clumsy mcfallsalot here

hello everyone. i am writing from the porterhouse of wild game (i.e. jess and erin's apt.). it is saturday afternoon, and i have been detained here overnight due to an embarrassing mishap last night. jess and erin and i attended a show at club cafe on the southside. as erin and i were walking to my car, less than one block from the club, i fell into a gutter. oh my gosh. there was a gaping hole under the curb that sloped down into the open gutter, and i rolled my ankle and fell into a disgraceful heap in the street. my shoe fell off and was dangerously close to dropping inth gutter abyss. i hurt my knee a bit, got pavement burn on the palm of my left hand, and significantly hurt my right foot. in an attempt to get up, i dropped my coat into the gutter as well. luckily i was able to grab it in time. we drove back to the girls' house, and i spent the remainder of the evening lying on the futon with my foot iced and elevated. i had to crawl around the apartment like an invalid! this is the second clumsiest thing* i've ever done, and i feel like a pitiful fool. but, the girls have been very thoughtful, bringing me ibuprofen and frozen peas and breakfast in bed. it feels a bit better today, but i don't think i'll be going much of anywhere for the rest of the day. good thing it's my day off.

*the clumsiest thing i've ever done was in the summer between my first and second years of college. i went to see planet of the apes (the marky mark production) at studio 28 with ruth and jonathan and some other people. i may or may not have walked into a huge sign in the theater lobby. if you're interested in a more entertaining version of this snippet, feel free to inquire of ruth or jonathan, who are sure to give you a treat.

happy epiphany and a shameless plug for lauren winner

i just thought of one more thing i want to say today. i've been going through a phase of late that makes me extremely interested in forgotten traditions of the christian faith. (i am actually hoping that this is not merely a phase, but the beginning of being more attentive to the history of the church.) this has been fed by reading books by lauren winner, who i mentioned a few weeks ago. i love her. she is speaking at jubilee next month, and i am trying to read her books before i hear her speak. meanwhile, while perusing my friend matt's blog, i found a link to an article that lauren (i wish we were on a first-name basis) has written about epiphany. i'm posting a link to it here. go and read it. and then go and buy her books (mudhouse sabbath, real sex, and girl meets god).
also, at a training event for work last week, we had an eastern orthodox priest come and speak to us about the cross and suffering. it was really interesting to hear him talk about the liturgy and prayers and things that they repeat all the time. obviously, there are things like praying to saints that i'm not about, but i think there is something to be said for recognizing the tradition that we come from. the modern church forgot about all that stuff in an effort to be contemporary. i think we threw the baby out with the bathwater. in church on sunday, i was sitting with three of my eighth-grade girls. we were singing some hymns a capella, from memory, and i discovered that my girls don't know the doxology, or even holy, holy, holy! i can't believe that in just the ten years between me and them, the church has forgotten thousands of years of tradition! sure, the adults know the songs, but they're not teaching them to the kids! (of course, i see the value in the contemporary worship too. but still, i think we've swung too far.) it seems that the postmodern generation is interested in tradition and liturgy, and i think we should include it to the extent that we can.
maybe it's just me that feels this way. feel free to comment or disagree at will.

my computer is possessed

my computer is doing that thing again where it opens up the cd drive of its own volition. it also freezes up momentarily when it does it, and makes the music from my windows media player buzz. it appears to think that i'm trying to play a cd, which i'm not. IT'S A PLAYLIST!! i've removed the *blank* cd that was in the drive, and now my computer is "autoplaying" it. meanwhile, sufjan stevens sounds like this: "i was the beeeeeeeeeeeeeest man, innnnnnnnnnn a size too smaaaaaaaaall..." periodically, it does this. perhaps there is a virus. jacksma, i need you! jonathan always fixes my computer for me when he comes here. unfortunately, since he moved back to michigan, that has been less frequent. (p.s. jonathan, i miss you, in a non-computer repairman sort of way. let's talk soon.)
well, this is a very lame post. hopefully i'll come up with some better content soon. keep your fingers crossed.

p.s. yesterday was oof miller's birthday. i did call her yesterday, but if you didn't, you should. happy day of birth, roooooth!

can't....write....papers.....

this is the first week of my grad school classes for this semester. this is also the first semester that i've tried to take two classes while working 50 hours a week. this is proving more difficult than i wanted it to be. i think for now my main problem is my inability to jump back into the homework sphere. i have to read books and write responses?!?! i read a lot, but at the moment, real sex by lauren winner is much more enticing than the soul of the american university: from protestant establishment to established nonbelief. i also decided to re-read the first harry potter book this weekend, rather than do my homework. plus the steelers were on yesterday (fyi, WE'RE GOING TO THE SUPERBOWL!), and thus i didn't get it done. and now, rather than reading, i'm blogging. nice work, kath.
anyhow, this is just an announcement that there may be less blogging going on for me this semester. luckily, the quality of my posts has been declining steadily according to the polls, so perhaps my readership has dropped off and i'll be disappointing only a very few people. if you are one of the faithful (or let's face it, one of the bored) who continues to frequent my blog, my apologies.
now, back to my study and analysis of the history of higher education. good day to you.

here, kitty kitty

courtesy of bob crow.

