Happy Halloween!

I feel like Halloween has lasted all week...because it has. On Monday my ward had a combined Halloween party/dance. I dressed as a nerd because that's what my co-workers and I were originally planning to be at school. I had a fun time and then went home. Wednesday wasn't technically Halloween related at school, but it felt like it. We finished up a unit on Ancient Egypt and had all of our 6th graders bring in the projects they were working on at home. Once lunch hit, chaos broke out as we had parents and visiting classes walking through each of our rooms to check out everything. Thursday, we celebrated Halloween at the school as we had Friday off to make up for the time the teachers put in for parent-teacher conferences the week before. Friday and Saturday night, I watched "scary movies with people in my ward and my brother and his wife.

Halloween with my co-workers is always a blast. The last few years, we have dressed up using one theme or another. Two years ago we were the janitors and the lunch lady. Last year, I dressed as our school's facilitator, Garrett was our school's principal, and Adam dressed as Dwight Schrute (we had doubles of everyone with our student teachers, our principal's name is Dwight). This year was awesome! We decided two days before our Halloween parties that we wanted to change our idea and be the Ghostbusters and the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man! We were able to get matching jumpsuits from the meat plant that Garrett used to work at and Alece and I printed out all of the patches. We wore backpacks with vacuum hoses for our packs. The sad thing was that the student teachers we have now k

new who the ghostbusters are but not the Stay Puft Marshmallow man--they had never seen the movie. Half the students at the school thought we were janitors at first, but they were informed by others at the school that they were wrong. We had a fun time and our co-workers appreciate us.

In case you didn't catch on...I have a student teacher now. I met her this last Monday and she came to the class for the first time on Tuesday. I haven't had the chance to see her teach much of anything yet as she just observed the first day and then we had two crazy days in a row where we were lucky to get anything done. Her first formal observation is tomorrow and she is taking over most of the literacy lessons from here until she leave in December. We'll see how everything goes.

Talents

I was reading my cousin's blog yesterday and really liked what she talked about. She posted about a blog she read about talents...basically, everyone is blessed with talents whether it be physical, musical, crafty, etc. Today in Relief Society, we talked a little about the parable of the talents. It made me start to think about gifts of the spirit and some of the things I'm talented in and with:

Listening and watching. I'm really good at just observing what is happening around me. When I go to a large group activity, I like to see what is happening all around me and even listen to several conversations at once. Not only am I good at listening to the people around me, but I'm good at listening to what they don't say as well. I always get promptings on how to best help those around me and what I should be doing with my life.

Numbers. I love numbers and I am pretty good with them. I was my mom's phone book growing up. Numbers just come to me easily in remembering them and understanding how they work. Math is one of my favorite subjects. I amaze my co-workers with how well I understand math concepts and my ability to then explain it to others in multiple ways.

Teaching. Not only do I love to teach, I think I'm pretty good at it. I've been able to help many students throughout the years to understand difficult concepts and to have fun while doing it. Not only do I teach my 6th graders, but I am now teaching the gospel doctrine class on Sunday as well. I worry that I treat my class too much like my twelve-year-olds, but it's their fault for acting like twelve-year-olds.

Optimism. I like to see the bright side to everything. I've learned that things are going to happen no matter what, so I can decide to be upset or stressed out about it (which really won't change anything about the situation) or I can be happy and have fun. I think it is more fun to be happy and to have fun, so I generally choose that option.

Talking to children. Last year, I had a student who would always ask me how I knew how to talk to the kindergarten students we read to. He told me that I could just mesmerize them and captivate them by just talking to them.

