Falling Asleep

I am falling asleep at work. Someone should come save me. I have been at work for the past three days, eight hours a day. Don't get me wrong I don't mind working because of the after affect of MONEY, but come on. I am horribly board here. I, the one who refused to actually read any of the Harry Potter books, am now 665 pages into book five. Book five is the one my roommate last year left me, so don't go assuming I acutally paid money for it. My head hurts and Im hungry, but no one cares because I am at work and there's no one else here. O well..wish me luck..ITS FRIDAY AND PAYDAY!!!

Ah, always a college student

Today made me remember that yes, I am a college student. No matter how long I have worked here at University Housing I kind of forget that I am a student worker rather than a full time worker. I came back to reality today when a number of people questioned my sanity and college student-ness.
As I was leaving for work today I decided that I wanted to have something besides soda to drink so I grabbed my Coyote Ugly glass from Vegas and filled it with Apple Juice. No Im not kidding, it was apple juice. As I walked in I got a bunch of weird looks and questions. Whats in the glass? Each person that I walked past had the same question. It came down to the last person to ask... one of the assistant directors of housing asked if she could see my glass. And I am not kidding, I really think that she even tried to get it close enough to take a sniff JUST to make sure it wasn't beer. These are people that have known me for a year to three years. Because I would be drinking beer at 8 in the morning, let along bringing it to work at 8 in the morning.

Ahh..the life of a college student.

Break Time

So it's break time in university land. All of the college students have hurried home to escape the dread of finals and classwork. Ok, not all of us. There are some of us that are stuck in small towns awaiting the day when we can leave our jobs and small towns for the homes we love. I however, due to my pursuit of a bigger town, am stuck here most of the break to try and save money (which is slowly slipping away due to the holiday season) for my eventual trip to New York City. That's right, I plan on leaving this small college town, the laid back style of the west coast and everything I have EVER know for the glam of the big city.

A lot of people (EVERYONE I know) keep asking 'why NYC?' The response every one of them has gotten... WHY NOT?!?! In my family, with the exception on one military cousin, no one in my generation has ever lived outside the northwest. This is just one of the draws to living outside the northwest. And I figure if I am going to leave the northwest why not go all the way?

New York schools may be a big task to take on, between the students and the staff, but I am willing to step up to the challenge and enjoy my time in the city. At this point, the only thing that can stop me is a lack of a job. With figures ranging from 7,000 to 10,000 teachers hired for last school year I figure I have a shot for this year.

When it comes to packing up my entire life.... it seems like a daunting task. As it stands right now, I have a camp job in upstate New York for the month of July, so it seems that I apparently need to be completely packed and ready to move by July 10th, the 6th if I go to Vegas for a wedding on the 7th (not my wedding for those of you who are wondering...) So, one might ask how I plan to pack up my entire life? Boxes...that's right...boxes. Slowly I plan to have my life shipped across the country. At camp I will have an address so I can have things shipped there and I can also have things shipped after I find a place to live in the city.

The top choices for the city right now are Staten Island or Queens. Of course the primary objective will be to get an apartment as close to my school as possible. As for getting a job... where ever they want to put me. I am hoping that in placing 7 to 10 thousand teachers a year the system has some sort of system to help place new teachers....it should be interesting. But this leads into one of the most appealing parts of the New York public schools, it is all one system. If I want to transfer from school to school it should not be that big of a deal, right?! Unlike the lovely city of Eugene where there are many districts, if you switch from a Springfield or Bethal school to a 4J school you chance loosing all of your built up status (pay) because districts do not accept experience over something like 7 years... but that's because they are different districts; NYC however is all one district so I can transfer anywhere and get the same paycheck.

So, it seems that in less than a year I will be living in the biggest city in America living MY dream. I will be sure to keep my readers up to date on my progress and if any of you out there have worldly advice send it my way...

Long Week

It has been a long week. It seems that in college land finals week should be stressful week but in my college world its been a long boring week. Between the waste of time class Monday night (I had already presented my website) and the meetings on Tuesday I have really done nothing but work since.
As a loser college student who is at home on a Friday night, I need a hobby that happens outside of my house. I can do my cross stich at home, I can make my quilt at home, but they are both in my house. I really want to get a gym pass for the rock gym here in Eugene, but again, it comes down to money. I have the time I just need to spend the money. I am hoping that I will get a pass from Eric for Christmas. (and hopefully early..HINT HINT!)
As for the rest of the Christmas season I'll be here in Eugene working a lot of time. I'll be going home for Christmas weekend but then returning to Eugene the day after Christmas. As much as I LOVE work it is truly because of the cute kitty thats sleeping on me right now... I need to make sure that I am here for her. Im still not sure whats going on for Christmas eve, between my dad and the family..we shall see.... o well. Im off to be a loser some more, home alone on a Friday night. But hey, Im a 4.0 student in grad school...thats special right?

