teacher work day

today i got to wear jeans to school!! how exciting! the teachers wear jeans all the time at the school i'm student teaching in, but i'm not allowed since i need to be extra professional and all. it's odd to me how a lot of schools around here are like that. maybe it was a southern thing that the teachers never ever wore jeans in my high school. i took a lunch break to olive garden, had cake for motzart's birthday and have a game plan for my poetry unit. it's all mapped out day by day and i have my ideas/resources for each of those days. now all i have to do is write up the formal lesson plans. woo! i'm really looking forward to this unit. i've learned so much about poetry doing the research and i'm getting a little crazy with the ideas. one day we will be doing odes to everyday objects. i'm pumped for that one because i'm making the room into the "museum de ordinare" and there will be five objects on display they can write an ode to. i'm gonna make a collection "book", dress up, play classical music. i'm goin all out! we're also going to do riddles and epitaphs, have a poet of the day, and keep a class list of "musical words". it's oh so much in only eleven days! this weekend i will be working on it some more, but i'm so thankful for a teacher work day. gotta love 'em.

fun filled friday

i feel like i'm getting old. last night when nick asked what i wanted to do i decided i just wanted to be home. we ended up playing scrabble and listening to old christian music. we put in the 1996 WOW cd (for those of you who grew up listening to christain music) and were laughing at songs we remember "rocking out" to. they were not hard at all. then when a petra song came on we had a little moment remembering the "good ol' petra". come to find out nick had one of their cds from 1979!!! ( i did not realize they were that old!) he dug that out along with like 5 other cds of theirs and we flipped through the songs listening to them as they evolved. talk about an exciting night! haha. today is planning for my poetry unit, working on a correspondence class, and cleaning the house. i'm not looking forward to it all that much. when did my life become so bland and boring? last weekend i pulled out my picture boxes which go back to middle school. i was always with a big group of people, being goofy and dressing up a lot actually :) what happend to that? is it because i'm in a different stage of my life now that a few close friends is what i need instead of a big group to just be loud and obnoxious with? or have i pushed people away and become a hermit? honestly sometimes i feel better being alone. but then later i complain that i have no friends to do things with. i'm not sure what it is, but i'd like to be fun again.

three day weekend

i have truely enjoyed my three day weekend. last weekend was really only one day since i took my praxis tests which started early in the morning. this time i slept until my body was ready to get up. even if that was 7am! i spent time with nick, read a bit in a novel i may be teaching when i am full time in the classroom in a few weeks, read magazines, and caught up on the latest with megan during our favorite show. today i went to a coffee shop with dawn and tanya and we got a lot done for student teaching. they were able to look ahead at curriculum and plan some things out while i searched for ideas on what to teach when i'm alone with my kids. i'm considering a poetry unit. it fits well after we talk about figurative language next week. it's a little scary though because i feel like i know nothing about poetry. i'm also not confident in my own poetry writing. it would be a good deal of work for me, but it can be done. not to mention it would be a growing experience for me. tonight i'll type up a few things i need for the week and get organized for the next few days. i'm not teaching my own lesson until thursday so i have some time to prepare more. the other days i'll just model what mrs. norris does.

Friday the 13th and Kings

they say kids act funny on a full moon - throw in a friday the 13th, a sub and student teacher and you've got yourself a heck of a combination! ok ok, it wasn't that bad. the kids were just extra chatty today. honestly, at this school that's the biggest problem. but for me chattiness is a big deal. don't be disrepectful to me or your classmates! come on! the second week went well. i did a lot of teaching alone in the room. my teacher would do the first two classes and then i would do what she did in the afternoon. sometimes she was there. sometimes she wasn't. i like it that way because i feel like i'm learning more being thrown in there. i also made my first bulletin board. it's on formal letters. i'll take a picture and post it i'm sure. OH! on a totally different note... last night nick suprised me by taking me to red lobster. now we don't normally go there and i rarely get to feed my seafood craving so i was pumped. i knew i wanted crab legs because i love them and if we're doing red lobster, why not go all out? well i ordered the king crab legs after reading the description that they were the "meatest". i was like "dang i'm hungry imma go for those guys" when they arrived the shell was all pointy and prickily. the king is dangerous apparently. i was unable to perform my usual act of snapping through a plate of crab legs in record time without tearing a piece of meat. instead i left with cuts on my hands and dissapointment that the meat was not a sweet as my beloved snow crab legs. so, the moral of the story is...the king is overrated.

one down, 14 more to go

my first week of student teaching is complete. whew. it was a bit rough. not that i had a ton of work to do, but i had lots of other things going on at the same time. my in-laws were in town and staying with us, i took my final for a correspondence course on friday, and i took two of my teacher licensing tests saturday. at first i thought i was going to have an unpleasant time because my teacher is rather different from me. i think now that she's just not the nurturing sweet motherly type of teacher i've worked with in the past. she's helping me become independent and learn on my own- which i guess is good. it's just not what i expected. she's not a big planner either and that may still drive me nuts. time will tell. now that i have less going on in my life, i'm having a more pleasant time at northdale middle school. the seventh graders are fun to work with and surprise me every day. what a great age! i'm also doing better at asking questions and working with my teacher. i was a bit brain dead last week. i'm looking forward to my time there. now if i could only learn all their names!

every new year needs a resolution

happy 2006! normally i sit down and really think about the past year right before i ring in the new one. but not so much this year. it's been a hard one for me - maybe that's why i didn't want to look too much at it. instead i'm making goals for the upcoming year. i don't know how long it's been since i set goals for myself. but here i go! of course like everyone else i'm planning to work out more. my parents got me core secrets for christmas. i like it a lot except for the fact that my butt has never felt this much pain before. it's fun to do and i like that i don't have to invent my own workout down in our gym. i've got 8 dvds and a "game plan" telling me what to do. i took "before" pictures and made sure i was really frumpy and sad looking in them so maybe they'll use them if i send them in :) i also want to read the Bible more this year. part of my rough time last year was my lack of quiet time with God. i purchased a one year Bible and a new devotional book nick and i will be doing together. my church is also doing a year of meditating and memorizing scripture. each week we read over one portion of scripture as many times as we can and memorize one verse from that passage. i don't want to over do my goals, but i would really like to read one book just for fun a month and another one to challenge my faith. any good suggestions for either of those? i may not get through them in a month, but if i'm reading some every week i'd be content. with these goals comes planning my schedule to fit it all in along with student teaching and a corespondence class. woo! how i love to make schedules and plans. it makes me feel great. i just hope i can stick to it!