Exhausted

I'm so tired. So tired, I feel drunk. I'm ready to see how Monday goes with my first lessons. We have one full week this week and then the following one is Labor Day weekend so no school on Monday the 7th and then the Monday after that is teacher collaboration and there won't be any school for the students. I used to like having these days off but now that I actually have to worry about getting through material, these days off might prove to be a problem, but I'm not going to complain just yet.

The classroom and the happy teacher (after the kids were gone for the day)

*GASP*

I don't have time to breathe. Sorry.








I'll update ya'll this weekend about how the first 2 days of school went and maybe if you're lucky, I'll update again next weekend to let you know how the first full week went too. :)

Interesting...

In Caldwell, we can no longer call what I teach, ESL. Well, teacher to teacher it's okay but when and if a student writes ESL on their paper, it's a gang acronym. It means "East Side Locos". HAHAHA!!! That's so clever of them to make their group that name because they probably thought that by writing "ESL" on their paper, the teachers wouldn't catch on that it was gang-related. Well, now we're on to them. So, the title is now ELL, which I've been saying all along but just so ya'll know. I bet within the next year or so, the title will change because another gang will come up with a name that goes along with that one.

Idaho Fair!

Texas Longhorn

He had an itch so he decided to rub his head against the cage bars. If somebody wasn't watching where they were going, they'd get poked or goosed by his horns!

IT'S A WATUSI!!! These animals are native to Africa. Some tribes in Africa use a mixture of milk and blood from this animal for some of their rituals. I saw this on "Bizarre Foods with Andrew Zimmern" (on the Travel channel) and Andrew did drink some of this junk--it seriously made me want to throw up.

We went to the Idaho Fair tonight because we wanted an elephant ear. We got one ear and split it because they're too big for one person to eat alone (although, I probably could but know I shouldn't). Then Kyle said he wanted one more junk food, deep fried Fair food item. He got a Pronto Pup corndog and he enjoyed it thoroughly. My next thing was a unique item that probably is only found here in Idaho. I got an ice cream potato! Now, you're probably thinking, "what is an ice cream potato? why would you want to eat ice cream on a potato???" Well, it's not an actual potato. It's ice cream shaped into a potato and it's even colored like one with cinnamon on the outside to give the ice cream the potato skin color and it's sliced in half just like you would do a potato and it's even got a dollop of "sour cream", which is whipped cream. It's awesome but I mean, it's just ice cream and tastes like ice cream so it doesn't taste like a potato. It just looks EXACTLY like one! It plays with your mind, seriously. The next people that come out to visit us here, we'll take you to the West-side Drive-in because they serve those and I think it's a cultural experience! :)

Monday will be a teacher workday for me so Kyle has said that he'll go in with me and help me with my room setup. I've already started some of it but it still needs help. I want to get a welcome rug for the entry way and I want to maybe eventually get some plants (probably fake since I have no windows in my room) to bring in some life to the room. I've got to get my stuff organized too and I have to come up with plans for the first full week or maybe more! I'm SO EXCITED!!! I also want to have a cozy reading corner but in order to have a reading corner, I need more books. I only have about 3 books that I found there at the school. I don't know how I'm gonna do this. Maybe I'll stop by a thrift store and see about cheap books that way I don't spend a fortune on stuff with my own money. Each teacher gets about $300 for their room for the whole year so I need to use that wisely! I already know that I need pencils probably but paper isn't an issue because my dept. head said she had tons of paper. I also need journals for my students but again, those will probably be provided for me. I will take pictures once my room is pretty much done. :)

It's late. Gotta go to bed because I really need to start a regular schedule for myself or else I'm not gonna survive in the early mornings!

CELEBRATIONS!!!!

