Male and female Drosophila, uploaded by amybaeder.

…up close and personal and under a microscope. This is the only way that I like fruit flies–in the context of studying biology and not in my home. I took this through a microscope with my Blackberry Pearl phone camera. So it’s blurry, yeah, but I’m just glad it worked!

Today I took out our compost and was able to sex a fruitfly when it landed on a blackberry bush. It was a female. Ah, yeah!

Fruit Fly Testes, uploaded by amybaeder.

…over the strangest things. I took this picture at the AP Bio conference I just went to this week. There are more photos of fruit flies on my Flickr page. Check ‘em out!

Whenever I don’t blog for a while, I end up with Monster Posts (TM), so I will try to make my update brief, yet entertaining.

So, first things first. I will go in backwards chronological order, starting with right now. I am sweaty and I just ate a banana after our soccer game tonight. I did NOT get hit in the face this week, and I did play hard defense (especially against the guys in the blue and orange socks), but we did not win. Phooey.

This week I’ve gone to an amazing AP Biology workshop where I get to do fun labs all day, get free lunch, breakfast, and 2 snacks, plus all the coffee I can drink **twitch**. I came home today with Nasonia, a tiny wasp with apparently a lab advantage over using fruit flies in genetics activities. We got to make them mate and lay their eggs in flesh fly pupae. I brought some home for future use, as they can be stored in the refrigerator until needed. We also looked at stomata, made respirometers to find out how much water plants lose under different conditions, and ran DNA through gels (like in college!). Oh, the thrill of being a science teacher! I can’t wait for tomorrow–our last day–as I hope to get a plan for how I can implement what we have learned.

I am NOT looking forward to the Friday afternoon traffic, though. I’ve been driving to and from Bellevue each day, and I’ve gone a different route each time, as the commute involves going on I-90, 405, and 520 *shudder*. It’s notoriously bad anytime, but Friday is going to be horrendous.

I don’t have anything planned for tomorrow night, but I hope to do something fun. Last night I fell asleep by 8 p.m. and the night before that, I went to a Chekhov play (Uncle Vanya) with Justin at the Intiman theater. I must say I enjoyed it–it contained elements of both a comedy and a tragedy–and it made me glad that I have the life that I do, which is always good.

Sunday and Monday night we spent on the road to and from Spokane for Justin’s principal conference. We had wonderful weather and a pretty good time in Spokane. He had almost 50 interested participants in his seminar on productivity for school administrators, so that made our trip worth it. We got back super late Monday night/Tuesday morning, which probably contributed to my sleeping so early last night.

Speaking of sleeping…it’s about that time. Oh, and if you see little blog blurbs come up, it’s because I joined twitter, this crazy service that lets you blog from your phone or a computer more often about even more mundane aspects of life in even less detail. Sweet!

…and we’re off again, this time to Spokane. Nothing too exciting. Justin’s got a workshop presentation he’s doing at a Principal’s conference. Tuesday thru Friday I’ll be doing an AP Biology workshop, and then I start working again!

Perks of going to Spokane with Justin:
Our hotel has a hot tub, 2 pools, and a fitness room, and it’s right by the river
I plan to indulging in one of many books I’m going to read this summer
Time for summer curriculum planning while he’s at workshops for principals

(In case I didn’t say, I’ll be teaching environmental science to Upward Bound students at South Seattle Community College for 5 weeks this summer–it’s a pretty sweet part time job!)

Here’s a brain blurb of what I’ve been doing lately:
Got a new phone…Red Blackberry Pearl.. yummy sweet technology goodness
Awards Ceremony for 9th-11th graders Wednesday night
Packed my whole classroom and stayed ’til 7p.m. Thursday working on it
Got my grades finished early Friday
Played soccer and got hit in the face and my collarbone
Went to our staff party Friday night
Stopped by Justin’s school’s lock-in and watched Night at the Museum with 4th graders
Went for a walk with my hubby and saw a sign with the realtor’s name “Anita Hearl”–hilarious!

Well, it’s time to go to Spokane. I just wanted to update people on what I’ve been up to before I forget.

