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!