But it's only been two weeks since I've blogged! It's not bad though because not a ton has happened. Two weekends ago Justin's team had playoffs and championships for Ultimate. His team wasn't the best this year and they ended up getting 3rd. The team that won the championship had a bunch of JERKS so that was annoying. We watched the women's championship game and it was a total blowout...there's no competition when I don't play! Ha...it's sad and true. Everyone was pretty upset when I didn't coach this semester...oh well people. The banquet was the next Tuesday at 5:00 but I couldn't go because I had my meteorology class from 4:30-8:30. Justin was asked to speak and apparently he did a great job! ;)
Thunder, Fall 2013 Ultimate
I saw this gem hanging in the Hart...
Speaking of meteorology, my class had the opportunity to go watch Local News 8 in Idaho Falls in their studio. It was weird because people like Michael Coats, Karole Honas, and Jay Hildebrandt are kind of "celebrities" to me because I watched them on the news almost every day when I was growing up so seeing them in real life was weird! Michael Coats had some really bad foundation on...I need to Mary Kay that! I kept hearing Mom's voice in my head, "You can ALWAYS TELL when the men wear makeup!"
In my meteorology class we made a tornado with warm water, dry ice, cardboard, and a fan. It was sweet!
Our ward had an awesome activity this week. We've been doing family history work, and all the names we've indexed have turned into "Trane's Dollars" (name of our bishop) for an auction. As a result, our ward indexed over 30,000 names in three weeks! Justin and I were able to get $1,200 Trane Bucks to auction with. I bought garlic bread and a free hair cut...it wasn't much, but I kept getting out-bid on the good stuff by people in my ward who had indexed like 7,000 names. Blarg!
Apple Pie and pie-in-a-jar for our contribution to the auction...of course Justin made them!
Action items
"Trane Dollars"
Speaking of haircuts...I almost did THIS to my hair yesterday:
I know, crazy! I don't know what got into me, but a 1/2 hour before my appointment I called the girl and cancelled. I saw it on pinterest and I thought "I have a free hair cut, I'll do it!" but yeah I totally chickened out. I'm way too attached to my long hair. I may end up cutting it later if my long hair is too much maintenance for student teaching...I'll see. I invited some friends to come to an R.S. activity with my on Saturday as well, and we got pedicures at the beauty college for way cheap! It was a fun day.
Friday night Keaton, Justin, and I went to Grandma's "Thanksgiving Dinner." Alison and Lyle came too and Grandma was a lot of fun. She's everybody's favorite at the place she lives. Justin and I have been practicing a Christmas duet for our ward talent show in a few weeks....we want to come down and play it for the people at Turtle & Crane so Grandma can hear it.
Wednesday I got an email from the College of Physical Science and Engineering. They asked me to speak at convocation for the college! Graduation has two parts: commencement and convocation. Commencement is where EVERYBODY who is graduating gathers in the BYU-I Center and we hear from a general authority. Then every "college" splits up into different buildings for Convocation for their own ceremony where names are read and diploma covers are handed out. So I'll be speaking in the Taylor Chapel on December 20th for the College of Physical Science and Engineering! That will be pretty intimidating, but it will be a great opportunity. I feel so blessed!
Saturday night Justin and I went on a really fun date. We went roller skating in the Grand Ballroom in the MC. Justin played hockey forever, so he's a wizz on skates/blades. It took my a while to get coordinated with the skates (blades are way better!) but I was eventually able to do the limbo and I was one of the last ones in! After skating we went and watched one of my old teammates play in the girls basketball championship game. Her team won and it was a lot of fun to watch her and to sit by some old Arco friends, Lucy and Eric Pope and Tara and Shawn Steenson. After the game we went to Sammy's for pie shakes, fries and bacon cheese burgers! I'm going to miss that place when we move.
