Lies I Told Myself at the Beginning of My Student-Teaching

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1. Stephanie, you and the other M.A.T. candidates will definitely meet every Wednesday to play trivia, have some beverages, and discuss the internship.

2. Stephanie, you will complete your 54-page Teacher Work Sample as you actually teach the unit, rather than in a mad dash after the fact.

3. Stephanie, your Teacher Work Sample will be a 100% reflection of things that actually happened in your classroom.

4. Stephanie, your planning periods should easily be sufficient to grade and plan ev.ery.thing.

5. Stephanie, you will still be able to get to bed at a normal time, and you'll never have to get up at the crack of dawn to finish stuff, either.

6. Stephanie, you're teaching honors classes, so these kids will totally be functioning at an honors level.

7. Stephanie, your new year's resolution was to be more social, and you can certainly keep that up during internship.

8. Stephanie, these kids will absolutely love your teaching style.  They won't mind at all adjusting to you instead of the teacher to whom they've grown accustomed for six months!

9. Stephanie, these kids will be really excited to use Edmodo - it's like Facebook for school!

10. Stephanie, you can totally start a blog the same week you start your internship.

 

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I just finished up my summative conference for my student teaching internship (did you know it's not called "student-teaching" anymore?  Apparently that is somehow insulting to us), and -

I PASSED!

Not that I ever thought I wouldn't, but it's still just such a relief to hear those words out loud! :)

Linking up with E, Myself, & I for Midweek Confessions!

Midweek Confessions

One of the first blogs I ever started reading is E, Myself, & I.  E is the older sister of one of my friends, and I've been reading her blog for I think three years now?  Anyway, I'm excited to finally have my own blog going so I can participate in her Wednesday series of Midweek Confessions!  Here we go!

- It's finals week, and even though I have two take-home finals due Friday, and a rather involved teacher work sample due.. wait, when is it due?  Next week sometime, I think.  Anyway, despite all of these things I have to do, I stayed in bed until three today.  Sometimes you just need to catch up on your sleep, and that sometimes is usually always when I have the most to do.  (Also, I'm sure it goes without saying that I'm writing this blog post instead of studying.  Double-confession.)

- Christmas is my favorite time of year, but this year, I'm just not feeling it.  This will be the first holiday season without my mom (she passed away in June due to breast cancer), and it's made me just want to avoid the holidays all together.  I didn't go home for Thanksgiving for that exact reason, but I will be back in Virginia in a few weeks for Christmas.  I'm hoping to be able to focus on the reason for the season and try to stay positive, but it's going to be tough.

- I have next to zero dollars in my bank account (grad school hollaaaaa), which means that my family is helping me with my expenses until I graduate in July, so I feel extremely guilty when my they ask what I want for Christmas.  But I also know that I cannot afford this Erin Condren planner on my own, so I'm considering asking for it anyway.  It's so ridiculously expensive, but it's just So. Very. Awesome.  I don't care how great technology is, I feel lost without my planner.  This is a worthwhile expense, right?

- I ate an entire lasagna and half a pint of Ben & Jerry's Monday because a girl at the study hall I run made me cry and it made me worry that high schoolers will eat me alive.  Not my most encouraging moment for teaching.

I'm very very sad because E didn't do Midweek Confessions last week, and doesn't have a linky party for it this week.  Oh well, next Wednesday is only seven days away, right? ;)

What are your Midweek Confessions?




xo.

Probably the Best Cake You Have Ever Had!

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I can't wait to make it, sounds wonderful! ;)



xo.

Grad School Dichotomies

Funny how grad school has brought out both my extreme overachiever-ness, as well as my extreme underachiever-ness.  Since December 2009, when I quit the retail management job I got after graduating college, I made varying levels of commitment to being healthy.  Sometimes I'd be really good about cooking my own healthy food, and sometimes I'd be really good about working out five days a week, and occasionally, I'd be really good about both.

Now, however...not so much.  Between classes, student teaching, and working at night, my diet mostly consists of Chick-fil-A, cereal, and froyo.  Here's my dinner tonight at work:

Unless sodium and MSG have been added to the food pyramid recently, this is a bundle of unhealthy.  Welcome to grad school, fellow health underachievers.

I guess the good news is that on the other side of the coin, I'm such a major overachiever when it comes to school.  I consistently make assignments into a much bigger deal than necessary, taking fifteen times longer than my peers.  I can only assume this will be a good thing for me in the long run, but for now, it sure is a pain.  It's just not in me to turn in something that isn't my very. best. (How type A am I?)

Basically, last night we had to create a one-page handout of pertinent info about our special education research topic.  At a little after midnight, when I left the library, I had a solid handout typed up in Word, like any normal student.  I don't know exactly what went through my brain after that, but it must have gone something like this:

"Stephanie, when did you last waste hours playing around in Photoshop?  When you were teaching the other week, weren't you jealous watching all the Digital Communications majors at the high school?  Wouldn't this be a perfect opportunity to make something fun again?  And you have plenty of time to kill now, at 12:30 am!"

Fast forward to 4:30 am, when I finally finished my handout... for my 8:30 am class.

So maybe I do need to learn to leave well enough alone, but tell me this doesn't look way cooler than something typed up in Word!

Anyone else out there an overachiever?



xo.

Mornings

Ahh, the end of Thanksgiving break.  Which means my teaching experience in the high school is done and it's back to class.  Because class starts almost an hour after school started (does that make sense?), I made the most of that extra hour this morning!  Did some sun salutations, took the doggies for a walk, enjoyed my morning tea with a wonderful breakfast, and showered and put together a mega-cute outfit.

Sike.

I, of course, rolled out of bed ten minutes before I had to leave.  It was a slightly more productive morning than usual, though, because I didn't put my hair in a ponytail!  And I put on some makeup!  (How's that for grown-up, eh?)  The author of one of my favorite blogs (The Small Things) is a stylist, and I finally tried my hand at one of her tutorial videos.  I have zero skill for doing hair, but I was actually able to pull off a decent version of her wrap-around French braid!

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This is (obviously) her photo; mine didn't look nearly so perfect.  I was still pretty impressed with my bad self, though!  I find that the majority of things on Pinterest called "Quick, Easy, & Cute Hairstyles!" are generally neither quick nor easy (and certainly not cute when I attempt them), but this surprisingly only took me five minutes! 

As I start teaching and getting up earlier and earlier, I'd like to diversify my hairstyles away from shlubby, rushed, ponytails.  This is definitely on my list!

Do you have any go-to hairstyles that are actually quick, easy, and cute? 



xo.