Being a preschool teacher has its benefits

It is only one week until a new school year begins. The past couple years and summers I have taught a pre-vpk class. Somedays it is really, really rough and other days I can't help but smile. After a long week (including coming home early from work yesterday feeling miserable) my fiance and I like to eat a yummy meal at home then go to our favorite bookstore, browse, then sit with a coffee and read. It's a typical Friday night for us. Non-typical night for most 21 year olds, but we aren't like that. While standing the the biography section picking out a good read I am stopped by one of my students from last school year and her mother. Seeing her be shy but still run up to give me a hug just reminds me that what I do, I love. Even when it seems that I don't want to be around kids after seeing them all week for 40 hours it's like God reminds me I have a gift. The ability to make a child smile and learn the fundamentals for the rest of their life. Many people look at preschool teachers as not real teachers, which, admittedly, I too thought before becoming one. It honestly takes someone with a special heart, and will to teach. Anyone can go to a daycare and babysit all day, or even get their Bachelor's Degree and teach out of a textbook but it takes a special person to go beyond the book, and beyond flashcards. I feel I am accomplishing that. I am so proud to work at such a prestigous school that gives me the opportunity to learn about myself as I teach 4 year olds. It's an amazing thing to have a child smile at your funny voices when reading a book, or laughing as I randomly dance in the cafeteria. It's awesome to make a crying upset child happy because you tickle them or kiss their boo-boos. What I do is rewarding. Whether others see it as a real teaching job or not is up to them. I am making a difference in the life of numerous children that some parents cannot fulfill because they have to work.

I love what I do. Many people cannot say that.

(photo credit: barnabywasson )

interesting photography

I've had numerous dreams where I begin running away from something and suddenly I lift off like a plane and begin running over the road and trees. In my dream I always get so freaked out by it. I'm also running really slow in the air. It's just an awkward experience. Almost as awkward as Li Wei's photography.

tip jars

Sometimes you just don't feel like giving up your change for tipping. These tip jars do make you want to though.

Makes me wish I can put a tip jar in my classroom.

Mother Teresa

Naturally Nina inspired me to think of a quote I like. When I'm in Barnes n Noble I love reading quotes from western philosophy and even the Psalms in the Bible. Here is one from an amazing women:

“Spread love everywhere you go. Let no one ever come to you without leaving happier.”—Mother Theresa

Skipped a day :-/

I have been so "out-of-it" since my fiance brought home a kitten on Friday. Since we already have a year old cat we've been having to monitor it's behaviour with the kitten and ensuring they get along. The first couple nights we placed our older cat in the living room and closed our bedroom door. In our room was the kitten. All night long it would meow and bother me. Friday and Saturday night I would get up in the middle of the night and go sleep on the couch with my older cat. Sunday night my fiance decided to leave me in the bedroom with the kitten (who now climbs onto the bed) while he slept on the couch. We now leave the bedroom door open, hoping the kitten would lay with the cat, but no. Last night it kept walking across me and licking my face and meowing each time it would use the litter box (currently stationed in our room so that the older cat doesn't use it instead of her own). I would freak when my fiance would roll around because I thought he'd lay on the cat. I smacked his arm a few times throughout the night.

My mind hasn't thought about what cute things I could find on etsy, where I want to be in life, funny happenings of the day, or a random quote. Instead I think about coffee and pajamas. Yesterday I had to work at 6:30am, and today at 7:30am...which is my normal shift. I'm about ready to pass out at my laptop right now. I just hope I can feel more refreshed tomorrow and have something fun to write. Til then, good night

New family member

On Friday my fiance brought home this cutie. His name is Panthro. Yes, just like Panthro the grey cat in Thunder Cats . It is only 8 weeks old and he got it from a co-workers who's cat recently had a litter. Tomorrow we'll take him to get his first shots as well as take our year old cat for her check-up. Our older cat, Poutine, isn't taking the new arrival too well. Usually she's all over me and now she's ignoring me. Last night I realized what it's like to have a baby crying all night. The kitten wouldn't hush up! So my fiance slept on the floor with him and I slept on the couch with Poutine

genius wedding entrance

I first saw this on A Cup of Jo then again on Naturally Nina and had to repost it. If I was going to have a big wedding I'd love to do something like this, since you only get one chance (hopefully). My fiance laughed when he watched it and I laughed and cried. I can cry over the silliest things!