Today Justin and I put up our Christmas tree so when we get back from Thanksgiving in Seattle our house will be all set up for us. I love our apartment and the home decor we've collected since we've lived here! I have lights hanging in the front room and the bedroom as well as on the tree. We are all festive up in here! I have school Monday and Tuesday morning and then we'll head to the Rose family for Thanksgiving. This will be a new experience for me, as this will be the first time EVER away from the Beal house for the holiday, and the first time in YEARS that I haven't put up the family Christmas tree! For the 10 hour drive I got some audio books, one being "The Hobbit" which I am most looking forward to listening to. I bet it will make the time fly by fast (at least, I keep telling myself that). Other than all that we are doing great and I just made the BEST chocolate chip cookies ever...be jealous! Unless you've already seen Catching Fire...then I'll be jealous of you. Until next week!
This last week was the most stressful week of school and I'm so happy it's over. Now I can cruise to the end of the semester, "graduate," and do my student teaching. I can't wait!....but I can. I know I'm going to miss Rexburg, but I'm definitely not going to miss all the work.
Monday I taught in my health teaching methods class. That class is a joke. There are five of us in the class. We've signed up to teach our classmates different subjects in Health Ed throughout the semester. I usually don't plan anything until the morning of because it's a huge waste of time. When we're the ones being taught, we're supposed to "act like we're in middle school." Yeah, because I remember what that's like.
Tuesday I observed the astronomy class I'll be teaching that class this Tuesday. High school classes are an hour and ten minutes, so I need to prepare something to teach for 70 minutes! I don't even know what I'll be teaching yet. Great! I saw Travis though and that was fun. He's just across the hall from where I'll be teaching.
Tuesday was also Justin's birthday. He's a mighty 25 years old! I got him some cologne for his birthday gift. We celebrated on Saturday because my Tuesdays are crazy (class from 7:45-7:30), but I did get up extra early to make breakfast: French toast with Nutella, strawberries, and whipped cream! Not only that but they were stacked on top of each other like this:
Thank you Pinterest for all your amazing ideas!
Tuesday night we went out to dinner with some friends, and James (Justin's brother) made him a cookie monster cupcake-cake (shaped like a cupcake, big enough to be a cake). Keaton came over and we all had some. Thanks James!
Happy Birthday to my handsome man!
Wednesday the madness began. For my practicum class (ED461) we've been given a classroom in the junior high to teach in. It's a class with five 7th graders. My first two times teaching (first time one day, second time two days) my teacher decided that wasn't a challenge enough for me, so for my final time teaching (three days) I was assigned to teach the junior high earth science class. It was a real teaching experience, but with 19 other credits going on it was chaotic.
Day one I taught the three rock types. I did what is called a "jigsaw" where students read about one thing and then they share with their classmates what they learned in groups. It worked well with igneous, sedimentary, and metamorphic rocks. I had them do several literacy strategies along with the rock content. It's good practice for me when I teach to Common Core Standards. After that we learned the differences and similarities between rocks and minerals and that was about it for day one. The kids were really cooperative which I expected on the first day. As the days progressed they began to test me more (which I also expected) but I did pretty dang well considering this was my first time on my own with 32 12-year-olds examining my every move. A few hours later I taught again in health teaching methods. So much teaching!
Thursday I not only taught in the earth science class, I taught my SPED 360 class about mental retardation. That was at 7:45. I taught for 25 minutes and then walked down the hall to teach the earth science class. I was so stressed I wanted to die. I stayed up until midnight the night before finishing my lesson planS for the next day and I was at my wits end. I did another jigsaw with how each rock forms, where they form, and each rock's subcategory. They learned about intrusive and extrusive igneous rocks, clastic and chemical sedimentary rocks, and foliated and nonfoliated metamorphic rocks. It was fun for me because I have a ton of rock samples from my geology field trips so I brought my rocks from home for examples and the kids really liked that. At the end we did a kind of "quiz" where I put up pictures I've taken on field trips and they answered if it was igneous, sedimentary, or metamorphic rock and they had to tell me how they knew.
