Flying @ MindSay 
airplanes
It's only 4:30, and I am ready to collapse.
Here's some of the stuff that was on my plate today:
-- One of my ESPs (Educational Support Professional, aka a para or an aide at other schools), Kathleen, was taking a personal day today. That's totally fine. Yesterday, my ESP Stacey's daughter got sick at her school and Stace had to leave at like 1:30 to take care of her, so I thought she might be absent today. I gave this info to a fellow teacher, Susan, who runs another 'program' in the building. She told me one of her ESPs was going to be out.
Each day, a fax comes to the main office from the sub caller saying who is absent.
Imagine my nausea when Susan came to my room and said, "they're both out, and there are no subs". I almost had a heart attack. THANKFULLY, she meant Kathleen and her ESP, NOT Kathleen and Stacey.
-- However, Kathleen works with a kid who needs CONSTANT supervision (T), so there was no option of 'okay, he'll be on his own today'. 'Shit' I say to myself, 'I'm already understaffed when all of them are HERE, being down another one will kill me!''.
It did NOT kill me, btw. We did an experiment where Sandy left X alone all day, and she went around as Kathleen, and I'd be her at his lunch period so she could eat. OYYY. It also F'ed up Paula and Dot's lunches. I can't wait to have enough staff. It will never happen, though.
-- M had TWO bathroom accidents today. The day before we were going to throw a blow-out party for her for being dry for an entire month. I thought we should have it anyway, because we were at ALMOST a month (this was after the 1st, just-pee accident :-/), but Paula alerted me that earlier M threatened her with, "If you don't _____ I'll pee my pants".
-- Speaking of M, her foster-mom just stopped in here (it's 4:40) to see if I was in. We talked a week ago about how she never intended to adopt her and that their time together would be ending soon but M doesn't know HOW soon it really could be. Well, mom just told me they've found a prospective family in West Springfield, and she's actually going to be having an overnight with them...TOMORROW. As in, if this goes well, and this is for real, she could be leaving NEXT WEEK. I'm devestated at the thought of it.
PS, she's going to tell her about it tonight, so that means tomorrow might be HELL, and also, the behaviors like bathroom issues and defiance are probably going to spike. w00t.
-- I got to have another interaction with ZF today. He is not my student, but probably will be soon. The child is out-of-control, makes-other-behavior-kids-look-like-angels outta control. He has an ESP who has NO IDEA what to do with him. Twice this week, I've had to escort him into the break room because he's been kicking and scratching her. Not that he hasn't been doing it to me when I am the one getting him into the room because she doesn't. He left some good marks today.
-- This one made me laugh. I guess you'd have to know the student to laugh along with me, but there is a boy in Susan's program, H, who is quite a handful. He is very violent and hands-on as well - he's also really sweet, but if you spend time with him, you see a lot more aggression than the sweet side. Anyway, while watching T at recess today, I turned around and saw H on all 4s behind another kid, squeezing him. I told him to let go, and surprisingly, he did without incident. I have heard one of his ESPs, Ashley tell him, "no contact" as in, hands off, so as he and the boys ran away, I yelled, "Boys, no contact". I didn't single HIM out, I made it the whole group.
Either way, H stops, cocks his hip out and goes, "You know what I want? (beat) To kick you". I was TEMPTED to say, 'thank you for not' but I clamped my mouth shut. HOWEVER, H not hurting someone is big news. Of course, he broke a kids glasses today, but ... he didn't kick me when he wanted to :).
-- Oh yeah; Stacey came in this morning and told me she's applying for a transfer back to her old school because she hates working in the program. Not her student, not me or my staff, but the program itself. I knew she was unhappy from the get-go, but ... seriously? You're going to fucking do that to us after you made a huge fucking deal about us NOT splitting the days up so you'd always be with that student?
I can't tell if I'm hoping she gets it or not.
Apparently, I'm madder about that than I thought I was.
Today, is completely contrasting of yesterday. My computer wasn't picking up internest yesterday except for the plane, however I hadn't slept in 36 hours and the plane was the only place i could really rest my eyes. Tried to update on my phone but it wouldn't work.
I got a swift kick in the ass yesterday regarding my "how-not-to-travel"-since it will just ruin my happiness at this moment now with stories of how horrible yesterday was, I'm going to try to just write it in a list. So here we go.
Leading up to my departure...
Monday, July 6th-I rode my bike 23 miles around the Schulykill River Bank Trail and then saw Food Inc. (GO SEE IT) The whole day I spent w/ my new friend Ian who gave me a boot camp in biking; definitely made me feel like a pro not like I hadn't been on my bike in 6 years or anything...
