Question 2: The Right Path

With a new semester comes a new service learning project. Last semester I volunteered nearly 70 hours at an afterschool program for kids ages 4-17. I worked with them all on so many different subjects. I'd be tutoring a kid in physics one minute, get pulled away to color the next, then sent to the kitchen to chop potatoes the next and after dinner I'd pull kids around the big room on little scooter things. It was a learning experience and I loved it. So much that I'm going to volunteer at least one day a week this coming semester.

But I don't want to neglect my new service learning project either. I assist two teachers as they run an 8th and 9th grade study hall twice a week. It's the last period of the day so the kids are crazy. Two kids were filling out a favorites worksheet and asked me to come over and ask them more questions, as their teacher had done in class. Sure, why not. I notice one student's favorite time is 4:20 and the other's favorite movie is Pineapple Express. Yes, thanks for making that blatantly obvious. I ask them where their favorite place to hang out is and before they can answer I'm like, "Wait, I think I know...X Park?" This park is technically part of my campus and is well known among certain circles for certain activities. Who knows why the cops don't just chill there 24/7. Yeesh. But they laughed and said, yes, that is probably what they would have answered.

It's a different group than I expected. The kids at the afterschool program...that was all centered on getting them away from that stuff. And if they did anything, it was kept secret. For students to be this open, this candid, within 30 minutes of me meeting them? And for them to still show me respect when I (rather rudely) said, "You know, you could be doing other things with your time, then you wouldn't have to be bored here for an hour and you'd get to go home early," was quite unexpected.

During this whole time, the teacher in charge was off working with a specific student. His responses to some of the favorites disturbed her. Disturbed is too strong a word to describe my reaction. To me it just seemed like the student didn't want to be there and he certainly wasn't challenged by the work, so he just did whatever to finish the assignment. But she got all up in arms and spent half the period talking to just him. It seemed like she wanted to get him thinking about going down a different path in life. It's not that I disagree with her, this kid certainly needed some guidance. His outlook was quite dismal. But she was doing it all wrong! She went straight to "Oh no, this kid is terrible," instead of, "Oh no, what did I do wrong?" As a teacher, you have to look at yourself first. What can you change to get the kind of responses you want? How can you get the student interested? How can you motivate them? Singling them out for a one-on-one chat in a study hall generally isn't the best approach.

So the challenge then becomes, how do I know what each student needs? I know how to deal with kids like me, but I don't know how to deal with kids who aren't like me. The teacher I am serving under asked me all kinds of questions about why I chose to do my service learning at this school. I made up some bs answer because I didn't really know. I just walked up to the table without any labels and asked if they had a need for English and math tutors for 8th grade and up. Lucky me that's what they had. But now I do know. My service learning is to help me learn how to deal with kids who aren't like me. It's not to help me figure out what level I want to teach, or what subject I want to teach, or what kind of school I want to teach at. I know all that. None of that will change by going into that classroom. I won't be challenged by that. Service learning isn't to keep you safe. It's to get you out there and learning and changing so you become a better teacher. And what I need to change is how I deal with people. I need to get out there and expose myself to as many different kinds of students as possible so I know how to help all kinds of students grow. It won't be easy. I'm not exactly the most awesome and helpful person when I see someone messing up. But that's my goal through this service learning. And I think it's where I should be going.

Oh Hi

It's 3:40. I just got back from a friend's house. And I realized I did something totally stupid. The person who dropped me off said something to the effect of, "It was nice hanging out with you tonight," and I didn't say anything in response. Now, granted, I'm very sleepy. Less than 20 minutes prior, I had been falling asleep in this person's lap, so I mean, it's understandable. But I really hate it when I do that. I don't think it's too often.

This has been a pretty interesting break, and I still have one day left. I also have one goal left. I think I can figure it out. I can't really update anything online until events pan out in real life which is bugging me so much, but you guys, it's really for the best.

Body Image

Hello people! Hopefully by now you've all finished your finals and are happily relaxing and taking in the season's candies. Oh? What's that? No candy canes? Here, have some of mine. I always keep a stash around in December. And then buy a few boxes after when they're 50% off. But that's kind of what I wanted to talk about.

So you went home for Thanksgiving a few weeks ago and ate a ton. Then you came back to school and had all these last minute tests and projects and then you had finals and now you're home and everyone has been feeding you and your eating schedule got all sorts of messed up and you were eating fast food every night for dinner, if at all...yeah, I get it. I've been there. Now you're 5 pounds heavier than you were before break and you're looking at all the events planned - family stuff, dinners out with friends, a few parties here and there and, damn it, those candy canes are still calling your name. And you just know 5 more pounds are lurking around the next corner.

