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 |  Nothing official here; just come chill! |
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Welcome! ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** Welcome to my little Den! Here you'll find all sorts of things- mostly blog challenges, but mixed in, you'll notice:  I'm a bit of a fangirl  My life is very busy I enjoy using emoticons  I don't tend to swear, but stuff happens. |
| [Embed For Use By Upgraded+] This song kinda embodies my life right now.  As in, things seem "new and exciting" and once that shiny wears off, I go crazy, because I've bit off more than I can chew.  The whole first verse is school and the music job. I honestly wonder if I'm getting burnout. I was talking with another yard duty today who has kids at the school and she had suggested dropping a job. Unfortunately, I really don't want to leave anything, unless it's music, and even then, I really would love to continue working at the school I've been teaching for the past few months, especially since I've built up their knowledge through now. I felt them out when I mentioned leaving in the new year, but they didn't say anything further about staying with me vs staying with the company, so I'm still here in the company. Hence, I really should've slept with one eye open around the boss. The renewal contract was just too much, in my opinion- who renews halfway through the year?  With everything that I'm doing, it really feels too constricting- in the sense that I can't add anything to my schedule without it all falling to pieces. And that's why I'm so concerned about school- once I stopped doing stuff for the Chinese class, I felt like I could somewhat breathe again, but when I went to get the withdrawal form signed, the lady there strongly advised me to keep the class. She also said I could observe at a Chinese School. But I just got let go from a Chinese school, so it's not like I'm planning to go back to the principal (who doesn't like me) and say "May I please observe in one of your K-8 classes?"  One of the barre instructors, though, is Chinese, and her youngest goes to Chinese preschool on Saturdays, which is a different company than the one I was at, so I asked her if she could connect me to someone who teaches K-8 there. She's sent an email already, so if the director/person says okay, I'm going to keep the class and somehow make it work. The Teacher's Prep office did tell me that I could test out of the classes instead, but yesterday's lady said principals don't like to hire if you don't have the teaching experience in a classroom, which is fair enough. For me, though, the bilingual authorization was just going to be something extra I could add to my resume, like "yeah, I can teach bilingual if needed/if you want." My three big plans were to teach kindergarten, first grade, or high school language. I'm just curious if the foreign language authorization (BILA) can give the authorization to teach in high school, or if it's just for elementary/middle.  At this point, I feel like I'm just in a constant state of "I kinda know what I'm doing but all due dates are very hazy." And, as someone who prefers to turn in assignments on time or early, it's a less than ideal state in which to be. I'm also terrible at using a planner (they just don't work for me, for whatever reason) so I don't really have stuff written down either. Most of my stuff and important dates are on my phone. When I was in elementary school and we were forced to use our planner (literally, "take out your planner and write down your X homework!") I would write it down, but I still could remember all the homework in my head, so I hardly ever checked the planner. Mom would check it, though, because you'd get extra points for having a parent sign your planner for the night once you finish your homework. *shrug* So I took it out for that, but that's also about it. I'm already kind of spinning around and lost in Wonderland, so I probably don't need to be muddled up in iKïyå§ama's activity, as tempting as it might be. |
| [Embed For Use By Upgraded+] Another song from barre.  I'm telling you, they have good music! I feel like this song could easily describe most people's double-sidedness... I wouldn't say I'm "psycho" in the most literal sense of this song, but there are definitely things that make me flip- and when I do, it's not pretty!For starters, the music job is definitely making its way up the list. I guess I haven't vented about it yet here, but it's so driving me crazy! The boss's lack of organization makes it hard to plan for a meeting time, and I have 3 jobs, plus a steady barre schedule, so that adds another aspect to plan around. Naturally, I don't say it's barre, I just say I'm generally unavailable because of school or something else. And I just started tutoring a colleague's daughter from my school