Thanxgiving

In my last post I talked about how turkey day was coming and it was all about football and eating instead of giving thanks. Well, my weekend turned up to not be thankful one. It all comes down again to the stuck between a rock and a hard place. I cannot be an adult till I get out of school and pay for everything on my own, but I need to make decisions today that will effect my entire life and I, aparently, can never change what I chose today. Which is TOTAL crap.
Yesterday was one of the worst days I have had in a while. I got into a big huge fight with my mom. The entire thing started when I wanted to spend the night at my boyfriends house. Aparently I am ignoring her AGAIN and only coming up to get stuff rather than to spend time with her. This is total crap, especally when she has moved an hour outside any type of city. When I want to go anywhere I have to leave an hour early to get there and it takes an extra hour to get back, so the 2 hour visits take 4 or more hours because of travel time. Thus I never spend any time at her house with her. On top of all this, she does not like my choice of partners. So we spent an hour fighting about that. From his participation in the homophobic organization, the boy scouts, to how he is never going to grow up. How does she know all this? How can she tell what he, who she has spent all of like 10 hours MAX with, will grow up and what he will become? I know how... she was married once, when she was about my age. Because she married someone (my dad) who lied and cheated on her every guy is going to lie and cheat and treat every woman like a peice of trash.
Never mind the fact that my brother is in rehab and has been since March. She will fly out to see him but when was the last time she came to Eugene to visit me? O...graduation and moving day.... moving day..... moving day.... do you see a pattern? Only when she HAS to does she come to Eugene to visit me, yet I am expected to want to spend every moment I am in Portland with her (usually watching tv without talking).
So, needless to say that the weekend in Portland was not so much fun. It wa sgreat to see my cousins and uncle and aunt. They are so much fun and Eric enjoyed it so much. They all like him why cant my mother open her closeminded eyes and see what I see? O well.. for yet another day.

Sitting at Home

It's been a while. I am currently sitting at my mom's house outside of Portland. It is SO sad because she moved this past summer to a house on the near by Mount Hood. The main idea of living up here (besides the woods and log cabin) was to get snow a little more often. With snow outside you can phone in for a snow day! Today, though is a sad day. We are 12 miles from Government Camp, the pass over Mt. Hood from western Oregon to eastern Oregon. The pass is getting snow as I type and none here... aparently in the 12 miles between Government camp and the house is 1400 feet in elevation so we are not getting snow!
O well, tomorrow is Turkey day. Yet another holiday where American's made up a day to 'give thanks' yet it is seen by most of us as a day to stuff our bellies. What happened to the good ole days where we gave thanks for the people around us instead of football and turkey!?
O well...just another good holiday idea ruined...wecome to America!

Professor Rants

In my three hour class yesterday, people ranted about one professor we had two years ago for almost an hour. I was among those that did not like the professor and had issues with her teaching style, but AN HOUR of my class time was waisted talking about her AGAIN. You know it's bad when the professor some how gets fired from on department and gets hired almost immediately by another department. And she got fired from the first department for not teaching very good, look at that..the same comments we had! But I guess the rest of the class was interesting.
We talked about cyborgs and the possibility of combining humans and technology. We also watched the movie "Blade Runner" which had to do with cyborgs and their life. It was interesting to see a movie that was made in 1991 and their take on 2019 which is closer now than 1991. Yes we, as a society have changed alot, but I do not believe that we will have flying cars and robotic people running around. I believe that at some point the exponential growth of technology will slow down and that Americans are not ready for robotic people. I dont know if the world will ever be ready for the melding of humans and robots.

As for life outside of school, it was nice to see my dad last night. We wass stopped in Coberg last night after a long day of driving. I dont mind seeing him but we never really have anything in common to say. He talked about the family and how everything that has happened with the courts (two people in particular) is so fake and the system gets their mind set and wont give up until they have distroyed you. Fun times hu? On the good news front it looks like my neice is doing well, although reading better than my sister at this point bc of her dislexia. I informed him that if she wanted to get help another place to go was my neices teacher. Unless the teacher has no heart what-so-ever, he/she would probably help my sister out as well as helping my neice because a child will learn to read better if their parent can read. The visit ended well, we went our seperate ways and promised to call like everytime. O well..until next time.

What shoud I actually TEACH my class

At a University, especally one that is highly recognized in the education communikty, you would expect the professors to actually TEACH in class. It being week 6, you would think that in a portfolio class that they would have taught us one thing about how to build a portfolio... nope! For the third time in six weeks we have talked about what we want out of the class... last week we said we wanted more of a workshop environment to help us build our portfolios. The professors responce you ask? They added another assignment to the mix, a 5-7 minute video that needes to have voice over. This means that we need to know some type of software that does video editing. Are they going to help us? Well, they will show us outside of class but not in class, where we dont do anything anyway. Makes total sense hu?!