I got the ELL job at Caldwell High School that I applied to months ago!!!!! I know most of you already know that but I just thought I'd make it "official" by writing it here on the blog. When I got the acceptance phone call, I saw Kyle's eyes well up with tears and when I saw that, it was all I could do to keep myself from bawling on the phone with the principal. After we were finished talking and discussing logistics for tomorrow's first day for new teachers, the principal asked me to take a deep breath and then he asked me if I remember everything he told me. I did remember because I wrote it down just to be sure. The principal also said that he enjoyed our "conversation" very much this morning--he said he didn't think of it as an interview at all. He thought of it as a friendly conversation with interesting discussion points. After I hung up the phone, Kyle and I hugged each other and cried. HAHA!! We were so happy to finally have gotten this job. I had tried so hard at all the other things that paid much lower and/or other jobs that people just didn't seem to appreciate what I had to offer and then turned me down. Well now I can show them that I AM worth something!! *Sigh* Now I'm so tired from all the excitement that it probably won't take much for me to go to sleep tonight especially since I have to get up EARLY tomorrow to start the day with other new teachers. I'm excited! I can't wait! :)

YIPPEEEEEE!!!!

I PASSED THE PRAXIS!!!!!! My score was a 630 and the state of Idaho only needs a 580 so I passed with flying colors! I'm so happy to not have to take the nightmare of a test ever again! I passed it with my own studying and absolutely no help from my master's classes. I believe I did good. :)

Interview!!!!

Awhile back I had applied for an ELL position at Caldwell High School (about 20-30 minutes west of Meridian) and it took them forever to get back to me. In fact, so long that I just thought that they weren't interested. Well, this morning I had a voicemail from the principal there and he was interested in talking to me about my application! I finally got in touch with him later on today and he asked me a couple of questions to get some introductions going and then he asked me to come in for an interview on Wednesday! I'm so excited and nervous too! I hope I have what it takes to be considered for this job because it would be really really nice to have 2 incomes finally in this house and then I don't have to feel so bad about spending it--haha! My praxis scores don't become available until about this Saturday so now I really need to pass! So nervous! So nervous! If I get this job it's gonna be so awesome for us and we can breathe a sigh of relief finally and start saving up for savings and possibly a family later on down the road. :)


Speaking of which, I might get the opportunity to babysit for a 4 month old. She's sooooo cute! She's one of those well-behaved babies that make people actually want to think about having babies. As James (Kyle's coworker and father of the baby) said, "She's a baby that makes you want to push your luck and try for another..." HAHA! We got to see her last night and when we got to the house, James was bathing her in the sink--the little butterball turkey baby. She's so fair and white-skinned and round in all the right places that makes you just want to nibble all over her! I was pouring some warm water on her belly and she just kept giggling and giggling. Nothing better than a nice, clean, lotioned up baby belly! I might not get to babysit though if Liz's mother comes into town, in which case she'll just let her mother take care of Lilly. If I get to watch her, I'll take some pictures and post them on here so you can see just HOW CUTE Lilly is.

Party...of 3

I had a get-together tonight which should've had more than 3 (including me) but it didn't work out. My friends Amy and Kristin came over we just ended up looking at their Europe travel pictures. It was fun but a little disappointing that more people didn't show up. Oh well. I had dip (thanks for the recipe, Faye!), sweet tea and muddy buddies to munch on. My friend, Kristin said that my sweet tea was the best she's ever had. She said that other sweet teas she's tried were way too sweet and this one was just right. :) This is why I think most people cringe when they hear the words sweet tea and grits--it's because when they try these things, they get people who don't know what the HECK they're doing and screw those things up so badly! No wonder people in the north seem to not like this stuff! They've had bad experiences! They need to just let me come on over to their house and fix them up some sweet tea and grits (with eggs and cheese all mixed up and put on top of toast)! Mmmmmmm!!!! Whenever I talk to someone and ask if they've ever had grits, they make a gag face and say that it's bland and has no taste. I tell them they just haven't had a real southern person make grits for them. They have be shown how it's done, am I right? ;)

It's hard to be "on" all the time..

