'Date Night'

Yeah, Mark Wahlberg has come a long way since his Marky Mark days. In fact, if there is anyone that the young and cherubic pop icons should try to emulate, it's him. Wrenching your way out of your niche is one thing. Moving from a good, vibrating, spunky underwear model to notable big-screen name -- that takes talent. But these days, that's talent has been squeezed into the serious with no room left for laughs.Until now. Five years after his Huckabees angst, The Hollywood Reporter posts that Wahlberg is signing on to 20th Century Fox's upcoming comedy, Date Night. In fact, this will be his first all-out mainstream comedy, setting aside existential detectives and Middle-East action laughs. Date Night follows a couple who go out for dinner and a movie, and then get mistaken as other people -- that leads to, one would assume, comic moments.As Eric pointed out when the news first hit last year that Steve Carell and Tina Fey joined the project -- it's getting directed by Cheaper by the Dozen helmer Shawn Levy, which doesn't bode well. But the cast certainly does. Fey and Carell are the couple, while Wahlberg will play a black ops man in private security who offers to help them. But there's more. James Franco somehow found time in his schedule to sign on and play a "dim con man," the Oscar-nominated Taraji P. Henson will play a cop who doesn't take things at face value, Common and Jimmi Simpson will play detectives on the take, Leighton Meester will play the couple's babysitter, and Kristen Wiig will play Fey's best friend.Could all of these names have signed on if this was going to be like other Levy features? Maybe he's ready to surprise us.

Who Says Louboutins Aren't Meant for Walking?

Filed under: Shoes, Interviews, Beauty TipsI often have stiletto anxiety -- will I be able to walk like a normal person, if I wear the killer shoes that make the outfit? The answer has always been no, until now. I recently had the pleasure of taking the LEGWORK workout (as seen in ELLE and Allure) and workshop for sexy high heel walking. Created by women's shoe designers Victor Chu and Cece Chin, the workout was designed to strengthen your core muscles (abs and back), sculpt and tone your legs from hip to toe, and to teach you how the experts strut their stuff in stilettos. It's an hour of training for runway-worthy high heel walking and it's a real self-esteem booster.

DC Practitioner Teacher Program

Operations Manager – District of Columbia Practitioner Teacher Program Washington, DC The New Teacher Project (TNTP) is a national nonprofit dedicated to closing the achievement gap by ensuring that high-need students get outstanding teachers. Founded by teachers in 1997, TNTP partners with school districts and states to implement scalable responses to their most acute teacher quality challenges. TNTP recruits and trains thousands of exceptional new teachers annually, supports school principals in staffing their classrooms, provides teacher certification in high-need subjects, and documents the policy barriers that keep students from getting the teachers they need. Since its inception, TNTP has trained or hired approximately 33,000 teachers, benefiting an estimated 4.8 million students nationwide. It has established more than 70 programs and initiatives in 28 states and published three seminal studies on urban teacher hiring and school staffing. We are currently seeking an Operations Manager to support a new initiative to professionally develop and certify high quality teachers in classrooms in Washington, DC. The Operations Manager will be a TNTP employee based in the DC district office. This position is available immediately. The Program In order to facilitate the entry of the most qualified teaching candidates for hard-to-staff positions and to create an expedited plan for their certification, the New Teacher Project has partnered with District of Columbia Public Schools (DCPS) to establish an alternative certification program called the District of Columbia Practitioner Teacher Program (DCPTP). After an intensive hiring process and rigorous summer training institute, participants will enter full-time teaching positions in hard-to-staff schools throughout DC in fall 2009. Practitioner teachers will teach under DC’s Regular I license while participating in the Teaching for Results Content Seminar Series. Teaching for Results develops a teacher’s knowledge and ability to teach specific content while supporting a standards-based planning approach as a means to significantly raise student achievement levels within DCPS. Teaching for Results is an innovative teacher training curriculum developed by The New Teacher Project to explicitly focus on teaching in high-need schools and subject areas. As a result of their successful completion of all DCPTP requirements, participants are eligible for DC’s Regular II certification at the end of their first year of teaching. Role and Responsibilities The Operations Manager is responsible for the success of the DCPTP teacher certification program logistics and operations. The Operations Manager will coordinate key functions within the program in DC to ensure high program quality and customer service. Specifically, the Operations Manager is responsible for: • Providing support to the Site Manager and Partner who work directly with the main client contact • Developing strong working relationships with district and school-based staff, and other internal or external stakeholders • Coordinating the operations related to the planning and execution of the Content Seminar Series for new teachers • Managing administrative processes that apply to teachers including, but not limited to, enrollment in the DCPTP, DCPTP tuition payments, and attendance at Content Seminars • Maintaining and improving upon the processes and technology used to facilitate applicant admissions and tracking • Fielding routine and high-level inquiries from teachers (phone, email, walk-in) • Communicating directly with teachers regarding program updates and requirements through email, large mailings, and newsletters • Assisting in processing program and district paperwork • Maintaining accurate teacher and Content Seminar Leader files and records (both paper and electronic) • Assisting in the coordination of training events • Generating memos, reports, and other analysis on the status of various initiatives The Operations Manager will report to the Site Manager of the DC Practitioner Teacher Program. This position offers the successful candidate the opportunity to have a profound impact on how new teachers are prepared DC Public Schools.

It's been so long since I've posted that...

