it has been far too long since my last post... so I will try to recap and catch you up on important events :-)
so I went home for Labor day... (a last minute blessing) and celebrate 3 birthdays in 2.5 days!! When I got back to Georgia, I went a few days without a vehicle.. praise God for friends with cars! I was able to get my Royrie back, and she's been running like a champ... mostly. I'm actually taking her back to Hamil's Automotive next week to get a new muffler/exhaust... her original one has rusted completely off :-(
I should have her back in time for my trip to NC for a belated celebration of my sister's birthday (and a Carrie Underwood concert!)
My roommate and I have successfully painted (most) of our apartment!!! All that's left is a small hallway, which will be done as soon as we get the paint... we have the best landlords for getting our supplies! In the process of painting, my roomie got ENGAGED!!! it was a super exciting day... we had wonderful friends over to help paint, since my boyfriend was studying, and her's was "out of town" but somehow in the midst of him being gone, flowers showed up on our door! He really wasn't out of town, and they spent the rest of the evening revisiting important places from their dating relationship, ending on the quad of our alma mater with him on one knee!!
Here's a picture of her right after she found her flowers... still in painty clothes:
For all you hunters out there... I've never really been a part of your world until I met this man: "Catfish" is a person very dear to me, and he doesn't have a blog... so I'll extend his excitement to all my blog readers, lol.
He has hunted his whole life (that isn't an exaggeration by much) but not until he recently (past couple years) has he attempted to bow hunt... starting with turkeys. For those who don't know anything about hunting... most animals have a "hunting season" - a time when they can be killed - for turkeys, that's in the spring. for deer, it's the fall through early January. These seasons are different depending on what you use to kill them. Bow hunting typically opens a couple weeks before rifle season and continues through rifle season... so this year, Catfish started hunting a little earlier than usual, because he's started bow hunting! and he is officially a bow hunter, because he killed his first:
I'm proud of him... but he's so excited!! (even still) A good friend of ours put it well: you woulda thought he'd won the lottery, he was so far over cloud nine. Rifle season has now opened, but he still uses the bow to get a break from studying (he's a first year med school student)
I think it's awesome how much hunting brings people together. It's a strange practice, where you isolate yourself with your natural surroundings, but at the same time you are part of a rather competitive, happy community. I've gotta have intense motivation to get up early, so we'll see if I ever take up this hobby...
In school news, I finished up my placement in the middle school, and have now completed my first placement in the high school. I will start my second high school placement next week! The middle school was an interesting place to be. I'm far enough removed from middle school, that I barely remember anything educational in those years. I know there was information that was foundational for continuing education through high school and college, but it is not a time that sticks out in my mind as particularly memorable (probably true for most folks). I don't know how I feel about teaching middle school yet. My three weeks there were fun and interesting, just not exactly what I've pictured myself doing... then again, how often do we end up where we picture ourselves?! I've decided I'm going to take as much as I can from these experiences and let God decide where I'll end up teaching!!
My middle school host teacher was very active and incorporated a lot of technology into her classroom, then I came to the high school placement and it was a complete 180. The new host teacher has been teaching for quite some time, and sticks to the traditional lecture, test, repeat method. While I do think lecture is important, I don't think it should be the extent of the classroom. With the way students today are engulfed in the immediate results world we live in, lecture gets boring fast. I hope that I can develop my personal teaching style to incorporate as much practical and current examples and methods as possible, as I'd love for my students to enjoy the subject as much as I do!
In my third placement, I'll get to teach a week long unit on gases. I'm excited about getting to plan out and execute a unit with some of my ideas, rather than just repeating what I'm seeing done in one period for another class. This next placement is in a school that has recently received grant money to try the "one laptop per child" approach, so I don't doubt I'll be able to use technology... I'll keep you updated (hopefully)!
for now, it's bedtime... but I hope to update you on more of my life in the near future, thanks for reading!!
