I'm waiting for lots of things right now.
Primarily I'm waiting for my husband to finish his statistics test so we can go home! Ha ha!
We are on campus right now....I'm sitting in the Stewart Library hoping these people sitting next to me at other computers aren't reading this or judging me that I'm a wet dog that just ran in the rain.
You see, I had to run in the pouring rain because the gym is closed. That's why I came to campus with Jeff because I was going to go to the gym, he was going to take a test......gym is closed....ran in the rain.....here I am.
Sometimes waiting is weird. How over-prepared can a person be while waiting? I dunno, I've been trying to figure that out my whole life. But right now I'm feelin' pretty over-prepared for what I'm waiting for. (Don't worry Jeff, take your time on your test, I'm not talking about waiting for you)
Right now I'm waiting for Weber to post next semesters class schedule online so I can plan my life. I have to wait for that to happen so I can see if I can keep my job next year. I have to wait to tell my supervisor that I might have to abandon ship because I don't know if abandoning ship is in the plan yet.
Those things don't seem like too big of a deal to wait for, right?
And yeeeeeeet.....I keep thinking of this quote...
"Without patience we cannot please God." -President Dieter F. Uchtdorf
Lately I've been thinking about how fast time goes. Jeff and I have been married for 10 months. It seems like 2. It also seems like 52. Time is weird like that.
So really these next couple months or waiting won't be bad at all.
I really really hope I can keep my job next year. Granted it's kind of weird sometimes (refer back to my post about my work a month or so ago), but I love the kids so much! People with autism are so fascinating. I'm reading a book right now about a girl with cerebral palsy and I love it! I love reading things that give such a positive light to people with disabilities.
I think way too often people discount "mentally retarded" people and don't really view them even as members of society. They are just the kids that lash out and make their parents look like they can't control them, right?
No.
I think unless you've worked with special needs people you don't really understand their potential.
The kids I work with are so freakishly cute! I love them! Even now when it's cold season and all of them are sick. It's good training to be a mom right? Getting coughed at in the face... spit, drooled, sneezed on. Ha ha.
I love my job because it breaks my heart.
Does that sound bad? Yep, yep it does.
It's sad watching your students, knowing when they go home they are going to a homeless shelter. That's the part that breaks my heart, but the happy part is knowing that while they are at school they smile the entire time. They look at you and say "han!" and reach for your hand. Or "ug" and want you to hug them. That's the part I love.
I think one of the main reasons I've always loved the lower grades in school is because you can see so much growth in their learning! When I very first started in education I was working with 1st graders and I loved watching them learn how to read! They were slow learners, but they took lots of baby steps.
Now that I'm around pre-schoolers and special ed. kids I see SO many baby steps and it's so much fun! Seeing a kid that figures out what green is cool to me.
Well, Jeff just called me so I gotta wrap this up............
Until next time, I guess. Happy Saturday! :)
Saturday, January 21, 2012
Saturday, January 14, 2012
Major change!
Well, we made it through the first two weeks of the semester! They were probably the craziest first two weeks of a semester I've ever had actually.
The first week was crazy cause of the whole ER/hospital/almost death we encountered.....
And this week has been crazy because I decided to change my major!
.....I know, I'm in my fourth year of school and I'm just BARELY changing....I'm nuts, right??
No!
It's times like this in my life that I know that my Heavenly Father is pointing me in the right direction. There are few times in my life that I have felt the spirit so strong telling me where I should go...and I know this is one of those times.
Rewind.
When I graduated high school I had sooooo many plans for my life- graduate in 3 years (don't worry, I had it planned out, it WAS possible), go on a mission, go to Peru and teach ninos pequenos, uhhh....yep, I basically was going to be really cool.
Now four years later I have lived through so many different things than I thought I would and may I say, I'm really glad.
I'm really glad that I lived down in Cedar and was able to experience a massive year of growing up. I'm glad that God knew I needed that experience to become independent. I'm also glad that He so strongly told me to move home after that year too. That was another time that the spirit bluntly pointed me in the right direction.
