California Christmas

http://sliverchick.livejournal.com/2007/12/20/

almost done

So today is my last day of class since both finals I have are during the last week of class (next week). That means, my big AAC project is done, my test critique project is done, my Language Sample Analysis is done, as well as my two research papers. :) It is possible to get all A's, but we shall see how I do on the final exams. I should definitely get A-'s in all classes, but I would love to have straight A's for the first time ever since high school :) That would be nice.

My brother comes home Friday! We're really excited. He's been in Thailand for the past two years on his LDS mission. He's really excited to come home, but sad to leave Thailand. He sent his last e-mail this morning, so it really is starting to feel like near the end for him. He's done with the mission field stuff, today they are going to dinner at some mission president's home, then he helps with some final things with the last moves, then he's on his way to the airport! crazy! What's really awesome, the mission president people (not his mission president, a couple from Australia, where they were in the mission presidency for 6 years) had him over for dinner. Afterward they wrote an e-mail to our family saying how awesome he is, and how he took time to write thank you notes, how he was so nice and mature (my brother? now way!), etc. It was a really sweet letter, and I know it made my parents beam with pride. :)

We'll all be meeting him at the airport on Friday night, then stop at my grandparents on the way home so they can see him too since they can't travel much at all. Then go home, have some chili and just catch up and hang out (he'll probably be busy with his girlfriend :) ). The cool part about all this, my other brother is coming from Boston with his girlfriend. I finally get to meet her! My parents and my two younger sisters have met her, but that's it. Plus it'll be so nice to see the WHOLE family in one place again. Then we're taking family pictures Saturday since Brent and Michael will both be there. Afterwards\ some church service stuff, then hang out maybe see the creche exhibit. Sunday we're having our REAL Thanksgiving dinner, mom saved it for when michael would be home. For Thanksgiving day, she made a Christmas dinner for Bryan and I since we won't be there for Christmas (we'll be in san francisco visiting HIS family). Then Bryan and I need to come home after the dinner since he has class, and I have work and need to study for my exams. Then Monday, we're meeting up at the mall to do christmas shopping together (this is something that we've done all growing up), and meet at Training Table for dinner. It'll be a fun weekend, probably a bit overwhelming for Michael, but he'll get over it since everyone is just excited to see him.

It snowed last night, and it was still snowing lightly this morning. I hope the snow sticks around long enough for Michael to come home since he hasn't seen snow for two years! I hope it stays for me as well, I LOVE snow. :)

Other than that, nothing really new since Bryan already posted about Chance and Jenny coming. That was fun, like he said, we felt bad for being really busy, but I think they still had fun...I hope. We also got to go see the Logan temple as well, it's nice seeing new temples. I've been able to see 9 temples in the past two years, of course some of them more than once, but it's nice just seeing the different designs and such. We may try to go to the Sacramento temple in December when we're there. I also my try to go to Fresno if it's possible in February when I'm there for a board meeting. We shall see.

Anyway...yeah, long post, a pat on your back if you made it through :)

Update

So an update :)

My outlines are done for both research papers. I got one back, the one that was kicking my butt, and got full credit on it. Feels good. Now I just need to finish the research paper for Tuesday. That won't be hard since the outline is done.
I've got another big assignment done, just have to do my presentation with my partner now. The presentation is all set up and ready to go, just have to actually do it in class now. YAY! :)
After that, I'll just have to finish one more research paper, then ALL big assignments are done for the semester, I only have one more minor assignment for one class coming up. Then it's the two finals the first week of December. I MAY pull of all A's...we shall see. :)
My brother has been on a mission in Thailand. He comes on November 30th! His flight arrives around 6:30 at night. I can't believe it, so weird. So excited to see him :)
Our bookcase finally came, so I've been able to unpack all of our books! NO MORE BOXES!!! YAY! Just need to take care of some odds and ends in our office, then everything is done and we can finally call this a CLEAN, ORGANIZED home. :)
We've also got our Kitchen Island up from Ikea. That feels really nice too, since we had to leave it out to dry several times, thus taking forever to paint it. Now I can actually reach our pots and pans since they're on the shelves of the island. (this apartment seems to have been made for a short person married to a really tall person...The top cabinets are DANG hard to reach, and the ONE socket in the bathroom is on the light...also high up. However, the shower head was SUPER low, so we had to buy a big shower head that would raise up more so that we could stand under it).
last night we had a date night. Went to Bed Bath and Beyond to get some things for our place, and grabbed dinner at Panda Express. Then we went and saw The Bee Movie, since it was captioned in theater this week. I highly recommend it just like Bryan did. Good, clean, fun. Seinfeld is awesome :)
We have some friends coming to visit around Thanksgiving, we're really excited about it. We miss them a lot. I'll also be seeing my family then too, and at that time, it'll only be another week until Michael gets home!
Life over all is really darn good now that the stressful paper is almost out of my way. :)

Breathe!

Ahhhh
Feels good to do it!
I just finally finished the two outlines for my two research paper, finished my take home midterm, did all my readings for one class (almost 200 pages worth of reading for ONE class session, ugh), and am currently doing readings for another class so I can just focus on my test critiquing tomorrow. Then, after class tomorrow...I'll actually be able to take a break! YAY, well...sort of. It just means I'll finally get to folding the laundry, doing dishes, and cleaning the place up. Probably do some painting to so we can get our darned kitchen island up, and rearrange the frontroom to the way we think it may work out best.

Just...yay.

Research

So, I'm doing this research paper.
It's a pretty specific research paper. So much so, that I can't find anything on it worth putting int he paper that isn't 30+ years old. I've discussed this with my teacher and she keeps givng me journals and names, but I'm not turning anything up. She suggested I meet with a person would know more about this stuff, I did. Guess what, she said I might as well change my topic because there's nothing out there on what I'm researching. Well...I wish i could change it, but I can't as this is specifically what my teacher wanted me to research. I've learned a LOT in my research, and I've spent over 25 hours on it now just looking at resources and reading articles. I've spent two of my Sundays here (it's a day where I take time to religious observe things, and part of that is staying at home after church or visiting family, not doing homework or work, etc.), which I HATE more than anything. I've spent a whole Saturday here, and two Sundays here, plus whatever spare time I can muster up. And now that I MAY have found somethings that I can do, the library automatic retrieval system is down. This system is used for books that are hardly checked out, thus put away in "storage" until someone requests it online. A machine then gets it, and brings it to a certain person, and the person brings it to the reserve desk and I pick it up, within 20 minutes. So I requested three different things which right now seem vital to my research, and my outline is due Tuesday, which I can't do without the articles....I'm a little frustrated. It does nothing to help improve my self-esteem about me being here doing grad school. Makes me wonder if I'm really cut out for this...
and my teacher says that it's all "good for me." Bah freaking bah.

In other news, things are normal and boring :) (that's a good thing right now!)

Research

So I sent in a research paper outline last week. It was already postponed a week because I had so much stress with moving and such and she understood it. Well with the topic that she had wanted me to research, I was confused and couldn't find what I needed. So I submitted what I had originally thought she meant, and made a note that I didn't think this was it, but I can't seem to find anything on intervention stuff, in the way that she wanted it.
She e-mailed me back saying she wanted to look more over my outline etc. There was an attachment (or so I thought), and it was just my original submission. So I thought I was still waiting for more feedback from her. That was on Monday. She e-mailed me again t his morning asking if I got her feedback, so I went through the e-mails and couldn't see anything. I e-mailed her and told her so. I went and looked through one more time just to be sure. Well, there were TWO attachments to that one e-mail, not just one, but TWO.
So here I am on Saturday, looking at it, realizing I have to basically start from the beginning. This sucks. I shouldn't be in grad school if I can't figure this stuff out. :P
Here I come, oh wonderful library.

