January 31st, 2013

Today, I found spearmint Chapstick brand chapstick. I hadn't been able to find it for months! Definitely bought two tubes...just to be on the safe side haha. :)

January 30th, 2013

Each day, I'm getting more and more independence in the classrooms. I'm currently taking attendance, starting every lesson, helping teach throughout every lesson, grading every class, and putting in grades in the grade book. Teacher's College has this down to a science because I do not feel overwhelmed or inexperienced at all! Each day I learn something new and I grow more confidence with each class. I'm related better to students and I feel like I'm reaching a great deal of them. To be able to realize this, even after some pretty crappy days, makes me feel excellent :)

January 29th, 2013

Today, I outsmarted my 3rd and 4th year French students. Each day in all my French classes, I provide a French expression (provided by a calendar my parents got me for Christmas) and we translate it and then talk about a grammar point of sorts. Well my 3rd and 4th years thought they would be funny, and they took a picture of my calendar where the phrases were written, and they translated them before class so that when we did it in class they acted like they already knew the answers. Har har har, whatever :P So anyway, today I thought I would one up them by taking the expression for today and putting it in "verlan", a cultural dialect that started with the younger generations and grew into a cultural phenomenon. Essentially, it's an inverse of syllables (verlan is actually a prime example, being the inverse of "l'envers", meaning "inverse" in French) and it has certain rules as to which syllables you can invert and what sounds you can add or drop. So by doing this to the expression, I was able to keep my students from cheating with the expression as well as give them a cultural lesson. Their reaction was priceless--sometimes I love being a teacher! :)

January 28th, 2013

Today, my favorite little sister turned 20. It's sooo weird to think that's she's two decades old! And I know we've always had these two and a half months where there's "technically" only a year between us, but it just feels crazy weird thinking that she's 20 when I'm still 21. As in, I don't think it's allowed. I tried telling her to stop growing up years ago and she refused to listen, but I guess it's alright because I still think she's my best friend :)

January 27th, 2013

Today, I watched The Notebook after almost 22 years of abstaining from watching it. I had no idea that a movie could make me feel like a terrible person for NOT crying at it! But with that being said, it was a pretty good movie and I'm glad I can now say I've seen it. Now to tackle Titanic, Star Wars, all the Marvel releases, and God knows what else...haha :)

January 26th, 2013

Today, I went bowling for the first time in almost two years! Unfortunately, it was with a friend who has a season pass, plays for a league, has gotten a perfect game before, and has gotten above an 800 in three games (apparently that's harder than a 300? that's what I hear lol). Needless to say, the only time I beat him was when he bowled left handed :P It was still really fun though!

January 25th, 2013

Today, I went gambling! It was my first time in a casino since I turned 21, and it was a great experience! My date actually gave me $20 to start out with, and I still ended in the positive with $8.15 after giving him his $20 back :) I don't think it'll be something that I'll do habitually or even really in the near future, but it was definitely a good experience :)

January 24th, 2013

Today, I taught my first lesson with my teacher completely out of the room. It was such an awesome experience; I felt completely in control and the class seemed very responsive and respectful. I can't wait to have it happen more often :)

January 23rd, 2013

Today, we had a student in the first year class reach his snapping point. He was enraged that he had gotten his phone taken away in class, and then it started to vibrate on the teacher's desk. The teacher then went into his phone to turn the vibrate off, and the student snapped, grabbing his phone out of her hand, using an inappropriate tone, etc. This experience led me to doing some research on what teachers are and are not within their rights to do, and I definitely learned some new information! Although I'm not happy with how it came to be, I'm glad I was able to find out what I did!

(Curious? Check out the details in my other blog!)

January 22nd, 2013

Today, I got to go in depth about French pronunciation with my 3rd and 4th years. This is something that I absolutely love because it reminds me of the two linguistic courses that I took and loved. Of course, the French linguistics course I loved because Stan was in it, but I'm sure that's besides the point :P Anyway, my students were talking about different vowel sounds and I got to talk about how different regions pronounce the same words differently and they were just absolutely in awe. I felt like I was in my nitch and it was fantastic :)

January 21st, 2013

Today, I created my own seating charts in two of my classes. It's my first dabble with it, trying to not punish the good kids but separate the trouble ones...it's also the first chance for the students to actually resent me as a teacher for not letting them get their way. Tomorrow will be an interesting day :)

January 20th, 2013

Today, ABC family had a Disney movie marathon, and I got to see Cinderella and the Lion King, two of my favorite Disney movies, and it made me very happy :)

January 19th, 2013

Today, I got a decent amount of sleep, and it felt amazing. It was the first time I felt that well rested probably in a week, but it had felt like forever.

January 18th, 2013

Today, I had a good two or three students surprise me not only by participating in class, but volunteering correct answers. These are usually the students who would not repeat after me and when I called on them they'd just say "I don't know" or "I don't care". I don't know what changed today to where they wanted to volunteer or something, but it was fantastic!

