This is for the birds

We're watching Nature on tv and Tiger really loved the birds cawing on there. It really got his attention.

Being silly, as always.

Nice cousin picture.

We're acting civilized still.

Aww. That's a good one.

There ya'll go. As promised, I finally put up my pictures from my brother visit. :)

Oh man, yesterday was totally robbed from me. I had my capstone paper meeting on the campus so I had to drive into Boise and stay there from 9am until well after 3pm. That professor sure can talk about a lot of stuff! It's a different professor than what I'm used to having. He's a professor from the communications department. He's pretty cool though. His 2nd language is German so automatically, we had an instant connection. :) Bonus points! :) Finally someone who can talk about other stuff rather than oppression and the Latino. Geez! I think I'm going to enjoy having a new perspective look at my paper. I can take constructive criticism from somebody who has a fresh point of view. We have one more class meeting in February on the 20th and then our paper presentations are on March 16th!!!! It's coming fast but I think I'm ready. I'm ready to get the hell out of this department and never set foot into it again. People ask me if I want to get my doctorate and I just look at them like they're crazy and say no. It's not important to me to get the doctorate. Plus, what's the point of getting it if I don't plan on teaching at the college level? I mean, maybe later on down the road, it might be cool but it's just not my major goal right now. I think the master's will provide enough pay boost for wherever we decide to move after living here, especially if we move to a bigger city. Anyway, I feel like the master's is a big enough accomplishment for now.

The brother visit

I went to Indiana this past weekend to visit Chris after he graduated from Marine boot camp. It was awesome to finally see him after he got done with his experience. He looked really grown up! Tall and thin (like always) but with the added muscle! :) It was really good to see him and I got to crying on Saturday night before I went back to grandma and grandpa's house in order to leave the next morning. :( I thought I could make it without tears but I just thought about it too hard. I just want him to be careful and not to get too heroic. He's already a hero to so many people just by enlisting. It was a weekend full of laughing and squealing (all by me anyway). Chris was back to his brotherly antics of tickling me and making funny noises and saying funny and hilarious things! You can only imagine! I laughed and giggled all the way back to Milford from the Fort Wayne airport. I think grandma and grandpa got a kick out of it. They said it was just like having kids in the backseat all over again. :) :)


Oh boy, but the flight over and the flight back were not what I was expecting (or maybe I was since it was going through Chicago O'Hare). Friday morning's flight went just as scheduled with the added bonus of having a friend sit next to me (she is a classmate of mine here at BSU). What were the odds that somebody I knew would be on my same exact flight?? It sure made a long 3 hour+ flight go a lot quicker and less lonely! ;) So, we landed on time in Chicago at about 11:45am. We both headed in the same general direction of our gates and ate some lunch. Suddenly I looked up at the monitor and realized they had changed my gate. So it started. I went to that gate, we all boarded the plane and then sat there for about 10-15 minutes before the pilot told us there was a mechanical malfunction. We ended up having to deplane and move to another gate so that they could get us a new plane. It took about 2 hours or so before we got a new plane and could actually board. I was supposed to be in Fort Wayne by about 3. Yeah...we didn't take off from Chicago until about 4:30pm!!!! I got to Indiana by about 5:15 or so. Then on Sunday morning on our way to the airport, I got the call that both my flights had been cancelled and they had rebooked me for the following day. NO WAY! We continued to the airport and they were able to book me on an 8am flight (13 minutes earlier than my previous--go figure). Anyway, got on that flight after all the hullabaloo about me not going and getting the actual boarding pass from Delta (they had switched me from United to Delta) but nobody told me to do that!! I had to go back through security and then finally made it up to my gate. Got on the plane and we got to Detroit. My next stop would be Detroit to Salt Lake City, where I'd be on standby for the 3:13pm flight but confirmed for the 4:55pm flight just in case. FINALLY got to SLC and was worried that I couldn't get on the standby until the lady called me at the last possible minute! I ended up getting to Boise at about 4:30pm. I was regularly scheduled to get to Boise at 12:40pm that day. ICK!


After all was said and done though, it was TOTALLY worth it, especially since it turns out that Chris is going back to Cali on Monday morning. I have a very small thought in the back of mind as to why that was. I don't know if I want to say it because it might end up being true but maybe I'll just hypothesize anyway: I think it was changed because maybe they're wanting to get the guys trained quicker so that deployment happens sooner...that's just my speculation. I REALLY hope that's not the case but a lot of times, when I get hunches like that, they tend to be more or less true. I'm just going to be hoping real hard that it's not the case.


Anyway, I will post some pictures that we took together later.

Last class...ever.

Well, folks...this is it. I just paid for my last class at Boise State forever! Hooray! I'm so glad to be getting out of there and never setting foot there ever again.

Weird day

I had a strange morning involving a female student. In 3rd period, I was sitting there surrounded by a few students working on a Government study guide and all of a sudden, I look over at a girl sitting next to me. Her name is Inez. She's a tough cookie. I mean, she's tough--real tough. She never really shows emotion and never has revealed any emotion except for a little snottiness towards me until today. I look over at her and the area around both her eyes is turning red and her nose looks a little red too. She looked as if she was about to cry. I asked her quietly, "What's wrong?? Do you need to step outside for a minute and talk?" She, of course being the tough and strong type, shook her head no. I asked her if she was sure and she said yes. The tears came rolling down her cheeks. I felt so sorry for and the fact that I didn't know why she was hurting the way she was. I wanted to reach out and let her know that I was there for her but she really didn't want anything of it. I still have no idea what was going on. I guess the fact that she felt comfortable enough to show emotion in my classroom while sitting so close to me is a good thing. I want my students to feel safe in my classroom and to know that they can cry if they need to around me and that I won't ridicule them or embarrass them.


Inez, however, has had some issues with me in the past because of me writing her up one day and she received a detention out of it. She was so MAD with me after that. She was so angry and hardly spoke to me after that. She would constantly give me snide looks and just not acknowledge that I was talking to her a lot of times after that incident.

I hope that she now knows that she can talk to me. I told her that I was available for her to talk to if she needed. She refused it but maybe it showed her that she has someone who cares about her and would go to the end of the world for her (well, as a teacher-student relationship, anyway). I don't want any of my students to hurt, even though I know they hurt a lot at times, but I want to let them know that while they're in my classroom, they have a safe place to go. Maybe eventually, I'll find out what happened at that moment but then again, maybe I won't ever and I guess that's fine.

Workin' my hind-end off!

Man, oh man are my legs crying out in dull pain but it feels good! :0) It means that I'm really trying to get back on track with my exercise, while adding a little more onto my routine. I've been trying new classes lately, such as kickboxing type aerobic workout classes. While Kyle and I were in GA, we attended a kickboxing class at the World Gym in PTC and that woman was NONSTOP! She went a straight 45 minutes without any breaks and then the rest was ab workouts and stretching. Whew! But it has gotten me to like kickboxing classes again. I tried the Bodycombat classes at my gym but felt silly doing the movements. Now I don't feel as silly, especially since I went to Walmart and bought some workout gloves (the kind that are half-fingered). They make me feel tough! ;0) Anyway, my New Year's goal is to lose those last pesky 10-15 pounds. I believe I can do it. I just want to knock them out for once and for all!! I'm tired of the rollercoaster that is my weight. Our kickboxing instructor last week said that resolutions are meant to be broken, that's why she wants us to make goals. We're not as tempted to quit striving toward goals.