Wednesday, November 24, 2010

School, camps, Harry Potter, pie, and Dee's.

My field work was awesome!  My collaborating teacher was the most incredible woman who made me feel like I could really do this!  It was stressful.  I spent every night not sleeping and freaking out about my lessons.  But once I got in the classroom everything felt ok and things went very well.  I know this is what I want to be doing.  School is just so.. hard!  There is always so much due that I don't feel like I do the best job on all of it.  I try, but maybe I'm just lazy.  I could be doing better.  I'm a bad student but an excellent teacher.  I just need to suffer through, graduate and land a teaching job somewhere. 

My application to Philmont is in the review process.  Half of me is thinking 'hey! why wouldn't they hire me?  I have an incredible resume and I'm awesome!' the other half is saying 'I'm not good enough for Philmont, just stay home'.  I want to go.  It will be a new adventure for me.  I am really excited to be leaving Bartlett but the withdrawl sucks.  Every time I think about it I get this knife in my stomache knowing that it is over.  What will Handicraft do without me?  I was very, very good at my job.  :)

I saw Harry Potter twice this past weekend.  It was incredible!  Me and Rachel are going again as soon as she is all finished with her classes.  Go during the day when we are really awake.  I know it is wierd, that Harry Potter is so important to me.. it is something I grew up with and I will be crying in July when the movies are all over and done with!  I guess I just hate the ending of things. 

I learned how to make Pie today.  My grandma makes this incredible Eggnog Pie that she is famous for.  Me and Debbie and Jan went over to her house to make four pies.  I am so proud of myself!  I am pretty excited for Thanksgiving tomorrow.  It will be sad though, hardly anyone will be there.  Last year everyone was there and it was an icnredible feeling of family and love and togetherness.  Emily is spending the day in Park Valley with Layne.. it will be sad not to have her home. 

Jeff and I went to Dee's tonight for some hot chocoloate and he wanted 'protien' so we ended up getting pancakes and eggs and sausage.  We shouldn't of ate because we felt sick afterwards.  We drove down to Rhomer Park and did some doughnats in the parking lot until we thought a cop was coming after us.. hehe.

Chronicals of Narnia is pretty intense.  I need to read 'Voyage of the Dawn Treader' before the movie comes out. 

Sunday, November 14, 2010

Late nights lead to random thinking

My room is a messy.. not necessarily dirty but just cluttered!  I have WAY too many books, shoes that won't fit in my closet or keep spilling out because I have dig through them to find matching chucks.  My 9 or 10 text books scatter the floor with notes, and handouts spilling out of them.  I was going through my Bartlett Box and Letters/notes box.. they litter the floor.

When I was a little girl there was a girl that lived down the street from me and we were very close.  Our mom's were best friends (still are) but her dad got some great new job in Moses Lake Washington and they moved away.  Sad day.  Until I was 12 years old I wrote letters to this girl, we were pretty much pen pals-exchanging letters full of stickers and smelly spray, cramming evelopes with candies and pictures.  We visited eachother in the summer.  At the end of every single one of her letters it was "your very best friend' or 'bff' or 'Bestest most faraway friend'.  One fall she visited.. she had some huge dance competition or something down here.  We went to the mall and out to a restaurant and that was it.  I never talked to her again.  Until two days ago when she friend requested me on Facebook.  Oh Facebook..

I'm not saying I want to be some freak who can't escape childhood and wants her old best friend back.. but it just has me thinking.  Why don't things stay the same.  Why do people who say they'll be friends forever and ever.. just sort fall away from eachother.  Why did I not keep up the letters, the visits?  She has been married 3 years to an incredible guy.  She is doing so well, so talented, so beautiful.   It is so amazing to see pictures and recconnect after 8 years.  It is so funny how things just come back into your life.  I have a picture that's hung at my desk (with tons of others) of me, this girl and another friend (who also ironically just can back into my life again) standing on a fence together at Lagoon.  Life is funny. 


We had 3 short days in a row last week.  We ran out of things to do with the kids halfway through the second day.  Thankfully kids don't get bored.  Give them toys, recess, computers and they're perfectly content.  I was ready to rip my head off.  My problem child is out of the program and as much I'm overflowing with happiness and relief to berid my self of this severly ADHD, socially messed up kid.. I'm going to miss him! 

I start teaching on Monday.  I'm nervous.  A whole class of first graders.. by myself!  Can I really do this?
It's all about jumping through the hoops.  E.E is SO hard.  All the lesson plans, all the papers, the presentations, having everything is a specific format...   it really gets me down.  I hope I can make it untill next spring!! 
All my friends are moving onto Level 3 next semester, then onto Student Teaching and graduation next fall.  I am stupid and put off my stinking SI courses so I have to take a semester off to finish them up.  I'm ready to take a break and take some easy science classes, but I'm going to miss all the other girls.  A few of them are staying with me.  Carly, Whitney, Elizabeth..  two of my coworking that started the program at the same time I did are almost a year ahead of me!!

