So my fiance (and I) are obsessed with the Twilight series... ok she is way more obsessed than I am, I just really liked the books. She even bought The Host (another book by the same author) and enjoyed reading it despite telling me it was more of a script for a low budget television special for the sci-fi channel. I especially enjoy the almost daily reminders and teasings of how she is going to marry Edward Cullen or Rob Pattinson (the actor that plays Edward Cullen). It almost makes life worth getting up every morning to enjoy. So here is how the twilight bug got into our lives...
Not so long ago, I was an ESOL teacher for a public school district in South Carolina. Part of this fabulous job of mine included administering an end of the year assesment of the English proficiencies for our students that speak other languages. I was given a certain amount of time to test every ESL classified student within the district and of course that meant trying to coordinate six different schools and 200+ students to take this test. Long story short, I had a student miss the test on the day I was testing at her school. So I return the following day to make sure she took the test. Turns out, she was at school the first day I was testing and missed the announcement to come take the test because she was nose deep in some book. Naturally, I had to inquire about the book since it was so good that she missed a test for it.
It was Twilight, and since she was the only person taking the test that day, she lent it to me while she was testing and due to lack of monitoring numerous students and a lack of other reading materials with me, I started reading it. Honestly, the next thing I know she is telling me all about this world of forbidden love and vampires and werewolves while bubbling in her answers to the test. After the test had finished, I immediately went to the school library and checked out the last remaining copy of the book and picked up where I left off earlier. Over the next few days I had acquired all three (then released) books of the series and was quite noticably reading them all over the house.
My finace was very skeptical of me and these books at first, since we share little in common as far as reading preferences and genres. Then, it was time for the fourth book to come out. I was halfway through the third book at this time because I did not want to read too fast and have it end abruptly for me. The local Barnes and Noble was having a midnight release party for the fourth book which was a Vampire prom theme. My fiance was not yet a convert to the series and talked me out of going. We both now regret that decision. Less than a week later, she had become a full fledged member of the cult of Cullen (not really a cult to my knowledge but she would know if there was one). We have now seen Twilight too many times to count both in theatres and online. She keeps daily checks on the movie and author's websites and rereads the books from time to time. We both agree that the fourth installment lacked a certain something... like it was written by someone other than the author of the first three books. Anywho, we anxiously await the soon arrival of Twilight on DVD (apparently we pre-ordered it). I think that things worked out pretty well overall and there is something of a story there to tell the grandkids one day.
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
The Adventure Awaits
As I reported in my latest blog post, me and my better half find ourselves needing to make a choice. We now have several job offers on the table for teachig English in Korea in the near future and each one is described as better than the previous ones. I am in a state of forward thinking because I know that to advance in the career path I have chosen, I must get teaching experience overseas. I wish I could say that the road thus far has been smooth, but life has a funny way of keeping things interesting. Well, whatever the final decision, I know that in the end it will be the right one and I can be happy with that outcome.
My fiance and I recently had a "date night" to go see "Bride Wars" at our local 2nd run movie theatre. On the surface I expected it to be the chick flick to end all chick flicks, but despite everything I found myself enjoying it. I don't know if it was the company I was with or the cherry coke, but afterwards I felt contented to have gone. You should have seen the look on her face when she saw it was playing, it was priceless. In a very small way, I think I enjoyed spending the time together more than the activity we choose to do. I won't go into the times we used to go get our nails done together. It took a lot out of me to "man up" and let some Vietnamese lady hack away at my fingernails with a file and clippers. Truth be told she was great at it, and I never told her or my fiance how much better my nails looked and felt when we would do that together. Just FYI, I had the clear coat nail polish, or no polish at all... I don't remember.
My fiance and I recently had a "date night" to go see "Bride Wars" at our local 2nd run movie theatre. On the surface I expected it to be the chick flick to end all chick flicks, but despite everything I found myself enjoying it. I don't know if it was the company I was with or the cherry coke, but afterwards I felt contented to have gone. You should have seen the look on her face when she saw it was playing, it was priceless. In a very small way, I think I enjoyed spending the time together more than the activity we choose to do. I won't go into the times we used to go get our nails done together. It took a lot out of me to "man up" and let some Vietnamese lady hack away at my fingernails with a file and clippers. Truth be told she was great at it, and I never told her or my fiance how much better my nails looked and felt when we would do that together. Just FYI, I had the clear coat nail polish, or no polish at all... I don't remember.