As for the rest of life, you should check out my other blog, Annie's Blog, it has the new calendar feature as well as my bubbleshare which is a scrolling bar with pictures of me...reallly OLD pictures of me. Check it out... its interesting.

PS.. is there anyone else out there that thinks the word "partner" is wierd? I dont know...I like girlfriend better... maybe it's just me.

Not Understanding

In graduate school I thought the idea was to feel smart and to at least kind of understand the material, but when an article is 31 pages and I read 29 of them and STILL dont understand...its bad. The article was about cyborgs and feminism. I was totally lost the entire time and it made it worse that there was bad spelling and bad grammer. I wrote that in my paper, I am interested to see what my prof says.

As for other classes this week it has been interesting. In my portfolio class on Monday, we, for the second time this term, complained about the class and how we are not getting the physical product but rather a philosophical idea of what should be in them. Then on Wednesday when my supervisor/protfolio professor showed up in my practicum I showed him the product that I developed by myself on GooglePages. My protfolio on GooglePages is http://erickson.annie.googlepages.com you should check it out. He commented that he really liked it and would like to play around with it more. He also asked me what other things I could put on it. Why is the professor asking the student how to do it!?! Aparently I am now showing off my protfolio in class on Monday.

We then repeated our comments, in more detail, to our methods professor/program director. It was interesting to see her reaction because she was not quite aware of what we were doing in our other classes. Now she is.....

O well..back to the grind. Gotta get this homework done so I can play all weekend. GO DUCKS!

Sitting In Class

I'm sitting in class right now learning about puting digital video up on the web. Are they helping us? Nope, they are giving us ideas... they are telling us what we can do and how we should use it but are they helping us upload them? Not really.. sad times. Why am I talking all of these classes that give me the information but yet none of it is actual practice, especally on PCs.

But, I am excited to use this information in my maxi-unit for the video and keynote presentations for the school. This unit will be fun because it can help the students have the personal investment into the technology use.

So tired, yet I love having Eric staying with me. It is so hard to want to go to sleep with him there, because if I do that means it is just that much closer to him leaving once again. It is so much fun to have good conversations with him about my classes and about his. It is so amazing that we are so different yet we mesh so well.

Good day

Today was a good day. I taught my first whole group lesson to my fifth graders today. This is my first whole class with this particular class, I almost wasn't sure it was going to happen at all the way I was going. Only seven weeks left, which is a good and a bad thing. It's good because I am way excited to dive into student teaching, but it is a bad thing because my poor math kids today were wondering what kind of teacher they were going to have after me.
BUT! My lesson on Keynote went really well today, although a bunch of them knew Keynot already. I am totally interested to see the video and all the stuff that goes along with it. Although having no formal observation sheet was weird, I am excited. I think it went really well....
Time to head off and study both my school work and the links that have been provided to find information and technology.

Classes and Life

As a technology person I love taking tech classes... online classes they are great as well. But what do you do when an online professor does not post the assignments? I am an ed major, I love rubrics, I love direction and I love to get things right. I am taking an online class where I have no heard ANYTHING from the prof since the first (and only) face to face class meeting (that I missed most of...). There isnt even a discussion board for our next assignment...

As for the rest of my college life, it seems that I may have stumbled into getting my counter part at work into trouble. I came to work and talked to a friend who elerted me to a mistake that my co-worker made..so I pointed it out to the boss so that it could be corrected the next time my counter part was in the office. Then I proceeded to do my job, including looking up a phone number for my counter part that she "didn't have time to do" and that REALLY set my boss off. Aparently my counter part will now be having a disucssion with our boss "in the conference room." That's never a good thing.. I've only had one of those... aparently it's not professional to sit with your feet crossed on a chair at work..who knew?!? Gotta love having a job in a professional office..too bad I have leave at the end of December (due to student teaching).

E-Portfolio Class

Today as I sat in my E-portfolio class I wonder, how will life be in 20, 30 or even 50 years when the children I am teaching today become adults, parents, grandparents... Today we looked at a website called Secondlife. Aprently its this entire uinverse that is totally virtual. I feel so far behind already because this entire world lerks out there and I have no clue. The issue is, that like many other things, who really has the time or energy to live two lives, one real and one in secondlife.

When it comes to technology in educaiton, program such as second life, are taking over and being talked about as the next best thing. It is so hard for me to believe this and feel that it is important to an elementary school's curriculum. I feel like this class is geared toward high school and college rather than elementary. I believe no matter how technologically advanced any society becomes, elementary school is elementary school. It should be taught in a big classroom with lots of colors, personal one on one attention and so much more.

I guess I just want to learn the basics, a website with my portfolio on it, a portfolio I can put onto a cd. That's all I am loking for, yet I know what should go into a portfolio, I know why we should do portfolios yet I cant make one yet!!!

Me

My name is Annie and I am a 22 year old college student in Oregon. I am studying elementary education and technology in education.