What was a good high school memory?

So I sought out the good ol' blog prompt generator today - and it threw this one out there. What was a good high school memory?

Since our class reunion is coming up next month, I thought this was timely. I've got lots of memories of high school, and most all of them are good. Believe it or not. But there is just something special about the 2 years that we spent together at MSMS. That was just on a whole new level apart from everything else.

My MSMS friends are the closest friends I have. Even though we've been apart for years, that time that we spent together in Columbus bonded us in a completely unique way. I can come into contact with any one of them who I haven't seen in years, and it's just like we saw each other yesterday.

There's only one other group of friends who I feel the same way about, and they are the people from NVIDIA. But I digress....

I don't have many specific memories of MSMS. There is the one of meeting Cass in line to have our school IDs made the first day of classes. (He doesn't recall this, of course :)

I remember carrying around the hundreds of books that the teachers issued to us on the first days of classes. And totally freaking out about it.

I remember that chicken sandwiches were the only food from the cafeteria that I actually liked to eat. And you could also buy them at the Blue Goose.

I remember going out to the train tressel during the first few on-campus weekends of the first year. That lost my interest pretty quickly.

I remember riding back and forth from Indianola with Lacy. And she liked to play Poison on her tape deck.

And sometimes I would catch a ride with Mike Mosley.

I remember how difficult it was to sit through Mrs. Richardson's T/Th AP English class. and stay awake I switched to Honors English senior year so I could have that class on MWF instead.

I remember going back a few days early senior year to do Emissary stuff. It was weird with all those new juniors around.

I remember staying on the phone for hours and hours talking to random people. And then random people became a few junior boys. And then specifically one boy. Between that and Alice and her boyfriend - I know our phone line never got a rest.

I remember the reading smoking room in the library. We spent most of our study hours in there. Because the boys could be in there with us.

I remember doing the Mentorship program second semester of senior year. I got to go to Starkville 1 day a week. And my mentor took me to Bulldog Deli. And then my mentor turned out to be a total jackass.

I was apparently having a phase where I loved black, because my MSMS class ring has a black onyx stone in it.

Then after we graduated and went to MSMS MSU, I remember the parties at Pannell's trailer.

What do you remember?

For Marcus

I rarely blog anymore. It almost seems like blogging has become obsolete in favor of Facebook. Facebook is easy, everybody is on there. Blogging now feels like standing up and giving a speech to an empty room.

But this is for Marcus. :) He is the most faithful blogger. And he wants more blogging.

So here is a sort of random, rambling update blog post.

We very nearly sold our house in Dallas. It looked like the perfect deal. We got within 48 hrs of closing - and then it collapsed. Our buyers were also selling their house. They had a problem with the survey of their house, and a solution could not be found. I have to say that it smells a little fishy to me that a solution couldn't be found - but that's what happened and it caused a domino effect. So we get to pay that mortgage some more. Yay!

(Note to everyone: Do not fall for the lure of buying a ginormous house. I know you may want the space for the family, but it is so not worth it. Just send the kids outside if you need to. :)

We do have hopes of an offer today. If they don't run for the hills crying after they see the info on the utilities that I sent to them.

We went to visit Blake in Charleston, SC this weekend. I got to see his kids for the first time (they're 4 yrs old!), and we had a really nice visit. Then we left Charleston and went to the MSU basketball game in Columbia, SC on Saturday night. It wasn't as cool as a game at The Hump, but the kids really enjoyed it. And we got the win.

No, Blake won't be able to come to the reunion in April. He has to work.

I loved watching the Olympics. I'm now convinced that I can snowboard, and I may have to give it a try next time we go. (stop laughing)

I'm excited about the reunion in April. It seems to be shaping up here lately, as far as attendance. I'm not looking forward to the drive to get there. Or back. But it will be fun. Must order beer.

I don't like it when people have to swing out to turn when driving.

I am so ready to BE in Austin. But I am NOT ready for the process of moving. It is so exhausting.

The Great iPhone Heist

Cameron has been begging us for a long time to get her a cell phone. We resisted for a long time, but we finally decided to give her my old iPhone when I upgraded to a new iPhone 3GS. After going back and forth with the cell phone plan person at Best Buy, we finally got it sorted out - she keeps the cheap plan (for the old phone) and I am now paying the 'new' rates. We also added unlimited texting so we wouldn't ever be sorry we didn't. She doesn't use it to talk much at all, and she mainly texts a couple of girls (one from Texas) and Granddaddy.

Anyway, Tuesday of this week - the iPhone went missing at school. They aren't allowed to have their phones visible or audible at school, but they are allowed to have them there. Cameron keeps hers inside her tote bag, in a snap pocket - and she takes the bag with her everywhere she goes. So when it went missing during 3rd period, I knew that someone had to have gone INSIDE her bag and remove it from the small pocket. That was disturbing to me.

Near the end of the day, a young man named R came up to Cameron and told her that he had seen another young man J with her phone. R asked him about it, and J told him that the phone was his. R recognized it as Cameron's - and honestly after she dropped it into the toilet and we had to recover keyboard functionality with alcohol, the screen has definite identifiable characteristics now. So R tells Cameron, and she immediately confronts J. He, of course, claims that he 'found' it and that he intended to return it to her. He gives her the phone back, but the case and earphones (which we had bought on Saturday) are gone.

