I have had the worst two days in recent memory, which is not a very fun thing to write about, but I have to get it all out there.
Monday- My day started with finding out that I failed my certification test. It is called the BTLPT (Bilingual Teacher Language Proficiency Test) and basically tests my proficiency in Spanish. I did really well on all of the parts except for the speaking part. It is so frustrating! I had to drive to El Paso that day and I was ridiculously sick during the test. I am really hoping that being healthy will help my mental capacity and enable me to pass the speaking part, but I am trying not to get my hopes up. I have until January to think about it anyway, so no rush. I am trying to figure out a way to practice my speaking, but I am coming up empty. If you have any ideas, let me know.
Then, it was my first day of full-teach in 3rd grade. I don't know if the kids could tell that I was having a bad day and were feeding off of it or what, but they were terrible! They were blatantly ignoring me, and some were actually arguing with me! I have never dealt with a class like that and I do not like it all. It was so frustrating. My cooperating teacher was also having a terrible day, so that just made it all worse. I literally came home yesterday, put on my pajamas, and watched tv all evening. Jason convinced me to go get ice cream after dinner (of mac and cheese) but I didn't anything other than that. It was bad, and I was hoping that today would be a better day. It wasn't...
Tuesday- I was so ready for this morning. I was ready to have a good, productive, successful, enjoyable day. Blah...
At 8:55 school starts. I begin by doing the necessary administrative procedures. After that, I start explaining the work the kids will be doing during the reading group time. Most of the way through that, the principal comes over the intercom "Lockdown! Lockdown! Lockdown!" with a very panicky voice. We all did the procedure as if it were a drill, and we tried to keep the kids calm and quiet just like we were supposed to. I had a feeling it was the real deal but I wasn't sure. After 20 minutes the bell rings and the principal comes back on the intercom "Lockdown procedure is over, staff will be debriefed after school." And that was that. We eventually got info that there was a shooting across the street. Apparently there was a road rage incident, they pulled over across the street, a fight broke out, then there were shots fired. I don't think anyone was hurt, the shots were fired into the air, but it was still incredibly scary.
After that, an acredidation team came to visit the school. Everyone was very tense and worried about staying on schedule, saying the right things, and doing the right activities. My teacher was so stressed it was almost palpable. It turned out to not be a big deal at all, but we didn't know that until the end of the day. And, to top it all off, we had a student vomit in the middle of class. She had been feeling sick all day and it just finally caught up to her. Thankfully I had stepped out of the class for literally 30 seconds and it happened then, which is good because I might have joined her, but I felt so bad for her. The kids all reacted pretty well, and the little girl went home. It was just the icing on the cake for the day.
I really hope that tomorrow is better, but there are no specials or pull outs on Wednesdays, so it is going to be a LONG day even if everything goes well. I'm not looking forward to it, but I can't imagine it would be any worse than the last two days have been. I'll let you know if tomorrow is better, but I'm not holding my breath. Prayers are appreciated!
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
Sunday, November 8, 2009
Plans and changes
I feel like a lot has happened and not much has happened at the same time since I last posted. This week felt pretty uneventful. We had an early release day on Wednesday, which was nice, but it was a pretty typical week. I'm still having trouble adjusting to this student teaching placement... I don't know what it is: whether I am just so used to the Lubbock school system and this is too different, that I am not clicking as well with this teacher, or that I have not fully adjusted to being home. I just am not sure what to do to finally settle in. I still feel like I have to go visit my parents whenever I have some free time because I will be going back to Lubbock any day and I won't get to see them for a while.
On the other hand, I love being here and I feel like the next logical step is for us to have kids. Jason doesn't quite agree with me, though... He wants to have a while for us to be "just us" before we think about kids, which I understand, but we have been married for more than 3 years, we own a house, Jason has a job, I will be done with school in a month and a half... doesn't it make sense to have kids now? I see how my sister's kids are and how much we both love being around them and I wonder "when is it my turn?" My parents are getting to have the "grandparent experience" now that my sister doesn't live with them and I see how much they love it. I want for them to love our kids just as much, but sometimes I can't help but think that my sister took that from me. I know they will love all of their grandchildren, but sometimes I wonder if our kids will be as special to them because they already will have at least two. I don't know, just some things I have been thinking about. I know it is going to be a number of months before we actually consider it, but I so badly want to be a mother that I can't help but think about it often.
