New Job

I thought this picture would be appropriate since Luis is probably dreaming of this week way back a year ago when I took this picture in our old apartment with Simon taking my 1/2 of the bed.

This is Luis's last week at his job. He gave his 2 week notice last weekend and we were sure that one of two things would happen: 1) Hank would whine and throw and tantrum OR 2) Hank would be thankful for all of the hard work and dedication from Luis. Any guesses? Well, surprisingly Hank decided to save his whining for a rainy day and he actually tried to see what he could do to get Luis to stay.

Unfortunately, being a small company he was not nearly able to offer what this other company is offering as far as benefits and money are concerned and Luis does need a good window of time to study his aviation that he cannot get at this job. SO... needless to say this last week cannot pass quickly enough for us so that he can get going on working for a company that is actually able to adequately compensate him for his great work ethic.

Don't be surprised if you hear fireworks and loud whistles coming from the Velasquez house oh around 6:30 on Friday evening... that'll be the Colombian celebrating!

Track Change

I found out for sure that I will be switching tracks next year to track 4. For those of you who do not speak year-round that means that I'll still be teaching 9 weeks and taking off 3 weeks and then back again but just different blocks of 9/3 weeks than I did this year. Kindergarten is a strangely autonomous grade level and the most disjointed of any I have worked on, but it came as a surprise that a few wanted to change their tracks. In order to accomodate, my TA and I chose track 4 which is the calendar closest to the traditional school year. We're flexible. We like to say that we're easy ... easy like Sunday morning.

What this information boils down to is that we will get 3 weeks off at the end of our school year and then 3 weeks off at the beginning of next school year (which starts in July) as we pick up the new track. Sounds like some pool time to me. That was one thing that I missed about starting year round right out of traditional -- I had only about 2 weeks to breathe in between letting the old kids go and meeting the new ones.

Luis will be happy b/c when I'm not working I get to be Suzy homemaker and clean and have food ready whereas we kind of eat what we can fix fast with whoever gets home first and play clean up catch up on the weekends. Maybe I should get an apron monogramed!!!

Top Cruise Book

My friend and fellow scholar of the western culture that is Hollywood and I saw the Unauthorized Biography of Tom Cruise on a recent outing to Barnes and Noble. She (ever the voice of reason in our relationship) noted that is was more of a library book than a buying book so I went and got my name on the list so that I could see what secrets of Tom Cruise I needed to be aware of. Here are the major points and my impressions of the book so that you can decide if it is worth your time or not.

1. Scientology is dark and it really affected me in a weird way when I was reading about the details of it. According to the book, they target people for recruitment based on the demographic they can influence not as individuals (a la Beckhams and Lopez).

2. Nicole Kidman was an ice queen in the marriage and Tom was the one essentially chasing her. She also liked to find tiny details in the housekeepers jobs to complain about instead of noticing how well everything ran for her.

3. Tom Cruise was with that Colombian actress (I know more Colombians taking over the world :) weeks before proclaiming his love like an idiot on Oprah.

4. He has full custody of the kids and Nicole has only a webcam and phone relationship with them... when it was time for her to have them last time he sent them to a Scientology camp. The pic of them at the Lakers game was extremely uncommon.

5. The dislexia he claims to have been cured from by scientology has a couple of alternate stories -- one being that he was helped extensively in elementary school and was fine by middle school and the other being that his mom worked at home with him.

6. Scientology really is about aliens and stuff like that. They believe that there are Thetans on your body that make you unable to know what is really religious truth or not and that they have to be removed in a session where you are in room with your e-meter and you are talking to things asking them to identify themselves.

And last but never least 7. Tom appears a smiley and agreeable until he gets away from the camera then he is either blank or demanding and controlling...

Those are some highlights. Katie Holms info was not new but still sad how it seems like she got duped. And for the Ryan-ish readers I will add something of substance after all of this fluff... e=mc-squared.

Preach it Jamie!!!

My intellectually divine friend Jamie just posted a wonderful writeup on peace. I can't really sum it up well enough to do it justice so here is the link: http://mccollumsincharlotte.blogspot.com/
Read and enjoy. I know that I crave calm and relaxation, but I dive into the drama pool often. She gives us a good reminder. Props, James!

Ragin' against the beautiful mind

On Saturday night we went out with our favorite dates Ryan and Cheyney... Che and I are a pretty established couple since we lived through the dramatic 9th and 10th grades together (and had crushes on 2 of the same boys but never were dumb enough to do anything mean about it)but it was fun to have the husbands involved.

We ate at this yum-tastic resturant that Ryan found confusing because of the hype/trendy vibe mixed with plain older customers and the great presentation of food backdropped by the bottle of 401 on the counter. Our waitress, Amelia, had a carefully assembled outfit consisting of a sparkly black bikini top under her barely buttoned blouse. It was a wild thing to behold because her outfit didn't really match her innocent personality so I'm assuming the rest of her buttons popped off of her shirt while bringing our heavy drinks and she was wearing the bikini top because it was laundry day?!

After we ate, we went back to Ryan and Cheyney's love den and played a rematch of RAGE the most fun card game in recent memory that I have absolutely no idea how to score -- that's why I pick smart friends. Above you will see a paper that looks like something that the guy from A Beautiful Mind would've written on the windows, but it is the score paper. As you can see, Luis dominated -- Velasquezes representing!