Imma Be A Teacher!!

           I’ve always wanted to be a teacher, but I think the reasons were more selfish than anything. I loved children so I wanted to have a career involved with them. I knew this career was one that would allow me to have a family, and I knew that I would be able to, personally, grow from this career. Those are still reasons that led me to become a teacher, but now I’ve looked at the big picture. Teaching is a very selfless career. You pretty much cater to every whim of each student, you sacrifice your time to help them grow, and you put them before yourself. I honestly can’t think of another career as rewarding as being a teacher (except being a mom of course!). I feel that this career is one that, even though you have to be selfless, you’re still gaining so many rewards and great experiences from it.

            I’ve had the wonderful opportunity to be able to help in many different classrooms (Pre-school, Kindergarten, 1st grade, and 3rd grade). I've also had the opportunity of tutoring students at various schools; the ages range from Kindergarten to 7th grade. People ask me what grade I want to teach, and that's a question I can't really answer because I just want to teach so badly; it doesn't really matter what grade. In my education classes, I’ve re-learned that each child is different and will learn and react to things differently. This is something that I’ve always known but never really realized until I started taking Education classes. Teachers have to be aware of this and go into each day with an open mind. We have to forget about how we think everything should go and just take things one step at a time. We can’t expect these children to act how we’d like them to all the time, but we can help guide them into becoming respectable people; teachers have that ability.

            A statement that was given in one of my classes a couple years ago states, “Every single person is an absolute miracle.” I don’t think anything has hit me as hard as this statement did. Sometimes I get so caught up in myself by comparing myself to others. I hate to admit it, but sometimes I put myself on a pedestal and judge others; it's something I've been working on. This simple phrase helped open my eyes to the truth of it. Each person is indeed an absolute miracle and they should be treated like one. This has inspired me to really help others understand this as well. As a teacher, I feel that one of the most important things is to help the students realize that they can do anything they want to if they are determined and work hard. I see so many instances where a student isn't getting something and they get so discouraged, and it's heartbreaking. I just try and make sure that I always let them know how great they're doing and to keep up the good work. Students, especially when they’re younger, need this validation to keep going. Every single one is an absolute miracle and they hold so much potential! They just have to believe in themselves as much as I believe in them.

            I feel so blessed to be able to have all these growing opportunities. With all the experiences I’ve had these past couple years, there is no doubt in my mind that I am choosing the right career path for me. I love being around students and helping them learn and grow. There really is a light in their eyes when they figure something out and that makes all the frustrations from getting to that point worth it. In the end, it doesn’t matter if the students acted out during the day, but it does matter that the students were able to learn and take something away from that day. It doesn’t matter if you didn’t get through certain assignments, but it does matter that the students are improving on their work. It doesn’t matter that you have a hundred and one assignments to correct each night, but it does matter that the students enjoy learning and are able to go to school in a positive environment. There can be so many negative things about teaching, but those don’t matter one bit to me. I want to instill a love for learning in students and to be able to make a difference in their life like so many of my teachers have done for me.
            I don't know how many of you know this, but I'm into my second semester of being in the Education program. I'm learning so much; I love it! I'll graduate Spring of 2015...I'm almost there, kind of! ha ha I had to create a post for a class I'm taking...another part of that assignment is to include three URLs to Educational blogs which talk about how blogs can be used in the classroom. Here are the one's I found (they will probably only be interesting to teachers... :) ha ha):
http://www.edudemic.com/ (social media in the classroom)
http://theinnovativeeducator.blogspot.com/ (creative teaching ideas)
http://coolcatteacher.blogspot.com/p/about-me.html (She writes about technology among many other aspects of teaching.)
http://regurgitatedalphabits.blogspot.com/ (This doesn't really have anything to do with technology in the classroom, but I thought it was a fun blog.)
Peace Out.

'Tis the Season...

So we had our Christmas roommate party today. We first went to Beehive Grill...I recommend it to everyone in Logan. It was delicious and they even brew their own rootbeer. Can I get a woot woot? :)

Then we made the journey to Willard Bay. They had a light show so we thought to ourselves, "What else would get us in the Christmas spirit other than a bunch of Christmas lights?!" Anyway, pictures while driving are really fun! :)

The flash was so dang bright! Bright flash = squinty eyes! Pretty much, I was the only one to ever get really bad squinty eyes. 