On a wedding note I called the place I would like to have my wedding and unfortunately got the voicemail. I can only call Tuesday or Thursday and between 3pm and 5pm. I hope she will be able to return my call soon since I plan for the wedding to be mid-November of this year! If not, back to the drawing board. And when wedding planning, going back to the drawing board isn't always the greatest of things.

alice in wonderland

A teaser trailer for the Tim Burton Alice in Wonderland was leaked and it is terribly hard to find a site that disney didn't have a "infringment" on the video. I found a blog, in spanish, which has the video in case you want to see it before it gets deleted

So exciting!

http://salondelmal.wordpress.com/2009/07/22/teaser-trailer-del-alice-in-wonderland-de-tim-burton/

I have a nephew

My younger sister and her boyfriend are the proud parents of a baby boy. His name is Tyler (after the father) Clayton (the middle name, which is our maiden name and we have no boys on our side of the family to carry it on) and M. (father's last name) My sister went to the hospital around 8am and gave birth at 5:11. I wasn't there (I would've fainted!) but my older sister and parents were. I haven't even visited my nephew yet since we had a mandatory staff meeting tonight. I was going to go after the meeting but I know my sister is probably really tired so I will finally see my nephew tomorrow.

(photo credit: my big sister's facebook)

Perfect date movie

As if any movie Michael Cera is in isn't already a date movie this is just the creme de la creme of them all. I am beyond excited to see it and my fiance says "Yeah...sure" when I asked if he wants to see it. He is going no matter what. Just watching the trailer makes me fall in love with my fiance all over again

8 months ago i got engaged

As a little girl I thought about the perfect wedding day loads of times....the princess dress, the giant church, everyone and their grandmother showing up, the whole 9 yards. But, since being engaged none of those thoughts came to my mind. Instead I have gone from small wedding November 2009, to April 2010 wedding with up to 100 guests (which we reserved and paid a deposit for), to eloping in Virginia in April 2010 and back to a November 2009 wedding but with only family and dinner at a restaurant afterward. There will be no "reception" and immediately following the meal we will drive off to our honeymoon. I have never been one for flashy things. It's even a tradition in my family to be untraditional. My parents were married in a courtroom after all 3 daughters were born. My older sister was married at 19 since her husband joined the military out of high school. My younger sister, though not married, just turned 20 and is due to give birth to my first nephew tomorrow. I always vowed though that I won't have a courthouse wedding. Yet, eloping in the mountains of Virginia sounded perfect. Instead we are trying to do something small and intimate. I look forward to being married in less than 4 months. Only thing is I need to book a venue, officiant and get a dress. But I believe that through God, it's possible.

Our talents...

Have you ever wondered what you are meant to be? I have been thinking about this a lot lately. It is part of the reason I am taking so long to get through college. My career paths have been education, interior design, education again, sociology, entrepreneurship...I just can't seem to figure out what I'm meant to be, who I'm meant to be. I know I am very good with analyzing, and teaching preschool, helping others with their problems, organizing...basically a mixture of all the career paths I have thought about doing. Personally, I'd love to be a stay at home mom and do the PTA thing while my fiance "brings home the bacon" but I know that in this society it's getting really hard to have one person be the back-bone of the household. So how do I discover what I want to be? I know I don't want to teach forever since I am not comfortable being held accountable for the knowledge my students gain. I don't have the social skills to go out and market my business. I do not like the thought of sitting at a desk and listening to people's problems all day when I don't know them personally to truly help. I don't want to learn business codes and drafting.

