(no subject)
Oh man, so much has happened since I last gave a proper update. I kind of don't even know where to begin.
The last time I updated, I was in my 5th week of my first 7 week split assignment at Crestview Elementary in 3rd grade. That placement went fantastic! I loved the kids and the school as well as both my cooperating teacher and the entire 3rd grade team. I was very hesitant to leave when the 7 weeks were over, because I feared that I would constantly compare my new classroom to my 3rd grade classroom. Boy, was I wrong! I moved over to North Ridge Elementary in the middle of October. Initially, I was supposed to be in an ESL classroom, but at the last minute I was switched over to a regular-ed. kindergarten room. I think I was completely in love with my kindergarten babies at the end of the first day. My cooperating teacher [at North Ridge] and I, Mrs. Garza, got along so well and had very similar personalities. I definitely plan to go back and visit my students at both schools quite frequently as this semester and the rest of the entire school year progress.
In early November, I had my Senior pictures done by a fantastic photographer named Lissa Anglin. She did a fantastic job and the invitations she made for me (with design help by my beloved Emma!) are gorgeous:
They're 4X6 magnets. Getting them done that way, as opposed to paper invitations with printed pictures included, was so much easier on my bank account and I've gotten great feedback on all of them so far!
I had a fantastic 22nd birthday. It was on a Tuesday this year, so I got to spend the entire day with 20 incredible kindergarten babies who made sure that I had a great day. For math that day, we got to make noodle necklaces (the concept for the week was creating and duplicating patterns and our letter for the week was the letter N so it worked for both Language Arts and Math). At the end of the day, the class surprised me with an incredible cupcake cake (that tasted just as good as it looked!) and when I got home I had a small dinner with some friends and my sister and was presented with an epic Harry Potter cake! It was a great birthday and I'm glad I got to spend it with so many amazing people.
Deathly Hallows was fantastic, of course. I've seen it 3 times so far - and I definitely plan to see it several more times. I've seen every Harry Potter movie at midnight in theater number 9 at Tinseltown since November 16, 2001 when I saw Sorcerer's Stone. It was weird to think that this was the very last time I'll ever be there for a midnight HP release (I'll be at LeakyCon for part 2). My sister and I got to the theater at around 4:00pm that afternoon. Not long after we got there, a girl sat beside us with her guy friend. She was on her iPhone and she kept looking at me. Then she held up her phone and said "IS THAT YOU?!" and it was me on her Facebook feed! It turns out that she was a huge MuggleNet fan and had added us all to her FB way back in the day. During the 8 hours that we were sitting there, we all became great friends and we hang out a lot now. Such a small world!
Last week I took James, Jenna, Erika, and Lucas down to the ITV News Room and we got to Skype with Emma. Our school likes to expose the students to a variety of countries and cultures (the population is very diverse at our school) and they tape Skype sessions to air on the morning news every other week. My kids LOVED it. They asked her all sorts of adorable questions (like "How close are you to the North Pole?") and Emma fell in love with them right away. For the rest of the week after our interview with her aired, my students would talk about her as if they knew her. We even got to try some Belgian chocolate that Emma sent to me during my going-away party on Friday. Such a fun experience!
Things with Matt and I are on-again. I just have more feelings for him than I do for Austin (who I'm still really good friends with and who I still talk to frequently!) and I definitely think it's something we need to try again. If it doesn't work out and I end up hurt in the end, then I can't say that I wasn't warned. But at least this way, I can look back with no regrets.
As I said in a previous entry - I'm officially done with college! It's a strange feeling and I still don't think it's quite set in yet. I'm not sure that it will until I sign a contract on my very first job. After our end-of-the-year celebration for current student teachers yesterday, it was time for the 52nd Annual Carol of the Lights and my last one ever as a Texas Tech student. Unfortunately, I had a migraine and some other things happened and so I didn't end up going..but here are some pictures taken at the event anyway.