Mondayisms

an up date eh?

The south beach diet got put on hold for last week as moving was just taking too much time and energy when we both had midterms and projects due last week. There was no way either one of us could cook as well, that and all the dishes were still packed for awhile as well as some food. So, that got put on hold and I totally jumped off of it. But we're going to go back on it tomorrow,s tarting with phase 1 again. I'm excited. I've only gained back 2 or 3 lbs of the 13 that I lost, so I'm not upset or anything. I had expected it :)

I haven't done any running recently either, again, I'm using moving as an excuse. :) But I will start back up again, hopefully tomorrow.

More updates behind the cut..


Our two year anniversary was yesterday, and we though that we might go on a trip this weekend since this week is fall break and I can take Th and F off, but we decided to do something else instead. We bought an iMac computer :) My old computer is just not doing it for us anymore, so we decided that the new computer will be our anniversary present, my birthday present, and our Christmas presents combined. So far, I think it's completely worth it. It just works SO much better. We will however, go out to dinner tonight to celebrate. :) I may leave work a little early to get a head start on getting my pretty face on tonight. :)

We went to my parents' house for the weekend for general conference. WE had fun, I saw Premonition and 1408 with my mom and sisters while Bryan was at priesthood session. I didn't like either one of them. Premonition was just...weird and lame. 1408 was just too scary for me. I hated it, bothered me more than most scary movies (I have one scary movie that still bugs me to this day). Then on Sunday, dad was home, and David and Melissa and their son (my nephew) Ben came over to watch conference as well. It was nice having the whole family home, well almost the whole family. :)

My younger brother is on a mission in Thailand right now. He comes home November 30th, so that means his friends are starting to come home as well. One friend got home last week. (Michael and his friends are REALLY close, they've been best friends since elementary, and nothing has ever separated them before. It's awesome). He came over to visit with the family. It was a lot of fun, and just made it seem more real that my brother is coming home soon. We all can't wait :) I miss him more than I think.

School is going well. I just got done with my block class, so no more Saturday classes this semester! YAY! I'm pretty sure I got an A in there since I didn't get lower than a 90% on ANYTHING in there that I know of. (We'll see about the two projects that I turne din on the last day that were worth 100 each). I also got an A on my midterm for another class. I have yet to take a midterm for a different class, but it's a take home, so I'm not too worried about it. It's just the two research papers that are kicking my butt, I feel like they should be worth more than 50 or 100 points! (200 would make me feel better!)

I have an online class, and it's really easy, only 1 credit. We had to write a teaching philosophy after finishing one module. I did that barely on time, and I just got asked if she could use my philosophy statement for future classes or whatever anonymously. I gave her permission of course, and I had passed it, so I know it was good and won't be used as a bad example. :)

So yeah, classes over all...they're really good. :) I'm excited that I did this after all. My mom may start a master's program through her school district, I hope she does it. She'll enjoy it, especially the pay raise :)

I'm excited for no classes this week. I'm working all day today, tuesday and wednesday so that I can take thursday and Friday off. I also have no saturday classes anymore, so it's FINALLY going to feel like I have an actual weekend. I'm VERy excited about that.

Our apartment is good. We love it, and love the community so far. we've met more people the first week than we have in our previous two places combined. That's just how strong of a community it is around here. The place is a bit smaller, but it helps A LOT to have a second bedroom to use as an office/music place. We had to buy a new desk for the computer because our last cheap one broke. We're also buying another book case so that we can finally put all of our books away. I'm tired of having a bunch in the car because we don't have anywhere to put them. It should arrive today.

We also bought a kitchen island thing (a small portable one) just because we have virtually no counter space, but the island will solve our problems. We're painting it right now (well Bryan is, I haven't touched it :) ). It's looking good, and I'm just excited to get everything in order at the apartment. I'm hoping we can finish setting it up and unpacking the odds and ends this week. Yeah..very excited. :)

Ok...break is over and I've rambled much too long. :)

Hope everyone is having a good Monday :)

Two years

I guess technically it was yesterday (october 7th)

But...Happy two year anniversary to Bry and me :)

dum de dum

So updates?
The weight is definitely off that I lost from phase 1. I haven't gained any since I've started phase 2, which I was REALLY scared of, but nothing bad has happened!. It has been fluctuating up and down the past couple of days, but on average it's still the same weight I hit on the last day of phase 1. So, YAY! :)

I did make it up at 5:50 this morning to go jogging for week 3 day 2. I was able to do it without cheating during a jogging part. No cheating this time. Felt better, especially since I tried to take a different route to see if the hills were less in the area. They weren't, but I still made it through. :)

I'm getting haircut and dyed today. I will take a picture of it after I've done it. You'll see a before picture once I actually get my DITL up (man I suck at getting it done, darn wanting to get good grades in school!).

Hope everyone is having a great day! :)

Help!

So, I've been trying to look for the past two weeks for this information.

I have a presentation on Saturday (I'm prepared mostly, just need to see if I can find this bit of information) about a balanced look at teaching hearing infants to sign. This means my teacher wants to hear the pros and cons of teaching a hearing infant/toddler to sign. I know there's a research study out there that's called "Baby Talk" or something similar that discusses the cons of doing so. It was a research that came from Harvard. I can't find it! Does anyone know where I can find it, or if it's under a different title? Or does anyone know of any other resources besides personal experience that talks about how teaching a hearing infant to sign hindered something in the child's development?

If you could help, that would be awesome.

(No worries, I've got PLENTY of stuff on the pros of teaching a baby to sign).

Thanks!

Boo Yah!

Well I made it to Week 3 Day 1 for couch to 5k this morning. I was excited, but disappointed in a way. Part of my run is uphill. It does not matter where I go outside, at one point it IS uphill, and the path I take has the least amount of uphill I can get around here. On the uphill part, I had to stop and walk in the middle of my second interval of 3 minute jogging, but only for about 10 second, then I went right back to jogging for the rest of the interval. We'll have to see how Thursday goes. Then I got home and did 130 crunchies, 50 more on each side for side crunchies, and 20 leg lift things. It felt good. I just got done eating a good breakfast :) (still south beach style though!).

I finished phase 1 yesterday. I COULD keep going on phase 1 for another week, but I don't think I could mentally handle it. I also don't think Bryan could handle it as well. It's been hard to find something for dinner that we would both like that we're not sick of. So hopefully phase 2 will be better since my options are a lot bigger now.

I definitely officially lost 11 pounds on this diet so far. I plateaued for a bit last week for a few days, so I was getting a little discouraged. Then I just dropped like crazy the last three days. I'm really excited about it. Most of all, I'm just proud of myself for sticking to it. Really proud.

Anyhow, I gotta take Bryan to school and then get ready for work/school myself. Hope everyone is having a great day (I swear my pictures from last week will, at some point, be posted....boring as it may be).

P.S. I miss Bella....:(

Hearing dog?

Oh yeah.

We're looking into getting me a hearing dog. I always thought it was ridiculous that there were hearing dogs. But...the more I look into it, the more I realize my life could be quite a bit easier with a hearing dog, and I would feel better/safer at home as well...we shall see...