Me and Megan! :)

See what I mean?! Squinty eyes!!!

This picture and the next were my favorite Christmas light scenes there. This is the true meaning of Christmas, and I hope we can all remember our Savior during this Christmas Season. 

I hope we can all also remember those who have fought and are fighting right now to keep our country free. God bless America! I'm so grateful to live in this wonderful country!

During a part of the Christmas drive, there were pictures portraying "Twas the night before Christmas and all through the house..." book. It was fun to tell the story as we went...even if we couldn't really remember it a whole lot. :)

We then decided to take some pictures at the Brigham City Temple. I love temples! And I absolutely loved this HUGE Nativity scene. 

This was like on our 100th try to take this picture...I had stress setting up the camera! But we finally got one of us in front of the doors!

We just needed to get some bench pictures! I love it! ha ha

Kellie, Kellie, Kellie...she is such a copy cat. ;) ha ha Just kidding. :)

I seriously love Megan. I love it when she sings to us! I also love it when she tells us we are being rude...that sounds weird but I just wish that you could hear her say it. It's awesome! She is one of the kindest people I've ever met. If you have a problem, she will seriously go out of her way to help you out. One thing that really impressed me about her when we first met was the questions she'd ask me. They were deep questions and it just showed that she really cares to get to know you personally. We've only known each other for a few months now, but I feel like we've known each other forever because we have become so close. She's so great! I also love it when she raps for us. If you ever meet this girl, please beg her to rap for you...it's hilarious, but in a good way! :)

Oh Jenny...this girl cracks me up! She pulls jokes out of nowhere! You'll just be talking and she'll randomly say something and it is almost always funny...who am I kidding? It's funny 100% of the time! The first thing that really impressed me about Jenny is her ability to keep calm during EVERYTHING! The only time I've seen her get mad is when it's a play mad. She's just so chill and funny. She's such a joy to be around! One time, Chelsey and I went shopping with Jenny. While she was looking for her things, Chelsey and I were wondering all around the store. We decided that Jenny was like our mom and we were the little kids because we were seriously all over the place. ha ha Ever since then, that title has just kind of stuck with her and she does act like our mother sometimes. Just in a way that shows how caring and sweet she is. I love you Jen-nay! :)

What can I say about Kellie-jo? We've been inseparable ever since we first met in 7th grade. We even had a teacher at Snow College tell us to "cut the cord" because we are ALWAYS together! We've definitely had our ups and downs, but they never stop us from being best friends. Kellie is one of the best people I have ever met! She is definitely one of a kind. She's one of those people that can be so serious one second, and the next she's as crazy as can be (but in a good way). She's always striving to become a better person and to help people around her and that is something that I have always admired. She's also one of the strongest people I know. She is such an example. No matter what she goes through, she doesn't let that get in the way of her relationship with the Savior. She's the type of person that you can see and feel her love for the Savior and His Gospel just by being around her. I love this lady. She is my sister and will forever be! I love you Kellie-jo!!

When we got back, Megan had these stalkings (filled with some candy) and decorating stuff to make them all pretty. We did before and after pictures for all of us. Here's Chelsey's... 

She was the first one done and it took her like 10 minutes...and it's so cute! The rest of us were seriously there for hours trying to fix and change our stockings! It was funny. :)

Megan's before picture...

And her finished product! I love her color scheme! She was so funny with the glitter. Once she started adding glitter to her snowflakes, she just couldn't stop and ended up putting glitter on EVERYTHING! It sure is cute though! :)

Jenny's before picture...

Well I guess you all know who the artist in this apartment is now...Jenny is so stinking creative! The 5 penguins represents each roommate, and then there is Santa Claus on the bottom right. After she "finished", she kept going back and adding glitter here and there. :)

Kellie's before picture...

I love her "love" at the top of her stocking. Kellie was such a hoot during this activity. There were these little beanies and she took the balls off of almost all of them so she could have her snow. I'm pretty sure that's not going to seem funny to you...you definitely had to be there but it was so stinking hilarious!

My before picture...

