i.am.chabebe

One of the perks of being a teacher is that after working insanely hard from September – June, I get the months of July and August off. Although I haven’t had to teach a class all summer, I have been in graduate school taking two classes as well as planning an getting ready for the next school year. But lets not talk about the less exciting things I have done this summer and focus instead of the fun things I have gotten to do!

The summer started off with an awesome journey to Michigan via Chicago to spend 4 days camping at Electric Forest. I went with a group of seven other friends and we spent 4 awesome days listening to awesome music and camping. Here are just a few of the pictures we took.

After the four days I spent one final day in Chicago before flying home.

With all my luggage at The Bean

Looking at Chicago from 96 floors up

Shortly after returning from that trip it was the fourth of July and I headed to the Jersey Shore with some friends. Spent four awesome days relaxing in the sun, in the pool and at the beach.

Fun in the Sun!

Not all was fun and games. I spent a lot of time doing school work and taking exams while all this was happening. I even completed an online exam on my phone while floating in the pool one afternoon.

A few weeks after that I took a trip to Montreal for my friend Amy’s bachelorette party. We spend 4 awesome days hanging out in one of my favorite cities, eating smoked meat at Schwartz, hanging out late night at the Saint Suplice, riding bikes 20 miles along Canal Lachine, eating delicious crepes, walking around Mount Royal watching the drum circle. hanging out on the Parc John Drapeau on St. Helen’s Island, eating delicious foie grias and pigs foot at Au Pie Du Cachon and walking around old town eating poutine.

Bikes, Notre Dame and Crepes

Clockwise from top left of long picture: Kristen, me, Amy, Bassey and Stephanie

And finally, the last adventure I have had until now was going out boating for the day with my old engineering design co-workers from Hamilton Sundstrand . We departed from  Old Lyme beach in CT and ended up at Napatree Beach in Rhode Island.

Unfortunately the summer is almost over and I just finished my last graduate class of the summer. I have a few weeks to get myself organized for the beginning of the next school year and then the craziness starts all over again, but with a new batch of kids! I’ll have to admit I am going to miss my old classes and will be lucky if this year I have students that are as awesome as they were.

I need a serious dose of motivation to get through this week after working almost all weekend. Prepping for 3 different classes and taking two grad classes is no joke. I’m not sure how long I can keep this up but we’ll see.

I don’t think I could have gotten through the weekend of planning without this dirty mix playing in the background while I graded papers and planned like crazy! Skip over the first 45 seconds of talking and enjoy the ridiculous ripping beats and bass dropsss. Womp woommppp wommppp woooommmpppp!!

Pop pop baang…..

[soundcloud url=”http://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/76494958″ params=”” width=” 100%” height=”166″ iframe=”true” /]

Oh, and lets not forget the Zed’s Dead snowstorm mix that got me through the “blizzard”

[soundcloud url=”http://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/78426155″ params=”” width=” 100%” height=”166″ iframe=”true” /]

Speaking of grading and blizzards, here are two pictures. The first one is of the so called blizzard Nemo. Which seemed more like a dusting than a blizzard here in NYC.

And as usual, my cats were helping me do some work this weekend. Though I am not sure how much of a help Boosie was. Take a look for yourself….

Instead of planning my next week of lessons this weekend, I decided to build a book case for my bedroom.  I’ve been needing a place to organize all of my physics and earth science textbooks that I use for teaching, so this was the perfect opportunity!

Step 1 – Gather Materials

Step 2 – Attach shelf railings to side panels

Step 3 – Attach top to sides correctly

Step 4, 5, 6 – Attach bottom to side panels, screw in wheels, insert shelves,

Step 7 – Sand down edges to avoid splinters

More sanding with the help of Boosie

The backing is still missing because the guy at home depot cut the piece of ply wood to big so I have to get it re-cut. Also planning on painting it the girliest colors possible, maybe even stencil some flowers on this bad boy. I think the floral design mixed physics textbooks will be a good balance.

I think my next project is going to be fixing up the awful filing cabinets that I have at school that are all rusted. Found an awesome idea online of how to fix up similar cabinets and making them extra girly. Check it out:

This would require a bit more work so we’ll see when I can actually get it done. First I have to finish my book case.

I still haven’t decided what I want my new years resolution to be. I think I should resolve to have an awesome year in all aspects regardless of what hurdles come my way. CHEERS!

One of the things I did decide just before the end of the year was to stop trying so hard to tame my unruly hair. My natural hair is somewhere in between wavy and lion mane and so I had gotten used to straightening it using copious amounts of heat. After going semi blonde I decided my hair needed no further damage done to it so I have decided to accept my giant hair as it is.

After my mom stopped laughing the first time she saw my giant hair she sent me the following picture….

