One Job Fair Down...One more to Go!

I have returned! This last week has been cRaZy!!! We began by getting around 18 inches of snow on Monday and having school canceled in the middle of the day. The next day school was completely canceled due to the blizzard. We were also supposed to have a teacher fair down in Laramie on Tuesday and Wednesday but it had been postponed until April due to the blizzard that hit most of Wyoming. Wednesday school was on as normally scheduled, however Megan and I were leaving early so we could miss more snow and make it safely to Greeley, CO for a job fair. We got down there safely and were all ready for the job fair to begin Thursday morning. We woke up early so we could get there before a huge crowd of people. However, we missed that boat even though we showed up 1/2 an hour before the fair began. In the lobby of our hotel we met a nice man from Lincoln, NE who was also attending the job fair but as a recruiter for Lincoln Public Schools. We talked with him and he gave us some nice hints about the fair. Once the fair began I went to a lot of districts to sign up for interviews for later that day and Friday. I got signed up for interviews with Elbert School District (Elbert, CO), Colorado Springs School District #11 (Colorado Springs, CO), Thompson School District (Loveland, CO), Poudre Valley School District (Ft. Collins, CO), Fountain/Ft. Carson School District (Fountain/Ft. Carson, CO), and Lincoln Public Schools (Lincoln, NE). When I went to the Lincoln table the man we had met earlier remembered me and even remembered that I was the math teacher in the group! I was very impressed and we chatted for a little while and then I signed up for an interview. I met back up with Megan and Abby (another girl that came with us) and we compared our schedules and school districts that we had interviews with. Then we went and found a quiet corner and set up "camp". We all began researching the districts we had signed up for and ate the lunch we had packed. We would occasionally stop and look outside because there was a horrible blizzard going on. Around 12:30 Megan went back down to the fair and discovered people were packing everything up! She asked around and discovered that the university was closing and the afternoon of the fair was going to be canceled and wouldn't open again until 9am! So we packed all of our stuff up and went back to the hotel. The roads were terrible and it took us about a half hour to get all the way back when it is normally a 10 minute drive! We spent the rest of the evening in the hotel preparing for our interviews the next day and relaxing.
The following day went pretty well, we got in our interviews and we all felt pretty good about them. I found several places that I thought sounded like they would be pretty nice to work at. I am especially interested in Lincoln, NE. This took me by surprise because the only reason I signed up for an interview there was because we had met the recruiter Thursday morning. They have what sounds like a great mentor teacher program, the University of Nebraska is in Lincoln as well so there are a lot of opportunities to extend my education and the school district has a deal going with UNL that takes off half of the cost of classes! Another thing that could help sway me towards Lincoln is that Brandon is considering graduate school at UNL. I guess for now we'll just have to wait and see!

And the search begins

It's been awhile since I've posted. I haven't had a lot going on lately. Last week was my spring break, which I spent at home with my family. I worked on my portfolio and I worked a little at my mom's office. This next week Megan and I are returning to Laramie for a job fair on Tuesday and Wednesday and then we are off to a job fair in Greeley, CO on Thursday and Friday. Hopefully we'll be able to come back with a better idea of where we could end up next year!

It's crunch time!

It's the final week of the quarter for my students, and I must say that this has been an incredibly busy week for me and my students! The school's policy is to say that there is no late work. This ends up translating into the students turning everything in this week, even things from the very first week of the quarter. It is ridiculous and driving me bonkers! I feel like I am always at school grading and helping students complete all the work they had the entire quarter to work on. Tension is running high, I've seen more crying girls and boys fighting than I'll ever want to see. However, I know all of this is just beginning for me. My career is young (and hasn't even started yet) and it is only the end of my first quarter.
I had my first formal observation today with my supervising UW faculty, I was rather nervous at the beginning of the day, but as the day went on I decided that it wasn't going to do me any good to be nervous and I just needed to teach like I normally would if she wasn't going to be there. I think it is a good thing I did that because I got an excellent report!
I gave my students a quiz today, sort of as a final assessment for the quarter and I am so excited to report that overall they did excellently! I had several kids that are usually really low get A's, B's and C's! I'm just so proud that they all studied hard and did so well! I'm glad that there is always something good that I can find that happens even when my weeks are exhausting and super duper busy!