January 17th, 2013

Today, I had the first sign that I might be getting less sick soon. Whenever I would swallow, it would not hurt as much. Obviously the sign was quite minute, but the fact that I could consciously notice it was absolutely fantastic :)

January 16th, 2013

Today, I got shoulder tapped for a lovely experience! There is a new student at one of the elementary schools who just came from China and knows absolutely no English. Some colleagues knew that I was going for ENL certification, and so they found ME and asked if I could help! I'm excited to see if it works out!

January 15th, 2013

Today, I realized that I have a wonderful network of friends who are there for me when I need them. I've had some great conversations today and it's made me extremely happy to know I'm not alone. It makes me feel better about everything that's happened this year :)

January 14th, 2013

Today, there was a two hour delay. Pretty sure it speaks for itself :)

January 13th, 2013

Today, I...was depressed. Like, the entire day. It sucked. Beyond sucked. However, I had two friends step up and go out of their way to make me feel better. And that has made the day bearable. Hopefully getting back to the daily grind teaching tomorrow will help get my head back on straight.

January 12th, 2013

Today, I did absolutely nothing. I didn't get out of bed until 3:30 pm, and then all I did was clean up a bit and settle back down to watch four movies. Best day off ever :)

January 11th, 2013

Today concluded my first week of student teaching! Although it wasn't much, it's the only first week I'll have, and I think it went pretty well. I'm starting to get to know a few other teachers as well as some of the administration staff, and I'm looking forward to establishing relationship that will make this semester just that much better!

January 10th, 2013

I'm fairly certain it will be hard to have something else to celebrate that will make me this happy today, even though it's only 8:30 am. Check out this screen shot:



That is the Smart Board Notebook and Smart Board Tools software. I got the license and product keys yesterday, but today I got to activate them (off of the 30-day free trial) today. The fact that it works and I'll always be able to have this software...I am absolutely stoked!

Oh, and I used peppermint mocha creamer in my coffee today instead of just vanilla...it's delicious!

January 9th, 2013

Today, it was hard to find something to celebrate because I lost a lot of faith in the education system. However, I got to spend some time with a really good friend and it was exactly what I needed. I got to cook on a real stove, watch Big Bang Theory, and just enjoy being in someone's company instead of alone, like I would have been if I had gone straight home after school. I'm definitely glad and certainly blessed to have this option.

January 8th, 2013

Today, I realized that there's no such thing as a comfortable pair of heels to wear for ten hours. However, the fact that I am now in a position to be wearing heels for ten hours makes me so excited. This was the first day of student teaching and it was amazing. I can't wait to see what the rest of the semester has in store :D

January 7th, 2013

Today, I got to prepare for my first day of student teaching, which is tomorrow. I went shopping for some small school supplies and got some great things prepared on top of having my student teaching orientation and meeting my supervising teacher, I'm definitely looking forward to actually student teaching this semester!

January 6th, 2013

Today, I got the opportunity to hang out with a friend for the vast majority of the day. I wasn't looking forward to being on my own in my room for the majority of the day, so having the opportunity to get out of my room and be social for once definitely helped with the feeling of solitude :)

January 5th, 2013

Today was my last day of holiday work at the movie theater. It was actually a pretty good shift, but I'm definitely glad to be done working there for a month. After the holiday season, I would have to say I am a tad bit burnt out from all of it and will take this break with open arms. On the bright side...my paycheck is going to look awesome next Friday... :)

January 4th, 2013

Today at work it was probably the best shift I've worked the entire month I've been back in town working. I don't know what it was about the shift, be it who I was working with or the amount of work that was necessary for the day, but everything just fit together so nicely that it didn't feel like the shift was dragging on or taking forever. There was no drama and no issues. I loved it :)

January 3rd, 2013

Today, I had a productive meeting with the other supervisors at the movie theater where I work. There had been so many misconceptions and misinformation going around through all the staff, it was nice to get everything out in the open and get everyone talking. I think things will be much better now that we've had this talk :)

January 2nd, 2013

Today, I was organizing parts of my room before I left for Muncie on Sunday. I found some crazy old things that I wrote, made, or studied. I had some papers from my sophomore year in high school, a couple journal entries from 2008, and all my yearbooks! Some of it was embarrassing, but there are some pieces I'm not ready to let go of yet :)

January 1st, 2013

Today, I was working at the movie theater and I was walking down one of the hallways when I was approached by a mother with her two kids. She told me that she was watching Monsters Inc. 3D, but her daughter didn't like the 3D. She wanted to know if it was ok for them to go see Rise of the Guardians since it was not in 3D and had just started. Normally for something like that we allow them to go in no problem, but 3D is $9 more expensive. I told the mother that it was fine, but I thought she'd want to exchange tickets so she could get her money back for the 3D showing. She said she just wanted to get her kids settled as soon as possible, so she didn't care about the money. I took her ticket stubs, told her to go in the movie, and I'd come and find her with the new stubs and her money back. She was so appreciative! And when I told my manager about the experience, he was very proud with how I handled the situation. It was a great feeling!