twenty-fourth new thing...

hello friends. time for another installment of the year-long adventure of 52 new things. This week found me indulging-- yet again-- in one of my obsessions (healthy obsession. healthy, i tell you!) while combining it with another one of my fascinations. for my twenty-fourth of the fifty-two new things i designed and ordered my own personalized t-shirt.

i have always found these t-shirt designing web-sites to be oddly interesting, in a "you need to get a hold of your life" kind of way. i mean, what type of person sits at home creating all manner of designs for everything from t-shirts to board shorts to hats to underwear-- yes, i said underwear-- and uploads them to web-sites so that a complete stranger in peoria, illinois can walk around town with a shirt like this gem...

i mean, honestly. i'm sure someone thought they were being pretty witty when they put this bad boy up for sale. i think if i saw some guy walking down 21st avenue with this shirt on, i would walk up to him, pants him and then mock him mercilessly. actually, that could be my new thing for that week. but i digress. i do find it amusing that people invest so much time into these little art projects, so i decided to spend some time of my own one sunday afternoon and design my own carly smithson t-shirt.

unfortunately, i don't have a picture of the shirt just yet. it is taking exceptionally long to arrive. i had hoped to have it in my hot little hands before my trip to california (three short days!) because i wanted to wear it to the concert on wednesday night. but, alas, the postal service has foiled my grand plans again. but, in the meantime, this is one of the back up designs. it will give you an idea of how i found that i might just fit-- exactly like a long lost puzzle piece-- with all the other crazies...

twenty-third new thing...

so while i was home celebrating my baby sister's high school graduation (AAAHHHHHHH! i am so old! *pant. pant.* ok. i feel a little better.) i asked my other sister if i could do something with her as one of my 52 new things. she suggested i try and do her job for the day. it was more like a dare. so i said, fine, i'll take that bet. so for the twenty-third of my 52 new things, i "taught" a high school math class.

now, i use the word "taught" loosely here. what i mean is i got up early, made myself look presentable, made a cup of coffee and rode with my sister to the high school i graduated from eleven years ago (ohmigod. ohmigod. ohmigod.), that my sister graduated from six years ago and that our baby sister would be graduating from later that night in order to administer a final to a class of FCAT flunk-ys who were in intensive math strictly to pass the high school graduation requirement.

now, working in education policy at the state level-- a 30,000 foot view, if you will-- often clouds my perception of what is really going on in our classrooms. and then i found myself in a classroom administering a test to juniors and seniors that i could have passed as an eighth-grader (and, trust me, i am no math whiz.) and grading homework assignments strictly for completion and still giving out 50s. i worry for our country. i worry that education has not only lost its bite but also its bit. it isn't hard anymore. and no one seems to want to work for it.

after the hellions finished with their test and the "bell" rang (not that we could hear it out in the faculty parking lot in one of the 20 portables), we headed on in to the main office and then to the math department hideaway. i heard teacher after teacher complain of students not caring anymore, of teachers unable to care anymore, of being forced to pass students even if they were beyond failing simply because they had been in the country less than 5 years (the wonderful bush administration-- either jeb or george, take your pick-- at work), of forced retirements (due to budget woes) and of general disdain for what high school had become.

and this was at my high school. the place that prepared me for great things. the school that had produced 6 national merit scholars in its first 6 years. that had a valedictorian with an almost 5.0 GPA (that's all AP courses and dual college credits for you laymen). that sent students to the university of michigan and harvard and emory and vanderbilt. that created doctors and lawyers and, yes, even education policy research associates.

and now all we are producing is useless graduates who need remedial classes their first year of college. who don't know what it means to study. who don't know what it means to work hard, fail, get up the next day and do it again until you earn your success. high school use to mean something. now, it seems, all high school means is that you managed to outwit, outplay, or simply outlast the system. so much for the screamin' eagles...

twenty-second new thing...

and we're back! the last couple of weeks have been crazy hectic and have kept me from blogging. not that i am making excuses. i don't believe in excuses. no siree, not me. i say, if you screw up, bend over, take your punishment and (if you like it) ask for more. but i digress. anywho. the reason you are really here, the next foray into the exciting world of my 52 new things. alas, this week, not so exciting. but still new. for the double duece of my 52 new things, i purchased my first pair of chucks! (see what i did there with the fact that twenty-two is two twos and then shoes also come in twos? high-larious!)

this year marked the 100th anniversary of converse making shoes, most famously-- the all star.

in 1918 a high school basketball star named chuck taylor started wearing the fledgling companies canvas sneaker. three years later, converse hired taylor and he became an ace salesman. the iconic "chuck taylor" converse all-stars have a style that has remained virtually unchanged since the first sneaker was produced in 1912. i first remember chucks in the 1978 nostalgia soaked movie grease. bit o' trivia for you: the jock who took sandy out on a date after danny had been such a jerk was none other than lorenzo lamas. yes, that lorenzo lamas.

these shoes have been worn by the ultra cool (james dean apparently loved his chucks) and those trying to be cool (hilary duff? really?) but never by me. so i got a pair. and wouldn't you know it, they gave me a blister. and even though it seems like every pair of shoes i own is brown, i still got these.

ps: just some eye candy for the ladies (and 10% of you men), a little gyllenhaal converse love...

twenty-first new thing...

and here we are. finally. this will be short and sweet and to the point. for this installment of the 52 new things, i gave up my memorial day holiday and sat bleary-eyed in front of the cathode-rayed light emitting from the screen of my laptop for 7 and a half hours and did nothing but write. write until my fingers bled. write until i could write no more. researching blog posts. finding the most insightful link. racking my brain for something funny to say. cursing my own laziness for letting it get this out of hand. and praying every moment for it to be over. and here we are. so, enjoy.

