Teaching, Job Searching, Kidlets and Friends
So, random unrelated stuff...
On Friday I babysat for the first time. Chase (4) and Faith (6) came over my house. Fun was had by all. They can't swim, but it was a hot day so we decided to fill up a large bucket with water, and we all took turns sticking our heads in it. We also played "find the kitties" (cuz both of the felines of the house were hiding under beds for much of the day), and jumped on the trampoline, and made some crafty things, and played dress up, and made a "Nikki sundae". The Nikki sundae was actually 4 scoops of ice cream with chocolate sauce in a large bowl that we all shared, with our separate spoons, and pretended I was part of the sundae. (They wanted to actually put ice cream and chocolate sauce on my head, but I did not approve of this plan.) Things went pretty well for my first time I think, tho there were definitely awkward moments, and times when I think I could have made better decisions (my goodness do you need to make fast decisions with little ones in your care!). Ah wells, I'll be babysitting them regularly from now on during the summers, so there's still time to get the hang of it. (In fact I just got a call from the mom and she wants me to come to their house on Thursday...yay!)
Yesterday Astrid, Annie, Wren and I hung out in Providence for a while. We ate at Johnny Rockets and spent some time in the clothing shops downtown, then Astrid left to go to some party with her boyfriend while Wren and Annie and I continued to hang out. We went to a funky metal/punk/alternative rock music store that I didn't even know existed (recommended by Wren, as is probably already quite obvious to anyone who knows him). I didn't get anything cuz I'm not too good with recognizing names and such (hence why most of my music is stolen from my dad or purchased online, where you can listen to it first), but it was a cool atmosphere so I enjoyed it much. Then we just drove around aimlessly, followed by walking around aimlessly and just talking for awhile on a bench by the water. That, I believe, should be done more often. Simply enjoying the company of friends, without any real plan as to what to do. It was...special. And Providence is a great city that I haven't explored nearly enough considering I'm 21 and have lived in this state my entire life (the first year of it being in the heart of Providence itself, but not that I'd remember that anyway). One of my goals for this summer is to explore it more. And I think I've done a pretty good job with that so far. Huzzah for accomplishing one's goals! I outta go clubbing at some point too, I've always wanted to see what that's like (and I'm legal now so...yeah). I should drag some of my pseudo-gothy friends to Club Hell (the gothy nightclub). Where they kick you out if you're not dressed goth enough, hehe.
This coming week, other then the usual night classes and hanging out with friends here and there, will be mostly about preparing for ACTSA (All Children's Theater Summer Academy). I have much more say in things this year than I used to, which is uber awesome. Since ACTSA starts next week, this week we have to decorate the classrooms and the courtyard thingamabobber at Vartan Gregorian, the school where it's held this year. Mom and my coworker Anthony and I went to Salvation Army today to get some toys and other random things for the courtyard. Some plastic trucks, pillows, stuffed animals, one of those ginormous foam puzzle piece things, a fake tree, a kiddie pool, maracas, spoons, and a horse saddle. I heart Salvation Army, you can get everything there! We're gonna hang the spoons from the fake tree by yarn so they will jingle in the wind and the kids can hit them with sticks to make noises (my idea, quite proud of it), and the horse saddle is for pretend play. The ECC has one that they put on a log so the kids can pretend they're riding a horse, which I think is pretty cool and we might try to find ourselves a log and do that at ACTSA. I hope we can get a swing too (to hang from one of the real trees out there).
Anyway, I won't tell you every last little detail, but we're gonna be shopping and decorating all week and I'm having so much fun with this it's not even funny. At some point Heather, the teacher I'm working with for the first week of ACTSA (who is really cool) wants to meet me at a cafe or somelike so we can discuss the curriculum and plan things. You'll definitely be hearing more from me about this as the summer goes on, cuz I love my job to bits and it's even more exciting this time around with the extra responsibilities and say in how things go.
I've been keeping my eye out for a little while now for a job for the upcoming Field Work Term. I just don't want to be stuck job searching during midterm week again (ugh). I've run into some appealing options. My top choices thus far (all winter internship positions) are... designing programs that incorportate the arts to help children with various disabilities (Jersey), helping young adults with mental retardation and developmental disabilities figure out what they want to do for a living and search/apply for jobs (Jersey), and "educational outreach assistant" at a youth theater in Boston. Educational outreach assistant would mean mostly helping with the administrative/planning work for the educational sector of the theater (drama classes, after-school programs and the like). Could be interesting, but it seems a lot like what I'm already doing, and I might want more variety. There's also the rather interesting option of being a cartoon character at Six Flags Great Adventure, but that's in south Jersey and I don't think I want to be so far from my NJ friends. I'll leave it on the list for a little longer tho, mostly for laughs.
Quite honestly I think the 2nd one intrigues me the most, even tho it's probably the least directly related to early childhood classroom teaching. I really like to figure people out (their personalities, their strengths and weaknesses, etc), and telling people what jobs they might be good at is something I've always enjoyed (and frequently do with my friends). It's also with people with developmental disabilities and mental retardation (special ed much?). Not to mention that I'm finding this searching process oddly fun, so I think it would be pretty neat to be doing that as a job.
So the job searching is going pretty smoothly I think, but housing is a completely different story. I have no idea how the hell I'm gonna find housing so short-term, that isn't ridiculously expensive or in a really seedy location. But the good news is I don't have to worry about that for quite a while (especially considering I should probably figure out what state I'm going to be living in first). While I'm on this topic though, does anyone know anyone (who isn't creepy) who might be willing to rent out a room in NJ or Boston for January and most of February? Or maybe just a random bed (with access to a bathroom and fridge and stove of course)?
