Week 1 of Student Teaching- Conquered

So week 1 is dunzo. So far it's not awful. I mean I'm busy, I have plenty to do, and the procrastination is not being warded off by my pretending to be an adult like I had hoped. But, it's definitely not as intellectually taxing as constitutional law and it's not as frustrating as comparative foreign policy. However, those little stinkers of 7th graders haven't had their way with me quite yet.

Worst part. Answering to my cooperating teacher. I mean she is a very nice lady, but we are totally different. I'm much more of a big picture person. It is not at all important to me that my students know the percentage of Jewish people living in Israel. I'm perfectly happy with them being able to say, "Um most of them. Duh Miss G." These first couple days have left me very excited to finally teach my own stuff my own way with my own Jonas Brother PowerPoints. I don't do well with someone being in charge of me, I like to fight the power.

In other news I am a cutout machine! I don't think I have ever posted any pictures of my papercuts so I need to get on that. I absolutely love doing them. This summer I was totally inspired by Julene Harrison and her lovely cutouts. I've made a couple that are very clearly inspired by her style but I have finally start to set out on my own and I am very proud of what has come from it! I don't think I'll have any grading tomorrow so maybe I'll start getting some of those pictures taken...

Prayers Please!

I haven't posted in about 100 years. But I recently (as in, yesterday) found out that one of my best friends is dealing with some medical issues right now. She went to the doctors for a routine checkup, and they discovered a very large mass on an ovary. They don't know if this is something to worry about yet or not, many many tests are in the process as I type this. But please keep her in your prayers! This is such a scary thing to me, so I can't imagine how terrifying it must be for her and her husband!

In other news, student teaching started yesterday. I'm going to try really hard to document this insane experience here so I can remember it and so that future teachers can use it as a guide, or perhaps a warning...

Mall in Munich

On our last night in Munich Luna and split up from the boys. It was weird being in a strange city not having any way to contact the boys who we'd kind of been using as our pass to safety!

We went into this giant mall, I still have the bag from it. It was super American and we had had dinner there the night before as a group. Our goals were to find tights and hats because we were freezing! We picked out neon blue tights to wear under our jeans but didn't have much luck with hats, Mostly, because I didn't want to mess up my hair... I was willing to sacrifice my ears. We wandered downstairs and it was huuuge! The basement was filled with so many people and there were chocolates, wine, adn valentines cards everywhere! Luna and I found her German edition of Harry Potter first and then we set out for candy. I got an octagonal yellow box of chocolates. Each wrapper had an impressionist painting on it. It was eating these later that night that I remembered I don't actually like German Chocolate... This was also where I picked up some chocolates with champagne in them for my parents. They ended up being awful but it was worth the funny looks on their faces. I remember at one point we were trying to meet up with the boys but we kept missing each other on the dozen or so different escalators.

New Years!

Over Thanksgiving Break I had my normal dinner at Hacienda with my YMCA girls. This time it was just me, Skipper, and Bingo but oh it was a blast! The best part is that we are all at different very stressful stages of teaching. I am just about to start student teaching, Bingo has just finished student teaching, and Skipper has just finished her first semester teaching at a middle school in West Lafayette.

After our quesadillas and loaded potatoes skins we were talking about what we should do the next day. The consensus? Chicago. I loooove where I live! I love being able to say, "I'm bored, let's go to Chicago!" While in our beloved city we discussed maybe getting a hotel room there for New Years. OMG YES!

I have never celebrated New Years. Normally I am asleep by midnight and due to the terrible weather where I live it is usually highly unlikely that the BF can come visit. So the prospect of a real New Years, in my favorite city, with my favorite girls? YES! So of course I have spent hours looking for New Years dresses! I'm leaning towards the bright blue or yellow one but I dunno...

Auf Wiedersehen

As Herm and I were leaving a friends house after our weekly Grey's night we broke into an impromptu performance of the Sound of Music.

"Good bye, fairwell, auf wiedersehen, good night... etc." We even had the same movements, and then we skipped out of the house.

We do this sometimes, I don't know where it comes from.

Seriously??

The BF and I were watching TV when one of those commercials came on about the shoes that give you a fantastic body while slowly scanning it up and down with the camera. I covered his eyes and told him not to get his hopes up, this is as good as it gets, it's all downhill from here.

"I'm not even as good as I was at 18!"

"Wow. Think of what you'll look like when you're 30!"

Not a happy face...

Ok, admittedly, this is exaggerated slightly on my part because of my exclusion of the rest of the conversation, but still. I threatened to put it on the blog so now I have to follow through.

He did apologize immediately, he thought we were joking. Um, I was only kind of joking, like 40%.

Bringing Fun to the World Everywhere!

So for an upcoming philosophy assignment we have to write a paper about something wrong with the world and way people are fixing. Mine was going to be about how people just don't have enough fun anymore, they don't know their neighbors and they don't try to get along with strangers. I have a few great sites that I want to use but I need more.

So, I typed "bring fun to the world" in google search.

Google, thinking that I couldn't possibly want to bring fun to the world, gave me this suggestion:

If you can't tell, that says "Did you mean: bring gun to the world."

I think this experience should be my thesis statement!

Not This Week...

According to the 10 day forecast it will not be snowing this week.

Don't loose hope. Maybe next week.

Little Lovelies at F21

Picked up this little lovely at F21 this weekend and I am all sorts of excited to wear it!

Finally, an occasion for genuinely tiny knickers!

I'm such a fair-weather blogger. But it's heading into Christmas, which is my favorite time of year so I should be back a bit more. And there are all sorts of important things going on over here! There are trips to Chicago to be planned! Trees to be decorated! Movies to be watched! Boots to be worn! Snow to fall!

And ya know, the whole deciding what to do with your life kind of thing. I am seriously contemplating taking two years to go through grad school in Europe. Do you have any idea how cheap grad school is in Europe? It's cheap. And I just watched Bridget Jones and now I'm hankering for some overt show of love in the middle of the London streets. And hey, my passport is good for another 9 years. I need to use that sucker.

You've Got Love!

Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks are my ideal couple.

They are so dreamy...

Education Major Sucks

I've always really had a distaste for most of the professors in my education department. They are a huge factor in my back and forth decisions in my major, I'd like to be a teacher but the thought of dealing with them for four years was enough to end it for me. They are nice women, but I think that they have ill feelings toward secondary ed majors and I don't think that most of their classes do a lot to help me understand what I will be facing in a high school classroom. But senior year, by far has been the worst. I mean, I was told that I need to "uglify" myself for student teaching. Apparently I will be too distracting. Really? Seriously??

Now there is one in particular that seems to have picked out me and Luna. SO FRUSTRATING!

They are a waste of my time. There is only one that I have any confidence in whatsoever. This blog will surely be turning into a place for me to vent my frustrations about the education department...