At this point I was stressed beyond my capacity. After I teach I always meet with my teacher (who is recording me in the back) to talk about how it went. Both days went fine, but with everything else going on beyond teaching I was burned out. I just started crying. My teacher (Brother Benitez) was like, "So, what's going on why are you crying?" and I said, "I don't know!" He was funny. He said, "Ok, you just need to cry, that's great." When I had finally relaxed the girl who was recording me said I did really well and she couldn't think of a thing I could have done better. That made me feel better but I was just exhausted, hence the tears. When I got home I cried some more and Justin thought it was because the lesson went bad, but when I told him it actually went really well he laughed at me. =] I went to my least-favorite-good-for-nothing-really-stupid-I-have-to-take-this mineralogy class and failed my quiz and my lab. It didn't even phase me. I had so many assignments due Wednesday night that I didn't get to because of all my teaching preparation so I had many "0%" showing up on i-learn. I've never just not done an assignment. It was a crazy thing!
Friday could not come soon enough. I was actually really excited to teach the junior high class that day because we learned the rock cycle and the students created their own rock cycles. They had to have each rock type, it's subcategory, the pressures involved in forming that rock, and it had to be labeled and have pictures that showed me the differences between all three rocks and their subcategories. The kids rocked it! After that I gave them sticky notes and they labeled each other's posters with things like "rock type" and "forces" and "subcategory rock." They also wrote things like "missing force" or "missing subcategory" if the group failed to include specific criteria on their posters. It was great! While they made posters I played a rock song I found on youtube. Shae actually gave me the idea for the song. Pretty soon I had them singing, "It started with erosion!!!" and it was a lot of fun.
Other than all the good that happened, I had my first discipline experience. One student was being extremely inappropriate and mean to another student and I cracked down on him. I absolutely hate bullies and I told him I do not tolerate it in my classroom. I think he felt like he could do it because he was testing my limits to see how far he could go. Not far my friend! I made him sit in the back and wouldn't let him participate with the poster activity. I felt bad but it was his choice: "You may choose to participate or you may choose to continue to misbehave in which case you'll sit in the back and I'll ask you not to participate." Teaching with love and logic people!
The teacher of the class, Mr. Storm, was awesome. He was really gracious for letting me take his class for three days, and by the end he said I did very well. He mentioned that he left the classroom (which I had noticed but I didn't think anything of it) because he felt like he didn't need to listen to know what he needed to go back and reteach. That was very encouraging, and my teachers said the same thing. They emphasized that that was a big deal that he felt like he could leave, and overall I did great. It was such a hard week but I learned a lot and this experience has really prepared me for what student teaching will actually be like. Except student teaching will be WAY BETTER because I'll be teaching and THAT'S IT! No additional homework from other stupid classes! Huzzah! I'm so glad I'm done teaching junior high kids the rest of the semester!
Friday night Justin's team played and they barely lost. They played with 6 players and no subs while the other team played with 7 players and like, 4 subs. One of Justin's players wasn't even playing really; he had a cut finger so he couldn't catch or throw or play defense, but it was better to play 6 on 7 than 5 on 7 so...yeah.
After his game Keaton and I went to Ender's Game together. We loved it! I read the book two years ago so I forgot the details which allowed me to enjoy the movie a lot. Keaton got candy and I got popcorn and we shared. It was fun. Thanks Keaton!
Saturday I did some tutoring in the morning, then studied for my mineral I.D. retake test for this Tuesday. This class is a total joke. NOT ONE PERSON got a 90% or better on that test the first time so everyone has to re-take it. She handed everyone's tests back and said, "Don't share your answers with anyone." Yeah right. As soon as she left the room EVERYONE started asking, "What did you get one 18? What did you get on 24?" and so on. I was thinking, "hang on, didn't she just say...?" One of my classmates asked me where my test way -- of course you want to know where MY test is -- I came really close to passing compared to everyone else so of course they want to get answers from me. I lied and said I didn't have it and left. Too much temptation! Honestly, I don't blame my classmates for cheating! The stakes are too high in that class! And they have to worry about their grades for applying to grad school. I told my supervisor at work about it and she said a teacher should never put his/her students in a position to cheat and that's exactly what my teacher did. She ended up finding out about people exchanging answers so she's creating a new test for us to re-take.
