Long Time No Type

So, it's been quite some time since I've posted. Nothing too big to write about, and I've been so busy, that there's hardly a spare hour to type (because that's how long it takes me when I start writing, I keep going). At some points in time, I've thought "oh yeah, I'm totally going to blog about this" but it's taken me too long to sit down and do it, so I can't remember what those are... Ooops :o)

Hmmm... school still keeps me plenty busy. I'm loving it, but it's also hard work. Last week report cards were do. It made me feel super official, but it was also a pain in the rear. Our report cards are subjective report cards, which means that through observations and classroom interactions, this is what I feel your student earned, and we don't really have to supply hard evidence. So that was lame. Plus, I am super not a fan of the scaling system they used. A 4 (the highest mark) means that they went above and beyond expectations and that they don't need promptings or reminders to stay on task. Um, does that mean that I'm supposed to have low expectations for my kids or that I'm just not allowed to give good grades? (It ended up being that kids just had to get low grades for now.) Yeah, so report card time was oober stressful and frustrating. Oh, and you want to know the best part? I got mine done a week before they had to go home (because if I wanted them stored on the computer, they had to be done by that time.) I seal them in the envelopes on Thursday, when they need to go home on Friday, and then Friday at lunch time, Stacey comes into my classroom to inform me that there is a second part of the report card that we hadn't seen. So I have 30 minutes to fill out the behavior part for all my students, open the envelopes, fold the second paper back in and reseal the envelopes. They look super ghetto now, which I am not a fan of. I don't want to look shady for the parents, I'm a newbie, which means I have to prove myself, not look like I'm putting in minimal effort.

Oh, and I for sure do NOT put in minimal effort. I work so hard, and I am ALWAYS doing school stuff. That's one part that I'm no longer balancing so well. At the beginning of the year I was so proud of myself because I spent plenty of extra time at school, but I also had activities like every night of the week, I had other things to do beside school. Those extra plans have dropped off for some reason and now I'm left at the classroom a lot. Last weekend was the worst. Because I had spent so much time focusing on report cards, I hadn't really had time to do much lesson prep for the next week. On Friday I had gotten to school at 7am (that's my usual time), but I ended up staying there until 7pm. Then, after my full 12 hours at school, I came home, had dinner, and then did school stuff until 10:30, when I went to bed. Oh my gosh, it was horrible, and I'm not going to lie... I had a little bit of a break down that night because I got scared that I would have to spend every Friday night home alone doing school stuff because I was going to be single forever. That's not actually how I feel, and usually my weekend plans are better than that, but that weekend, that was how I felt. Plus, not only did I spend my ENTIRE Friday doing school stuff, but Saturday I got up, had breakfast, took a shower, and went to the school. I left because it was snowing, the heater wasn't on, so the building was freezing. I went home and worked on school stuff until 8:00pm. And don't you worry, I did school stuff on Sunday night too. Oh, that was NOT a happy weekend :o(

This weekend was MUCH better, although it was a completely opposite swing of the pendulum. I did absolutely NO school stuff. I got some pretty tear jerking news Friday before class (which was actually the PERFECT time to get it because I had to push it out of my mind since the kids were about ready to come in, and so I didn't have much of a chance to think about it until I had already had the time to calm down). But I shared the news with Katrina and she told me that I needed something to distract me, so she invited me to go ice skating with her ward. So Friday I stayed at school until 5, then I went home, changed, tried to go to the temple, but it was closed for some reason, so I went home and got ready for ice skating. It was such a blast. I fell once when we were ice skating... I tried to play it off, like I was sliding on my knees on purpose, but I apparently didn't fool anyone. Whatev', I didn't know those people anyway :o) And while we were playing broom hockey, I kept on getting complimented about how well I was playing, and then heard someone yell my name (first and last), and since I didn't know anyone but Katrina there, I was intrigued. I turned around and saw Shauny Tagg, chillin' in the bleachers. I was in a PE class with her and I haven't talked to her in forever. We ended up talking for the last half hour, and it was way nice to chat it up and catch up with her. It was an awesome Friday night.

Saturday I woke up (and freaked out thinking it was a school day), went to a service project (not fabulous, nor do I feel like I served much, but we're going with it was the thought and effort that counts), then hung out with Nick. I always like hanging out with Nick. He gives me so many great compliments, and always makes me laugh. And it's pretty entertaining when he brings up how much fun it would be to date me, but then reassures me that it'll never happen. I know, it sounds like I'm being sarcastic, but it really is funny. I'm not worried about Nick not dating me. I could see it going either way, but I'm not frazzled by his lack of feelings for me in that way. After hanging out with Nick, I had a pretty chill night. I got a little more of my book read, which is good because I need to finish this one so I can start on the other 5 that are piled up waiting for me to read (and don't worry, I've ordered another one that's on it's way, so the pile will just keep growing).

My Sunday had been pretty good. Went to church, stayed for choir, got home taught, had a friend over for dinner, and now I'm taking the time to blog. I really do have things I could be doing for school, but why ruin my no school this weekend running streak? It's not too long before it's time to head up to ward prayer anyway, and once that ends, there's really only enough time to get ready for bed and hit the hay, so I think I'll be able to keep up the record this week. Go me!!!!

Oh, and by the way, I'm so excited for Wednesday when I head to New Mexico!!!!!!


I don't know how to side track into this, so I'm just going to skip some lines and just jump into another topic. Apparently Monday has been chosen as my new driving day. Two Mondays ago I was way stressed about report cards, and I was doing fine at school, but 30 minutes after being home I got really angry, at nothing in particular, but I just needed to get out. My apartment is obviously not the best place for me to be, unfortunately, and so I decided to go to my thinking spot up in the canyons. I'm always a very cautious driver, and I'm pretty obedient of the traffic laws, and the speed limit... but this night, I needed to take my aggression out on the road. And, since I have a car that loves curves, it was perfect. Up the canyons, the speed limit is 50. I didn't go 50. A couple times I got up to 80, but that was on the straight parts, never the curves. It takes a good half hour through the canyons to get to my thoughtful spot, and I didn't touch my brakes for a good 20-25 minutes of that. And the only reason I hit my brakes was because there just so happened to be a dear laying in the road. Oh, I know that I am loved, because I didn't notice the dear, I only noticed the car ahead of me putting on their brakes and moving off to the side of the road. I'm pretty sure if it hadn't have been for that car, I would have run over the dear... and, in my car, the dear would have been fine, and my car would have been trashed. Yeah, needless to say, I drove slower on the way back.

Then, this last Monday, after FHE, I felt like I really needed to go to the temple. It was Monday, though, so the temple closes early, so I figured I could take my scriptures up and read my scriptures up by the temple. On the drive, I got the impression to drive to Salt Lake. No... it takes 45 minutes to get up there, I wouldn't know where to park, and I had already gotten a late start on a school night. I went to American Fork and parked at the Timpanogas Temple, but wasn't there very long when I really felt that I needed to go to the Salt Lake Temple. So last Monday I went for another long drive. I wonder where I'm going to go tomorrow :o)

Any other side notes/different topics? Um... I could write about boys, that'll be quick. The one I was interested in shows interest but doesn't act on it, so I'm in the process of getting over that. Well, it's weird to same I'm getting over him, because for a while now I've been okay with him not showing interest, but I still like hanging out with him. So that's where we are. I'll still talk to him and flirt with him, but I'm already positive it's going no where. Then there's this boy that I think is serious eye candy, but I've never seen him at church, only FHE and he came to tutoring once, but I don't know how to go up and talk to him to have the potential for him to be more than eye candy. Which is okay, because I definitely need to stop being the one to go after guys, I've just got to let one come after me. Oh, and then there's the one who got away, who's now got someone else. But, can I tell you how proud I am of myself? In all honesty, I am so happy for him. There is no resentment, no jealousy, nothing but goodwill and happy feelings. He deserved to find someone that he genuinely loves and he did, and I am so happy for him. It's crazy, and my friends probably don't believe me when I say it, but it is the absolute truth. I am so glad he's got what he's got.

Alright, it's time to pick Cheri up to go to ward prayer, so I've got to go, but I just needed to write something on here since it's been so long. I'm planning on having some great stories from the up and coming road trip, so hopefully it won't be too long before I write again.

