today i got a 24-year old University of Texas grad's phone number... from his DAD... intrigued by this intro, wondering what in the world i'm talking about? read on...

around noon today i met my dad at his office to eat lunch with him. after we finished eating, we took the usual round to his office, where i usually make fun for how messy it is and for the lack of any kind of recent picture of my brothers and i (the most recent he has are pictures of randy and i from when i was in 8th grade, and let me tell you, i look ugo in that picture...)

as he was walking me to his office, he decided to stop by his 6'5" tall, really good-looking intern's cubicle to introduce me to him, then to his boss's office to introduce me to him, and so on and so on, basically showing me off so they all have a face to put with the name of the daughter who was in and going back to china.

as i was politely chit-chatting outside my dad's office with one of these introductions, another very short coworker of my dad's walks up, stands awkwardly to the side of the conversation and then jumps in with, "oh, you've been to china?? you should call my son, he wants to go to korea to teach english!" as this was a somewhat absurd interruption to the conversation, i kinda laughed it off, until he continued to insist that it would be a good idea, asking my dad if he had a postit note and a pen. "i'll have to look his number up in my cell phone, he never answers when i call of course, but he surely would if some random number showed up. he went to UT and is 24, doesn't really know what he wants to do with his life, y'know, i think he just wants to get outta this country for awhile, so he's talking to some people over in korea..."

he hands me the phone number, informing me that his name is john, but that he mostly goes by jj, and i'm left awkwardly staring down at this phone number in my hand, then looking at my dad for some sort of help. my dad's only response that he can muster is a confused, "and what message should she relay if she calls him?" to which the man responds, "oh, i don't know, just that your dads work together and that you're going to china and..." ... "thanks mister, i'll be sure to call him RIGHT AWAY."

all i can say to this story is who in the hell DOES that??

i guess i could start a poll of "what do you think guys? do i call or do i not call?" but as i hate phones even when calling people i DO know, i don't think anything anyone else says would convince me to randomly call a number of a person i don't know, especially a person who's dad left such an interesting first impression upon me...

seriously, who does that...

i'm really tired of waiting on everyone else to get their part done when i had my part done in TWO FREAKING DAYS. it has now been over FOUR WEEKS for everyone else to get their crap together!!

i want to sign the contract and know with 100% certainty that i have that job next year - i don't like this 99.999% sure thing, it's NOT FUN and it's been NOT FUN for over FOUR WEEKS.

gimme my freakin contract so i can prepare myself for it all physically and mentally!

ya crazies!

i've done it. i've successfully finished all of my major student teaching crap (just did my huge oral defense of my portfolio today) and i'm good to go, ready for graduation next saturday!! i hafta keep going back to my first placement in marion until next wednesday, of course, but that's no biggie, i don't really do anything big there anymore. so yeah, wow. i can't believe i'm already graduating and that i survived this semester. amazing. it feels really weird to be free and not have major amounts of stress piled on my shoulders... pretty awesome i must say...