Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday have mostly been spent in my teacher's classroom. The teacher who I will be student teaching for, that is. We have been putting together bulletin boards, name tags, mail boxes, calendars, making copies, moving files, and tons of other stuff.
She's a really nice lady, my cooperating teacher. She's been teaching in Spearfish for 30 years, and really knows her stuff. She teaches science, while her students will go to another teacher's room for Social Studies. I'm glad that she teaches science, because that will hopefully allow me to use the science kits that the college has for a week-long unit that is required of all student teachers.
I'm getting really nervous now, however. On Monday, we all meet at the college campus with our supervising professors, go over our portfolios (which I still have a couple things I need to tweak on it), and I'm sure we'll learn some more valuable information that we can use during student teaching. There is one professor in particular that I pray to the gods isn't my supervising professor because I don't like her due to her crappy attitude towards me last semester. Grr. Anyway...
So on Wednesday I will go in to the first day of school. I will get to meet all of the children, learn about them, and learn what is going on for the school year. I honestly have no idea what my cooperating teacher has planned for the curriculum of the school year, and that makes me a little nervous, but oh well...I'll learn as I go.
Also something that could be problematic: We are required by law to stay at the school until 3:35pm or something like that. Well, I've already requested from my boss at work to show up an hour later than usual on Mondays and Tuesdays, the nights I work. That would have me showing up at 4pm instead of 3pm. Well, with this newfound information about having to stay until 3:35pm, that's not going to happen (going in at 4pm, that is), as it takes about half an hour to get to Deadwood and get clocked in and ready for shift change on time. My cooperating teacher said that there's a very good chance my supervising professor will say that I have to stay until 3:35pm, just like all the other teachers do, and that I should talk to my boss again about the schedule.
I just hate doing that because we've already changed it once. I go into work tomorrow morning, but I'm not sure when my boss works, so if he's not there, I'll have to leave him a note of some sort, explaining to him that I wasn't aware I had to stay in the school that long, and could we please push back shift change AGAIN. *sigh*
Hopefully that's the only problem I run into with this whole working while student teaching thing. My cooperating teacher said that most professors want you to only work on the weekends, but to not work during the school week while you're student teaching. Obviously they don't have to do that themselves, or they would not recommend it, because they couldn't afford to pay rent, electricity, and other random bills that are slightly necessary in this world. Grr again.
Wish me luck!
Friday, August 25, 2006
Monday, August 21, 2006
the last week
This is my last full week of summer vacation. Starting on Monday, all student teachers will meet at Black Hills to find out who our supervising professor is going to be (the college professor who will be grading us and obvserving us throughout the student teaching process), and to do one last final check on portfolios. Then Tuesday is the first day of school as a student teacher.
I've been having dreams about student teaching, and it makes me nervous. That means it's finally getting closer and closer. This month flew by so quickly, I have no idea where the days went. Fortunately, near the end of summer, Aaron and I got to spend a lot of time together, which was really nice, compared to the rest of the summer. However, he started training at his new job this morning, so I have the whole apartment to myself for the rest of the day (until I have to go to work, that is). It's kinda nice, but I feel like there's no structure in my daily activities, like lunch time or anything like that.
Aaron and I finished up clothes shopping for my student teaching, which included about six new pairs of slacks to wear while teaching, as I only had about four pairs before. Now I can mix and match quite a bit more than I was able to before. I also picked up a couple of new pair of shoes to wear. I've been trying to get ahold of my teacher I'll be student teaching with, but she's not listed in the phone book, and the two websites that gave her email address were wrong, and she hasn't been at the school each time I've tried calling to get ahold of her. The school finally did give me her email address, and so far the email company hasn't sent back an "email undeliverable", so that's a good sign, I suppose.
Two more days of work, and then I have the last three full days off from work and school until school gets out in December. Once school starts, I will be teaching five days out of the week, and working four days out of the week, two of those four days being on the weekend. So basically, seven days a week, for four months straight. I'm so not looking forward to that.
But now that I've been at Cadillac Jack's for a year, I'll have some personal days and paid vacation days that I can use when I get stressed out or have a big project to work on, and I'll get paid for it. I love being able to do that!