This is a saint they worship in Ecuador called Little Curly Haired Girl. Apparently my new do reminded her of me. Honestly, I don’t see the resemblance. Sure we both have crazy curly hair, but I’m half blond and definitely not a saint….You decide:

bonus cat picture!!

CAT FOOD!!!

Needed a break from all the teacher work I have been doing so I decided to do something artsy and holiday related.

They’re a bit sloppy bit it’s hard to paint tiny nails haha. That being said I was only able to paint my left hand because there is no way I could have tried this on my right using my non-dominant left hand

I don’ know what has gotten into me but after most of my life avoiding hair salons I decided it was time for a radical change. After all, I did just make a big change in my life considering the fact that I quit my job, switched careers, relocated and left all the old behind.

So I figured with a new life, must come a new do! And I have always joked around with he idea of going blonde. So finally, I said screw it and went for it. Well…not completely. I went for an ombre style which is a gradual fade of color into typically a lighter color. So I am not completely blonde. I think I would look horrifying if I did. Check it out and let me know what you think!

The one thing this hair change has proven is that high schoolers love to find distractions everywhere. My students could not stop talking about my hair until I finally had to start giving out warnings! Good thing I didn’t go for the pink/purple color. That probably would have been interesting to say the least….

B.B.E. = Best Birthday Ever!

Had the cutest wake up call….

Spent the long daylight savings night having a blast

Me and Kristen!

My friend Kristen just moved up the block from me which is pretty awesome! It’s crazy how people you meet through the most distant of friends end up being more a part of your life than you ever would have thought. So we started my birthday celebrations last night before daylight savings!

After a full day of miscellaneous celebrations, I decided to make a cake based on the supplies available in my place. It actually turned out delicious.

Unfortunately I forgot to take a picture of it before I devoured half of it =P Oh and that tray behind the mostly eaten banana bread is a tray of brownies I made earlier this week we also recently devoured!

Oh, and lets not forget that my favorite band, Green Day, recently released their newest single. Unfortunately they have decided to add it as a part of the twilight saga soundtrack. But I forgive them. Green Day has been my favorite band since age 9.

[soundcloud url=”http://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/65417578″ iframe=”true” /]

Today was Parent Teacher Conference. Out of about 160 students, I had around 30 parents show up, which according to other teachers is a pretty good turn out.

Its always nice to see parents invested in their kids education. It’s just as nice to tell parents that their kids are wonderful, hardworking students – assuming they are. What isn’t as fun is telling parents that their kids are cutting or disrupting my class but I was straight and to the point with all the parents. I did enjoy very much meeting the parents and can’t wait for tomorrow’s afternoon parent-teacher conference where I get to meet some more parents!

On another note, I managed to leave my classroom and wander around the school building for a while today. Usually I am so busy I rarely leave my classroom or the science area.

I was incredibly happy to find a peace pole inside my school. I have traveled all over the world and seen peace poles from Peru to Cambodia so it’s refreshing to see one at home. I don’t know how I didn’t notice it sooner, I walk near this part of the school on my way in every day!

On a funny note….saw this while checking out the peace pole….

And finally, two bonus adorable kitty pictures

If you can’t already tell by my lack of posts, my teaching job has pretty much consumed my life. I live in 45 minute intervals and plan my events around that schedule.

My commute to work has its pros and cons. One major pro is that I live in NYC and live two blocks away from two different train lines. One con is that since I live and work in Queens, there is no direct way to get to my school because all trains go into the city so my commute is a bit lengthy. I have come to really enjoy the commute however because I can multitask. I sometimes grade papers, sometimes I catch up on sleep. Mostly though I read and this week I managed to crochet up a sleeve for my nook in less than a weeks commute.

I found that a protective case was becoming necessary for my Nook since I have been carrying around a backpack full of my stuff and my students’ stuff and my nook slowly has been getting lost in the mess. After considering crocheting kitten mittens I figured I would make something a bit more useful at the present time. Who knows how much he kitten will grow and end up out growing any mittens I might make!

This was my first time crocheting anything. I wasn’t very sure what I was doing but figured it out along the way. I am quite pleased with the results considering I didn’t measure anything to begin with.

Nook inside the new sleeve. Had to include some teacher stuff

Snug fit. Backdrop is a poster made by my brother!

Side by Side Comparison

What do you think?? I personally love the way the mixed blue and yellow colors came out.

Ever since the kitties have been in the house I haven’t been able to think about much besides kitten mittons when I am playing with them. If you have never heard of kitten mittons, have a look…you’ll be smitten

Meeeeeeeeoooow

I will hopefully have some time soon to make a couple sets of mittons for the kittons because I think they’ll need some when the winter comes to keep their little paws nice and warm. Not to mention all that noise hehehe.

And on that note….here are some cute kitten pictures. I honestly don’t know how they are doing something cute every time I look over