Las Vegas Excursion

A group of 18 students with two supervisors left for Las Vegas on Sunday morning. The purpose of this trip was to meet our mentor teachers for student teaching and become familiar with the school and housing options. We surprisingly left on Sunday which I thought was different considering we are BYU Idaho, but whatever. I was scheduled to meet my group at the Hart building at 10:10, so that meant I had time to go to ward council and relief society before we left for the airport. I had to get a ride to and from church because Justin was in Seattle. He and James (brother) left on Saturday morning at 5:30 to drive the 13 hours to Puyallup to visit Jon and Laura and the new baby Clara. So anyway, I met my group and we headed to Idaho Falls to catch our flight with Allegiant. This company is the one Justin has had two interviews with thus far, so it would be really exciting if he got this job. Anyway we flew to Las Vegas and the first thing we did was go to church. From there we ate dinner, had orientation at the hotel for our itineraries, and then we drove to the Las Vegas temple. It is east of town by one of the high schools and right under the mountain. That temple is seriously beautiful. I fell in love with it as we walked around it. The houses there are expensive, but Brother Cloward (supervisor) said that just down the hill you can get a nice house for $110,000. WHAT??? Exciting.

Monday morning we drove to our schools with the other student teachers. Only three of us headed to Schofield MS. Our driver was seriously an idiot. It's a miracle we didn't die. He was seriously so bad I could not handle it. He would change lanes without checking his blind spot every time. He cut off so many people and was completely oblivious. One time another driver honked at him and he had the audacity to complain, "why is he honking at me?" Umm, gee, I dunno... Maybe because you can't drive? Idiots.

I love the school I'm student teaching at. They split the grades up into separate halls. Sixth grade has its "sixth grade hall" where they have all their science, math, English, etc. classes. The seventh and either grade have the same thing so I love it because it prevents a lot of bullying between, say, 8th and 6th grade. I feel our school would've benefitted from something like that...oh wait, Chase and his cohorts were the biggest bullies in the 8th grade, and Keaton and his minions were their main targets...I will never forget the day they stuffed Edgar Alzate into the "lost and found" tub and threw him in the back of a pick up truck. Because of that the school now has a supervised "lunch line" that still exists today. You guys should be proud.

Anyway, I met my mentor teacher and, let me just be candid and say, I am not impressed. Yeah she's been teaching for 15 years, but she hasn't been doing it well. The whole day for every period students wasted the first fifteen minutes doing mindless vocabulary out of their glossaries. After that she explained a project for ten minutes, and then left them for the rest of the class time to complete their "packets" which was basically busy work while she sat at her desk and looked up things on google. When the class got out of hand, she would tell students to "shut it" and other belittling things that I was thinking, "If that were me, I'd be crying right now, and I'm a grown woman." Then again, I am notoriously known for allowing 12 year olds to terrorize me and an entire neighborhood of children....okay lesbehonest, I was the only one being terrorized, but still. Let's just say it will be an interesting student teaching experience. I plan on learning a lot about how to communicate effectively with someone I completely disagree with. Bring on the crucial conversations. With that said I was able to get tons of questions answered and I told her to give me candid feedback when I student teach because I'm learning to have tougher skin and I'm here to get better, so I think it really won't be too bad.

At 2:11 school gets out which I LOVE. If Justin and I were to ever live down there, the elementary school and high school are just a block away from the middle school, so I really like that. It's also by an area known as Henderson which has a good reputation. We picked up the student teachers at the elementary school and headed back to the hotel. We missed lunch because....I don't really know how, but we missed it, so I was ravenous. Luckily I had left over Chipotle, so I happily entered my room and ate it while watching some Netflix on my ipad. One of the student teachers called me and said they were going to Taco Bell so I thought I'd join to be social. When I met the group one of the girls, Lauren (brat) was like, "What's that?" all snotty which surprised me so I just said left over Chipotle and she replied, "don't you know we're going to Taco Bell?" Umm, yes I realize I was invited to go to Taco Bell with you who cares what I'm eating can I just eat my lunch in peace please? Freak! Stupid girl. Throughout the whole trip she gave me her attitude and I just wanted to say, "are we in high school or what?" I can't really explain it through a blog entry, and really only a female would understand, but I felt targeted the whole trip. Whatever. I'm married. So HA!

Monday night we attended a special FHE where we looked at the BYUI housing option and talked to the current student teachers. The BYUI housing is $850 per month. Holy! The plus side is I could bike to work if I wanted. The down side is they don't allow bikes (what?). Another plus is everything is included (Internet, cable, electrics, gas, furniture, etc.) and it comes with a washer and dryer...yeah for no more coins! But...I don't now. I'll won't think about that now...I'll think about it tomorrow (my mom has been quoting Scarlett O'Hara so why don't I?). At FHE we got to ask a bunch of questions which was nice and we got Krispy Kreme doughnuts after. That was my first experience with their doughnuts and I was impressed. That night some of the other married people and myself researched some other housing options by the school to look at the next day.

Tuesday morning we got up early to go to the district office to do our finger printing and get hooked up with the school district's system. This is awesome because they have a particular lesson plan writing tool, and as soon as I know what exactly I'll be teaching I can use that lesson plan template and create my lesson plans for student teaching the semester BEFORE I student teach in my methods class...heck yes! Of course they'll need tweaking, but that's a huge amount of work taken care of. That didn't take long, but it did take us until the end to realize we had left one of the girls at the hotel! The thing is it wasn't her fault. She asked this Brittney girl to make sure they waited for her....well she she didn't do her job because she got left behind and when we got back she was FURIOUS. She wouldn't speak a word to us the rest of the day. She's from Albania, so it was kind of funny to listen to her be really mad just because of her accent....ok that's terrible...oh well, it was still interesting.

After that we went apartment shopping. We didn't like the first place we looked at, but the next place I fell in love with. It's $600 a month and it has a washer and dryer inside, too. It has tennis courts and two pools...and it's three blocks from my school. I think it's a definite option. We didn't have time to look at much else which was too bad, but it is a start. I'm going to get into contact with some bishops in the area and get a feel for what else may be available.

We at at Jason's Deli for lunch which was so good! They paid for our lunch so that was nice. We headed to institute after that and played some ping pong and pool before we headed to the airport. We got through security super quickly and headed to Salt Lake City. I had a great time, especially with the supervisors. I played them both in ping pong and overall I enjoyed hanging out with them the most. We have really tremendous faculty at BYU Idaho. We flew into gate C7 at 7:15 and I boarded my flight to Seattle at 7:35 at gate C6... That could not have been more perfect. I wrote this blog entry on the plane to Seattle using their wifi...can you believe that? I can watch Netflix from 35,000 feet in the air! Seattle here I come!