SEPs-part 2

Let's just say, they went a whole lot better on days two and three! But seriously, that whole anti-homework situation ate at me all night. I didn't fall asleep as quickly that night because I just was so shocked by the situation and that mother! Oh my word! Now that I've had her child in my class for a week, I can see the effects of her "no homework" choice. Her daughter cannot problem solve to save her life, she has a hard time working, and she is very needy. When she can't figure out that if she asks Andrie to move over, he will because he's sitting in her spot and has to come tell me EVERY SINGLE TIME it happens, there's a problem. Ugh! And yes, it happens quite often. Andrie has a hard time with some things.

Anyway, on a happier note: all week this group that I've had has made me crazy. I prayed last night that they would be good today because if they weren't I think I would go completely insane and compared to yesterday, they were fantastic! I think I'll be utilizing prayer mode more often concerning this issue. :) Plus having two cute visitors in my classroom after school made my day as well.

My life until May 29 now officially revolves around two groups of kidlets. They're so cute, but sometimes.....

That's all!

SEPs-part 1

I really hope there is no part two in this ongoing entry unless it's all good news. SEP stands for something like Student Educator Parent conferences or something. Anyway, they're pretty much parent teacher conferences. Yeah, we have them right at the beginning of the year to go over homework policies and procedures and to get all the paperwork done that we need. Yeah the homework ordeal did not sit well with one mother. Sonia barely had two words out of her mouth and this mother was like "Okay, we need to talk about this homework thing." Before we went too much further than that, I invited the principal to come and join us. It was absolutely crazy!! She did not let us get hardly one word in to explain that her child would have maybe 10 minutes of homework on top of her reading that she already does anyway. Her theory was that school is time to learn and home is "dinner time, play time, and family time." Mom didn't want her "sitting on her butt all day at school then coming home and sitting on her butt again doing homework." Pretty much she said we could send homework but to not be surprised if they didn't do it!! GEEZ! We're asking for 10-20 minutes per night lady! Oh my freaking heck! This went on for at least 15-20 minutes and Sonia and I were completely shocked. What the...? Plus this mom associates with the mom (they trade off carpooling or something) who asked us what theories of education and management we use in our classroom. Theories? What?? I was so glad Sonia was there because she explained that each child and class is so unique that we're constantly adapting and changing what we do when we teach (not the curriculum itself, but the approach). YAY! Go Sonia!! So then, this mom proceeds to tell us in so many words that her daughter needs to do an art project everyday in order to get her creativity out or some wierdness. The dad couldn't believe that we don't have time in our schedule to do art projects every day. Well sir, we have to devote time to math, literacy, lunch, recess, and planning times (P.E., music, library) as well. Plus, until we get used to our new reading program, it's going to take up a lot of our time. UGH! I had a headache when I got home.

I think I'll put up a "part 2" entry and just hope and pray that we have no more anti-homework, art project nazi moms telling us how to do our jobs!

Screwed up emotions

I'm in Oregon; just got back from my friend's wedding reception. I thought it would be different, and my emotions are all screwed up right now. I cried (more like blubbered) once today already for many different reasons. It's just crazy and weird. Her wedding was beautiful in the Portland Temple and the reception was gorgeous and fun but, there's just some emotions that I need to get past before I can fully accept that she's married. No worries, she and I are good friends and we're not in a fight or anything, I just have issues! I feel like I need to pour out my soul and my feelings, but doing it to her would not be nice so I'll just pray...with the tissue box next to me. Gosh I'm pathetic and apologize to anyone who read this entry. UGH! Just needed to get some things off my chest as much as possible.

apartment pictures and first day of school!

So, I know I've promised pictures of our new apartment, and here they are, finally. In order from left to right, top to bottom: second bedroom, master bedroom, living room, kitchen (yeah, check out those beautiful brand new counter tops--they used to be pink, according to Sadie), and the other part of our living room with evidence of us starting to move in.
So, there you go. Enjoy!

Today was the first day of school! This year is going to be stressful! We have this new reading program that seems fantastic, but it will only be SUPER effective for a class that doesn't switch between Spanish and English every week. I teach in a Dual Immersion program which means I have my class for one week and teach in English, then they go to the Spanish teacher, I get her group and teach them in English. They do that back and forth every week! It is totally crazy. Anyway, this new reading program builds on what was taught in the previous week(s) and since I teach the same thing to my group and Sonia's group (she's the Spanish teacher) it's hard to get through the whole program, especially because it's jam-packed with stuff. I know that it will be just like our math program we adopted last year: the more of it that you implement and teach and stick to the schedule, the more success you will see from your students! That is what's eating at me; I can't implement the whole thing whereas math is basically the same in English or Spanish so it doesn't matter if I don't teach one week's worth of lessons in English! I don't know if that makes any sense, but it does bother me alot!

I can already pick out which kids are going to be my problems! And I already know about some parents who will be issues as well when it comes to reporting behaviors of their child. Basically, they focus only on the negative things and nothing positive. My goal: be positive even though I KNOW this kid is going to make me crazy if he keeps up with the behavior I saw today.

Okay, so I have some majorly cute kidlets! Oh man, there's this one boy who is to die for! He's tiny, both in height and weight and is adorable. Yeah, pretty darn cute I must say.

