Chapter 267 or so - where Susan proves she's still kicking after a somewhat lengthy but not at all uneventful or discontented absence.

Fun pic JSY sent me from Korea that I don't believe I've used in here yet. Look closely slightly upper middle.

Kind of a surreal summer so far altho I'm pretty down with the tutoring schedule so that part is less surreal than normal... Anyway here is my standard list o' Susandoin's...

Quilt? What quilt?! Just kidding - I didn't get the fabric folded in time after the prewashing so it went back in for a second wash today to dewrinkle, after which I folded promptly so it will be much easier to press and cut. Will start cutting tomorrow, hopefully get all the cutting done over the weekend. The piecing is always easier to keep at since I enjoy that part much more. Even the cutting should be more fun this year since I am all iTune-y now. I forgot I got 5 or 6 books on CD during our used sale at Hastings just before I quit last year and never listened to them so I have those to play plus I really need to listen to some of my French spoken word stuff since I haven't been doing any speaking or reading on my own outside of tutoring.

So speaking of iTunes, I imported all my books on CD to iTunes as well as gobs of music CDs so far. I'm keeping most of my jazz, world, and classical, plus any of the pop/rock that is especially good and not embarrassing to have sitting on my CD racks. :) I have gobs of promo copies from Borders which you can't sell at Hastings unless you luck out and Joseph isn't doing buybacks when you walk in (read: never when I go). Consequently I'm thinking mostly easy-come-easy-go with those and putting some of them into the Mission Thrift box - I got them for free anyway so let someone else go fight with Joe about how Hastings has 3 gazillion promos in its used CD stock already. Even without that, having taken in one stack of about 3 books on CD and another 8 or so music CDs I got $57 worth of credit! I had taken some books in a couple of weeks ago so I'm sitting at over $70 now, even with renting some more stuff in the meantime AND paying late fees on 3 items. woo hoo!

Tutoring my patootie off. Well not really - really my patootie is getting smaller but it's thanks to my newly re-found gym regimen. But if it weren't for that I bet there would be some major patootie-shrinking effects from all the tutoring, still.

The Michelin guy has improved vastly and I'm happy to say that our sessions have as well. We only have about 5 more as he will be moving to Canada towards the end of June. The engineering guy is pretty cool and our sessions go really really quickly - both of which are good since it could be a pretty extended gig. Supposed to have another Michelin guy sometime soon for conversation practice. Hear hear, as that entails much less work on my part. (The first guy is a true beginner so I had to dust off some of my brainstorming cells for the first several sessions tho he's in the groove pretty well now. Probably good for me in the long run. Even when we have true beginners on campus --rarer and rarer-- when it's in the context of the class it never calls for much real scrambling on my part, even if they come to office hours, which... yeah right.) Anyway John my old student from Michelin from last year who is in a different post at the Greenville headquarters now called this morning with all the details. The new guy should be calling soon...

The two high schoolers are continuing throughout the summer, plus the sister of one is going to start so she can get a head start for fall. No qualms about that on my end of course! $$$$$... I've been meaning to blog about the high schoolers in general. They're both pretty good as tutor subjects, not totally lost and moderately interesting. I forget how young they are from time to time because one of them is really big, tho his face looks boyish still and the other looks somewhat boyish but not really much more than my freshman/sophomore students on campus so it's hard to remember they're each just 16... Well unless you count attention span and, well... One of them is constantly fidgeting and just recently started kind of scoping out his own biceps every few minutes as we work. No joke - he kind of flexes them or something with his arms straight down either between his knees or to his sides and then looks down to see... or something... I guess it makes more sense that he be scoping his triceps instead in that case, but either way it's pretty puzzling... Where's Jane Goodall when you need her?! He also seems to itch a lot (not in any scary places at least, just all over). The other one isn't fidgety but he kind of channels Eeyore all the time... Most of this is when bemoaning lack of food or sleep, both of which REALLY help his comprehension and absorption during sessions of course. Seriously the only thing better than tutoring 16-yr-olds is tutoring one who hasn't slept in 36 hours and whose metabolism is nonexistent. About every other time he tries to boost these states with a humongous decadent coffee drink to which he adds 6 or 7 packets of Equal... Interestingly (or maybe lamentably) it never seems to have much effect, which is scary in itself.

So I was carrying out periodic self-Googling protocols just now to see what the web has to say about yours truly and Lucy's Catster page came up! I haven't told her yet - waiting for Sammers not to be in the room, despite his ego's being pretty stalwart, it's just good form since even tho I went about 5 pages further there was still no mention of his Catster page in the list.

