Employee Appreciation Party!

Last night was our annual employee appreciation-slash-Christmas party at work. We held it atwork since we work in a casino, that way it doesn't cost the place anything. Heck, they probably make a crap load of money off of us.

I signed up for both the poker tournament and the slot tournament, which each had a $250/300 cash prize for first place. In the poker tournament, I only won TWO hands, but I almost made it to the final table. I was one hand away from it, with $400 (not much) left in tournament chips. But I had to go all in, and someone beat my pair of 5s with a pair of 10s. Go figure. I'd seen people go all in on weird card combos and win, so I figured I might try the same. Didn't happen for me.

Then the slot tournament was a bust. I only got 546 points, and I think first place had somewhere around 5,000 points. No biggie. After playing a few machines, I went and sat by Betty who was playing the new Elvis machine and watched her for a while. She loves Elvis, and apparently yesterday was his birthday, so she was celebrating! After I gave her some good luck by just hanging out, she gave me $5 to play on the other Elvis machine next to her, and I won $194 off of that five dollar bill. Pretty cool, I'd say.

Then we got bored, and karoke was starting to get bad (ie; people had been drinking for about 4 hours at this point), so Aaron and I headed up the street to the next casino, I won $40, and we went home.

All in all, not a bad night money-wise. Food wasn't bad, but the music was. The machines treated me nice, but the tournaments didn't. I think we were home by 10pm, that's how bored we got. At least this year I could play the slot machines, and now the cashiers this year can play the slots, too, so that was a vast improvement...I was bored outta my skull a LOT earlier last year.

Anyway, that's it for now. We're off to Rapid City to do some shopping and get out of this town for a while. Until next time!

Back to work

Aaron and I wandered around downtown today, which was nice, because we haven't been out and about in a while. Even though it's only downtown, we hadn't been there together in forever. Yesterday while doing laundry, I ran into my upstairs neighbor. We know each other by site, but had never officially met. She said, "I bet you hate living underneath us," because they have a 2-year old son who is constantly running and stomping all over the place, but I've grown used to it. After two years of living in this place, I'm finally used to it.

Now it's back to work for the weekend, which will be a nice change from last weekend, which was CRAZY busy. Since the holidays are over and the big cash giveaways are over, things will calm down a bit. I hear January and February and lame at work, which will give me some time to relax and catch my breath a bit.

The new queen size mattress is wonderful!! I love it, and even though I've yet to get a full night's sleep on it (I keep waking up in the middle of the night for some reason), I think it's great to have all that space to spread out and sleep with.


Isn't it beautiful? I've already ripped the new sheets for it! Not the fitted sheet, but the flat one, when I was taking it off for laundry. It got caught on the bed frame. Stupid metal bed frames. I'm not used to those things.

Anywho...Oh, I have a quick survey, 'cause I noticed this during my student teaching; when the students are learning to type on computer programs, it only has them put one space after the period. After you end a sentence, do you put one space, or two spaces? I space twice after a period. Is that weird? A thing of the past? Who knows. It feels weird to only put one space after a period. Anyway...stupid question, but I hope I get some answers out of you folks, my five die-hard readers! (You know who you are, Mom, Vegas, Shirley, Randy, and Jill!)

*EDIT*
my six die-hard readers! (You know who you are, Mom, Ashley, Vegas, Shirley, Randy, and Jill!)

Owwie

It's 3am. I'm up in the middle of the night with a headache because I went to bed with one. If I go to sleep with a headache, I wake up with one 10x worse. I couldn't take any ibuprofen or Advil before bed because I'd had a screwdriver earlier. Urg. Kill me now. It won't go away.

Durrrrr.

Work is silly. We've been asking if we could dress up nice for New Year's Eve tomorrow night for our big $25K giveaway. Everyone else will be dressed up for the celebration, we'll be giving away tons of money, and it would be the ONE time that we get to dress up nice. Diner supervisors get to dress up. Floor supervisors dress up. Pit bosses dress up. Managers dress up. Why can't we, for ONE NIGHT dress up? I asked my manager about it. He said he'd talk to them upstairs about it. Why can't he, as our manager, make a decision about us? Why does he have to talk to the people upstairs? They're not our managers. They probably don't even know what our uniforms are. They probably wouldn't know who we are without our uniforms on!