There are more things that I do, don't know if I would call them "talents" or gifts but they are definitely things I have worked on throughout my life or just do without thinking about them much, these that I mentioned or just some that come to mind first. I remember a lesson/discussion I participated in a few years ago and the teacher was trying to argue over the thought that an education was needed in order to be successful in life. She disagreed until I pointed out that not all educations are received in a "formal" institution or school, but educations are received and built by doing and learning from the people and things around a person. I have received an education through school and even have a degree in teaching, but I have received more of an education in teaching by doing it and by watching and listening to the people around me. I have received an education about different parts of my life by experiencing it with friends and family. Everyone can build and develop their own talents and gifts by working towards them and developing them. Yes, some things come more easily to some than others, but that doesn't mean that only certain people can develop certain talents. For example, it has taken me years to develop any sort of "talent" to just talking with people, I'm still not very good at it, but I'm loads better compared to five or ten years ago. It was a decision that I had to make and then take some action towards developing the skill. So, if there is something you would like to be able to do, do it!

Two Things...

First...I was looking through a list of books today from all genres and years and realized that how I feel about a book depends not just on the book, but on the circumstances around the book as well. For example, Miss Rumphius is a book that I read in second grade and I love it because of the teacher that introduced it to me. She taught me about the flowers in the book so now when I see lupins I think of the book and my second grade teacher. Because of these things, I love the book. Other books do not get such a great reputation though, most of them having to do with assignments given to me in high school, but at the same time I probably would never choose to pick them up and read them without the assignment. For example, The Great Gatsby and The Awakening are both books I was assigned to read in high school and I hate both of them. Granted, it's not just the assignment that turned them sour, I didn't like them in the first place but then add to that fact that I HAD to read them gives them an exponential hate towards them. I do have to admit, I did not finish The Great Gatsby I think I read the first third of the book and refused to continue, but I still got a really good grade in the class...I guess I'm pretty good at picking up on important things and then making the rest up. My punishment was that as a "reward" the teacher had/let us watch the movie in class...pure torture.

Second...I misplaced my phone today for three to four hours. I wasn't too concerned, I knew it was in my house somewhere just not in the regular places I would have left it. My friend finally called me and I thanked her for helping me find my phone. It was in the extra bedroom, I randomly decided to mix things up and read a book in there for a little while today. Upon finding my phone, I found that my co-worker called during the "lost" period, but he didn't leave a message so I have no idea why he called and by the time I found the phone, it was too late to call him back. It bugs me when people don't leave a message, it leaves me pondering the reason for the phone call and then I go through all the possibilities until I can finally get back to the person to see what's going on. It really bugs me when I don't recognize the number and there's no message!

Friendliness is Appreciated

I realized tonight that I have participated/attended/held three gatherings this week and it's only Friday night. I'm really not a social butterfly especially around large groups of people so I am impressed with this number. In going to all of these events, I realized tonight that there are definitely some people that try harder to be friendly than others and I really appreciate those people. I can be one of those people on most occasions, depending on the situation and how much I decide to put forth a strong effort (and I really do mean decide and I really do mean strong effort) which is most occasions, but it's really difficult for me to just start up a conversation with someone if I don't know them very well, but I still do it. Even making the decision to go to gatherings is hard for me at times, but what makes my mind up in the end is convincing myself that there will be someone there that I can be friendly to or that maybe someone there will be friendly to me. You see, I have this rule that I started a year or so ago (especially in dealing with ward activities)...after the main activity of the evening is over, I tell myself that I HAVE to stick around for at least five minutes. If no one talks to me or I don't have the opportunity to start a conversation with someone after five minutes, I can leave, but if I do, I then have to start the five minutes over after the conversation ends. It's my safety net that ends up convincing me to go, the permission to leave if it's really bad.

So you see, friendliness is appreciated and I'm sure I'm not the only one that agrees.

Happy Birthday to Me!

This last Tuesday was my birthday. It was a good day. It started off at school with all of my students wishing me a happy birthday and my co-workers announcing my age over the intercom to the entire school (thanks guys). They brought doughnuts to share with the faculty and a big doughnut (larger than my face) for me:

The lid had a mirror on it, in case you can't read it, it says: " Objects in mirror are shorter and older than they appear". Apparently that is true because later that day I went to get a flu shot (a great birthday present) and the lady gave it to me practically in the shoulder and then I got this awesome Bugs Bunny bandaid.