Things with RupertGrint.net are going fantastic! Emma (the one who works for the site..not emmataylorr) and I got to talk to Rupert for a quote for a site article that we're currently working on. That was incredibly surreal. All of the girls working on that site are incredibly sweet and very dedicated to the Grint family and the site as a whole. I love everything about it so far! I'm also getting back into helping Brendan with MM. I told him I was going to start it ages ago, but with school and everything else - it got put on the back-burner. I have plenty of time now though! I'm excited to get it back up and running and even more excited about getting to talk to Brendan more often. I miss him so much. I also don't moderate for hp_cr anymore. That was a choice that I made last week and I'm glad that I made it. Trying to juggle 3 websites with everything going on in the real world was a tough task - and I definitely think I made the right choice as far as which one to stop working on/for. Although I'm sure many of the people reading this are expecting it, I'm not really going to say too much about the drama. Does it bother me that a group of people that don't know me and have never met me hate me and say all kinds of terrible things about me? Not really, primarily because none of them really know me..but if talking about me makes them feel better then that's okay too. For the most part, it's pretty much been the same comments by the same people that it has been all along - so there's really no point in getting into it. But I will say that I'm still pretty pissed about the whole racist thing. The three people that spread that nasty lie (and yes, it is most definitely a lie) are disgusting. Nobody had any right to bring up my students or my career - especially since none of the involved people know anything about either one. What bothers me even more, I think, is that even after Patrick (who was there when the chat took place) set the record straight and showed that nothing even remotely close to what was reported was actually true...no attempt to get the truth out there was ever made. I can't say that I'm surprised because those people don't seem like the type to ever admit that they were wrong about something, but that would've been nice - especially since calling someone a racist is such a huge deal.
I deleted my old Tumblr - but I have a new one that I'd be happy to give to you if any of my f-listers want it. I also changed my privacy settings on Twitter and FB and AIM and all of that good stuff. Let's see..what else? Oh! Emma and I have found some fantastic roommates for LeakyCon. I'm really just ready for July to be here. I'll land in Orlando at around 11am on the 12th and I'll have a few hours to kill before Emma gets there. I've got a lot of other friends going as well - so I think it'll be the perfect way to end the series. 220 days is a long time and I think it'll seem even longer now that I'm done with school. My sister and I are going to the NKOTBSB tour in June of next year. They're coming back to Texas after 9 long years - so we just couldn't pass the opportunity up. Going to that concert and going back to Orlando will make summer 2011 almost exactly the same as summer 2010 (BSB concert in June - Orlando in July).
I can't think of anything that I've forgotten...or at least nothing major. I hope all of you on my f-list are doing well and that you're as excited for the Christmas season as I am.
This year went by so fast! I know that I, for one, can't wait to see what next year has in store for me and for all of us. I probably won't do a proper update for awhile - so I hope you all have a fantastic Christmas and an incredible New Year. Happy Holidays! ♥
The last time I updated, I was in my 5th week of my first 7 week split assignment at Crestview Elementary in 3rd grade. That placement went fantastic! I loved the kids and the school as well as both my cooperating teacher and the entire 3rd grade team. I was very hesitant to leave when the 7 weeks were over, because I feared that I would constantly compare my new classroom to my 3rd grade classroom. Boy, was I wrong! I moved over to North Ridge Elementary in the middle of October. Initially, I was supposed to be in an ESL classroom, but at the last minute I was switched over to a regular-ed. kindergarten room. I think I was completely in love with my kindergarten babies at the end of the first day. My cooperating teacher [at North Ridge] and I, Mrs. Garza, got along so well and had very similar personalities. I definitely plan to go back and visit my students at both schools quite frequently as this semester and the rest of the entire school year progress.
In early November, I had my Senior pictures done by a fantastic photographer named Lissa Anglin. She did a fantastic job and the invitations she made for me (with design help by my beloved Emma!) are gorgeous:
They're 4X6 magnets. Getting them done that way, as opposed to paper invitations with printed pictures included, was so much easier on my bank account and I've gotten great feedback on all of them so far!
I had a fantastic 22nd birthday. It was on a Tuesday this year, so I got to spend the entire day with 20 incredible kindergarten babies who made sure that I had a great day. For math that day, we got to make noodle necklaces (the concept for the week was creating and duplicating patterns and our letter for the week was the letter N so it worked for both Language Arts and Math). At the end of the day, the class surprised me with an incredible cupcake cake (that tasted just as good as it looked!) and when I got home I had a small dinner with some friends and my sister and was presented with an epic Harry Potter cake! It was a great birthday and I'm glad I got to spend it with so many amazing people.
Deathly Hallows was fantastic, of course. I've seen it 3 times so far - and I definitely plan to see it several more times. I've seen every Harry Potter movie at midnight in theater number 9 at Tinseltown since November 16, 2001 when I saw Sorcerer's Stone. It was weird to think that this was the very last time I'll ever be there for a midnight HP release (I'll be at LeakyCon for part 2). My sister and I got to the theater at around 4:00pm that afternoon. Not long after we got there, a girl sat beside us with her guy friend. She was on her iPhone and she kept looking at me. Then she held up her phone and said "IS THAT YOU?!" and it was me on her Facebook feed! It turns out that she was a huge MuggleNet fan and had added us all to her FB way back in the day. During the 8 hours that we were sitting there, we all became great friends and we hang out a lot now. Such a small world!
