This Is a Cop-out

Nothing interesting has happened this week, primarily because I've been very sick. Rather than regale you with rousing tales of phlegm, I'm reposting the 25 Things meme I did on Facebook last week.

1. I stayed home from school today. I have a very bad cold and will likely die of it. Nevertheless, I will go to school tomorrow. Because I am just that dedicated.

2. I am a classic hypochondriac. I have WebMD bookmarked and I consult it regularly. I lied in #1: I don't have a cold; I have tuberculosis.

3. I am a teacher. This means that I will mentally grade you on everything from your grammar to your posture. At the end of the day, I will give you a report card.

4. I lied in #3. But a lot of people think that's true. When I say, "I'm a teacher," they get all jumpy and say things like, "I'm not a very good speller." Most of the time I just give a gracious smile, but ALL of the time, I'm thinking, "You're not in my class, stupid, relax." Then I think, "D+."

5. My niece looks just like me. The resemblance is frightening. This pleases me because a) it annoys my sister, and b) now there's no reason for me to have kids of my own.

6. Because I don't want kids. And if I ever change my mind (which is unlikely), I will adopt. I see no reason to go through the pain of pregnancy when there are so many children who need loving parents. But I won't judge YOU for having kids. Unless you have 18 kids. Then I will judge you HARD.

7. Not wanting kids doesn't mean I don't like kids. I do ... I just don't want to live with them. Kids would take up too much of my television-watching time.

8. I wish I could afford to travel more often. I've seen a lot of the U.S., but I haven't spent much time out west. I've been to London twice; on one of those trips, I also went to Ireland and Wales.

9. If I went to London every year for the rest of my life, I would never get tired of it.

10. I am going to Italy and Greece this summer. It's okay to be jealous of me.

11. Last year I read 153 books. It'll all be downhill from here, though; I'll probably never reach that pinnacle again.

12. Right now I teach 9th grade study skills (but it should be called 9th grade reading), 9th grade English, Theater Arts I (speech), and Theater Arts II (drama). I am really, really good at teaching theater arts and reading. I HATE teaching English.

13. Which is odd, because my degree is in English Education.

14. One year, I taught 8th grade English, 8th grade reading, 8th grade history, 7th grade geography, speech, and drama. It was the worst year of my life.

15. I quit after that year.

16. I love mummies, especially Egyptian mummies. I find them both repulsive and fascinating. I love them most when they are on the television, because in person, they are kind of spooky. When I was looking at the mummy collection at the Field Museum in Chicago, I got the feeling that some of them were LOOKING BACK.

17. I don't want to be mummified myself, though. That'd just be weird.

18. I grew up in fundamentalist independent Baptist churches, because the Southern Baptist Convention was "too liberal." Yeah.

19. I worked at a Southern Baptist organization for two years. It was good work, and I liked my co-workers, but there was no room for me to advance because a) I don't have a degree in theology, and b) I'm a woman.

20. I'm just not secretary material. And I HATE filing.

21. I have terrible taste in music. A couple of years ago, VH1 did a countdown of the worst songs ever, and I have 75% of them on my iPod. One song I don't have: "The Stroke," because even I have better taste than THAT.

22. I'm typing this with a cat on my lap.

23. He has at least four BB pellets in him. Before I got him, he'd had another one removed from his ear. I have it in a bottle.

24. I don't get violent about things--even in my revenge fantasies, I usually give a scathing speech instead of physically fighting--but I think, if I ever saw somebody shooting an animal (for fun, not for food), I might literally rip that person into shreds.

25. I don't have tuberculosis anymore. It's been upgraded to lung cancer.