South beach

HAH, I finished Week 2 completely for running last week! YAY! I'll be starting week 3 tomorrow since I didn't sleep well last night. So I'll be running Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday hopefully. :)

In South Beach news...Today is Day 14 of phase 1....THE LAST DAY! WOOT! I did cheat a little bit last night because grandpa made the birthday cake for my sister's birthday dinner, and I already felt bad not eating his homemade jam, so I had some lemon cheesecake. He was watching me, so I just had to eat it. It wasn't worth it though because it was just too much sugar (I haven't had anything real sugary since the diet started). But it hasn't seemed to affect my weight at all as I was down another pound this morning (Total loss since diet started: 11 pounds, total loss since highest weight two months ago: 13 pounds :) ). So yeah, it feels good that I actually stuck to it pretty strictly (until last night. I'm excited :)

Weight food moving

Well, update time I guess. :)

I do have a DITL coming up, thought I'd give it a shot. I took the pictures on Monday, but I just haven't had the time to resize the pics for LJ and upload them. That will be coming up....at some point anyway.

Taking a break from work since this same thing I'm entering over and over again is driving me insane, and I forgot my lotion so I REALLY do not want to touch paper. I hate the feel of paper when my hands are extremely dry...just...ugh. The same way I feel about cardboard.

Well, diet/weight loss news: I've list about 8 pounds these past 10 days. I'm glad it's finally taken a dip. Now it's just a matter of making it stay off and losing more as well (I've got another 50 pounds to go before I get to my ULTIMATE weight, 40 to get to my satisfactory weight). I'm on Day 11 for the south beach diet of phase 1. Only 3 more days after this, should be interesting since my sisters may want to hang out this weekend, and a birthday dinner is happening at my parents house on Sunday. I'll be able to do it though, the last day is Monday! YAY!

I started jogging again this week, I've been able to do Week 2 Day 1 and Day 2. Tomorrow I will be doing day 3 so that I can move onto week 3 next week. I'm getting there.

Moving. That's right, we're moving, not far though :) We got accepted to the university married housing. It'll save us around 100 bucks a month, so we decided to go ahead and do it. It's a two bedroom, so we're REALLY excited about that. The downside? we move on the 26th. We had told them that we needed a 30 day notice if we were to accept an apartment, since that's what's in our current contract with our current landlord. They let us know this last Wednesday! So, we contacted our landlord, and he was REALLY nice and said we didn't have to pay anything in October. I'm SO excited about that. We can't move in until the 26th. It's gonna be a crazy time because that's mid-term time. I know Bryan has some, and I have a mid-term the day OF the move in date. So we're going to take our time, little by little to move out since we have until October 1st to move out. We're really not moving that far, just a few miles away.

The other downside? We have to get rid of Bella, our awesome cat. :( I'm REALLY sad about that. My parents will take her for now and do a trial run to see if they can handle having her around. If not, then we're going to...somehow...get her to Bryan's parents in CA. We're going to miss her a lot. We're already looking into some kind of pet that we can have for our university apartment. Heh. We love animals :) (just not reptiles for Bryan...darn it!).

Hmm...nothing else to update on, so I hope you have a fantastic weekend :)

Temptations

So, I'm at work today, kind of stressful for the first hourish due to some technology problems. ( I do tape transfers, and apparantely the camera has gone kaput, which stinks because this particular camera has no back up camera, and we need like 4 or 5 tapes transferred still....).

This caused me to REALLY want some sweets or bread or crackers, something with TONS of carbs in it.

Well, I get over it and just eat my salad, celery, turkey roll ups and string cheese. Then one of my co-workers comes in. She had gone to the greek festival (I LOVE their food), and brought back some sweet breadsticks. She offered some to me....regretfully, but thankfully I said no thank you chalking it up to being full (see what I had above).

It's getting easier to ignore my cravings and say no. I'm glad. :) The scale says I've lost weight so far, (it's day 4), but I'm not going to really believe it until it's been a week and it really stays down there. It's the lowest I've been in three months though...so I'm crossing my fingers. :)

more weight

Working out? yeah, that went down the tube this week. :) Due to three reasons, 1 - it ain't a good time this month, 2 - had a ton of homework to do, took a lot more time than I thought it would, thus lots of staying up late, 3 - started a diet.

My doctor recommended to me at least three times to do the South Beach diet. So...I started it on Tuesday. The first two weeks, no pasta/bread like things or fruit. So I'm feeling just a little tired with the combination of the month visitor and late nights. I hope to get back into it next week though after giving my body some time to get used to the diet. Thankfully, it's only for two weeks.

I haven't cheated at all, and I've been really good. I'm determined to do something. I have tried weight watchers before, but I just can't seem to keep up with keeping track of the points. I disagree with the Atkins diet, I think you need some bread (it's on the bottom of the food pyramid isn't it???), so I decided that South beach would be doable for me as it allows carbs back in on Phase 2 in small portions, then phase 3 has more. I also like that the idea is to teach you hwo to eat healthier. So yeah...I'm giving it a shot, only because exercise doesn't seem to be doing much by itself and trying to eat better isn't working either (whole wheat, no fat/low-fat, low sodium, smaller portions). So this is pretty much the last thing I'm trying. If it doesn't work, then I really do give up. I'm done. :)

The recipes that have been for the diet so far have been surprisingly very good. So I'm not THAT tempted to eat bread/regular cheese/pasta/rice, etc. Last night was an exception as we went to sizzler for dinner and bryan had some bread and fruit, that was just hard to look at, but I was good. I didn't eat anything I wasn't supposed to. Yay me!

IN othe rnews...school is still the same....work is the same....(taking a break right now)....yeah, I have a boring life. :)

Starting fall semester

My knee was still hurting when I got up. However, I did get up still, and did homework. I finished my reading for Saturday (well, did more than I needed to actually, since were only required to read 1 article or the equivalent of about 25 pgs for Saturday. I ended up reading the whole book [225 pages]). I've also finished 1/3 of my online class and taken the test. I missed 4 questions because I ALWAYS get fooled by those all of the above choices, and 3 of them were the all of the above one (where all of the above was the correct answer). The other one I missed I just wasn't thinking all th way through with it. Good thing is, we can retake this over and over until we get 100%. This is because we do not pass the class unless we have passed the test with a 100%. (It's an APA professional writing skills class). We just can't take more than once within 24 hours. So I'll take it again tomorrow and get that 100%! YAY!



I've realized I've got some things to review for my assessment class, such as the public laws dealing with education/special education as well as the presenting of data through various forms. For my other class I need to review the different theories of how children acquire language starting at birth (studying the old ones as well as the new ones). So really, it's not so bad. I'm loving the classes so far. Saturday is just a little tough. It's only a term class (1/2 semester), so it's 6 weeks long. She has no exams for this class, however, we have a quiz at the end of each class. This is ONLY tough because class is 4 hours long. From 9 AM to 1 PM on Saturdays.

I guess I should say what I'm taking... :)

Obviously, my online class. Tuesday night is Functional Communication for Children with Disabilities. I absolutely LOVE this class. I love language and love learning how we acquire it and use it. My Wednesday class is Assessment Principles in Special Education and Inclusive Education. I know this will be my hardest class already. The lowest grade I got once I was officially in my major was in Assessment for my undergrad. That was a B+, and I worked hard for that class. So we shall see how this goes, hopefully I understand things better this time around since I already have had a class and have experience with it from teaching for a year. My Saturday class is Development Constructs from 0-5. Basically, we go through the physical and mental developments of children starting with pre-natal to 5 years old. I really will enjoy this class, just a lot of information to go through in 4 hours, with only 6 or 7 weeks of it. That's the only reason why that will be hard.
That's all I have this semester. I was supposed to take another class, but my Early Childhood adviser told my Special Education adviser that I should take it later after I've had a chance to take another class. So yeah, a light semester, and I'm glad.

All of my classes are undergrad/grad combined. My online class doesn't require any extra work for grad students, so that's nice. My Functional Communication, as well as my Assessment class requires a research paper. That's not a big deal because both papers only have to be 5-6 pages long, and I already have my topic. My Development class requires that I teach a 20 minute seminar to the class. I haven't decided what topic to do for this yet. I need to soon.