I am really missing my Lubbock friends. It is so hard being an hour different than Lubbock because every time I think about calling anyone I realize it is an hour later and it is inconvenient for whomever I want to call (like dinner time or bed time...). I just so badly want to be able to call my friend and just be able to drive over to her house to decompress from a hard day at school, go eat Fazoli's, and play the wii or watch a chick-flick. (You know how you are.) I miss her, especially, but I miss my other Lubbock friends as well. I miss going to church at FBC, painting pottery at Clay Cafe, and having girls' nights out. It is still taking me a lot of time to get used to living here, like I said earlier. I have no idea how we are going to make friends. Jason is not quite ready to get into a home fellowship group through church (like a small group that meets during the week) or to start working in the children's ministry at chuch. I know we will meet people there, but until then we are still hanging out with our parents mostly. Not that that is a bad thing, it would just be nice to have some friends our age. Actually, Jason has friends here. His high school buddies are still here and they hang out at least weekly, and while I enjoy spending time with them they are not the same as girlfriends.
Ok, sorry I'm just ranting. We are seriously persuing our kitchen remodel. The bathroom, closet, and office (finally, after this weekend) are all done and the next project is the kitchen. It is painful thinking about how much it is going to cost us, but we will get it done and it will be much more functional and I will be able to be a better wife because hopefully I will enjoy it enough to want to cook some more. Yesterday I finally got to see the cabinets and counter tops I picked together and I LOVED them. They are just exactly the way I pictured them in my head and it made me so excited! It is going to be hard to stay within our budget, but thankfully the people we are working with are very kind and are able to give us a whole lot of options for what we like. I will post pictures of all the completed projects when we get more batteries for the camera.
I hope you have a blessed week and I will write again when I have a chance! Take care and God bless.
On the other hand, I love being here and I feel like the next logical step is for us to have kids. Jason doesn't quite agree with me, though... He wants to have a while for us to be "just us" before we think about kids, which I understand, but we have been married for more than 3 years, we own a house, Jason has a job, I will be done with school in a month and a half... doesn't it make sense to have kids now? I see how my sister's kids are and how much we both love being around them and I wonder "when is it my turn?" My parents are getting to have the "grandparent experience" now that my sister doesn't live with them and I see how much they love it. I want for them to love our kids just as much, but sometimes I can't help but think that my sister took that from me. I know they will love all of their grandchildren, but sometimes I wonder if our kids will be as special to them because they already will have at least two. I don't know, just some things I have been thinking about. I know it is going to be a number of months before we actually consider it, but I so badly want to be a mother that I can't help but think about it often.
I am really missing my Lubbock friends. It is so hard being an hour different than Lubbock because every time I think about calling anyone I realize it is an hour later and it is inconvenient for whomever I want to call (like dinner time or bed time...). I just so badly want to be able to call my friend and just be able to drive over to her house to decompress from a hard day at school, go eat Fazoli's, and play the wii or watch a chick-flick. (You know how you are.) I miss her, especially, but I miss my other Lubbock friends as well. I miss going to church at FBC, painting pottery at Clay Cafe, and having girls' nights out. It is still taking me a lot of time to get used to living here, like I said earlier. I have no idea how we are going to make friends. Jason is not quite ready to get into a home fellowship group through church (like a small group that meets during the week) or to start working in the children's ministry at chuch. I know we will meet people there, but until then we are still hanging out with our parents mostly. Not that that is a bad thing, it would just be nice to have some friends our age. Actually, Jason has friends here. His high school buddies are still here and they hang out at least weekly, and while I enjoy spending time with them they are not the same as girlfriends.
Ok, sorry I'm just ranting. We are seriously persuing our kitchen remodel. The bathroom, closet, and office (finally, after this weekend) are all done and the next project is the kitchen. It is painful thinking about how much it is going to cost us, but we will get it done and it will be much more functional and I will be able to be a better wife because hopefully I will enjoy it enough to want to cook some more. Yesterday I finally got to see the cabinets and counter tops I picked together and I LOVED them. They are just exactly the way I pictured them in my head and it made me so excited! It is going to be hard to stay within our budget, but thankfully the people we are working with are very kind and are able to give us a whole lot of options for what we like. I will post pictures of all the completed projects when we get more batteries for the camera.
I hope you have a blessed week and I will write again when I have a chance! Take care and God bless.
Sunday, November 1, 2009
Carnivals, Halloween, and closets
This week was much less busy, but it still felt crazy. The beginning of the week was relatively easy. I went to a math workshop on Tuesday, but it didn't really apply to me since I have never taught math in this curriculum before. I was pretty bored, but I guess it was good for me to go to in case I end up teaching 3rd grade in the future. The weird part was that it was at a building named after someone I knew. She passed away a while back, but she was the mother of a childhood friend of mine. It was kinda strange. A nice tribute to her though.
Tuesday evening we carved pumpkins with my brothers. They have never carved pumpkins before and didn't even know what they were doing until they came to our house. They were so cute, they carved every single side of their pumpkin, lol. David wanted to carve the scariest thing possible, so he picked a scary Jack-o-lantern face. Sam carved Frankenstein. They also did bats, ghosts, initials, a lion, etc. It was really fun to see how much they enjoyed it. Jordan also came over and he colored a pumpkin. He helped me clean out mine a little, but just ended up hurting himself whenever he had a sharp tool, so we just avoided that as much as possible.
