It's finals week! This means that in less than a week I will be free for three whole weeks! Yay! I am almost caught up with my grading, so that means I will also be able to go through this week with little grading to do except for the finals exams. I am looking forward to the time off, especially from the commute...and the grading of papers.

The goal is to find a new work situation before the end of the three weeks. I don't know that it can happen, but it would be nice, wouldn't it?

So...prayers requested... :)

Was going to write more, but I realized that what I was going to write about is still too painful.

So...prayers requested for that, too...

So last night I logged onto our business system at work, and I was in for a great shock. I was just going on there to find a student's email address. I was not prepared to learn that one of my classes was cancelled. I'm really upset for a couple of reasons.

1) That is a lot of money that I won't be earning in February and March. I was already in trouble because of the Christmas break, and now I may have to borrow money again. *sigh*

2) No one bothered to call me and tell me that my class was cancelled. Had I known earlier, I could have made plans to be away for the six days that I have off. I could have gone to Hawaii or St. Louis or Chicago or that cruise with the 4Him reunion. Couldn't someone have dropped me an email to let me know?

I'm not in a good mood right now. Grrr . . .

Just read this article about a Battlestar Galactica cruise, including Richard Hatch! Too funny! I think I'd be afraid to go on a cruise like that!

It was a trip with a lot of promise. What could be easier? Fly into JFK on Friday morning, do some stuff on Friday, go to the wedding on Saturday, see more on Sunday, and fly home on Sunday. Most of the trip went according to plan, so I'll start with the good parts.

I arrived at Burbank Airport early on Friday. My flight was to leave at 7am, and I had plenty of time to catch my plane. My seating companions were an omen of the trip to come. As I came down the aisle, I saw one of them sit in my seat and shrug her shoulders, as if to say, "I can sit here because I was here first." When I got to my seat and informed her of the fact that it was mine, both women rolled their eyes and moved over. They were clearly unhappy about my sitting there. Honestly, what the hell did they expect? One of them (the one who was now sitting my the window) decided to insult me by calling her friend on the phone and declaring that, "Somebody sat next to [whatever the hell her friend's name is] and is taking up all the space, and she is pissed." EXCUSE ME??? Taking up all the space??? If these people don't have the money to buy the seat next to them, then I actually believe that seat belongs to someone. Idiots.

The rest of the flight continued without incident, and, as I expected, we arrived at JFK a little earlier than scheduled. I called my car service and was told where to meet them. I went to the designated place to wait for the driver. The car drove up, and I moved toward the car, just as I heard a woman say, "That's our car; it has a 7 on it."
"No, that's my car," I said, but no one heard me.
"Are you going to the Flatotel?" asked the driver.
The woman clearly didn't understand him, because she answered, "Yes, the Westin."
"This is my car," I said a little more loudly. The driver looked at me.
"No, DEAR," the woman condescended. "This is our car."
I directed my question to the driver. "Where are you going?"
"Flatotel," he answered.
"This is MY car," I stated again. Finally, someone figured it out. The woman continued to insist that it was her car.
But the driver said, "You will have to wait for your car."
"But this was the confirmation number she gave me," the woman whined.
"Then call them," answered the driver as he put my bag into the car. Once in the car he apologized, though it wasn't his fault. He drove me into Manhattan and dropped me off at the corner of 6th Avenue and 52nd Street, about a half block from my hotel.

Flatotel is a medium-sized, medium-quality hotel in midtown Manhattan, close to Rockefeller Center and 5th Avenue shopping. Does that sound like a commercial? It's not. I mean, it's an OK hotel, but it's nothing special. Some of the rooms are like apartments, so that's nice. My room wasn't like an apartment, but it did have a mini-fridge and a teeny-tiny microwave (which I never ended up using, though I had thought I would). The decor was modern and nice, although the bed was hard. I got settled but was soon out of my room to experience the city.

I headed to Rockefeller Center to find something to eat and to look for the Palm store. I needed an adapter for my Centro, since the Centro headset plug is 2.5mm, and a standard plug is 3.5mm. :( After walking around for a LOONNNGGGG time, I decided to give up. I did manage to find 'wichcraft and grab an onion frittata breakfast sandwich, though. YUMMY! Though I would have preferred more onion. Haha. I headed out to 5th Avenue and nearly ran right into the Sprint store. I went in and asked a very nice man for some help. He didn't have what I needed, and he also informed me that Palm has closed all of it's physical stores, because people buy Palm products either from cell service providers or online. Makes sense from a business point of view, but it doesn't help me. :(

I decided it was time to go to the Met. I had been wanting to do this since my last visit to New York, so I was pretty excited. The question was, How do I get there? I didn't have a map, so I asked someone in the Met store at Rockefeller Center for help. He told me the correct bus route, but the problem was that I didn't have any coins for the bus, and I didn't know where the nearest subway was so that I could buy a metro card. I decided to start walking, and if I happened to gain either of those things, I would hop on the bus. Thirty blocks later, I arrived at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, tired but happy to arrive.

