You Might be a Math Teacher...

For those of you that don't know, I really like math.  I like to teach it, I like to do it, I like to play with it.  I was asked by my school district to be a part of a committee to select our new math text book for the next five years.  I went to our first meeting today and there were just too many cooks in the kitchen!  We basically just set up a rubric to guide us through the selection process over the next few months.  I got really excited when I found out that I'm going to have a bunch of math programs sent to me to check out over the next few weeks (it's a good thing I have a student teacher right now).

One of the things that always gets to me is when I find teachers who don't know how to do something that should be easy or common, but I have to keep that in mind while looking at all of these programs.  I know I have a pretty good brain in my head and I know how to use it to reason through concepts, but really?  I just found myself checking out some videos on YouTube of teachers teaching math concepts as that's an idea I've played with recently.  I only got through the first 30 seconds of two videos before I had to stop because I found myself yelling at the teacher through my monitor that they were doing it wrong!  Either I need to stop watching these videos or I need to get the right ones out there.

Hey Look!

Hey!  Look at that, I'm famous...ok, maybe just quoted and pictured in the university's paper...

http://universe.byu.edu/2013/09/26/1byu-students-live-their-quidditch-dreams/

It Makes Sense Now

I'm pretty into personalities and personality typing.  I find it interesting identifying the way someone thinks or acts, of course, shoving them into a "box" of a personality type isn't all black and white, but I find my types to be somewhat accurate (to a point).

On my way home from work today, I was thinking about all this and how people don't always get to know the real me.  I'm really good at putting up walls which intimidates some people and they don't venture too far down the Julie trail.  I realized that those walls pretty much come down when I'm teaching my class.  I'm quite the performer and really put myself out there.  Basically, I go from an INTJ to an ESFP.  I was telling my friend, Sara, about this and she pointed out that that is probably why I'm so drained when I get home from work and just need to be by myself for awhile.  I am definitely an introvert, but I have to play on my extrovertedness while I'm at school so I need the massive recharge when I get home.

So, yeah, if you want to see me without the walls, come hang out in my classroom.

Small Gifts

I got to school today and found this sitting in front of my computer:

A cute bag filled with candy and this note from one of my students:

(I taught her brother in 5th grade about 8 years ago)

This was something I really needed.  The last week and a half have been really hard for me for so many reasons and on so many different levels.  This weekend was kind of a breaking point for me and I ran away from home for a few hours.  I'm pretty sure this student noticed me trying to keep things together while talking to a co-worker yesterday morning.  It's nice to know that someone noticed and tried to do something about it.  Although, if she had given this to me yesterday, I would have completely lost it.  Don't worry, things are better now. I'm glad I can make school a welcoming place and that I'm so entertaining.

Crossing the Street

An amazing thing happened while I was crossing the street today!  Ok, so I never actually crossed the street, I only go halfway while showcasing a lovely stop sign while students walk by me and then I turn around and go back to do it all over again.  Anyways.  While I was escorting a group of students across the street, one of my math students turned to me with an enormous grin on his face and told me, "You're the best math teacher ever!  The BEST!!"  It made my day.

Happy Teacher

The past few years there has been a rumor floating around my school that I am the "mean teacher".  I have no idea where this even started!  Everyone I work with is baffled when they hear this!  The only things that I can think of are that I'm loud and I hold students responsible and actually expect them to do their work.  It went so far in that when I passed first graders in the hallway, I would either hear them whisper to their friends, "that's the small teacher," or, "that's the mean teacher."  Seriously?   Two years ago it was so bad, that I started off the year with this stigma from parents that transferred over to their students and I had the MOST HORRIBLE year I'd ever had in teaching.  I came home a couple of times and started looking for new career opportunities.

This year, things have been so much better!  (Last year was pretty good too, but this year has been great!) It all started with the confidence boost of parents and students telling me that they were hoping to be in my class.  When all was said and done, on the first day of school, one of my co-workers overheard a couple of students in the hall, "I don't get it, they all said she was mean, but she's not mean, she's awesome."  I don't get it either, friends.  I have students telling me and emailing me that they like me and are glad that they're in my class.  The biggest thing so far is that I ran into a parent today and she just went off on how much her son is enjoying my class and how happy they are that I'm her son's teacher this year.

How did I go from being this crazy teacher that no one wanted to everyone's favorite person?  I don't think I changed at all.  So friends, please do me a few favors:

1. Don't spread rumors about teachers especially if you don't know what you're talking about
2. If you think there is a problem in your student's class, talk to the teacher to find out what's going on and fill him/her in on what you know
3. If you like a teacher, let people know, including the teacher

I think most people just assume that others know that they are liked, but you never know when the positive never reaches that person or not.

At Least Something Right

I love it when I get emails from my students like this one:

It makes me feel like I'm doing at least something right.

Summer 2013

Today is my last day of summer vacation.  I go back to school tomorrow for meetings and prep work, students follow on Thursday.

