life according to me

One of my favorite things in life is small-world stories. I love making random connections with people...it's the best. Well, here's a random one: A few weeks ago, before Halloween, I was discussing my costume-less state with my cooperating teacher Angela. She said that her family had a bunch of costumes I was welcome to use and that she'd bring some to school. Instead, she decided we should leave school during our prep period and go try on costumes at her house. Angela is awesome. So we left school (a much-needed break) and went to her house. And she lives in the same house as my Aunt Val and Uncle Dan used to live (I had found this out previously, but it was still weird to walk through the house and remember things). Anyway, my Uncle Dan had built a treehouse for his kids in the backyard, and it was still there. And I remembered that when I was 11 years old, my sisters and cousins and I put our hands in paint and then put our hand-prints on the walls of the treehouse. So I went out into the treehouse and looked and they were still there! It was basically amazing. Molly's hand-prints were teeny because she was only 5 years old when we did it. It was so fun to see.

(hopefully pictures to come)

For Halloween I ended up wearing a dress of Angela's from when she was a teenager--she bought it in Austria. So I was just an Austrian girl. I dressed up for school because EVERYONE at my school does. Probably 80% or more of the students dress up and ALL of the teachers do. Even the administration kind of does. So it was pretty fun. Even though the kids were out of control, it was really funny to see everyone's costumes.

(I actually had my hair in pigtails, but not in this picture.)

For FHE the week of Halloween, my group carved pumpkins. This is the one my roommate and I did. [Sorry the pictures are crappy. They're from my cell phone.]

School has been going well. My students have been doing really well with the material and have been performing well (on average) on their tests. It's interesting how much you care about your students after a short period of time. I have a few students that just never quite get it--and I want to help them so badly, but they aren't willing to help themselves. They won't do the homework, they won't come in for help, and they won't ask questions. It's just so hard to see them fail when you know they could succeed! You wonder how you can possibly care so so so much more than they do about their education. Why does it take us so long to learn the value of education? I was a hard worker in junior high and high school, but even I didn't love learning until college. If only we could see the vision when we are younger and have a DESIRE to learn. I guess when kids have to go to school, they no longer see it as the opportunity that it is. It's really quite a bummer. Anyway, so teaching is good, but absolutely exhausting. This past week was particularly hard and I had some moments where I just wanted to curl up in a ball and cry. Sometimes kids are massive jerks and won't ever listen and nothing you do will get them to respect you or their peers. And it is the worst feeling ever when you feel that people hate you. Anyway, on Friday, Angela took us out to lunch during the end of our prep/lunch time. We went to Kneaders and it was absolutely delicious. Angela even "forced" us to get desserts. Basically I have the best cooperating teacher ever.

I am a failure at the 100 pushups challenge. I'll admit it. I was doing really well, but after 3 weeks, I got my wisdom teeth out, and I haven't been able to get back into it. I know I'll have to start over at week 2 or 3 and I just don't have a strong enough to desire to do it. Darn me. I tried to do pushups the other day, though, and after a 3 week break I was able to do 35 consecutive push ups (way better than when I started) and today I was able to do 30, wait a minute or two, and do 25 more. So I've still made progress. I should probably stop being a slacker, though. But let's be honest...I probably won't.