One of my good friends was talking about how she hit the gym this morning, even though they're getting 6 inches of snow at her house today. And that's totally awesome! Good for her! But me? Yeah...I'll pass on that. For those of us who don't exactly exercise and rely mostly on eating halfway decently to stay reasonably fit, this is the bad season for our body image. It's not just women; my brother flips out around this time too. After Thanksgiving he complained that he had put on 3 pounds. I scoffed. Because really, what does it matter?

I'm going to make a bit of a fool of myself here, but hopefully it makes a good point. Because this is how I determine if I have good body image. I realized a few years back that I look damn sexy in jeans and a bra. Yep. I do. Doesn't matter what jeans - skinny, boot cut, boyfriend cut, or hey, even my boyfriend's jeans - just like it doesn't matter the bra (even sports bras that squish the boobs!). I think I look fabulous in jeans and a bra. But that exposes my stomach, the one area of my body that I don't totally love. I love my freakishly strong legs and sneakily toned arms and my curvy hips and bouncy butt and even my weirdly shaped toes from ice skating. But my stomach has always been soft and squishy and I dislike it. But even on days when I'm feeling fat or have just eaten a pint of ice cream b/c of some drama or have a busy weird horrible eating week, I can come back, look at myself and be like, "Yep, ya still got it."

So my general holiday hope for you all is that you can find an aspect of yourself that you absolutely love and can always come back home after a bad body image day and check that out and think you're just darn sexy. And feel free to steal my idea b/c I have a feeling it's a fairly universal good look for ladies. If you want to share your idea with me, just let me know! Have a good start to your break!

Resume Building

Now that I'm taking 5 years in college, I can put off worrying about my resume for a little bit longer. It's a bit of a relief knowing I'm going into a field where summer internships aren't expected, if not demanded. That's not to say that you shouldn't do something with your summers though.

So I'm looking at my options. Summer study abroad programs are still available and I'm considering a couple of them. Or I could stay in Columbia and take summer courses and possibly work and help out with a couple of programs I know of. Or I could go back to Indiana and work at a tutoring place or volunteer with the high school while taking online summer courses. Or I can do what I was going to do last summer and do the Wilderness Leadership stuff. I have a couple of summers left, so I'm not terribly worried about how exactly I'll build my resume with those. I think any of those options offer solid resume building.

Next semester, I think I will be working at the place I currently volunteer at. A couple of the staff members have singled me out and told me that they want me to work there. I am constantly told how much my time is appreciated. The head of the organization knows my name and none of the names of other volunteers. I'm thinking it's a great opportunity to make a little money and a great place to get references.

I'm also getting a Service Learning certificate and possibly a Multicultural Certificate and a Japanese minor and a Journalism minor and an English minor. Sometimes I worry that all this will seem like I'm unfocused, but they all work so well together, especially with what I hope to do with my life. So that builds up the resume too. The GPA is decent, it's improving as we go on, especially now that I'm not taking Japanese language classes, and I think I have a good chance to make myself competitive in that manner.

So why, when I do all this, have all this planned, do people still tell me I need to build up my resume? It's solid. I'm good. I don't want a crap ton of fluff. I like what I have. I don't want to join your honors society and take 2 credit hour seminars on things that will be of no use to me just so I can say I was specially selected. I don't want to join your pre-teachers union just so I can act like I understand how they interact with school systems before I see it for myself. I'll tell you right now that 90% of kids who put that on their resume didn't do squat while they were in the society.

I just feel like I'm back in high school and everyone is worried about taking that prep course so they get above a 2100 on the SAT or joining this club and being an officer so they can get into a good college. Just stop it! Do what you want for a change. I can hear the protests - but I need to do this so I can do what I want later. No, you don't. You'll get there if you want it enough. Stop it. I know my audience well enough to know that we've been afforded plenty of opportunities to get there and no matter how much we mess it up, getting where we want is still within our reach. Even if I don't work with the school district in advance, I'll find a job. And I'll get where I want eventually. It'll happen. You'll get there. So just enjoy your life for a change. Stop worrying about your resume and do something that you might not even put on your resume. You'll thank me later.

Don't Be Afraid

When I was a photojournalism major, I was afraid of what the future held. I didn't like the thought of competing to take photos of what I wanted. I just wanted to be able to take photos of sports. I didn't want to fight against 10 others to have my photos published. I didn't want to be another name that no one knows, publishing photo after photo for 20 bucks a pop. I feared the competition. I feared that I would not have a job. I feared I would be stuck in a dead-end position until I got married and became a housewife. I feared I would then take up a position at a local housewifey magazine produced by a kept wife in the gated community in whatever suburb my husband and I chose to live. I was afraid.