I had a pretty good summer.  It started off with a bang, then slowed down a bit, and now I'm looking back wondering where all my time went.  Here's a recap of the things I did over the last three months:

* Trip to Guatemala with Michael and the parents
* Spent a couple of days in Los Angeles with Michael
* My nephew stayed with me for two weeks
* Ward camp out
* Family reunion at Lake Tahoe
* Lots of baking
* Demolition derby in Delta
* Julie song writing competition
* Helped film a music video for a Julie song
* Quick trip to Boise to see Colette and the roller derby tournament
* Trip home to see the family and the new baby
* Visit from Laura and Dirk while at home
* Day trip to Cedar City for the Shakespeare Festival (We saw Peter and the Starcatcher and King John)
* Hiked the Y 3 times (once at night)
* Finished reading 12 books


...I feel like I did more than that.  I know I did more than that!  I guess these are just the highlights.  Maybe I'll add to the list later.

The Julie Instruction Manual

There have been several times when I have wished that there was an instruction manual or user's guide for me so I could just hand it to people so they could understand me and why I do things.  It would make meeting new people a little easier and then maybe I wouldn't scare anyone away.  In being somewhat silly this evening, I decided to start drafting such a manual.  It's kind of funny to think about, but I'm also serious about it too.  I figure, if anything else, I'll understand myself a little better in the process.  Here's a small taste of what I have written.  I'm open to suggestions as to what needs to be included in such a manual.

So, you have decided to try to understand Julie.  We wish you luck in your endeavors and encourage you to see it through.  Not many have delved into the study of Julie and few have been successful in comprehending even small portions of Julie, but, hopefully, with this manual, you may be successful!

The first thing you need to know and understand about Julie is that she is not as she appears to most people.  This does not just refer to her size, but also her mannerisms, thoughts, and general actions especially in large groups and around people she does not already know.  As you read and refer to this manual, please keep an open mind and try to think outside of the box (although Julie may fit in a physical box, her personality does not).

Good luck and enjoy your Julie!

Sharing Thoughts

I've had a lot of thoughts lately and I'm sad that I haven't been as vigilant at recording them as I have in the past.  None of these thoughts are really all that earth shattering, but they did get me thinking.  Some are silly while others are a bit deep.  Since I've been in and out of town and working on random things, I keep thinking, "later, I'll write them down later," which then translates to forgotten and never done.  I'm going to see which ones I can remember and delve into the deep with them over the next week or so.

A few of my friends like to share their thoughts with others on a regular basis.  I'm not always apt to do such things, but when I am, I find that I have my own way of doing so.  My friends share their thoughts verbally and record/share them through their vlogs.  Sometimes, I wonder if I could have anything to share with others in this way, but I am not very eloquent when it comes to sharing my thoughts out loud.  I feel as though I can't truly convey my meaning as much as I'd want.  I've recognized more and more that I am very much a written word person as I've always been more visual than auditory.  Seeing my words helps me to realize what I'm really saying where I almost feel like I don't really hear the words as they come from my mouth.  I feel like I have more time to think about the words I want to say before I write or type them out and once they are down on paper or the screen, I can see and evaluate what I've said.  Writing is just so much easier for me than speaking.

I know this is probably true of a lot of people, I see it every day in my teaching.  I have students that excel through certain styles/types of learning that others don't.  I try to keep this in mind for each student with their assignments and options so that they can be successful.  Of course, I also try to push them to strengthen where they can use more practice.  There are some things that just aren't measured academically that are affected by such tendencies.  I can hold a conversation with a person, but I could write back and forth more comfortably and probably open up more in doing so, but that's not how you're supposed to interact with someone at a social event like a birthday party or date.

I guess this is one reason why I chose to blog.  I have a few friends that just don't understand why some people would want to put all these things out there about themselves.  I started out just wanting to chronicle my happenings, but part of the reason I continue to do this is because I feel like others can get to know me through my writing and adventures since I'm more open to actually share things through writing that I wouldn't necessarily verbally tell someone in a conversation.  I probably would if you caught me in my thinking, asked me my thoughts, and I spent enough time with you to feel comfortable sharing them.

Last Days of Guatemala

I figured I should finish this up so I can move on to other things...

The last full day we were in Guatemala, we checked out of our hotel in Antigua...

Then met up with our tour guide who took us to the temple in Guatemala City so we could do a session.  I opted to use the head phones as my "church" Spanish isn't as good as my "school" Spanish...I think I would have been ok without them though.  We met a few temple workers from the states who had only been there a few weeks.  They were really excited to speak and understand English with us.

We returned the rental car then spent a few hours driving around and touring Guatemala City.  One of the places we went to was a giant relief map we had been told about.  We all pictured a nice table top map someone had done, but no, this was huge!

It made some of the things we had talked about make a little more sense as we could see the difference between the flat lands of the north and the mountains, valleys, and volcanoes in the south.  IT even had the rivers carved out and water to go through them.  The scale was a little skewed though.

