transportation field trip

here we are wating for the 22 bus on 7th st. we had to wait 15 minutes and it seemed like an eternity. at this point the girl leaning on me was "starving" and the girl on the other side of me had to pee so bad she almost had an accident. finally we were back! but it was only be beginning of a loooooonnngg afternoon. for more pictures of me in kinderworld, check out my album on facebook. i should have a better photo page coming soon over spring break, or i can post more on here later if you're not on facebook.

hades week

after my last sweet entry about the cute things the kids say i now need to vent my frustrations and angry thoughts... i have always wanted to teach in the inner city. it's been my dream, my passion and my vision for so long. i couldn't wait to be in the minneapolis district for this experience. now i never want to go back. i want suburbia. i want calm children that aren't violent and disrespectful. i worked with middle school students who had less attitude than what i deal with now. can i be burnt out after 5 weeks? i can't imagine teaching for an entire year with these "brats" (which is how i've seen them this week). i yelled for the first time. i bet if anyone else saw it they would say it was wimpy, but man i hated it. i want to be proactive in my discipline not reactive like that and blow up at them. it doesn't help that i don't like my cooperating teacher and how she does things. i see her yelling a lot and i hate it. she calls it "being firm" and tells me i need to do it more. today she blew up over a center being messy. for the love! then she gets mad at me. and when i see a problem she asks, "and what did you do about it?" honestly i now understand those teachers who just let their kids run wild. i'd rather do that than try to rope them in or yell. i know it's not the right thing to do, but seriously i don't have the energy to discipline. it's the last thing i want to do. but i've gotta suck it up and try something for two more weeks. *sigh* that's gonna be the longest two weeks of my life! but then i'll be done and i'll never have to do it again. never.

kids say the darndest things

wow. working with kindergarteners in a new adventure every day! several of the boys have crushes on me and one of them has started drawing hearts on everything and he gave me a few :) i love the artwork they give to me and how they think i'm funny. i'm so glad i can hug them and put a hand on their shoulder when i talk to them or rub their back a bit when their upset. i try so hard to show them how much i care about them. as they come to love me back, i'm hearing some of the greatest comments. first of all, leah thinks i came from italy! see, my teacher had been to italy the week before i came and i arrived the day she returned. leah told a sub one day mrs. lundeen brought me back from italy. i keep trying to tell her i live in minneapolis, but it's not sinking in her little brain :) she asked me if i was going back to my classroom soon, how did i have room for so many coats in my suitcase (i have become a true minnesotan with five coats!!), and did i miss my students. i've told her i'm a student learning to become a teacher, but she's convienced i came from far far away! enjolina (pronounced angelina) has topped all of the comments!! she had been over telling me what she did the night before - friendship group and eye doctor. later she comes back over with her fingers pulling her eyes wide open and says, "Mrs. Gray, my nipples are big!" thank goodness she had told me about the eye doctor or i would have been so confused - she meant pupils! she had drops put in to dialate them. oh how i loved it!! these kids are so precious - how on earth will i ever be able to leave them?

all grown up

the big news of the week this week is that nick and i are buying our first home!! a townhome in st. paul will be ready for us in 60 days!! we realized we needed to purchase a home here so that when nick is transfered out in a few years for his job we will have equity and we could purchase something more expensive if moving to a city with a higher cost of living. we looked online to find some houses, applied for a mortgage, found a realtor and tada! we found a great home. tomorrow we go to finalize our upgrades and then we wait for it to be completed! yeah, we kinda make fast decisions when it comes to the big stuff :) i'm looking forward to having our own place. it's so much bigger than our little apartment, we can paint and we'll be in such a cute new community. i'm a little nervous about not being downtown minneapolis anymore. i've been spoiled with a skyline view for four years and i don't really know st. paul that well. but it will be a new adventure for us and i could use something new. check out the floorplan and the community

the language of love :)

I've read the book twice, but taking this little quiz seemed to help out.

The Five Love Languages

My primary love language is probably
Quality Time
with a secondary love language being
Acts of Service.

Complete set of results

Quality Time:		10
Acts of Service:		8
Receiving Gifts:		6
Physical Touch:		3
Words of Affirmation:		3

Information

Unhappiness in relationships, according to Dr. Gary Chapman, is often due to the fact that we speak different love languages. Sometimes we don't understand our partner's requirements, or even our own. We all have a "love tank" that needs to be filled in order for us to express love to others, but there are different means by which our tank can be filled, and there are different ways that we can express love to others.

Take the quiz

snow day?

i have quite a bit to say since i haven't written in a while, but let me begin with life in minneapolis... this morning we had one of the worst snow storms of the season. 21000 people without power, visibility of 1/2 a mile in some places, countless accidents and not enough plows to keep up with the quickly falling snow. schools were closed all over the place. not minneapolis. we ended up with a two hour delay only because a radio station misunderstood the update from the district. it was supposed to say buses were delayed. to top it off, my school didn't even have power until 15 minutes before the late start. we ended up with 8-10 children total in school. insane!!! i learned that minneapolis schools don't close unless the governor forces them to! whoa! apparently it's so they get their money - and boy do they like their money! the state issued a warning of some kind that said if you don't have to go to work don't! talk about putting teachers in danger. wow. it was bad. we ended up getting a lot done with only one student in each kindergarten room. so i guess i'm glad i was there. since my last entry...i'm enjoying kindergarten now. i've fallen in love with the students and could see myself teaching this age one day. i'm so glad i like it otherwise it would have been a VERY long seven weeks. i'll tell you more later.