I read somewhere that one can make money being a professional organizer. That would be fun but I would feel super awkward going through other people's junk and possibly trashing important things.

Anyone else have this issue? Those of you who are in a career they absolutely love, how did you know it's what you were meant to do? How did you begin?

6th grade yearbook

This evening I went through my sixth grade (1998-1999) yearbook and thought it would be fun to look them up on myspace. Along my journey I found a few were married, some already have children, some gay, some in the military, a few moved far away, others still loving with mom and dad...It's just amazing to see how some people changed (for good and worse) since 10 years ago. I graduated in 2005 so a few people I have seen in the last 4 years but many others it's been much longer. Have you ever wondered what happened to kids you went to school with? Still close friends with any? I still have one friend who's lived in Montreal since I went to 8th grade but we've remained relatively close. I even went to visit him in March 2007. That's a long story for another day though :)

(photo credit : class of 1960)

somewhere over the rainbow

Have you ever wanted to move away? Go to a place where noone would know your name and you could start all over? Many people would love to move where I live, the east coast of Florida. Only 10 minutes from the beach...may seem like "the life" to others. I though would love to move to a place with actual seasons. In Florida we have a joke as to what our "seasons" are...Tourist season (winter), lovebug season (spring), hurricane season (summer-fall) and all year-round it is summer. I would love to move to an area where snow is looked forward too, as well as leaves changing colors, the first signs of spring. All we get here is looking forward to our oranges growing in the winter. My dream is to run off to Virginia. Not too hot, not too cold, mountains, close to ocean, historic sites, the whole nine yards...
Where would you go?

(photo credit: ranhar2 )

Pillow talk

One of the greatest things that my fiance and I do is have pillow talk. Usually we talk about work while eating together (which we always do at a dinner table, never on the couch). But when we lay in bed at night it's different. We could continue to talk about work, or talk about religion, our future, how we should really try getting to bed earlier, what we'd name our kids...so on and so forth. I love it.

(the link posted above will take you to my old blog)

pretend online shopping

One thing about living in an 820 sqft apartment is that you begin to long for a nice big kitchen. I have been dreaming about the appliances I can't wait to have. My fiance's birthday is coming up and he wants a knife set. I just can't find a nice cheap set. I on the other hand would like a spice rack for my birthday in September. I just can't wait to paint my kitchen and pick out my appliances and little nicknacks. Is there a place in your home or future home you can't wait to decorate?

(photo credit: FlickrforHam )

Full moon

My day was pretty interesting. I had 23 students but they were surprisingly quieter than they've been all week...and we've had 17-19 monday through wednesday. Then I actually won a game of Scrabble after 5 nights of strenuous play. My dinner was absolutely amazing. My fiance makes really good tacos and salsa made with solely fresh veggies (he should make it good, he's 1/2 mexican!) then I made the rice with olives and pigeon peas. It was just a randomly surprisingly good meal. To top it off our grocery bill was really cheap.

One of my co-workers who is strong on believing the alignments of planets affect us and she practices meditation and numerology says that it's the "full moon". With the exception that her normally calm class is crazy.

I'm beginning to wonder if she's right?!

(photo credit: sar-kelandi )

Scrabble

My fiance and I have been playing Scrabble since we first began dating. We went to Montreal alone together on our third month of dating (I had booked my lonely trip just before he and I began dating. I was going to visit a friend I hadn't seen in 7 years). While in Montreal we went to a game store in the Underground City and bought a Scrabble board, which is the one we still use today. Since moving in together in March we haven't played together till 3 days ago. The games get super intense but it's fun to see what words he comes up with and yell at eachother for taking the letter either were about to use for a word. It's nice though...we just sit in the quiet or with relaxing music in the background and prepare to win. Or in my case, lose 4 nights in a row!
But tonight I lost by a single point!

