TAP

Last week Wes was inducted into BYU's chapter of Tau Alpha Phi. It was a big, fancy deal. He's totally a frat brother now.

Not only was he inducted, he was nominated President of TAP. Wes declined so he could take the Web Master position. I can't wait for the first frat partay! Apparently it is a tour of the underground Physics lab. Particle accelerator here we come. Woot!

My March Madness

Hey all.

This month has been in a word, a whirlwind. As the whirlwind settles down, the documenting process of our lives picks up.

Student teaching ends on Monday. What an experience! The daily drive to and from Spanish Fork has been the worst part. I'm sick of filling the car up every week! But there sure have been some good times in Mr. Stahle's and Mrs. Troyer's classroom. And there are some names I can never name my child now.

My TA job also ends this week. I really enjoy helping out with the EMT certification. It is so nice to teach BYU college students after coming from a class of 40 sophomores. I look forward to helping with it next year.

The MA job is.... coming. I'd be lying if I said it was butterflies and roses all day. It's not. Being the new girl is the worst thing ever. This position makes me feel bad for ever being mean or expecting too much from the new people I trained. Sorry to any of my past co-workers who are reading this (Rachel). At the clinic, right now I'm pretty much stuck in Medical Records. The clinic is going EMR (electronic medical record) so I've been scanning charts and I will continue to do that for the next month most likely. Need to pay my dues. Bottom of the totem pole thing.

I'm actually looking forward to just having work. It will be nice to make some money and not have to count the seconds until I have to be at the next checkpoint. I like being able to focus on one thing, and not feel like I'm spreading myself thin.

Wes has been stellar throughout this past semester. He has his own load of school and work to carry, but he also has been making dinners and doing dishes for the past few months. He also helps with the RS Activities and drives me all over Provo. I'm looking forward to taking care of him for a change.

So it seems like I've triumphed over my own March Madness. I graduate in April. I have a full-time job lined up. In addition, my bracket is winning in the family pool! Bragging rights!

spoiled spoiled spoiled

February is a good month for me. My birthday falls just 4 days after Valentines Day, which means that I pretty much get uber attention for the entire week. February 14-21 is all about ME. But Wes went above and beyond this year.

For Valentines Day Wes bought me a white rose that marked the beginning of a fun (and difficult) scavenger hunt around our apartment. I loved it. He also gave me these TOMS, two Down East tees, two cookbooks (gluten free) and the orange jacket. Like I said. Spoiled.

On my birthday Wes sent me flowers to my classroom at Spanish Fork High. They were such a surprise! My students sang to me (with a little assistance from Mrs. Scott, ah hem, thanks) and gave me a hard time about my "boyfriend." We left that evening for a little get-a-way to St. George where there were no lesson plans or coding homework. Wes and I were lazy, lazy, lazy. Let's just say we barely made it to 1:00pm church.

Wes also gave me this heavenly shampoo. Like I said. Spoiled.

I am spoiled, but lately there have been several things to celebrate. I passed the dreaded Praxis exam and got a real, full time job. Monday I start as a Medical Assistant at Utah Valley's OB/GYN clinic. I'm excited and this is such a giant step in the right direction for us.

please reinstall the filter

I ran into funniest roommate ever Jessica today on the RB stairs. She said, "I enjoy your monthly blog posts." I immediately went into denial. "I know, I'm just so busy, blah blah blah, at least I post more than Marie, blah blah blah."

And yet here I am with the monthly report.

Student teaching is a thumbs up experience thus far. My work load is decent but not overbearing. We just finished the most boring unit, Healthy Self (mental health). I guess I shouldn't say its boring, it includes topics like suicide, personality, grief, defense mechanisms etc. However, sometimes the lessons are kind of downers. It is difficult to get the kids excited about discussing emotions. But I guess that is what a good teacher does. They take unappealing topics and make them interesting.

The next unit is Nutrition/Fitness and I'm totally pumped to teach it! There are so many neat learning activities to use with this content.

Classroom management has been better than expected. There are always a few kids in each class that seriously struggle with listening, focusing and executing. I find myself occasionally doing the stand and wait thing. I'm also trying to figure out how to handle the completely inappropriate comments from the peanut gallery. I have one specifically challenging student who claims to be homosexual. His comments are rather colorful. I'm not blaming his interrupting behavior on his sexual orientation, I'm blaming it on his inability to filter his comments. In fact, I'm pretty sure he has completely removed the filter.

Wes continues on with work and school. Today he received his first real credit card which we are quite excited about. Time to start establishing credit, we better get swiping that AmEx huh Wes?

a night at the DI and a night with Rachel

We spent Friday night feeling guilty about not having a fun/exotic date planned. Even though we're married we still feel pressure to go out and do something awesome on Friday. I used to give Wes a hard time about not planning anything, so I told him I would do the planning this weekend. Friday night rolled around and I only had a few lame-o dud ideas. We ended up perusing the DI about an hour before they closed. Wes found Pictionary! He spent the rest of the evening wiping down and gluing the board and box together. It is as good as new. Now all we need, as Wes said this morning, is "someone to cream at Pictionary."

I found some (what I think are) CUTE teacups. They are totally vintage and perfect for juice in the morning. I've had medium feedback thus far. Rachel wasn't sure why I wanted teacups and I think Wes thought they were an odd purchase as well. But Wes is so great, he just plays along and helped me look for matching saucers. We used them last night when Rachel came over for computer help, which turned into movie night. We watched Iron Man 2. See Rachel's blog before continuing with this post.

http://rachelrweiler.blogspot.com/

We laughed SO hard this morning when we saw Rachel's post. Wes immediately starting drawing up a picture of Rachel. You'll also need a basic understanding of Iron Man 2 to appreciate his work.

