Seriously not showing off

My entire time in college, the past 4 1/2 years, has been difficult for me to get good grades. I always get A's on my homework assignments, it's the tests that kill me. My first year, I played around too much and slept through almost every single class. My second year I got it together a LITTLE bit, still had a hard time staying awake in classes, and still hadn't really determined my major. My GPA hit an all time low of 2.5 if that lets you know how bad I was doing. My third year....Started realizing that the major I picked and was doubting was REALLY not the major for me, but didn't know what to do, so just basically took a bunch of GE's and classes I didn't need. My fourth year, finally figured out what I wanted to do, picked the major and registered for the major classes. I really struggled last year with some of the major classes I had, especially all of the development type classes (they all had a ton to do with theory, thus, lots of testing and little homework). So I'm officially in the program this past semester, all major classes, no more GE's or pre-requisites. This is it. I worked my butt off this semester, and I worked hard. I got married this semester, in the middle of it nontheless (october 7th), and that was not easy. We got back from our short honeymoon the night before I had a final for a block class. Things were pretty stressful, but I LOVED all of my classes. I worked so hard, and worked jobs whenever I could. I also had 6 classes (all 2 credits, but all demanded work that was at least a 3, maybe 4 credit load class). So all this being said, I just finally got the rest of my grades posted today for fall semester of 2005. For the first time ever, I didn't get anything lower than an A- in a semester. I got 2 A-'s and 4 A's, a sparkling 3.90 semester GPA. I am so freaking proud of myself for working so hard and being able to do that. Merry late Christmas to me, Emilie! :)

Present

My parents got us a CHOCOLATE FONDUE FOUNTAIN for Christmas :D YAY! We just won't be able to use it until we have a bigger apartment and are able to have people come over :) But I'm still excited, we also got a tivo from Bry's parents. super nice! :) we just have to see if we can get it to work since we don't have a land line to hook it up and start it....we'll see

Holly

my parents got a new puppy! My cousin's dog had puppies and they gave us a puppy for free. This one is a chocolate lab springer spaniel mix (both big hunting dogs, one is a hound, so she keeps sniffing around all the time!). She is a very playful puppy at only 8 weeks old. No name for her yet, but she's so cute and gets cuter every time you look at her!

Say hello!

internship

Had a good day today, told Bryan the whole thing, I'll make it so the screen names don't show up again :) and apologies before hand for the length, but A- I was super super excited (still am), and B- Bryan asked for details :) 



so i was mostly nervous about applying for an internship because of A
I have a lack of confidence (my teacher was very surprised at that)
and B I don't know how the principals and interviewers will react to
possibly having a hearing impaird teacher teaching "normal" kids
we talked about it
and I guess he's talked to a bunch of teachers about me a few times
cause he named the teachers and said that each one of them had NOTHING
to say but good things about me and how I worked with kids
and he thinks that I may even possibly get to do an internship in Kindergarten
but we have to look into that
and then he had another person come in who is in charge of the internships
we discussed my hearing loss, my speech ability and such, I don't
model and speech errors, I talk fine, and I get along well with kids
and I did very well in the preschool practicum
she feels that I should be fine if the cohort goes well and should get
an internship without a problem
then she left, my teacher asked what my big dream with this degree was
and I explained the preschool that I want to have, cue and ASL and one
where hearing siblings can be involved as well so they can communicate
with the deaf or disabled sibling on a regular basis
and so that literacy skills could start building up at an early age
so that won't get so far behind by the time they hit grade school
he then asked "what is.....cued speech?"
I laughed and said it's what i've been using in the classroom,
apparantly this whole time he thought I was using ASL
so I explained it to him, and he was fascinated, and we talked about
how it would work with other disabilities
and he said it just made sense to use it as you start learning the
language of the environment at a young age and you get the literacy skills needed that you can build on to survive in this world
he was so amazed by all of this then said
well....if you ever want to do research on this
on cueing
in collaboration with BYU
let me know and I'd be more than interested to get BYU involved

!!!!!!!


can you believe that? I was so happy

yeah, and he said to apply for the internship, it's better to apply
and then decide around the interviewing time if I want to do it or not
cause if I do my time in the school (which doesn't start until after
the application is due) and decide I'm not ready for it, then I can
pull out and there will be no record that i applied then changed my
mind or anyhing like that
and if I do want to go ahead with it and don't get an internship, then
the decision is made for me, the student teaching is the way to go
so I'm gonna apply
AND
if I get the internship
I can do the preschool student teaching I have to do, THIS summer
instead of next year
so I can just graduate right after the internship
AND he also said he would try to get it so that I could be placed in a
specific school he thinks would be ideal for me to intern in for my
cohort semester, that way, the people can get used to me and have an
idea of how I can perform despite my deafness

so I would do the cohort at the school, then hopefully apply and get
the internship there at the same school
(the one he has in mind is in Alpine, brand new school that has a
special education preschool even and he's interested to see if i can
be involved in that if they have an interest in that)