Life

Wow, how terrible am I at keeping up with this?! First of all, for the few of those (if any?) that read this, I'm terribly sorry for leaving you hanging for months.

Now, life in the last few months. Wow. In a word? Impossible. And when I say "impossible," I mean it can't be summed up in one word. Busy. Crazy. Good. Bad. Fantastic. Real. Those are a few words I would use to describe my life. Here's a quick rundown.

September: Gene' and I did order our season tickets, so almost every weekend was spent in Stillwater at football games. School went well. Just normal, day-to-day craziness with my kiddos.

October: Ahhh, fall break. Two words that every teacher loves to hear. Again, we got to spend an extra day or two in Stillwater because there happened to be a game on our fall break weekend. We also endured a two and a half hour wait for the 30 seconds it took to get our flu shots. But worth it, I suppose, if we don't get the flu.

November: Again, Thanksgiving break. Two more words I love to hear. It was a busy month in school. I spent a week teaching my kids about the first Thanksgiving, because so many of them had no idea what it was all about! I got to go home for most of the break, and my brother and his fiancee came up from Dallas. I came back to Guymon to enjoy (well... not so much...) Bedlam with Gene' and her family. Rough game, but I guess that's about what we can expect when playing OU.

December: After finding out OSU would be returning to the Cotton Bowl, my parents generously offered to take Gene' and I to the game. The kids were a little crazy at school, but that's to be expected so close to Christmas break. I survived my first solo classroom party. Holy cow. I was exhausted at the end of the day! Christmas break went really well. I enjoyed spending so much time with my family. I made out pretty well with the presents too. Haha. I returned to Guymon to spend a few days, including New Year's Eve, out here with Gene' and all our friends. Then, we go up at the crack of dawn on New Year's Day to drive to Fairview and join my parents for the trip to Dallas for the game. Thankfully, we got to sleep in the backseat the whole way from Fairview to Dallas. We got to spend some time with my brother and his fiancee that nite and then we made the trek to the new Cowboys Stadium the next morning for the game. Pre-gaming festivities? Great. The stadium? Unbelievable. The game? Ehhh, not so much. And again, the Rebel Yell grated on my nerves like nothing else. But, overall, the trip was a success.

January: Cold. Long. We did get MLK Day off, which was nice. I sure do enjoy four-day weeks. :) Not too much happened in January. It was a pretty boring month.

And, that brings me to February. We had two snow days this month, which I'll probably be regretting when we have to make them up during nice weather, but they sure were nice at the time. I also met a boy. Dated him. And had my heart a little beat up by him. But I'm surviving, trying not to be bitter and upset and all that. He's apparently not meant to be in my life, and as hard as that was to accept at first, I'm getting there. February is almost over, and that means March will be here. March equals = spring break, warmer weather, the start of college baseball, and that much closer to MLB Opening Day. :)

I can't tell you how ready I am for spring. I'm so over cold and snow and all this winter. I'm ready for shorts and flip flops, sno cones, driving with my windows down.

Alright, so, that's a pretty hefty update on my life. I'm determined to be better at posting from now on. Even if I have to put reminders up to help me remember. Haha. Maybe I'll even get some pictures up one of these days. We'll see.

Until then..

Holy Toledo

So, life has been a whirlwind of getting ready for and starting school over the last couple of weeks. I finally got my room all finished. Yay! I'm trying to find time to take some pictures to post. Orientation was craaaaaazy. I was at the school from eight in the morning until six that nite. I met almost all of the parents. A few parents and students who weren't in my homeroom, but who I have for English. Then, Thursday came. I had to do all of that typical first day stuff--go over rules, procedures, what I expect, what they can expect, etc. Needless to say, I was all talked out by the end of the day! Who'd have thought that two days of not really doing actual school work could be so tiring? I did work hard, and very productively, over the weekend, though, and I got all of my lesson plans finished AND all of my copies run by Sunday evening. I even had time to relax a little and spend time with my family, who came to Balko to visit! It was so nice to go in this morning, and not have to worry about doing anything but setting a couple things out. My first day of actual teaching went well. I did have a new student in one of my English classes. Well, he wasn't actually new. He was pre-enrolled and on all the lists already, he just didn't show up until today. And, he's bigger than I am. And it kind of intimidates me. Haha. But I sure won't let my students know that! :) I didn't even have anything to grade when I came home today, so I got to play some Rock Band. If I can just keep on top of my plans, like I did this weekend, this year won't be too bad.

Other than that, not a whole lot has been going on. Gene's and my life pretty much revolve around school. We're trying to get involved. We plan on going to some of the sports events around here. One of the other teachers on my team has a daughter that plays softball, so I'll try to make it to as many of those games as I can. And, of course, OSU football begins in T-minus 19 days. Pay day comes next week, and we will be ordering season tickets! We're pretty excited to go back to Stillwater, especially for football games!!

So, that's my life for now. We'll see how my first full week goes. I may change my mind about how much I like my job. :P JK!

Days 1 & 2 of Classroom Renovations

This post is going to be short and sweet because I'm on borrowed internet. Haha. I started work on my classroom yesteryday. Holy disaster zone. The cabinets were soooo not organized. At all. I found bulletin board borders in at least 4 different cabinets. Kleenex boxes were stored in several cabinets. Books were all over the place. So, before I did anything in the room with my stuff, I worked to completely reorganize the cabinets, drawers, and teacher's desk. I feel so much better now that that's all finished! Tomorrow, I will finally get to start putting my stuff away and (hopefully) putting things up on the bulletin boards and walls. I met one of the other teachers on my team, and she's really nice. I'm excited to meet the other two soon. I will have pictures and more to say once I've got internet in my own house. Until then, wish me luck! School is QUICKLY approaching!

Thanksgiving in August

Having recently graduated from college, I got the privilege of spending my summer on a job hunt. Said hunt proved to be more difficult than I thought. After applying to a dozen districts in the Dallas area, I was asked by my friend what I would think about teaching in Guymon with her. After several days of deliberation, I decided to set up the interview. Prior to this interview, I had neither filled out an application nor given the school any references. I went in with my resume in hand, totally prepared for your typical job interview. I sat down with the assistant superintendent while he looked over my resume. He asked me a couple questions about it and told me about the job he was looking at for me. Then, he took me to the school to show me around. He gave me a fairly detailed tour of the school--office and workroom area, specials classrooms (like music and p.e.), the cafeteria, the library, and which classroom he thought would be mine. After this tour, we got back in his car and he drove me around town for about 20 or 30 minutes, showing me the sights of Guymon and telling me about the town. Upon returning to his office, he offered me the job. Still no application or references. I can honestly say this was the easiest interview I've ever had. And I took the job.

Which brings me to where I am now. Preparing to teach language arts and social studies to the 6th grade minds of Guymon. 6th graders and Guymon. Not really where I saw myself at this point, but I'm very thankful I found a job. And I can always reapply to the Dallas area in a year or two if I still want to. God knew what He was doing when He sent me to Guymon for that interview. And, in all honesty, I'm pretty excited about this job. I mean, I get to teach writing and social studies. My brain could go on overload, thinking about all of the fun activities and projects I can do with subjects like those.

I'm pretty happy with my life right now. I've got a job and a place to live. I've got a great roommate, and together we have two very spoiled puppies. I'm healthy. I've got a lot to be thankful for.