Hookah

Yum.
My friend told me that the Hookah bar would mostly be habited by muslim men. I wore a purple Land's End turtle neck. I was surrounded by hip college students with enough eyeliner to design a bridge. Opps! Out of place.

Love it, though the even cost $50 for me and a friend.

Building things

I was blessed with a father who knows how to work power tools. Throughout growing up we built things.

I've made: 2 birdcages
a CO2 Cannon
a trebuchet
a spring powered cannon
a tadpole ledge
and enough balsa wood structures to make a raft.

Now... I'm hopefully getting another chinchilla soon.... and I need a bigger cage.
One of the things I enjoy about it is sketching out the design, thinking about the logistics and shocking old men at the lumber yard when I can speak their "language"

Snow Day tomorrow... so let's get building!

Discernement

What does this mean? What in the heck am I supposed to do?
Lincoln County RIII did not grant me a job interview at the job fair. I don't really know what this means, but I can assume that my chances of being hired back here again are getting slimmer and slimmer. Do I stay in Missouri? Do I go back home?
I have a few friends here, but not a whole lot, and if I have to re-settle in a new school... I'd have to move which would sever any friendships in town and any professional relationships. That keeps only a few people here as my base. I love'm but they are busy too.
If I go back home, there is family and high school friends, Safety and familiarity.
Any suggestions?

CUTIE

Graduate School

Six months from now I will have supposedly completed all the requirements for the MAE from Truman. Right now, I have to work on one major project with two components. The major project is my teaching Portfolio. This will run 40-90 pages of reflections about my teaching style and what I learned in my internship. It will also include "artifacts": copies of worksheets, tests, and student written journals. Most of this will be worked on once school is out. The entire due date for everything is July 15th. The smaller component of the Portfolio is a Unit Plan that I implement during the school year. This has to be keyed to the Missouri Grade Level Expectations and the National Science Standards. Everything has to be planned out ahead of time, and every detail covered. This Unit plan, including the worksheets and the tests will add 30-50pages to the portfolio.

All in all, it is no small project, but definitely doable. HOWEVER: my adviser is a stickler. The kind of Mentor who is blunt with criticism and short on praise. He's made students cry multiple times. He's picky with word choice and Language. (For example it's not "lab" it is "Laboratory"). People have gone through Reflections with 10 different revisions and still it's not up to his standards. He's one of those professors who make you a better teacher, but you end up hating him during the process.

The portfolio is where most people fail at getting there degree. It is usually put off a summer. Technically you have two years to complete it, but you get paid more if you have a masters degree than if you don't.

I'm afraid that my slacker tendencies will kick in, that I'll be lazy and won't get it done. That would be bad, very, very bad. This portfolio is just another hoop to jump through, and I'm not very engaged in it, so I could see the degree postponement happening. The good thing is that I like writting, so hopefully the reflection part of the assignment will be easier.

The thing is, I don't see my self satisfied as a science teacher for the rest of my life either... so what after the degree? There are lots of masters programs in Science that are available to teachers too. hmmm.

Friday Night fever

at 2:30 it hit me. Fatigue and achy limbs. I couldn't really walk well, so I relayed directions to a couple of students, who then relayed information to the rest of the class. I love my fifth hour class, no one is failing, and when I'm sick, they are nice to me. It was really hard walking to my car when class was over: fever, dizziness and high heels don't really mix. It was even harder to convince my self to get out of my car and into the apartment. On the way home I had to stop at Sonic because I had the shakes, and not the happy vanilla kind. If I wanted to get into my apartment, I'd have to move, and if I moved it would hurt and make me want to throw up. I finally convinced myself that moving would be a good thing, and went straight to bed, where I was in and out of consciousness. I don't know high my fever was because I didn't want to move and get a thermometer.

It really sucks living by yourself when your sick. There is no one to feel sorry for you or get you a glass of water or medicine. Your sick self has to get it. This means if you are too achy to stand, medicine can wait. My Friday night was ruined. The good thing is my fever broke around 10:30pm and I'm slowly getting better.

You can't get this soap opera evry year

I love politics, I love talking about politics, I love reading about politics, I love debating about politics.

McCain backstabbing Romney...ouch!
Who in the heck will Win Missouri?
Will Hillary Clinton ever pick her nose in public?
who do you want to be your vice president?

Red State, Blue State,
Race, Gender, Reglion

a McCain Huckabee ticket is almost as tantilizing as a Obama Edwards tickets.

I love living in Missouri instead of Kansas--go swing state!

Did you know?

I am a bitch.
I am a Lesbian.

Children say the darnedest things sometimes.

I guess they thought they were insulting me with the lesbian thing. Poor little children, they can't even think creatively when it comes to insults.

(It's been a really horrible week.)