job, in science, so I technically just went up to 4 jobs again. Anyways, we've been trying to find a meeting time/day since the 10th of February, when she asked if we could meet on the 17th. The 17th was a holiday day, so I already opened up that day for a shift at lululemon, which I told the boss. I'd also previously told her (since she mentioned the lack of flexibility in my schedule) that if she wanted me on a weekend, she could tell me 2 weeks in advance and I'd block off the day on the lulu calendar for her. Do the math- meeting on the 17th, and asking on the 10th.... that's 7 days. I suggest a Saturday date, and turns out the other girl is unavailable that weekend because she's out of town. So the boss suggests the 24th, but that's a regular school day, which makes me unavailable from 8 to about 3. Plus I'm now working on Mondays at the store so maybe I can have a weekend day off to work on school stuffs, which now makes me unavailable the whole day. She goes back to the 17th- what about the early evening? Again, I'm working a shift that day.... shifts are typically 5-8 hours long, so no, I can't do early evening. So, she wants to do 6 pm meetings, which for me is too late... and also, who wants to go to a work meeting at 6pm?  So, long story short, we're probably meeting on the 28th, from 4-5, because I have to do a call for school at 6. Assuming, that is, I don't have to do jury duty.  Yes, I got summoned for jury duty! And I'm excited about it. I love watching the court scenes in shows like SVU, All Rise, and Bluff City Law, so if I actually get to go into a real courtroom and be a juror, that'd be kinda cool.  I suppose you could say that's where my psycho comes in. Mom said I'm the first person she knows who's actually excited about going to jury duty.  Uncle got out of his for good, in Australia, because his English is not proficient enough. |
| [Embed For Use By Upgraded+] Full disclosure- I just wanted to put Delta Goodrem into this playlist so I plugged her name into Youtube and clicked the first video. BUT this kinda qualifies.... read on to find out more.  So about 2 (3?) years ago, I went to study abroad in Australia, right? Chinese New Year was during one of the breaks between the semesters so I was in Tasmania for the Chinese New Year event. All the planning, all the prep, all the set-up, break-down, etc. There was one day, Mom and I were at the venue, and these sets of siblings (2 families? about 6 "kids" total) were planning to sing this song. They were up on stage, practicing. Then the mom from one of the sibling sets came over and was like, "hey, why isn't Dragon up there? She should be singing too!" Mom and I both went, " Who, me? Who, Dragon? Okay..." Grandfather was all for it, so turns out it was all of us from the younger generation- me, 2 sisters, 4 siblings, and Uncle's son- 8 total going up there to sing "We are Australian". Piano prodigy cousin lucked out because he did what he does best- piano. I, thankfully, did not have any solo parts. I just went out and sung the chorus with everyone else and waved an Australian flag around. Anyways, fun story- the day that mom "suggested" I go up to sing with everyone else, was about 3 days before the actual performance. The older girl (probably early teens? 13-14 y/o) from the 4 sibling family asked me when we were backstage, on the day of the performance, if I'd practiced. Internally, I went, Yes, of course I practiced, what kind of question is that? Instead, I told her, in all sincerity, "Yes, I practiced the song 1000 times every day." She believed me. Do the math, though. Let's say the song is 3 minutes. 3 minutes x 1000 times is 3000 minutes. There's 60 minutes in every hour. 3000 divided by 60 is 50. 1000 times of the song, non-stop, would take 50 hours. There are not 50 hours in a day. Not to mention, a person needs to eat, sleep, and do normal human tasks as well, not just sing the same song over and over.  In conclusion, if people tell you they practice something 1000 times a day, they're probably lying and trying to get you off their back. Very much like I did. It's also impossible to practice a 3-minute song 1000 times in a day. There's just not enough time in the day. Literally. |