The phone went missing during 3rd period (during which J sits right by Cameron), J ended up with it, and he made no attempt to return it to her or turn it into the office. I'm glad she got the phone back, but I thought the principal needed to know. On the surface this incident doesn't seem like a big thing, but I wanted J to know that even if you're being stupid and do something serious, people will call you on it.

I contacted the principal yesterday morning. By the end of the day, Cameron had been called into the office. Today I get an email from the principal that J admitted to taking it, he's being punished, and his parents have agreed to replace the earphones. Wow. That's pretty efficient.

I just hope that J learns the lesson that I intended.

Secret button

So we had a great start to the New Year. We got up on January 1st, and Cass convinced me to go to the gym with him. I decided I wanted to have the last few Glee songs on my phone that I downloaded from iTunes, so I plugged my phone in to sync before we left. Well, the girls have loaded up their iPods, and thus our iTunes, with a bunch of ridiculous apps. Every time I sync my phone, I end up with a bunch of stray apps that came from them. This time it was a Scene It? Twilight game that was bogging down my sync. It took nearly 45 minutes to stop the sync, remove the app, and re-sync. Frustration.

Then we go down to the garage, and I notice that a car door has been left open. The car is dead. I mean, it was dead, dead - even when we put the key in, not even a clickity click. So Cass says put it in neutral and let it roll out beside his car (which is parked outside the garage). Easier said than done. You can't just shift the gear when the car is dead, dead. FRUSTRATION.

So Cass pulls out the iPhone and googles. He discovers the secret gear shift release button above the P on the gear shift. It requires a screw driver to pop off the secret panel that conceals the secret button. But once you can press it, you can shift away.

We got it cranked, drove around a while, and still went to the gym. After all the frustrations. Woo hoo!

Here's the deal

For a while, I've refrained from blogging to keep from feeling like a complainer. I also didn't want to talk too much about stuff that I wasn't sure we wanted to put "out there" just yet. But I'm done with that now.

We've been in North Carolina for 5 months now, and I've learned 1 important thing. I am an Austinite. North Carolina is perfectly fine. But no place, IMO, is Austin. And I don't want to live anywhere but Austin.

Here's another thing I have learned. I don't like the games industry. Truth be told, I discovered this bit of info way back when we lived in Dallas (LOL!). But I'm not the one with the career and I'm not out there winning any bread. So I try to be very understanding about Cass's career desires and never get in the way of him doing what makes him happy. BUT I think that finally Cass has decided that he's not a fan of the games industry either.

So where does that leave us? We don't have any idea. We're looking into our options right now. If a change is to be made, it will happen by the end of January. He's got certain things in his contract that make it so. If change doesn't happen by January 31, then we are stuck within the terms of the contract for 18 more months. We can do it. We'd prefer not to, but we can.

In the meantime, I looked into a graduate program at UNC back in November. It's Molecular Diagnostic Science, and it's a mostly online graduate degree with a 6 month clinical rotation. I would start it summer 2010, and finish it in fall 2011. So it's an 18 month masters degree program with no thesis writing. Sign me up. Actually, I sent in my application yesterday - in case we end up sticking around here for 18 more months.

I also found out that they have a similar program at the UT San Antiono Medical Branch. Just sayin.

So there we are.

9 lines about 2009
(1) Turned 37
(2) Dealt with high blood pressure and meds
(3) Went off of blood pressure meds
(4) Went on a cruise to Ireland
(5) Cass's company was sold
(6) Cass took a new job
(7) Still have a house on the market in Dallas
(8) Luke is having a better school year in 1st grade (thank God! - see #2)
(9) Trip to London!

I don't know what 2010 will bring. At least this first month should be interesting!

Things I've learned

- I miss driving on the interstate.

- All the crazy news stories happen in North Carolina.

- When you enter a parking lot in Cary NC, you better plan to go back out the way you came in. There are no alternate exits.

- They have red light cameras here - and they WILL send you a ticket in the mail.

- It's not a real ticket though. They've hired some company to collect the fines, and the city gets part of them. No legal stuff involved.

- I don't like the spider web arrangement of the roads here.

- You better look both ways, then look again a second or third time, before you dare to turn into traffic. The curves and hills make it hard to see.

- My Dad pointed out that there aren't many convenience stores and/or fast food restaurants here. I'm sure Cary has some kind of restriction on them (like they do on everything else).

- I still can't find my way to drive through the Crossroads.

Photos

Cameron made Honor Roll for the first 9 weeks of the year. They had an assembly at 7:30 in the morning. Yawn. Each child got an individually printed Honor Roll certificate, along with a free pass for an after school activity (school dance, sports event, etc.). After the assembly, they had refreshments in the cafeteria.


Luke's class had a Thanksgiving Tea for the parents, and the kids presented a program. They were paired up and each pair read a few sentences of the story of Thanksgiving. After the presentation, we did a craft and had refreshments.





My parents get here tomorrow evening, and we leave Wednesday evening for London! Happy Thanksgiving! Happy Wedding!