I am not afraid to teach. I am not afraid of the stiff competition it will take to get into the district I want, into the exact position I want. I am not afraid because I know I have the tools and the drive and the talent and that cannot be taken away from me like my will to be a photographer. They've already tried. My professors have told horror stories about having staplers thrown at their heads and students simply walking out of class and I have seen teachers blow up at their students and lose their cool and lost their jobs and I am not afraid of that happening to me. Because I am above all that. I have the drive and the passion to work with my students and to catch that stapler and set it quietly on my desk and continue with my lesson. I have begun to experience this and I have worked through it and found other means to cope and express my point. I have become frustrated and students have seen that and taken advantage of it, but I regained control. I have the power and the ability to do what I want and I am not afraid to do it. I am not afraid of failing. I know my first year won't be great. But the next year I will be better. And I'll fall into a grove that works, making adjustments for each student, each class, each year.

Students in my classroom will be the students in that video. Students will want to express themselves and I can help them accomplish that. When I watched that video, the first time I listened to their voices. I listened to what they said and I sympathized because I could see myself in their shoes. Then I watched it again. And I saw their teachers and their support system that encouraged them to get to that point. And I saw myself influencing my students to do the same. I saw myself teaching student rhythm and flow and how poetry is just like lyrics.

And if just once every ten years I can have a student with the drive this group of students has, I will be happy. And because there are those students out there, waiting for me to reach out to them, I am not afraid of what my future as an educator holds.

[Published unedited, written in 8 minutes. If you want more from Brave New Voices, just Google it and be amazed.]

Upular

This made me lol in my roflcopter. And grin so so so much. So if you like the movie Up! in the slightest, I suggest watching this.



Yes, that's my way of saying I'm too lazy and/or busy to think of a real post. Enjoy! XD

Woof!

I'm singing this song and my rabbit is staring at me all wide eyed, ears tuned in all weird. Despite me singing almost everyday, he still sometimes gets all freaked out by it. He's much happier overall though, now that he lives away from dogs who aren't trying to eat him anytime they enter the room.

Which will be a problem when I get a dog. For my 21st birthday. Yeah, I've got this planned. Since it's towards the end of the year, I can get a puppy and keep him (or her) in the apartment for about a week. Then it's summer and I'll be at home and I can be with the pup and by the time we get back to school, s/he'll be fairly decently trained and on his/her way to being an awesome dog.

So basically, no alcohol for my b-day gift please. Dog toys would be a much better option. Or you know, both. Whatevs. That's totally responsible. XD

But really, what dog should I get? I go for larger dogs, but if I had to get a small dog I'd get a Pomeranian or a Havanese. Medium would ideally be a Border Collie, but I don't have the energy or time to train one of those just yet. And they get grumpy and destructive if not entertained enough. Which s/he wouldn't be while I'm in college. So I'm thinking maybe an Aussie Shep instead. But they don't have tails which I think is very very strange. Actually, I'm not too sure about getting a medium sized dog. I'd much rather have a large or giant dog. Like a Berner or a Great Dane. And, of course, there are the typicals such as a lab or a retriever or German Shepherd, so count them in too.

Or I could get a mutt from the Humane Society. I have a few favorites and I'm not sure if they're still there, but if they are I have a retriever mix and a rott/lab that love me almost as much as I love them. And, for some reason, the place seems to get a different St. Bernard monthly, so I'd certainly pick up one of those if possible.

So out of that long list, which do you think I should get? I figure I need to start researching this now so if I decide to go purebred (which is a whole other issue I can't fathom yet, along with if I should get an adult or a puppy), I can start researching breeders with litters due in March so the pup is old enough come May. Savvy? Good! Now get to deciding!

Time is Money

I feel like I might have mentioned this before, but let me make this perfectly clear. I hate it when professors go overtime. Absolutely hate it. I don't like it when they let us out earlier either and it bugs me when people start packing up 3 minutes before class ends. I will give the professor a 30 second grace period, like they did in interp events, ya know? But beyond that, you're wasting my time.

It's incredibly rude! You have my attention and time from the second that clock hits the hour, or half hour depending on the start of class, to the very end of the 50 or 75 minutes. After that, we're done. I have other classes to go to, a bus to catch, a meeting to attend. I am not responsible for making sure that you transfer all your information to us in the time allotted. That is your problem.

My photojournalism professor is notorious for this, especially when we are critiquing photos. He'll go 5 minutes overtime without a thought. It's only when we're pushing 8 minutes overtime and the class after us is pushing through the door that he's like, "Oh, I suppose we should vacate the premises." He says that too! Gosh, it irks me so much. Now, for the 5th time in a row, instead of being able to go home and shower before my next class, I am sitting in one of our unions, passing the hour. I suppose he thinks it is acceptable because he cancels class often and on days that we don't critique, he lets us out sometimes 15 minutes early. It's nice of him. I do appreciate the time off. But I feel like instead of canceling class that often, he could take two class periods to critique and we wouldn't be rushed and there would be no need to go overtime.

But on the flip side of this, as I mentioned, is when people start packing up and putting away their notebooks or laptops 3-5 minutes before the end of class. I feel when people do this, they are telling the professor that they don't respect them. And when professors go overtime, they're telling us that they don't respect us! It's a terrible conundrum that I'm not sure how to fix. What do you guys think?

