Current mood:

cheerful

Borrowing My Sister's Fashion Sense
I'm writing from Boston, where I'm visiting my sister for the weekend. I took the Greyhound bus down on Friday, which was 8 hours long- not much fun, but since I'm not working much right now I thought that I should save $40. It wouldn't have been nearly as bad if I had saved the rest of Harry Potter #6 for the bus ride- but alas, I had stayed up the night before finishing it. As a result, I was not only tired during the long bus ride but also very sad and upset about the ending. And we have to wait for #7 to get any more closure!

Yesterday my sister worked during the day, so I took her dog on a long walk to the Arnold Arboretum in Jamaica Plain. It was a beautiful day, but Griffin was quite exhausted by the end. I think I should have packed a water bowl . . . He survived, though, and seemed eager for another walk a few hours after we got home.

Today, my sister and I went shoe shopping. A couple of the high school students where I student taught informed me (without solicitation) that my shoes are quite unstylish, which is probably true. Perhaps I shouldn't care about what high school students think, but my sister also agreed with their conclusion. I needed new shoes anyway, so we went to DSW, the big shoe discount warehouse near Downtown Crossing. I realized there that I really don't have any fashion sense, especially not with shoes. Most of the shoes that I suggested, she informed me, are quite unstylish. I also discovered that my ideal shoe does not really exist. My ideal shoe would be:
1) Stylish
2) Comfortable to walk long distances
3) Matches most outfits and colors
4) Professional enough to wear for a teaching observation
5) Affordable (not necessarily cheap, if it matched the other four criteria)

So my sister helped me compromise on shoes that are "comfortable enough" and "stylish enough" and "affordable enough." I got the impression from the especially stylish shoes that to be super styling a woman has to have a different pair of shoes to match every outfit. Do people actually do this? Perhaps the way I feel trying to buy shoes is how my learning disabled students feel trying to write an essay . . .

Overall, it's been a fun trip, and I get to take the plane home tomorrow because the one-way Greyhound was a compromise between cheap and quick. I need to enjoy my days of not working much while I can, because New Teacher Orientation begins August 12!