Happy 3-2-1 Day!

Its a new holiday, one Hallmark has no rights to! 3-2-1 Day. One year ago, Tom & I got engaged in Nagoya, Japan. Above is a photo of Hikone castle, outside of which he'd planned to propose. It was as grey and chilly as it is here today and I didn't have the faintest idea he had a plan.

And what a year. In the last 365 days, I've been to Tibet, left my preschool job in Tokyo and my friends & life (& favorite foods!) in Japan, moved in with my parents for 6 months, and gone back to school. I worked at Starbucks. ;) I went on a whirlwind road trip from Seattle with Brook and my friend Tomoko, through Portland, Bandon (to see Uncle Bill), Northern California, San Francisco (seeing Jaclyn and Melissa and the Schmidt crew minus Scott), to Los Angeles (to see Scott, Angela, and Bob Barker) and then to Colorado to meet up with the rest of our family to say goodbye to my grandfather on a hike in the mountains. Tom finally moved back, started his new job, and together we purchased our first house and began slowly moving our stuff to Michigan. I ran a marathon. (what was I thinking??). We had Thanksgiving with more gathered family than I had previously ever met. We got married and celebrated with all of our family and most of our friends (including some from both our Japanese families) at the most incredible, joy-filled, rocking party I've ever been to. We went to Mexico (and breathed). Tom went home. I took finals. I moved from one home to my home. My grandpa died. We drove to Milwaukee for a chance to be thankful for him, being together as family again, and for having had the wedding as our last happy moment together. Somehow, Christmas came, 2007 appeared, Tom & I went running at DisneyWorld, and I started school again, at another new school, full time for the first time in 6 years. We dog-sat for a few weeks, Jaclyn got married, Tom ran a marathon. And its the end of March again!

What a year! What a change in lifestyle! I miss my life of last year, but in the same way I miss being at St. Olaf. I love my new life and I love that it is (excuse the metaphor) a puzzle that I get to put together with Tom. I had to figure Chicago and Japan out all on my own (and loved doing so) but now I'm ready to ask for help, to be supported, and to be there for someone else. It feels really good to be a team and to have my best friend *here* E-ver-y Day. I'm so, so thankful we finally reached the point where we could both be flexible enough to figure out how to connect our crazy lives! And it has been a lot of fun.

This next year? I don't know if it could possibly be as dramatic as the last, and I think that's a good thing. I'm looking forward to finishing my first full time semester and completing all the "hoop jumping" required to get my teaching certificate. Tom is still creating a fulfilling position for himself at work. We'll face our first major health procedure at the end of May as we hope to get Tom's esophagus issues fixed for good. We'll run more, we'll travel more, and we will continue to politely disagree on who will be The Next American Idol (I tell ya, if he votes for Sanjaya one more time it might be separate beds...). I just can't believe how fast the time goes and it amazes me how much our lives have changed.

What a great trip!

What I'm Learning

I just wrote an e-mail and figured Ben might not be the only one wondering what I'm doing at school these days. So here you go.

So, you asked about my coursework. Currently I am taking 3 Education program classes and 2 Geography classes. The Ed. classes are:
1) Educational Psychology: The text seems good but the teacher is a joke and I will literally be able to get an A without reading the text. This is the class in which we're watching Harry Wong instead of being taught. I am actually learning a bit on my own from the text, the research project (how one variable, mine is socioeconomic status, affects student academic achievement), and yes, even from Harry Wong.

2) Education for Exceptional Learners (aka "Special Education"): I wasn't looking forward to this class at all, but that's because I didn't realize the extent to which "special ed" has changed from when we were in school. I had no idea I was going to have to teach these kids in the general ed. classroom. Now that I know I'll probably have to, I am wide eyed and highlighting. I like the text a lot, the teacher is a weak teacher but has real life experience as an itinerant hearing-loss specialist and is a woman, an African-American, and has her Ph.D. I think the class is by far the most valuable of what I"m taking this semester as a lot of what we're learning, regardless whether they're validated practices for kids with Autism or kids with low vision, it all seems to be generally applicable to the student population: i.e. be organized, be clear, have high expectations, don't make assumptions, and teach at a billion different levels.

3) I'm taking the first of three required and sequential pre-student teaching "Field Experience" practicums. They're all only a credit and require no classroom meetings. We have online discussions and then we have to visit schools. This semester will be the easiest as we only had one half day required- we all met at a inner city elementary school to have a tour, meet the Michigan Teacher of the Year (who normaly is a teacher at that school... my section of this practicum just got lucky since our professor worked at the school before she retired), and observe class. It was my first chance to get into an poor, urban, and black school. I don't know if it is PC to describe it that way, but it was. And it is also a high achieving, improving, succeeding school, which was really cool to see. The next two practicums require 25 and 30 hours respectively on our own. Looks like I'll be doing mine at another (less successful by far) very low income, very diverse (98% black, 2% Hispanic) high school- by choice. I'm scared shitless and also really, really excited to LEARN how to work at an urban school. When you said you wanted to teach in an inner city school I thought you were crazy. I don't know if I can do it because I am *such* a sheltered white girl.... but I don't really *want* to be that sheltered white girl. Its a real handicap, in my opinion, and I'd like to see if I can work my way out of it. As an inner city teacher is quoted in the research that is currently sitting right next to me says (of COURSE I'm blabbing on because I am supposed to be writing a paper) "Its really easy to teach in schools where parents have already done all the work for you beforehand". Yeah. Anyway... I'm going to give it my best shot.

That said (assuming you don't need the lowdown on the Geography courses), what advice can you give me?? I will start this next practicum in the last week of April or the beginning of May. What's a scared little white girl to do? :) I'm only partially kidding, btw.

Loaded Questions

I found another meme blog that seemed interesting. Here are the loaded questions (#3) from One Day at a Time:

Hypotheticals: If you could ask the president of the country one question, what would it be?

Want to go for a jog?

Anything Goes: Fill in the blank: ______ stole the cookies from the cookie jar.

Oh, definitely "I". You can't let me know where the jar is... that's the strategy.

No-Brainers: What do you consider to be the most dangerous creature on Earth?

Spiders or other venomous bugs. They're poisonous and tiny and just creep up on you when you aren't even paying attention.

Personals: What have you tried in life, and simply were not good at?

Basketball. Volleyball. Basically any organized team sport that required hand-eye coordination is a no go.

Feel free to distract my limited academic focus with your own answers by adding them in the comments section. Nothing much going on here, although I did meet my new hero, Laura Sophiea over the weekend. What an inspiration!

And, here's another wedding picture... I've been awful slow at dealing with them, but I will, I swear! Who-hoo, us!!

Watch me go!

My photo from the 5k is up!! I can't manage to bookmark it, so you have to go to MarathonFoto, search for the MardiGras Marathon (2007), and type in my last name (the new one) and bib number 5157. I really love that they managed to get the Boudreaux Butt Paste Banner in the photo... they were a major sponsor and now when I wear my t-shirt or look at this photo I can remember them fondly. Excellent!!