Kool Deadwood Nights starts on Saturday the 26th and goes 'til Monday the 28th, so if you like classic cars from the 50s and 60s, come to Deadwood and check it out. Parking is a pain, so be prepared to search and search, and then pay out the wazoo for a parking place!
I've been having dreams about student teaching, and it makes me nervous. That means it's finally getting closer and closer. This month flew by so quickly, I have no idea where the days went. Fortunately, near the end of summer, Aaron and I got to spend a lot of time together, which was really nice, compared to the rest of the summer. However, he started training at his new job this morning, so I have the whole apartment to myself for the rest of the day (until I have to go to work, that is). It's kinda nice, but I feel like there's no structure in my daily activities, like lunch time or anything like that.
Aaron and I finished up clothes shopping for my student teaching, which included about six new pairs of slacks to wear while teaching, as I only had about four pairs before. Now I can mix and match quite a bit more than I was able to before. I also picked up a couple of new pair of shoes to wear. I've been trying to get ahold of my teacher I'll be student teaching with, but she's not listed in the phone book, and the two websites that gave her email address were wrong, and she hasn't been at the school each time I've tried calling to get ahold of her. The school finally did give me her email address, and so far the email company hasn't sent back an "email undeliverable", so that's a good sign, I suppose.
Two more days of work, and then I have the last three full days off from work and school until school gets out in December. Once school starts, I will be teaching five days out of the week, and working four days out of the week, two of those four days being on the weekend. So basically, seven days a week, for four months straight. I'm so not looking forward to that.
But now that I've been at Cadillac Jack's for a year, I'll have some personal days and paid vacation days that I can use when I get stressed out or have a big project to work on, and I'll get paid for it. I love being able to do that!
Kool Deadwood Nights starts on Saturday the 26th and goes 'til Monday the 28th, so if you like classic cars from the 50s and 60s, come to Deadwood and check it out. Parking is a pain, so be prepared to search and search, and then pay out the wazoo for a parking place!
Friday, August 18, 2006
the bat hat!
So last night at the bar, Henry says that he wants me to make him a hat, a Bat Hat, to be precise. I asked him if that meant he wanted the Batman logo on it, or bat ears on it, and he wanted a black hat with bat ears on it, like Batman's hat.
Here is a picture of the drawing Henry sent me today.
I wasn't entirely sure how I was going to do the eye holes for the "ski mask" part of the hat Henry wanted...as you can see, he wanted to be able to wear it flipped up, and "normal" looking, and then be able to flip the brim down for eye holes. I managed to figure out how to do the eye holes, and it worked out quite well.
After an hour or so, I finished the main part of the hat, but then the tough part came; the ears. I wasn't entirely sure how I was going to construct the ears. I thought about stuffing the ears, but Aaron pointed out that the stuffing I had was white and would show through the black fabric. Then he mentioned something about wires, but all we had was a wire clothes hanger, and we didn't want it to poke Henry in the head and give him an infection. Finally, Aaron and I managed to figure out something with crocheted triangles and clothes pins that had been taken apart and colored black with a Sharpie marker. I sewed the clothes pin parts to one side of the ear on the inside, and then sewed ear halves together. The final step was sewing them to the hat itself.
Henry came over halfway through the process; I was still making the ears and putting them together, but the main part of the hat was finished, so he tried it on, and much to all of our amusement, he looked like Mushmouth from Fat Albert. We figured with the ears on, it would look better. You be the judge.
Here is a picture of the drawing Henry sent me today.
I wasn't entirely sure how I was going to do the eye holes for the "ski mask" part of the hat Henry wanted...as you can see, he wanted to be able to wear it flipped up, and "normal" looking, and then be able to flip the brim down for eye holes. I managed to figure out how to do the eye holes, and it worked out quite well.
After an hour or so, I finished the main part of the hat, but then the tough part came; the ears. I wasn't entirely sure how I was going to construct the ears. I thought about stuffing the ears, but Aaron pointed out that the stuffing I had was white and would show through the black fabric. Then he mentioned something about wires, but all we had was a wire clothes hanger, and we didn't want it to poke Henry in the head and give him an infection. Finally, Aaron and I managed to figure out something with crocheted triangles and clothes pins that had been taken apart and colored black with a Sharpie marker. I sewed the clothes pin parts to one side of the ear on the inside, and then sewed ear halves together. The final step was sewing them to the hat itself.