Fall Break

Oh my gosh. I've been in school how long? And this is the first time I've had a Fall Break? And man oh man, did I make up for not having one before. I had plans to go to the Corn Maze Wednesday night with Amanda, but she ended up calling and canceling that because it had been raining and we didn't want to tromp around in the mud, and the boys she and her friend invited backed out, so the group had dwindled drastically. So that was lame, because I was all excited to have plans and then they fell through. It was okay though, I ended up getting a lot of errands done and then had a low low key night.

Thursday morning Alysha and I woke up early so that we could drive up to Sandy, grab Amanda, and head up to the Salt Lake Temple. When I called on Wednesday to make an appointment, they acted like they were going to be super busy. (I asked for a morning appointment and they said that the only ones they had left for the morning were 8am, noon, and 1pm- well seeing how noon and 1pm aren't the morning, I thought they were booked.) So when we were running late and then couldn't find the right entrance (we walked right passed it, but Alysha and Amanda yelled at me when I said I was going to try the door), I was a little nervous that they weren't going to be able to take us late. But we get to the door, and we're checking in and I apologize for being late and they tell me it's no problem. And it really wasn't- there was no one else there!! So, going to the temple is great, going to new temples is fun, going to a temple with so much history is moving, but getting to see 3 apostles walk in as they go to their Thursday morning meetings was AMAZING. When we first went in we saw Elder Packer. Then after we had gotten our clothes and were getting ready to go into the dressing room we saw Elder Oaks and Elder Bednar. All we did was see them, we didn't get to shake their hands or anything, but it was still so cool. We had a great visit to the temple, on so many levels (like I already said), and then we headed out to breakfast. We went to "The Waffle House" or something like that. I'm thinkin'... if you name yourself after a waffle, you must have some pretty darn good waffles right? Not a chance. It was nasty and pricey. How lame! But at least now we know we never have to go back there again.

Alysha and I drove back to Orem, and on the drive home I was thinking that I could be so productive as soon as we got back. I could get some more things prepped for school, and then I thought that I had enough time to go for a really nice run, and I was super excited for that. But... as soon as I pulled into my spot, I decided that I REALLY needed a nap, and that was the idea that won out. I napped for about 2 hours before waking up and getting ready for my trip to the zoo. I'd never been to the Hogle Zoo before, and I figured since Jon, Ryan, Eric, and I had grown up going to the zoo together back home, that it seemed fitting that I take them along to this zoo. We've talked about it forever, but we finally made it happen. After Ryan and Jon got out of classes, they picked me up and we headed up to Salt Lake. (Just a little side note, we had to drive RIGHT past George's place to get to the zoo. Lame!!!) Oh my gosh. That was THE saddest thing I have EVER witnessed. Eric told us that the Hogel Zoo must be where the animals go right before they die. And, I'm pretty convinced that he's correct in that theory. There were animals without fur, birds without feathers, the saddest, mopiest animals, the most common creatures like house cats (no lie, there were at least 5 different cages with house cats), and june bugs. The giraffes were eating hay, just like the elephants and the camels and shoot, I wouldn't be surprised to know that the tigers eat the same hay. Oh, speaking of camels, there were two there. One had a kind of crooked hump, and the other one had a hump that honestly flopped all the way over, it didn't stand up at all.

I'm not kidding when I say it was the saddest thing ever. But we did have a great time. You know us Kerby kids, we're pretty sarcastic, so this zoo gave us plenty of material to joke around about. At one point in time I apologized for my negative comments and told the guys that if I was annoying I would try harder to hold it in, but Ryan just joined right on in, and the other two didn't take too long to follow suit.

We got back from the zoo with just enough time to get me back for tutoring. Because it was fall break, we weren't expecting too many students to show up, so we were pretty happy with the four that did come. I actually got to tutor a kid that night, which was a first. Usually I'm just the overseer who tells the tutors which kids to take and where to go, and monitor the halls, etc. But this kid came 30 minutes early, so no one else but Alysha was there and Alysha was not going to tackle Algebra 2. I on the other hand really like math and was all over the opportunity to tutor- well, until another tutor came and I went back to my supervisor position.

Friday I spent all day shopping for my trip. Nancy and I were supposed to go camping in Zion's, but for the 4th time, it fell through. She had another option for us, to go canyoneering with a group from BYU. I wasn't so sure about that because I didn't have all the gear and I didn't no anybody in the group. After quite a bit of hesitation, I made up my mind to go, but then had to run all over town to get all the stuff I needed. Ew... so I spent more money than I wanted (which, let's be honest, I'm pretty cheap and would rather not spend any money), but at least it's reusable stuff. I think I finished shopping around 3:30, went home and packed, and had to leave my place around 5:00 to meet up with Nancy. I drove down to Nancy's place and we walked over to the duck pond (our meeting place) together. Luckily I didn't need to pay the dues or fill out paper work like I had expected because they couldn't actually get a BYU advisor to come and so it wasn't officially a BYU trip anymore. The reason I say that's good is because I would have to have shown proof of insurance, and I don't think I have any right now. My school provides me with insurance, but new teachers have a 90 trial period/ waiting period thing, which I think means that I'm not actually insured until January or something crappy like that. Yeah, so good thing I didn't need proof of insurance, because I don't have it :o)

We met up with the group, split up into car loads, and headed out to Hanksville Utah (yeah, I went there and I still don't know where it is, so don't worry that you don't know either). The girl Nancy and I went with was driving because she had to leave early the next day. Someone leaving early should have been my first clue not to go with her. The fact that she was driving other people, who had camping and climbing gear with them, yet her trunk and back of the car were fully loaded should have been my second clue not to go with her. But the other cars had left, and I didn't have any other way to get there (I drove my old car to Nancy's and that's the car without insurance, so I couldn't really justify taking it on a four hour drive to North Wash UT). Oh my gosh. I know that there are some people that live in their car, but I am NOT one of them. My car is very clean, and if there is anything in it, it's because I'm moving it from one location to the other and as soon as I get to point B, it's out of my car. Not this chick. I have NO idea how she fit our bags in her trunk, and I don't understand why she thinks that the back of her car, by the brake light is a shelf/storage area. I can't tell you how many times those water bottles came flying off the back "shelf" and hit me in the head.

Okay, so first of all, it's WAY crowded because there are 5 adults in this car, and SO much crap, that you could keep a bonfire going for days. Second, this trip is supposed to take 4 hours, and I'm the only one who doesn't have someone to talk to. Celest (the driver) was talking to Brian, who was riding shot gun, and Nancy and Rebekkah (the Austrian) were talking in German. Lame!! Don't even worry about it, it gets worse. About 3 hours in, Celest swerves to the shoulder and slams on her brakes (probably bottle hit number one). Her check engine light had come on, and she freaked out about it (the whole swerving and slamming on the brakes was not completely unnecessary in my opinion). Brian looks over and sees that her temperature gauge is red lined and he asks how long her car has been over heating. She has no idea how long because she hasn't been paying attention, and nothing caught her eye as being out of the ordinary until the light came on. (Are you kidding me? You have an old car and you don't monitor things like that?) So Brian and Celest get out and start looking under the hood. As we know, Celest's car is fully loaded, so of course she had coolant in there. So Rebekkah, Nancy, and I go, carefully unload enough of the trunk to get the coolant out. After we take it out, we carefully cram everything back in (remembering to put in Brian's shoes, which had been laid on the very top so they fell out as soon as we opened the trunk. The three of us get back in the car and wait. Then Celest says something about needing tape, from the back. Rebekkah looks up and says, "Did she just say she needs tape... from the trunk?" Nancy and I just start cracking up. Because she throws open the trunk and just rips stuff out. Then she can't find it so we have to look in the pockets of the seats, on the "shelf" and finally Nancy finds it somewhere it shouldn't have been.

Holy cow, so we spend forever on the side of the road, and then take off again. We have to pull over 2 other times, with the SAME exact routine. First there's the unsafe maneuver over to the side of the road where I end up getting pelted with freaking water bottles, we spend forever on the side, while Celest unload and reloads and unloads and reloads the trunk. Not only that, but we were also given slightly faulty directions and we ended up going 20 minutes out of our way (so a wasted 40 minutes because we had to turn around and go back). So, the other car loads had made it there around 10pm. We didn't pull into camp until after 1am. We got our sleeping bags out, put them on the ground, and went to sleep.