Sunday, March 1, 2009
A New and Exciting Journey
I have in recent months been planning for my fiance and I to travel overseas to teach English in Asia. Personally, I can't wait to go, and she has slowly been warming up to the idea of accompanying me. It has been a dream of mine since I was a younger man to travel around the world and see different places and experience different things. Now there are several opportunities to do this and I get the chance to share this dream and experiences with the woman that I love, so it's a win-win. I have been fortunate so far and have traveled to all 48 contiguous United States in 1999 as well as Japan in 2005, while my better half has been slightly slightly less ambulatory. No problems, we're going to change that together.
We're currently in negotiations with several schools overseas for both of us to teach English and continue to be together (same country and city, possibly the same school).
This should prove to be a wonderful experience that will be something we can share together (and in her case blog about excessively the entire time we're there). I have recently been on a blog hiatus and found myself not really missing it for the time I was not blogging, but to be fair to my fiance, we're doing a new travel blog together so I must find a way to participate in that endeavear. This resurgence of my blog (I guess) is more of a test to see if I could still do it after not blogging since last year. Well, I gave it a good run and managed to stay blog free for over four months. Now that this is starting to sound like some sort of intervention or AA meeting, I think I'll leave it here.
We're currently in negotiations with several schools overseas for both of us to teach English and continue to be together (same country and city, possibly the same school).
This should prove to be a wonderful experience that will be something we can share together (and in her case blog about excessively the entire time we're there). I have recently been on a blog hiatus and found myself not really missing it for the time I was not blogging, but to be fair to my fiance, we're doing a new travel blog together so I must find a way to participate in that endeavear. This resurgence of my blog (I guess) is more of a test to see if I could still do it after not blogging since last year. Well, I gave it a good run and managed to stay blog free for over four months. Now that this is starting to sound like some sort of intervention or AA meeting, I think I'll leave it here.
Snow Day
Geez I almost forgot I even had a blog it's been so long since I posted to it... Anyway, just sitting here at the computer enjoying the news that we have a snow day tomorrow. Thinking about snow days and all of the activities you enjoyed as a kid pales in comparison to the activities you get to avoid as an adult. For example: As a kid you might enjoy making a snowman, while as an adult you may enjoy not having to drive to work surrounded by a bunch of people that do not know how to drive in the snow. Also, as a kid you may enjoy having snowball fights while as an adult having to find adequate parking beside snow drifts caused by plows can be somewhat of a nightmare. On a tangent, my sister who wanted to move where she could enjoy snow has learned to dig her car out of these "snow drifts" before she can even get to work. I'll take that as 1 point for me.
I must admit that after having lived in a state where snow was no big deal and a fairly regular occurance, it is mind-boggling to now live in a state where the mention of snow causes the town to shut down. Several weeks ago there was a chance of a "dusting" of snow accumulating to less than an inch, thus no school. Grocery stores were raided and the town was in panic mode. When I look back on going to school in several feet of snow accumulation, I sit back and enjoy how good things are here. This circus of a performance for snow is calling for some accumulation between 1 and 3 inches, I expect we shall be out of school the majority of the week, maybe longer.
Other than the recent craziness in the weather, things down here are pretty good. I just want to know where global warming is when you need it... (I seem to be adjusting to the weather down here and find myself needing to wear coats and sweaters at 50 degrees where that would be t-shirt weather for me a few years ago)
I must admit that after having lived in a state where snow was no big deal and a fairly regular occurance, it is mind-boggling to now live in a state where the mention of snow causes the town to shut down. Several weeks ago there was a chance of a "dusting" of snow accumulating to less than an inch, thus no school. Grocery stores were raided and the town was in panic mode. When I look back on going to school in several feet of snow accumulation, I sit back and enjoy how good things are here. This circus of a performance for snow is calling for some accumulation between 1 and 3 inches, I expect we shall be out of school the majority of the week, maybe longer.
Other than the recent craziness in the weather, things down here are pretty good. I just want to know where global warming is when you need it... (I seem to be adjusting to the weather down here and find myself needing to wear coats and sweaters at 50 degrees where that would be t-shirt weather for me a few years ago)
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