Just for my roommie... :)

As Megan and I were sitting on our couch watching the Academy Awards (aka the Oscar's) she continued to bug me about updating my blog. Apparently, she cannot get enough of me and so she checks my blog every day. I did not realize I was such an exciting person! So this post is dedicated to her:

This last week was pretty exciting. I started taking over in the classroom. I am planning for all of the classes and my mentor leaves me alone in the classroom for most of the day. I believe things are going pretty well, the kids listen to me pretty well and hopefully, are learning a lot. I know that I am!

Megan and I also went home to Laramie this weekend. It was nice to come home and see my family and Grandma and Grandpa were there so I was very excited to get the opportunity to catch up with them. It felt like it had been forever since I had seen them!

Well, I hope this satisfies Megan's appetite for more info on my life! I hope the rest of you enjoyed it as well!

Parent Teacher Conferences

Well, I guess I should probably post, since it has been about a week since the last time I updated my blog... I had a wonderful weekend in Buffalo. I enjoyed my time with my grandpa, and I loved being able to go to my cousin Hazel's basketball game with my uncle James! Hazel played so well!! It was also nice to see Ken, Janelle, Owen, Kirby, Sandra, and Kevin. They all made this a very relaxing and fun weekend!
Today was parent teacher conferences, so there was no school (once again!). It was kind of fun to meet some of my kids' parents. By the end of the day I was doing the conferences all by myself, but only because my mentor, Jeff, had a basketball game he needed to coach. Overall, I think they went pretty well, I was definitely a bit nervous, but I got over that fairly quickly. I think I still have a lot to work on in this area though, but really I have a lot to work on in all the areas! I still love every minute of teaching and the students are definitely the main reason!
I suppose that is about all I have to report...other than I am taking over ALL of the classes this week, so I am a little nervous, but I think things will go fairly smoothly, hopefully, anyway!

Home for the weekend

Hello all! Not a whole lot to report...I got to teach all on my own Friday and Monday! My mentor's son was sick this past Friday, so he had to stay home with him and then today his counter tops were coming in and someone needed to be there to get them. (They are remodeling their kitchen, not as extensive as our remodel, but still quite the chore!) The kids were pretty good for me, they're a bit more chatty than they are with him, but overall they're really good kids.



I made a trip home this weekend and had a pretty exhausting time, but overall it was nice to come home. I definitely miss my family the most! Here are a few pictures of me and my papa. I'm really glad I could make it home for his 50th birthday!

25 Random facts about me!

I was tagged on Facebook and decided you all may enjoy this as well...

Rules: Once you've been tagged, you are supposed to write a note with 25 random things, facts, habits, or goals about you. At the end, choose 25 people to be tagged. You have to tag the person who tagged you. If I tagged you, it's because I want to know more about you.

1. I have been mistaken as a junior high student twice in the past three weeks

2. I believe that junior high students are absolutely wonderful!

3. I love being out on my own, it makes coming home that much better!

4. I have never been to DisneyLand or DisneyWorld

5. That will change on approximately March 9th!!!

6. I went sneakin' to the beacon on friday and i was flipped upside down 3 different times

7. When I was a kid I used to go out and catch grasshoppers in the field and keep them as pets

8. I am addicted to too many tv shows

9. My roommate and I almost always make a home cooked meal every night

10. I think that parents who dress their children up for pagents are abusive

11. I love lamb chops with all my heart!

12. I hate picking favorites, except for a favorite color.

13. My favorite color is green, I even remember the day I first started liking the color green...how many people can say that?