Anyway....yeah, this turned out to be a lot longer than I thought :)

Excuses Excuses

Didn't make it out exercising today....with good reason

I had class from 9-1 today, then I came home. I ate some lunch and watched a show or two with Bryan. Then I went and donated blood. There's my reason...donated blood. I haven't done that for awhile. What's been even longer than that is that I haven't passed out from donating blood in about 5 years (I used to donate quite a bit, then did plasma for awhile. I've also done quite a few blood tests). Today...man was I close...twice. It wasn't until towards the last minute or two that I was feeling really woozy, I had to stay in the chair for about 20 minutes before I could get up. I almost passed out once, then she laid me back. When she sat me back up, I was getting worse and really thought I was going to lose it. However, I did not. I was very happy about that. So afterwards, I was completely exhausted from it. I just woke up from a 2ish hour nap where I had just conked out on the bed. It was nice...but now, I've got more than enough to do.

Fridayisms

I have worked out this week/ I did Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. Didn't get the chance to do so last night because Bryan and I were running errands as soon as I got out of work and didn't get home until 9:30, and I still had to do the laundry. So, really, no time to work out since I also had to go to Park city in the morning to do an errand before work, and had a half hour in between that and work. Today, I went to work early so that I could go to my brother's white coat ceremony.


That was super exciting and sort of unrealistic. My oldest brother (the oldest in the kid) is going to be a doctor. Today was celebrating all those who got into the program for med school. My brother who is currently on a mission is also planning on med school once he gets his undergrad stuff done. I was talking to dad about it afterwards and he never once thought that he'd have kids that went that far. I asked him if it felt weird having two kids who plan on being doctors, he said yes, then said he could have three if I got my doctorate. I laughed. :) Not doing that, not worth the time when the pay raise is only from about five or ten k from a masters. it also just means more school, I want to get right to work when I'm done. He agreed that a doctorate might not be worth the time. It was the first time he didn't encourage for more schooling, it was weird, but nice not to feel pressure to go further.

Another person I saw at the white coat ceremony was our home teacher from Provo. He was our home teacher right before we moved to SLC. He did recognize me and we talked for a second. It was really cool seeing him, and I'm excited for him as well. He's really one of THE nicest guys I've ever met. Things will go well for him, I hope.

Bryan stared his application for pharmacy school last night. Feels weird. We're being grown ups, I still see myself as twenty years old and Bryan as like twenty two. we are definitely not that age anymore. :)

Today, I haven't gone to work out yet because Bryan is pretty much stuck on a bed today. He did something to his back, and it's just worse. We went to the doctor last night, and she gave him some meds, but they're not helping. So he's just getting bedrest. I hope he starts to feel better soon, I hate seeing him down and not able to do anything. Life is extremely boring without him up and about with me. :/

Hmm...Nachos sound good. So VERY good. I haven't had nachos in a very long time.

hmmm, I guess that's all I have to say...yeah, I'm a pretty boring person :)

Weekend update

So I'm gonna talk about the weekend, without being on ambien (unlike bryan...)

We did go and see Hairspray Friday night. That was an awesome show, we both loved it as expressed in Bryan's journal. Very very fun, and definitely a movie that we are going to own. (I have a hard time convincing Bryan to buy movies, so I'm glad we'll be getting this one). We didn't see it with caption, however, it was wonderful and I was still able to understand a good portion of what happened. They really did pick the perfect person to play Tracy. Just flat out good, REALLY good.

The rest of the weekend behind the cut.


As Bryan said, yesterday we did apartment shopping. We didn't find anything within our price range AND had air conditioning or was reasonable with the price it was at. We REALLY would like to move away from here because of all the robberies going on. We had our car broken into (well the rental car) last year. The car right next to ours was broken into and had his stereo and speakers stolen. Another car was actually stolen that's right in our parking lot. Also, apparently there have been a few more break ins on cars since then. We REALLY want to move, it's just not comfortable here anymore. Our Landlords here are awesome, but the management sucks. (It's a homeowner thing so the landlord and management are two completely different people.)

After we got tired of it, Bryan got his eye exam, as said in his post, then we went to the store and came home. Then went out to Italian, and Bryan's right. You haven't lived until you've had GOOD caprese. I hate tomatoes, but this, I'll eat all day long if I can. I had a yummy chicken ravioli dish with creamy marsala sauce. So good. What Bryan didn't mention was our service. Our waitress was really nice and fun. However, she had accidentally put down the wrong order on my dish (Bryan's was right). THis is no big deal, she still apologized a bit for it. Didn't make us mad or anything. However, she still felt really bad that when she brought our check back, she brought back a piece of chocolate cake from their dessert menu for us for free. She was really sweet. She did get a good tip. :)

Then we came home and watched a few tv shows and went to bed, or so I thought. I did sleep, but Bryan apparantely did not. :)

Speaking of ambien though, things have improved a lot since I've been on it and it's only been three nights. Mood wise it has improved a lot, I'm not nearly as moody or distressed. I'm a lot more chipper. It's REALLY nice. The only bad thing about it, I hate that I can't remember aything I did for the last ten minutes before going to bed. If I hate something, I have no clue that I ate it and so forth. It sucks, but the pros outweight the cons in this case.

Went back to the doctor

This is a summary of it, what I typed to Bryan in an e-mail

So, she has no clue.

The really sucky thing about this is, I've gained NINE pounds in the last two months. Nine!
I just started bawling in her office, and we talked about it. I did have trouble GOING to sleep this past week, two weeks, and with how distressed I am about it, I may have to go on depression meds.

The hair loss thing should go away, same as the sex drive, she hopes.

Since I've had trouble GETTING to sleep,. she actually prescribed me ambien, so I'll be taking that for a bit, heh.

She wants me to do that for a month and then go back in. I'll go back in the last week of August for an update.

She recommended going on a diet program, I explained that we couldn't really afford that, she understood and said to just do what I'm doing now and see how it goes with the sleep thing.

If things don't get better, we may have me on depression meds.

*sigh* I want to just give up :(

Ponderings

If there was one talent I wish I had....it's dancing. I've always LOVED dancing. I've always wanted to be with cheerleading/drill team/dance company, etc. However, my flexibility DEFINITELY limits me in being able to do any of that stuff. If I could just give up some of my music abilities for dancing....I just might do it....I know it's not possible, but man, I wish I could do performance dancing!

Weight problems

So, 7 weeks ago, I went in to get my thyroid and several other things checked. I also started working out everyday that week and trying to eat better (smaller portions and at least slightly healthier food, from what I can afford anyway). I was told I have hypothyroid, so I'm on medication for that now (going in tomorrow to get a blood check up to see if we need to do anything more).

Since then, I have gained, yes that's right, GAINED, 5 pounds. It's just so darn frustrating. I've been taking a spinning class and missed a few classes due to being sick and accidentally scheduling a workshop I taught at the same time as the class. Other than that, I've been every single darn time. And that class...KICKS butt. Seriously. Go ahead and blame some weight gain on muscle, but SEVEN weeks?! I should have lost SOMETHING by now! I also go jogging on the days that I don't have spinning. Again, with the exception of being sick and holidays, I haven't gone (oh and when friends were staying the night). I slept in yesterday because I was so stinking tired from stupid nightmares all night long, so I didn't go jogging yesterday. But still, I should have at least lost ONE pound. But...NO. NOTHING!

So frustrated. I can see that I've gained weight in the past two years, and it really bothers me, so thus I take the initiative to make it better....this is just HIGHLY discouraging. It doesn't help that I was so bummed about it last night that I ate a frozen pizza....oh well...

