School and Other Things

Tonight I'm going to see "The Lorax" with a friend.  I think it's fitting that the opening night is on Dr. Seuss's birthday.  I loved the book as a kid, and I'm so excited that they made it into a movie.  I hope the animation is as good as what they were able to do with "Horton Hears a Who".  I'm excited to see what they do with the story to make it long enough to be a movie (well, 86 minutes anyway), and I think Danny Devito should make a good Lorax.  I'm also excited that we aren't going to the 3D version.  I maintain that the only 3D movie that I've ever seen that was worth seeing in 3D was "Coraline" and everything else has just been a letdown.  For those of you who have never read "The Lorax" 1.) you're missing out and 2.) here is the ebook version via youtube.  Enjoy.

In other news, I will be able to start planning my classes for next fall starting 3 weeks from today.  I was hoping to student teach Fall '13, but I was reviewing the classes I still need to talk and I think I'm going to push it back to Spring '14.  The extra semester will make my class load a little lighter, and I think that will be a better option for me.  Assuming my financial aid will hold out.  That's the part that makes me nervous.  I don't mind paying it back, but I'd really like to know if it will hold out long enough for me to, you know, graduate.  I'm also trying to decide if I should just bite the bullet and take the Praxis, even though I'll hopefully be teaching in Wyoming and they don't require it.  I suppose it couldn't hurt, right?

Though speaking of Praxis, I will need to take the Praxis tests (I think) if I'm going to teach with the DoD.  I was looking online, and I'm pretty excited about doing it.  The areas I could be posted (if they hire me) would be

• One-Year Tour Areas: Bahrain, Cuba, Italy (Sigonella), Korea, Japan (Misawa and Okinawa), Portugal (Azores) and Turkey.
• Two-Year Tour Areas: Belgium, England, Germany, Italy (other than Sigonella), Japan (other than Misawa and Okinawa), Netherlands and Spain.

How exciting would it be to live for a year or two somewhere like that?!  I'd love to see Christmas in a foreign country, and it would be fun to get to know any one of those cultures.  Between the living there and the traveling, I can't imagine a better way to spend my first two years of teaching.  If they'll have me.  Good thing that the most illegal thing I've done involves a parking violation.  I wonder how hard it is to get a job with DoD to go overseas.  I don't know anyone who has applied with them in the last 10 years...

So this whole being single thing is working out for me so far.  I haven't really had anyone ask me out, but I'm not all that stress about it.  I've been out with various friends, so it's not that I have no social life, and it's been nice to not have to be all stressed out about my future.  I think the only stressful thing about being single is having roommates.  I mean, I don't mind the ones I have, but living with other people always presents challenges and I think that overall I prefer the slight bits of antisocial solitude to the stresses of living with other people.  I'm not bothered enough to move, so obviously things are going ok, but in the end I prefer my own space to do with what I will.  Meh.  Things could be worse.