Relationships in College: Part 3

I has come to my attention that people are doing something I find more than a little ridiculous these days. It's called "talking." It's not face to face talking and having conversations. Oh no, that would be far too simple. It's texting. It's a freaking text based relationship.

I think this might be worse than online relationships.

Now, don't get me wrong, I'm not saying never text your significant other or never Skype (I don't EVEN want to know about the dirty Skyping sessions. Recently learned that those existed too. EW) or never IM each other until 2am. No. Do all those things. Just freaking establish an official relationship first.

My roommate got involved with this guy she met almost 2 months ago. He came up to visit for a weekend and since then they've texted a lot. Never really talked on the phone. The guy doesn't have frequent access to internet, so they can't do the online thing. Just texting. But he'd text her "Good morning sunshine" frequently and the last thing she'd read before bed was "Love you, sweet dreams, can't wait to see you again," or something of the like. Now, I'm not one to judge for moving into a relationship so quickly - god knows I am certainly capable of falling faster than an anvil for a new guy - but there was no relationship. They were just texting. Oh, excuse me. They were just "talking."

Two options: read or watch. Or both! It's more fun to have options. =)



Talking?! Seriously?! What are we, middle schoolers? Isn't that what a middle school relationship should be? When you guys hold hands during passing periods and your groups eat lunch together and you text constantly? Am I right?! I feel like I'm going crazy for expecting a relationship in college to be an actual serious relationship with two people committed to each other with physical and emotional intimacy. Under the talking doctrine there's just...what? Fake intimacy? False commitment? Shit son, why don't you just say you're hooking up. Oh wait! You never see the guy. So you really are just talking then. But it's a relationship. Riiiiiight.

Please, someone explain this to me. I just don't get it. Even less than I understand the friends with benefits. I need to write about the random hook up. I haven't experienced it, but at least I understand that a little bit better.

Fall

One thing I really appreciate since I've moved from CA to the Midwest is the changing of the seasons. In CA, you know it's fall when the highs move into the 70s and a few trees drop their leaves. In the Midwest, fall is when the leaves turn all sorts of colors and acorns rain on your head as you walk through the quad and when the lows are mid 30s and highs are 50s. In CA, you know it's fall when the sky randomly clouds over for a few minutes and the fog hangs around little longer in the mornings. In the Midwest, you know it's fall when the wind picks up and it's cloudy for almost a day and then the storms come for 3 or 4 hours and the day after it's completely still.

Allow me to paint you a picture. I wore jeans and a blue v-neck today. Plus a black/grey plaid scarf. Plus flip-flips. I walked out of my 5pm lab tonight around sunset. You wouldn't have known that though - the sky was a deep grey. It was surprisingly warm, probably mid 60s even accounting for the at least 15mph winds. I turned on my music player to this song and drummed and hummed and lip synced and danced my way to the bus. I have lab on the very north end of campus. The bus stop is in front of the student union, which is about as far south as you can go on the campus for classes. It's a solid 10 minute walk. So there I am, scarf twirling around me, flip-flips falling off my feet b/c I keep kicking them everywhere and jumping around. I got some weird looks from the engineering students. Then again, I usually do, so it's not terribly surprising. I think I made someone jump when I started singing with "And I replied you're listening to it here!" Most of the walk is under trees too, so I was hopping from leaf to crunchy leaf and making lots of noise.

And I couldn't help but feel happy. Like this is what college is about. I'm finally where I want to be in my life. A distant friend and I sat next to each other on the bus last week and we talked about how we've grown in college, what paths we went down that maybe we shouldn't have, which ones we liked. And I feel like it could all be summed up in that moment when I was dancing under the acorn shower. Contentment. You're at ease. You know what you want and how to get there and you don't have to be concerned with anything else that's going on, you're just living right in that moment. Sort of a peace and clarity thing going on. I think I have one of those moments every fall when the weather changes like this. It's quite wonderful.

Doors

I'm not sure if this is a college thing or a Midwest thing, so I'd like to throw it out there for your thought. I've been at college for two full years and a couple months now, and I've had plenty of time to go back to the real world for extended periods of time and travel around the country and all that stuff. And I've noticed something.

No matter what college you're at, people hold doors open for others. Now, it's not always the official, "here let me get that door while I let a whole line of people walk in." No, I'm not saying that, but people do indeed push/pull doors open behind them or wait for people to go through...it's not just the selfish "get the door for myself and myself only" mentality I dealt with in high school. I think it has to do with the massive volume of people rushing in and out of buildings, but I can't be certain. It might just be a Midwest thing, since I've never been to a West coast college during their normal school year, but I'm inclined to think that's not so. I am fairly certain it's just a college thing though because people certainly don't do this outside of college towns. I get doors slamming shut in my face anytime I go back home or to an area that isn't centered around the college. People just aren't as aware of other people.

