Busy Time of Year

    Happy belated Thanksgiving everyone. This year Joe and I spent our first Thanksgiving with friends and family in New Hampshire since we moved down here. It was great to be home for the holiday. We had our meal with my parents and then stopped by Joe's brother's house afterwards to say hi to people. Our flight on the way home was delayed for a couple of hours. That is just one of the many joys of flying.

    Seven days left of student teaching. I can't believe it has gone by so fast. I will miss it there a lot. Now it is on to Christmas shopping, Christmas decorating, Christmas cookies, and Christmas music. Let the season begin.

Another Year Older

Well, yesterday was my birthday.  That means another year done and another year older.  This past year has flown by with completing graduate school and student teaching.  Plus, I started writing my book, took a few trips (including a week in Disney World), and was in my friend's wedding.  I only have a little over three weeks of student teaching left and that includes the week of Thanksgiving when there is only two school days. 

This next year is going to be a busy year as well.  One of my first priorities will be to find my first teaching job.  I'll have to finish getting my portfolio, etc. together.  I would also like to do some traveling and continue to work on my book. 

Terry and Brian's Wedding

    Our friends Terry and Brian got married this weekend. Joe and I were in the wedding party. We wanted to save some money, so we drove up. The drive up was a little crazy between the awful traffic we were stuck in for 3 hours around D.C. and the rain. Once we got there, we changed and headed to the rehearsal. The weekend flew by. Before we knew it we were at the church. The bride was beautiful and picture perfect. Joe and I did some dancing at the reception, which allowed us to burn off some of that extra food we were eating. Yesterday we drove home. We stopped and did some shopping at Peddler's Village along the way.

    We are both so happy for Brian and Terry and we wish them a happy life together and an awesome honeymoon at Disney World.

Halloween 2010

  

   Another month of October is coming to an end.  Tonight Joe and I went to a Halloween costume party at a friend's house.  I dressed as Twister (the game) and my husband was Where's Waldo.  The costumes were tons of fun.  It has been a while since I dressed up for Halloween.  I kind of missed it.  It was fun this week with the kids in my classes, since kids love Halloween.  I was able to do a few Halloween themed activities, and I gave out Halloween pencils during writing.  Happy Halloween everyone. 

Busy, Busy

    So the last few weeks have been packed like the beach on the fourth of July and the rest of the year is going to go by in a similar fashion.  Right now I am working on my resume.  I plan to start looking for jobs in November.  My student teaching internship is already half way done, since I had my mid-term evaluation this week.  I also have multiple projects and papers that I am currently working on.  I am going to start a class newsletter for the remainder of my internship as well.  That should help keep me busy. 

    Next month, I am a bridesmaid in my friend's wedding.  Joe is also the best man in the same wedding.  I just picked up my dress from being steamed yesterday.

Student Teaching and Other Updates

    A couple weeks have gone by since my last update on student teaching and my semester so far. Student teaching is going well. So far math has been easiest and most interesting to teach. So much has changed in how math is taught since I was a kid, so many times I have to brush up on my math skills. There is a lot less memorization then there used to be in math, and I have to keep that in mind when I teach. Today's students are expected to understand the why behind math and not just memorize how to complete the problems. Place value. addition, and subtraction is taught using something called base 10 blocks. The blocks come in either 1, 10, 100, or 1,000 and can be added together to represent numbers. Borrowing and carrying for addition and subtraction and now called regrouping and is many times taught through using these base 10 blocks.


    Well, that is it for now. I’m looking forward to a busy week ahead. This weekend is my husband Joe and I’s 6 year wedding anniversary. He has a bad virus or flu or some sort right now, so hopefully he will feel better by this weekend, and I don’t get sick. That way we can enjoy a day together. I think we are going to Old Salem in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. There is one of my favorite restaurants out there and it is just so beautiful to walk around with the old buildings and tall oak and maple trees.

What Else Could Go Wrong?

  I went out with a friend last night for dinner and to do some writing afterwards. I was exhausted from the past few weeks and also because I had been up since about 4:30 in the morning. I was telling her about everything that had happened over the past few weeks, and I joked and said this should be my next blog post.

  It all started in early June. One morning I noticed it was starting to get hot in the house. I went to the central AC thermometer and it said it was 81 degrees. Another hour later it was 82 degrees, even though I had the central AC running all day. That is when I knew the air conditioning wasn't working.


