Tseas or Saste

We had the missionaries over for dinner on Wednesday, and while we were chatting before dinner, one of the missionaries asked Tess if she knew how to spell her name. It was a bizarre conversation:

Him: Tess, do you know how to spell your name?
Tess: It has an S!
Him: It sure does. Do you know how to spell the whole thing?
Tess: It has an A!
Me: You're right, but do you know how to spell it?
Tess: It has another S!
Me: What else?
Tess: A T!
Me: And...
Tess: E!

I thought it was really strange, but also pretty amazing that she knew all the letters. Although, I'm not entirely sure she does know how to actually spell her name. Here's a picture that had a similar result as the conversation above:



So, I thought, "She's either a mixed-up genius, a smart-aleck or a little dummy." But then I started going through her emails, and found this forwarded message from one of her co-workers that somewhat cleared things up:

Subject: From Cambridge University. Olny srmat poelpe can raed tihs.

I cdnuolt blveiee taht I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd waht I was rdanieg. The phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mnid, aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoatnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be in the rghit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit a porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Amzanig huh? yaeh and I awlyas tghuhot slpeling was ipmorantt! if you can raed tihs psas it on !!"

We srue do lkie our sarmt ltilte Tssea. We mghit eevn lvoe her at tihs piont.

Delicious Frozen Dairy Delight...

Did you see the episode of Modern Family where Manny's friend tells him to put salt in his chocolate milk to make it taste better? Well, Tess wasn't convinced the salt alone would do the trick. So she added pepper to her Frosty...when I wasn't looking. She's a little too fast for me. Guess which of us then had to eat the peppered bite. Tess refused.

How to jump...

From Tessa's self-help sessions: How to jump towards a better you:


I was pretty excited a couple of days ago when I came home from work and Jaime showed me Tessa's new trick. Tess has done this weird one-legged jump/skip thing up to this point. But now she's a pro at jumping. Even teaching lessons!

Also this week, I came home one day and Jaime says to Tess, she says: "Let's show Daddy what you learned today!" I was expecting something like spelling a word or solving a quadratic equation. But then Tess proceeded to roll on the ground--just one roll. Yep. Jaime taught our daughter this week how to roll over. I wasn't weirded out until Jaime gave her a biscuit, patted her on the head and said, "That's a good boy!"

Also this week, we were eating some Ramen noodles. It was a combination of a chicken packet mixed with a spicy one. After taking a couple of bites, Tess says to me, she says: "Mmmmmm Spicy! Yummy yum yum!"
To which I responded: "That's what I like to hear!"
To which she said very matter-of-factly: "I like to hear the birds go tweet, tweet, tweet."

Body Art...

Tess has become obsessed with stickers lately. It's pretty cute, except after seeing the girl in this photo, it made me fear how much she likes body art:



But it's just stickers. So, I said, "No big deal. She's a kid."


And then she got home from her vacation in Virginia. Never again, Virginia. Never again.

What it's like taking pictures of Tess...

You gotta be quick with the camera trigger. It's very hard to get her to pose and look at the camera at the same time. If we're lucky, we get one picture out of 73 where those two factors work out:


The other 72 pictures fall into one of the other categories below. Paying attention to something completely different, but pretending like she is still participating in the photo shoot:


Fed up with the camera's flash and completely ignoring everything but whatever is currently on the TV screen--even if it's just a reflection of herself:


And finally, giving not so subtle hints it's time to pack up the camera and move on:

She thinks she's so sneaky.

Moustache Tuesday...

That's what we call Tuesdays at our house. I think we got these from Kellie for Christmas or my birthday. I love them, and I hope to receive more some day...mainly because my real face can't grow facial hair very well. The right side of my face actually does alright for itself, but the left side of my face forgot to go through puberty. It's weird. But so is your face.

Anyhow, the pictures. Tess was adamant that she also have a moustache, but didn't want her picture taken. She tried on 3, but it was hard to get a picture of her.


Handlebar's are the way to go:


This is Jaime. Hard to tell with the disguise. Moustaches make her angry, but I'll never start shaving more than once a week. Where does it end? If I start shaving my face regularly, then she'll get crazy ideas about me tweezing my eyebrows and shaving my back hair. Disgusting, I know.


I don't really have back hair. At least that I've seen. It's hard to see my back. Doesn't Tess look adorable with a Super Mario style moustache?


We got one picture of us together before Tess finally ruined all the fun. Do I look like a creepy version of my dad?

Professorizing...

So many posts in a one day span. That should cover us for six months or so!

A new quarter just started for me, and I am teaching a class now that a number of my students from last quarter are taking. Apparently, I helped them catch up on their sleep, so they've signed up for this class as well. I actually got along really well with these students, including one student who was very upset with me on the first day of class this quarter. She had had trouble emailing me the written portion of her final project, and I never got it from her. So, her grade could have been in the B range but ended up being in the C range. This is the conversation I had with her about that:

Her: Mr. Alley, I'm very upset with you and your email?
Me: Oh? It wasn't my email's fault. I just never got your paper.
Her: I sent it like six times. I'm so angry with your yahoo account.
Me: I just never got it. I'm really sorr... Wait...What? Yahoo? I don't use a yahoo email account with students
Her: I sent it over and over to jalley at a yahoo account
Me: Nope. That's not me. I only use my school email.
Her: Then who the hell was that?! I was emailing them things all quarter, and they kept responding telling me I'm a good student and "Nice work"!
Me: ***just laughing
Her: Well, I guess I'm not mad at you anymore.

and... Scene___________________________________________

Here's another fun one. I've already told many of you this story. Last quarter I had to sit down with the Dean to go over my student reviews--where my students fill out a scantron rating my performance. Things were going well as we were reading over the comments on the back of the sheets where students can actually write things in. They were saying nice things like: "Mr. Alley made a class I dreaded taking into a good one." or "I loved this class!" Very nice things. And then the Dean comes to one and she can't make out the writing very well, so she reads, "Thanks for keeping your..." And she asks me to finish cause she can't make the rest out. So I start reading it, "Thanks for keeping your...clothes on!"

So, then of course, the Dean is a little concerned about why my students have to thank me for keeping my clothes on. I had to think about it for a minute, and then I remembered that during that quarter there was a professor at another school in the Atlanta area who had gotten naked in front of his class. So, it had been big news and we had even talked about it in class. But then I remembered, I had dug my own grave because while I was passing out the scantrons, I said to the students: "I'm not supposed to bias you in any way while you are filling these out to try and get you to give me good reviews, but just remember I'm not that one professor and I've never gotten naked in class!"

Luckily the Dean had a good laugh about it. And I'm sure she has started a special file on me. But I still have a job!

Anyhow, we're enjoying life in Atlanta and professorizing is the best!