If I wouldn't have moved home I wouldn't have met Jeff. :)
Now that I'm in my 5th semester at Weber I can truly say that this is the perfect time for me to change my major.
Ever since I was in 2nd grade I knew I wanted to be a teacher. I made my neighbors who were a year older and a year younger than my sister....and my sister sit in my living room and I would teach them the things that I was learning in school. Granted they were 3, 4, and 5 year olds, but whatever.
So all this time I've had Elementary Education in my sights and wasn't ever going to look back.
Untiiiiil....recently....
The past semester or so I've been taking these "CHF" classes at Weber that "certify" elementary teachers to teach kindergarten. Weber used to only have a degree where you could teach 1st-6th grade, but they realized in the past couple of years that they really need kindergarten teachers and only adding two classes to the degree would be their ticket to licensing teachers to teach K-6.
In the end.....these two "CHF" classes were the BAIN of my existence. They were holding me back from getting into the education program. These classes HAD to be completed prior to entering the program and they couldn't be taken the same semester.
It literally took me three semesters to get into the first class because of the waiting list. Seriously.....they were the BAIN of....k, yeah, you get it.
Well, something happened when I started taking these classes.......
These classes are all about early childhood, AKA teaching kids between the ages of 2 and 5. It's totally geared toward pre-school.
I started taking these classes and kept telling myself...."these classes are BAIN of my..." but as I sat through class I was SO mezmorized by what we were learning. I was so intrigued by this so called Early Childhood Education and thought....wow, this stuff is really cool!
I then started to evaluate myself. I started thinking of what I really wanted to do with my life.
What really tipped me overboard into the sea of Early Childhood Education though was one night I was talking to this lady in my ESL class who has taught pre-school out of her home for, I dunno, 20 some odd years. She was such a sweet lady and I could tell how much she loved what she did. She spoke so highly of pre-school and the benefits of everything that she does.
I went home that night almost in a freak out because I knew I needed to change my major......
I had a "Just face it, Amber" moment when I said to myself....maybe the fact that little kids love me so much is a gift from Heavenly Father that I need to recognize and use. (Refer to my post from a month ago about me and little kids)
I didn't want to tell Jeff....or my mom....or anybody cause I was just thinking, are they going to think I'm ridiculous for wanting to teach pre-school?
Jeff is seriously the best husband ever though. When I did tell him he just listened and told me I needed to do what I really wanted to do and he would support me with whatever that decision was.
Well, I weighed the pros and cons and the more I thought it out the Early Childhood option had a lot more pros than Elementary Ed.
In the end, I did change my major to Early Childhood Education and now here I am! I've been so excited this whole week! I don't know what it is about the subject of early childhood, but it makes me love learning even more than my elementary education classes did. Learning the process of young childrens development and how they learn is fascinating to me. It's way more technical than you'd think it would be.
So now I'm going to graduate next spring. I have one semester of classes in the fall, then my student teaching will be in the spring. :) That makes a grand total of 9 semesters of school for me. Usually people graduate in 8....so 9 isn't too bad, right?
I think, in the end, the biggest reason I decided to switch was because of how I can make a career out of this major as opposed to the Elementary Education major.
With this major I can do all kinds of things like daycare, head start, pre-school....I can be a pre-school coordinator (which is essentially a principal of a pre-school, ha ha).
My real plan is to own my own pre-school at my house. I think it's the best option for a stay at home mom. I probably won't start an actual pre-school till my youngest is in school, but I can start a daycare and slowly mold it into a pre-school while my youngest kids are babies.
If I was to be an elementary teacher I would be out of the house and honestly, I think I would be a lot more stressed and not able to be in my kid's lives as much while they are little.
So that's my general plan for now....I'm going to teach pre-school and someday....far far far far far down the road if I teach for like 15 years and start to want to be around older kids then I can go back to school and get my Elementary Ed. degree.
There is so much that changes in education, even just the technology alone, that if I didn't teach in a school for over 25-30 years I would have no idea what I was doing and would need to go back to school anyways. So much changes in curriculum, laws, policies....my math teacher recently told us that all teachers are going to have to re-learn math because they are switching from arithmetic to geometric based math in the schools....in the end, too much changes that I don't think it would be smart to get that degree now.
