Newborns are small

I met my baby cousin today - she was like, 23 hours old.
We bought her a garden knome and some gum cigars at the gift shop. Someday she will really appreciate these things.

Its really exciting to have her around, except she's little and doesn't do a whole lot. Which means, A) I can't teach her to dance and B) she has a cauliflower brain. That's cool and all, but not exciting - at least not on the surface. There's an word for that other than surfacely. I REALLY wanted for her to be born on the 23rd and not the 24th b/c Jason Mraz, among other cool people (like astronauts and dukes) were born on the 23rd, and pretty much no one has been born on the 24th. But she's a girl, so it could be good for her to have the ethical ambiguity and technical dexterity the birthday book prophesized her to have.
But we're going to call her Coco, so she's going to be glamorous...as good a start to a life as anything.
Maybe we can enroll her in dance and she'll use that technical dexterity to be come a virtuoso tap dancer.

Anyway,
I've been watching Bridget Jones Diary and would like to be as dilligent about my diaryizing as she. I'm going to france soon anyway, so I must hone the diaryizing/journaling skills as I'm sure I'd better kick it with the written word quite a bit so as to document my life-changing journed for all biographers to see.
It probably doesn't help that I write my journals when I'm about to go to sleep. THey always end with - and now I'm tired, so bye.
I mean, I could do better.

In other news, I am finished with substitute teaching and Kevin Klein's old (uppity & private & catholic) high school. Highlights inclued one notoriously disruptive kid calling a Vietnamese kid a terrorist - only topped by the 2 smartest kids in class making (terribly constructed) paper planes, throwing them while saying, "It's 9-11!"
I was like, is that funny? I need to know, b/c I'm old. But I laughed, b/c those are some genius 11 year old cojones. Besides I had a unique understanding with these 2 dudes, and I think they decided to cut loose on the last day I was there...ok fine. I appreciated their raps about Llhamas and their drawing of me:

You really should click on it to get the full effect - it was easily the best going away gift ever.
This and more is documented on myspace.com/shadyfoster along with other awesome photos by 14 year olds with creative minds that were briefly fed by me, y'all. I love it! Posterity.

This myspace business is the website of the band the kids in my class semi-ficticiously formed. It was like school of rock, only they were writing, rhyming, working together, and having fun - and it was totally curriculum appropriate. I was totally dead poets society, only instead of "o captain, my captain" it was:

"You need to hurry, so use you some Fedex
Becasue I'm d-a-n-gerous, just like car wrecks
Writing check after checks, no wait that's too old fashioned
to go chilling with my homies, that's the direction I'm dashin'
We're bashin and dancing with a monk on da' porch
Watching MTV and talkin' bout sports.
Durka durka dur! Its gettin' hot in herrr!
It gifts were gold, incense and myrrh
But please, don't give me fur
worrrrr-d"

and other such gems that they wrote/rapped/thought up themselves. I had them listening to green day&other songs they liked, (including Tally Hall, of whome they were immediately in awe and who they downloded immediately) and it was pretty awesome b/c they clearly did not realize that songs had rhyme nor reason to them. So I told'em au contraire and they were stoked. I educated the youth - check it off the list, only to do it for a good half a year starting October - this time in french, occasionally backwards and in high heels.

I just listened to marc broussard -- apparently he has done a cover of you can leave your hat on...one that includes the improvised line, "I know I just bought you a brand new coat, but I want it-a on the floor."
Classic.
I like it b/c he always wears (really cool) hats, and so of course he would lay out the option of leaving it on to all involved. He's just so bayou, I love it a whole whole lot.
It really makes me wanna learn how to play the guitar. I also really want to learn me some minor keys and how to do more finger picking. Twill be telling guitar teacher soon, espesh now that I have a new guitar. Movies and songs : inspiring me to have new hobbies since 1987 (or so). ever since flashdance, people.
In other words. What happened to my Penn friends? I miss them, and off the earth they have dropped. Espesh my junior year buddies that were so rude as to graduate early (on time for them, but no matter). I loved those people a lot, but I'm sure they're saving the world. Still, I want to chill with them and tak about everything from boys to flamenco dancing with them. Boo hoo, man. I'll find'em again. People like'em? Maybe not - I hope to come close.

I also need to get some good literature on europe. I'd also like to go to cambridge. Time to timeline and work the problem. GRE as well. Motivation is good.

Pervs, I have had enough

Next time any creepy boy touches me or looks at me like I am some sort of fast food, I will go medival.
I really will.
In the meantime, I will be teaching 11 year olds about participle phrases.

In other news:
Two guys from my favorite nice-guy band got mugged. Having been a victim of crime myself recently, this broke my heart a little. They seem like such nice boys. Go to their page, www.tallyhall.com to see the picture on their journal. Its so spooky and terrible, bad people are out there and it's slightly disheartening, especially when the bad guys interfere with forces of good, like Tally Hall.

These are the kind of guys who eat dreamcicles, play acoustic sets for underagers who couldn't get in their show, and who give certificates of excellence to people who fix their vans.
That these boys were mugged is an affront to karma.

SO, in an attempt to be a good force in a world wherein evil seems to be slowly closing in, I wrote them this email. (it's not quite like becomine a batman-esque vigilante - something I've considred doing - but hey, if thoughts count, then...)


Dear Guys,
Saw the mugging picture - and I just wanted to say that I, your fan, am so sorry that happened to you! What trauma for you all! Sure, you're just a band from michigan, and I'm just a girl from st. louis that taught rob how to say pineapple in french when you came to Mississippi Nights, but since you've all signed my record cover of your CD and seemed so effusively and unassumingly charming and kind, anyone who mugs Tally Hall mugs me a little.
And that's just not cool.
My thoughts are with you and your black eyes and bruises.
Sincerely,
~Lori

And lastly, a quote from Les Miserables:

"The bishop approached him and said, in a low voice, ‘Do not forget, ever, that you have promised me to use this silver to become an honest man.’ Jean Valjean, who had no recollection of any such promise, stood dumbfounded. The bishop had stressed these words as he spoke them. He continued solemnly, ‘Jean Valjean, my brother, you no longer belong to evil, but to good. It is your soul I am buying for you. I withdraw it from dark thoughts and from the spirit of perdition, and I give it to God!'"