Henry came over halfway through the process; I was still making the ears and putting them together, but the main part of the hat was finished, so he tried it on, and much to all of our amusement, he looked like Mushmouth from Fat Albert. We figured with the ears on, it would look better. You be the judge.
Thursday, August 17, 2006
i wasn't even on vacation. okay, maybe a little one.
Sorry about the extremely long hiatus of blogging that I have been on. All kinds of things just happened at home that kinda kept me away from the doldrums of weekly blogging about my life, but they were actually things that could be blogged about and of interest to others!
First of all, on July 27th, I headed back to Gillette to see my good friend Lacey. We've been friends since high school, but she has since moved to Montana, and now to Oregon, and she hasn't been to Gillette in about four years, and I haven't seen her in about two years, so that was really great. The reason she was back was because of a couple of weddings that were happening that weekend - friends of hers (and kind of mine) were getting married, and she wanted to be there for them. We spent time hanging out at the bars, catching up, talking about this and that, and it was a really good time. Our friends Scott and Brett were also able to join us in Gillette, and the four of us had a great time.
Pictures to be posted on Photo Journal.
Then after that, work got a little hectic, I filled in for someone in the middle of the week, and then on a Sunday, Aaron and I had driven to Rapid City to see one of his good friends who is in the Air Force and will soon be stationed in Korea, so we wanted to get some hanging out time in before she left. The next week was the week before the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally, and things were starting to get hectic. Aaron quit his job the Tuesday before the Rally, which left them hurting for cooks, but he had been putting up with promises that were not being fulfilled for months and months, and was just sick of it, so he left.
After that, he and I went to Rapid City again to find me some more clothes for student teaching, as most of what I owned was long-sleeved and more winter/spring related clothing. We found me a ton of great things, and had a good time.
Then came Rally. I worked the first four days of Rally, and then had Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday off, and I decided that Aaron and I needed to have one last (first) hurrah! for the summer and that we needed to go camping in the Big Horn Mountains of Wyoming. We chose the Big Horns over the local Black Hills because of the motorcycle traffic and just the need to get out of the area for a while.
This was mostly a "shakedown" camping trip, as we spent most of our time in preparation for the trip at Wal*Mart or the grocery store. However, after raiding Aaron's parent's house for camping supplies that they hadn't already taken with them on their current trip, we didn't need to buy much more else for ourselves.
We spent both nights in the Big Horns, but on the second day, we drove out to Cody, Wyoming to hang out there a little bit. During the first night, neither of us slept very well because the ground was hard like a concrete block, so we were up with the Sun and out of the mountains by 9am. We headed to Cody, and as we were almost there, the both of us were quite tired. We stopped at the Cody city park and parked the car in the shade of some trees, put the windshield blockers up, and took a nap for about an hour and a half in the car. Then we ate a sandwich lunch in the park, stopped by the Sierra Trading Post store to pick up some shorts for me and tried to find a pair of sandals for Aaron, but were unsuccessful in that area...
And we headed back to the mountains! This time, we had a hard time finding a camping spot that wasn't reserved or taken, but in time, we did find one, along with a moose, some sheep, and a softer place to sleep.
Although the ground was softer, that didn't mean I slept much better for the first part of the evening; I was having spider dreams. Dreams that they were on the tent wall, on the floor, and in my sleeping bag. Aaron said he could hear me moving around and brushing the "spiders" off of myself, and when he asked me where the headlamp was so he could go outside, I pointed and said, "Over there, by the spiders." He was a little confused. Fortunately, the spiders were all a figment of my imagniation.
We went back through Shell Canyon and saw the Shell Falls, which were very pretty, and headed back home on Friday morning so that I could get some laundry done, as now everything we had with us reeked of campfire smoke, which was quite strong.
Aaron just went in for an interview today as a service technician for customers with an internet service provider in Rapid City. It went well, and he's going back in tomorrow to fill out some paperwork, and starts training at 8am Monday morning. I'm really excited that he's finally going to be employed again.