Plus my heart is in pre-school! Ha ha :)
Having my Early Childhood degree I will always be able to do pre-school. Learning colors, how to share, counting to ten, art, music, etc. probably won't be changing.
Who knows? Maybe 40 years from now I'll still be teaching pre-school in my basement and loving every minute of it.
One thing that I've really learned through the past couple of years is life doesn't ever turn out like you THINK it will, but usually that's because Heavenly Father knows what is what and why we should be doing the things we do.
I'm just grateful that I have had those few strong experiences with the spirit and never ending small promptings to point my life in the right direction. God knows our strengths and helps us realize where we can use them.
The first week was crazy cause of the whole ER/hospital/almost death we encountered.....
And this week has been crazy because I decided to change my major!
.....I know, I'm in my fourth year of school and I'm just BARELY changing....I'm nuts, right??
No!
It's times like this in my life that I know that my Heavenly Father is pointing me in the right direction. There are few times in my life that I have felt the spirit so strong telling me where I should go...and I know this is one of those times.
Rewind.
When I graduated high school I had sooooo many plans for my life- graduate in 3 years (don't worry, I had it planned out, it WAS possible), go on a mission, go to Peru and teach ninos pequenos, uhhh....yep, I basically was going to be really cool.
Now four years later I have lived through so many different things than I thought I would and may I say, I'm really glad.
I'm really glad that I lived down in Cedar and was able to experience a massive year of growing up. I'm glad that God knew I needed that experience to become independent. I'm also glad that He so strongly told me to move home after that year too. That was another time that the spirit bluntly pointed me in the right direction.
If I wouldn't have moved home I wouldn't have met Jeff. :)
Now that I'm in my 5th semester at Weber I can truly say that this is the perfect time for me to change my major.
Ever since I was in 2nd grade I knew I wanted to be a teacher. I made my neighbors who were a year older and a year younger than my sister....and my sister sit in my living room and I would teach them the things that I was learning in school. Granted they were 3, 4, and 5 year olds, but whatever.
So all this time I've had Elementary Education in my sights and wasn't ever going to look back.
Untiiiiil....recently....
The past semester or so I've been taking these "CHF" classes at Weber that "certify" elementary teachers to teach kindergarten. Weber used to only have a degree where you could teach 1st-6th grade, but they realized in the past couple of years that they really need kindergarten teachers and only adding two classes to the degree would be their ticket to licensing teachers to teach K-6.
In the end.....these two "CHF" classes were the BAIN of my existence. They were holding me back from getting into the education program. These classes HAD to be completed prior to entering the program and they couldn't be taken the same semester.
It literally took me three semesters to get into the first class because of the waiting list. Seriously.....they were the BAIN of....k, yeah, you get it.
Well, something happened when I started taking these classes.......
These classes are all about early childhood, AKA teaching kids between the ages of 2 and 5. It's totally geared toward pre-school.
I started taking these classes and kept telling myself...."these classes are BAIN of my..." but as I sat through class I was SO mezmorized by what we were learning. I was so intrigued by this so called Early Childhood Education and thought....wow, this stuff is really cool!
I then started to evaluate myself. I started thinking of what I really wanted to do with my life.
What really tipped me overboard into the sea of Early Childhood Education though was one night I was talking to this lady in my ESL class who has taught pre-school out of her home for, I dunno, 20 some odd years. She was such a sweet lady and I could tell how much she loved what she did. She spoke so highly of pre-school and the benefits of everything that she does.
I went home that night almost in a freak out because I knew I needed to change my major......
I had a "Just face it, Amber" moment when I said to myself....maybe the fact that little kids love me so much is a gift from Heavenly Father that I need to recognize and use. (Refer to my post from a month ago about me and little kids)
I didn't want to tell Jeff....or my mom....or anybody cause I was just thinking, are they going to think I'm ridiculous for wanting to teach pre-school?