So that's a no-go. And it's stupid. I have half a mind to just show up in my suit. What're they going to do? Send me home to change? Okay, I'll be back in an hour! No, I wouldn't do that. But seriously, jeez.

I got my PLT (Principles of Learning & Teaching) scores back from the test I had to take a little over a month ago. Before the scores came in, however, I got something in the mail from the organization that gives the test; a certificate of excellence, stating that I had done extremely well on the test, scoring in the top 15% of all test takers in the past years. Then after I got my scores back, I scored above average on the test, and got 40 points more than the cut-off score for South Dakota. Sooooo, that made me very happy. I do know what I'm doing!

We have baseboard heaters in our apartment that are probably the originals with the building. I think this building was built in the 70s or so, so everything in here is about 25 years old, give or take, if my estimation is right. Anyway, about three weeks ago when we turned on the heater, this really acrid, putrid, electricy burning smell was coming from the heaters. We turned it off and didn't use it again until just recently because it really hadn't been THAT cold outside. Well, we needed to use it again recently, and it still smelled horrible. We left a note for the landlord yesterday, and he happened to be in the building at the time, clearing the sidewalks of snow and other chores around the building. While he was busy, and before he got the note, we rearranged the furniture in the bedroom, 'cause the bed was up against the wall with the heater. He came and looked at it, but said that he couldn't see anything, so he called the electric company, and they're going to come in on Tuesday and look at it for us. Until then, we keep the door to the bedroom closed, and it's a chilly 20* in there at all times. Brrrrr.

Well, I've rambled on for long enough. To those of you who've made it this far, congratulations, you win a cookie!

*sigh*

Well, it's all over now. No more school at Black Hills State University. No more student teaching. No more taking tests. No more classes. What am I going to do with my life?!

I guess I could start by getting the apartment orderly and neat, and maybe finish some crochet/knitting projects that I started back in the summer and didn't have time to finish during the school year. Then I could play some of the games Aaron got me for Christmas (so as to keep me out of his hair while he's at work), and then, I just don't know yet. Schools are closed for the week, but I want to get my name into the schools in Spearfish so I can get some substitute teaching jobs for the rest of the school year.

Christmas was a lot of fun this year. On Sunday, Aaron and I went to his sister's house, where all of his family had gathered; we had a great roast dinner with trimmings, desserts, and snacks. I got to meet more of Aaron's family than I had in the past that day. The on Monday morning, we went to his parents' house to have Christmas breakfast and open presents. Aaron's brother was there that morning, too. After that, we drove to Gillette to visit my family and have Christmas dinner/lunch and open presents with them. We spent lots of time with our families, which is more than I can say for last year or the year before that.

I'm pretty pooped from all the family gatherings these last couple of days, and I have a few days to recover before I have to go back to work on Friday. I'll start working Monday nights at the casino, which will put me up to 30 hours a week instead of 22 hours a week. Much better for the paycheck, and that way I won't be home 4 days a week, bored out of my skull. I'm also working all night shifts, so that won't interfere with substitute teaching.

We didn't have a white Christmas, either. The big snow storm that was supposed to hit us last week went South to Denver, and completely missed us. I can't remember the last time we had a good amount of snow. Over a month, at least. But I guess we're supposed to get a big storm here in the next couple of days, but it could do the same thing that this last storm did, or go up North to North Dakota. Who knows. I'd be happy without snow because I hate having to drive from Spearfish to Deadwood when the roads are covered in snow...that hill is some scary stuff.

At last, at last!

Well, the time has come!! As of 12pm this afternoon, I am a graduate of Black Hills State University! I walked across the stage, shook hands with the president of the college, and got my fake diploma! (The real one will be mailed to me in February, I just got the shell for it today).

Mom, Dad, Ashley, and Uncle John all came up from Gillette to see me graduate. Aaron's parents, Shirley and Randy came, along with Aaron's sister Alecia and her youngest daughter, the Abby-gator.

We had a small get together at our apartment afterwards, which was nice, and my cooperating teacher, Kathy came to visit, which was great! I'm glad that my parents got to meet her and that she got to meet my parents. Also, my parents got to meet Dr. Austin, the professor who observed three of my lessons and evaluated me on them. Both Kathy and Dr. Austin had nothing but good things to say about me to my parents, so that made me feel really great.

