasn't it?)
2. Walked to Peet's Coffee to work on syllabi, and found 15 cents on my way (6 coins in different places)! That's 10% of the price of my coffee!
3. Ate dinner with my roommates: a fantastic salad and a glass of red wine. In my mind I call these "kitchen sink salads" because we throw in anything that seems even remotely salad-friendly, and they're always yummy!
4. Watched Clue with roomies Kaylynn and Olivia.

4 Things on my Wish List:

1. Being accepted to a Ph. D. program for the fall.

2. Going hiking as often as possible in the next 8 months.

3. Having a successful last semester of teaching at McMurry University.

4. Learning to play an instrument: maybe the piano or the mandolin?

4 Restaurants I like:
1. Jason's Deli (I love their tomato soup and chicken panini)
2. Sharky's Burritos ("Cilantro, please!")
3. Abuelo's (if only because of the flan)
4. I actually try not to eat out that much... one of my favorite meals is homemade pizza.

4 TV shows I like:

1. The Office
2. Heroes (but I haven't seen any of this season's episodes)
3. 30 Rock (more or less because it's on after The Office)
4. Otherwise I'd rather read a book or watch a movie. But I think I'd really like The Vicar of Dibley - it's on my Netflix cue.

4 People I tag:

Well... my cooperation has its limits. I hate tagging people. (Yes, I'm that person who always broke the chain letter.)

I'm supposed to be studying for a final.

But all I feel like doing is buying new music on iTunes.

I finally convinced myself that I don't have money for that, so I closed iTunes and now I'm writing this post.

I'm not the only one using the internet as a crutch to avoid studying - Tera H. even joined Facebook!!

And now I'm wondering why I'm still sitting at home alone when I could be procrastinating with other people. Procrastination en masse is always more fun...