Huntington Museum of Art

I’m a big believer in being a tourist in your own city. When I visit my family, I always try to do this in my hometown area. During this visit, I was determined to finally make it to the Huntington Museum of Art. My mom and sister volunteered to go with me.

The Huntington Museum of Art just celebrated its 60th anniversary in November. Located in Huntington, West Virginia, the HMOA is the largest museum in WV. It’s open every day of the week but Monday. Admission is only $5, and on Tuesdays it’s free. Luckily, we accidentally went on a Tuesday!

Some of the exhibits we saw were antique firearms, glassware, Near Eastern art and rugs, and American and European paintings, sketches, and sculptures. My favorite was the Near Eastern collection full of beautiful items from the Arabic world.

 The conservatory also had a piece by Dale Chihuly. I’ve always seen photos of his work but had never had the chance to see it with my own eyes.

Not only does the HMOA display artwork, but it also has a conservatory filled with so many rare plants and even a few animals.

A pomegranate tree from Iran. 

I’m glad I went, and I definitely recommend going if you’re around the Huntington area. Be a tourist in your city!

Miss Fugett is an Angel

I can’t get a break in the cafeteria at school. A student is either asking me what they got on the test that they just finished taking 5 minutes before lunch, or they’re trying to put the moves on me. Most recently, it was the latter.

I walked by a table of basketball players, many of whom were in my college composition classes in recently. As I walked to the salad bar, I patted one student, A, on the shoulder and said a general hello to the table. A jumped approximately 10 feet in the air when I touched him. Another student, J, wasted no time.

“Hey. Miss Fugett, you know why A jumped when you patted his shoulder?”

“Uh, no J. I don’t know,” I said a bit confused.

J then went on to say, “It’s because A never had an angel touch him before!”

Seriously?

A jumps in- “Uh, yeah Miss Fugett. Yeah! I never had no angel near me.”

I look at them both and they have the biggest, cheesiest grins on their faces. (I don’t even know what their teammates thought at this point…) And I said, “Guys! You don’t even have me for class anymore. There’s no opportunity for bonus points.” and continued on my way to the salad bar.

Sometimes I wonder about college boys. And apparently sometimes they wonder about me as well!

My First Instawalk

I went on my first Instawalk today. An Instawalk is when you walk a neighborhood with the purpose of taking some good shots to Instagram. Armed with my iPhone and the company of my sister and brother in law, I think I made out with a few good shots. Who knew my small, Ohio hometown could look interesting?!

Goodbyes Are, In Fact, Not “Good”

Saying goodbye is hard. It doesn’t matter how many times in our lives we do it; we simply don’t get good at it. Saying goodbye is especially difficult when you’re not sure if you’ll ever see the person again. It seems like those are always the types of goodbyes I’m saying.

I started thinking about this because, as a faculty member, I have to participate in graduation each May. I have to sit on the stage in my cap and gown and watch each graduate cross the stage and receive their diploma. I’m such a sap, that when a student that I’ve grown close to over the years makes their way across the stage, I have to hold back a few stray tears. That’s just how I am. I’m always thinking annoying thoughts like, “What if this is the last time I see her…ever!?”

My hardest part about leaving China to move back to the US was the thought that I was leaving SO many people that I just knew I’d never see again. And here I am again in a situation like that. Students graduate and are out of my life forever. Some students transfer, and I don’t even realize they aren’t coming back, so I don’t even get to say goodbye.

And sometimes we need to voluntarily tell people goodbye permanently. Sometimes we find ourself in a toxic friendship or relationship, and we must make the decision to tell that person goodbye for good. I find this to be the most difficult goodbye. A graduation or a move situationally forces us to say goodbye, but this is all up to us. It’s hard and usually painful. But, we usually end up being better for it, happier for it, in the end. Time makes us forget people, or just remember them a bit less. And sometimes that’s a helpful thing. A good thing. Goodbye.

The Paris of China

So, I’ve been slacking on my blogging. My excuse is that I’ve been to China and back. Likely excuse. That’s what everyone says, right? Well, I have lots to say about my trip, so you have lots of posts to look forward to!

I went to China for a teaching program that I work for. Every summer I help train new teachers to go to China, and then the following spring, I visit them in China. It’s nice because I also get a chance to visit my Chinese friends from when I lived in China several years ago.

I got to visit my friend Derek’s hometown of Haining. Haining is in Zhejiang province in the east. It’s a really small city, and I’ve been there several times. However, this time Derek surprised me by taking me to the French area of town. I had no idea it even had a French area. It was more than I imagined! They have a stinkin’ Eiffel Tower! A life-sized one!

We also got to walk around the french gardens. They were really beautiful! And I even found some Chinglish, which I always love.

I’ve never had the chance to go to Paris, but apparently this looks pretty similar. I hope I get to compare it one day! Looking at these photos, you would never guess that I was in China, huh?

I Will Not Look at Your Online Dating Profile If….

So, if I were to ever look at an online dating site, which I’m not saying I have, these are some guys I would not check out. IF I checked out online dating. *Cough. Cough* Maybe, perhaps, it could be that these are real life examples I’ve seen. I mean, my friend saw when she was online. Yeah…my friend.

1) Your main photo is of you and a deer carcass. (Remember, I live in West Virginia.)

2) Your main photo is you in the bathroom mirror. (You don’t have one friend that could take a picture for you?!)