I think it's a really great little gesture that makes people a bit happier. It's really not a big deal, but isn't it nice when you go to open a door and it's not coming back at you with full force from the guy ahead of you who just barged his way through? And you think to yourself, oh, yay, that was more convenient. And you hold the door open as you walk in so the person behind you doesn't have to slam their way through either and the chain just continues! We'd be saving arm strength and helping rid the world of grumpy people at the same time! But people don't do that in the real world. I had someone almost slam into me when I was walking into a restaurant (side note: Japanese totally ruined my ability to spell that word, I never do it right). I was at the end of my group and I held the door open behind me and I guess the person thought I wouldn't and he kinda rushed forward and yanked it back and caused a great deal of noise. I jumped (naturally, you all know how jumpy I am) and spun around and he had this surprised look on his face. "Oh. Sorry...I thought..." "It's okay, I'm jumpy," and I rush away.

So here's what I'm wondering. Do you guys hold doors open for people at college? What about in the "real world"? Do people hold doors open for you? Do you think it makes any difference? On my way to class today, I held a door open for a potential future student and her mother and they seemed very surprised. The whole big, "Oh! Thank you!" thing and I just nodded and smiled a bit. Is it really that big of a deal to hold a door open for others?

Accomplished

I can cross a couple things off my life-to-do list now. One is coordinate (and mostly make) a meal for a large group. The other is determine if I'll be able to handle a group of teenagers.

I succeeded at both. 24 servings of chicken and mixed veggies (with tons of chili and garlic powder and a bit of butter) and homemade mashed potatoes with cheese and globs of butter and garlic powder and pepper. I have an overflowing bowl of delicious leftovers in my fridge. Fruits of my labor.

See, I volunteer 7 hours a week at an afterschool program for all grade levels. It's kinda for a teaching class, but I'm going waaaay beyond the call of duty regarding hours here. It's not in the nicest area of Columbia, so we provide one decent meal for these kids. Usually there are at least 4 staff members there, but today there were only 3 of them. And the one who was supposed to cook didn't show up. We usually serve dinner at 5. At 4:50, we figured out this person wasn't coming in. So a staff member, Ms. M (we call everyone Ms. or Mr. at this place), and myself started cooking. But Ms. M doesn't like to cook and we couldn't find the meal sheet (which tells us what to cook) and on top of all that, she had to leave at 5:30. So we pull out potatoes and mixed veggies. I start scrubbing away at potatoes, she cooks veggies. Then we search for a protein. There's chicken. We fed them chicken already this week. There's pork. Who knows how to cook pork? Ground meat. They did that just yesterday. Chicken it is. We'll put some new spices on it. Perfect. Throw it in the oven and heat it up. It's pre-cooked, right?

No. Of course not. So while we're worrying about non-cooked chicken and cutting up the potatoes and getting the dang water to boil so we can cook them and somehow bring non shredable American cheese (not exactly sure why we felt we needed to shred the cheese) into the whole mix, Ms. M finds the original list. Shepherd's pie with carrots. Doesn't Shepherd's pie already have carrots in it? Do we have time to cook the stuff into pies? We're already going with this...thing. Shepherd's pie can be another time. Speaking of time, she's outie. And I'm in charge. It's just my second week. And I have a group of 5 teenagers throwing floppy cheese bits at each other in the middle of my kitchen.

So we get to work. One girl watches the veggies, one girl watches the chicken, the boys wash and chop potatoes and somehow will the water to boil and cook them and then drain and mash them. Did I mention I have a habit of taking over when people try to cook? It happens to me a lot. I don't mean to. But I end up just doing everything, even though I assign people to do stuff. So that veggies girl ends up setting out plates, the chicken girl ends up cutting chicken and pouring milk with one of the boys, a girl who is part of the program helps me with the mashing and mixing (and tossing cheese in?) of potatoes and before I know it, we're plating. And this time I give everyone a job and I let them stick to it.

And they all listened! Now, granted this was a group of volunteers so they're willing to help and take direction, but they hadn't been alerted that I was put in charge. And they've all been helping out longer than I have. And more often. But they respected my authority and it helped things go smoothly. And a lot of them complimented me on what I made and how I ran things after the fact. It was really awesome.

And even beyond that, more kids in the program are calling me by my name and the staff members are chatting with me, asking how my day went, and we're learning about each other and I'm helping kids learn what verbs are vs. nouns and it's all just really good stuff. I'm making a difference and that's something that was lacking in my former career path.

Question 1: Testing

I've made it fairly well known that I have changed my career path from photojournalist to teacher. But let's just make that switch official, okay? No more photojournalist-y crap (okay, maybe sometimes). Let's start talking about education. In particular, testing. I just took my first test of the semester. It was for a journalism course and pretty much all short answer. I didn't study as much as I should have, especially with respects to a few sections of content, but I think I did fairly well. Yay me! One of the things that really helped me was having a test the teacher used two years ago to study from. Yeah. Fairly sure if I didn't have that, I would have failed. Basically. So that got me thinking.