(photo credit : ittybittiesforyou )

oooh! first etsy purchase

I just purchased this head band from etsy seller taylortengelsen. I love head bands and even though I was merely browsing etsy I found this cute crocheted one for $5 and couldn't pass it up. I am also looking to get this art piece for my sister since she will be having a baby boy in a couple weeks and the baby room theme is safari animals.

So excited to get my head band in the mail, especially since I drastically darkened my hair.

Loving some of these rooms!

I have been thinking about my future home so much lately and thinking about different simple ways I would decorate it. I came across Kelly's blog, Design Crush and got a crush on some of the designs (my lame play on words, I know). I am inspired to have a crisp, clean white bathroom, clutter-free office space, and bright dishes. Her place is quaint and fun and I hope that I'll be able to design mine in such a way.

I would photograph my place but it's pretty much separated as 1/2 living room and kitchen, 3/4 bedroom and 1/4 bathroom. The only designing my fiance and I have is photographs he has taken. One day I'll live in a place that my crdeative juices will flow.

A cute little cottage

My fiance and I have been discussing that in 7 months our lease will be up on our apartment. Since we will be married in 4 months, you know that we definitely want to buy a home. We would like a home with enough land for future children and pets to roam. Plus room for a vegetable garden and flower garden. My fiance would like an actual full farm with a goat and chickens but I'm not that big of a fan of the idea.

Of course we have to go through the joys of a realtor and seeing how much we're approved for first. I cannot wait to see what we'll end up with!

Random thought

My hair now...

How I would like my hair to look...
I am contemplating getting this hair cut. I have naturally wavy hair (and lots of it!) Plus a round face. I have cut my hair short before but was a little chunkier last time I did. Watching Public Enemies last night, I have been in love with Marion Cotillard's hair cut. So, as long as I continue to curl it (and probably color it) I could possibly pull it off. What do you think?

A working class hero

daddy and me

Over dinner tonight my fiance and I started to talk about our current jobs and what we wish we were doing instead. It then turned into an emotional conversation where I began talking about my Dad. He never finished school, he ended in 8th grade. Instead he stayed home and worked on the little farm my grandparents had in their backyard in New Jersey. My Dad was always an extremely hard worker. Every night when I was little I would remember him sitting on the couch watching tv with an ice pack on his arms or back (he did construction even though he had surgery in his shoulder in the late 80s/early 90s) then he'd be up before the sun the next day and I'd be getting ready for school. I'd sit on the floor in the living room eating cereal while we watched The Andy Griffith Show. My dad has done so much for my family. He remodeled our entire house and began his own Home Remodeling and Repair business when the economy was booming. Now my parents have the bank hasseling them, and in the process of losing the home my father worked so hard on to foreclosure.

It makes me think about the unappreciated jobs (the start of our conversation) All too often I am asked "So I hear you're a teacher?" yes "What do you teach?" preschool "Oh."

As soon as your born they make you feel small,

By giving you no time instead of it all,

Till the pain is so big you feel nothing at all,

A working class hero is something to be,

A working class hero is something to be.

They hurt you at home and they hit you at school,

They hate you if you're clever and they despise a fool,

Till you're so fucking crazy you can't follow their rules,

A working class hero is something to be,

A working class hero is something to be.

When they've tortured and scared you for twenty odd years,

Then they expect you to pick a career,

When you can't really function you're so full of fear,

A working class hero is something to be,

A working class hero is something to be.

Keep you doped with religion and sex and TV,

And you think you're so clever and classless and free,

But you're still fucking peasents as far as I can see,

A working class hero is something to be,

A working class hero is something to be.

There's room at the top they are telling you still,

But first you must learn how to smile as you kill,

If you want to be like the folks on the hill,

A working class hero is something to be.

A working class hero is something to be.

If you want to be a hero well just follow me,

If you want to be a hero well just follow me.

-John Lennon