Last week I took James, Jenna, Erika, and Lucas down to the ITV News Room and we got to Skype with Emma. Our school likes to expose the students to a variety of countries and cultures (the population is very diverse at our school) and they tape Skype sessions to air on the morning news every other week. My kids LOVED it. They asked her all sorts of adorable questions (like "How close are you to the North Pole?") and Emma fell in love with them right away. For the rest of the week after our interview with her aired, my students would talk about her as if they knew her. We even got to try some Belgian chocolate that Emma sent to me during my going-away party on Friday. Such a fun experience!
Things with Matt and I are on-again. I just have more feelings for him than I do for Austin (who I'm still really good friends with and who I still talk to frequently!) and I definitely think it's something we need to try again. If it doesn't work out and I end up hurt in the end, then I can't say that I wasn't warned. But at least this way, I can look back with no regrets.
As I said in a previous entry - I'm officially done with college! It's a strange feeling and I still don't think it's quite set in yet. I'm not sure that it will until I sign a contract on my very first job. After our end-of-the-year celebration for current student teachers yesterday, it was time for the 52nd Annual Carol of the Lights and my last one ever as a Texas Tech student. Unfortunately, I had a migraine and some other things happened and so I didn't end up going..but here are some pictures taken at the event anyway.
Things with RupertGrint.net are going fantastic! Emma (the one who works for the site..not emmataylorr) and I got to talk to Rupert for a quote for a site article that we're currently working on. That was incredibly surreal. All of the girls working on that site are incredibly sweet and very dedicated to the Grint family and the site as a whole. I love everything about it so far! I'm also getting back into helping Brendan with MM. I told him I was going to start it ages ago, but with school and everything else - it got put on the back-burner. I have plenty of time now though! I'm excited to get it back up and running and even more excited about getting to talk to Brendan more often. I miss him so much. I also don't moderate for hp_cr anymore. That was a choice that I made last week and I'm glad that I made it. Trying to juggle 3 websites with everything going on in the real world was a tough task - and I definitely think I made the right choice as far as which one to stop working on/for. Although I'm sure many of the people reading this are expecting it, I'm not really going to say too much about the drama. Does it bother me that a group of people that don't know me and have never met me hate me and say all kinds of terrible things about me? Not really, primarily because none of them really know me..but if talking about me makes them feel better then that's okay too. For the most part, it's pretty much been the same comments by the same people that it has been all along - so there's really no point in getting into it. But I will say that I'm still pretty pissed about the whole racist thing. The three people that spread that nasty lie (and yes, it is most definitely a lie) are disgusting. Nobody had any right to bring up my students or my career - especially since none of the involved people know anything about either one. What bothers me even more, I think, is that even after Patrick (who was there when the chat took place) set the record straight and showed that nothing even remotely close to what was reported was actually true...no attempt to get the truth out there was ever made. I can't say that I'm surprised because those people don't seem like the type to ever admit that they were wrong about something, but that would've been nice - especially since calling someone a racist is such a huge deal.
I deleted my old Tumblr - but I have a new one that I'd be happy to give to you if any of my f-listers want it. I also changed my privacy settings on Twitter and FB and AIM and all of that good stuff. Let's see..what else? Oh! Emma and I have found some fantastic roommates for LeakyCon. I'm really just ready for July to be here. I'll land in Orlando at around 11am on the 12th and I'll have a few hours to kill before Emma gets there. I've got a lot of other friends going as well - so I think it'll be the perfect way to end the series. 220 days is a long time and I think it'll seem even longer now that I'm done with school. My sister and I are going to the NKOTBSB tour in June of next year. They're coming back to Texas after 9 long years - so we just couldn't pass the opportunity up. Going to that concert and going back to Orlando will make summer 2011 almost exactly the same as summer 2010 (BSB concert in June - Orlando in July).
I can't think of anything that I've forgotten...or at least nothing major. I hope all of you on my f-list are doing well and that you're as excited for the Christmas season as I am.
This year went by so fast! I know that I, for one, can't wait to see what next year has in store for me and for all of us. I probably won't do a proper update for awhile - so I hope you all have a fantastic Christmas and an incredible New Year. Happy Holidays! ♥