a hole in the wall

today i arrived at work and was greeted with some unfortunate news. apparently, last night at senior high youth group, during an ill-advised game of flashlight hide and seek, one of the students ran into the wall in the fellowship hall. he appears to have been traveling with such a velocity that his body cracked the drywall cleanly in two, leaving a person-sized hole in the middle of the wall. rumor has it that he thought he was running through a door. (there are no doors, mind you, within four feet of the new portal.) the hole begins about eighteen inches above the floor, and ends just above my head, at five feet and four inches off the ground. it is also about two feet wide. the building and grounds committee is, unsurpisingly, not thrilled. our first concern is of course the safety and well-being of the student, but as he appears to have won the fight with the drywall and sustained no significant injuries, we shift our concern to the gaping hole. this is sure to be a headache for weeks on end. perhaps i'll post a picture tomorrow.

here we go!

i don't know if you saw The Game today, but just in case you missed it, the Steelers, the number 6 seed in the playoffs, beat the favored colts on their home turf in indiana. i'll admit the fourth quarter was a little rocky, but my boyfriend ben roethlisberger tackled the guy, and we came out with the win. so, with a final score of 21-18, the Steelers are off to denver next week for the afc championship. let's have a round of applause for the black and gold.

Here we go
Here we go
Here we go
Steelers, here we go
Pittsburgh's going to the Super Bowl
Here we go

Cheer the Steelers, Black and the Gold
Here we go
Town of Pittsburgh's Heart and Soul
Here we go
With Cowher power, we'll get the job done
This is the year we'll get that one for the thumb

Here we go
Here we go
Here we go
Steelers, here we go
Pittsburgh's going to the Super Bowl

Here we go
Big Ben is ready to throw
Here we go
To Ward, Antwaan, and Plaxio
Here we go
We'll go to Bettis when we need a touchdown
and if you get his way he's goin to knock you around

Here we go
Here we go
Here we go
Steelers, here we go
Pittsburgh's going to the Super Bowl

Here we go
Now the offense is ready to score
Here we go
And there's one thing we know for sure
Here we go
If we don't get it in the endzone
Will get 3 points off of Reed's big toe

Here we go
Here we go
Here we go
Steelers, here we go
Pittsburgh's going to the Super Bowl

Here we go
We got Chad Scott, Hope, and Gildon
Here we go
Porter, Logan and Washington
Here we go
The other team ain't going to gain any ground
Because the defense is going to bring the steel curtain down

Here we go
Here we go
Here we go
Steelers, here we go
Pittsburgh's going to the Super Bowl

HERE WE GO!!

bwuh?

i went for a walk this morning before i went to work, and it was sunny and beautiful. it seemed to be unseasonably warm. so, before i came to the office, i watched the news. according to the little box on the bottom of the screen, it's 62 degrees in pittsburgh today. it's supposed to stay in the fifties until the end of the week! i drove to work with my windows open! i wish i didn't have to be inside today. i don't know what's going on, because last time i checked it was mid-january, but i'm lovin it. yay pittsburgh.

the sikky and porterhouse show

yesterday i had some non-office things to do, such as attend the pittsburgh youth network meeting with a first-year staff member, make some phone calls as kick-it girl to follow up for the recruiting team, read a book, etc. plus, my students don't get back til monday. so, i went into the city in the morning, and stayed there all day. my dear friend erin, whom we refer to affectionately as "porterhouse," was with me. we went to the meeting, which was black-and-gold themed due to the upcoming playoff appearance by the steelers. afterwards, we were on our way to oakland, and decided to take a new way. it consisted of a trip around the back of the jail, a number of wrong turns, and a strange dark tunnel that i was afraid would lead to our death. but, it didn't. we pulled onto forbes, and within minutes nearly died again by bus-side-swiping. i honked my horn, to no avail, but did manage to stop quickly enough to avoid sure and sudden death. to celebrate our survival, we got some chicken nachos at qdoba (mhmm, qdoba), and went to caribou coffee to complete some reading tasks and have some chai. we were momentarily distracted by a checkers board, and after i beat her repeatedly, we decided to remove ourselves from the temptation of playing games all afternoon by going to her apartment. i did lots of work (yay), and when i was done, we watched some arrested development. we also went to an art gallery that had some lovely but far too expensive items. but, there was free wine and cheese, plus some chocolate. we also bid our final-for-now adieus to mo, who was in town with her dad picking up her stuff from k-ho's. plus i went to bed early.
well, that's all i have by way of update. erin, i hope you're happy.

back in the saddle again

after a lohohong day of sitting in airports by myself, i am back at work in PA. yesterday, due to the fog, rain, and general crappy conditions, my three hour transit time was stretched into an abysmal eight hour day of nothing. i did finally finish the screwtape letters, which i found fascinating, and completed a number of crossword puzzles. the guy across from me on the plane was about my age, and he was doing number puzzles. i think we could have been friends.
in other airport news, there were two small children singing a song with their mother that was about going to grandma's house, and what animals they might see on their way there. (my first thought was that my own children may someday sing this song, as there will be PLENTY of animals to see on the way to grandpa steve and grandma sue's house.) anyhow, what concerned me was that immediately after singing this cute little barnyard song, they began singing a song that sounded exactly like "my humps" by the black-eyed peas. i hope i was mistaken.
okie dokie. gotta get crackin on my plan for this evening. fifteen middle schoolers will be here to play with me in but a few hours. good day to you.