Dr. Austin really gave me a lot of the confidence I needed in order to help me get as far as I did. He gave me constructive criticism, asked me great questions that made me think about my lesson and how I dealt with the children, and praised my good points.

Kathy was wonderful to work with. I don't think I could have been more lucky in my placement for student teaching. She is a wonderful teacher who knows what she is doing. She's updated on teaching styles and techniques, knows the new strategies, and implements them in the classroom. She teaches very similar to the way we were taught to teach in the college. I loved working with her, and even though it was a lot of hard work, it definitely paid off!

Six Days

So, here it is. Graduation from Black Hills State University. Five and a half years of college, and I will be graduating with a degree in elementary education, licensed to teach small children about math, reading, writing, science, and social studies. What HUGE responsibility!

I wasn't excited to graduate from high school. High school was no big deal. It was easy, I hardly even tried. Sure, I didn't ace every class I took, because I didn't try that hard. I know I could have done better if I'd really cared that much. But it was just something you had to do to get out of the way of getting on with your life.

Now I have put so much time, effort, sweat and tears into these last few semesters of college (the ones that made the most difference for me), and in a week's time, I will be walking on the stage, getting a diploma. I will finally be "grown up" and moving on with my life!

How weird is that? 24 years old doesn't seem old enough to start being a grown up, having a career, and taking on BIG responsibilities. 30 sounds like a better age to be doing that to me.

I plan on substitute teaching for the remainder of the school year, and then looking for a job near the end of that year and during the summer break. Will I find anything good? Will it be in the grade I want it to be? Will I even do any good on my own? Now's the time to see, I guess.

Whew. It's been a long journey, and this last semester of student teaching in the 4th grade classroom has really opened my eyes to what being a teacher is like. This whole semester made me realize that I want to do this. Or at least give it a try to see if I'm any good at it. Before this semester, I didn't want to do it. Didn't want to continue. But I had on semester left to go before I could graduate, so I might as well finish, right? Right. And I'm so glad I did.

Evaluation!

Well, I finally got my 1 year evaluation from work last night! I'd been there for one year in AUGUST, but I just now, 4 months later, got the evaluation. Anyway, it went really well, and I scored all "Superbs" and "Commendables" on it, giving me a $.20 raise. With 4 months of back pay, that turns out to be about $200 that I'll be getting added to my next paycheck. Nice.

My supervisor said the reason that I didn't get the evaluation right away like I should have was because of everything that was going on in the cage with the schedule changes and people not being happy about it. Everyone in the cage was hired under the knowledge that the schedule they were working might not ALWAYS be their schedule. So when their schedules changed because I needed to work different hours, they got mad at him and myself. So he had to remove himself from the situation for a while before he could give me a fair and objective evaluation, which I really appreciated.

So that went well, and I'm getting some extra money, and there's no hard feelings anywhere, so I'm happy with that now.

Speaking of evaluations, I also have my last evaluation from my college professor in my 4th grade classroom this Friday. I'm not really sure what I want to do during the time that he's there, though...so I have to be thinking of that. I might do a Power Point presentation or something, because my cooperating teacher in the classroom is impressed with my technology skills, and that I should show those off. Not that a Power Point presentation is THAT impressive, but whatever. :)

I got my envelopes with my graduation announcements stuffed, and now I need to take them off to the Post Office and get stamps and mail them out. I know that 90% of the people I send them to aren't going to be able to make it (not only because of short notice, but because of distance), but it's still nice to let people know that after 5.5 years of college, I'm finally done!

I wasn't excited for my high school graduation. Big deal. High school was a breeze for me, and I didn't have to try very hard at it to graduate. Granted, there were times I could have tried HARDER and gotten better grades, but I just didn't really have to put forth that much effort towards passing grades in high school. College, especially the last year, has been MUCH more challenging (obviously), and I have put forth much more work towards graduating college. I am so ready for this. And a little excited/nervous about it.

Well, that's my update for now. As I am having less and less control of the classroom now, I'm having more and more free time to be on the computer for leisure and not work. I still need to get some things typed up for my portfolio, but that can wait for another day. Heroes is on, and I need to relax a bit on the couch. Until next time!