Our guide showed us that Guatemala City was basically just built on top of an old city.  These figures were found in a regular neighborhood.  If everyone dug up their yards they'd find evidence of the old city.  There is a law in the city that 10% of the ancient city must be preserved on their land if found, so a lot of places had "hills" in their backyards that were most likely a temple or structure of some sort.

We then tried to go to this park but got there as they were closing.  Don't worry, we slipped the guards 200Q and they let us run over to see this one set of ruins as they got everyone else out.  We really wanted to go here because it is thought to be the City of Nephi.

Old aqueducts found in the city (mostly I took this picture to show my students when we talk about "ancient" aqueducts)

We spent the night at a hotel in the city that had a shuttle to the airport the next morning.  We got back to Los Angeles with enough time for my brother and me to go to Sacrament meeting in his ward (of course that was after we found the flat tire on his car).  I flew back to Utah the next day.

So those were the highlights of my trip to Guatemala.  I would go again.  It was very pretty and there was a lot to see and learn about.  I wouldn't mind brushing up on my Spanish a bit more too.

Too Much Fun

Sometimes I think that I have too much fun with my friends, but then I realize that there's no such thing as TOO much fun!

A few weeks ago, my friends decided that they wanted to have a song writing competition using songs about me.  I was a bit nervous as to what they were going to write about, but they ended up being pretty amazing.  The next step is that they are going to be turning these songs into music videos.  Here is one that my roommate wrote about my secret boyfriend (if you don't know the background on him, follow the link she has on the video's page).

Dear Skittles

Dear Skittles,

What were you thinking?!?!  Why did you change the flavor of the green Skittle? It was just fine (and better) the way it was!  I just opened my first packet of Skittles with the new green apple flavor instead of lime and my mouth was assaulted.  My tongue was not ready for that flavor to come out of the familiar, green friend it once knew.  I feel as though that flavor does not mesh as well with the other flavors in the bag.  I might need to rethink my color order in eating Skittles now.

Sincerely,
Julie

Guatemala-Tikal and Yaxha

Guatemala continued...

Thursday, we woke up really early to catch a flight to the northern part of Guatemala so we could go to the ancient ruins of Tikal.  On the way to the airport, we saw Pacaya with lava on the top and learned that it had been closed.

Pacaya is in the background

As soon as we landed, we met our driver, had breakfast at the local Burger King, bought some water and then headed to Tikal.  Northern Guatemala was much warmer than Guatemala City and Antigua, but it still rained there too.  Once at the park, our driver found a guide to take us around, his name is Luis.  He was very nice and fluent in several languages which was nice so we didn't have to translate everything for Mom.  Luis was very knowledgeable of the area, history, and local plant and animal life.

A family of bats living in the trees.

Howler monkeys.  We heard these quite a bit, they let us know when it was about to rain.

 

We couldn't climb the actual structures, but one had a wooden staircase built next to it so we could get to the top.  This was our view, it should look familiar to some Star Wars fans.

At one point, it started POURING rain, so we took cover in one of the smaller structures.  A man with a friendly tarantula joined us.  We eventually decided to just brave the rain so we could continue our exploration.  After we were done and were leaving, we found that this tree had fallen over the trail we had come in on.  We decided to just climb over it.

That night we stayed in a small hotel in Remate.  The ceiling fans consisted of regular fans attached to the ceiling.  It wasn't a Marriott or Ramada by any means, but it was clean and a place to sleep.

The next day, we drove to Yaxha to see more ruins.  This park was smaller so it had fewer people around which was nice.  We didn't get a guide and went at our own pace reading the descriptions, but they were all in Spanish so we had to translate as we went.

Can you find the pyramid in this picture?  This is how all of the pyramids looked before they were discovered and uncovered.

 

We were able to climb on more of the structures here.  Dad, Michael, and I climbed this one, Mom said she'd take our picture.  What was really neat was that we were able to have a conversation with Mom down on the bottom and us on top without having to raise our voices at all.

The steps were really narrow.  We really climbed it sideways since our feet wouldn't fit on a step not even mine!

 

A pyramid partially uncovered 

We kept coming across massive trails of ants in the park.  They were always carrying large leaves (compared to them).  They even had cleared ant highways through the jungle.

From the top of a pyramid

Toucan

 

After we were done at the park, we had some time to kill before we had to catch our flight back to Guatemala City, so our driver told us about a cave in the area.  It's a good thing Mom just happened to be carrying a flashlight with her.

 The security at the airport in Las Flores was really strict.  They went through every pocket of our bags and wouldn't let us take some of the things we would be able to in the states like finger nail clippers.  They even took the roll of athletic tape I happened to have in my backpack from my last trip.  While waiting at the airport, it started POURING rain.  We had seen a lot of rain by this point in our trip, but this topped it all!  It eventually let up and we made it back to Guatemala City and Antigua.