I'm going to be a high school English teacher, right? And part of that will be testing my students. How far should I go to make sure they're prepared for the tests? Testing isn't just a reflection of the students' performance, it is a reflection of my performance. If I'm not teaching something properly, it will show in the tests and I will have to adjust my teaching style for that. Does offering a study guide help the students or does it just hurt them? Like I said, had I not had the test from a few years ago to guide my studying, I probably would have failed. The questions I got right were basically verbatim ones from her old tests. So should I offer old tests to students as study guides? Should I even have study guides?

The student in me panics thinking of taking a course without study guides, or poorly constructed study guides. I love study guides. I know what professors want me to focus on then. I know what they want from me and what I should take from this course. And isn't that the part of testing? To make sure students know what you need them to know? But the teacher part of me wonders how much students learn if you're guiding them with such a heavy hand. I took a statistics course my first semester in college and the professor made at least 4 years of tests available to us. And I diligently worked my way through all of them before each test as an alternative to conventional studying. It worked well. I got an A in that class without much effort outside of taking all those tests. But now? I'm not sure how helpful I'd be to someone struggling in that course. I don't remember much.

It's because I never had to think critically about the content of the course. So then my challenge as a teacher is to get my students to think critically but also simply regurgitate what I need them to do for the standardized tests. Can this be accomplished through short answer tests alone? I think not. So can I get them to regurgitate by taking tests and critically think by writing essays? Is it fair to break the course down like that? When I think back to my favorite English courses, I remember them being structured similarly. I remember learning the most this way. But that's just how I learn, not how everyone learns. If I structure my course in the way I learned best, how can I make sure that everyone learns well? Projects and group work and fun little time fillers only do so much to help the rest of the class learn. It's a difficult balance to find, but if I can identify all this after only a month in the teaching program, I think I'm off to a solid start. Besides, the school district will have so many restrictions on what and how I can teach, I doubt most of this will matter (jk...kinda...a little bit...tongue in cheek? yes).

Death of an Era

So my laptop died. Majorly. I was being my nerdy self and watching the latest episode of The Guild on Tuesday morning and all of a sudden, boom, colors invert, laptop freezes. I know what you're thinking. Macs don't freeze! They get the spinning wheel of death and are fine after 30 seconds! How is this possible? I wasn't too bothered by it, except that I had just gotten to a very interesting part in the episode and now had to reload it. What a nuisance!

Except simply restarting the machine didn't work. I got a strange screen. Striped green and pink-ish background with a small overlay telling me to restart. So I tried resetting a couple of things. Same screen. Well, it's Windows partitioned, let's boot it up with that. I can get to the screen that allows me to choose which OS to boot the laptop into, but if I try to boot Windows it restarts. How funky. I think it might be an issue with that. I take it to Tiger Tech. They tell me it's a motherboard issue. Right. Because Macs totally have motherboards (hint: Apple is far too hipster to use the term motherboard, even if they basically function the same). So I take it to Geek Squad who charges me 70 bucks and says they've fixed it roughly 24 hours later. And they have. I go to class and take notes and check Facebook and everything is good. Until I play a YouTube video (okay, tell me exactly when did Far East Movement become popular? All of a sudden they're everywhere and I'm kinda missing the days when they weren't b/c I liked them more). Then it does the same thing - inverts colors, freezes, after a reset I see the same screen.

So I go to Best Buy again and they set me up to have the thing shipped off and we're almost done when I ask how long it will take. Two to three weeks. I stare at the guy helping me. He's kidding, right? He has to be. He explains it's usually not a matter of diagnosing the problem, but more the obtaining of parts. I grab my laptop, say thank you, and walk on out of there. Well, not exactly, but basically. The guy gave me the number and location of the closest Apple authorized repair shop and refunded my money, but I did grab my laptop right out of his hands and said okay, thank you, I can't do that.

So now the laptop is at this random out of the way repair shop. They finally tell me the proper term for what my laptop is doing - kernel panic. It's most likely an issue with the video part of the logic board, which is a known defect on my particular model so they'll fix it for free. That's what I find out after 2 minutes of being there. I spent 10 minutes at Tiger Tech to have an ignorant person talk to me and at least 30 minutes at Best Buy working with 3 different Geek Squad members and I just open my laptop, show the front desk lady the issue, she flips the laptop over and checks the specific type and tells me all I need to know. And I go back less than a day later (about 50 hours after the official crash now) to get a few files off the laptop and the 2nd in command comes over and explains everything they're doing to my laptop. And tells me I should have it back on Monday. Or Tuesday. But most likely Monday.

