I leave for Olympia in two days! How exciting. Did I mention that I'm going to Olympia for spring break? Well, I am. Clearly, I needed to pack for a week-long trip in the middle of unpacking all of my things into my new place.

Speaking of my new place, it's been great so far. I am completely moved out of my old house, though I don't think I can say yet that I am completely moved into my new one. There is a lot of home-making left to go. Photos coming eventually, along with plans for a house-warming occasion. I should set a date for that.

I have been incredibly busy. (Is this even worth noting anymore?) Work has been busy busy, and I've had something planned every evening for a couple weeks now. Check this out:

Last Monday: Yoga and pole classes.
Last Tuesday: Sitting group.
Last Wednesday: Cabaret performance at Signature.
Last Thursday: A first date! It went well.
Last Friday: Teacher work day = pack to move. My friend Ryan arrived in the evening.
Last Saturday: MOVE ALL DAY. (Thanks Ryan!) Fitocracy meetup.*
Last Sunday: I did something after Ryan left. What did I do? I don't remember now. Shoot.
Monday: Yoga and pole classes.
Tuesday: Sitting group, complete with a great discussion.
Wednesday: A second date! It also went well.
Thursday: (Very early morning meeting with a parent. After a date. Blech.) Tech rehearsal at the Shakespeare. Fascinating! Wallenstein looks like it'll be a great show, if a bit depressing.**
Friday:  A third date, kind of. More of a hangout than a date. Lots of drunk people in a bar that smelled like varnish. It went well enough.
Today: Professional development seminar on Writing Workshop at 9 AM. It was awesome, but I wish that I could have slept more.

*OH MY GOD THE FITOCRACY MEETUP. We went to West Virginia to see a wrestling match. The match was on the independent circuit, which makes it more legit than pro wrestling, evidently. It was hosted by Primal Conflict Wrestling. PRIMAL CONFLICT! So surreal. I decided at the beginning that I would have a good time, and it worked, but... I was in West Virginia at a wrestling match. What? And then I had dinner at Applebee's with a ton of internet people, because Applebee's evidently has cheap drinks. You know what Applebee's doesn't have much of? Vegetarian food. It was a fun evening, but going to West Virginia to see grown men slam each other into folding chairs is not something I ever thought I'd do.

**Favorite lines from the tech rehearsal:
-"Bailey and the murderers, we're going to be fiddling with the lighting cues for this scene. Murderers, just be ready."
-"Those helmets hide your faces. I need to see your faces. Take the helmets off. Damn, now you look... you need something."
"Michael, we have chainmail hoods downstairs. We're sending someone for them now."
-From my father, the military history buff, too quietly for the staff to hear: "They didn't have chainmail during the Hundred Years War."

Here's a shocking piece of news: I don't have any plans tonight, other than doing laundry and maybe watching a movie for the first time in a couple months. I intend to go to bed early.

Entertaining tidbits from the classroom:

-One of my students, after a lesson on DNA replication, wrote a short story titled "I, Nucleotide."
-When asked to write a descriptive narrative of the experience of a character in a painting, one student methodically went through each of the senses to tell me what that character saw, heard, smelled, etc. Upon arriving at touch, he wrote, "I have nothing to hold." It seemed very profound. (Something like this: I see the gray sky. I hear the wind in the grass and in the leaves of the trees. I have nothing to hold.)
-Friday was International Day at school. Each classroom was a continent, and the students researched and presented on countries from that continent. (Except our classroom, which was ancient civilizations. How does that make sense?) Every student gets a passport on International Day, which they get stamped as they travel from room to room. Being fond of bureaucracy, I decided to make my students apply for theirs. I dressed up in a vest and tie, and I made myself a card-stock badge that said "Official Passport Official." They filled out a slightly doctored version of the U.S. passport application. I discovered that some of them don't know their parents' names, how to spell their own middle names, or what "emergency contact" means.