Harry Potter

It is done, only took me a total of approximately 12 - 12 1/2 hours. But it was good enough that I got grumpy at Bryan from interrupting me from time to time. :) He is reading the last 50 pages, right now. :) I'm excited to talk about it. However, my hand has unfortunately lost feeling in my thumb, index finger and middle finger from holding the book for so long....That good. :)

Monday monday

Well here it's Monday again. *whew*

I'm excited for this week just because I will start working again this week. I start my new job on Wednesday, at that point we'll be able to get a better idea of what hours I work. Nonetheless, I'm excited not to be at home all day long to the point that I get cabin feverish. 

Today however, was just interesting. :) For me anyway, probably boring for you guys


Bryan and I went to our spinning class today and it truly HONESTLY kicked our trash today. We came home and slept for about 3ish hours. We were just THAT tired. I start feeling sick during it, and was still feeling sick after. When I woke up from the nap, I had a HUGE headache (I would say migraine, but it my WHOLE head, not just one side like migraines normally are). It hurt so bad that I could feel every heart beat. I tried sleeping again, but that didn't work. Then my ears started ringing so I took both hearing aids out to see if it would help. I already have an open sore in one ear that's been there for QUITE some time, so I try to leave my hearing aid out for that ear anyway. So I really was completely deaf all day. 

I started cooking green beans at 3:30 in order to prep for dinner. I started dinner at 4:00, I looked at the bottom of the recipe, and realized that it will take an HOUR LONGER than I had planned on. This is important because Bryan only has 30-40 minutes in between work and night class tonight that he is at home, and that's when we eat dinner. So dinner was no longer going to be ready on time. I was already using all of the pots and pans that we have, but I somehow managed to switch them into bowls and pots and pans, back and forth to be able to make spaghetti as well (with meat and heating up the sauce in a pan). So that was...hectic. I realized as I was cooking that if something was smoking from one of the burners, the smoke alarm could very well be going off. I really need to get a flashing light smoke alarm, since I don't know if I would be able to hear the smoke alarm without my hearing aids. It is loud, but...loud enough? Right as I was finishing up the spaghetti, Bryan came home, but I didn't hear him. Scared the crap out of me when I saw a body right next to me as I was pouring the meat sauce onto the pasta. I thought I was going to drop the hot pan. 

We eat dinner, he leaves, I do the dishes once more today just because I used so many bowls and pans, it was a HUGE pile. Then I go to take some empty milk jugs and soda bottles out to the garbage. As I'm walking back in, (note our apartment has a TON of diversity, hardly ANY white people, this means a lot of people who don't speak English that well). This African guy is standing there with two HUGE duffel bags that are full, and a jug of Tide. He gets my attention, and starts talking to me, but it's not English, he's actually telling me he doesn't speak English. But he wants to know something. Me, not wearing my hearing aids, and not able to understand him because A - he doesn't speak English and B - his accent makes his lip shapes entirely different than what a English speaker would make for different vowels and such. He's saying one word over and over and I just can't get it. Feeling horrible because he probably thinks that his English sucks and there's no way I can understand him, I say I'm sorry, I can't hear, and I point to my ear. He says ok, and nods, and obviously understands. I walk two steps, then it hits me. WASH! I turn around and say "wash?" he said YEAH! So I led him tot he wash room, but it just makes me feel so dumb when I can't understand people, and just what a day to not wearing my hearing aids...

I'm now just sitting and taking a break while I'm waiting for the ORIGINAL dinner to finish cooking (we'll eat it for dinner tomorrow, so that means no dishes or cooking for me tomorrow, YAY!). I'm reading Harry Potter 5 (order of the phoenix) to try and catch up before the book comes out at midnight friday night/saturday morning. I'm excited, but I've got a lot to read if I want to finish book 5 and 6 before reading 7. 

Off to reading I go.....

Jobs

So I have been granted a work study grant for working during the school year. I've applied to a few jobs since then. I had my first interview today, and it was the one I wanted the most. After about ten minutes, I was hired on! YAY! Granted, it's 20 hours a week and data entry, but that's exactly why I wanted it, so I can focus all my energy on school. The hours are quite flexible she said, and I may be able to start this coming July. So that's nice and really good to know. :) 

I've had very few interviews in my life since I've worked mostly family based business or was trained into the job, so I was quite nervous. Now I just have to do the paper work with them next week and I'll know from there when I can start, hours, and such. I'm excited. :) I know it's not a major career job, but I couldn't handle teaching during grad school, just too much energy and creativity for me. :) 

YAY!

Saturday

So we had a nice date last night. Bryan finally made decisions as to what he's going to do and it's put him in a really good mood. So we went out to Indian last night (yum), then drove by the pharmacy tech school he's looking into to see what it looked like. Afterwards we came home and watched Somewhere in Time, cheesy but cute. :) Christopher Reeves was a hottie in that movie. Afterwards we went to a Belgian Waffle place for dessert. We came home and went to bed. It was fun, and a nice time to finally have together time. It's not the same as sitting int he same room while one is reading and the other is watching tv or doing computer stuff. It's just not the same, so it was nice to go out. 

Today we slept in (11ish), got up and watched a little tv. Then Bryan went to study while I made bacon and crepes with nutella and powdered sugar. It was yummy. I then finally convinced Bryan to go swimming with me in the pool, we were out there for a couple of hours. It was fun. Now we're in, I'm watching Teen Witch while he studies (I'm also working on a cover letter). 

I applied for a job last week through a work study grant. It was a simple online application (tutoring elementary kids in reading and math). Literally within 5 minutes I got an e-mail back saying that the lady would like to interview me after looking at what my experience was. She just got out of surgery, so she'll e-mail me again sometime next week to set up an interview. I haven't applied to other jobs yet as I'm working on a cover letter. I've never made one before, so we'll see how that goes. One is for data entry with research on autism, which I would definitely be fascinated with. If I don't get either one or something doesn't work out with either one, then I'll also be applying for a library book repair job. The last two are on campus, and the tutoring one is at one of the many partnership schools that is no further than 15 minutes away from campus. So it's all looking good. Just nervous about writing a cover letter, I've never had to before. 

Anyway, was having a great weekend and wanted to talk about it. I'm happy and enjoying life. :)

Health

So I have some pretty bad hypothyroid going on that's been affecting pretty much every aspect of my life. It's pretty bad. The doctor wants to make sure that that is all that's wrong, so I'm on medication for 6 weeks then I go back and do more blood testing (all the same ones as before) just to make sure we're going in the right direction. I much prefer this over celiac or ulcers. :) 

In other random news. My mother just gave me a whole bunch of files. When I was in school, k-12, I had special education for awhile and IEPs since I had a hearing loss and had a lag in language because of my hearing loss. School districts, by law (at least here), are required to keep them for 8 years after the student has left, then after those 8 years they either give the files to the family or burn them. My mom works in the school district so they gave everything to her, and she gave it to me to see if I wanted to keep them. I don't, but it was fun to go through it and see all the changes that were made and such. Brought back a lot of memories and things that I had completely forgotten about. I have test results from various language and listening tests from Kindergarten all the way to 8th grade. I stopped receiving special eduation services after 8th grade since I had improve significantly from 6th grade after having transliterators in the classroom (similar to interpreters). 

It was just incredibly weird to go back and look through all that stuff and see the different mistakes I made. One common mistake that I made in Kindergarten...I still make now. :) I have a very difficult time distinguishing between s and z sounds and sh and zh sounds and thus have difficulty producing them correctly. For example, resist, I said both s's with an s sound instead of the first s being pronounced as a z and the second s being pronounced as an s. I even have tests result sform when I was a pre-schooler when I was only 2 years old. A note that was put down was that I had a hard time focusing. That made me laugh (I'm FREAKING TWO!!!). 

