whoops, 1 post late

This is my 301st post!

TimTan...haha, get it? Like TimTam?

Also, I finished another draft of my thesis. 2 down, 10 zillion to go! But my wonderful friends, the Taylors, and Tim helped me celebrate.

Aren't these flowers beautiful? Everyone should place an order at Carolina Beach Blooms. 

Mr. Smart

Tim got accepted to all of the schools he applied to! (Well, technically he hasn't heard from Tennessee, but that was at the bottom of his list for whatever reason, so we don't feel like it counts.)

Where will we be this time next year? Wilmington? DC? Chapel Hill? Denton? Fayetteville? Those are the front runners, in no particular order.

March Madness

I really love March Madness. College basketball is my favorite sport in general, and I think the tournament is the best thing the sporting world has ever produced. The storylines, the buzzer beaters, the giants toppling, the four games going on at once, ahhh!

We're living in the heat of the UNC/Duke rivalry. It was especially fun this year, as both teams were really good. They played each other three times before the season, and could have played a fourth if Duke hadn't of lost in the Sweet Sixteen. I was a fan of JJ Redick in his day, so I've always aligned myself as a Duke fan. But last night we watched the game with other young couples from our church, most of whom were UNC alums, and since Tim is considering UNC.... well....don't tell my fellow Duke fans, but I think my allegiance switched. (Plus, I'm a little mad at Duke, because I had them winning the whole thing and they let me down. But I'll always love Coach K, who loves college basketball maybe a little more than I do, since he's stuck around all this time. I love a good story of loyalty. And I will also love JJ Redick, even though we're both married now.)

Bulgogi....mmmmm

Yesterday Tim and I decided to go out for dinner. Tim suggested iHop, because we seriously love that place, and also we had a gift card, but I had made breakfast for lunch so I suggested a Korean place I had been wanting to try. Tim has come a long way with eating Asian food since I've met him. In fact, as he pointed out while we were eating, the last three times we have gone out to eat have been to Asian places. (To be fair, all of the others someone else suggested and we just went along with. I'm not trying to cram sushi down Tim's throat).

We had a wonderful time until we got the bill, which was much more than we expected. That's what happens when you get a menu with just pictures, no prices.

But oh well! We were extravagant one night of our lives. I start my Korean classes this week, and I think that the bulgogi I ate will bring me good luck. Mmmm, bulgogi.

(I really wanted to take a picture of this, but I forgot I had taken my camera out of my purse for the scary interview. I promise, blog pictures coming soon.)

Changing Doorknobs is for the Birds

Tim and I are a lot of great things, but handy men we aren't. About eleven days ago the doorknob to front door fell off (and by front door, I mean the only door to the outside). I simply walked through late on a Saturday night, and when I took my hand away the doorknob came off with it.

So that Monday I put in a maintenance request with our apartment, because that is the joy and happiness of being renters. A week and a half passed and there were no signs of it getting fixed.  We used the doorknob like a key, just attach it to the door and turn to be let in. We carefully propped it up so you couldn't tell it wasn't attached before we left. It was inconvenient, but not hindering.

But yesterday I asked Tim to come outside to help me rehang a bird feeder that a squirrel had knocked down. We we went to go back inside and the doorknob had completely fallen off on the inside. There was nothing to turn. We were essentially locked out of our house.

Tim walked to the office building to check on the status of our maintenance request. We thought about leaving, but all of the keys were inside. When the maintenance man finally did let us inside (on the first try with a good pair of pliers), we knew we would just leave, because Tim had to eat lunch and I had to go to work, and there wouldn't be time before the doorknob got fixed.

Except, of course, that Theron finished fixing the doorknob before we could gather up purses/keys/wallets.

Anyone want to lend some social skillz?

A few days ago I had a job interview that required a teaching presentation, a group activity, a multiple choice quiz, and a one-on-one interview. Whew! I felt the teaching presentation went well, and the rest of the day just went.

If you read my blog, you probably know these two things about me: I'm prone to shyness and I'm an extreme internal processor (that is, I think about what I want to say, and then sometimes say it, sometimes not. I've learned this is often the case with internal processors.... once we come to a conclusion, it satisfies us, while everyone around us are left wondering what is going on/this is so awkward).

 It's never kept me from trying a new experience or making friends or anything, but it has kept me quiet in classes, or on the fringe of a party instead of in the middle of it, which I am okay with. So, I thought I was acting myself in the interview, and things were going more or less well, until the final one-on-one interview.

"Let me ask a question that isn't on the standard list of questions," my interviewer said. "I find you a compelling candidate (for a few reasons) but you seem so nervous. Tell me something that will convince me that that won't be a problem."

Could there be a question that could make me even more nervous? Pardon me, Allison, you have seemed really nervous all day, but here is your one shot to get this job if you can talk about why you were nervous without completely losing your nerves.

I don't think I pulled out the best answer. I told them I was shy, but not nearly as shy as I had been. I don't think this job wants shy people. But I always remind myself that Flannery O'Connor was shy and awkward too, and now it's a nice anecdote about her, not a reason for scorn or anything.

High School Time Warp

Here is the thing about this past semester. I have thought entirely too much about high school. Since November I've had a job where I read UNCW undergraduate applications for the Admissions Department. I have to fill in the student's major classes into a form, asses the quantity/quality of their extracurriculars, then read their essay and recommendation and rate those. It's a little bit of glorified data entry, but I find it oddly appealing because I have seven minutes to get a picture of someone's life, then recommend acceptance or no to UNCW based on that. So every time I type in AP Government, I think about my own AP Government class (bad experience). Or, whenever someone gets to take Studies in Short Fiction, I think, geez, I wish we had that class when I was in high school. I promise, there is not a minute of high school that I still remember that I haven't thought of while working this job. 

This past Saturday I took the Praxis II and it was the total pinnacle of reliving high school. (This is the test that tests content knowledge for the subject your interested in teaching. I took the English Language, Literature, and Composition test for 7-12th grade.) Technically, having a bachelor's degree in English with a few education classes (which I don't have, but most of which were common sense questions)  prepares you to take the test. Well, I don't think my bachelor's degree did me much good, because it seemed like most of the test was over stuff I learned in high school. I know this makes a little sense, because it's what you would teach to high schoolers, but I know some of that stuff is subjective. As in, all the books I read in college were perfectly capable of being taught in high school, but I just happened to read some in college, and others in high school, and the test was entirely over the things I learned in high school.

But in a weird way, it was fun. Creative Writing is so subjective, it was nice to take a multiple choice test where I knew most of the answers. But I wonder what I would have scored if I took it right out of high school. That would be interesting.