I had to turn off the Paula Deen show today not because it disgusted me with how much butter she used but it was because of what she was making. She was making chocolate peanut butter cups in a blanket...with marshmallows. The blanket was puff pastry. Hello, my name is Jennifer and I am battling a peanut butter chocolate craving addiction.. Nothing tastes better than chocolate and peanut butter all mixed together, melted together, all of the above. Especially when you add puff pastry and marshmallows to the mix! Good lord, Paula! You're tryin' to kill me! My latest craze on my "free" days is s'mores, except for instead of just using plain chocolate, you put a reese's pb cup/bar segment in it. They now are making reese's candy bars--much easier for making these kinds of things!!! Arggghhh! I will say though that this week I've been doing VERY well. I went out with my friend, Karen to go pick up her daughter at the mall and the friends with her said that they wanted to go to DQ. You're thinking disaster, right? Nope. We pulled up to the drive thru and they took their orders and when Karen asked me if I wanted anything, I said no. She asked if I was sure and I said yes, I'm sure. I made it through a DQ trip without getting anything! There was all this pressure of everyone else getting a blizzard and a cone and I stuck to my guns and didn't order anything. I felt pretty accomplished. Also, today Kyle wanted to go out and get fast food for lunch and I didn't want to say no to him but I did anyway. I said that we really should stay in and eat what we've got. I did want to go out but I just knew that I'd be at a weak point today and actually give in and get something bad so the best solution was for us to stay in. I told him I didn't want to keep him from going and getting what he wanted but he decided to save the money. Good choice. :) That way I didn't have to sit there and smell what he was eating and be tortured. I've been hungry this week but I've been trying to go to the gym whenever I get the overwhelming urge to just eat whatever we have in the pantry. I've been grateful for the big box of individual sized popcorn bags in our pantry because I grab those whenever I feel too munchy. They're only 1 point per bag. They're my saving grace this week. It's so hard to be "on" all the time though. I'm trying not to let it get me down though. Gym is getting extremely boring to me no matter what I do. It's too hot to be outside lately for running. Once it cools down more, I'll get back to that but it's just so hard when everyone I see is not caring what they put into their mouths. My problem is that I care too much and I feel extremely guilty for indulging a little on a "non-free" day. I know I complain a lot about this stuff and I'm sorry if I bore my readers but there's only so much I can talk to Kyle about this too. I'm not even into coming up with new ways of exercising, it's so boring right now. I just know that I have to do it or else I pay for it later. This weight "issue" that I have (even though I've seemed to have licked it pretty good) is still haunting me. It's definitely an emotional problem that I have. Food comforts me even though I might not have any problems/stresses right now. For some reason, I just feel better with food and I have a lot of friends right now that don't understand that, except for the WW people. At the same time, I'm in better shape than they are so I feel like I can't really complain to them either even though I know we're all there at the meetings for a reason: FOOD. Why do I have to eat? Why can't I just detach myself from food and only look at it as an object with no comforting abilities--0nly the ability to make me satisfied from hunger? It's so weird! Maybe I should talk to my doctor about this and they might be able to shed some light on this. Maybe.


Okay, it's late for me. I'm starting to feel emotional because of the late-ness. Thanks for listening. :) I love you all!

Disappointing news

I just found out yesterday that I had to drop my Capstone class (the last class in the program) because apparently, they were monitoring the progress of the students in the program and saw that I was taking more classes alongside this course. You're not supposed to do that but I had classmates this past spring that were doing that and they were able to complete it. The professor/advisor emailed me last night and told me to drop the course ASAP. I promptly emailed him back and said what about my graduation papers being already approved? He had to sign those papers and I had clearly written on there my intentions of taking that class as well as 2 others. He signed the papers!! AND I had paid my graduation fee! I was afraid I was going to lose the money. He reassured me in a reply that I wouldn't lose my money and that it'd just be held onto until I was "really" ready to graduate. In response to the thing about other people getting to complete the course with other classes also, he said that it was a mistake...So, due to their mistake, I can't graduate this December like I had planned. I have to wait until spring. I was really angry at first but now I'm just a little disappointed. However, I keep trying to look on the bright side and think about how it'll probably easier to put more focus on my capstone paper next spring without having other classwork to worry about. *Sigh* the best laid plans...