Tuesday, July 7th-I had 2 shoots in Bryn Mawr at this gorgeous studio that had a silo in the staircase. The first was with Rich Dunoff, we did some headshots, shots of me doing Yoga, then headed out into the woods to work on his series "Women in the Woods." I was in nothing but a bra, thong, and carefully placed sheer cloth to which I sat amongst ferns, climed trees, and got 2 bites right on my tush. After that I had a shoot with the owner of the studio and his good friend Ross. We did some ballet shots in my pointe shoes, even in teh staircase, and some headshots. After that I came home, ran to tutor George in speech, which was fun. We were aristocrats. Then I went to finally eat some dinner and while doing so I got an e-mail for background work in a Target commercial... in Long Island City. So after packing my outfits for the shoot I took a China Town bus to NYC and stayed with my friend Megan Campanile in her apartment on the Upper West Side who's currently the understudy for Ariel on Broadway and a mersister. We stayed up and ate gluten-free, vegan blue-berry cheesecake ice cream until 2am. I got up at 7am, got ready, and went to the shoot. Total time on the set was probably 2 hours, but we were there for 12. The commercial was for Anna Sui's Gossip Girl inspired line that's coming out in the fall. The commercial will be aired approx. 9/7/2009. There were only 12 of us background people. All very good-looking, driven actors, many of them new to the industry, from all different backgrounds. There were even 2 Philly actors. One of them, Zach, was awesome enough to drive me back to Philly, wait for me as I packed for Kansas and closed up the apartment, and then drove me to the airport at 2:30am since he lives only one stop from it anyways. I wanted to get there that early because I was trying to get the airtranu $69/segment standy ticket and figured since I was the first one there, I'd have a better shot.
WELL-
Here's the list
-1 standby left
-girl was on standby from yesterday
-called expedia, got a ticket for almost the same price, for 10:30, because they couldn't get me a 6am one.
-girl called airtran to ask if there were any 6am flights left just in case, they said there were 9
-called expedia back to ask WHY they didn't give me the 6am
-tried to get my ticket and then get on same-day standby-my payment hadn't shown up as gone through
-called my bank, couldn't get a hold of a person
-called expedia, they said it could take 8 hours for it to process
-Airtran told me they couldn't give me my ticket until it was processed, by that time my flight would have been long-gone
-called expedia numerous times-the payment wasn't going through because the airline wasn't issuing the ticket. Finally someone said they would arrange to have my ticket refunded and that I should just buy a new ticket then.
-Tried buying a new ticket, my card was rejected (even though I transferred all of my savings to my checking before I left).
-Called my parents, got my dad's card numbers, airtran wouldn't take them bc I didn't have his ID.
-phone died, no outlet, found an outlet far away.
-called my back, apparently I had a limit on what I could charge/day and that limit had been exceeded because the payment for expedia wouldn't be taken off for 72 hours (which I later found out), raised my imit.
-bought my ticket, missed a possible same-day standby because it took that long just to get a ticket.
-went to baggage checks-had my bag sent down b/c I had too many bottle and had to pay to have it checked.
-Flight from Philly to Atlanta, wasn't bad. Realized I was losing my voice though from no sleep. I also spoke to an older woman who had the same ear painful troubles as I do when it comes to flying and ear infections and she gave me some pointers.
-Atlanta. Big airport. Bought new headphones and got an airtran credit card so that I could get a free flight and not be cornered again with only one card again in case something went wrong.
-Waited in Gate C6-met and talked to strangers, read Oleanna. Waited as I drank tea. It's 3:35pm. my 3:34pm flight wasn't called yet. Um... What???
-No one was working at my gate, nothin was on the monitor listing any changes. Finally found someone, they said the gate was changed to C20.
-I RAN. JUST MISSED THE PLANE.
-Made a huge scene, I had been in airports for over 13 hours at that point. Was crying, exhausted, sick. Went to customer service to get the next flight. Got one for 5:54pm. Missed seing my friend Isaac.
-Talked to a girl who I think was from Australia, who was going to Lawrence, eventually, to see a "friend" as well.
-Got on the plane-ears KILLED while going down (my ears didn't pop until the next morning.
-Landed in Kansas City, Kansas, an hour behind east coast time, at 6:54pm.
-assumed I lost my luggage as well, since everything else had gone wrong at that point, why shouldn't this? This didn't, which means that I'll probably lose my luggage on the way to LA. My suitcase was safe and sound in the baggage claims office.