Now I'm just worried that even though they'll fix everything (for free!) and none of the data has been corrupted that my laptop won't be the same. I love this laptop, even though it's a pain in the ass most of the time. I really need a computer to communicate with people. Any assignments from this week have been half-assed because I don't have my laptop. I don't have everything I need to do my job correctly. I need to be able to go home and organize my thoughts and email certain people asking certain things and I just can't do that when I'm in a computer lab. But what if I can't do that the same way after this logic board replacement?

So this is the death of the blog. Until Tuesday. Hopefully. Most likely.

ENTP

Do you remember when we had to do the personality typing in middle and high school? I must have had to take different tests in different classes at least 3 times. And then we'd take the tests that tell us which jobs we'd like that would match with our personalities? Yeah, those tedious things. On different days, in different years, I'd get different results. I would be introverted instead of extroverted. I would get judging instead of perceiving. But the intuition and thinking never changed.

I'm fairly certain what I've put in the title is my type. I'm extroverted, intuitive, thinking, and perceiving. I walk an incredibly fine line between introversion and extroversion, and I'm sure as hell judgmental a lot of the time, but at my core, that is what I am. I think the extroversion has happened more recently. I'm returning to the outward display of my emotions. Which makes for some interesting interactions with people.

Like when I was talking to a few Geek Squad guys about my laptop (yeah, that's how messed up it is. I got to talk to more than one of them). I'd happily bounce from explaining the start-up sound to what I was doing when the laptop died to animatedly showing what it's doing now...I was very bubbly about it all. And when they gave me good news ("Well it's not the motherboard..."), I'd spin around and be all happy. And when they gave me bad news ("...mainly because Macs don't have motherboards. It's probably the drive board, which is kind of like the motherboard."), I'd nearly fall to the ground. The perceiving is a little bit more difficult for me to determine, and I'm not certain I'm not judging. I'm really judging, guys. I judge people a lot. But I also like to claim I'm perceptive. And I guess when it boils down to it, women are typically more perceiving and non-judgmental so that's my explanation for that.

I was surprised to find that a close friend is an ESFJ. We're almost exact opposites. It made me wonder if she as well was close to being the opposite on a few of those. I always thought she was more perceiving and maybe perhaps a bit on the more intuitive side. Definitely feeling. But it got me thinking, maybe people aren't as they seem. I'm not sure people would say I'm ENTP, though I myself know I am. It's the perceiving that would really throw them off. I guarantee it. Would you have guessed that I am an ENTP?  Do you think people would guess what you are?

Rawr!

That is all. Good day.

It's not really all. It's a combination of my ex being a butthead, the just-a-friend still texting me, drama between two good friends who have a history together and getting placed in the friend zone with the crush. I am really frustrated and I say to hell with boys!

But really. That's all.

Oh Hello There

I dunno about y'all, but I just stare at the butts in this commercial. They're all so perfect and round. I wonder how they cast that. "No, we don't need to see your face, just turn around and...yeah...no, no that's not quite what we're looking for. Nice legs though. Thanks. Next!" But that got me thinking! No matter the gender, I notice people's hair and eyes. I really like hair and eyes. They're so cool.

I love looking at wavy hair, probably because I don't have it myself. I like how it moves. It seems so much more fun than straight hair. I think brown hair that gets red in the sunlight is the coolest thing ever. So if it's wavy and that amazing auburn? Holy crap, watch out, I will stare at you. But that's not to say I don't like straight hair, because I do. I like how sleek and shiny it can be. It just looks so wonderfully soft. I look at guy's short peach fuzz hair and wonder how it feels. Each peach fuzz head feels a little different, I think. I don't like the weird two-tone trend. Where you have dark on top and light under. It looks stupid. And streaky highlights are bad as well. Don't do the in-between - either keep your hair color (looking) natural, or dye it all hot pink, you know? Dreads are cool and choppy haircuts make me want to run over and mess it all up and watch you restyle it.

I'm weird. I acknowledge this.

And eyes! Good god, eyes are amazing. It's kind of funny that you have to see eyes by using eyes. I have pretty eyes. My dad and my brother have bluer eyes than I do, but my eyes do something rather cool. They're more grey than anything else, but when I wear something blue/teal, watch out! BAM! They're super blue. Green eyes are so mysterious. I feel like they look deeper into your eyes than any other color. I'm not sure why. I feel so on edge if someone around me has green eyes. Hazel eyes are like blue eyes in that they come in so many varieties and depending on the color you wear they look different. My mom's are a green-brown, my friend's are a green-blue, and I remember meeting someone with green-gold. Brown eyes are kinda iffy for me. I really like bright brown eyes, if that makes sense. But I think a lot of brown eyes are boring.

So I dunno. There's that. What are some things you notice right away about others?

静かに！

So today in class a professor made a negative comment that I'm sure was directed at me. And it hurt. Because I really do try in the class, I'm just not the best student in the class and when I speak up, I come across as super nervous and slightly incompetent. I did the work more completely than all but one other person in the class. It made me really angry because I see my classmates who can get by with so little effort when I put hours of work into the same thing. The professor can't see that though.