Yeah, about that.... I did not sleep very well. The sleeping bag I had Dana bring me from back home is for times when our family went camping in Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado in the summer... are you getting this? their all warm places. So when the temperature in the canyons got down in the low 40s that night, I did NOT sleep well. Well, the cold didn't help, plus Brian snoring right next to me wasn't that fantastic either. At least I knew SOMEONE was sleeping well that night, because it sure as H- wasn't me!!!

We woke up the next morning, took a long time getting people and things together, but finally headed out. Oh my gosh, can I tell you what canonyeering is? It's amazing. It's part hiking, part repelling, part rock climbing/wall walking, and part walking in a maze (walking through VERY narrow canyons). We had a large group, like 17 people. So we split into two. Most of us were new to this whole canyoneering thing, so it didn't really work out to have a new group and a more advanced group. It ended up being the scared newbies (the more high maintenance girls) who went with the attractive, experienced guide, versus the tough first timers with the more entertaining guide. Yeah, although it would have been nice to hike with Nick the whole day, I way preferred my group. The first trail we went on just had 2 repels. One was about 30 feet, and the other was about 90 feet. It was awesome. You start the trail hiking to the repel spot, then you repel into the canyon, and hike out of the canyon. My proudest moment on the first hike was when Creighton told me that it would be easier to get through this one area if you I put two hands against one wall and two feet against the other I told him that wasn't very funny, only to find out that he was serious. For real, it worked. I was completely parallel to the ground, making my way through the canyon. It freaking rocked!!! The first trail took us about 2 1/2 hours and then it was time to break for lunch so we could meet up with the other group, switch ropes, and head out to the other trail. The other freaking group was on a shorter trail, but because they had the squeelish girls, it took them forever. We ended up waiting for them for an hour. And we all know me. When I'm ready to go, I'm ready to go. So, after waiting for them for an hour, when people in my group decided that it was time to go to the bathroom and put on sunscreen once the others got there, I was irritated. Oh well, we were off soon enough.

So, it turns out that we missed the turn off for the canyon that the other group did the first time, the one we were supposed to be doing the second time. But... I'm so glad that we dropped into the canyon that we did. This one was way more awesome. It's obvious that it's less popular (meaning it's used less), it was more challenging, and it was SO FREAKING AWESOME. There were 3 or 4 repels this time, one of which was a repel into a dark shaft. It was cool. Super trick to start, but way cool. There were more opportunities to walk on the walls, even more narrow canyons, more free climbing opportunities, and better chances to test out our repelling skills.

We were a little worried that the other group would be waiting for us for a while seeing as we didn't know at all where we were at, but by the time we made it back, the other group had only been waiting like 5 minutes. We all loaded up our stuff pretty quick and head down the road to grab some dinner in Hanksville. There's only 2 restaurants in town as far as I could see, and the one we ate at was pretty nasty. The burger was expensive, they forgot to make mine, so by time I got mine, everyone else was done or at least half way done, and it was disgusting. After dinner we piled back in our cars (oh, don't worry, we drove home with Dave this time, not with crazy Celest and her crapped out car) and headed back. I was so tired and I wanted to sleep so bad, but I just couldn't do it. Most of the ride back Brian and Dave were talking about hiking equipment, but there were times when I could join the conversation and I would chime in, but most of the ride us backseaters were pretty quiet (I think we were all trying to get some sleep, but I don't know that any of us were highly successful).

We got back to BYU campus and I walked with Nancy to her place and then to my car, drove home, and went to sleep. It was pretty much the best weekend!

It Really is the Little Things

So, this blog is called "The Little Things" because it was the random small trips that made my summer big and exciting. And, it really is the small things in life that make it so entertaining and so enjoyable. I've been SOOOOOO insanely busy lately and haven't had time to blog much, but I think that if I just give a brief synopsis in terms of the "simple things" then it'll make up for many of the blog entries I haven't had the time to write. So, here it is. It's the little things that make the biggest difference.

School:
That one child, that's in everyone's class, the one that makes it hard to sleep at night, is now out of mine. I'm excited for him and so happy to see him placed in a setting that will really benefit him. As I send him off, all I can say is "good luck to ya." But, now that he's gone, it's the little things in the classroom that make me so excited. I don't have to keep one white board marker in my pocket to use at the front and back board. I actually can have all four colored markers on the shelf at my board!!! I actually have a bookcase back, it's not full of blocks, and broken crayons, and ripped papers. (Okay, well it's not all the way back to being mine yet because I haven't had time to organize it yet.) I can have my jar of M&Ms set out now to give to the guided reading groups, like I haven't had a chance to do yet because the candies were locked in the closet for obvious reasons. I can use the projector in my room way more often without being worried it's going to get knocked over. The list goes on and on. And even though these really are all small things, it was SO nice to have the white board markers on the white board.
It was funny. The first day he was gone, all of my lessons ended 5-10 minutes early. It was weird. Oh, the little things.

Energy:
Teacher parent conferences were this week and that meant that I was putting in 12 hour days, no exaggeration. I showed up at 7am and left after 7pm. And it's two nights in a row, and they're Wednesday and Thursday, so we still have to come back and teach on Friday. Who planned it that way? I'm not sure. Anyway, Wednesday night I came home and was absolutely exhausted. I did a little more prep and paid some bills or something, but then went to bed at 9:30 (wasn't able to fall asleep for hours, but that's another story). I was worried because Thursday is the community tutoring that I'm in charge of and so I had to go straight from conferences to that and I was scared I wasn't going to make it, but it turns out that I had so much energy and pep that night. Not only did tutoring go well, but I came home, did some more bill paying or something, and felt the need to go for a run, so I did. Mmmmm.... I think energy is my favorite little thing :o)

Plus, there's an instant energy that comes from it being Friday. So, Thursday, I had all that energy, and then right after my run and shower, I felt a serious drop in energy, which was fine because it was bed time. But again, I couldn't fall asleep. It was hard to wake up for my alarm Friday morning, but as soon as I was up, I was up, and had all the energy I needed (and way more). I talked to Stacey about it at lunch. I asked if she automatically had extra energy on Fridays and she said it had something to do with seeing the end in sight. I loved it. I was way more relaxed with the kids, able to joke around more, and was smiley all day. After working 12 hours two days in a row, with some community tutoring thrown in too, and not being able to fall asleep, I should have been way zombie-ee, but no, I was FULL of energy.

Kids:
The kids are hilarious. I don't usually realize how adorable my students are or appreciate the funny things they say, but Friday my eyes were much more open to their adorableness. Friday was picture day and so I curled my hair to try to look nice for the pictures. On our way to lunch, Abigail comments on how she likes my hair. I thank her for the compliment and then Kristoff adds in that he likes it too and then starts questioning me about how I did it. It was so adorable that he would be so interested in my curling iron :o) And right before all of this, Salvador, my little slow speaker who always has something that he NEEDS to inform me about looks up, and out of the blue asks me if I can do a jumping summer-salt. But he kept walking as he asked me, didn't even wait for an answer, just kept walking. It was pretty funny.

And I'm not going to lie, I really enjoy getting compliments from the 2nd graders. Most of the time, it doesn't even come from the kids in my class. I'll be standing in front of my door, waiting for my class to come in, and the other 2nd grade classes will be coming in and the kids will pass by and say, "I really like you shoes Miss Kerby" or glasses, skirts, shirts, hair, whatever it is, they'll compliment it. It's so adorable- plus, my outfits get complimented so rarely, I'll take it any time I can get it, even if it is from 7 year olds :o)

And the hugs. I get absolutely bombarded at lunch from 3rd graders that I students taught with last year. 3rd graders that weren't even in my class, but had me when we did rotations will run up and give me hugs. It's fun. Although it does make it hard to help my class through the line sometimes when I get a big swarm of them going.