-I saw the Aussie girl with her "friend" while waiting for Paul.
The Kansas story starts here.
I saw him coming towards me near the baggage claims. He had shaved since I had last saw him. We gave each other huge smiles, I was so relieved, the nightmere was over.
In case you don't know, Paul and I met at The Last Drop last May because we kept staring at each other. He was drawing me the whole time as it turns out. He was visiting Philly, looking for representating of his work. I worked up the balls to text him the next day (he attatched his card to the drawing), and we spent an amazing 2 days together. Obviously it was amazing otherwise I wouldn't be here right now.
He welcomed me with a kiss and a bowl when we were driving. He had me put on his sunglasses and seeing the green, open space, I felt elevated-on top of something very close to the sun (his description, it was right). Not clostrophobic, but very open, and exposed. I felt vulnerable to sensations I had never come accross before.
I felt a clean high, and that in combination with the sunglasses, my ears not having popped, exhaustion and onsetting cold, I seriously felt as though I was in a dream, completely disconnected from my body and voice. My own words and thoughts echoed in my head and I wondered if I was really talking. I didn't want to talk too much because my voice hurt anyways, and I was, sort of speechless, from all of the beauty, and knowing that I had finally arrived. I had finally done what I said I was going to do even with all of the obstacles coming my way. Paul, a guy who I didn't really know, but trusted and was smitten by, was sitting next to me, smoking from the same bowl as me, laughing with me, pointing out all of the chiche midwest things to me, and I knew that no matter what we did here, I was going to be happy.
Entering his house I met his roommates who were really nice, and saw his paintings that I had only seen on his website, everywhere. They were more beautiful (of course) than I remembered them being online. His studio was in his basement along with his practice space. He had paintings from his friend who just came back from South Korea up as they were painting together. Paul has shown his work nearly everywhere in Lawrence for the past 5 years.
We then went to Carlos O Kellys-a midwestern Mexican chaine restaurant to meet up with his roommate and friend who play jazz in his basement. We ate-the vegan option I had, some delicious taco contraption, was huge, and delicious. We drank beer that was from a local brewery, it was delicious.
We then got a bottle of red wine, went back to his house and watched his friends play jazz. This was before I completely lost my voice, so I sang Fever along with them.
When they finished, I was about to pass out. I hadn't slept the night before afterall. So Paul rented The Day the Earth Stood Still while I took a shower (since i hadn't showered that morning at all either). Basically as soon as the movie started I passed out on his lap.
We woke up this morning and made love until 1:30pm, despite the fact that we weren't going to.
We left at 2:30 for "breakfast." We went to "The Mirth" and I had a huge bowl of granola with straberries and soy milk as Paul ate his French Toast-cut and displayed like a flower.
Now we're at "The Bourgeois Pig"-a bar/coffee shop and got 2 Irish coffees. He had website work to do, I had this to do along with many e-mails and a plane ticket home (since I'm not going to do standby again, I don't think).
We're talking to a few people in the coffee shop.
I'm enjoying this.
Today, is completely contrasting of yesterday. My computer wasn't picking up internest yesterday except for the plan, however I hadn't slept in 36 hours and the plane was the only place i could really rest my eyes. Tried to update on my phone but it wouldn't work.
I got a swift kick in the ass yesterday regarding my travels-since I will just ruin my happiness at this moment now with stories of how horrible yesterday was, I'm going to try to just write it in a list. So here we go.
Leading up to my departure...
Monday, July 6th-I rode my bike 23 miles around the Schulykill River Bank Trail and then saw Food Inc. (GO SEE IT) The whole day I spent w/ my new friend Ian who gave me a boot camp in biking; definitely made me feel like a pro not like I hadn't been on my bike in 6 years or anything...