My stocking! Usually I'm not a big fan of doing crafts, but this one was so much fun! And I can't deny that I like how mine turned out...I usually hate how my stuff turns out because I'm really bad at crafts! Anyway, at the top, there is a snowman and a penguin having a snowball fight. And then at the bottom, there is a snowman and a penguin sliding down the hill on their sleds. Also, there are presents under those trees! Woo hoo!! :)

Here is the end of our super fun Christmas activity! Thank you so much Megan. This was a fabulous idea! :)

Oh yeah...I forgot these pictures. I hope you find this funny because it was super funny when it happened. Anyway, we had taken a picture and both our eyes were squinty because of the flash. When we looked at the picture, we commented on how our eyes looked like they were closed and decided to take another picture. When we looked at this we laughed so hard because neither of us said we were going to close our eyes. We just did it. We just thought it was funny because we're always doing things the same way without meaning to. Oh man, good times!

Here was Kellie's reaction to our "eyes shut" picture. The funniest part was that she was trying to sneak a picture of me...she's such a good aim! ;)

And then she got my reaction...we sometime have too much fun!

I hope you all have a wonderful Christmas Season!

More Crazy Fun...

So our roommate Megan was in California for her birthday and we decided to decorate her room for her when she got back. We blew up 70 something balloons [with our mouths I might add], decorated her window and mirror, made her cards, gave her a boyfriend [his name is Devon...with a little line above the o], and then proceeded to take pictures in her room. :) It was so much fun to do this and even more fun to see her reaction to it all. WE LOVE MEGAN! :) 

We grew very fond of Devon and were pretty sad to give him over to Megan. [Throughout the next week: Megan put all the balloons in our living room and kitchen. Then Jenny thought it would be funny to shove some in our coat closet. Then Jenny also thought it would be funny to shove them in Kellie's bathtub while she was gone. Which led to Kellie putting them in Jenny's bathtub while she was gone. Then, Jenny put them in mine and Chelsey's bathtub because she didn't want us to feel left out. Then we decided to put them back in Megan's room because it just felt right....The first week anniversary: After we put them back in Megan's room, she freaked and started popping them all! I told her she better not pop Devon so she left him alone. In the meanwhile, I was in my room and I hear popping going on in the kitchen (Megan had put some out there again). I go out to find that Taylor has popped Devon. Such a sad day.]

We are so weird...

I just love how Kellie's eyes are open and the fact that she was so excited to kiss him...ha ha And I also just love these girls! :)

There is seriously never a dull moment here. I have the best roommates ever! I really get to lucky every single year because I have never once had a bad roommate. They have all been awesome and easy to get along with, and I feel like we're all super close even though we've only known each other for a couple of months. Crazy how fast relationships can grow. :)

This last Thursday we went to the Pumpkin Walk...I had never even heard of this and it was really, really cool. The theme of it was "Let the games begin" so every one was a game. These are a few of my favorite ones...can you guess them? :)

Hungry, Hungry Hippos

Clue

Duck, Duck Goose...I absolutely love that they had this one! There were a ton more like Candy Land, The Hunger Games, Mario Super Bros, Whipeout, and just really fun games. 

This one made me laugh so hard. Right before it there were these two dogs holding signs. The first one said something about Romney strapping a dog to a car (hence why he is now strapped to the car), and the other one said how Obama ate dog as a child (hence why he is being cooked to eat). It was pretty sweet. 

"You've Got a Friend In Me" I LOVE these two! They crack me up every single day! :) I can't get over the fact that Woody's hand it up to his face...I honestly thought it was Jenny's hand to begin with. It's much funnier when you look at it that way!

Our Pumpkin Walk group...These pop outs were so much fun! There was a Harry Potter one so we all did that one. I would have to say that we all fit it pretty perfectly...it was so funny!!! You'll have to look at all the other pictures from this day on my facebook...when they are put on that is. :)

Thanks for stopping by! :)

Utah State [thus far] in a really big nutshell

I have absolutely no idea why my pictures are going in the order I want them to. It's very frustrating...but oh well. I guess you'll just get to hear about Utah State in a jumbled up kind of way. :)

For my birthday, my roommates made me a surprise cake...boy was it good! We happened to have candles but no lighter, so we just pretended. :)

This was probably the coolest game ever...wait, scratch that. This WAS the coolest game ever! We beat the Utes after 15 years of them beating us! Let's just say, it got crazy up in the Romney Stadium that night! We had so much fun...well at least I did. :)

This was our homecoming game and was a "white out". We pretty much kicked trash...I felt really smart during this game because Megan kept asking me what everything meant. I'd say that I did a pretty good job of describing things for her! :) The only bummer was that we got to the game later so we weren't able to sit in the student section. Believe me, we definitely learned our lesson and you better believe we'll be extra early to the next game to get awesome seats!