Niffer's Saturday night with Mandy and a couple of other people from the gym. Mandy is an old friend who is back now. She asks me to do stuff pretty often and usually I flake because usually it entails either a huge group of people (read: way too many for me at once, especially when most of them are much younger than I) or in a slightly bar-y venue. So I'm glad this time it's a lower-key thang. Also I love Niffer's, altho not as much as I used to when they had their fantastic steak sandwich. (Mr. Grandpa-Jacket actually said to me once when I suggested eating there, "No way... Just think of it: 'Niffer's.' Who do they think they are kidding?! It's only one letter away!") PLEASE tell me, any of you who know something I don't, if there is any reason to see that as something besides reading too much into stuff... If there is truly some scoop here, I'll be happy to edit this. (BTW I ran into Mr. Granny-Arm-Hold the other day at the P.O... Had just about as much to say to each other as during our 2 or 3 dates way back when but at least he had no reason to hold my arm...)

My neck is killing me. I can't figure out why and there's nothing you can do about it but there it is anyway. It's the same thing as all spring altho for several days it seemed better but this eve it's pretty bad again. I'm starting to think it has something to do with couch TV-viewing since I always sit sideways and turn my head to watch, from either end... A couple of you would doubtless agree that the couch has something to do with it, knowing how perniciously uncomfortable it can be.

More pain. Sammers was HUGELY startled earlier - it was pitiful but also gutwrenchingly funny. I've never seen him jump that high plus he did kind of a very interesting twisted half-gainer in the process (gimme a break - if you can't bring fun gymnastics vocab into a post, even inaccurately, for fun hyperbolic effect, then you might as well just curl up and die). Two more times right after that someone slightly saddo kept startling him the same way to see how long it would work, which it kind of continued to do. Now, fully 3.5 hours later, he started to nudge my arm but didn't realize my opposite hand was tucked under there and when I moved my fingers he freaked again and my hand got a supersonic clawing in the process. It is stinging quite impressively now. Poor bug. He's had a hard night. I seriously have never seen him so jumpy. I think he and Lucy are a little traumatized anyway since today was lawnguys day so they spent most of the morning and, presumably, a fair chunk of the afternoon sweltering under the bed waiting for the noise to stop. Tomorrow morning is Daniel which is far less shocking to their systems, altho now I think it's time for clippies again (or rather my hand thinks so). Whatever, I've decreased cat stress around here hugely this month anyway: we've finally stopped Frontline altogether. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that with being flea-free for well over 2 years now plus the fact that they never go outside, plus the fact that 7 out of 8 cats we know around here are fine without Frontline, that all will be well.

Crazy I know but I'm on Facebook now. Over the years various students have tried to talk me into it and I finally took the plunge, mostly at Andy's assurance that "several" of his profs/instructors are on there. Initially, I spent the first day or so on there pretty much nonstop setting up my page, etc., and now I almost only go on if there's a message in my school email that someone has sent me a Facebook message or something. Whatever -- call it another teaching experiment - it will be interesting to see what my fall students have to say, if anything. Still, every day brings another fun web toy. Yesterday I spent about an hour setting up my iGoogle page. Someone stop me!

The heat seems finally to have arrived or is at least seriously considering it now. Of course at the moment we are all distracted by the lovely Florida fire smoke which has been making it as far as us and makes one headachey and eyeburny, altho I of course should be thankful we're no closer and are in no danger.

See now, this is why I haven't been blogging - contentment breeds boring blogposts, what can I say? ...Oh, yeah, you heard me! CONTENTMENT!! I not only am feeling it but I freely admit it. Fairly painless tutoring and lots of it, working out, playing with iTunes, watching Six Feet Under and some really incredible movies, catching up on Harry Potter, quilting, baking, playing with the kits, nyernt nyernt... Too bad summer can't last forever. I'd like nothing better than to continue this tidy little mixture of goings-on during the schoolyear. Alas.

Wait! I know something fun: Road trip to Atlanta last Saturday was fantabulous. The last time I had been to Little Five Points was with Jessica in --I believe-- fall 2003, when I bought my super pale pink linen top and Tillie Olsen's Yonnondio: From the Thirties (one of the most moving books I've read in the last 15 years) at the used book store whose name I just forgot... Anyway this time we went to Ikea where I got the perfect desk lamp since Dad's old one was dying a slow death, plus I found two pretty unique bandanas at the Clothing Warehouse, skimmed all the serious film mags at Criminal Records, had a tremendously scrumptious dinner at the Flying Biscuit, and went to see The Lives of Others which was sublime. Seriously you have got to see it. You must trust me on this. (The only thing possibly as good as the movie was finding out I'm still pretty much the fastest pee-er east of the Pecos.)

So, yes, the gym. Well I've raised all my weights at least twice each and as of yesterday am legpressing more than my own weight! If you think that's not impressive you can bite the big one - or come to my house and I'll show you all the fun clothes I can fit into again, as I flex and survey my own triceps...