The museum's suggested entrance fee is $20. Technically, you can pay any amount you want to get in, since the fee is a donation. I willingly paid the $20. If I had known about what was to come, I might have saved my money. The Met is HUGE! I only had about 2-1/2 hours to see the entire thing, so I walked through very quickly, trying to absorb as much as possible. I saw SO MANY things that it's impossible to describe it all here. I especially liked the musical instruments, the armor and weapons gallery (which was surprisingly interesting), and the Renaissance stuff. I will post pictures when I get them downloaded. I even had a chance to stop by the store and pick up some postcards and a cute bag. I could explain even more, but you just have to experience the museum for yourself. :)

I had only $1.50 in coins, and I needed $2 for the bus. I got change from a mother and daughter outside of the museum, and waited for the bus. The bus was pretty easy, even though I had to stand for most of the time. I bought a gyro from a street vendor on the way to my hotel, bought some more supplies from the hotel store, found my room, and turned in for the night.

My first day in New York was, although a little annoying at points, was relatively uneventful. Oh, if it could have stayed like that.

I left home at 5:30am to catch my Jet Blue flight from Burbank airport to JFK. I was surprised at how awake I was, but I was also glad. Pop drove to the airport much too fast, but otherwise everything was pretty uneventful. I didn't have any luggage, so I checked in pretty quickly and was through security relatively quickly as well.

The guy sitting in the window seat and I were hoping that the person sitting between us wouldn't show up, but we had no such luck. She showed up almost last, holding her coffee cup and whining about how she was just getting something to eat and didn't hear the announcement--as if that were somehow the airlines' fault. Then she proceeded to tell us that she "hates" sitting in the middle seat and "was so pissed" to find out where she had to sit. I'm not sure of her reason for doing this. Maybe she thought that if she pouted a lot, one of us would, out of the kindness of our hearts, offer to switch with her. Sorry, chica. You were sitting between a straight woman and a gay man, batting your eyes and pouting isn't going to get you squat. Once she saw I wasn't impressed, she pretty much ignored me for the rest of the flight, and I ignored her.

So we arrived in New York without any incident, and even earlier than scheduled. I had scheduled my car to pick me up almost an hour after my flight was supposed to land, so I had some time to kill. I found a place to get some lunch and even got to use Jet Blue's free wireless access in the terminal. I called my car service to pick me up and also had a chance to talk with my cousin Kiana on the phone. We planned to meet up later that day.

My driver took my into Manhattan. It was kind-of cool and funny. I actually recognized the names of things from watching "Law & Order" for all of these years. We arrived at The Roosevelt Hotel, and I set about finding my sister. She got out of her meeting and met me in the lobby. We went up to the room and soon after left to visit some shops around our hotel. We looked at some shoes and some very nice leather jackets (on clearance!).

Kiana texted that she was at our hotel, and we met her outside. Then we walked over to Cosi, a little salad/sandwich/coffee place, and had some dinner. It was really nice to catch up with her, since we haven't seen her in at least 5 years. (She looks great, by the way!)

After our short visit, Kiana went home. Lorei and I decided to walk around and explore our surroundings. We went to the Fossil store and then kept walking down 5th Avenue. We really had no specific destination in mind, so we were very happy when we arrived at the New York Public Library. I've always wanted to see those big lions in person. We took some pictures and experimented with being artistic. Then we continued our journey down 5th Avenue.

We soon arrived at Lord & Taylor, which is, I believe, owned by Macy's now. The store is something like 9 stories tall and is HUGE. We looked at shoes and random things, and then I realized that I didn't have a wrap for Friday night. So we decided to take advantage of the major sale that L&T was having and look for something to wear with my nice dress. Score! I found a jacket that was marked down to $140, but when the salesperson scanned it, it came up at $40! :)

We decided to head back to our hotel. After a short stop at the drug store for snacks, we went to The Roosevelt and settled in for the night. I tried to log onto the internet and ran into some issues. After a call to the service desk, I decided to give up for the night. So we were very surprised when someone from the hotel knocked on the door to help us out with the connection. And I was in my pajamas! Good thing I had my flannel pj's on. He never did manage to get it fixed, but he did try for quite a while. "It's OK," I told him. "It's almost time for Top Chef anyway."

(Hope it doesn't take me too long to get to part 2, but don't hold your breath waiting.)

I thought I'd told everyone, but I guess I neglected to tell some of you that I was going on vacation. I haven't had a real vacation in a while, so it was nice to get away. The extended family took a cruise to Alaska. And by extended, I mean--me, Mom, Pop, Auntie Mimah, Lorei, Greg, Greg's mom and dad, and Greg's uncle and aunt. Yup, ten of us in all. It was a good time, although it was disappointing on some levels. I'll tell you more about that later.

On the job front, well, let's just say keep your fingers crossed (and your knees bent). Thanks.

I'm managing to keep rather busy these days, so I guess that's good. At this point, however, all of my busyness is not cost-effective. Pray that that will change soon.

I'll post some pictures and stories of Alaska before the week is out. Really.