Saturday night we watched the men's championship soccer game. Somehow that made us decide we wanted to watch a hockey game when we go to Seattle for Thanksgiving. We're excited!
This weekend was our stake conference. We talked about hastening the work. Justin and I have been doing a lot of indexing. I have a goal to do 1,000 names before December. It is so not hard and our ward has a goal to do 14,000 so we're taking part in that goal as well. Tonight we had friends over for 'breakfast for dinner' and then played games.
Well that was a long rant. Other than all that, we put our Christmas lights up in our family room. We really love our apartment and we'll be sad to leave it next year. Everyone pray that Justin can find a job in Las Vegas! We can use all the help we can get.
We've had a great week! Monday, Trisha invited Justin, Keaton, and me to her house for some Halloween festivities. Trisha fed us rolls and soup and we carved pumpkins and frosted sugar cookies. Travis judged our jack-o-lanterns and cookies and the winners got a prize! Brie and I carved the scariest pumpkin so we won the pumpkin carving contest, and (naturally) Justin and Shae had the best frosted sugar cookies so they also won a prize. We piled into Trisha's truck and dropped a plate off to two people in Trisha's ward. It snowed off and on while we were there. It was a fun night.
Tuesday and Wednesday night we played for semi finals and finals in the rec Ultimate tournament. The team Tuesday night was named "Return of the Jedi." My coach heard them talking a bunch of trash that they were going to win (pa-lease) so we dressed up as Sith Lords. Justin bought me some "face crayon" and I painted a "Darth Maul" look on my face. When we got to the field, the game manager said I wasn't allowed to have paint on my face (it was technically crayon...j/k), so I threw around until everyone saw it (ESPECIALLY the other team) and then went to wash it off. Turns out, face crayon doesn't want to come off very easily. I emerged from the washroom looking like a bear mauled my face! Whatever. Hopefully the other team got the message ;) WE won 15-3.
Wednesday we had our ward party. For Halloween Justin and I dressed up as Ender and Petra from "Ender's Game." Justin loves that book, and I love dressing up, so it was a win-win. Justin made cupcakes for the party that were a hit. My team played in the championship that night and we won. Keaton came to watch me so that was fun. He saw me make a great catch followed by me hitting my head HARD on the grass. I was pretty dizzy after that. It was a great game!
Ender Wiggin (Dragon Army) and Petra Arkanian (Salamander Army)
Almond Joy Cupcakes
Thursday I woke up sick. Of course. I'm always sick. It was pretty lame because Justin and I planned on going to the midnight showing of "Ender's Game" that night. Lame! I slept in, took my mineralogy I.D. test, then slept all day. I went to bed that night at 9 and woke up the next morning at 9! I rested all day Friday as well, skipping all my classes. I'm not going to lie, it was nice! Except for the being sick part. To top it off, not one person passed the mineral I.D. test. Great.
Saturday Justin and I set a goal to do a full fast since we haven't done a full one for a while. Because his birthday is coming up AND because we're part of Red Robin's new Royalty Program, he got a free birthday burger! So we ate to our heart's content. I love the Royal Red Robin burger. Yummmm.
Today I gave the lesson in Relief Society on temple worship and temple covenants. I recently read a talk where a general authority asked past bishops and stake presidents, "If you could go back, what is one thing you would have done differently?" All of them answered they would have focused more on temple covenants and temple worship. Since I'm still relief society president and I don't want to have the same regret, I prepared a lesson on it!
The biggest lesson I got out of studying this topic was this: Whydidn't the past stake presidents and bishops say strengthening marriages and families? Why not strengthening faith in Jesus Christ? Whytemple covenants? I concluded this: because without our temple covenants, our families and our marriages will not be perpetuated beyond this life. Without our temple covenants, faith in Jesus Christ alone will not get us into the Celestial Kingdom. Yes, our families and our Savior are important, but we can't have them after this life without our temple covenants. That's my testimony to you all!
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