"Call You Up On The Telephone"

So the iPhone comes out today. I have to admit, I'd really like to be able to buy one (so would Michelle), but it just ain't gonna happen. For one thing, I don't have the time or patience to stand in line all day for the chance of maybe getting one. For another thing, it's damned expensive. Seriously, $400 or so dollars is a lot of money to shell out. And who gets one first, me or Michelle (the answer, actually, is Michelle. The deal was she would get an iPhone, I would get a guitar. Dunno if either is gonna happen for awhile, though)?

The other thing to consider, of course, is that this is just the first generation of the iPhone. It'll have bugs and kinks to work out. I figure it's like the iPod: I went several iterations without one, so I can probably last awhile before getting an iPhone as well. Second generation at the earliest, I think. Get all the potential issues with the touch screen worked out, maybe a bit of a price drop, things like that. And my phone--despite its aquatic adventures a couple months back--seems to be doing okay. It'll hold a charge, though it usually holds it in the one-to-two-bars-left region rather than the three-to-four-bars. Such is life.

This is the last non-weekend day of my two-week vacation. Summer school starts on Monday. On the one hand, I'm excited, 'cause summer school is fun and it'll be great to have that pulling in extra money this summer instead of it being my only source of income (I'm lookin' at you, last summer!). An extra $3000 for six weeks of fairly easy work is not a bad deal. Granted, I'm a little concerned with the student list we've got for this summer. Lots of difficult-to-work-with kids, often lumped into the same class. And so many of them are signed up for all six weeks! It's like someone has it in for me or something.

I've got a lot accomplished this past week. The apartment's in pretty good shape: I got the spare room finished up yesterday and all of the clean clothes put away, the downstairs is in a fairly decent state of repair, etc. I haven't finished as much on some personal projects as I'd wanted, but I still have the rest of today to work on stuff (and to mail out mom's birthday present so it gets there by Tuesday. Crap, I always forget something!).

Anyway, guess I can't really complain about the two weeks off. Most jobs don't have as many breaks as teaching does. When you think about it, I get more than a month's worth of paid vacation every year: a week and a half at Christmas/New Years, a week in the Spring, two weeks now and two more after summer school, and various three-day weekends scattered throughout the year. It's a pretty sweet deal, though I still don't think we receive the pay our job deserves (seriously, some of our teachers are at school until 10:00 every night working on crap for students so they can succeed in life. That's dedication and often thankless).

~chuck

Song of the Moment: Kings of Leon, "Holy Roller Novocaine"