We did it! We actually went to Western Swing! Takoma was nice enough to invite us. Then he showed up at our door and said he had bad news...he had assignments due that night that he hadn't done yet. But that didn't stop us. Me and Kellie showed him how excited we were and that we were still gonna go. Like two minutes after he left, he knocked on our door, once more, and said that he had to go because we were too excited. Needless to say, we all went and "cowboy'd" up. It was so much FUN! He taught us some pretty awesome moves...so, so cool! :)

So it was National Taco Day today! We obviously had to go get us some tacos...which I was the only one who actually got tacos *cough* *cough*...it was pretty tastey. Then we just had to get some pictures next to the tacos sign. I have no idea what we're doing in this one...are we weird? You betcha!

Then we lifted out legs? Don't ask me, it was Kellie's idea. But it was a fun idea nonetheless. After wards...like after the pictures were on facebook...Jenny realized that the sign says "5 rolled tacos" and there are 5 of us. "Hawk"ward... ;) ha ha If you want to understand the "Hawk"ward comment, please go to my facebook page. You will surely get a laugh out of it! It's a picture, with sayings, with tons of different animals...8 to be exact. It's quite hilarious if you ask me!

So James taught me how to make some chocolates. Holy cow, I'm now going over to his house every night to make these! They were so delicious! Just thinking about them makes my mouth water! :) We made peanut butter cups, mint patties (more like mint balls ha ha) and then added some rasberry extract to the left over chocolate. Have I ever mentioned how much I love chocolate? This was a real fun night! :)

Oh my goodness...so pretty much I have the craziest roommates ever! It's great though because I feel right at home. Yes, I am implying that I have the craziest family as well. ;) ha ha But for real, these girls (plus Kellie-jo and Taylor...and every roommate I've ever had #KyleeMaudLexieTiffanyLaurenKenzie) are absolutely the best! Pretty much we're ninjas and have a few moves up our sleeves. 

We're also animal lovers! No worries, no animals were harmed during the making of this picture. Holy cow, I just realized how cheesy I am. I'm blaming it on the fact that it is midnightish. I should probably go to sleep. :) Anyway, I just really love this picture. We took a gazillion pictures from this night...we were so crazy! Later I acted as a yoga instructor and meditated with Megan and Chelsey. We also tried doing some headstands...I've never been able to do these, but I would have to say I'm getting closer! We did some handstands against a wall. We had to walk our feet up an opposite wall because that's how good we are. Then we ended the night with singing the Scottsman while doing the arm movements with our legs. (If you ever want to see the video...come see me and I'll sure you. No way will that ever be shown on public!)

One night we decided to compare the lengths of our legs. This was brought on because we (Kellie and I) were talking about how Kellie is taller than me but I have longer legs than her. So then we all sat against a wall to see who, indeed had the longer legs. Then, with roommates like these, there's no way we could just take a picture of our legs and be done. We had to get a little crazy and show our true sides. :)

See, I win. :) 

This was on my birthday...we wanted to take pictures of all of us roommates before the CES fireside but we were the only ones home. I just love these girls!

We couldn't just take a funny one. Sometimes nice pictures are needed. Although I really enjoy funny/awful ones. Like this next one.......

So we were riding the bus to school. There are only two seats by each other, but I made them scoot over so I could fit. Then Kellie whipped out her iTouch and we took some pictures. I don't know how this one came about but I would have to say it is pretty darn hilarious! This was probably the most fun/funnest...potato/pototo...bus ride. EVER. 

Well there ya have it. I'm obviously enjoying my time here at Utah State. Just wait until my next post...I have a lot of new pictures and stories to share. Pretty much I play all day and work...never! Nah, just kidding. I get my homework done and then play...sometimes. :) Peace, yo!