Nature:
One of the things I bragged about in the blog about my new apartment was the view of the lake that I have from my window. I meant to write about this forever ago because it was one of those things that was keeping me sane. There was a period of time when I was just really frustrated and that was just about the only emotion that I was feeling. One day I was driving home and looked out at the lake and realized how lucky I am to have that view. It was what cheered me up on those extra hard days. Unfortunately they are now building a grocery store right across from the complex, and they are working really hard at wiping out my view, but even still, if I take the "longer" way home, I can crest the hill and at least still get that view of the mountains and the lake before getting home. Not the most beautiful site you'll ever see, but it's one of those simple things that warms my heart <3

Service and Family:
I have become very self involved. For real, for the longest time I had NO idea what was happening with anyone in my family (I'm getting a little better now). It wasn't that I was selfish, it was just that school was keeping me very busy and I didn't feel that I had the time to blog, call home, visit cousins, etc. I was doing things for other people (my students) but I didn't really feel great that all I knew was my life, my stresses. I started going to the temple every week and some amazing things resulted from that service. And I got a calling to be put in charge of a community tutoring program. Oh my gosh, this thing is so much work, but I'm so excited for it. So it is one more stresser, but because I have to reach out to so many people to ask them to help, or ask for ideas, I'm getting more involved with other people's lives. I'm no longer only caught up in my own problems, and I talk to people that aren't 7 :o) And I've gotten better with the family thing too. I made dinner for Eric, Ryan, and Jon and it was great to have them over and visit. Then Dana and Josh came up and I tried to be very hospitable to them. That same weekend I saw Mom, Dad, Grandma, Roman, Isaac, and Aaron and spent time with them (although I do need work with the boys because I was mean aunt Brooke that trip and that's not alright with me).

Ah.... for real. Life is hard, and that's why I'm so grateful to be reminded of all the little things in life that make it easier to keep going.

Picture Day

I finally took pictures of my classroom. It's changed a little bit since the beginning. For one, I had to move everything that I could to a high shelf, so there's not much clutter on the tables, which although I like the lack of clutter, I HATE that my high shelves are packed and every two seconds I have to reach up and pull stuff down for the class to use. Also, as kids started coming in, I realized some things weren't placed super practically, so I changed it. Flexibility... it's a huge part of teaching.

I don't know how well I can line up the pictures and the dialogue, but I'll try. And sorry, blogger used to rotate the pictures for me, but this time it decided to keep them sideways.

It took until right up to the beginning of school to get my name up above my door. At the beginning of summer, I looked every day to see if it was up there. It never was, and I kind of forgot about it. But, the day it went up (once I noticed), I was so excited. It was really fun seeing my name up there :o)

Unfortunately I waited one day too long to take pictures of my room. My precious little angel of a student decided that I was for sure NOT his favorite person on Friday. So when he left the classroom, he thought it would be a great idea to pull a paper curly-q off the door and rip it up in the hallway. It doesn't make a huge difference in the decor, but it did add an extra special something, and now the "swinging into" and "2nd grade" aren't connected.

We all know, my classroom is a rain forest theme, so I have vines hanging down for the ceiling, and the blue ribbon is supposed to look like rain (and it did stand out more before I decided to hang the vines and "moss").

Every classroom needs a word wall, where high frequency words that students oober need to learn to spell go up. I turned mine into the "waterfall words" wall. Unfortunately the waterfall I made didn't fit into the laminating machine, so I had to cut it in half and then stick the two pieces up. So lame, but by time I realized it didn't fit (I thought it would work to angle it), it was already in.

I was so happy when I finally found a tree to put up in my room. I knew I wanted to do "Banana Birthdays" but I was so scared I would have to make my own tree because for all the hunting I was doing, I wasn't coming up with any trees. I eventually found this one and I'm going to have to say that it turned out pretty well.

To introduce students to the class, we did a thing called "King or Queen for a Day." They took a crown and a bag home. They decorated their crown and brought in 5 objects to share with the class. We sang a song about okapis (ha ha, I'm so proud that I squeezed the okapi into it all :o) and they got their picture taken. I now have a wall with the members of the class up on it. It's nice, gives them ownership of the classroom, and helps everyone remember each others' names. Oh, that lime green board is the daily schedule. I really need to be better at changing that on days when we have PE and Library, or on Mondays where we have a shorter day. Yeah, I'll get on that one.

The math corner is also where we do calendar in the morning. The easel easel is a useful spot where we can do whatever. Mostly it's language stuff, but today I used it for a friendship lesson, it's also where we have class meetings. It's just a spot where they go when their seats aren't working for them, and I need them to be closer to me, and less distracted. And, had I not had such a curious student in my classroom, there would be centers set up on those desks and tables. But for now, it works that I hide the centers until center time, and then I bring them out and set them on the table. That way works too.

The sink area has a hippo to designate the "wash station." Then the monkeys were a last minute throw in because I realized it would probably be a good idea to post the colors, since all the other teachers were :o)

The reading area is one of the most exciting parts of my classroom for me. Mostly that's because I inherited so many books!!! Oh my freaking gracious that was helpful :o) Although it was a ton of work to organize them and label them and all that jazz, I was glad that I had a lot to go through, and it was good because it gave me a chance to look through all the books I have. And it was a good thing too, because there were several books that I had to take out. Case in point, "The Stupids Die" yeah, didn't want that one in there. That's not teaching the students how to treat other people well. Oh, and the snake thing was no picnic. Unfortunately I struck out at the stores. All summer, and not a single large snake anywhere. I finally found snake paper and made my own, but it was too curly. I had to wrap it around the vine, but that wasn't too smooth of a process either. Anyway, I finally got it all up, and I'm pretty proud of my reading area now.

This last picture is just a picture of my front board. Up above I have the alphabet (inherited from Pennie), then I have the doubles, the white board with the date and a pattern of the day, and then underneath the board I made a little grassy area where the students love to read.

So that's it. That's my room. It's nothing so incredible, but I like it. Today was the 22nd day of school, and I can say that I for sure feel like the teacher. It is my room, my class, and although I know I'm not doing everything exactly right, I'm doing the best I can, and I don't think I'm really screwing anything up that badly :o)

Being Sick Sucks!!!

Oh my goodness gracious, I am SO embarrassed about what happened today. Sunday morning I woke up with a sore throat and knew I was going to be sick. Monday I took Excedrin and was fine through out the day, but started getting way tired my time the day ended. The terrible part about the school day ending was that I had to go to a new teacher meeting that was two hours long. Toward the end of the day I had started getting the chills and was absolutely freezing in my classroom. The meeting was not any better. Oh, it was such a waste of time. The things they were sharing, I didn't agree with, and I was miserable. I went home, and just laid in bed. I called Mom and she told me to go get medicine and to call the principal to see if I could get a sub. I finally agreed to go get medicine, but was NOT going to call for a sub.

I woke up this morning and felt okay. I was moving slowly as I got ready, but I felt just like I had on Monday, and I survived Monday. I got to school early because I had a bunch of things to prep. I went to the work room and made some copies, and stayed in the work room to cut up cards for the kids to use in math today. Toward the end of cutting the cards out I started to get really hot, so I took off my jacket and finished cutting. Then I headed back to my classroom, and on the walk back I started to not walk exactly straight and my vision started going blurry. I saw that Stacey was in her classroom, so after I got back inside the building, I headed toward her classroom to let her know that I was feeling dizzy and probably shouldn't stay at school, so what is it that I needed to do? Well, I didn't make it that far. The next thing I know, I'm laying down wondering if I'm sleeping and the whole morning had been a dream. No, I told myself that I distinctly remember getting up and making all those copies, so what's going on. I open my eyes, and I'm laying in the hallway, with all of the cards scattered on the floor. I was so mortified that I had blacked out at school.

I left the papers in the hall and walked into my room, knelt on the floor, and put my head on a student's desk. The next thing I know, I look up and Katrina is right next to me and asks me, "Do you know what just happen?" I told her that I fainted in the hallway, came in and put my head on the desk, and then, no, I have no idea what happened. She told me that I had been shaking pretty badly, I'm not sure what that means, but I was so embarrassed that she had witness me convulsing or whatever happened. She called our vice principal and told her that I was at school, but that I was really sick and needed to go home. They tried to find a sub who could come as soon as possible, but I had to start my class off in the morning.