  A couple of weeks later our toilet in our master bedroom started acting up after we would flush it. It would run continually, unless we stopped it. One morning we woke up to our bathroom floor flooded with toilet water. The water had even gotten into our bedroom. This meant it was time to call the plumber. I am happy to report the toilet now runs like new.

  About five weeks ago or so, we started to have an ant problem at our house. They were these tiny black ants that could have gotten in from anywhere. They were in the entrance hallway to our townhouse and in our kitchen. I could tell they were looking for food, since they loved to get into our cats’ food dish. They stopped for about a week, but then they came back. I dropped Joe off at work earlier this week and came home to the trash can in the kitchen covered in ants. I freaked out. We ended up having our house treated for ants. I think they are officially gone now.

  This past week both of our cars were in the garage. A few weeks ago we took our Mustang in, because one of the tires was low on air and the garage informed us that the tire could not be fixed, and we would have to replace the tire. I didn't want to replace the tire, and they didn't have our tire in stock. We put it off for a few weeks and tried using "fix a flat." Well, when we were checking the air pressure in our tire, we noticed that the tire was starting to split and would need to be replaced. We ended up putting on a new set of tires on Thursday.

  Our other car has been having some brake problems. The brakes were noisy and it was taking a little bit for the car to stop after pressing on the brakes. I was annoyed when I first noticed it, since the brakes were replaced less than two years ago. I took the car back to the garage that we replaced the brakes at. The brakes didn't need to be replaced, but the pads were loose. The brakes work much better now.

  Then late Friday afternoon—after we had picked up the car from the garage—I got an email from our bank saying there had be suspicious activity on my bank card. I called and had the card blocked. It was the end to a long and stressful week. I hate to think what else could go wrong.


  I have also been extremely busy with field experience, graduate school, and taking the Praxis II teaching exams last Saturday. By the time I went to bed last night, I was so tired I could barely move. I slept about nine hours last night. Let's hope it is all uphill from here.

Happy Birthday Freddy, etc.

    I can't believe my kitten Freddy is now a year old. When we got him he was only a few weeks old. Joe picked him up on his way home from work one night. There was a sign that said kittens and he stopped to see them, and just had to get Freddy. He was a surprise for me, though sometimes I think he was for both Joe and I. I remember how tiny he was. He could fit in my shoe. Now he is full grown basically, though he will always be my little kitty. Above is one of my favorite photos of him. It was taken probably 3 or so months ago now.

    I haven't had time to do much other than school work lately. I have not had time for writing. I have watched a few classic Disney movies though. Ever since I have gotten home from Disney World, I have wanted to watch some. I've recently watched Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, the Little Mermaid, Aladdin, and Pocahontas.

Wicked and other happenings...

    This Saturday (April 24) Joe and I went to see Wicked at the Durham Performing Arts Center (DPAC). This was the second time we had seen the musical. We originally had seen it when it was on tour in Boston in 2007 (I believe). The performance was awesome. I also love the sound track. Joe bought me the sound track a few years ago for my birthday, and I practically know it by heart now.

    In class Monday night, I participated in a special education panel for my classmates in the general education program. There were six of us. We talked about different issues related to working with students with disabilities. I got to say my part about looking for students abilities and not just at students’ disabilities. I find students in special education or student/individuals with disabilities are defined by what they cannot do, but not what they can do. I was happy to spread that message to my classmates along with other information about working with students with disabilities.

    Last night we had the spring graduate education conference at Meredith College, which I found very interesting. There was a poster session followed by four different sessions of research projects that were presented. For each session, you could choose the research presentation that interested you and sit in on that graduate student's research project for a half an hour. I went to a session on gifted students, RTI (response to intervention), year round schools versus traditional year schools and the effects on reading scores in first grade, and a session on classroom blogs and peer-editing.


    Since National Poetry Month is almost over and I have not had much time to take part in it, I decided to share this word art below. Have you done anything to help celebrate National Poetry Month?

Children's Poetry Books

Learning Disabilities workshop, technology, and other updates...