Just makes me think about what I'm about to venture into with my masters and when I'm teaching deaf/hard-of-hearing kids. 

Anyway...told you it was random.

Long overdue update

This is probably going to be more like alist than anything. :) 

I finished teaching my second grade class on May 31st. It's weird to know that I'm never going to see those kids again since I won't be back teaching next year :( It was hard, but expected. Not seeing them again is what hit me the hardest. I had a bunch of kids ask me why I was moving and asked me to stay and teach. One even estimated how long I would be in grad school (3 years) and asked if I would be back to teach while she was in 5th grade so she could see me again. It's nice to know they liked me after all. :) I loved their little good bye notes. Sigh, I'm realy going to miss them. I still have pictures of the masks they made forever ago, just haven't gotten around to posting them. I want to post our class picture, but am too afraid to do so due to privacy, security, etc.

Big old ramble behind the cut, probably boring for all of you :) 



What have I been doing since then? well, heh, surprisingly quite a bit. I had a workshop to teach for four days last week. That was fun, and well worth it. :) My parents are remodeling a bedroom in their house. IN that bedroom was my hope chest. So they had to box everything up and send the hope chest here. It was weird going through all my stuff again and deciding what to keep and what to throw away. I threw away about two kitchen garbage bags full of junk. I still have a lot of junk there. Going through it all reminded of how much I did when I was in junior high and high school. I really am quite the overachiever. :) Tons of certificates and trophies everywhere. I didn't realize I had that many. I just received another plaque, so I now have 4 plaques. I'll be receiveing another one soon with my diploma on it (thanks to mom and dad, it's my graduation present to have it preserved). 

My parents just sent me my teacher's certificiate. I'm a level 1 certified teacher by the state of Utah for the next three years. Meanwhile Ineed to take my second praxis test to get my second level teaching certificiate. This will also be while I'm in grad school (for the next three years). After grad school I'll also have a special education license as well as an endorsement for teaching hearing impaired children. I still have a ways to go before I acheieve my dream after that though. Though Washington state may be the place that I acheive this dream. :) (we'll see how hubby does with school and where we end up). 

I know I'm good to go on teaching should I decide to teach now. My principal at the school I worked at for the last while, kept asking what I was doing after this year of teaching. He wanted to see if I would be able to stay there if I didn't get into grad school, but lo and behold, I got accepted to grad school. I also got a phone call to my parent's house from another school district asking if I would teach there. They were sent my reusme and letters of recommendations and evaluations and wanted me. It's nice to know that I'll actually be ok no matter wha thappens. I could have a career now, but it's not what I want, and it's not fully what I'm meant to do. I need more. In time though, in time. 

It's been nice to have a break though. I've never really taken the time to take off time. And this weekend alone and this week will be enough to make me feel refrshed and ready to go again. I've been laying out by the pool, reading Shell Seekers, playing video games (harry potter and pinball mostly), cleaning, cooking, jogging, and vegging out by the tv. I still have more of everything that I just listed to do, especially the jogging part. Just found out that I'm actually 60 lbs over my goal weight, wow, and just last year, I was only 30 lbs over it, eek. 

Gonna have to take care of it now before I really let go. This is especially frightening since I'm going to the doctor on Wednesday, and I know she'll tell me part of my health problems lately are due to being overweight. However, I think there's more to it. It at least as to be a more severe lactose intolerant condition. Though, it could possibly be celiac. Two of my cousins (my mom's side) have been diagnosed with celiac in the past couple of months. They are from two separate families, but still blood related to each other and me. I also have a cousin who has type 1 diabetes which is closely related to celiac, and is also from another family, but still related to me through my mother as well. So we're pretty concerned that might be what is affecting me and everything I eat. (I'm gassy and have nasty indigestion EVERY day, no matter what, this wasn't happening two years ago at all). So, we'll keep our fingers crossed, but it seems to be that no matter what, I'll hav eto change to a special diet, which I am not looking forward to just because I leave cheese and carbohydrates so much. I love cheese more than chocolate, yeah, I'm that insane. 

I've been keeping busy with stuff from being on a national board and with research and homework to collecting information for my scholarship for grad school. I have a federal grant that will pay tuition and books for the whole time I'm in grad school, but I'm also working on another scholarship to prove that I have got to have this masters and endorsement in order to do what I want to do. THis way, the scholarship will pay for at least a good portion of tuition and books and we can use the grant to help with living expenses and make it so that both of us won't have to work as much and put more focus on school. It's a lot of work though, I stared this in March/April, and I'm still working on it (yes I have been actively working on it). With all this work, I REALLY pray that I get the scholarship or else all this grief for nothing. 

Other than that, (gee that's all, that whole list...gosh I'm not doing anything with my life at all!!!) life has been ni ce and easy. I hope to get some harp and piano practicing in this summer as well as some cross stitching and shuttling (not sure what it's actually called, but you use a shuttle to make doilies or fancy edges for blankets or watever using a single thread and making it all pretty). I miss doing that stuff (yes I am domesticated, believe it or not). 

Hope everyone else is doing well, and yes I do read your posts, just been busy for the past 9 months :) 

...complaining again

I really hate being frustrated lately. I've been overly stressed to the point that when I'm in bed at night, I get either really emotional or really delirious with giggling. My class has been reviewing the past week or two to prepare for the state testing this week. We did the first session in both language arts and math yesterday. I was so mad and frustrated with the test because of how things are worded. It isn't developmentally appropriate and my kids are missing it just because of how the sentence or written or the order of choice of the answer choices. I'm not allowed to read the answer choices out loud, but I can read each question out loud, and I do. I just can't read the answer choices, which makes the test harder for just a couple of my kids. Just frustrates me that I can read the question, not the answer choices (I don't give them the answer). I was also frustrated because even my highest kids were tricked or wouldn't read all of the answer choices. SO SO hard not to say "hey so so, double check your answer make sure it's right." I'm not telling them the answer that way, but I am hinting that their answer is wrong, which is obviously against the testing ethics (and I totally agree with, just frustrating too). I can't even say "make sure you read the answer choices CAREFULLY and that you read EACH ONE." All I can say is what's written in the book. :( Just so frustrating. 

The end of the school year is coming up. I'm done teaching 3 weeks from Wednesday, and that last Wednesday is only a half day. We also have a Monday off for memorial day, so taht means I only have 16 more teaching days. It's crazy, and I can't beleive that's all taht is left. At the same time, I cannot wait and say heaven forbid! :) Mostly because of the stress from the testing and reviewing lately alongside with the commute (45 minutes each way). I also have tons of papers to catch up on to correct. That's my biggest problem right there, it's a huge mountain of papers to correct. Bleh. 

I start ballroom dancing with Bryan a week from Thursday. I'm very excited for that. I've taken ballroom dancing before, but never with Bryan, and it'll be nice to learn the same techniques together and learn how to work with each other's styles. 

One of my students has been gone since April 12th and just returned today. he had a chance to visit where his family is from as well as another country. He brought me back a nipa hut figurine from the Phillipines. It's really cute. I missed him a lot, even if he is one of my talkers. :) I just hope his family really did do the schoolwork while he was gone so that he could prepare for the state testing. (he was gone for 22 days!!). I'm pretty sure they did based on past experiences and conversations with the parents. Nothing like having parents who realize the value of their child's educaiton and support him as well. 

Anyway, this has gone on long enough :) hope everyone is well!

6 years later

I am now a college graduate. YAY! Convocation was today (at freaking 8 A.M. bleh). I'm happy, but it doesn't really feel real. I think it's because I know I still have schooling left. I start grad school in August, so yeah, 3 more years of school.... :)

Long day

I feel like such a dork...