Thursday was our fall carnival at school. I convinced Jason to go to see all the teachers that are still at the school who he had growing up. I am student teaching with one of them, and there are 3 others at the school still. He had a blast and I thought it was awesome seeing how excited the teachers got when they saw him. It made me think about my elementary teachers and I wish I could go visit them. We will see if I can work out a time to go over there, but right now I will have to settle for hearing stories about little Jason. He has such a good time, it was really cool.
Friday evening we had our date night after cleaning up the house. We never go to dinner on Fridays because the restaurants are always really busy, but we did this week. We went to Teofilo's, which was delicious. It is a restaurant we never think about going to, but I'm glad we did. I had a delicious chile relleno... mmm...
Saturday we got to sleep in. After getting up I spent the morning cleaning our house. I feel like that is all I get to do on the weekends, lol. I actually got to go to lunch with my sister, her boyfriend, and her babies. It was nice to spend time with them. Jordan dressed up as a boxer and was absolutely adorable. Then I got home and we finished cleaning the house and got the place ready for our dinner party. We just had Jason's parents, my mom, my sister (and her posse), and a friend of ours. My dad and brothers were hunting deer. It was a great evening full of fantastic food and wonderful people. Too bad our house isn't better organized or it would have been perfect and we wouldn't have had to close all our doors so people couldn't see in the messy rooms, haha. We are getting closer though! We had a few trick-or-treaters, and I'm glad we didn't have a ton. It was a pretty relaxed evening.
Today we went to church, went to lunch, got an estimate for our kitchen remodel (OUCH!!) and then spent the afternoon working on finishing our closet and working on homework. Jason's parents came over to help with the closet (which they have practically done all the work for) and I was working on homework. I don't know what we would do without them working on our house like they do. If only they could do all the work for the kitchen we would be set! haha. Yeah, we won't even go there... yet.
Overall this was a good week. I feel like there are a lot of things to write about, but then I never write quite as much as I expect. I hope you had a great Halloween and sorry that the blogs don't come more regularly. Once a week just seems to be the norm.
Jason's pumpkin and my pumpkin
Sam's pumpkin and David's pumpkin
Tuesday evening we carved pumpkins with my brothers. They have never carved pumpkins before and didn't even know what they were doing until they came to our house. They were so cute, they carved every single side of their pumpkin, lol. David wanted to carve the scariest thing possible, so he picked a scary Jack-o-lantern face. Sam carved Frankenstein. They also did bats, ghosts, initials, a lion, etc. It was really fun to see how much they enjoyed it. Jordan also came over and he colored a pumpkin. He helped me clean out mine a little, but just ended up hurting himself whenever he had a sharp tool, so we just avoided that as much as possible.
Thursday was our fall carnival at school. I convinced Jason to go to see all the teachers that are still at the school who he had growing up. I am student teaching with one of them, and there are 3 others at the school still. He had a blast and I thought it was awesome seeing how excited the teachers got when they saw him. It made me think about my elementary teachers and I wish I could go visit them. We will see if I can work out a time to go over there, but right now I will have to settle for hearing stories about little Jason. He has such a good time, it was really cool.
Friday evening we had our date night after cleaning up the house. We never go to dinner on Fridays because the restaurants are always really busy, but we did this week. We went to Teofilo's, which was delicious. It is a restaurant we never think about going to, but I'm glad we did. I had a delicious chile relleno... mmm...
Saturday we got to sleep in. After getting up I spent the morning cleaning our house. I feel like that is all I get to do on the weekends, lol. I actually got to go to lunch with my sister, her boyfriend, and her babies. It was nice to spend time with them. Jordan dressed up as a boxer and was absolutely adorable. Then I got home and we finished cleaning the house and got the place ready for our dinner party. We just had Jason's parents, my mom, my sister (and her posse), and a friend of ours. My dad and brothers were hunting deer. It was a great evening full of fantastic food and wonderful people. Too bad our house isn't better organized or it would have been perfect and we wouldn't have had to close all our doors so people couldn't see in the messy rooms, haha. We are getting closer though! We had a few trick-or-treaters, and I'm glad we didn't have a ton. It was a pretty relaxed evening.
Today we went to church, went to lunch, got an estimate for our kitchen remodel (OUCH!!) and then spent the afternoon working on finishing our closet and working on homework. Jason's parents came over to help with the closet (which they have practically done all the work for) and I was working on homework. I don't know what we would do without them working on our house like they do. If only they could do all the work for the kitchen we would be set! haha. Yeah, we won't even go there... yet.
Overall this was a good week. I feel like there are a lot of things to write about, but then I never write quite as much as I expect. I hope you had a great Halloween and sorry that the blogs don't come more regularly. Once a week just seems to be the norm.
Jason's pumpkin and my pumpkin
Sam's pumpkin and David's pumpkin
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