| [Embed For Use By Upgraded+] I went through a J.Lo phase briefly a while back and this song was part of it. I re-found it because barre had a "Super Bowl/J.Lo+Shakira" playlist and this song was on it. I also heard it at work today as I was dusting the store. Pretty coincidental, especially because I also chose to Swiffer the floor as part of my closing duties. As a result, I felt like a layer of dust just accumulated on my hands. It's kind of shocking, actually, once you start pushing the Swiffer around and you see all the dust bunnies clumping together... The fitting rooms, especially, have quite a bit dust, and I was joking with someone else that somebody is feeding those dust bunnies, because they're quite big! This seems to be today's theme- women doing stuff for incapable men. Mom told me she was chatting with one of her friends on Saturday and they were trading travel tips (the friend just went on a long cruise and it seemed decadent!). Anyways, the friend told her of another friend (the friend's friend) whose husband was highly incapable of traveling alone. The wife had to pack his luggage, iron his stuff, double check everything, do all the arrangements... whatever it was, she probably did it. So Mom's friend told the lady, "you need to train him!" so the next time they traveled, the wife did nothing. He managed to pack his clothes, but then after they got home, the wife realized he'd left all his clothes at the hotel. The female conclusion to this story is undecided- whether he did it on purpose or not- he could've forgotten the clothes by accident because of his ineptitude, or he could've purposely left the clothes there, because why bother with them? Aside from this song being fun and dancey, there's really not much else I can say about it. Mom noted that I was very hyper today coming back from work at 8 pm, while last night I was all "Don't bother me." The difference, I suppose, would be that I forgot I had coffee in the back today, and I didn't drink much of it until 3-4, and then a little more around 5-6, whereas I finished my coffee pretty early yesterday. I also don't tend to drink coffee, but I think my body no longer accepts caffeine from Thai tea because I drink it too much and I don't feel alert after drinking it anymore. I've been getting a caramel coffee smoothie (essentially a caramel frappucino) the past two days, and that worked... I'm pretty alert right now, and I lasted pretty long last night, too- the ideas flowed pretty well for my "group project" I mentioned in the previous entry. One of my word problems last night ended up having a teacher named Mrs. Fields give out cookies as a reward for good behavior... I read it to Mom and she laughed so hard, that she couldn't hear the numbers to actually do the math, so I had to re-read it for her. Hopefully the professor gets the reference too, and gives points for creativity.  |
| [Embed For Use By Upgraded+] Okay so I've only heard this song a handful of times, but I'm super hyper tonight because I had a coffee around 3 pm and the caffeine is just now kicking in.  So, prepare for a hyper-minded Dragon who's probably not great at focusing on a single topic.About this song: I first heard/saw it on the American Music Awards and somehow, I loved it. I relate to the theme, in a sense- there were these ladies at barre once who asked about my name- they were white, middle-aged ladies, and they asked about the context of my name, so I told them the watered-down version- my mom and grandfather hoped I'd be as strong as a Dragon, and part of my sister's name means "triple dragon" in Sanskrit. The ladies mentioned that I seemed like a very sweet, mellow person, and they wondered if I had a "fiery" side, aside from in the barre studio. I said sometimes. I can't say I want to get rid of my "sweet/cute" image completely, but it would also be nice to be taken seriously for once. Plus, if you get me on the right topics- education, especially, and I can talk. Though, I kinda doubt most people would be that interested in what I have to say on educational topics like grouping, technology, literacy, and the works. Anyways, this song- yes, I do have a "fiery" side to me. I control it pretty well in public, just because I'm not quite sure yet how that would manifest in everyday life. In private, though, it comes out pretty frequently. For example, having to turn in a group assignment for an online class, in which I did not have a group, last night. I emailed two people about them needing a group/partner (a group can be just 2 people) and one said he already found a group. Fine. Second one- yes, he needed a group. Excellent! "What is your contact info?" He gives me a number. I call it. Computerized voice- the number you have called is not in service. I email him back- I called your number, is there a typo? It's not working. He replied me at 12:30 pm today (the assignment was due 11:30 pm last night) and asks for my contact info. I told him I already did the assignment myself and turned it in, sorry, but if he needs a partner for the second group assignment, I'm game. So that's settled, I hope. Also, most people know I don't *tend to* swear. I mean, working with kindergarteners, you can't really freely express yourself in colorful language in front of them, like you might be able to if you were working with high schoolers, and even that's somewhat debatable in terms of professionalism. With the non-swearing thing said, though, this song probably comes as a surprise... especially because I'd say a good portion of it is made of choice words I wouldn't normally use. I also don't love Kesha- sure, I liked TiK ToK and Timber, but that's about it, and all I knew, until this song. As somebody who picks music mostly based on the artist, Kesha isn't among my top favorites, and I don't really follow her. Honestly, had I not watched the AMAs that night, I wouldn't even know this song existed- but I did, and I do like the song. |