3) Your username is Mr. Giggles

4)You admit that your photos are all more than 2 years old.

5)Your username is Lonely Guy. (Desperate much?)

6) You have a face tattoo. (Apparently you don’t have a job.)

7) You dont use apostrophes in your bio. Youre better than that.

8) You are wearing jorts in one of your profile pictures. (If you don’t know what jorts are, you need to Google that junk. Now. You might be a violator too!)

9) The first line of your info says, “I still live with my parents…”

10) You call yourself a tool in your profile.

Well, that was a waste of 30 minutes. I mean, my friend’s 30 minutes…

Do you have any that you would add?

Why I Despise the Commuters’ Lounge

I can’t decide if hate, loathe, despise, or vehemently dislike best describes how I feel about the new commuters’ lounge that has so graciously been placed across from my office at work. What I do know, is that every single day something about it drives me a little more insane than I already am. Here is the ever-growing list of reasons why I hate it.

1) It has a clear glass door.

-I always feel like the students in there are spying on me. Even if they aren’t spying on me, they are at least staring at me and some of them very creepily so. One time, a student even pressed his face against the glass and made a face at me. Stop. It. Now.

2) My office always smells like ravioli.

- They heat up their lunches in the microwave, and the smell always wafts into my office. The mix of about 10 meals creates quite the stench. Every other person that walks into my office asks me why it smells like pasta. Doh.

3) The room is not soundproof.

- When there are a lot of people in there, they are so loud that I can’t concentrate to work. The strangest thing though was last week when I sneezed, someone in the commuter lounge blessed me through the closed door. That’s just not right.

4) I can hear you in the hallway too.

- People step out of the lounge to take phone calls so that their peers don’t hear their phone conversations. Well, the problem with that is that they are right outside my office talking on the phone. I don’t want to hear you fight with your boyfriend. I don’t want to listen to you describe your ailments to your doctor. Stay in that room and yak.

5) The sign’s not even spelled right.

- The sign on the door says commuter’s lounge. Is it just for one commuter? Oh how I wish! You could have asked me. I’m an English teacher! Plural possessive=s’. COMMUTERS’. My boss stopped by the other day, and we chatted about that mistake for about 10 minutes. Only English teachers would do that. So, now I have to stare at that erroneous word every dang day. Who should I report that too?

I better stop at 5, because I’m starting to get angry on a Sunday night. I’ll wait until tomorrow morning when I’m across the hall from “that which shall not be named” to get annoyed. If you walk by my office and see me banging my head repeatedly on my desk, you now know why.

Update: A sign of rules was just posted today. The rules are so strange, so you can understand how strangely they act in this lounge! The parenthetical after the PDA rule and the shoe rule are my favorites.

We Are Sinking

This is probably my favorite commercial of all time. It shows us that languages and accents can be quite the barrier. Hahaha. Enjoy!

 

College Souvenirs

College. Oh, college. It’s a special time in life. Friends are made, habits are formed, and sometimes you pick up a thing or two. One is hopefully a degree. But, sometimes you pick up something you weren’t quite expecting….like a disease. Yes. I admit it. Shamefully, I contracted a disease in college. It’s called boxfanitus. Perhaps you’ve heard of it.

I lived in the dorms, which are often quite loud. I bought a box fan to drown out my noisy roommate. And the neighbors. And the girl on the basketball team who lived above me and insisted on dribbling her basketball. Incessantly. The fan worked really well to help me fall asleep peacefully.

However, it also created an addiction, a sickness, a disease. 10 years later, I still use a fan to sleep. In fact, I can’t sleep without a fan buzzing in the background. I wear out fans, because I run them all night, every night.

This also creates a problem when traveling. Most normal people don’t have boxfanitus, so they don’t offer you the droning noise of a fan to help lull you to sleep. A hotel usually doesn’t come equipped with a fan. What’s a girl to do?! Praise the good Lord in heaven that there are now sound machine apps that can recreate that soothing fan noise! My iPhone has been my savior many a trip now.

I wish I could kick this habit, get rid of this disease. Are there recovery groups for this? I’d imagine not. A pill you can take? Oh well. I guess I’m stuck with boxfanitus for life.

Finish Each Day And Be Done With It

I had a bad day yesterday. Not just a normal Monday, but a tears-streaming-down-your-face kind of Monday.

Photo from weknowmemes.com

I don’t know what my deal was, but I was glad to just be able to go to sleep and start fresh today. And today I actually had a really great day, a much happier day. Ralph Waldo Emerson has a poem that reminds me how to get through a no good rotten day.

“Write it on your heart
that every day is the best day in the year.
He is rich who owns the day, and no one owns the day
who allows it to be invaded with fret and anxiety.

Finish every day and be done with it.
You have done what you could.
Some blunders and absurdities, no doubt crept in.
Forget them as soon as you can, tomorrow is a new day;
begin it well and serenely, with too high a spirit
to be cumbered with your old nonsense.

This new day is too dear,
with its hopes and invitations,
to waste a moment on the yesterdays.”

― Ralph Waldo Emerson, Collected Poems and Translations

Emerson confessed to be an optimist,and I need a good dose of optimism sometimes. I need to remind myself that I’m not having a bad week or a bad year, just a bad day. Each day is new and fresh. I think my favorite line is “Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could.” So, on that note, I’m going to bed.  :]