oh dear...it's been too long.

well. looks like i've skipped two whole months. guess this is gonna be a gargantuan update. don't worry, i'll add pictures to make it nicer. and, actually, no one has to read this whole thing unless they've exhausted every other website to fight boredom (gofugyourself, cuteoverload, thatvideosite, youtube, myspace, etc etc). so, rough outline of what i've been up to for the past two months:

- christina and victor's wedding. hurrah!
- teaching english at wisdom.
- yosemite.
- teaching world studies (africaaaaa!) at wisdom.
- finished T's and H's programs; started K's program.

okay, let's start with what was clearly the most exciting thing to happen all summer - christina and victor got married!! the first of us. hopefully, not the last. because that would just be sad. it was a very hot day, we were all sweating our makeup off in our pretty little dresses. but it was a lovely ceremony and i didn't cry... UNTIL. victor cried. and i am SUCH a sucker when it comes to guys crying. especially at their weddings. i don't even have to know the guy to get all weepy when i see him crying (same thing happened at lawrence and ginger's wedding, although it wasn't until i was watching the video montage at their reception). sigh. anyway, banquet was also very lovely. and, of course, i got drunk. again. and all i had to drink were two glasses of wine and a glass of champagne (really really YUMMY champagne). so the whole event was just happiness for me. and, oh yeah, i caught the bouquet. i was very excited. i REALLY wanted to catch that thing. i don't even know why. there's a great picture of it that you've probably already seen (hopefully, it'll already be posted before this post). mike captured the moment perfectly - i'm in mid-air (you can actually see that my feet are off the ground) and i've got a crazy happy look on my face. so yeah, the whole night was wonderful and i'm so happy for christina and victor. :) loved hearing about their married life at howard's bbq on saturday. ;D glad to know that all the lingerie she received at her bridal shower went to good use! ;D ;D ;D

so...the monday right after christina's wedding, debra and i started teaching english at wisdom. it went pretty well since we had planned almost everything out ahead of time. okay, truth be told, i can't actually remember much of what happened that week. it went rather smoothly. had some bratty kids, as usual, but some good kids too. a little over half of them were in my world studies class a few weeks later. oh! actually, something funny did happen the very first day. so debra's mother introduced us to the other english teachers on the first day. then an asian teacher walked in and debra's mother introduced debra and me and then said, "this is ms. wu." and the teacher looked at me with a funny look on her face then said, "oh! i know you! you're the one who caught the bouquet!" and i remember that it took me like a minute (okay, maybe not a minute, but there was a definite pause) to figure out what she was talking about. and then debra burst out laughing (more like CACKLING). and i was like, ".... yeah....that was me." so... yay! one of the teachers had seen me drunk and being all weird at the wedding!!

anyway, that week went by nicely. made some nice money. then the weekend after that, we went to yosemite. it was pretty fun. we got to use debra's new MASSIVE eight-person tent. like, it echoed when it was empty. and we were able to fit two full sized air mattresses in there with PLENTY of room to spare. camping is so much nicer with air mattresses. i woke up both mornings feeling happy and refreshed. we shall never ever go camping again without air mattresses. it is decreed. on the second day, we hiked up vernal falls again. and even though i wasn't sick, i still had a really hard time on the first half of the hike. i had a really tough time trying to breathe. it felt like i just...couldn't. but once we hit the halfway point (and debra, mercifully, carried my backpack up the rest of the way), i was fine. the waterfall was CRAZY this year. it was so strong that for almost the entire second half of the hike, we were soaked from all the misty water coming from the waterfall. by the time we got to the top, it was like we had just jumped into a lake with all our clothes on. even though i had a hard time going up the first half of the hike, i enjoyed this hike more than the first time. and i didn't lose my camera either! mike and i went back to the log where i had put it down two or three years ago, and wouldn't you know...it wasn't there. actually, i think out of all the camping trips i've taken (which haven't been that much really; i could probably count them all on one hand), i've enjoyed this one the most.

so, a couple weeks after the yosemite trip, i started my second week at wisdom (of my third summer doing this) teaching world studies again. and, again, it was africa. so, i was somewhat prepared since i had done it last summer. but, see, last summer, i had completely and utterly bullshitted (bullshat?) the whole thing. so i really didn't have that much stuff from the previous summer. i had a few notes, but that was it. so i was quite stressed out (again, like last summer) about this week. i was doing work every night of the week and preparing for the next day, but it was better than last summer because it wasn't like i was coming up with the whole day's lesson plan the night before. i was able to make a rough outline for the whole week and by the end of the week, i pretty much had the whole thing down. so if i do this again next year (although that's kind of a big if), i'll be completely and utterly prepared! but both weeks that i was doing wisdom, i was also still doing milestones. so it was just work, work, work during those crazy weeks. my daily schedule was: wake up, work at wisdom, work at milestones, eat, prepare work for wisdom, sleep. repeat. i was so tired. thankfully, it was only for a week. and, even more thankfully, it's over!

sigh. unfortunately, what was also over this summer were T's and H's programs at milestones. the evil, evil fremont unified school district cruelly and greedily yanked them away from milestones. T's program finished first, just before christina's wedding. i knew it was coming for a while so i was able to brace myself for it, but still. i was quite sad about it. he was my favorite. it didn't help that the day right after his program finished, he and his family went to taiwan for the rest of the summer. they should be back in a week or two though. so hopefully i'll be able to see him soon. and, hopefully, he won't have regressed. but i have a bad feeling that he probably has. and H's program ended at the very beginning of this month, just after my second week at wisdom ended. i grew really fond of H, especially towards the end. during the last couple months, especially, he sort of had a breakthrough and was starting to imitate basic sounds - he was starting to speak! and it's just sad that his program had to be cut just as he was really hitting his stride.

on the plus side, i did get a new client - K. this is different from my very first milestones client. this K is a girl K. and she's absolutely adorable. she's very affectionate and curious. when i first met her, she ran up to me, stuck her face right in front of mine and giggled. since then, she's been pretty attached to me. out of the four milestones staff working with her, it's pretty clear that i'm her favorite. but, then again, i'm the one who sees her the most often. and the fact that i look like her mother probably helps a bit. my favorite thing to do with her is to call her to me. it doesn't sound that exciting but it's quite a big accomplishment for her to follow direction and actually come over to us when we call her. and it's so cute because she used to come to us for some tangible reinforcer (like a toy or bubbles or something) but now she comes to us for hugs and tickles. she pretty much always runs to me now when i call her and she'll have a big smile on her face and i love picking her up and swinging her around.

so anyway, that's pretty much what's been going on in my life for the past two months. pictures to come. probably tomorrow. too lazy to do it now. update DONE!!

oh yeah. one last thing. i need a fucking vacation.