| [Embed For Use By Upgraded+] I just realized I missed an assignment due on Sunday... School is absolutely torturing me at this point. I like my classes well enough, but the way the LMS is organized.... it's supposedly amongst the worst people have seen. For example, my math class has about 20 weekly assignments- it's the same type of assignment and it's something you have to do every week. We also have another type of assignment that's due every 2 weeks, "book practice," says the professor.  That's the one I forgot to do, because as I was turning in my weekly assignment, 1. I didn't see it on the calendar, and 2. I didn't see it on the dropbox. Turns out, the dropbox is set to 20 assignments at a time, and the bi-weekly book practice was put under all the other assignments and pushed down to page 2. I just did it and turned it in, albeit late... I also looked for a solution to this and there is no sort by due date function.So, tacking this on to my post from last night, also ranting about school, and my lack of time to do much else but school and work, this will be another one. Feel free to skip this if you're not interested. So, school: I found a class to do social studies observation in! Saw my class's "buddy" teacher today and we chatted briefly in the hallway, so I asked if she does social studies yet (I also asked the class mom, because her older son is in 2nd grade, but the teacher has been out for about 2 weeks soooo I couldn't exactly go ask that teacher.) and they're starting a social studies unit in 2 weeks! She said they're doing gummy bear voting (if I heard right) and it's going to be cute, so I'm looking forward to it. Probably just means that I may need to start doing all my social studies stuff for third grade instead of fourth. Math class- I'm enjoying the math portion of it, actually. I enjoy math, as you probably already know... Reading- still need to email my host teacher about the requirements for this class, and then I need to go observe in first grade for language arts because they want emergent readers. Chinese- I'm most likely withdrawing from this class because I can't find a fieldwork placement for this. Relation to the song- school is absolutely breaking me. Had another "your priorities aren't set straight" conversation with Mom. As somebody with 30 years more experience than I do, she expects me to also have those 30 years of experience. The music job sprung a renewal contract on me and I was completely unprepared and was not expecting it. We're at half a year right now- I didn't think she'd give me anything about renewing the contract until later. Plus, I thought it would be more of a conversation about the company and a "so do you think you'll return?" type of thing, as opposed to "Here's a contract for next year, with your half-year review." If I had gotten my two cents in, I would've requested that I stay on only to teach at the school I'm teaching at right now, and/or anything within the district I currently work in. I mentioned it to Mom and she's like "I told you, you should've said 'I need to think about it'." Well, yes, Mom, that is a great idea, but I did not think of that when the contract was sprung on me, and now I'm kinda stuck in for another year. Summed up: I'm in a pretty bad mood tonight from realizing that I missed the assignment, but also, I did just come off the high of the 100 days of school festivities at school.  It's a rollercoaster of mental and physical stuff right now. |
| [Embed For Use By Upgraded+] I fell kinda behind on this after I gave up on my computer because it was being slow. I also kinda fell behind in school and was playing catch-up with that too, during the second half of the week. Anyways, this song was my mood all of Sunday, so I'm using it now. I would say this probably describes my current relationship with school. I need it in order to become a teacher. The school I'm in is supposed to be the best program, locally, of the state universities. Yet, half my classes are on different schedules- some are week 3, another, week 4, another starts this week. Some professors were nice and decided that Week 1 wouldn't count because of the MLK long weekend, so Week 2 was our real Week 1, and then another online class was lacking a professor for a couple days.... my Chinese class originally got cancelled, and then it was reinstated, only to find out on the first day that the higher-ups were thinking about cancelling it again due