    It has been a busy week. I am happy to report that I have handed in all my paperwork for student teaching. I just have to wait to see what school and classroom I will be placed in. Yesterday, I attended a workshop on the best practices for working with students with learning differences (learning disabilities). The day was comprised of six different workshops on many different topics including teaching writing to students with and without writing disabilities, (Something that seems to be overlooked I think in public schools. At least it was when I was growing up.), study skills and note taking, successful transiting to college for students with learning disabilities, assistive technology, and other topics as well. There were some teachers and other educational professionals from schools for students with learning disabilities (the schools present were from North Carolina). These are private and very expensive schools that specialize in working in children with learning disabilities. They have class sizes of three to five students per class. If you are a high school student, these schools help you research colleges and they know all the best schools with programs for students with learning disabilities. I only knew of a couple when I was in high school, but they mentioned a few new ones yesterday including the SALT program at the University of Arizona  http://www.salt.arizona.edu/.  It makes me wonder how my education would have been different had I attended one of these schools when I was growing up. 

    Tonight, I have set aside some time for writing in my memoir. While I was on spring break, I did some research, and I want to insert some changes into a few chapters of my memoir (I need to write a section or chapter about my misdiagnosis of my learning disability as a child, which definitely impacted my education). I also have some data to enter. . 

    I learned some new websites and technology yesterday as well, one of which is below (well, I actually used two of them to create the below image).  The below image was created at http://www.wordle.net/.  This site allows you to enter any text you want and create different types of random word art. I just entered a few random words that helped describe me. I used a free program called JING to capture the image and save it to my computer and upload it here (I also learned about this yesterday) http://www.jingproject.com/. 

    That's all I have for now.  Check back in the next few days for more updates.  Hopefully, I will be able to make another update this weekend. 

Busy Week

    The last week has been busy. I spent the better part of the week working on homework (from Monday to Thursday). I spent all day Thursday on an assignment, which I feel asleep on at one point and ended up submitted two minutes before the 5pm deadline. I made my decision about student teaching and signed up for the Praxis exam. Since Joe has a long weekend, Joe and I went away yesterday and last night to Wilmington, North Carolina. Above is a photo we took entering Wilmington's neighboring community, the town of Wrightsville Beach.  We did some shopping, walked around a little, and discovered a new favorite restaurant, Bonefish Grill. I had the imperial longfin and Joe had the grilled salmon. There is also a location in Cary, near where Joe and I live.

    I also posted an image to my blog to promote Autism Awareness month.  For more information visit Autism Society.  I put aside some time tonight for writing and possibly working on my book. I hope everyone is enjoying their weekend. Happy Easter everyone.

Bonefish Grill

Happy April and National Poetry Month

    I just wanted to take a few minutes to wish everyone a happy April and National Poetry Month. I hope everyone will be able to take part in National Poetry Month in some way, either through being involved in the writing community or through poetry itself. If you are not a poet or a writer, take time this month to read one or two poems. I have a poetry book I recently read to recommend. The book is by a North Carolina Poet Terri Kriby Erickson. Her new book is called Telling Tales of Dusk.

    I also wanted to share with everyone that I have signed up to take the Praxis teaching exam on Saturday July 24. I will be taking two tests back to back. The exams start at 7:30 am, which I am not overly happy about. I hate taking tests in the morning. I will devote the day before to studying and going to bed early. At least I don't have class on Fridays. I will be taking classes all summer as well, two classes for the first six week session and two classes for the second six week session.

    I wanted to share a couple of article of interest. The first is about America's best beaches.
America's Best Beaches    The next article is about Dyslexia.  Dyslexia

    I hope everyone has a beautiful Easter weekend.  Check back soon for more updates.  Thanks for stopping by.

Update

    Well, it has been a busy week. I am now on spring break from school. Wednesday night I went to a writing workshop called writing the photograph with Alice Osborn at a photography studio in Wake Forest, North Carolina that featured work from Bruce Johnson and others. Alice Osborn's website is http://aliceosborn.com/.   I was able to write a few new poems from the session. Above is a photo from the session. I've also written about five more pages in my book.

    I am currently researching documents from my childhood, education resources, and other memoirs written about dyslexia and reading learning disabilities. If anyone has any recommendations about memoirs that have been written about growing up with a reading disability, please let me know. I recently picked up one book called "Reversals" by Eileen Simpson, which I plan to read over break.

    I'll be making updates to my blog over the next few days. I just wanted to stop in and let everyone know what is doing on. I have time this weekend set aside for some writing. I am hoping to have a rough draft done by sometime this month or possibly in April. We'll see how the writing goes.