Teaching my class went fine. Once they showed up, I was feeling better. It took me quite some time to write up the sub plans and prep things before I could leave, but it didn't help that once the sub showed up, she didn't take over so that I could speed up the process, nope, she hung back and had me continue to teach the class. Oh, I did not want to leave my kids. For one things, I always think it's best if I'm there in my classroom, but for the second thing, I did not feel very confident about that lady. I'm sure she did just fine, but I much rather would have been there.

I came home and napped, and rested, and I'm feeling better (except that spot where I hit my head on the tile is sore, and so is my hip and elbow, I must have done a three point fall, hip, elbow, head). My body is regulating it's own temperature, I've mostly dealt with a headache and sore throat today, so I'm ready to get back to school tomorrow. I'll be cautious though. If I start getting fuzzy vision or feeling dizzy, I'm gonna sit down right away. Plus I'm going to pack myself snacks and medicine and fluids to take to school with me. And I'm going to go to bed early and I'm not going to school until 7:00 at the earliest, none of this 6:30 stuff that I've been doing the last couple days.

Man, I had the goal to be in my classroom every day this year (except when meetings call me out), and I already failed. Dang shoot.

But seriously, all day, I've started giggling because I honestly cannot believe that I passed out at school. And that I had to be sent home. It's absolutely ridiculous.

This One's For Me

So, remember how I use this as my journal? This one is going to be one of those posts that is strictly for me. It's not one that's being written to get sympathy, I'm not looking for people to solve my problems, or pry to find out more, this is just because I needed to write it, and I really don't keep an actual journal any more. Feel free not to read beyond this point, because it won't be very interesting, again, it's just something I needed to get out. Because as I write about it or as I talk about it, I'm able to think about it at the same time.

Anyway, I just realized that I am no longer able to cry. It's weird, and at first I was completely fine with it because crying is too time consuming and super not productive, but at the same time, it can feel so good and be such a relief to just have a good cry. But I can't do it! This week there have been plenty of times when I felt like I needed to cry, but didn't or couldn't. Life right now is stressful. I knew it would be, so that's no surprise. (Something else I've realized is that as long as I go into a tough situation with realistic expectations, I'm able to deal with it better because I've already planned on it being hard.) But for real, teaching is stressful, there are so many aspects that I have to think about- curriculum, individual students' abilities, home life, teamwork abilities, etc., all the students all at once, time management, parents, other staff, and SO SO SO much more. And aside from school, there's my dramatic living situation (where my solution has now been to ignore the problem and live my own life), and then social problems.

So, with the stresses of school, there was one particularly hard day this week where I sat down at lunch and was working on something and really felt like I needed to cry. I told myself that I couldn't because it was freaking lunch time and I was at school, and I just couldn't break down. I thought that maybe I'd go home that night and cry about it, but I got home that night and had so many other things that I had to get done that I didn't have time to cry, nor did I feel like crying would be productive. That's example number one of how I'm not able to cry, I'm too logical to have feelings any more- no, not that I don't have feelings, but I'm too logical to let my feelings take over and interrupt my life. Who would have ever thought that "Baby Brooke," who earned an "eagle" every time her sisters made her cry would ever be too logical to cry?

Second example happened this morning. Ew... I hate that this boy always does it to me. He treats me like crap, and I let him, he never remembers anything we've done together, even though we've hung out a lot and have been friends for years. Every one tells me that I just need to stop hanging out with him and I know it's true, but most of the time, I actually do enjoy my time with him. He's not ALWAYS acting like an A**. But last night I had had it. There's too much that he did wrong to blog about it, but I finally saw everything he did and it finally hit me hard enough that I'm way better than he makes me feel. Anyway, I was pretty irritated last night. And I don't want to say that I'm really mad at him, because I KNOW that's who he is (when he's around me anyway), and it's my fault too because I'm the one that wants to hang out with him, and I know what that means when I ask him over. So, it's not really that I'm mad, it's just way frustrating. Luckily I was so super tired last night that I was able to fall asleep as soon as I got home. I woke up this morning pretty down though, because I know he knows I was upset last night, but I also know that he doesn't care. All morning I've been ranting to poor Alysha about how crappy this situation is and how I've known it the whole time, but now I'm finally, I don't even know, it's like I'm finally awake to how insanely lame this whole thing is, and I'm no longer okay with the crap he pulls. While talking to Alysha, there were a few times where I felt like crying, but when I went in my room, the most that came out were two tears. I went back into her room and told her how I am not officially incapable of crying. And, I'm not sure that that's a good thing. I don't get it. In this situation I don't want to cry because he's not worth crying over. But at the same time, I was hoping that if I just got a good cry out that I would feel less stressed, and that I'd be able to cry and move on. He's out having fun with a friend today, not even letting me cross his mind once, and here I am, with PLENTY of things that I really NEED to get done, and yet I'm fuming and getting nothing accomplished. Eww (I really don't know how to spell that word, by the by).

I guess I'm just so concerned about not being able to cry because lately I've been really angry. Not about the boy situation, but about everything. I think that I think that if I am able to cry, it will soften my own heart and then I'll be less upset ALL the freaking time. I really do have a good life, and there are plenty of things going right, but it's SO easy for my mind to cling to the negative. And it's so exhausting. The end, I don't know what else to say about that. Writing it out did help me though, because the "softening the heart" thing came to me just now and that's why I wrote it, but I was hoping for some more solutions to roll around. Whatev, I'm going to read the book that I'm really enjoying but have been too busy to read. Hopefully that will distract me, add something happier into my life, and heck, if there's a sad part, like if someone dies (I don't think any one does though), maybe I'll cry about it. Maybe it's easier to cry about someone else's life than it is to cry about my own. Ooh, good idea, maybe I'll go rent a super sappy chick flick later tonight.

My Birthday

Normally I'm not one to make a big deal about birthdays (my own mainly). I usually keep it low key, don't let anyone know it's my birthday, and if they say happy birthday, that's great, if they don't, they don't. Alysha was NOT going to let that be the case this year. She wanted to have a party for me, go out and eat with a group of friends and then have dessert back at the apartment, nothing super fancy, but something more than nothing. I told her not to worry about it because I prefer small groups and if we only invited a couple of people and then they couldn't make it, it would end up just being the three of us (Alysha, Jess, and me). Again, she was not okay with that answer, so she moved the dinner to Saturday so that more people would show up. I'll get to Saturday in a moment, but for now I'll talk about my actual birthday.

Wednesday I woke up, opened my door, and realized that Alysha had put cut-outs all over it. That was a happy, and welcome surprise. Then, as is my ritual for the mornings, I immediately went to the bathroom. In the bathroom, there was a vase of pink roses from Jess. Awwww, precious. Another very welcome surprise. I set up my flowers in the kitchen so that they could be enjoyed by all, then I got ready in a cute new outfit, did my hair, and went off in a great mood to school. At calendar time we looked up at the 26th and saw that there was a "birthday" card under it. I asked whose birthday it was, and no one answered. I asked the class if they were ready to find out whose birthday it was. They were so excited, but when I raised my hand, they were so confused. I told them it was my birthday and they sang to me, and it was great. Simple, sweet, and over, just how I like it :o)

At lunch, Jamie (another 2nd grade teacher) asked if it was my birthday. I told her yes, and she told me happy birthday while Stacey said, "oh, that's why you look so cute today." My team (the 2nd grade teachers) was a little upset (play upset) that I hadn't told them it was my birthday. Jamie asked if we could get lunch tomorrow since they didn't have advanced notice today. I said that sounded fine to me. Other people in the lunchroom overheard our conversation and told me happy birthday. I'm not going to lie, I did like that people noticed. I had to run to the office during prep time to ask the Secretaries a couple of things and one of the Secretaries asked if it was my birthday and wished me a happy one. Then I checked my box and there was a juice and package of trailmix from the PTA.