Oh yeah, we're having to buy a new lawnmower. Our lawn hasn't been mowed in 2+ weeks. Ridiculous. It's gonna be murder.

Malad Gorge in Idaho

I'm standing on basalt rock (volcanic rock).

The sides of the gorge is made up of mainly basaltic rock.

Can't you tell how HOT it was out there just by looking at the picture? It's a bit overexposed.

This is the other side of the gorge that runs under the interstate bridge.

There's a sign we walked by that said "Please keep children under control. Dangerous cliff drops" or something to that effect. It was a bit scary to walk along the gorge because it looked as if one wrong step and you're falling into the gorge...

Back in the pioneer days, some outlaws escaped into the gorge to hide. A couple of them died and another got shot. The outlaws said that the gorge was lacking in food resources while they were hiding in there...well, duh. It still looks that way.

T-minus 3 classes left!

My class grades were posted today and the results are....Psycholinguistics: A...Applied Linguistics: B+. Now I only have 3 more classes to take this Fall and I'm done! Can't wait!


My arms are extremely sore. I think I overdid it at the gym yesterday. Too many chin dips and pull ups and bicep curls. Oopsy! It hurts to raise my left arm although now I just tried to and it's not as painful as it was this morning. I couldn't even do my running today (I tried) because it was jarring my arm/chest muscles too much so I did some brisk walking on a slight incline for about 20 minutes and then did the elliptical machine for 30. You know, throughout my exercising tonight, I kept thinking about the guy that went on the crazy rampage in the LA Fitness gym in PA. I kept thinking about what I would do if all of the sudden somebody came into our gym right then and went crazy with a gun. Luckily I was right next to an emergency exit so I think I could escape rather quickly but why would I even be thinking this? I hate it. It's such a morbid thought but I can't help it because things like that happen when you least expect it just like I'm sure those women in the salsa exercise class didn't expect it. I know this fear shouldn't consume my thoughts, and it doesn't, but I have to be more aware of my surroundings now. Thanks to the crazies out there. It's scary but I have to enjoy my life and not be paralyzed by fear or else I'll never leave my house.

Kyle is doing good. He's ready to be done with night shift, as you can imagine. I'm ready for him to be done with it too. Although sometimes it's nice to just be on my own sometimes at night. I do miss him at night though because my hearing is more alert when he's not here and I "hear" things that I might not normally when he's here. It is nice, however, to have the whole bed to myself. :) hahaha.


Oh! I need to post some pictures of a small road trip that we went on this past weekend. We went to Malad Gorge (about 1.5 hours east of Boise). It was pretty but it was also about 100 degrees outside so we didn't stay long.

Bookwormerific

I went to the BSU library today with Kyle to go pick up some books for my thesis this semester (well, it's technically called a "Capstone paper"). The professors don't call it a thesis for some reason but it's an article that could have the possibility for publication in hopes of turning us into doctoral students. Yeah right! Hell would have to freeze over before I became a doctoral student! I've put in enough time and punishment just getting this master's degree! :)

I got about 15 books or so to get me started. I'm brainstorming on possible topics and the topics are all sorta related but I just got to narrow it down and decide exactly what I'm going to cover in the actual paper. My two possible titles are: The Power of Monolingualism? (meaning, is there really power in only being monolingual?) OR The Politics of Monolingualism (meaning, what does it say about a society that enforces only one language on the people? i.e. the English-Only Movement). This is sorta what I've just become interested in throughout the course of acquiring my degree. I've witnessed ELL tutors (one, in particular, comes to mind) that have said to the children, "ENGLISH ONLY, PLEASE!!!" What kind of message is that sending to the kids? The kids pick up on that too because I've heard the kids repeat it even though their English is limited, they say it and once they realize it, they will then throw their own language/culture down the toilet and lose their roots. It's damaging. Anyway, I've got to narrow my search and figure out exactly how to address this issue. :)