Jeff is seriously the best husband ever though. When I did tell him he just listened and told me I needed to do what I really wanted to do and he would support me with whatever that decision was.
Well, I weighed the pros and cons and the more I thought it out the Early Childhood option had a lot more pros than Elementary Ed.
In the end, I did change my major to Early Childhood Education and now here I am! I've been so excited this whole week! I don't know what it is about the subject of early childhood, but it makes me love learning even more than my elementary education classes did. Learning the process of young childrens development and how they learn is fascinating to me. It's way more technical than you'd think it would be.
So now I'm going to graduate next spring. I have one semester of classes in the fall, then my student teaching will be in the spring. :) That makes a grand total of 9 semesters of school for me. Usually people graduate in 8....so 9 isn't too bad, right?
I think, in the end, the biggest reason I decided to switch was because of how I can make a career out of this major as opposed to the Elementary Education major.
With this major I can do all kinds of things like daycare, head start, pre-school....I can be a pre-school coordinator (which is essentially a principal of a pre-school, ha ha).
My real plan is to own my own pre-school at my house. I think it's the best option for a stay at home mom. I probably won't start an actual pre-school till my youngest is in school, but I can start a daycare and slowly mold it into a pre-school while my youngest kids are babies.
If I was to be an elementary teacher I would be out of the house and honestly, I think I would be a lot more stressed and not able to be in my kid's lives as much while they are little.
So that's my general plan for now....I'm going to teach pre-school and someday....far far far far far down the road if I teach for like 15 years and start to want to be around older kids then I can go back to school and get my Elementary Ed. degree.
There is so much that changes in education, even just the technology alone, that if I didn't teach in a school for over 25-30 years I would have no idea what I was doing and would need to go back to school anyways. So much changes in curriculum, laws, policies....my math teacher recently told us that all teachers are going to have to re-learn math because they are switching from arithmetic to geometric based math in the schools....in the end, too much changes that I don't think it would be smart to get that degree now.
Plus my heart is in pre-school! Ha ha :)
Having my Early Childhood degree I will always be able to do pre-school. Learning colors, how to share, counting to ten, art, music, etc. probably won't be changing.
Who knows? Maybe 40 years from now I'll still be teaching pre-school in my basement and loving every minute of it.
One thing that I've really learned through the past couple of years is life doesn't ever turn out like you THINK it will, but usually that's because Heavenly Father knows what is what and why we should be doing the things we do.
I'm just grateful that I have had those few strong experiences with the spirit and never ending small promptings to point my life in the right direction. God knows our strengths and helps us realize where we can use them.
Saturday, January 7, 2012
This one didn't kill you, but the next one could...
Hopefully their won't be a next one.
Jeff and I had a very interesting and humbling week. On Monday he went into the doctor to get a CT scan because his chest had been hurting him. After the test was over the doctor was like...."k, we'll call you in a few days with the results, bye!"
They called him a half hour after that and said "you need to go to the emergency room immediately." Jeff then proceeded to call me (I was in my night class) and told me he was going to the ER. He told me his artery by his lung was clogged or something....they didn't really know what yet.
Now, I don't know much about anatomy or medical whatever, but if you say something is seriously wrong near your heart or lungs my first thought is....Oh my gosh, he's going to die.
That's what the doctors (all approx seven of them over the next three days) said should have happened too. I wasn't there when he got to the emergency room, but Jeff's dad told me that the inital doctor kept saying how lucky he was to be alive.
What really ended up being the problem was he had a blood clot in his left lung. I guess it was big enough that it basically was his lung/he hadn't been using that lung for the past several months. (at least not to it's full capacity)
The doctors immediately put him on blood thinners. He's going to have to be on them for the next six months or more.
It's been such a humbling week for me, and I know for Jeff. During those three days in the hospital I went through so many emotions. It makes me so grateful for the Atonement. I definitely felt it working in my life this week.