Tuesday, July 7th-I had 2 shoots in Bryn Mawr at this gorgeous studio that had a silo in the staircase. The first was with Rich Dunoff, we did some headshots, shots of me doing Yoga, then headed out into the woods to work on his series "Women in the Woods." I was in nothing but a bra, thong, and carefully placed sheer cloth to which I sat amongst ferns, climed trees, and got 2 bites right on my tush. After that I had a shoot with the owner of the studio and his good friend Ross. We did some ballet shots in my pointe shoes, even in teh staircase, and some headshots. After that I came home, ran to tutor George in speech, which was fun. We were aristocrats. Then I went to finally eat some dinner and while doing so I got an e-mail for background work in a Target commercial... in Long Island City. So after packing my outfits for the shoot I took a China Town bus to NYC and stayed with my friend Megan Campanile in her apartment on the Upper West Side who's currently the understudy for Ariel on Broadway and a mersister. We stayed up and ate gluten-free, vegan blue-berry cheesecake ice cream until 2am. I got up at 7am, got ready, and went to the shoot. Total time on the set was probably 2 hours, but we were there for 12. The commercial was for Anna Sui's Gossip Girl inspired line that's coming out in the fall. The commercial will be aired approx. 9/7/2009. There were only 12 of us background people. All very good-looking, driven actors, many of them new to the industry, from all different backgrounds. There were even 2 Philly actors. One of them, Zach, was awesome enough to drive me back to Philly, wait for me as I packed for Kansas and closed up the apartment, and then drove me to the airport at 2:30am since he lives only one stop from it anyways. I wanted to get there that early because I was trying to get the airtranu $69/segment standy ticket and figured since I was the first one there, I'd have a better shot.
WELL-
Here's the list
-1 standby left
-girl was on standby from yesterday
-called expedia, got a ticket for almost the same price, for 10:30, because they couldn't get me a 6am one.
-girl called airtran to ask if there were any 6am flights left just in case, they said there were 9
-called expedia back to ask WHY they didn't give me the 6am
-tried to get my ticket and then get on same-day standby-my payment hadn't shown up as gone through
-called my bank, couldn't get a hold of a person
-called expedia, they said it could take 8 hours for it to process
-Airtran told me they couldn't give me my ticket until it was processed, by that time my flight would have been long-gone
-called expedia numerous times-the payment wasn't going through because the airline wasn't issuing the ticket. Finally someone said they would arrange to have my ticket refunded and that I should just buy a new ticket then.
-Tried buying a new ticket, my card was rejected (even though I transferred all of my savings to my checking before I left).
-Called my parents, got my dad's card numbers, airtran wouldn't take them bc I didn't have his ID.
-phone died, no outlet, found an outlet far away.
-called my back, apparently I had a limit on what I could charge/day and that limit had been exceeded because the payment for expedia wouldn't be taken off for 72 hours (which I later found out), raised my imit.
-bought my ticket, missed a possible same-day standby because it took that long just to get a ticket.
-went to baggage checks-had my bag sent down b/c I had too many bottle and had to pay to have it checked.
-Flight from Philly to Atlanta, wasn't bad. Realized I was losing my voice though from no sleep. I also spoke to an older woman who had the same ear painful troubles as I do when it comes to flying and ear infections and she gave me some pointers.
-Atlanta. Big airport. Bought new headphones and got an airtran credit card so that I could get a free flight and not be cornered again with only one card again in case something went wrong.
-Waited in Gate C6-met and talked to strangers, read Oleanna. Waited as I drank tea. It's 3:35pm. my 3:34pm flight wasn't called yet. Um... What???
-No one was working at my gate, nothin was on the monitor listing any changes. Finally found someone, they said the gate was changed to C20.
-I RAN. JUST MISSED THE PLANE.
-Made a huge scene, I had been in airports for over 13 hours at that point. Was crying, exhausted, sick. Went to customer service to get the next flight. Got one for 5:54pm. Missed seing my friend Isaac.
-Talked to a girl who I think was from Australia, who was going to Lawrence, eventually, to see a "friend" as well.
-Got on the plane-ears KILLED while going down (my ears didn't pop until the next morning.
-Landed in Kansas City, Kansas, an hour behind east coast time, at 6:54pm.
-assumed I lost my luggage as well, since everything else had gone wrong at that point, why shouldn't this? This didn't, which means that I'll probably lose my luggage on the way to LA. My suitcase was safe and sound in the baggage claims office.
-I saw the Aussie girl with her "friend" while waiting for Paul.
The Kansas story starts here.
I saw him coming towards me near the baggage claims. He had shaved since I had last saw him. We gave each other huge smiles, I was so relieved, the nightmere was over.
In case you don't know, Paul and I met at The Last Drop last May because we kept staring at each other. He was drawing me the whole time as it turns out. He was visiting Philly, looking for representating of his work. I worked up the balls to text him the next day (he attatched his card to the drawing), and we spent an amazing 2 days together. Obviously it was amazing otherwise I wouldn't be here right now.
He welcomed me with a kiss and a bowl when we were driving. He had me put on his sunglasses and seeing the green, open space, I felt elevated-on top of something very close to the sun (his description, it was right). Not clostrophobic, but very open, and exposed. I felt vulnerable to sensations I had never come accross before.