14. I started making my bed everyday so that I could be a better roommate

15. My roommate and I fixed our furnace by changing the filter, now we have a very toasty apartment which is pleasant to live in. (By the way, this wasn't your typical furnace, it required a basket filter, which you can only buy at specialty furnace stores)

16. OOOOOO WEEE this one is my favorite number

17. I love making playlists on playlist.com

18. Without me, my roommate would be the stinky student teacher

19. I enjoy updating my blog especially with ridiculous pictures of me taken on photobooth

20. While trying to come up with random facts about me, my roommate and i sat in our laundry baskets and raced to the kitchen wall

21. When I was little I always wanted to drive, and then when I got to I thought it was one of the greatest things ever....

22. I still absolutely love to drive, it clears my mind

23. I once traded my favorite stuffed animal with my brother, then I cried until I got the trade reversed.

24. My parents are my best friends

25. When I was a little girl I used to always play school with my stuffed animals.....I ALWAYS taught math

I tag....Megan, Janelle, Kenny, Krista, Andrea, Mark, Danny, and Yenni!

Babysitting Owen

Yesterday Kenny, Janelle and Owen came down to Casper for a shopping trip. Kenny and Janelle had arranged to have me babysit Owen while they went to lunch and the mall. I, of course, excitedly agreed! Owen has grown and changed so much since the last time I saw him. Here are a few pictures we took throughout the day.






























Owen, Megan and I all had a wonderful time together! I hope Kenny and Janelle had fun with the afternoon too!

The Start of Week #3

I have yet to go to a whole week of school! The first week we had a half day on Monday, last week we didn't have school at all on Monday. This week we were supposed to have our first full week of school, and then today we (my roommate and I) were informed that school was canceled due to high winds and low temperatures. Now, Megan and I are left to figure out what to do for the rest of the day. We have plans to run some errands and go swimming and to have some fun! I haven't posted any new pictures lately, and Natrona County has given me a macbook to use throughout the semester, so here are a few pictures from the program PhotoBooth.

Ending Week #2

Week two has been wonderful. It was a short week due to Martin Luther King Jr. Day (or Equality Day, as it is known in WY), so this week has flown by! I can't believe that tomorrow is Friday already! I went home for the long weekend and I got to see my friends and my family. It was nice to see everyone again and just relax because my time to do that is quickly coming to an end! It has been a pretty eventful week, even though it has been short. I got to teach the lesson for the pre-algebra classes yesterday. I must say that I definitely improved a lot the more I taught it, which makes me feel bad for my 1st period class, poor kids had to suffer through my inexperience and lack of expertise! They seemed to understand the concept (sequences) much better by the end of the period though, and my 7th period class kicked sequences's butt! Today was a pretty good day, I got to go up to one of the high schools and do some observations. It amazed me how different high school kids are from junior high kids! I mean, I knew they were different but I've just gotten so used to how active my students are that it was weird to go into the high school classes and see how quiet and passive the students are! It definitely made me miss my students, I hadn't realized I had became so attached to them. They are wonderful kids and I really don't think I can get enough time with them! Although, a few of them made me feel pretty good when I came back this afternoon and they had noticed that I was not there this morning. Tomorrow should be an exciting day for me and the students. The kids all got to make paper airplanes today so they can fly them down the hall tomorrow and then we'll find the mean, median, and mode of their flights! It should be fun to see all the different planes and the kids will really enjoy getting to throw them. I love that we do activities that the kids enjoy and learn a lot from all at the same time. I suppose that is about all I have about this week. So, until next time!

The first half of the first week

I've finally started student teaching!! I've officially had students for two and a half days! Monday was a half day, so parents could come in and have conferences with teachers about goal setting and any other questions they may have. I got to teach my first class yesterday! In the morning my mentor and I team taught the first two periods of the day. He coaches 9th grade girls basketball and he had to go to Cheyenne for a game so he left about noon and left the classroom to me in the afternoon. We don't have many afternoon classes though, our planning period is from 12-12:44 and then we have lunch from 12:44-1:14 and then we have our 7th period class (which is pre-algebra) until about 2:00 and from 2-2:30 there is a connections class where the students read for 30 minutes and then school is out! My mentor had requested a substitute for the time that he was gone so I was not alone in the room, but I taught the lesson, at least until the lockdown! It had been a very long time since I had been involved in a lockdown and I wasn't completely sure of what to do, but I did what I remembered my teachers doing and had the students fill in the rest. It worked out pretty well and the students behaved too, so all in all I felt like it was a pretty successful day, even though we did not get through everything that we needed to. By the end of the day today I think that I have about 1/2 of my 115 students's names figured out, which means I still have a ways to go. I do alright until they move around, then I get confused. Hopefully I will get the other half by the end of the week and I don't forget any over the long 3 day weekend! That is about all that I have to report for now, but I'll make sure to keep you posted if anything else exciting happens. I believe I'm teaching some portions of the lessons tomorrow and probably Friday as well, so if anything exciting happens I'll make sure to write about it!

