I won citizen of the month again! No, not really. But I did manage to win this recognition of excellence award for my score on a recent teaching exam I took (Principles of Learning and Teaching: Grades 7-12). I didn’t even know they had such a thing, so it was very nice surprise. Apparently the top 15% of test takes get the award. Hopefully it will help me get a teaching job if I decide to go that direction.

I’ve recently received two honors. This is the first one, in the pages of Autosport magazine, which you’ve probably never heard of. It’s a British magazine about, obviously enough, auto racing and particularly F1. There is a companion website (autosport.com) the I have frequented regularly for quite a while now, way back to before Autosport bought the site formerly known as AtlasF1. After the recent Honda pullout disaster, I wrote quite a few posts and the editors at the magazine decided to use a snippet of one of them in a print issue. Here’s the thing though... I don’t recall using “I reckon...” though it is possible that I did. Or, just maybe, the editors checked my location and saw that I was American and figured I was some NASCAR hick and used it to paraphrase. So read it again, but this time with a drawl and then I’ll meet y’all tonight at the ho-down!

Everyone knows that Jazzy loves the snow, like most dogs. But what you may not know is that she loves to climb. Whenever I make a snow mountain (in this case with the help of the driveway plowers) she doesn’t even need to be lured up with a ball or frisbee. A mere “Jasmine, look!” while pointing at it and she quickly scales it with ease. You can’t really tell, but the mountain is actually quite icy and slippery, which of course seems to pose no additional challenge whatsoever for her.

Last year I ran a post about my tie rack, and this is the Jazzy equivalent. Today I hand-washed her collars and hung them up on my bicycle to dry (the true purpose of all exercise equipment). As you can see, she has quite a collection, and this isn’t even all of them. She’s a stylish pup and since she can’t wear shoes she has to have plenty of options for her neck.

Okay, now I’m just gutted. Honda is about to announce that they are pulling out of F1 effective the end of the year. I can’t believe it. I suffered through a season where they spent the whole time working on next year’s car and now there is no next year.