Quick picture update!

While I have a little bit of free time, I'm going to set up some pictures on here from Thanksgiving vacation. There's not a lot and they're not very exciting, but who cares. It's an update!

Oh, and I graduate in 2 weeks! YAY!!!!

Here's a hat I'm knitting for Aaron currently...it's turning out really nice the way the colors melt into each other.


Smelly!



Thanksgiving family picture. What a good looking family!


Beulah, Wyoming, on I-90, taken from the driver's seat, going 75mph.

three weeks

On Monday, I start taking over the classroom for three weeks. The only thing I'm really struggling with is what to do for our Writing Workshop. I can't think of a topic for the kids to write about. Otherwise, it'll go well, I'm sure.
As for an update on the LAST three weeks or however long I've been away, here goes nothing.

We did owl pellets the next Monday, when I substituted for my teacher, and one of my girls passed out because she wasn't feeling well and hit her head on the table leg. She was gone for the rest of the day, but back the next day with a big red mark on her eyelid.

I started teaching Science, which is a subject I will teach each lesson in twice; once to my kids, and once to another teacher's kids, as my kids go up to her classroom for Social Studies.

We've begun multiplication, and so far, they've done really well in it. Better, in fact, than they did in subtracting three-digit numbers and borrowing.

Last Monday I was also substituting for my teacher, and one of my boys fell on the playground and broke his arm right above his elbow. He has pins in his arm that are exposed right now, and can't come to school until they put a cast on it. That'll be in another three weeks. So that's just great. We have to come up with LOTS of homework for him because he's so talented, he'd get the regular assignments done in a snap.

My teacher jokes that whenever she wants one of her students knocked off, I just have to sub for her, and she told all the other 4th grade teachers that if they wanted to get rid of a kid, just have me sub for them. Pfft. The kids mostly came out okay!
I was in yet again for my teacher THIS Monday, as she has laryngitis and couldn't speak at all that day. No one got hurt that day, though.

Tuesday was our Halloween party, with games in the upper gym for an hour and a half, lunch, and then the party at the end of the day in the classroom. It was so much fun, and the kids were all really well behaved.

On Wednesday, a kid came to me after getting a drink and said, "Someone spilled something on the wall out in the hallway. I noticed it when I was getting a drink." So I went out to look, and on the wall in the corner was something pink that looked like Silly String. Upon closer inspection, it turned out to be a paintball that had been broken open against the wall and was dripping down the wall. "That's weird, the paint is still really fresh. This must have just happened," I said to him. "Well, I don't have a paintball gun or anything like that," he says. "I wasn't suggesting that you did, but thank you for telling me about it." and I went to find the custodian so it could get cleaned up before the paint dried.

Turns out it was that kid who threw the paintball because he was mad at the teacher. He go In School Suspension (ISS) for all of Thursday, and we didn't have to see him all day. That was rather nice. However, he was right back at it on Friday, taking out a handheld video game at the beginning of class and not paying attention. That was taken away from him. And then he got into a knock-down, drag-out fight on the playground during morning recess, and spent the rest of the day in ISS. *sigh* When will they learn?

So that has been my last three weeks, give or take a few stories. Life is going well at the player's club desk. I've finally gotten comfortable speaking over the intercom system to announce winners and calling people up to the desk, and the other girl finally got her support license, so she can hand out prize money and pick winners out of the barrel. Having my days changed to just working three a week has been wonderful and very helpful when it comes to student teaching, and I'm so glad I pushed so hard to get it taken care of. My new manager is pretty cool, and he's only a year older than me, so he's easy to get along with and joke around with, too.

I'm nervous to start my three weeks as the main teacher in the classroom, but everyone says I will do fine. I just have to get my stuff organized and figure out what I'm going to be doing for each week, is all. Next week we're only in school for three days, then a full week the week after that, and then three days for the week of Thanksgiving, so I will actually do four weeks in the classroom, as I have to have 15 consecutive days as the main teacher. Not a big deal, though. Those four-day weekends will help out in planning!

So there ya have it. An update! Don't expect another one until December because I really don't think I'm going to have the time, sorry!