School, school, and more school

Wow. What a lame post to leave up for over a month. I have been so dang busy, I haven't had time to do ANYTHING- including blog.

Why have I been so busy? Because- for those of you who don't actually know- I got a job!

I teach middle school. Yup. That's the truth. I work at a MIDDLE SCHOOL. It has been quite a roller coaster. That is for dang sure. I teach both choir and theatre. So there you go... all those years in college absolutely STRESSING over whether I should graduate in choral education or theatre education... very worthwhile. Glad I invested so many hours and tears into making that decision. Story of my life!!

I was offered the job ONE WEEK before school started. ONE WEEK!!! For those of you that don't know tons about the teaching profession- that's definitely not the preferred method. FYI. Not only was it only one week (okay... it was really like one week and two days), but I was also in North Carolina visiting my sister when I got the phone call! (Yeah- haven't blogged about that one, either. I had so much dang fun. Her kids are the cutest kids in the world... and no... that couldn't possibly be a biased opinion. Hopefully I'll be able to blog about that sometime soon. I make no promises.) I got back to Utah late on Monday the 17th of August and school started the following Monday. Tuesday I went and saw my classroom for the first time- stayed for about an hour, took a tour of the school (it's a brand new building. It's really gorgeous.) and had no idea what I really needed to do. The whole rest of the week I had meetings. I had a little time in my room on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. My brother Brian came one day (I think it was... Friday, maybe?) and helped me alphabetize my choral library for HOURS. I've probably spent about 25 hours organizing that music and I'm STILL not done. Brian was a life saver. Anyway. So in all that time I had very little time to do anything like, oh I don't know... write lesson plans! So I've been pretty much taking things one day at a time.

We've been in school for 4 weeks now. Midterms are next week and I CAN'T BELIEVE IT! Every day goes by so slowly... I never thought we'd hit midterms. :) So, how is it going, you might want to know? (If you don't want to know, then just humor me.) It's hard. I won't lie. It's really hard. I work ALL. THE. TIME. All the time. I usually leave for work between 6:30 and 7:00 in the morning and I stay at school until somewhere between 6-8. Then I get home and grade papers for a few hours. Everyday. Then I go to bed at about midnight, get up at 5:30ish and start again. I thought weekends would give me a little sanity, but here is how all three of my weekends have gone: Saturday I get to sleep in- which means I usually week up at about 8:00... yeah... sleeping in has reeeeeally changed. :) I start grading papers/writing lesson plans at about 9:00- and I finish at about midnight. Then I go to bed, get up on Sunday- go to church- come home and grade papers/write lesson plans until about midnight. I REEEEEEAAAALLY wish I was exaggerating. I'm not! Not even a little! Some nights I'm even up until about 2:00. Man. Today (Saturday) I quit working at about 10:00. I've got a nasty cold and decided I had had enough with the working.

Ya know- it's funny. Brian pointed out to me that I can know I've entered a new time in my life when I'm actually GRATEFUL that I'm sick over the weekend instead of during the week. :)

Anyway- I did my student teaching in a high school and I have been SHOCKED at the differences between high schoolers and middle schoolers. I can't believe how much younger they are. I didn't expect the difference to be as drastic as it acutally is. I've definitely got bundles of funny stories already. That will have to be a post for another day, though.

Since I've got so much free time- I decided I needed more on my plate. So- I'll be moving soon! Right now I'm living at my parents' house, and a lot of the week I stay at my aunt and uncle- Art and Katherine's house. They live in Sandy. So everyday I commute either half an hour or an hour each way. But two of my high school friends, Francine and Julena, and I are moving to Salt Lake in a couple of weeks. The house we're going to rent is pretty close to my school- I'm excited about that.

Wow- this is a really boring post. I would go back and make it more interesting... but I don't want to. I hope it makes sense and doesn't sound too much like I'm hopped up on cold medicine! Congratulations if you made it all the way through it. :)

Look alike?

Any So You Think You Can Dance watchers out there??

I have had FIVE different people tell me (at different times!) that one of the dancers on that show reminds them of me. Her name is Jeanine. They say we look a lot alike and that we have similar mannerisms. I think it's probably just because we're both such good dancers. :)

I don't really see it, but... whatever! I found a couple of pictures of her, and quickly looked through my iphoto program to see if I had any pictures that looked similar. This is what I came up with:

So. I don't know. Maybe it's not as much in still photos and just in mannerisms? Do I really look like her? Thoughts?

Probably I'm going to need to know what I did to tick July off.

I've finally realized something. The gods of the month of July hate me. I don't know why, but for the past few years, July has been out to get me. Don't get me wrong- occasionally something good happens. My family came home from Thailand on the 1st. That pretty much rocked. Notice, however- it was the first day of July. I think it was just trying to give me a false sense of security.

It has been one crazy long month. I'd give you a bit of a recap of my month, but... I don't want to. :) Besides, it would be nothing but an obnoxious venting post. (Which is something I'm trying to avoid, since this post isn't already obnoxious!)

On top of all the other great things July has brought, I've also got my birthday. Yes that's right. My birthday was a couple of days ago. You may ask if I'm really listing that as a negative, and my answer would have to be YES! I WANT to like my birthday. I've TRIED to like my birthday. It's just not do-able. I like other people's birthdays. Not mine. How old am I now? Twenty... one. 21, give or take.

Right now I'm just holding my breath and crossing my fingers, hoping I make it to August 1st.

And to the gods of the month of July: What are the odds we can work something out for next year???

Wahoo!

I have a new nephew! This picture (stolen lovingly from my sister's blog... hope you don't mind, Linds) is of my sister Lindsay and her new baby, Miles. I'm way excited! Only... they live in North Carolina, so I don't even get to see him super soon. Dang. They are coming to Utah in a few weeks, though, and I might even get to go out there before that. We'll see. Anyway. If you want more info or more pictures- check out my sister's blog. Love ya, Linds, and congrats again!!