I was going through emotions of thinking.....oh my gosh, it actually is possible that he could leave me. Only being married for next to 10 months you don't really think about your spouse as someone who could just up and die. We are still newly married.....aren't we supposed to have lots of babies and get fat and have Thanksgiving dinner with our grandchildren in our home that we built 30 years prior?
I have a testimony that the Atonement can help soften any feelings of guilt or sorrow or selfishness. I was feeling all of those things a lot this week!
Jeff definitely is my better half. He's so much stronger than I am and I'm so glad Heavenly Father has blessed me with him in my life. I'm so grateful that I get to live a long and happy life with him. I know this because of my faith in my Father in Heaven and the promises that He has given us.
One of the best things Jeff said to me this week was his testimony on our eternal marriage. This life is so short that even if we were to be separated for a little while, it truly only would be a LITTLE while. In the grand scheme of things we have so much to look forward to for the rest of eternity.
Eternity is a long time. So much longer than this life.
Well, I guess there is lots of good news for now! Jeff is one some shots and pills of blood thinner and will be for awhile. Pretty much the doctors have reassured us that as long as they keep his blood levels where they want them we won't have any more problems. Also, he had some genetics tests done and they came back negative which means the clotting should NOT be reoccurring.
After all of this I've decided that really it all depends on how we look at life and mold our attitude that determines how we get through things.
"We can’t direct the wind, but we can adjust the sails. For maximum happiness, peace, and contentment, may we choose a positive attitude."
-President Thomas S. Monson
Jeff and I had a very interesting and humbling week. On Monday he went into the doctor to get a CT scan because his chest had been hurting him. After the test was over the doctor was like...."k, we'll call you in a few days with the results, bye!"
They called him a half hour after that and said "you need to go to the emergency room immediately." Jeff then proceeded to call me (I was in my night class) and told me he was going to the ER. He told me his artery by his lung was clogged or something....they didn't really know what yet.
Now, I don't know much about anatomy or medical whatever, but if you say something is seriously wrong near your heart or lungs my first thought is....Oh my gosh, he's going to die.
That's what the doctors (all approx seven of them over the next three days) said should have happened too. I wasn't there when he got to the emergency room, but Jeff's dad told me that the inital doctor kept saying how lucky he was to be alive.
What really ended up being the problem was he had a blood clot in his left lung. I guess it was big enough that it basically was his lung/he hadn't been using that lung for the past several months. (at least not to it's full capacity)
The doctors immediately put him on blood thinners. He's going to have to be on them for the next six months or more.
It's been such a humbling week for me, and I know for Jeff. During those three days in the hospital I went through so many emotions. It makes me so grateful for the Atonement. I definitely felt it working in my life this week.
I was going through emotions of thinking.....oh my gosh, it actually is possible that he could leave me. Only being married for next to 10 months you don't really think about your spouse as someone who could just up and die. We are still newly married.....aren't we supposed to have lots of babies and get fat and have Thanksgiving dinner with our grandchildren in our home that we built 30 years prior?
I have a testimony that the Atonement can help soften any feelings of guilt or sorrow or selfishness. I was feeling all of those things a lot this week!
Jeff definitely is my better half. He's so much stronger than I am and I'm so glad Heavenly Father has blessed me with him in my life. I'm so grateful that I get to live a long and happy life with him. I know this because of my faith in my Father in Heaven and the promises that He has given us.
One of the best things Jeff said to me this week was his testimony on our eternal marriage. This life is so short that even if we were to be separated for a little while, it truly only would be a LITTLE while. In the grand scheme of things we have so much to look forward to for the rest of eternity.
Eternity is a long time. So much longer than this life.
Well, I guess there is lots of good news for now! Jeff is one some shots and pills of blood thinner and will be for awhile. Pretty much the doctors have reassured us that as long as they keep his blood levels where they want them we won't have any more problems. Also, he had some genetics tests done and they came back negative which means the clotting should NOT be reoccurring.
After all of this I've decided that really it all depends on how we look at life and mold our attitude that determines how we get through things.
"We can’t direct the wind, but we can adjust the sails. For maximum happiness, peace, and contentment, may we choose a positive attitude."
-President Thomas S. Monson
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