Cranky Fibro Girl

Harnessing the healing power of snark

School Daze

By 2 Comments

I have no idea how this happened, but apparently it is almost time for school to start again.

This will be my fifth year working as a Spanish tutor, and so a lot of the students who started with me as freshman graduated last year. And as I think about them as they get ready to start college I have been wondering what, if anything, I managed to impress upon them as they begin to make their way out in the world.

As their tutor I covered a lot of areas with them-organization, study skills, how to get along with their teacher, etc., plus all the Spanish-specific topics.

But as I reflect back upon my time spent with them, I think the only thing I can in all honesty guarantee that stuck with them is this:

“By God, don’t you dare steal my pens!”

See, I am really weird about my pens. I only like this one kind called “Bic Crystal”. And I can only find them at the grocery store because, despite the fact that they are The. Best. Pens. Ever, they are apparently not “highfalutin” enough to be sold at actual office supply stores. So that means that if anyone else ever uses one of these pens, or thinks about using one, or even looks in the general direction of where I keep them in my office, I become terrified that all of my pens will disappear and I will never be able to find any more ever again. Because they are just that awesome.

So not only do my students NEVER steal my pens, but if they ever see any Bic Crystal pens anywhere else, like in their car or lying around their house, they IMMEDIATELY gather them all up and bring them to me. Because I have scared them that much.

I have apparently convinced them that I am the rightful owner of all Bic Crystal pens in the entire Universe. And woe be unto those who are discovered with any of my pens in their possession.

And lo, The Teacher looked out at everything she had made, and how she had successfully transferred her craziness to others, and she saw that it was very good.

Not The Kind Of Cookout They Were Expecting

By Leave a Comment

Image courtesy of FreeDigitalPhotos.net.

As I mentioned in my previous post my husband and I had a cookout this weekend in honor of the holiday weekend. But it almost didn’t happen, because I did something really stupid.

Thirteen years ago I was diagnosed with depression. It is normally managed just fine thanks to my wonderful support people and medications.

About a month ago things were going really well. I was happy, enjoying my life, enjoying my work, and enjoying people. So naturally I decided that the best possible thing to do at that moment would be to stop taking one of my medications. Just ‘cuz.

And what is even worse is that I did the same exact thing 2 years ago, and eventually I got to the point where all I could do was lay on the couch, breathe, and cry. So I knew EXACTLY what could happen, and I chose to do it anyway.

Fortunately I realized pretty quickly that I was on a very fast downward spiral, got back on my medication, and called one of my wonderful support people. And this was her advice to me:

“DON’T DO ANYTHING RIGHT NOW. Gag yourself with duct tape if you have to, and don’t talk to anyone. Because if you do, you could irrevocably mess up every single relationship in your life.”

So true. Especially when she asked me how I felt about people coming over for the cookout and my honest response in that moment was, “Well, I’d really like to chop off all of their heads with an ax.”

She replied, “Yeah, and do you see how that could put a tiny bit of a damper on things for them? That’s probably not the kind of cookout they are expecting.”

Fortunately by the day of the party the medicine had started to kick in, and I was once again able to sleep, and so I had a much brighter outlook on life. I was even able to enjoy myself with our friends, and I am happy to report that everyone left our house with all of their limbs completely intact.

I am also happy to report that The Power Greater Than Me Who Runs The Universe apparently knew that I was in need of a serious pick-me-up last weekend, and so sent me this very cool surprise which you can see if you click here.

A Little Too Much Information

By Leave a Comment

This weekend we had some friends over for a cook out, and we all decided to play some board games.

There is a good side and a bad side to playing board games with people who know you really well. The advantages come in when you are playing a game that requires tremendous mental rapport with your teammates, such as “Pictionary”, so that what to others might appear to be a drawing of some kind of mutant monster spawned from a tragic chemical spill, to you is clearly the visual representation of the verb phrase, “to harvest crops”.

The disadvantage is that occasionally your friends’ intimate knowledge of you can sometimes be used against you, as happened to me this weekend when we were playing “Taboo”.

One person was trying to get their teammates to say the word “Secrets”.

The clue: “This is something that Jenny is not good with.”
Everyone’s immediate response: “Hm, that could be so many things.”

Or, you could end up learning something about someone else that you just really did not need to know, as also happened during this game.

The beginning of the clue: “What you want to do to people…”
My friend’s immediate response: “STAB THEM!”

That’s just a little too much information for me.

Thank You For Sharing-Not!

By Leave a Comment

Yesterday I saw one of my students for their final Spanish tutoring session ever. It’s good for both of us; for him, because he HATES Spanish; for me, because I am no longer responsible for shepherding him through academia now that he has discovered the magical sugary-caffeinated elixir that is a Tall Vanilla Latte.

As he was pacing around my office and working off his coffee high he began closely inspecting everything on my shelves, including my collection of cat figurines.

“Oh, don’t look at those,” I said. “I don’t want you to think that I’m a crazy cat lady.”
“Oh I already KNOW you are!” he replied. “Three’s the magic number!”

He is very lucky that I am not the person in charge of grading his final Spanish exam.

All Work And No Play…

By Leave a Comment

…makes me a loaded grenade of snarkiness just waiting for something to come along and pull out my pin.

I am in Chicago at a conference, and after 3 days I must admit that there is really nothing inherently funny about professional conferences. I’ve been forced to find creative ways to throw out phrases like, “totally talking out of my ass” from time to time just to lighten up the tone a bit.

Sure, we do have a conference leader who spends approximately 60% of his time “shush-ing” us from the front of the room, as if we were all 5 years old. But that’s not so much funny as it is unbelievably irritating, to the point where I just want to rush up onto the stage, rip out his tongue, and with it club him into insensibility because please, dear God, the shush-ing, MAKE IT STOP!

And then today we had a speaker who took an extremely interesting approach to group presentations. His talk consisted of verbally abusing us for about an hour and a half (for example, calling us a big bunch of whiners) and then (Important Side Note: I AM NOT MAKING THIS UP) if we complained, or questioned his approach, or really even dared to say anything at all, he made us pay him $2. I’m a little fuzzy on all the details of exactly how this is going to work, but apparently the process of our paying him to be really mean to us is going to turn us all into amazingly successful business owners.

Sadly, tub poo is actually starting to seem like a pleasant alternative.

We Now Interrupt This Blog For A Very Special Public Service Announcement

By Leave a Comment

Attention All Guys

You know how you will sometimes be in an extremely public place like, say, standing in front of the arrivals and departures board in the terminal of a very busy airport, and you will blatantly and flagrantly start to rearrange yourself, apparently believing that you are somehow shielded by a special cloak of invisibility?

Well, WE CAN SEE YOU!

We now return you to your regularly scheduled blog.

Who Knew?

By Leave a Comment

Today has been a mixture of tutoring some students in Spanish and getting ready to go out of town for a conference.

I guess getting ready for my trip has put me a little on edge, because by my last tutoring session my answers to the student’s questions had become a bit flippant and sarcastic.

This caused him to stop, put down his pen, look at me, and say, “Hm, apparently smart ass is catching. Who knew?”

I Really Do Learn Something Every Day

By Leave a Comment

Today is the day when we put the sprinklers out to water the lawn in preparation for the warmer weather. This is an ex-tre-me-ly involved process which involves detailed diagrams, complex mathematical calculations, advanced satellite imagery, and multi-layered topographical and geological surveys. At least, it does here at our house.

And what I learned today is that At No Time during this process is it a good time to request of your husband that he help you locate some AA batteries for the camera so you can take a picture THIS INSTANT, because you just figured out a funny way to blog about what he’s doing.