for my twenty-first new thing, i caught up on all my blogging for this grand adventure. i wrote ten blog posts in one day. happy now, kevin?

and now i have to figure out what to do next. dammit!

twentieth new thing...

woo hoo! we are out of the teens and into the numeric new things that are easier to spell (be honest, how many of you knew that twelfth and fifteenth were spelled that way? don't lie!). for the twentieth thing of my 52 new things, i decided to widen my culinary experiences with another friend new to the adventure. so on a random sunday afternoon, chris and i went to a restaurant in the little vietnam part of buford highway and i ate vietnamese food for the first time.

i sure do enjoy my asian cuisine. chinese, japanese, thai. yumm-y. so i have no idea how i got this far in life without ever having eating vietnamese food. perhaps it is the fact that most of the places i have lived don't have a large vietnamese population. or maybe it is that whole wives tale involving dogs. i'm sure its the former, not the later. no matter, because the food was phenomenal. now, i don't enjoy spicy things (addressing that will probably be one of the new things further down the road) or fishy things (shut up, curt!) but other than that i am pretty open to trying new things. especially when you get to eat at the best vietnamese place in atlanta, co'm.

i ordered the beef tenderloin co'm (fragrant rice), expecting it to be similar to a chinese rice dish. it was totally different. the beef had been marinated in this wonderful sauce and then charcoal grilled. and the rice is probably my new favorite thing of the planet. while neither chris or i had anything way out of the ordinary, the experience was fabulous.

update: i feel it only fair that i let you all know that this new thing was absolutely a fall back. i was suppose to race go carts at the andretti speedway as part of austin's birthday on saturday night. but an injury to my pectoral muscles during my half-marathon three weeks before kept me on the sidelines and out of the cars. now that i am better, those pansy-ass boys better watch out. because-- and my parent's can attest to this-- i'm not afraid to drive fast, spin out and crash into other cars. trust me. i have tons of experience.

nineteenth new thing...

happy graduation week, all my peabody friends. i really wanted my new thing for this week to be associated with the commencement festivities at my alma mater, but, alas, most of the events going on i participated in last year when i graduated. but i found a way around that. so, for my nineteenth thing of the 52 new things, i did something that pushed me out of my control freak comfort zone: i walked into a hair salon without an appointment, one hour before graduation and said "do what ever you want."

now, i love my hair. and it was long. i hadn't cut it in almost a year. but it was time for a change. so i placed my fate in the hands of deana at eye candy on edgehill in nashville and waited to see what would happen. now, before you boys get all defensive and say something like: "it's just a haircut. it'll grow back. this isn't that big a deal." keep in mind, chicks are different. super different. most of us don't keep the same haircut we have had since we were 5! (*cough* dad! *cough*) we change our hair. frequently. we change the color. we change the style. we change the texture. and a bad haircut can ruin our self-esteem for a long, long time. and the last thing you want is a chick with screwy self-esteem.

when deana asked me what i wanted to do, i answered "what ever you want." she looked at me, slightly frightened and definitely perplexed and said: "but you don't even know me." once she got over the shock of having all the power, she asked if she could give me a mullet. now, my initial reaction was to yell: "NNNOOOOOOO!!!" but then this wouldn't be a new thing. so i simply responded: "whatever you want to do." this concerned her even more. luckily (for me and my street cred as a chapstick rather than butch saphocrat) deana decided against the mullet and began to give me a hip edgy short cut.

less than an hour later, i was out the door, with more product in my hair than it had seen in at least a year and headed to graduation. i have never gotten so many compliments about my hair in my life (well, almost never. i did have pretty rocking hair at my sister's wedding.) and i definitely gave all the praise to deana and her good judgement (yeah for no mullet!). i don't know if i will tempt fate again with a stunt like this, but right now, my self-esteem is pretty good. now pass the mousse.

eighteenth new thing...

so here we are, the beginning of may and still going strong. i have to admit, i am surprised i made it this far into the 52 new things. and i am thankful to my friends who have made suggestions of new things to add. keep them coming. we only have 44 more to go. so for my eighteenth new thing, i went back to my roots. during my time in cuthbert watching all my dad's little college kids graduate, i decided to do some farming. for the first time in my life, i actually used a piece of farming equipment and hoed a row!

i look nothing like a farmer, do i? i was woefully unprepared for this undertaking. forgetting about the mosquitoes who ate me alive in my cute cargo shorts, i'm lucky i didn't lose a toe tilling in a pair of sandals! that weren't even mine and were, thus, too big. by about 6 sizes. also, i kept having to avoid madison, who thought it was her job to bark and weave in front of the rototiller anytime we were in the "forward" position.

don't let that smile fool you, i was scared to death. and that fact certainly resulted in a crooked row. hey, you! in the peanut gallery! keep those straight jokes to yourself, willya? besides, my dad told me my grandfather (who was an actual farmer always said "you get more crop out of a crooked row than a straight one." hummm, i wonder if there is a bigger meaning in there somewhere?


anyway, i think this is a more accurate representation of my feelings on the day...

my dad has a decent sized garden going on in his backyard but he isn't one of those survivalist crazies that are popping up all over. just some corn, peppers, tomatoes, random marigolds and collards. and now, thanks to me and my wonderful hoeing skills, he will have an entire row of sunflowers. you know i love me some sunflowers-- and sunflower seeds for that matter. we did have one mishap, which i blame on an as-yet diagnosed pectoral muscle injury left over from the half-marathon the week before. but otherwise, i think it went pretty well. then again, i did end up in a hole at one point...