I'm getting fat.  Really.  I'm taking swimming and weight lifting next semster.  I'm hoping that will help. I miss swim team SO much and it's been 4 years since I was on it.  I miss being part of a team, waking up early every morning and driving over to Ogden High with Bills.  During High School swimming was such a big part of who I was and now it's gone.  Same with art.  When my art was hanging up in the AP art window I felt famous.  I loved spending hours everyday drawing and painting..  I don't have time and I feel I've lost my talent.  If possible I would take an art class. 

I'm trying to read all the Harry Potter books before the movie.  I need to read the last two in less than a week..  I'm so excited for the movie.  I watched Half Blood Prince today and kept crying at random times!  I'm such a boob. 

007 is a really violent video game...  we woke up Kylie with our screaming and she wanders out to ask us 'is someone being murdered?' yes.. on the video game! 

It is sad when you start to not miss someone as much because you get so used to them not being there, like other things or people are replacing them...  but at the same time it's happy because you don't spend so much time thinking about them. 

One of my best friends killed himself this summer.  I go numb and put it out of my mind and then I'll go hang out with my friends and someone brings up his name and talks about old memories and the cut just rips open again.

I was  one of only 2 of my best friends from high school that was not married or married and pregnant.  I almost didn't want to go to the baby shower.  It is hard seeing all of your friends moving on.  But I realized that night that I'm not really upset.  I miss them, but I can't live in the past.  I'm actually very, very, very happy for them.  And I can't wait to meet baby boy Logan Ballard.

I found the conference Ensign today.  I need to sit down and read it.  I love 1pm church.  I love sleeping in a Sundays...

Sunday, November 7, 2010

Pursuit of Happyness

I have been off my medication for months.. and you know what?  I'm ok!  I have realized that I have to live right now, in the moment, day to day, loving whatever comes my way.  Yes, there are several things that could be going better in life, but I'll take what I can get. 

I have an incredible family whom I'm incredibly close too.  I often find myself complaing that I don't have very many girlfriends that I can confide in a hang out with.  I've never really had a best friend.  But I have my family.  My sisters are my best friends and not everyone can say that.  So who cares if I don't have a best friend down the street that I've grown up with and hang out with all the time.  I do that with Rachel and Carly.  I thought is was pretty wierd when my brother married a girl my age.  But I wouldn't have it any other way.  :)   I have some pretty amazing cousins too. ;)
Emily is engaged.  I'm pretty flippin excited about that!

I have the greatest job a Elementary Education major could ask for.  CHASP (Club Heights AfterSchool Program) is such a big part of my life.  I work Monday through Friday with the most adorable little first graders who simply adore me!  I love my coworkers, we've all been working together for almost three years.  I get paid to hang out with kids and get great hours and good money for it!

Teaching piano is rewarding, fun and brings in cash that I can actually play with (on a good month).  It helps me to better my own piano skills and it is a chance for me to learn to work one on one with kids.  It allows me to get to know them on a deeper level.  I love these kids. 

I have three fluffy kitties :)

One of my best friends is back from Australia and back in my life.  We were best friends when when we were little kids but we've grown apart.  It is so great to have him back and be able to talk to him and spend time with him.  I need a friend right now, he needs a friend right now.  It's good. :)

I go to Weber State to slave away so that one day I can manage a classroom full of snotnosed little kids and make slightly more money than I'm making now.  I love going to class everyday and seeing the other girls (and Jeff and Bob) who I have become so fond of.  When you spend 12 hours a day in room 329 of the David OMcKay Education building with 23 other people, you grow to love them!  School is hard, stressful and full of more projects, lesson plans and papers that I care to keep track of.. but it will all be worth it one day.

The weather is currently beautiful and I know I will feel different when it snows, but I'm happy right now.  I went for a walk this morning.  I'm grateful for Washington Terrace, for my neighbors and friends here. 

I love my Single's ward.  I wish I could go to FHE everyweek.  There are some great people.  Our RS presidency is great.  They care about us and make us all feel special.  Today was Testimony meeting, it was very moving and make me really focus on my own testimony.  I do have one.  This church is true.  Everything I know is true.

We've been talking in RS for a few weeks about being happy about where we are in life, right now.  We need to have goals and we need to work toward them, but right here, right now we need to be grateful for what we have.  I spend way too much time thinking about my future and what I don't have.  I have so much to be happy about!