to low enrollment, "so please don't get your textbooks yet".... and then a day or two later, they confirmed it was a go-ahead. And that, folks, is how to cause a headache for students taking all online classes. I went to an open house for a school with a bilingual program that was a reasonable drive (30 minutes via local streets) away in another district, because our district doesn't have a Chinese bilingual program for any K-8 grades (Chinese language classes don't count ) and I met the principal during the tour, then emailed the principal afterwards, but she didn't reply. So that's a no-go. The next closest one is about 45 minutes away, via the freeway. So, chances are, I'm withdrawing from this Chinese class. I just don't have the time to drive 45 minutes to a school for observation- especially if school starts at 8 or 8:30.... that's kinda prime traffic time, too. Going back to the song, that first verse is how I feel about school. It's a losing game, honestly. I have realized my limit, and 5 classes with 3 jobs is past it. Even my coworkers all wonder why I need 3 jobs.... one is for the money (retail), one is for the connections, and honestly, the music one? I don't even know at this point. |
| [Embed For Use By Upgraded+] The past 12 months have had LOTS of new music for me- especially since all my exercising involved/involves music. I heard this song from Jazz in Winter Quarter at uni last year. It cuts it closer to the 12-month period since Winter Quarter was January-March and we're in February, but hey, it's early February. Also, this song just makes me wanna get up and dance. I've also sounded out the basics of the melody on my guitar. Haven't really played anything on the piano for ages, because our piano (an upright) has kinda turned into a temporary storage shelf for other stuffs like throw pillows .Sheppard is an Aussie band and I'm pretty obsessed with them- they actually originated as a family band, when one of the brothers was helping the sister with a songwriting assignment for school and then somehow a band was formed. They also have a song for the bushfire relief, called Phoenix, which is very pretty, and another one called "Die Young," that apparently lots of people have been listening to recently- I've even heard it on the playlist at barre, and it's rare that my Aussie obsessions ever end up being played in public. Aside from hearing them at barre, and "Geronimo" at the mall when I go to work sometimes, I think this song was one of the first new ones I heard in 2019 where I went "oooh, this is a nice song," and after what happened in 2018 with my aunt, a "Geronimo" obsession was definitely welcome. The intensity of it helped me not keep dwelling on what had happened. Also, Sheppard is actually better live than they are recorded. I shall leave this video of their performance on The Voice AU for you to compare their recorded and live performances, and you can decide (and come to the same decision  ) for yourself. [Embed For Use By Upgraded+] I also really like the silver jacket Amy (green-haired performer) wears. She also has an incredible voice. Just sayin'. |
| [Embed For Use By Upgraded+] Alrighty, technically this song is only Halsey, but this version she performed with Kelsea Ballerini... I guess you could say is my definition of ASMR. It's very satisfying. In the sense that both ladies have incredible voices and both voices pair so well together.I've become a regular Youtube watcher while school went out on break- both the school I work in, and the school I attend- and I'd say my top 2 topics on Youtube are music and food. This is why I need to do barre class twice a day. Mom and I went to a concert back in October, actually, called "We Can Survive," which featured a bunch of huge artists like the Jonas Brothers and Taylor Swift (spoiler alert- she will also make an appearance within the next 25 entries!), and Halsey was a surprise guest. I would say I wasn't the biggest fan of her prior to "Graveyard," but I definitely appreciated her talent. I watched her perform with BTS at the American Music Awards, and I watched her own performance of "Graveyard"... and then I remembered how she performed "Without Me" at the Billboard Awards, and I've determined that she's definitely an amazing live show performer.  She brings the drama and theatrics, but knows where the line is before it becomes too much. She also did a mash-up of sorts with Lady Antebellum for their new album's song "What if I Never Get Over You": [Embed For Use By Upgraded+] She also has a fabulous fashion sense.  Or stylist. Regardless, her outfits suit her so well and look so good on her. Also, Kelsea Ballerini's outfit in the first video is definitely something I'd aspire to wear. I'm going to attempt sounding this out on the guitar or piano whenever I have a chance. |
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