Can I just say "Oh my holy goodness!" to the Olympic 4x100 men's swimming relay last night? That was completely amazing.

I've started pondering on Olympians and how much work and dedication they put into their event. When I saw various athletes take the stand last night to receive their medals, I tried to picture them in my head practicing, training, grueling for hours and working to improve their great talent(s). I imagined it being their life and that all they did, besides training and practicing, was eat and sleep; no job, no other committment, nothing. But, I don't think that's how it is with the majority of the athletes. They probably work and have families and obligations to tend to, but they just never cease to amaze me. It's crazy and interesting.

School starts in a week...AAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHH!! I feel totally unprepared, even moreso than last year, in some ways. I mean, I already have lots of my curriculum set and ready, but with our new reading program this year, I think this feeling of unpreparedness is really hitting me hard. Serously, our new reading program is CRAZY! We are so excited about it because it seems like it will be very effective and helpful, but each 1st grade teacher got AT LEAST 20-25 boxes of stuff that goes with the program. Yeah, it's all sitting in my room wondering what it's future will be. I've barely scratched the surface of it all and I have to decide what will stay in a box to be unpacked when we get to our new school. YIKES. Okay, I'm going to stop talking about this because it will make me nuts if I think about it anymore. Let's just say I hope I survive these next couple of weeks!

Finally Getting Around to it!

So Aunt Marie left this on her blog for me to complete (i.e. she tagged me!) and I started it once, then never finished it! Let's try it one more time and see if I can get the whole thing done.

3 Joys:
1) Kory (My husband)
2) Jase (my nephew)
3) The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints

3 Fears:
1) one or more of my first graders not being ready for second grade
2) having to work when I have children
3) roller coasters (the fear used to be a lot worse, now I can somewhat handle them)

3 Goals:
1) Learn to play guitar
2) Have children
3) have my own house

3 Obsessions:
1) Jase (the nephew)
2) Settlers of Catan: Cities and Knights
3) shoes

3 Random Facts:
1) One of my legs is ever so slightly longer than the other
2) I was proposed to by a member from my mission (and he was dead serious)
3) Even though I'm obsessed with shoes, I think my husband has more pairs of shoes than I do (His last count was thirty-something!)

Alright so there's a little about me. Now, I think I have to tag people to be it so let's see: Airie, Jamie, and Stella. Enjoy!

The New Place

I was thinking the other day that I would make a list of Pro's and Con's about both apartments. It might make me feel better about moving out of our old one. Even though the landlords at the old apartment are dumb, I loved that apartment and Kory finally admitted last night that it was nostalgic and kind of sad. I've been sad about it for a long time. So, here's the list.

OLD APARTMENT (1 bedroom apartment)

PRO'S

- HUGE bedroom

- lots of closet space in the bedroom

-huge storage closet in the hallway

- huge living room

- tons of cupboards in the kitchen

- great neighbors and church ward

CON'S

- no dishwasher

- coin-op laundry

- old, bumpy carpet

- THIRD FLOOR

- A/C didn't function very well

- good water pressure was a hit and miss!

NEW APARTMENT (2 bedrooms)

PRO'S

- 2 bedrooms

- HUGE kitchen

- pantry shelves in kitchen

- hardwood floor in kitchen

- nice carpet

- good water pressure

- big bathroom

- DISHWASHER!!!!!

- access to a washer & dryer (shared with my cousin who lives upstairs)

- central air

- big living room

CON'S

- small master bedroom

- small closet in master bedroom (Kory uses the closet in the spare bedroom)

- not much space for storage

- low ceilings

- small windows

So, there you have it. I think storage space is what is still bothering me. I loved being able to hide all our junk in the hall closet at our old place and now we don't really have a spot. We have two utility closets, but technically it's illegal to store stuff in them. My cousin is a lawyer, though and he said he didn't care if we put stuff in there. Plus there are rafters in the garage we can use as well, but it's currently locked while my cousin and his family are out of town. Oh well, we're getting put together, slowly but surely.

Our box spring on our mattress set didn't fit through the door, so we had to list ours on KSL and craigslist and buy a split box spring. After shopping around at Big Lots, RC Willey and a teeny tiny firuniture store here in Provo called Ideal Mattress and Home Furnishings, I found the teeny tiny place had the best deal. Big Lots doesn't deliver and RC Willey would have charged me about $130-150 for EACH PIECE of the split queen, plus $65 to deliver. Throw in taxes and that's close to $400, which is about what our whole mattress set cost when we first got it! Ideal Mattress charged me just under $180 for the whole set up and they delivered it for free! Yay for them! The greatest was the RC Willey said if I ordered the split mattress it would take 2 weeks for it to arrive. I called Ideal Mattress yesterday, they didn't have any at that moment, but they delivered the box spring today! Another YAY for them. Now all we have to do is check out of our old aparment (I'm scared of the Nazi's!!) and make our new place look decent before we leave for Oregon on Saturday. There's a lot to do still! I've got pictures of our new place before we moved in, but they wouldn't upload. I'll try again and post pictures of our new place when it's clean and organized!

P.S. I don't know why the purple font wouldn't change color when I specifically asked it to...twice! I copied and pasted it from another online diary that I keep so maybe it didn't like being copied and pasted. Who knows. Sorry about the different fonts as well.