Starting off a New Year

I hope everyone has had a wonderful new year so far! Mine has been pretty good, but most of it has been spent packing, moving, and unpacking. That's right, I've completed my move to Casper and I'm completely settled. I still don't know my way around very well yet, but I'm sure that will come with some time. I can get to a gas station, a grocery store, walmart, and my school, what else does a girl need, right? My roommate and I spent yesterday getting settled and putting cable into our bedroom, now we can watch tv in the bedroom or in the living room. It was a pretty easy fix too, and we did it without any help from any boys, we were very proud of ourselves.
I start school on Tuesday, so I still have a couple days to learn my way around Casper a little more.
My plans so far for my last couple days of Christmas break include relaxing, sledding, lunch with a friend from my freshman year, and a tour of the city. Hopefully I'll learn a lot more on my tour!

Christmas Break!

Well, It has been awhile since I have updated. I am now officially done with the fall semester. I finished my last final on Wednesday and have been on Christmas break ever since! It feels great! Dad has been very kind to let me come and hang out at his school for the last two days. I have been helping one of his teachers in what they call the "math lair". I've been working with students from 1st to 6th grade and I am having an absolute blast! The kids are so sweet, fun to work with, and super smart! They have all captured my heart and I am super excited for January to start so I can have students of my own to get to know and teach.

Washington & Thanksgiving

I had a WONDERFUL time in Washington. Megan and I were busy the entire weekend, but I have to say it was definitely worth it. The game was such a good game and a bunch of fun to watch! Here's a picture of me, Megan and her roommate Kelsey at the game:I also had a pretty good Thanksgiving break, I say pretty good because I spent the majority of it working on my unit plan that is due this Tuesday, luckily I just about have that finished now; all that is left is a few more thoughts in my paper :).

I can't believe that it is already the last week of classes, this semester has flown by, I'm not quite sure where it went!

I also got to meet my mentor teacher on last Monday. I have to say that I am very excited for student teaching and I think that I will get along very well with my mentor. He seems about as excited to have a student teacher as I am to be one!

Well, I think that is about all I have to report! I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving!

I'm almost outta here!!

I am so excited to be on my way to Washington...I've had a countdown going for awhile now...but I leave tomorrow!!!! I've borrowed a picture of Megan from her boyfriend's trip to WA, I'll have my own soon enough :)

I also realized that I only have 12 classes until the end of the semester...how crazy is that????

What am I going to do with my life?

I have been thinking a lot lately about what I am going to do with the rest of my life. My college career is quickly approaching an end. I can't believe how fast the last four years have flown by! It seems like yesterday that I was moving into the dorms my freshman year anxious for a new adventure to begin, and now I have to start packing to move to Casper for my last semester of college. Don't get me wrong, I am very excited for the adventures of student teaching and graduating and going out into the real world, but I am also terrified of what is to come! As of late I have been giving a lot of thought into getting my masters. Right now, I think I want to teach for a couple years, in order to get my feet on the ground and to get some experience out in the real world. When I go back I think I would like to get a post-bacc degree in elementary education and a masters in curriculum and instruction. This, I believe, would allow me to be like a math "specialist" in elementary schools where I would help teachers and students alike with math. I am meeting with one of my professors to discuss the masters program at UW and to make sure that this is what I would need to complete in order to do what I want. I believe it is just because I've been discussing it with my dad and it sounds like that is what I would need. We'll just see. My meeting is next Tuesday...so I'll find out soon enough! Well, I suppose that is all for now!