After school, I decided that since I had everything planned and prepped for the next day, I was going to go home at the contracted time (not two hours later) even though there is always stuff to be doing in my classroom. So at 4:15, I walked out the door. It felt so great to be leaving when the parking lot was still full. I walked in the front door of my apartment to find Alysha blowing up balloons and writing me a card. She got mad at me for coming home early, and I told her I came home when I'm supposed to, it just isn't what she's used to. It felt so good to just relax when I got home. I read some of my book, watched some Arrested Development, and talked to Alysha. When Jess came home they gave me my present. A massage!!! Yes. They know me all too well :o)

After dinner, I didn't know what else to do with myself so I started to do some lesson planning, but Alysha came in and told me to stop. She said we had to do something fun for my birthday. I said, that sounds great, but I don't know what to do. We looked up what movies were playing, but unfortunately all the movie started at 7:30, and then not again until 9:30. And seeing as it was 7:45 when we were looking the movies up, it wasn't going to happen. But as luck would have it, one of the movies was playing at 8:00 at one theater. I grabbed my shoes and my bag and we were out the door. We made it right before 8:00, but the previews went so long that the actual movie didn't start until 8:20. So even if we hadn't have made it on time, we still would have made the movie, but it was quite the adventure getting there on time :o) The movie was cute, we saw "Post Grad" and by time the movie was over, it was time for bed, and I hadn't done a single schoolish thing since coming home. It was great!!! A very pleasant day of turning 22.

I had it all planned that Thursday and Friday I would get lots of work done so that I could really enjoy my Saturday. I would wake up, go for a run, take a nice long shower, get a massage, and then go to dinner with friends. Almost none of that worked out. First of all, Friday was a super stressful day at school, so I came home and refused to do school stuff. I spent that night in Salt Lake with a friend, and so didn't get my early morning run in. It was still an option to go running when I got home, but then I realized all the things I had to get done, after checking the mailbox and seeing that I had to set up online bill pay and go green with my bank, plus go grocery shopping, etc. So after my shower, I went down to get my massage, but the wait was a three hour wait, which means I wouldn't get my massage until 5pm, but dinner was at 6pm, so if they were at all late, I would be late too. So I have to choose another day to get my rub down :o( I did go grocery shopping and some errands before it was time for dinner.

Dinner was fun. It was just a small group of us, but that's definitely how I preferred it. Amanda came down from Sandy and her present made me squeal in the restaurant. She bought me the movie Oklahoma staring Hugh Jackman. Oh, she truly knows me. Her card said, "You still have to come visit me, okay?" And she thought that I would get it right away, but I didn't. I looked at the bag and thought about what could be in it, and it wasn't clicking, wasn't clicking, and then all of a sudden I said, "No, it's not..." And I ripped into it, saw the dvd and squealed. I got some definate funny looks from the other table, but whatev. The dinner conversation was good, lots of sharing, catching up, story telling, and tons of laughter. Ooh, and one of the guy waiters was super attractive. He was a very nice dresser, which is an immediate attention getter, and he had some gorgeous blue eyes. Mmmmm. I had to double check with Amanda that he wasn't a teenager and it was appropriate for me to be appreciating how nice he looked. She guessed he was 23, so it was totally okay that I approved every time he walked by. The only bad thing about dinner was Nick and my dinner. We both got the "maui wawee wrap" and it was not tasty. We both made it through half our wrap before we couldn't eat it any more. So we put the halfs together on one plate and Jess walked up to the front to see if they would give us a different one because it was nasty. Jess said that the boy was about to do it, but a girl walked up and told her that it wasn't allowed. So, the guy (yeah, the hot one) came up at the end of the meal and gave us some $2 off coupons to use the next time we come in. Alright, that works. I checked with everyone else, and they all liked their food. Plus, I've been there before and liked what I had, so I'm not worried about that one bad order ruining Guru's for me, but I'm worried Nick won't ever give it a chance again. After dinner we came back to the new apartment to talk and play games or whatever we wanted to. Oh, Jessica and Alysha made a stop after dinner to pick up a cake. We ate cake and then just ended up talking for a couple hours. Again, it was so great. Because it was such a small group, everyone talked and no one felt left out. That's what I love. It's so hard for everyone to participate in a huge group, and usually I'm the one getting left out, and that's why I'm such a huge fan of having just a few close friends, none of this mob mentality when it comes to friends. What does it help if you have tons of acquaintances but no real friends? Eventually Jess and Nick had to head off to a bon fire, Janeen had another birthday shin-dig she had to make an appearance at, and so Amanda and I got to talk for a while until I started yawning like crazy and had to kick her out. It was such a great party. I was pleased with how it went, appreciated the hugs, the birthday wishes, and the presents weren't half bad either. Oh, I forgot to mention. Nick bought my dinner as his gift, and Janeen picked out an adorable shirt. It was hilarious because when I opened it she said, you need to try it on, because I wasn't sure what size to get you. I mean, you're pretty small, but your boobs are big. She said it as she was walking down the hall, and was surprised when everyone in the living room started laughing because she didn't realize she had said it that loud. Amanda reassured her that Nick hadn't heard, so it was okay, but Alysha comes sprinting down the hall to tell me, "It's just like Hawaii." Yeah, so apparently it's not just Asians that are okay talking about my body. Goodness!!!

Yeah, good times, good times. Wednesday was low key kind of fun, and Saturday was quality time with quality friends good. Good good.

New Ward

I was planning on this blog being just a summer thing, but summer is dying out, and I'm still posting. I'm thinking that possibly I'll start another one about my class and my "grown up" life, but we'll see if that actually happens.

Anywho... Last Sunday was the Oquar Mountain dedication, which means we didn't have church. So today was the first day in my new ward. First things first.... I looked way good :o) You would think that with confidence enough to announce it online, I would have been more confident introducing myself to more people. But that just wasn't the case. I talked to a few new people, and learned a few new names (hopefully not to be forgotten too shortly), but no serious interactions as of yet. I do still have ward prayer to go to tonight, but that actually might get passed up for a birthday celebration for Janeen, we'll see.

When moving into the new place, one of the things I was super excited about was a new ward. Within the apartment complex, there are a few different wards. There's the family ward, the student ward, and the singles ward. I was excited to go to the single ward so that I could be one of the youngest ones there and not have to compete with the annoying 18 year olds. Not that 18 year olds are inherently annoying, but the fact that all guys, no matter what age, chase after those girls the most, that's the annoying part. So in the new ward, I was planning on being immediately interesting because I was new, fresh meat, and I was hoping to be one of the youngest, seeing as how I just graduated. Not quite how it played out today. I wasn't immediately interesting because there are LOTS of new people. And, I might be one of the youngest, but we have some super awesome girls in the ward. See, this is why I don't usually hold high expectations in social situations.

So the ward isn't what I had pictured in my head, but it is an awesome ward. First of all, we meet in an actual chapel, so that's nice. Plus, it's like real church because we have sacrament first, followed by Sunday school, rounded out by relief society/priesthood- just as it should be. On our way over to church we ran into Cherie, who we met because she works in the office at Millano Village (our apartment complex). She's quite entertaining, and was helpful with introducing us to some of her friends once we got there. Even before church started, it was good. Then sacrament started and the speakers gave really amazing talks (which make me extra want to never be called on to give a talk because I'd have to be compared to people like that). We had a short "new people" meeting after sacrament meeting and got our pictures taken (eww, that's never my favorite part). Then it was off to Sunday school. Gospel principles is taught in a room upstairs and luckily they were off to a slow start so we hadn't missed any part of the lesson, just socializing. We also missed the explanation of why we got treats, but we did not miss the bag of treats when it came by. Alysha leaned over to me later to say "that's what I'm talking about, treats in church." I think she's hooked on going now :o) Relief society and Priesthood were combined today so that the Bishopric could talk to us. They are highly entertaining/ humorous/ whatever, and yet were still able to share good messages. The sad thing is that they are getting released next week.

Alysha was thinking that she would check out both wards and see which one she wanted to go to (since she's still a student, it wouldn't be weird for her to go to the student ward), but I think after seeing how good this ward was, she'll stay in this one. It really was a great Sunday. The ward is friendly, welcoming, entertaining, but not irreverent. I came home with a couple goals to work on and learned a lot from the lessons and what others shared in those lessons. I'm way excited.

School Daze- Sorry, pictures hopefully coming soon

Ever since getting back from Hawaii, I’ve been non-stop teacher meetings and in my classroom (except that Friday and Saturday I took out to move and clean). I had team meetings, district meetings, new teacher meetings, and school meetings. It’s been so, so very crazy. In the meetings, I would always think about how much I wasn’t ready to start school, it was creeping up on my WAY too fast. I don’t regret the meetings, I learned some good things in them, but they made me anxious because I felt like I could have been using that time to organize myself better in the classroom.

