Lois Lane is falling, accelerating at an initial rate of 32 feet per second per second... Superman swoops down to save her.

I know we have had this discussion before -- because I documented it here -- but falling is scary. It is simply one of the scariest things ever.

I fell at work on Monday.

These are my bruises. Unfortunately I am incompetent at editing photos. I wanted to be able to circle the bruises in red, but I really can't figure out how to do that and save it so I can upload it. Hopefully you can see it, or maybe you can just imagine.

The whole story was that I was walking up the stairs after finishing my class and I just missed a stair. I had my arms full of books, so I fell really hard on my shoulder and arms.

It hurt really bad.

Now my bruises are green and black, but I can almost rest my forearm on a table without it hurting.

I realized that my fall wouldn't have been so bad if I hadn't had my arms full of things. So I decided that I should put my things in a bag when I go to class.

My mom just made me a really cute tote bag, but it's too big for what I need. I have a bag that is a good size, but it's ugly.

So I made a new bag. Here it is, all packed and ready to go to work.

Does this sweater make me look fat?

So just last week, I said that I wasn't one of those retail therapy people and that I'm not generally a shopping kind of girl.

And then I was putting all my clean clothes (love clean clothes) away. Uh... maybe I am one of those people.

Look at all those sweaters! My closet shelves are full. How did this happen?

I had to spend two hours getting myself up to club admissionability, and you're just wearing the same thing you always wear.

Did you see this interview last week?

This is causing an uproar.

It's causing an uproar and, as far as I have heard, she hasn't officially been fired or filed lawsuits yet.

The day that this interview was done, we had a lengthy discussion over lunch about the actions and the consequences, how far reaching those consequences will be, and the double standard.

Despite the irritating double standard, and the (probably not complete) anonymity, I've decided that it is safer to make a few changes. The change you will see here is no more student writing. The other change is I'm de-friending on facebook. Actually, I think that will feel really good.

But I have decided that instead of feeling like I'm never allowed to say anything about my job, I can write about things that I do that could provide entertainment.

***

Class Story Number 1:
The other night in class we were discussing commonly confused words and how to tell them apart. This is part of the larger discussion of spelling, which boils down to "read what you wrote and the computer is stupid."

We got around to affect and effect.

If you are thinking at this point, "Yeah, I've never figured out the difference between those..." I'll tell you. The difference is affect is a verb and effect is a noun.

My students didn't really understand that explanation.

So I tried with two examples:
"Studying affects your grades."
"The effect of studying is good grades."

I still had one student who was having a hard time. So she said, "Can you give a different example?"

Now, I will be honest. This was putting me on the spot a little. Often when I am put on the spot like this I come up with really awful sentences.

This was the exception.

I said:
"French fries affect my thighs."
"The effect of eating french fries is my thighs get larger."

And they had a pretty good laugh.

You don't like her shoes. You like her legs. It sounds less creepy if you say shoes.

Somehow this week, I became one of those people. I've never been one of those women who did "retail therapy" or ever liked shopping for shoes. And yet.

It was a long week, and kind of crazy. So by the time I got to Friday, I was exhausted. It was a nice day outside, so I didn't just want to go home and lay on the couch -- although that's exactly what I did later -- so I went shopping.

These are the super cute shoes I got at DSW. Of course, I had to call Heather from the store and ask what I would wear those cute boots with. She invented all kinds of outfits for me, and so I bought them.

These ones I bought because they are pretty and they were on sale for $12.

Maybe you should look at the chart again.

Just thought I would share two things that are making me laugh today.

From Kung Fu Panda:


From Glee:

It snows nine months out of the year, and hails the other three.

Everyone is blogging about it, but I just have to say, I was there too! I survived Blizzard 2011.

At work on Monday, everyone sat around at lunch and placed bets on whether we would get what they were predicting or not. Most of us were pretty skeptical.

And then they cancelled the Monday night classes.

I got up Tuesday and they cancelled all the Tuesday classes. It started snowing around 10 am.

This is what it looked like at 2 pm.

It is still snowing and it is crazy windy (which is the definition of a Blizzard).

And this is where I spent my day:

My bedroom is the warmest room in the house. I dragged all my work stuff up there and the movies I got from the Redbox and just camped out for the day.

On Wednesday morning, the sun came out and it was a whopping -6 degrees. Yeah, that's negative 6, as in 6 degrees below zero. And classes were cancelled again.

I waited an hour and then ventured outside.

That's my driveway.

I've discovered that one of the tricks to shoveling is to start at the road end. Then you do all the hard icy stuff that the snow plows piled up first, before you are completely exhausted.

One hour and fifty minutes later I declared myself the victor.

And I went inside and watched another movie.

It was an interesting experience. I remember a blizzard when I was a little kid living in Maryland. And I remember being so excited about it. We went and played in the snow and when we came inside we put all our wet clothes over the heat vents and my mom had hot chocolate ready for us. We thought it was so cool.

It just isn't as cool to be a grown up and have a blizzard.

But I guess I would say, the biggest difference is when I get a snow day, I never start to feel like this: