Well, my sister might be halfway across the world, but she still managed to screw with my sleep.  I was nestled in for bed not too late Saturday night, ready for a nice relaxing rest before a lazy Sunday.  At who-knows-when AM, I was shaken from my peaceful slumber by the phone ringing.  It let off a few rings before someone else grabbed it.  My dad’s half-deaf, so he talks really loudly on the phone, and I got to then listen to him booming at whoever was on the other line.  With one eye barely open, I glanced around my room, realizing that it was the dead of night, and when I heard the muffled greetings and laughter of my dad’s voice, I knew exactly who was calling.  Everything was fine, so this idiot just thought it’d be nice to call our house well after midnight for a little check-in.  I mumbled some Mark Mushakian swear words, and eventually fell back asleep.

For the previous weeks, I’ve been writing each day I had something to write about (or the day after), but I fell off that a bit this week.  Honestly, this week was a bit of a blur and not too eventful, anyway, but for one reason or another… Mark Mushakian was feelin’ a bit lonely, so I kinda just took some downtime with Red Dead Redemption and relaxed.  I hadn’t played in awhile, but my friend Joe mentioned playing together this weekend (we didn’t), and I took it up again .  Haha, this game… always there for me when I need it.

Also, this week I finally said goodbye to David Tennant as The Doctor.  I’ve been watching Doctor Who through Netflix, taking breaks from time to time, and this week was his last.  Actually, I screwed up a bit and watched the 11th doctor’s premiere episode first.  It’s not my fault, though, because I assumed it’d all be a part of the season… but Tennant’s farewell is actually a separate 2-part special.  That definitely made it a bit odd, but it was still fine.  Who’da thunk, too.. out of all the babes, my favorite Doctor Who companion is a hilarious old man.  Haha, actually… that makes sense.

After picking it up from work during my shift on Tuesday, Saturday afternoon I finally began a project that I’ve been looking forward to for about a month.  You can see it in progress in this week’s picture above – I’m building the new LEGO Town Hall to display in our store.  It’s not out until March 1, so I have some time, and I’ve just been taking my time and really enjoying the heck out of it.  I’d forgotten how much I enjoy putting a set together, and this thing’s a monster… so that only extends the enjoyment .  Some folks go through and separate every piece first, so they can just speed through the actual build process, but (as I’ve always done) I just kinda take it at a casual pace, without any formal organization.  That’s not fun, to me.  There have been a few times, already, when I smiled excitedly when I see how they’ve cleverly chosen to create a certain something (like the columns).  I have an income, the store is constantly filled with beautiful moms and cute kids, but this certainly ranks up there, in terms of job benefits .

This coming week’s gonna be interesting and a little tiring.  I have 3 tests (Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday), and I start reading The Hunger Games as soon as I finish writing this (school assignment).  I’ve been reading another book, Rant, but I’m more than okay putting it aside for awhile… hasn’t done anything to keep my attention, and for me to specifically say that about a BOOK is really saying something. To start off the week, I’m doing early-morning truck delivery at work Monday for the first time in weeks, too.  Oh, and my prophecy for meeting a sexy blond has yet to happen.  Yet… .

So, how was your week?

Worked a short shift Sunday afternoon (they all are, now), but then returned The Walking Dead.  I’m very glad to have it back, that’s for darn sure.  One of the characters made a decision that I was rather confused about… and I’m hoping it’ll be further explained, instead of it just being a case of bad writing.  I’d be very sad to see this show disappoint as it ages.

Monday night, in my Children’s Lit class, my teacher spoke of her affinity for “Puff, The Magic Dragon” and ended up singing the book to us.  You may or may not know of my appreciation for this song, but when she admitted to us that it’s always made her cry,  I nodded in agreement.  She and I, thankfully, remained tear-free .  The highlight of the night came near the end of class, though.  We split into small groups to discuss what we might do for a lesson plan on a certain fable we were given.  My group had the boy who cried wolf, so we figured it’d be best for younger kids.  The gals in my group started mentioning some sort of example, a way to show the kids what it’d be like if we (their teacher) “cried wolf”, but I kept going against it, for the obvious reason that I wouldn’t want to set myself up as untrustworthy to my students.  Finally, I came up with an idea – since all of these fables end with a simple sentence to explain the moral, I suggested we give the kids that moral FIRST.. and then have THEM create a story that might explain it.  It could be a whole week-long thing (though, this wasn’t all my idea)… maybe one day we talk about it, then we do a group story in class, then they write their own story at home, and finally end it all by telling the actual story and having them see how it relates.  My group took a real shine to the concept, and one of the gals really reiterated how much she liked it after the discussion was over.  It’s just a small little thing, but ya know… it made me pretty darn good about this venture of mine.  The concept of coming up with interesting and valuable lesson plans is completely foreign to me, and is therefore a little nerve-inducing, but I realized it’s something I’ll actually be able to do.  Wonderful .