On the way back from Rapid City today, we stopped at the local yarn shop here in Spearfish, and I talked to the owner, who got me set up with some sock yarn, knitting needles for the socks, and a pattern to go by so I can start knitting my first pair of socks. I'm really excited!! She said if I need any help at all, to come in the shop and she will help me with it. Which is great, because I learn better by watching someone else than by reading instructions on a sheet of paper.
And that's what's been going on!
First of all, on July 27th, I headed back to Gillette to see my good friend Lacey. We've been friends since high school, but she has since moved to Montana, and now to Oregon, and she hasn't been to Gillette in about four years, and I haven't seen her in about two years, so that was really great. The reason she was back was because of a couple of weddings that were happening that weekend - friends of hers (and kind of mine) were getting married, and she wanted to be there for them. We spent time hanging out at the bars, catching up, talking about this and that, and it was a really good time. Our friends Scott and Brett were also able to join us in Gillette, and the four of us had a great time.
Pictures to be posted on Photo Journal.
Then after that, work got a little hectic, I filled in for someone in the middle of the week, and then on a Sunday, Aaron and I had driven to Rapid City to see one of his good friends who is in the Air Force and will soon be stationed in Korea, so we wanted to get some hanging out time in before she left. The next week was the week before the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally, and things were starting to get hectic. Aaron quit his job the Tuesday before the Rally, which left them hurting for cooks, but he had been putting up with promises that were not being fulfilled for months and months, and was just sick of it, so he left.
After that, he and I went to Rapid City again to find me some more clothes for student teaching, as most of what I owned was long-sleeved and more winter/spring related clothing. We found me a ton of great things, and had a good time.
Then came Rally. I worked the first four days of Rally, and then had Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday off, and I decided that Aaron and I needed to have one last (first) hurrah! for the summer and that we needed to go camping in the Big Horn Mountains of Wyoming. We chose the Big Horns over the local Black Hills because of the motorcycle traffic and just the need to get out of the area for a while.
This was mostly a "shakedown" camping trip, as we spent most of our time in preparation for the trip at Wal*Mart or the grocery store. However, after raiding Aaron's parent's house for camping supplies that they hadn't already taken with them on their current trip, we didn't need to buy much more else for ourselves.
We spent both nights in the Big Horns, but on the second day, we drove out to Cody, Wyoming to hang out there a little bit. During the first night, neither of us slept very well because the ground was hard like a concrete block, so we were up with the Sun and out of the mountains by 9am. We headed to Cody, and as we were almost there, the both of us were quite tired. We stopped at the Cody city park and parked the car in the shade of some trees, put the windshield blockers up, and took a nap for about an hour and a half in the car. Then we ate a sandwich lunch in the park, stopped by the Sierra Trading Post store to pick up some shorts for me and tried to find a pair of sandals for Aaron, but were unsuccessful in that area...
And we headed back to the mountains! This time, we had a hard time finding a camping spot that wasn't reserved or taken, but in time, we did find one, along with a moose, some sheep, and a softer place to sleep.
Although the ground was softer, that didn't mean I slept much better for the first part of the evening; I was having spider dreams. Dreams that they were on the tent wall, on the floor, and in my sleeping bag. Aaron said he could hear me moving around and brushing the "spiders" off of myself, and when he asked me where the headlamp was so he could go outside, I pointed and said, "Over there, by the spiders." He was a little confused. Fortunately, the spiders were all a figment of my imagniation.
We went back through Shell Canyon and saw the Shell Falls, which were very pretty, and headed back home on Friday morning so that I could get some laundry done, as now everything we had with us reeked of campfire smoke, which was quite strong.
Aaron just went in for an interview today as a service technician for customers with an internet service provider in Rapid City. It went well, and he's going back in tomorrow to fill out some paperwork, and starts training at 8am Monday morning. I'm really excited that he's finally going to be employed again.
On the way back from Rapid City today, we stopped at the local yarn shop here in Spearfish, and I talked to the owner, who got me set up with some sock yarn, knitting needles for the socks, and a pattern to go by so I can start knitting my first pair of socks. I'm really excited!! She said if I need any help at all, to come in the shop and she will help me with it. Which is great, because I learn better by watching someone else than by reading instructions on a sheet of paper.
And that's what's been going on!
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