Behold. Rachel... the Russian.

On a completley different note, things are going quite well with student teaching. I have two mentor teachers (one better than the other) and also work with a co-teacher. We team teach the first period and then each teach alternating periods the rest of the day. I'm starting with the Healthy Self unit, then will teach Nutrition/Exercise and end with Sexuality and Reproduction. We're pretty limited with what we can teach in this last unit. Utah is the most conservative state when it comes to SexEd and Nebo School District is the most conservative school district in the state of Utah. Wonder how I'll answer all their questions...

The students are hilarious. I find myself chuckling at least once every class period. Management hasn't been a huge issue yet. Did I just jinx myself? For the most part they contribute and are engaged. The random comments are awesome and I had forgotten about the high school drama. I have one student who is a "Cornerstone" student with means that he lives in a Juvenile Detention Center and is permitted to come to one high school class every other day. That's my health class. When he proves that he is safe to himself and others, they let him start coming to more and more classes. I don't know how to treat him differently, so I don't. I treat and teach him the same as the rest of my students.

I've also learned that even though I have invested thousands of dollars and hundreds of hours in learning how to teach, sometimes the people with the jobs are less than qualified. I wish those who were burnt out would retire and let us "green" teachers have a chance for a few years. (I'm trying to subconsciously talk one of my mentor teachers into retiring...)

I think this will be the quickest semester of college ever.

Christmas was fun. Provo is the same.

I can't believe the break is already over. I also can't believe that today is the first day of a new semester and I did not buy any books, am no longer working at Teacher Ed and did not have to print out a schedule and wander the halls locating classrooms.

But before I start highlighting the present, I'll briefly recap the past 2 weeks.

Wes and I had our first Christmas morning here in Provo. I had no idea how excited I would be about it all, but I woke up at 6:00am and convinced Wes it was a reasonable time to start opening presents. (I actually tried to get him to open presents on Christmas Eve. He said no.)

I found a little sparkly surprise in my stocking, some diamond earrings! I also received lots of cute clothes for student teaching. Wes is great at picking up my hints...

We headed to SLC for the Christmas Day Visiting Family Marathon. We may have to rethink this for next year. But maybe Wes will surprise me by singing Mele Kalikimaka and we'll spend Christmas in Hawaii. Maybe, at some point in the future, right Wes? We visited several homes and our family spoiled us left and right.

Some notable moments:

Kirk received sky-diving gift certificate from fam. We're tying to help him get that bucket list whittled down. He's also working on the will, so if he dies during sky-diving, at least everything is divided. We get Caroline!

Uncle Scott plays "You're a Mean One, Mr. Grinch" on trumpet (an unexpected addition to the program, way to spice things up!)

Wes skis for the first time! We went to Alta for the Ski Free After 3 deal, but we also didn't know it was the Ski Free and Freeze Something Off deal. Caroline and Rachel accompanied us, but none of us lasted very long. I think we were all crying in pain as our toes and fingers thawed in the car. Wes got jipped, which means we will be taking another skiing trip soon. He did great by the way! Only fell one time and it was because Rachel led him into the pit of doom and powder, which he was not prepared for.

Rebecca and Janeel beat Clayton and Wes at pictionary. Monumental.

Caroline gets her wisdom teeth out. Oh goodness. The stories are just too funny.

Tomorrow is my first official day in Spanish Fork High School. I've already scoped the paraphernalia and know which sweatshirt I'm going to be purchasing. I know, I've got all the critical bases covered.

The public schools are still finishing up last semester, so I'll observe and help this week and part of next. When their new semester starts, I'll be in charge. Can't wait for the stories that come from teaching a high school health class.

he's sick

My husband has been out sick with some flu bug thing. While I have stayed busy prepping for Christmas, and of course nursing him back to health, I realized what a good companion he is. All day he apologized for being lame, and I assured him I was not bored. I can assure YOU that I was indeed bored. There are only so many gifts you can wrap, dishes to wash, clothes to organize before you just want to have some human interaction!

So I dragged Wes to the library thinking it would be good to get him some books/DVDs to keep him occupied in bed. Turns out, I'm using them while he sleeps on. I'm also brainstorming a list of things to do tomorrow in case he is still in sick mode. I shouldn't be making this about me... it just comes so naturally.

Get better Wes! For your sake and for mine.

across the finish line

I got myself to the Testing Center (TC) pretty early this morning. I hate taking tests on the last day of finals. I don't know why. I just like the idea of having them all done early. I always worry that I'm going to show up the last day of finals and find out the TC is closed. I know, unnecessary worry. Can't help it.

I was about half way through my 100 multiple choices when a girl on the opposite end of the TC (for those who don't know, the TC is a HUGE room just filled to the brim with desks, we're talking like hundreds of people all sweating, coughing and taking tests at the same time) climbs up on her chair and starts waving her test papers in the air, throws her pencil and pretzel bag and shouts,

"I'm finished.... FOOOOREVER!"

She looked ridiculous. The entire room responded with some chuckles and then starting clapping, which turned into cheering. What a brave girl.

I felt the same way. Today I took my last final ever at BYU. The work is far from being over. Student teaching and my internship will be a lot of time and paperwork. But today I did breath a sigh of relief when I handed over my bubble sheet.

I too have finished forever. And kept my dignity at the same time.