On monday's we have early out day so that the faculty can do collaboration every week for an hour. Well today is Monday, thus it is early out day. 

My first half of class leaves at 1:15, the other half of class leaves at 2:30.

Well today, for some reason I thought 2:30 = 2:15. So I had the students allr eady to go packed up and such and lined up. 2:16 goes by, 2:17....hmm...
*doh*
And I only figured it out because I had looked into the hallway to see if any kids were leaving and was debating letting them go before the bell rang. I can see anmother classroom from my door window, and saw they were all still reading....

I looked at the schedule on the board and see "2:30 - Bye B track! :) "

Looked at the clock which is now 2:19 *doh*

"sorry class, I lied, we don't leave for another 10 minutes!"

Man, I'm such an embarassing teacher!

I had a parent return some math worksheet that was corrected, apparantly I crossed one off on the worksheet that was actually right. Well I marked it as right in my book, so she had the right score, just don't know why I marked it wrong on the worksheet. 10 + 4 really does = 14. heh. 

Yeah, I feel stupid today.

Funny

It's funny how my students think I'm so much cooler now that I own a gamecube....

Grad School

I will start grad school Fall Semester of 2007. I have officially been accepted! YAY! :) I'll be going to the University of Utah, and now I get to see Bryan more often since he goes there too. Super yayness.

Holy Moly

So, I'm on meds for the two things I have, strep and sinus infection. I have to take two pills twice a day. Somehow I understood that to be take one pill in the morning and one pill in the evening. So for the past couple of days I've been doing it that way. I get tired after I take a pill, each time. Amoxicillin has always had that effect on me. Then my ruggedly handsome husband tells me that I should be taking TWO in the morning and TWO in the evening, as per the bottle instructions. So I took 2 today. We were both feeling tired at 7 PM this evening, so decided to take a nap. I slept for a bit, woke up when Bryan got out of bed and had said "I'm awake!" Next thing I knew, he was waking me up at 12:15 A.M. (midnightish) asking if I wanted to get some food. Holy cow, I slept for 5 hours and didn't even really wake up. I also could have slept for much longer, MUCH. I could go to sleep rightnow, but then I'd get nasty heartburn from the food from laying down. This stuff knocks me out...whew. Now I'm scared to teach for the next week. 

In other news, I got my cap and gown ordered today and I graduate 8 A.M. on April 27th. YAY!

The verdict

The verdict is in:
Sinus infection and a strep. 
Doctor said not to go to work tomorrow as I am still contagious (sp?) especially since I work with kids. So, I'm annoyed with that, but oh well, what can I do? *grumble*

yet sick again

I REALLY hate being sick too. I started getting sick last week, and it was really bad over the weekend, then got better by Thursday. Last Friday it started to suck again, I crashed at like 9:30 on a freaking Friday night! Then Saturday I was ok, felt groggy, then that night I basically threw up (was throwing up, but trying so hard to make it to the bathroom it just went back down, ugh). then I went to bed. Slept in until 10:30 Sunday morning, felt icky all day and headachey and took a 3 hour nap and such. Last night I was miserable. Woke up this morning, I was even worse. Wanted to call in a substitute but I couldn't because we had planned to do a whole grade level thing where we would mix up our kids, but had nothing specific planned out to teach, so I coulnd't just unload that onto a substitute. Luckily today was an "easy" day. We have safety week this week, so for the first half of school we had lectures from cops about road and bike safety, rocky mountain power about electricity and the fire station about firefighters and trucks and ambulances. That took up all morning until lunch time. So I had to mix up writing, math and reading in for 1 hour. So it was ok, I ended up letting them have a 10 minute recess cause I was getting really woozy with all the noise. So I set up to have a sub for tomorrow. I was getting worried beacause by 3:45 No one had picked up the job yet. I had put it in at 9 this morning, luckily someone picked it up at 4. I had to stay after to make sub plans (those usually take me around 2 hours to make,I hate having substitutes for two reasons, writing the plans and not knowing who's going to take care of my kids for the day....protective I know). So I left around 5 (finally), got some gatorade and came straight home. Got home around 6, jumped into the bathtub right away and was in there until 7:45. Crazy, but dang it felt good. 
Now here I am wanting to take Nyquil and hit the sack, but I have to pick up Bryan in an hour from his night class, so that won't happen until he gets home, Plus, I need to eat something tonight. (I hate eating when I'm sick, but if I don't, I just make myself worse). 

Yeah, long boring rambly entry, but YAY I get to sleep in and just crash all day tomorrow! Even if the house is a mess, I still am VERY excited. :)

Yikes a bee

There are 6 2nd grade teachers at this school. 
ONe had a meeting today, so there is a sub for her. 
The other one came this morning, but was really sick and is preggo, puking all over the place. She wasn't fit to be here today, but they couldn't find a sub. So we split her class over 4 of us since it would just be too much for the sub to have extra students. 
that means 25 of my own kids + 6 more from another class. 
Holy Moly, that's just a lot of kids, especially when I only have desks for at most, 28, so I've got some at my back reading table (had to hurry and clear it off). 
Had to change all of my lessons today due to the fact that each class is different, so I'm doing an art thing with seasons. Working out well so far, but can't do this all day. 
So much talking, I feel insane!

I can't wait until today is over...3 more hours...

When Pigs Fly Part Deaux

I thought the day that I got a black eye would be the same day pigs fly. 
So, I did get started on my personal career statement. Then I got a headache from reading too much and focusing so hard, so I decided to take a break. I convinced my husband to go out. We went to Fazoli's since we had a gift certificate there and was able to get everything without paying a cent for it on the gift card. It was really nice. We were planning on seeing a movie, but had an hour to kill. So we went to a couple of stores and checked them out, we saw a nail place on the way. It just sounded good to get a manicure so we went there so I could get my nice little manicure while Bryan was in an awesome massage chair. My nails look great! :) And feel great! By the time the manicure was over, it was too late to catch the movie, so we went to get some stuff for my lesson plan tomorrow. We went to a party store and got the helium balloons I need for the lesson. We were attempting to get them into the trunk, I was helping holding the balloons down, Bryan was trying to carefully close the trunk. Well, apparantly either my face is too big or I was too close. :) The trunk came right down onto my eye socket, my right eye socket, and it hurt like a son of a gun. (Bryan feels really bad, so bad I feel bad about him feeling bad). Looking at it now, it's swollen on the corner and hurts/burns when I blink. Now there's a small faint black line across the bottom. Who knows if it'll get worse tomorrow. I jsut think it's funny cause tomorrow is when I get observed by the principal for my lesson :D

I'm really fine, I just think it's hilarious! Hope everyone else had a great weekend as well :)

When pigs fly

I have an observation tomorrow, my final one for the whole school year. The lesson is called "When Pigs Fly." It'll be a fun lesson on porbability. I'm very excited. I just can't wait for it to be done, I think I'm more excited about it being done than the actual lesson itself. (Can you blame me, after this observation, that's 15 observations this year in between BYU and the school district). 