That night, I invited a bunch of people over over cake and ice cream. My friend, Bekky, made my cake, she used googly eyes to decorate it, it was awesome!

I managed to blow out all of my candles so maybe I'll get my wish. About ten people showed up throughout the night from all parts of my life so it was interesting combining all those people and everyone finally figured out who all the other people I talk about are. One of them included a good friend that I hadn't seen in about two years so I was excited to catch up with him and see what he's up to.

Overall, it was a happy birthday!

My Kitchen

My kitchen is not pretty...it's mauve. Ever since I got my place, I've been wanting to redo my kitchen but that is expensive. I have always had a few things in mind, tweaking things here and there as I have watched quite a bit of TLC and HGTV. I've played the "If I Suddenly Received a Great Amount of Money..." game in my mind several times. The most recent Ikea advertisement made me sigh, because that's what I want:

Do you think Santa will bring me one? Maybe with a younger guy? I would probably do a slightly different backsplash but I'm really digging the small glass tiles that I see on most remodeling shows.

Something Fun

I was talking to my mom on the phone yesterday and she told me that I have to do something fun this weekend because it's the weekend and I should be doing something fun (I'm sure she meant something fun with a boy). I've had some great weekends the last few weekends and was planning on having somewhat of a low-key weekend. I still tried to do something fun, but I just wasn't feeling it and really didn't have an opportunity to meet up with any friends. My fun last night ended up being watching Beauty and the Beast...really, it was more like listening to it as I was working on a project for school...that was fun. Today the fun consisted of sleeping in until 9:30, looking at some retirement fund options, and then getting up to go to the bank. I also made buttermilk pancakes (oh so yummy!!!), I LOVE pancakes! After the pancakes, I went to Costco with Steven and Randi and then went to our aunt's house to drop off some potatoes. I've spent the rest of the day reading five books for school and doing some cleaning here and there.

I have a long weekend this week because of Fall Break. I'm looking forward to taking it easy for a bit and going through things at home (it's time to get rid of stuff!), but normally I am the only one on break so we'll see if I can find people to play with.

My birthday is on Tuesday. Haven't thought about it much so I'm surprised when anyone brings it up. I don't even know what I want or what I want to do for my birthday so don't ask. I'm open for suggestions. I've had a thought to invite some people over to play, but it's also a school night...but that's ok, right? Maybe some cake and a game night. What else would someone be doing on a Tuesday night?

Lovely Weekend

This has been a lovely weekend! My grandparents came into town so we had a couple of family dinner/get-togethers. Yesterday and today I got to watch conference. Steven and Randi came over for three of the sessions and our cousin Kevin dropped in for the last session. I really enjoyed all of the speakers, but I think my favorite (or at least the one that comes to my mind first) is Elder Scott's talk on character from Saturday afternoon. It's too bad that I have to wait until Thursday to have them available in written form online. I made muffins this morning. I decided to make Mimi's Cafe's buttermilk spice muffins. They are really yummy! Steven and Randi brought a frozen lasagna with them so we were also able to enjoy that in between sessions today. I broke out my box of candy to keep us sugared up through the last session, I'm glad it is finally disappearing.

Saturday night, I gave some attention to my house and then caught up with school by grading papers. Why is it so difficult to write your name on your paper? I probably had 15 or 20 papers turned in this week without any names on them. At least they attempted to turn their papers in though. I have at least another 15 or 20 that didn't even turn their papers in which I think should be difficult to do when I'm standing there saying several times over to turn the papers in and everyone around them is doing it as well.

I had my first dream involving my co-workers this week. I've had a good amount of school dreams before but they never involve anyone I work with, but this time Adam, Garrett and Alece made guest appearances! We went to Disneyland and for some reason we took our students. It was weird though because it definitely was NOT Disneyland but it was in my dream. It kind of had a thing going like in Venice where the streets were more like canals and we got around on jet skis. There really wasn't much substance to the dream, just that we were there and went on some rides. The really weird part was that I think I had that dream before but with different people...I never have the same dream. Weird.