Also, it seems these posts are becoming a bit prophetic.  I wrapped up my current book Monday night, Charlotte’s Web, and it actually got to me.  Now, I’d had a great night in class, come home and looked through some old books I hadn’t seen since I was a wee lad, so I may have just been in the right mood, but I felt something in the last chapters of the book.  I remember the story well, from when I was a kid, and I knew exactly what was coming, but if this had been a movie-watching experience, I probably would’ve cried a little.  I still haven’t reached THAT milestone, yet, but that this simple little book could bring about an emotional reaction close to what I had mentioned seeking last week… I was impressed .

Tuesday was Valentine’s Day, of course, but the only plans on my schedule was school .  Actually, I got quite a bit done after getting out from my afternoon class: exchanged my kid’s book for an adult story at the library, finally picked up guitar strings, and rented a free movie from Redbox.  Free?  For Valentine’s they were offering a free promo code, so I made my first rental from the red monolith of movies.  I actually visited two, picking up Warrior when the first one at Albertson’s didn’t have Thor… then picked up Thor after walking over to Walmart just to check .  I wasn’t a huge fan of Thor (the “villain” seemed more like the hero than the hero, the “romance” was far too serious for how little had been put into it, a madman’s use of dutch angles, etc.), so I’ve now seen all of the Avenger movies… and not liked any except The Incredible Hulk.

Tuesday night’s Speech class was fun, as usual.  One of our class activities this week was to separate the guys and gals, and to each come up with a question to ask the other group about their gender… things we’ve always wanted to know.  Guys were asking things about make-up and gossip, but I honestly couldn’t come up with anything for two reasons: 1. I don’t really generalize people into groups, so this broad “ask girls what you wanna know about girls” didn’t work for me, and 2. there’s nothing about gals I’m curious about .  Haha, likewise, it was very evident from the stereotypical questions the gals were asking us, that I am not the average male… but we already knew that .

I got my history test back Wednesday afternoon, and I actually nailed it with an A.  Glad to know I’m still a bright boy .  On top of that, it started raining before our break, and if you know how much I love the rain.. I was a happy fella standing out in it as I ate my banana.  In my night class, I made a casual comment to that cute gal I mentioned last week, but the response wasn’t exactly “Oh, please keep talking to me!”  It’s cool… not like I’ll be void of good lookin’ women in my classes while pursuing THIS career .

Thursday morning, while downstairs getting myself food, I remembered that my sister would be leaving the next day.  Where?  Off to Asia for, what I was told, months.  I smiled very big when I thought of that, but as soon as I made my way upstairs, I was informed that my sister was setting my mom up on Facebook so they could keep in contact.  That meant my sister was on there, too.  What horrible, horrible news this was .  I prefer a high level of privacy between myself and my family, especially online where I’ve felt completely free… but this definitely mars that.  I doubt my mom will do anything on Facebook besides be confused by it and see what my sister’s up to, but still… the fact that “they” can find me is horrifying.

Oh, and at work that night I found another prophetic status of this blog series.  The first week, I mentioned that I probably wouldn’t ever work Tuesday afternoon (besides the monthly event) because it’s an odd shift, so guess what shift I’m working this coming week?  I keep making this odd calls about the imminent future.  But, gee… I sure don’t think I’ll meet a short, petite, blonde (with an ample bosom and bright blue eyes) Christian, who loves the things I do and thinks I’m one of the sexiest guys she’s ever met, who wants to marry me and make all my babies.  Nope, I probably won’t meet someone like that this week.

Friday I finally got to play Rocksmith.  First, though, I had to restring my guitar.  I hate participating in baseball or volleyball games, or going bowling, because I’m horrible at all of these things.  The same could be said for my lack of ability to string a guitar without losing my mind and getting very annoyed by the fact that I feel so retarded trying to manipulate those stupid little strings around those stupid little pegs.  I made it through, though, without murdering anyone, and I really had a great time with the game.  In a fine example of confusing Mark Mushakian response, I’m no good at the guitar at all, because I simply haven’t acquired the skills yet… but unlike the frustration of trying to STRING the guitar, I had a heck of a time laughing at my inadequacies while PLAYING the guitar.  It definitely makes learning fun, so I’m very glad to finally have it all working .

So, how was your week?