Thanks for everything.

For the past few years my family has lived all over the world. Lindsay and her family have lived in North Carolina for... I don't even know how long. 5 years, maybe? My parents and Amber have lived in Thailand for three years. Brian lived in Illinois/Germany/Austria/Thailand for three years. Me? I've been in Utah. (Yes, I did go to Thailand for a bit, but I'm just talking majority here.) Sometimes being far apart has been no big deal, and sometimes it has been really tough. Last week was one of those weeks. Thank heavens Brian lives in Utah again. It would have been impossible without him. My amazing Grandma, Clara Dodge, passed away last week. She was 93 years old, and was one of the most remarkable people I've had the privilege of knowing.

I really wasn't planning on posting about it because I'm not a good writer, and could never do justice to what I want to say... but I keep thinking about her and how lucky I am to have had her in my life. I can only hope that someday I can be a bit more like her. The funeral on Monday went very well. It was very bitter-sweet to discuss and relive memories. My Grandparents have 8 kids (my dad being the youngest) so my extended family is quite large. There are something like 40 grand kids, and so far there are 59 great-grand kids (with 6 more coming in the near future). Although it was sad and hard to say good-bye to her, at least we have the knowledge that it isn't final. At least we know we can see her again.

She lived an amazing life. The gospel was always her number one priority and temple work was one of her passions. She has done more than 200 sessions in the temple each year for something like the last 20 years, and I'm sure right now she is simply carrying on the work she was doing in life... only in different ways.

Somehow the timing of this made the distance between my family feel a bit bigger. I'm grateful that the funeral was able to be broadcast on the internet so that my parents and sisters were able to see it. I wish I had the words to communicate how amazing my grandma was, but since I know that I don't... I'll just leave it at this-

I love you, Grandma, and thanks. Thanks for being such an amazing person and example. I'll miss you.

Baby steps... baby steps.

Alright, so a lot of you know that my parents come home in a month... and the rest of you? do now. The project at hand, therefore, is getting their home livable!

When my parents left they rented out their house, and we shoved EVERYTHING THEY OWN into three of the bedrooms in our house. Let me just tell you... dang. Those rooms... S.T.U.F.F.E.D. Our favorite way to explain it is this: ever played Tetris? Getting the furniture in those rooms was like the biggest real-life game of Tetris ever. Things were stacked to the ceiling. So. After the renters moved out... the next step was to get those rooms unpacked! Brian and I had a group of our guy friends (and Whit. :) ) come and help us get everything out. It was INSANE. It took us something like 7 hours to get everything out of the three rooms. That, however, was only the start!





One of the bedrooms (Lindsay's) had a little surprise for us. Ever heard of a little thing called "water damage"?? I have. Heard of it, I mean. And now- I get to DEAL with it! Wahoo!! Everything was going pretty well until I lifted a box on the floor, which resulted in both of my arms being COVERED in black mold. Yeah... that's probably gross. A year and a half ago the ceiling in my dad's office upstairs colapsed under the weight of the snow, and... NOW I'm thinking it MAY have affected the room beneath it, too. None of the walls or the ceiling show any damage, but the carpet through the ENTIRE room is full of mold. Unfortunately... there was furniture sitting on the carpet. Lots of furniture. There is mold growing up the legs/sides of several pieces of it. Tables, tvs, mattresses. Cool. That box I mentioned? It was a box of my high school things... and the stuff inside it was so gross! I had a few plaques in there, and they DOUBLED in thickness because there is so much mold inside the wood. Ugh. Good thing I've been graduated for a long time and just don't care about that stuff as much anymore.

Everyone left at about 8:30 pm, and then Brian and I realized that the moldy furniture had been taken around the house. Greaaaaaaat. So Brian and I went around and took all the moldy furniture that we could lift and put it BACK into the moldy room. The really big furniture got blankets put underneath them.

Here are some pics. I won't put them all up... I'll spare you that. :) It was hard to get good pics of it cause the mold wouldn't show up in the camera.









So now... we have to try and save the moldy stuff. (Not the mattresses. Those are gonners, man.) We've got to get someone in the house to rip the carpet out, and then check the insides of the walls.

Other than that, the house looks like a disaster zone! The furniture and boxes are no longer crammed into the three rooms, but distributed across the entire house! (It's actually progress... a TON of progress, but it sure looks like a step backwards!)


We went from this:







To THIS...






Good heavens. Still. Progress... I just have to keep telling myself that...

Too late??

Warning:  this post is about American Idol.  So all of you who are sick of the American Idol hype... turn back now.

I'm way excited for the finale this week!  However.  I'll be honest.  I don't particularly care who wins.  THAT'S RIGHT, I DID JUST SAY THAT!  I like Adam.  So sue me.  I know he screams too much.  I realize that.  He does have freakin' amazing skills, though.  I think Kris has a great voice, but I've never particularly cared about him either way.  Kris is humble... Adam knows he's great.  There are ups and downs to both, so whatever.  Not that it really matters, though.  I think Adam has it in the bag.

ANYWAY.  The real point of this post is that I want to know if any of you remember Ricky Braddy.  He was one of the wildcard options and didn't make it to the top 13.  HE WAS FREAKIN' AMAZING and I'll never forgive the judges for picking Jasmine Murray and Megan Joy (?!!?!?!) over him.  Although, even if he had been picked- he probably wouldn't have made it very far, since AI gave him absolutely zero screen time during Hollywood Week.

If you want to see him- just go to this website.  The contestants get better and better as the season goes on, so if he was this good during the Top 36, imagine where he'd be now.  That's all.  Over and out.

Think it's too late for me to vote for him now??