Road Trip 2008

This last week my friend Joshua came back to Laramie to visit, and find an apartment in Denver (where he will be moving in a few short weeks!!) Josh and I met in the dorms my freshman year. We had a very competitive friendship at the beginning. Another boy on our floor brought a fooseball table and Joshua and I had quite the competition going on between us (along with Cassie and I and Josh and Cassie), but Joshua and I were also an unstoppable team when it came to fooseball. I have so many fond memories with him, from hours upon hours of fooseball playing for chocolate milk (our favorite!) to the most amazing trip of my life.

(From left to right: Joshua, me, Cassie, and Jeremy)

Joshua graduated from UW in May 2008 with a degree in Wildlife and Fisheries Management, and to help him go out with a BANG we (my friends Jeremy, Cassie, Joshua and I) took a road trip from Laramie all the way to Merrimack, New Hampshire. We took about 9 days to get to NH and then spent about a week there before Cassie and I began the long trip home (which we completed in 3 days, not including a day of rest with her Grandma in Iowa).

The trip began early on May 12 as we headed out on our adventure to our first stop, Rapid City, SD.

There we went to Reptile Gardens (Jeremy's pick) and Mount Rushmore.

After we camped out we got up early the next morning and headed off to Minneapolis, Minnesota. Joshua's girlfriend is from Rochester (which is about an hour south of Minneapolis), so we stayed with her and her parents.

(Cassie, me, Meghan, Joshua, and Jeremy)
We spent a day at the Mall of America and then we were off on our way to Chicago, Illinois. Before we got to Chicago, we made a stop in Wisconsin Dells, Wisconsin.

There we went to a Ripley's Believe It or Not museum (Josh's pick), which was interesting...to say the least.

We also spent some time walking around and enjoying the beautiful weather and the Wisconsin River!!

After a few hours we continued on our way to Chicago where we camped out in Joshua's uncle's back yard in Arlington Heights (which is a suburb of Chicago).

(Jeremy and me)

The next day we got up early and caught a train to downtown Chicago (my pick).

We spent the day exploring Chicago and played a little at the Navy Pier.

(A ferris wheel at the Navy Pier in Chicago)

After our adventures in Chicago, and eating a LOT of Chicago-style pizza (so yummy!) we were on our way to Sandusky, Ohio. (Don't worry, he didn't ride the entire way to Sandusky like that!)

(We had to buy firewood in Ohio, this was the only way it would fit in the car!)

Sandusky is a little town about twenty miles from a giant amusement park called Cedar Point (Cassie's pick).
Cedar Point has about 17 roller coasters, including one of the fastest roller coasters in the WORLD!!! This roller coaster takes you up 420 feet at 120mph.

(Cassie and Jeremy after riding the Top Dragster)

I'm sure it was terrifying. I was not brave enough to go on this particular ride, but Cassie and Jeremy were completely up for it! However, Joshua and I had a good laugh while we were waiting for them to ride; we saw a grown man come off of the roller coaster searching frantically for a restroom...that's when Josh noticed the man had peed his pants. Needless to say, that confirmed my decision in not riding THAT roller coaster! We spent as long as we possibly could at Cedar Point before we got rained out...but despite the rainy weather we had a wonderful time!

(Enjoying an elephant ear at Cedar Point)

The following day we ventured off to Niagara Falls, New York. We got lost a lot in New York, but it wasn't all bad, this is something we saw while we were lost in New York:

This was one of my favorite spots on the road trip. The falls are so powerful and absolutely beautiful! It is definitely something I would recommend to EVERYONE to see at least once in their lifetime. We went on the Maid of the Mist, which is a boat ride that takes you as close to the falls as you can physically get in a boat before the current is too strong.

We were all a little exhausted from camping out on the ground in our tent, and we had a little extra cash in our budget, so we decided to rent a cabin in Niagara Falls. It was a cute, comfy little cabin and definitely worth the extra bucks!