It’s been a rather cool and drizzly weekend even though the end of the school year is quickly approaching. We have only 5 days of school left, but a stressful 5 days it will be! This is mainly because tomorrow is graduation and rehearsal, which is hectic as I have to make sure the show runs smoothly. This year I created documents with directions. It took me all afternoon, but it will be worth it.
Also, I’ve spent part of the afternoon working with a student who is trying to graduate and has resubmitted his paper about three times today. Sheesh. The other factors that make this a hectic week are that we’re going on a field trip Tuesday, and finals are Thursday and Friday. I have to be packed and checked out, with all grades done, by Friday afternoon. As you can tell, I’m a bit concerned about this.

In other news, I may be running in a 24-hour relay with a team in late July. It will be a bit pricey, but I may decide to go ahead with it for the adventure. Plus, I’ll have something to start training for when I run again this summer.

Lastly, I just bought tickets for my cousin’s wedding back in Arkansas. I’ll be there July 11-15, although I leave and arrive at ungodly hours.

Well, gotta go grade. I’ve been putting it off all weekend.

We just got back from our trip to Camano Island. What a relaxing weekend it was! I didn’t get much work done, so in many regards it was a retreat. I had a great time, but I left feeling guilty about what I didn’t do as far as paper grading. Aaron rented a beach house from a coworker, and Elaine, Jesse, Raleigh, Daniel, Aaron, Andrea, Asher, Justin, and I were there for the weekend. The “cottage” is 2 bedrooms/2 baths/2 stories and it’s right on the beach. We got there Friday night and mainly stayed inside for the whole weekend, as there is a lot of living space and the weather was unpredictable (mainly rainy and cool). That was fine, though, because we played ping-pong, watched Shallow Hal and Lemony Snicket, played Wii games, had a late-night poker game, talked, beach-combed, kayaked, ate A LOT, and just had a great time. I finished reading The Good Husband of Zebra Drive, which was one of my personal solitude treats. I ate some of Theo Chocolate’s Bread and Chocolate bars and drank my miracle red tea while finishing the book. This is one of my favorite things to do–drink hot beverages and eat chocolate while reading a book with a nice view nearby. Bonus points if it’s raining or if there are friends or family sitting quietly by, doing their own thing.

By the way, I call it miracle red tea because I kept whining about not having brought my own rooibos tea, and I asked Justin to find some while he went to the store Friday night, but since we were in a rather rural area, there was none. I whined some more the next day about my lack of red tea, and decided to make some of the Celestial Seasonings tea that a previous guest left behind. Upon opening the box, lo and behold, I found a solitary packet of red tea flavored with vanilla! I really appreciated the tea, savoring every sip.

Now I must work. Monday morning calls my name. I only have two more Mondays of teaching this year–and the last one doesn’t count since I’ll have a sub while I help with graduation rehearsal.

So…we’re about to leave for a weekend trip to Camano Island (which is really a peninsula). The weather is great now, but it’s supposed to rain all weekend. It’s OK ’cause we have friends going and we’re apparently taking the Wii, movies, board games, and other assorted awesomeness. I have to grade papers, but I can squeeze that in here and there.

Photos and updates when we get back.

Justin and I just got back from a rockin’ Brandi Carlile concert at the Moore Theater. Wow. Just wow. We had practically front row seats for this, but we were anticipating “limited view” seats behind a post or something.

Here are some highlights or interesting bits from the show:
The opening act, Cary Brothers, performed the song “Blue Eyes” from the Garden State Soundtrack.
The band doesn’t wear shoes.
Her two guitarists are twin brothers.
The drummer is from around here, so he joins in when she comes back to Seattle.
Today was her birthday and the audience sang to her!
We got to join in when they sang “Turpentine.”
She ROCKED on “The Story” like I knew she would.
At one point, a light saber was on stage. As Brandi said, it was a real one.
They sang un-mic’d on one of the songs, capitalizing on the acoustics of the theater.
She covered Radiohead’s “Creep” AND Johnny Cash’s “Folsom Prison Blues.” SWEET!
Her sister joined in on a song with the lyrics “calling all angels”…but not the one you’re thinking of.
She ended with “Hallelujah,” beautifully transitioning from her trademark raspy style to ethereal high notes.

I’d love to hear more of her music. I think being on Grey’s Anatomy (not to mention helped with the publicity of her music, most definitely, and the fact that she worked with T-Bone Burnett on her latest album makes me glad that it’s already part of my i-Tunes collection.