Well that is that. Byebye for now.
On Friday I babysat for the first time. Chase (4) and Faith (6) came over my house. Fun was had by all. They can't swim, but it was a hot day so we decided to fill up a large bucket with water, and we all took turns sticking our heads in it. We also played "find the kitties" (cuz both of the felines of the house were hiding under beds for much of the day), and jumped on the trampoline, and made some crafty things, and played dress up, and made a "Nikki sundae". The Nikki sundae was actually 4 scoops of ice cream with chocolate sauce in a large bowl that we all shared, with our separate spoons, and pretended I was part of the sundae. (They wanted to actually put ice cream and chocolate sauce on my head, but I did not approve of this plan.) Things went pretty well for my first time I think, tho there were definitely awkward moments, and times when I think I could have made better decisions (my goodness do you need to make fast decisions with little ones in your care!). Ah wells, I'll be babysitting them regularly from now on during the summers, so there's still time to get the hang of it. (In fact I just got a call from the mom and she wants me to come to their house on Thursday...yay!)
Yesterday Astrid, Annie, Wren and I hung out in Providence for a while. We ate at Johnny Rockets and spent some time in the clothing shops downtown, then Astrid left to go to some party with her boyfriend while Wren and Annie and I continued to hang out. We went to a funky metal/punk/alternative rock music store that I didn't even know existed (recommended by Wren, as is probably already quite obvious to anyone who knows him). I didn't get anything cuz I'm not too good with recognizing names and such (hence why most of my music is stolen from my dad or purchased online, where you can listen to it first), but it was a cool atmosphere so I enjoyed it much. Then we just drove around aimlessly, followed by walking around aimlessly and just talking for awhile on a bench by the water. That, I believe, should be done more often. Simply enjoying the company of friends, without any real plan as to what to do. It was...special. And Providence is a great city that I haven't explored nearly enough considering I'm 21 and have lived in this state my entire life (the first year of it being in the heart of Providence itself, but not that I'd remember that anyway). One of my goals for this summer is to explore it more. And I think I've done a pretty good job with that so far. Huzzah for accomplishing one's goals! I outta go clubbing at some point too, I've always wanted to see what that's like (and I'm legal now so...yeah). I should drag some of my pseudo-gothy friends to Club Hell (the gothy nightclub). Where they kick you out if you're not dressed goth enough, hehe.
This coming week, other then the usual night classes and hanging out with friends here and there, will be mostly about preparing for ACTSA (All Children's Theater Summer Academy). I have much more say in things this year than I used to, which is uber awesome. Since ACTSA starts next week, this week we have to decorate the classrooms and the courtyard thingamabobber at Vartan Gregorian, the school where it's held this year. Mom and my coworker Anthony and I went to Salvation Army today to get some toys and other random things for the courtyard. Some plastic trucks, pillows, stuffed animals, one of those ginormous foam puzzle piece things, a fake tree, a kiddie pool, maracas, spoons, and a horse saddle. I heart Salvation Army, you can get everything there! We're gonna hang the spoons from the fake tree by yarn so they will jingle in the wind and the kids can hit them with sticks to make noises (my idea, quite proud of it), and the horse saddle is for pretend play. The ECC has one that they put on a log so the kids can pretend they're riding a horse, which I think is pretty cool and we might try to find ourselves a log and do that at ACTSA. I hope we can get a swing too (to hang from one of the real trees out there).
Anyway, I won't tell you every last little detail, but we're gonna be shopping and decorating all week and I'm having so much fun with this it's not even funny. At some point Heather, the teacher I'm working with for the first week of ACTSA (who is really cool) wants to meet me at a cafe or somelike so we can discuss the curriculum and plan things. You'll definitely be hearing more from me about this as the summer goes on, cuz I love my job to bits and it's even more exciting this time around with the extra responsibilities and say in how things go.
I've been keeping my eye out for a little while now for a job for the upcoming Field Work Term. I just don't want to be stuck job searching during midterm week again (ugh). I've run into some appealing options. My top choices thus far (all winter internship positions) are... designing programs that incorportate the arts to help children with various disabilities (Jersey), helping young adults with mental retardation and developmental disabilities figure out what they want to do for a living and search/apply for jobs (Jersey), and "educational outreach assistant" at a youth theater in Boston. Educational outreach assistant would mean mostly helping with the administrative/planning work for the educational sector of the theater (drama classes, after-school programs and the like). Could be interesting, but it seems a lot like what I'm already doing, and I might want more variety. There's also the rather interesting option of being a cartoon character at Six Flags Great Adventure, but that's in south Jersey and I don't think I want to be so far from my NJ friends. I'll leave it on the list for a little longer tho, mostly for laughs.
Quite honestly I think the 2nd one intrigues me the most, even tho it's probably the least directly related to early childhood classroom teaching. I really like to figure people out (their personalities, their strengths and weaknesses, etc), and telling people what jobs they might be good at is something I've always enjoyed (and frequently do with my friends). It's also with people with developmental disabilities and mental retardation (special ed much?). Not to mention that I'm finding this searching process oddly fun, so I think it would be pretty neat to be doing that as a job.
So the job searching is going pretty smoothly I think, but housing is a completely different story. I have no idea how the hell I'm gonna find housing so short-term, that isn't ridiculously expensive or in a really seedy location. But the good news is I don't have to worry about that for quite a while (especially considering I should probably figure out what state I'm going to be living in first). While I'm on this topic though, does anyone know anyone (who isn't creepy) who might be willing to rent out a room in NJ or Boston for January and most of February? Or maybe just a random bed (with access to a bathroom and fridge and stove of course)?
Well that is that. Byebye for now.