I felt a clean high, and that in combination with the sunglasses, my ears not having popped, exhaustion and onsetting cold, I seriously felt as though I was in a dream, completely disconnected from my body and voice. My own words and thoughts echoed in my head and I wondered if I was really talking. I didn't want to talk too much because my voice hurt anyways, and I was, sort of speechless, from all of the beauty, and knowing that I had finally arrived. I had finally done what I said I was going to do even with all of the obstacles coming my way. Paul, a guy who I didn't really know, but trusted and was smitten by, was sitting next to me, smoking from the same bowl as me, laughing with me, pointing out all of the chiche midwest things to me, and I knew that no matter what we did here, I was going to be happy.
Entering his house I met his roommates who were really nice, and saw his paintings that I had only seen on his website, everywhere. They were more beautiful (of course) than I remembered them being online. His studio was in his basement along with his practice space. He had paintings from his friend who just came back from South Korea up as they were painting together. Paul has shown his work nearly everywhere in Lawrence for the past 5 years.
We then went to Carlos O Kellys-a midwestern Mexican chaine restaurant to meet up with his roommate and friend who play jazz in his basement. We ate-the vegan option I had, some delicious taco contraption, was huge, and delicious. We drank beer that was from a local brewery, it was delicious.
We then got a bottle of red wine, went back to his house and watched his friends play jazz. This was before I completely lost my voice, so I sang Fever along with them.
When they finished, I was about to pass out. I hadn't slept the night before afterall. So Paul rented The Day the Earth Stood Still while I took a shower (since i hadn't showered that morning at all either). Basically as soon as the movie started I passed out on his lap.
We woke up this morning and made love until 1:30pm, despite the fact that we weren't going to.
We left at 2:30 for "breakfast." We went to "The Mirth" and I had a huge bowl of granola with straberries and soy milk as Paul ate his French Toast-cut and displayed like a flower.
Now we're at "The Bourgeois Pig"-a bar/coffee shop and got 2 Irish coffees. He had website work to do, I had this to do along with many e-mails and a plane ticket home (since I'm not going to do standby again, I don't think).
We're talking to a few people in the coffee shop.
I'm enjoying this.
There are few escapes in this world so thrilling as those of a good dream. They can take us anywhere the mind might conceive. Terrify and torture or entice and seduce. Regardless of which, we are left feeling an intensity of emotions, as if we had actually experienced the dream events live. This is of course, impossible…or is it. Human kind has often regarded belief as reality. If enough people agree, then it must be true. Perhaps it is that simple.
There is an art to dreaming. Tricks and exercises one can use to dream better. A good start to this is remembering what you have dreamt. This can be very difficult for some and easy for others. Like any skill, practice makes perfect. For me, I started with writing down my dreams immediately after waking up. The more often I did this, the more information I would retain. As a fledgling writer, some of the best story ideas have come from the insanity of the dream world. I have a notebook full of some wonderful ideas and some just plain crazy ones. At least I have them, right? Learning to “lucid dream” is a great achievement indeed. For those who aren’t familiar with this term, lucid dreams are ones in that you are aware you are sleeping. This gives you a supped up control of those environments. Allowing almost anything to happen. I have been able to do this from time to time but still need a lot more work. Who out there wouldn’t like to fly like a bird or be super human some other way? There are other strange aspects of dreams that many people experience now and again.
Sharing a dream with someone you know: Have you ever talked to someone close regarding a dream the night before only to find out they had the exact same one. Granted, I have only run into this a couple times but it was unnerving to say the least. I can remember starting my explanation of the dream and my friend took over after a few moments and proceeded to complete the story. It wasn’t anything flashy, nor did it have to be. The strangeness was there. Visions in dream of things to come: It could be a strange car going by or a huge life-changing event. Regardless, this sort of thing leaves you hanging. Wondering what forces need to be at play for such a thing to happen. I have read that sometimes a person will make these events occur. A self fulfilling prophecy. That is quite possible if you have direct influence on a situation. The human capacity to deceive oneself is enormous. Looking around, you can see people doing it every day. The comb over is a great example. Joe Nohair isn’t fooling anyone but himself. Still, is it so far fetched to think that mentally, we might be capable of more?
In these times of death and destruction, people take every chance they can to escape from the world for a while. Movies, games and many other activities. These are all necessary to maintain a sense of happiness in our lives. Scientists still don’t exactly know why we dream. Perhaps it is for the same reason, a daily fantasy to let us forget for awhile.
Or maybe it is a whole lot more.
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