But then I wonder if maybe I should really be mad at myself. I'm the one holding me back, right?

But that got me thinking...doesn't the professor have a responsibility as an educator to take notice that I'm not performing up to expectations and contact me directly about it? Maybe offer ways I can improve? Not compare me to Tarzan. Yeah, thanks, that felt awesome. In my education courses, we've been talking about the responsibility of a teacher to his or her students and recognizing that not everyone learns the same and teaching all different kinds of methods is part of that responsibility. And this professor isn't meeting that. Now, I know we're in college and it's an upper level course so there is some expectation that these things will be accomplished individually. And that's fine. But there are more effective ways of saying, "Hey, you need to work a little more at this," than making a joke.

It's just...I dunno, it's gotten to the point where I'm ready to quit the class. I don't have to take this class, and if it's really going to take me 6+ hours a week to do the work...I just don't have that kind of time. Plus add on another 2 since I need to work even still harder at this to live up to my professor's expectations. And though I absolutely love my classmates, if this professor keeps it up I'm really going to snap.

My friend and I were talking earlier about maybe dropping the class in question since it's so much work and not in either of our majors. I think I was less serious than my friend was. I'm considering it a lot more now. Apparently I have until the 27th to decide. I'd try and enroll in an online English course which would help with the education major. It'd be a pretty general class - Brit Lit or something - so I could take it almost anywhere, since I think Mizzou isn't allowing you to enroll anymore. Eh. It's just an idea. The more I think about it though, the more dropping the class makes sense.

Ice Skating

I have tried and tried to write this post, but it's just never happened. It'll sit with the drafts of posts and watch as the ones around it get picked for posting and wonder why it isn't good enough.

But that's how I feel about ice skating. It's not good enough. I wasn't good enough. I like to breeze over the fact that I ice skated because I've changed so much since then. Because I always feel like it's the one time I really let something go I was passionate about. Because I was only 9 years old when I quit.

But none of that really makes sense does it? I can't just write about it in choppy sentences and vague explanations. So I'm taking a leaf out of J's book and doing a video blog. And hopefully I will verbally explain things better than I could write them.



I'm never doing a video blog again. That took way to damn much effort.

Friends-ish?

I was talking to my family about some of the new friends I've made recently. And that got me thinking, how can I really call someone I only met a few weeks, maybe a month, ago my friend? We're friends-ish? But then what about the friends who are close but just not quite close enough to be called good friends? Friends-ish again?

I don't mean to brag (okay, I kinda do), but I'm a really solid friend. I'm not the best friend in the world, but I've got it down. If you need me, I'm there. Want to talk to someone in the middle of the night? Call me up. Need a ride? I have a car. Just want to hang? Sure, I'm free. If you want advice, I can offer it. If you just want a sympathetic ear, well, I've learned how to give that too. But it wasn't always that way.

I used to be pretty unsympathetic. I think it reflects how I expect my friends to act. When I rant to someone, I don't expect them to be all, "Oh, I'm so sorry, that really sucks for you." I expect them to relate to me. I expect them to rant back and then tell me to suck it up and get over whatever petty thing is bothering me. Then I had some pretty bad things happen to me where I just needed sympathy. And I got why people wanted me to be sympathetic.

Still, it bothers me when people won't take action to better themselves. I stand to lose two good friends because of my stance (okay, so we'll still be friends, but we just won't be very close). They both rant to me about what's wrong with their respective lives and I'm sympathetic at first. They want it to change, so I offer suggestions on how to make it change. Then I get criticized for being judgmental. They don't want to take action; they want things to just happen for them. I can't stand this! I can't be sympathetic to people who won't help themselves. I just can't. If you aren't trying to better your situation, I see absolutely no reason to help you.

So they aren't talking to me right now, and it's a little troublesome to me. I want to keep these people as my friends, but I feel like they're being immature. I'm torn between being a good friend and waiting around for them to get over it, or being mean (while also possibly being a better friend) and pushing them further.

All this got me thinking about what I want from my friends. I want them to be there for me when shit hits the fan. I want my friends to invite me to hang out or study together. I want a phone call or email or text when something reminds you of me or to remind me of some inside joke. I don't demand constant contact, but monthly would be nice. I guess what it boils down to is time. I want your time. I want you to take the time to say, hey, I'm thinking of you or hey, I need your help. Clicking the like button on Facebook has too easily become a replacement for the occasional after school email.

I'm guilty of this too, but no more. I pledge to give my friends my time. And if you can't give that in return...well, I'm guess I'm not as close to as many people as I thought. But I think I'm okay with that. I don't want a ton of fluff friends cluttering my inner circle of friends, you know? Get rid of all the friends-ish. Quality over quantity. Ugh, it almost disgusts me to talk about friendships like that. I'm just going to stop before I piss someone off so much that they don't want to be my friend anymore. XD