I have actually forgotten that I have changed the look of my blog. Man..life is super crazy busy at work and my days are just flying by. Yesterday the school secretary was away at a course, which meant that I had to cover my position as well as hers and man it was CRAZY!!! I had my first bite of lunch at 2:00 pm and then the kids came into the office just after 3 pm and next thing you know they pillaged through the rest of my lunch sack and that was it for me...a sandwich. Oh well...BIG NEWS....Susan is NOT a morning person. I have adjusted quite nicely to getting up at 5:45am to get ready and leave the house at 6:30am for work, but getting up at 4am so I can work out before is just plain NUTS, so after weeks of trying this out and failing I have decided that I am not even going to waste my time and attempt getting up early. This is usually how it goes down...alarm goes of and I tell Trevor that I slept like crap and I will do my exercise in the evening and then I end up going to back to sleep till 5:45am and I do my workout in the evening. So the question is why do I even attempt to get up early...why don't I just face the fact that I am not a "morning" person and save the workouts for the evening. This is it....Susan is now an evening exerciser. Some days mornings will still be the only time available, but once in awhile it'll be okay...I will survive.My Goodness...my goodness...the children seem to think that the Easter Bunny is going to set up some huge Eater Egg Hunt, but the "Easter Bunny" has yet to buy any treats never mind plan a good egg hunt...any ideas for some fun Easter Egg hunts???? I really want to make it fun for them. I don't think they have too many years of Easter Egg hunts.Well....off to watch the rest of Biggest Loser and then bed time. Tomorrow I have a final in Applied Movement Mechanics. Not too stressed about it because if everything goes wrong tomorrow and I end up with 0% on the final then I will still pass the course...yeah...I am so busy at work that part of me doesn't even want to go and write it, but that would be wrong...Okay...Susan is off to bed....

Difficulty finding research

So I am currently a PGY-1 and I really want to do a fellowship in GI. I've been trying all year to get involved with research and I am having absolutely no luck. I've contacted practically every attending and even some fellows in the department and I either get no response to the email or sent on wild goose chases. At one point I was given a database and a little bit of guidance and I was really excited, but that turned out to be yet another false start. I'm really starting to get frustrated and get down on myself. I wasted a bunch of my "easy" months during intern year chasing these false hopes. I really want to do GI and would preferably like to get a spot right out of residency. I don't understand why I am having such a difficult time finding research. I am an american med grad. I am at a tier 2 academic university IM program. I have average to slightly above average Step 1 and 2 scores. Did anyone else experience such a difficult time finding research? Any recommendations on what I can do differently? Is it even worthwhile applying next year if I don't have anything published? If I do apply next year and get shot down like I expect, does that hurt my chances of reapplying in the future? If I can't get any published, what are some other things I can do to strengthen my candidacy? What are some things people did that didn't match right out of residency, but matched a year or two later? Thanks. I appreciate any help

Busy weekend

Where to start about our weekend? Saturday morning the family and I met 14 other neighbors to pick up trash all around the neighborhood. We collected over a dozen trash bags of litter and cleaned out creeks that feed eventually into the Neuse river. I got doughnuts and coffee for participants and vests and tools loaned from the city. It was a great turnout and a great way to make an immediate difference in our neighborhood. I’m happy to say that we did not have nearly as much trash as last time. I don’t know if that’s because the last trash clean-up kept recurring trash from collecting, or if the recent non-stop rain simply washed it all downstream. I’m thinking the rain just cleaned things out for us. Ah well. After Saturday’s work, we chilled watching videos for a while. The kids flew kites for a while and planted flowers. I mowed the lawn for the first time of the season and spent some time shoveling mulch into our expanded garden area. We ate out on the back porch for what was a pleasant evening. This morning we had a fun breakfast. I continued shoveling mulch while waiting for the family to get ready for a greenway bike ride. We took the kid son the Trail-A-Bikes for the first time in months and rode Raleigh’s greenways all the way to the western Beltline and back. Being out of practice for this (and hauling kids who are ever-increasing in their weight) make this ride a bit tougher than any of us anticipated. Still, for the first ride of the season it was a success. Another video later, I got some help shoveling the last of the mulch into the backyard. Lily, our 4 year old neighbor, came over to help the kids draw with sidewalk chalk. Then the three of them helped me complete the mulch job, pointing out all the worms in the pile. Not long afterward, two other kids from down the block arrived and they all were playing happily in our backyard. It was a wonderful sight, reminding Kelly and me of our former neighborhood. At suppertime, we said goodbye to our guests and ate a tasty meal on our pollen-covered screened porch. Kelly and I finished our taxes after the kids went to bed and now we’re headed that way, too. I’ve got a fun week of work ahead of me before Kelly and the kids head up to Virginia for a few days.

Made of Plastic

When you were little did you ever wonder if your toys came alive at night? I did. I was convinced that my American girl doll's arm was not in that position when I left her there the night before, as well as that my tea set had been used...if toys and dolls did come alive at night, this is what kind of music they would make:1. Good Morning Scarecrow - Seabear2. Be Gentle With Me – The Boy Least Likely To3. About Fun - Psapp4. Terrible Angels - CocoRosie5. Do the Whirlwind – Architecture in Helsinki6. New Rubbers - Psapp7. Vampire – Antsy Pants8. Butterscotch - CocoRosie9. Apple Block - Psapp10. Barbie Girl – Aqua

Dravid breaks world catch record

Indian cricketer and former captain Rahul Dravid has broken the world record for the number of catches in Test matches by an outfielder.

Player to make final Augusta bow

Three-time champion Gary Player says he will play his 52nd and final Masters tournament this week.

The 73-year-old South African won the coveted Green Jacket in 1961, 1974 and 1978, but will now retire from all four of golf's major tournaments.

Italian rescuers work into night

Floodlights are aiding rescuers sifting rubble for signs of life after the devastating Italian earthquake, while thousands face a night in shelters.

At least 150 people are dead, dozens missing, 1,500 injured and some 50,000 homeless after the pre-dawn quake struck L'Aquila and its region.