Finally Tuesday, August 18th rolled around. That’s the day that our rooms NEEDED to be ready to go because it was open house aka MEET THE PARENTS NIGHT. Dang shoot. I did have everything together in my room, all the decorations were finally up, the kids’ desks had name tags and supplies, the homework and spelling and writing folders were all made, and the few things that weren’t quite organized yet could fit into the closet which I then locked up so that parents couldn’t see that “not quite ready” part.

Okay, meeting the parents wasn’t really all that scary. In fact, I didn’t meet many of the parents. I might have focused a little too much on the kids. Oops. But I figure that open house is more to get the kids excited about school, so if I build a good report with them, than that’s good, right? Plus, sometimes the kids would walk in with people that I didn’t think were really their parents and I didn’t want to say the wrong thing, so I just kept quiet. Like, for example, I’m pretty sure one girl came in with her older sister, but just incase she was a really young mother, I didn’t want to comment. Or when students would come in with two women, I didn’t want to assume that the older one was the grandma just in case it was the aunt. Get it? I know, I know, I should have talked to the parents more, it’s true, but I was nervous.

I had the majority of the students show up that night. I had 17 students on my list, and 12 of them came. That’s pretty good numbers considering the area that I’m teaching in. And like I said before, it really wasn’t that bad. The kids came in, I helped them find their desk, asked them something fun they did this summer, handed the parent notes to the parents, maybe chatted with the parents for a while, and then they were out. Oh, and I got a room mom right away. I think it was the second family that came in. The mom right away asked if I had a room mom yet and if I wanted one. Of course I do!!!! Okay, to be quite honest, I’m not exactly sure what I’ll have her do for me, but I hear room moms are great and I’m excited.

Well, once parents’ day was done, I got one more day to prep everything and then today was the first day of school. Holy freaking gracious. I can’t believe I’ve actually had my first day as a real teacher. It’s crazy, and I know it’ll sink in for sure later, but it’s still just crazy right now. And speaking of crazy, that could be a good way of describing the day. I’m kind of just kidding. For the most part, it was a really good day. The kids like me, I like the kids, no one was injured, lost, or left, and I actually did get a lot accomplished. But, being self critical as we all are, I can definitely point out what went wrong. One, I did not get two (I feel like it’s more, but thinking it through, it might just be two) things done that I had planned. Two, I have some challenging kids that I am not quite sure how to approach just yet. And three is that I just feel like everyone else’s first day went better than mine. Shoot, writing it down, it makes it sound like I had a really good first day though because only two things went wrong and the first one I wrote isn’t even that big of a deal. Well then, I sure am glad I’m writing it then because I’m not going to lie, I had a little bit of a freak out after getting home.

So I had my day. The morning flew by. That’s where the majority of my activities got skipped/moved around to different times. All of a sudden it was 9:15 and time for the later gators to show up. Then all of a sudden it was 10:15 and time for recess. Then it was 11:45 and time for lunch. After lunch, however, the day slowed down for real. Normally, kids would go to specialties after lunch, but those won’t start until Monday, so I had the kids a half hour longer than I usually will and the kids were much harder to keep focused after lunch (plus it didn’t help that that was the time the tech lady finally showed up with my computer and of course needed to talk to me about it). We did make it through to 2:15 when the early birds go home. I teach basically the same lesson to the later gators that I did the early birds, but I was moving faster by that time of the day, so the later gators got more accomplished than the early birds. They did a pretty great job staying focused and moving through their work that last hour. All except the girl that tried to go under her desk and sleep. That wasn’t too cool. I kept teaching and got the rest of the class working on a project and then took her out into the hallway and explained that I understand that it’s been a long day and that she’s used to summer time and not being in school, but that she has to get used to being in school again and she cannot sleep in class. For real, we only had maybe 20 minutes left of class when we went back in. I’m happy to be able to report that she managed to stay awake for those 20 minutes, although she was not highly productive :o)

Oh man, those kids. I honestly do have a great class. They are all so willing to help each other out and I’ve got a lot of really bright kids that are eager and able to answer and help and whatever they need to. Of course I also have those extra bundles of joy that are going to cause me some premature gray and a few more worry wrinkles, but what would teaching be without those little angels?

Oh, so should I tell you about the freak out? The students leave at 3:30, I’m contracted to stay until 4:00, and I left at 5:30. I still had things to do, but decided that I needed to leave before I ended up spending all night there (which would be easy to do, there’s plenty of work for me there). I took time to myself at first, read my book (I’m at really good part in Mansfield Park- a girl got proposed to and she blew him off thinking that he didn’t mean it, but he does mean it and won’t stop pursuing her), ate dinner, and took a bath. After getting out of my bath, I started thinking about how I really don’t know what to do about one of my precious wrinkle causing angels and didn’t know what I wanted my classroom rules to be (which we’re going over tomorrow by the way). I had a mini little panic attack over that until I just decided to pray to calm down. I love the calm down prayer, because every time I say it (and that’s plenty, believe me), I don’t even have to say the whole thing and I’m already way less stressed and way more relaxed. So after the prayer I sat down at my computer, typed up the rules and consequences without much trouble, realized that the books I have won’t help me with this particular angel and that I’ll have to take it one day at a time. I stopped freaking out, and instead went back to not thinking about school by blogging (oh wait, I’m blogging about school, suck).

I’ve already planned that tomorrow after school I’ll be there for a while, but I’ve also told myself to not stress out about today because it’s over, I’m ready for tomorrow and I need this down time, to have Brooke time, and get away from all the Miss Kerby time I’ve been having. I hope I can balance both this year. I KNOW it’s going to be hard, but I don’t want to fail either one of me (and for sure don’t want to fail the kids). So wish me luck, and apparently I didn’t get off to as rough of a start as I had initially reflected on, so that’s a super bonus :o)

The New Place

Oh gracious, things are so busy in my life right now that I have so much to catch up on on this thing, and can’t remember how much I’ve left off. Plus, it doesn’t help that I don’t have internet access at my apartment right now, so it’s not like I can even check on what was the last thing I wrote.

I know I haven’t written about my new apartment yet though, so I’m safe to write about that. We got the keys Friday, August, 14th and that’s the day that I moved the majority of my stuff in. Can I just say that I’m such a good little mover? I mean for real. I have packed up a bunch of stuff Thursday night, and when I moved it into the living room, it looked like a lot of stuff. But, thanks to helping my Dad pack the car all the time for trips and moves and the like, I got most everything that I had loaded into the living room into my car. Oh, not only am I good at packing the car, but I’m a lot stronger than I look. I was jogging in and out of the apartment, lugging big ol’ boxes, and making this move super quick. I drove Alysha up with me to pick up the keys and she helped me move my stuff in. Then we headed back so that I could pack up the rest of my stuff.

The rest of my stuff plus some of Alysha’s bags filled up another car load (oh, by the way, I used my old car to move my things, in case you were wondering how helpful the Miata would be in a move). I think we went back one more time and filled my car with Alysha’s things one more time before staying and organizing for a little bit. By Friday night, I had a good portion of my belongings out of Carriage Cove and organized in Millano Village.

Saturday morning I went to the new place again to organize a little bit more, but mostly to wait for my bed to be delivered. It’s pretty lame when they tell you, “It will be delivered sometime between 10am and 2pm” (although later this week I was given an even worse time frame but without the stipulation that I had to be there). The delivery guys called me around noon and told me they were 20 minutes away but then didn’t show up for another hour and 20 minutes. Lame! I meant to be more productive on Saturday by cleaning the old apartment and getting ready for cleaning checks, but I was stuck in the new place all morning, then left just in time to make it to the ward closing social, and then had to look for Alysha’s missing debit card before going on a date. The date was scheduled early enough to give me time to get cleaning done that night, but then Janeen stopped by to say hi, and since we hardly see her anymore, it was more worth it to visit with her. So my whole Saturday was full, which meant that my Saturday late night was spent cleaning my room and a little bit of the bathroom.