We definitely picked the right day to go to Niagara Falls too, because it just so happened to be a Canadian holiday so Canada was going to shoot off fireworks over the falls that night. What a spectacular thing to get to see!

After Niagara Falls we ventured off to Killingsworth, Connecticut where Josh's uncle lives in his gorgeous house and two private lakes (this is also where Joshua spends his summers).

Now this was luxury! We spent a few days relaxing and fishing on the lakes before we headed off to Merrimack, New Hampshire (where Jeremy is from).

(A few of the animals we caught in Connecticut, a turtle with three legs, blue gill aka sunfish, and a duckling)

We got to Merrimack late because we spent most of the day fishing, but nevertheless Jeremy's family stayed up to meet and greet us all, even though his brothers had school the next day! However, our trips and adventures didn't end in Merrimack. We took several day trips. One day we took the subway down to Boston, MA. There, we wandered the streets of downtown Boston, went to the Boston Aquarium and caught an IMAX movie (where we were mistaken for high school students :P on several different occasions! haha!)

Another day trip we drove all the way to Waterbury, Vermont to go to the Ben & Jerry's factory. I must say that this trip was definitely well worth it! It was only 3 dollars for a full tour and free ice cream samples!! I love Ben & Jerry's Ice Cream, and I have to say that this adventure only reinforced that, and fresh Ben & Jerry's is even better then the stuff I get in WY (which is hard for me to believe!).

We also took a day trip to a place in New Hampshire called Franconia Falls, which was a set of waterfalls that had turned into a natural water slide. It was absolutely beautiful! You hike about three miles in before you reach the falls and then it was time to play!

(Cassie, Mike and I hiking to the falls. Mike hanging off of a bridge on the hike to Franconia Falls)

(Now, remember it was still May and the winter runoff was still going, so the water was FREEZING and the current was super strong!) We were warned by a ranger to not go off the falls because the current was too strong and the water was too cold, but that didn't stop us! It was a beautiful day (probably somewhere in the 80's), so there were quite a few people at the falls, but no one was going down the falls.

The boys decided that they were going to give it a try, so they all tried it at least once (we also took Jeremy's little brother Nathan, and their friends Mike and Chris). Everyone made it down, and people were pretty shocked.

(The boys and their battle wounds from the falls)

It was a common occurence for them to get sucked back into the back current and get stuck, which was very frightening, but we always pulled them out. I finally decided that I was going to go down, I swam in high school so I figured I could make it out okay, but the water was so cold and the current was so strong that I was terrified. I would get ready to go down and then back out, then I'd be ready to go again, and then I would get scared...AGAIN, this went on for at least 20 minutes and I definitely had a crowd watching, especially since I was the only girl to even THINK about going down! I finally went, and as I was pulled out (I got stuck in the back current as well) people began cheering and clapping for me.
I must admit it was a bit embarrassing, but so much fun! However, I was completely frozen and it took me a long time to get warmed up again, and I was only in the water for a matter of seconds, probably not even a full minute!

(Trying to warm up after going down the waterfall)

We spent some more time in Merrimack, but Joshua had to get back to Connecticut so he could start making some money and try to figure out what he was going to do with his life (he was waiting to hear back from the U.S. Coast Gaurd, which didn't work out in the end). So, Jeremy, Cassie, and I had several more adventures in Merrimack, NH including (but not limited to) going bowling, going candlepin bowling (there is a difference!) and swimming in a river! After about a week in New Hampshire, Cassie and I were on our way back to Laramie. It was hard to say goodbye to all the wonderful people we had met and spent some of the best weeks of our lives with, but it was also nice to get home. We made the trip back pretty quick. The first day we drove all the way to Cleveland, OH where we stayed in a hotel, got up early the next morning and drove to Des Moines, Iowa to stay with Cass's grandma. We stayed there an extra day (to help break up the trip and to spend time with Cassie's grandma and aunt) and we were spoiled rotten! From Des Moines we drove all the way back to Laramie. So, we had 3 pretty long days of driving, but it was definitely worth it! I hadn't realized how much I had missed Wyoming until we crossed that border! That feeling was amazing, and I knew then that I was home :)