Now I'm working on my personal career statement. Getting it done seems to be the perfect time to say "When Pigs Fly." Such a pain to try and sell myself with a limit of how many words and having to address specific things. 
A - I hate being in the spotlight, more than ever, I hate it. The only time I enjoy it is when it's from my husband. For this reason, I hate selling myself. I feel like I'm trying to hide all my faults and struggles when I'm selling myself. Which I hate, because I know what my weaknesses are now after 15 observations. 
B - It's grad school. Holy cow, I can't believe I'm actually applying to grad school. This coming from the girl who didn't even plan on going to college at all when she was 18. I'm nuts, seriously. I've been in school every year since I was 2. No breaks at all. I'm a little tired....but hey, it's the perfect time to do it.
C - I'm just flat out tired. I've been trying to work on this career statement since January 23rd. Yeah, do I have a single word down yet? No. However, I do have an idea of what I'm going to say now....27 days later...how sad. 
D - It's a holiday for crying out loud. I want to just take the day off on a holiday. I spent Saturday at a very pointless meeting that I am still very sorely disappointed about. I wasted 7 hours (including driving time) for that meeting, and I didn't gain one thing from it. I could've used all that time to be working on the stuff I am now so that I could have today off and just rest and get the house in order. Yeah, somewhat bitter about it. 
E - ALL MOTIVATION IS GONE. I have no drive left, seriously. It's all gone. I honestly don't care about a lot of things right now. Which is a very bad thinga s a teacher because lately I've been doing my lesson plans last minute (yet, they are productive, just dang, it's hard sometimes). I talked to other teachers about this, and they said everyone feels that way about this time of the year. Made me feel somewhat better, but I still expect more/better of myself. 

Ok, I'm done wasting time, back I go to attempting to do this personal career statement and listening to music....

Kids

One thing that's always fascinated me about kids in this age group (7-8), how excited they get over the smallest things. 

Often times, one of the students will find a book that has their first name, or the author has the same first or last name. They get so excited about it that they have to show me every single time. I never understood why it's so great. Then I thought about it. I do the same thing when I see my name, since it's not all that common. Especially when it's in movie credits, I'll tell the person next to me "HEY! It's my name!"

Why do we do this? What's so important or great about this? I just don't get it. I do it too, and I don't get it....

Scattered thoughts again

I wanted to post, but I really don't have much to say...
School is great. 
Inside recess today, it's snowing. 
Valentine Class Party yesterday was great. Tons of cute valentines. 
100th day of school was ...two weeks agoish, that was fun, but took a LOT of energy out of me. 
BYU debt paid off so I can get my transcripts in for my grad school application. Feels great. 
For some reason GRE scores did not make it the department I asked for it to go there, have yet to call. 
V-day was lowkey for me. Bryan had to take a test at night, so mom and I went out alone together. dad is working and sisters ditched her for dinner, so we were both glad to have company. Went to a mexican place that we would have never tried if it weren't for my aunt. We absolutely loved it. Yum. 
My BYU final evaluations are done, but the district evaluation is not because the principal forgot he was supposed to do my evaluation on Tuesday. So now I have to do another prep for next week Tuesday. Then I'm done with evaluations for the rest of the school year. Super yayness. 
Another secret...I like Buffy the Vampire Slayer, but season six is really driving me nuts. 
My VCR is broken still, I miss it. 
I miss being home, I'm gone a lot. 
Bryan hates being home, he's not gone a lot compared to me. 
One student just got a super cute haircut, Ilove it. 
I wish it was Friday yesterday. I need a break. 
Parent teacher conference was last week, had one mom that was upset due to miscommunication, got that cleared up, other than that, all other parents are happy. *whew*
Very happy it's president's day on monday, especially since I'm going to a workshop all day saturday. At least the workshop is free....
I love and miss dogs, a lot. 
Bella is great, but still not a dog, but I wouldn't give Bella away ever if I can help it.
I'm definitely not ready for kids. 
I'm nervous about my application to grad school. I've tried to start my personal career statement several times now, but I just can't seem to get what I want to put down. Drives me nuts. 
Inside recess is over...*sigh*

The dreaded flu

You know the flu is going around when the last day of the school week you have 7 students absent and the first day of the next school week you have 9 students absent. Almost all are excused for being sick.

Another long update

Well, I'm 24 now. My birthday was this last Monday. I don't feel different, though I wonder if I should because people keep asking me if I feel different or if it's weird. I haven't yet had a real birthday bash or anything. Bry and I are waiting to get paid so that we can do a little thing for my birthday. 

I got my GRE scores back, I don't know what to think of them. I just hope it's all good enough for the grad school. That's all I care. :) I did better on the writing analysis, a lot better, than I thought I would. The other two scores, I was just average. 

I just found out that I did pass my Teacher Work Sample, basically the final project for me to do before I graduate. So now all I have left are three observations which are coming up. One this coming week, and two the next week. After that, my two supervisors write up their final evluations, then I'm all set to graduate. I just make sure everything is in my career placement file. 

I'm turning in my application to the U of U grad school next week. Kind of nerve wracking since I won't know until at least March whether or not I got accepted. I just have to finish up my resume and my personal career statement, and get my transcripts sent in, then I'm all set. 

I got a second calling at church last week. I'm co-teaching Bryan's primary class three Sundays a month, then the third Sunday, I teach Relief Society. So truly, Saturdays are the ONLY days where I'm not doing something teaching related. :) I was definitely meant to be teaching :) 

On Monday, I'll finally get a girls night out with to of my gal friends. I'm very very excited for that. Like, REALLY. :) I miss them a lot. 

Bryan's been busy with school. He has night classes on Monday and Wednesday and is basically at the library all night on Tuesday and Thursday. We spend Friday nights together, then he spends all day Saturday at the library. It get skind of lonely around here when he's gone the only time I'm home, but one must do what they must do eh?

I suppose I should get back to cleaning and working on my resume and my other job. I just don't feel like it. The darn cold has been making me tired very easily. I slept for about 12 hours last night because of it. I work work work all week, then when I get home, I sleep. The house has become a mess because of this...oops. :) 

Not a very exciting update, but it is one at least.

Kids are creative

OK, ok, I know I've complained about it a million times. This time, I have something good to say about it. 

Wow, you get to see a different side of the kids once they get used to inside recess. So amazing ow creative tey are. A girl just made a horse and a person riding a horse out of cubes, the boys of course have been making spaceships. I'm also surprised at how many know how to play Othello (I think that's what it's called). 

We made masks today, They look awesome, hopefully I'll remember my camera tomorrow.

The best students

oh what fun it is to have a power outage in an elementary school. 

Luckily, my kids weren't screaming or freaking out. I had run to the copy room really fast to make copies, and it went out while I was there. I hurried back and just found my kids standing up and waiting for me to tell them what to do. They really are good kids. :)

Scattered Thoughts

A little breathing room and very random scattered thoughts
Finally, I have just a LITTLE breathing room for a bit, heh.

I spent most of Christmas break working on my teaching portfolio and studying for the GRE. Teaching portfolio mostly done, just waiting for feedback from my supervisor, then I can scan the pics I need in and put in my references, then PAH! FINISH! I'm excited to have it done and to be able to just focus on teaching instead of worrying about my grades alongside with teaching. This has to be in by Wednesday, I'm ecstatic to have it done.

I took the GRE today. It's done, I've taken it, and now to finish my application for grad school. Prospects look good so far, we shall see. I'll have the application turned in by January 31st, but I won't know if I'm accepted until April or May. I hate waiting. I'm having a hard enough time waiting for the rest of GRE scores to be done.

I have grades to enter in that are due on Thursday. All just right after we get back from Christmas break. It's insane.

Come next Friday, January 12th. I'll have a lot more room to breathe. Will just have to focus on teaching and finishing up my grad application. Still very excited for it. :)

Students are awesome, seirously could not ask for a better class. I love them all and cannot thing of anything else I would rather do for a job. I wouldn't even model, I hate attention. Yeah, I know, I'm weird that way.

Night at the Musem movie, I loved it. I am a sucker for that kind of comedy. I am entertained quite easily. I have at least 5 DVD's of Laurel and Hardy if that tells you how easily I am entertained :)

Saw the magazine with Caridee on it, the Seventeen magazine. Yes, I do love the ANTM show.

I miss being social...hmph. I would love a rootbeer freeze from A&W right now. Yum.