A Whole New Week

      Whoops!  I got a little busy, a little sick, a little tired and forgot to write. Sorry.  I'll try to make up for it now.  Let's go back in time to last Friday.  School was school.  I taught first and third period.  My supervisor came and observed me during first period.  My lesson was decent, but I did recognize a few things that I could do better.  I think third period went a lot better.  After school I walked to CVS, bought a few snacks for our trip to Gettysburg, and jumped on the Metro to go to our supervisors house for our weekly meeting and a sleep over.  I got to the pick-up point an hour before everyone else and about five minutes after the wind.  So I spent that next hour getting chilled.  I started putting on all the clothes I packed for the weekend just to stay warm.  We finally all got there and got picked up.  We ate dinner, had our meeting, watched "The Great Debaters", and went to bed.  I got to sleep in a big, comfy bed, and tried my best to not snuggle Anna too much.

     Saturday we all got up, got ready, loaded into the cars and drove to Harper's Ferry, West Virginia.  It's the site of John Brown's rebellion.  It's also the place where the Shenandoah River meets the Potomac River.  The historical part of it was neat, but the scenery was beautiful.  I could've spent all day just looking at the river(s).  From Harper's Ferry, we drove to Gettysburg.  We hit the museum first and then did an audio tour in our cars.  We got to the battlefield just as the sun was setting and my camera and I went nuts.  We had the radio playing on the way back home and naturally I was singing along.  I tried to sing quietly.  Anna joined in for a lot of it too.  She's a girl after my own heart.  A few times we were harmonizing with each other and other times I was belting a solo of Celine Dion songs.  It was great fun!

      Sunday, my cold started to hit.  I was just feeling a little congested and really tired.  Our home teachers came after church.  They're swell guys.  I'm excited to get to know them better.  Monday was a little rough at school.  I woke up feeling even worse.  I got observed during first period again and it wasn't my best lesson.  I ran into a few speed bumps that I wasn't expecting and it really slowed us down.  It got better as the day went on though.  I went home and took it easy until FHE.  We made homemade donuts.  Yum!

      Tuesday, things were a little better at school.  I gained a little more confidence and tried really hard to apply the things that I learned the day before.  My cold had settled in by this point, but I stuck it out.  The weather was beautiful!  The sun was out and shining brightly and the temperatures were in the 60s.  It was great!  I came home from school, went to the grocery store, did my laundry and discovered the joys of Skype.  It very well might be my favorite form of long distance communication.  It makes big distances so much smaller.  I'm hooked!  Wednesday was a pretty easy day.  I only had to teach first period and it didn't seem to go to poorly.  I wasn't feeling very good at all, but I made it through the day.  I went home from school, took it easy, and spent some more time with my new friend Skype.

      Thursday was just a rough day all around.  The kids were disrespectful and they didn't understand synthetic division.  I left school feeling like I caused more damage than I did good.  The storm of disrespect and misbehavior wouldn't have been a problem if they would've learned it.  I knew that bad days were inevitable but I really took this one personally.  I felt like it was my fault that things went wrong.  Luckily my cold was getting better.  Otherwise I fear it would've been the straw to break the camel's back.  I came home from school, took a mini nap and prepared myself for a 3-day weekend.  The idea of having a day off made everything a little easier to bear.  I went to the gym, watched the BYU basketball game and went to bed.

      And that brings us to today.  There was no school for the students because it was professional development day and my mentor teacher told me I didn't have to go.  So, that meant no school for me either. Yahoo!  I took the opportunity to sleep in and have a personal day.  I ate my breakfast, found out I'm going to have a niece at the end of June, ate lunch, painted my nails, watched a movie, and ate strawberries with cream and sugar.  For dinner, my roommates and I went to a theater that serves you dinner while you watch your movie.  Why haven't I seen more of these?! It's dinner and a movie in one stop.  We saw the new Muppets movie.  It was hilarious!  Definitely a must see for every inner-child.