I wasn’t able to clean everything Saturday night, which meant that unfortunately I had to spent quite a bit of time on Sunday cleaning. I was so irritated. At myself, of course, for not scheduling better and not prioritizing well enough, but definitely at Carriage Cove for having such absurd standards of cleaning where they charge you an arm and a leg if you fail, and then don’t actually come in and clean it themselves. The worst part of cleaning checks was cleaning the tub. I cleaned it 5 different times with 5 different chemicals (poor Alysha was suffocating in her room because it’s attached to the bathroom) and I was still worried that it wouldn’t pass. Those darned hard water stains that have been on the tub for 30 years, are REALLY hard to get off.

Finally I gave in and walked away knowing I had done all I could with that tub. I packed up the last loose ends of my things and had Alysha drive my old car up while I drove my new car up to the new place. Sunday night was amazing because I had the whole apartment to myself. At one point in time Jess and I had a talk about how we could never live alone because it would be too sad. I now rescind any comments I made in that conversation. I LOVED having the place to myself. And I know that eventually it probably would get pretty lonely, but Sunday and Monday nights were fan-flippin-tastic.

About the new place: it’s way more sophisticated than student housing. It’s not just white walls, they’re painted tan/beige/whatever and there’s crown molding on the ceiling. The carpet is new and fluffy and is something you feel comfortable walking on, not like in the student housing where you feel like you always have to wear shoes and/or socks in order to not have you feet turn black. The kitchen has granite (?) counter tops and knotted wood cabinets. There is more than enough cabinet room to hold all of our cookware, and it is super nice to have a side-by-side fridge and freezer so that everyone can claim a shelf in the freezer instead of always stacking food up and throwing it in a big nasty pile in the ice box. There is a wash room with a washer and dryer (that’s nice! Although I’m worried Jess is going to run up the water bill by doing too much laundry now that it’s right there.) Alysha and I share a bathroom that has a nice deep tub. My room has a great view of Utah lake and faces the west so that I get to watch the sunset but don’t have to worry about sunrise waking me up when I don’t want to get up that early. My closet isn’t too shabby, it has four different sections with three clothes rods and then one top shelf. A definite upgrade from the closet I was using before. I don’t have a desk yet, so there are still a few boxes with office supplies in it that I don’t know where they should go, but other than that, my belongings seem to be fitting in the room quite well.

Yep, I’m pretty excited about this place, and I also very much appreciate the fact that it’s 6 minutes from work. Unfortunately (and I’m not exaggerating) 3 of those minutes are me sitting at the light at the end of our street. And I’m sure I’ve forgotten details about my apartment, but hopefully the pictures can speak for themselves a little bit.

Big Spender!

Yeah, so I've got a new car!!! It kind of freaks me out too, so don't worry if you're a little shocked. But I've been smart about all of this. At the beginning of the summer Dad told me that now is the perfect time to get a new car because dealers are trying to get rid of the cars on their lot. And, I bought my car old, and I've had it for three years, so it's time to move on, it's seen some good times. So, since May or so I've been researching cars. I wanted one that was reliable that would hold up so that I could drive it for years. For reliability and price sake, I was looking at the Honda Civic, the Toyota Corolla, and luckily the cute, sporty Mazda 3s are turning out to be pretty reliable too.

I did more research and joked about the idea of getting a Mazda Miata. Ha. In the search, I ruled out the Toyota because they're not as well built as the Honda or the Mazda 3 and is about the same price, so scratch off the not so cute car as long as it got one bad review :o) Then I started looking more into the Miata. I even test drove one when I was down in Escondido. I decided that if I could find a 2008, with less than 30,000 miles on it, for $17,000 I would get it. I figured I was safe, because I was sure that I wouldn't find one.

Like I said, all summer I've been researching. Well, on and off, of course I've also been traveling a lot and been in my classroom a lot too. I finally went car shopping in Utah on Wednesday. There are only 3 Mazda dealerships in Utah. One's in Murray, one's in Bountiful, and the other's in Ogden. I had called the Murray and Bountiful shops that morning and neither of them had new Mazdas, but they had used ones and they both said they could find me one if I came in. I drove up to Murray (about 40 minutes away) and was there around 10:30am (remember that time). The only Miata they had was a 2007 with 33,000 miles with a price tag of $17,700. Already, that's three strikes against it (not a three strikes you're out though, because they were all close- it was kind of like three balls, sticking with the baseball analogy). I test drove it, and it felt nice, but it was white with a brown top and brown leather interior. I tried to get over it, but I couldn't help but think of it as an old man's car instead of a cute 22 year old's car. So, the color was actually ball 4 which is an out. It took forever to get to that decision. Before test driving it, they had run a search of new Miatas and there were none in all of Utah and if I wanted on, it would have been the same color, but more expensive. So we looked at used ones in Bountiful. They had two. One was a stick (no go) and the other one was an automatic, but they sold it the day before. I asked them to check the Ogden one. I mean, I could always just visit Grandma and Grandpa, especially seeing as I haven't yet all summer (oops). Nope, they had one, but it was a stick.

What to do now? Utah has no Miatas. I asked them several times how that could be possible. Freaking gracious. From there we moved to looking at Mazda 3s. I test drove 4 of them. The two different engines in a 2009, and the two different engines in the 2010 models. All of them drove fine, so then it was about price. Well, the dumb dealers (I don't mean it, they were really nice) don't order Mazdas stripped down, they order them fully loaded. It turns out that the one I wanted was going to be over $20,000. Well that's not in my budget, that wasn't even in my Miata budget, let alone my Mazda 3 budget. So we looked online at the other dealer ships and they didn't have any because they had all just been sold. And the 2010s that were stripped were still going to be $18,000. I told the dealers (two were helping me out) that I would have to go home and think about it. Yeah, they weren't too happy about that, but I wasn't going to buy a Mazda 3 for $20,000, especially since it was loaded with crap I couldn't or wouldn't use. For example, it has homelinks so I can open my garage door and turn on the house lights from my car. Oh, not too helpful when you live in an apartment complex and don't have a garage and can never park close enough to your house to turn on the lights from your car. And I don't talk on the phone and won't be in my car enough for the blue-tooth to matter to me. So, by the time I decided that I couldn't buy a car that day and it was time to leave, it was 3:00pm. Count that up, I spent 4 1/2 hours at the Mazda dealership, just to walk away disappointed and frustrated.

I went home and Dad told me just to find some other cheap car. Not what I wanted to hear. Instead, I looked up CarMax and found that they had one Miata. It was white, but it had a black top and black interior. It was a 2007 and had 42,000 miles, but it's price was only $15,599. But, just in case, I also called places around Escondido to get the year, color, mileage, and price of their used Miatas. Of course California had tons of Miatas (new and used). I was willing to fly to California, buy a car, and drive it back to Utah in one weekend. Of course Mom was all for it. I think that's just because she didn't realize how short of a trip it would have been for me. It would have been strictly business- with a few dinners thrown in.

It turns out that I didn't have to go to those extremes though. I went to CarMax on Thursday. I was bound and determined not to waste my or the dealer's time. I walked in and asked them to show me the Miata. The guy said they didn't have one and I informed him that they did (nicer than that of course). It had apparently just come in and he had been off for a couple days. We went out, I test drove it right away (I got to look around at the inside as I waited for him to clear me for driving). He asked if I was interested in it, I said yes, and then we started all the paper work. A $15,599 car went to an $18,852.16 car really fast. Between all the taxes, fees, and extended warrantee (alright, that affected it the most), the price changed more than I had anticipated and more than I wanted. But I got it. As I drove home, I couldn't believe that I had actually bought a car. I kept shaking my head and giggling to myself.

I left my Sable at CarMax and so as soon as I got back I ate dinner and drove Alysha up to South Jordan so she could drive my car back for me. She wasn't as excited about my new car as I had expected, but I was excited enough for the both of us. And, although I'm officially impractical (the whole 2 seater, tiny trunk thing), I'm trying to still be responsible. I've already talked to my insurance agent and I've canceled the coverage on the Sable and have coverage for the Miata. And although I financed with CarMax, their 11.45% interest rate is steep and so they gave me 3 days to find a lower one. I've found a bank that estimated they could give me a 5.6% interest rate and I'll have to call back tomorrow to make sure that that's valid.

When I drove my new car to my meeting this morning, I got much better reactions about it from my team then I got when Alysha saw it. They think it's so cute and that I'm the "cool teacher" now. But it's still so weird, but exciting to me :o) Yay!!!