So great

I am loving life currently. I know it's crazy to say but I am.

I just looked down and watched the cat flop over her scratch box and fall out off the side. It is the little things in life that make it all worth it.

For example. I got to makeout in Central Park yesterday. I know its hard to imagine..Annie makingout in public but it is so much fun! Just laying on the grassy hill in someones arms. Awesome. It is crazy how in a city of 8 million people and in a park full of thousands of people at any one time that you can dissappear into your own little world. There must have been 200 people in the area that we were laying...walking...playing..picnicing but there we were..dissappearing into eachothers arms. Laughing...kissing... laying quiet. Yet there really was no sound (besides the hellicopters).

Is the kissing necessary you ask? no. Its just super fun to have someone who is awesome to hang out with and see movies with. On top of being able to walk arm in arm and still smack eachother when someone thinks they shold put nipples on the breast canser walk balloons! Ugh..boys. O and it was super fun to sit back to back in the park and see totally different prospectives of the park around us. We actually had birds sitting like two feet from us scavenging from the leaves.

New York really is pretty in the fall. And I think he has gotten me to take more pictures of myself/us in the last four weeks than I have in ... four years! I actually enjoy taking the cheesey couple picts. crazy..too bad I dont always look good in them. I need to learn to keep my eyebrows down! O well.

Back to lesson plans. If I ever stop for more than 20 mintues maybe I will put more pictures up but you'll just have to wait unless you have facebook. They are up there as well!

Upstate New York

Here are some pictures from my trip upstate this past weekend.

Upstate is so beautiful. It is amazing how much color there is upstate on the trees this past weekend. There are more pictures that I will put up slowly.

Great times

So I have discovered a new love. It is called sumble! Stumble Upon is great. It is so much fun and may be dangerous for me. I love looking at all the random websites and lots of my time is being spent doing this. Crap but if you have come extra time check it out.

Great weekend

It has been a great weekend. David is in town from Oregon and it has been grea tto spend some time with him. I am always amazed how much I miss him when I spend time with him.

We have been traveling the city. The nice thing is that he has been here before so its not all tourist stuff. Yesterday we did a scavenger hunt through the Meat Packing District. It was a lot of fun. We actually didnt know some of the questions but we came in second with 14 out of 24 points so we did pretty well. If you come to nyc or want to check them out for different cities... WAtson Adventures does some freaking cool stuff!

It has also been great because David has had some time to get to know my new boyfriend. Yes... officially using the 'boyfriend' word. David has approved the new boy so that is always a good thing. The new boy is great. I really like spending time with him and it is even better to have someone to hang out with on weekends. Such as next weekend when we are going 'backpacking' with a couple of his friends from work. Apparently we are going like 5 hours north of the city for a great weekend. Should be nice. As long as it's not too cold.

OMG!

So much fun.
Last weekend I got the chance to go to OCC (orange country choppers for those who do not know). My new friend Paul lives only a half hour away from their world headquarters. It was SO awesome. The bikes are beautiful and I even got some Christmas shopping done for someone in my family.

Here are some pictures from the shop! O and the boy is Paul. My new friend.

New Glasses

Today I got my new glasses. They are bigger and cute. I am not sure about them still but it happens. The one thing I am worried about and going to look into is the anti-reflective coating that I paid for but am not sure I got.

Here's a picture.

A Ray of Sunshine

In my world of disaster... or at least that's what it feels like sometimes. It is so nice to enjoy a little bit of peace.

I love my cat. Just playing with a pencil is amazing. Shes so cute. Love her! Puts a smile on my face.

The First Week

For those of you who are wondering. I survived.

I survived my first week of school. I am the proud teacher of 20 third graders. It was an interesting week. Between the little boy who thinks its funny to ignore me to the little divas that got into a fight on Friday. Its gunna be a great year.

This weekend has been full of grading tests and doing lesson plans. The poor lesson plans just do not want to come out of my brain. One thing I do need to do is work on conventions with my students. They do not know conventions. Periods. Commas. Handwriting. This is something we are going to work on!

So away I go to find some stuff to do with my kdis tomorrow!

Ok here I go

Tomorrow is the day. Tomorrow is the first day of the rest of my life. Yes I taught last year but this is just not the same. It is my own classroom and it is my own kids. It is so crazy that someone is actually giving me my own freaking classroom. Then to expect me to move these kids and get them ready to take the state tests. Crap!

And I know there are many many many people out there that say " You'll do GREAT" that doesn't mean I still do not have my fears. I am super excited but there is so much work to do.

Bah. Im freaking out. O well. I guess the world will go on.

Day 3

So it is the end of day three. Debbie and I have put in two more hard working days in the classroom and now I have tables with chairs!

So this is the back left hand side of the classroom.



This is the back right of the classroom.


The front left of the classroom is getting there slowly!


And the right front of the classroom where the rug is!


And my beautiful assistant..apparently a fuzzy picture!


So that's what it looks like at the end of day three. I still have three days before the weekend to finish it. Debbie gets the fun job of putting my library into genres tomorrow while I work. Then she's venturing out to find the Today show on Thursday and Good Morning America on Friday while I work all day! Fun times.

My classroom- day 1

As requested here are the pictures of my first classroom. Remember .... this is day one.

When I walked in...the front...

the back right (if you are facing forward)the left side towards the front

the back half of the left side (facing front)


As you can see the room is quite big... being a corner room. I have like NO boards to hang stuff but it looks like I won't be using the chalk boards but making them into boards to hang work. All the yellow paint is SO horrible. If I had my way I would buy some and paint over crap because it is so disgusting. I just hope that once there are kids in there and stuff on the walls that it won't look TOO bad.

After seeing what Corinne... the teacher that moved to this school with me was doing I started to move furniture and figure out what I actually have. So after an hour this is what it looked like....



the left front

the left back

the right front (the rug area I think...)


the back left. I think this will be the teachers corner/computer area

As you can see I have LOT of furniture that is very miss matched. It should be interesting. Watch for updates!

Ahh

My last week of freedom for the next ten months. Ok.. So I don't work straight for ten months but would you REALLY want to teach five days a week for 10 months!? I would go insane! Most teachers would. As much as we love our students... there is just too much to be able to do day in and day out for ten months. Though I really think that year round schooling is the way to go. My friend teaches for two or three weeks then gets a couple of weeks off. It is freaking sweet.

If you think about it. Year round schooling would eliminate a lot of things and better our children. (on my soap box for a couple of minutes.) I believe that year round schooling would hep our studetns to be able to retain information between school years. With the lack of a huge summer break I believe that our students would retain more information. I also believe that having solid, consistant breaks would better our students because they will not shut down weeks before breaks such as summer and winter. Every teachers knows that most students (especally those who are part of school systems that it is traditional) feel the need to hit summer break just after May comes around. Also the same happens when it comes to winter break but not as bad. Year around schooling helps to combat these problems because of the regular breaks.

Off my soap box.

So back to this year. I am suepr excited to see my classroom tomorrow. I will take pictures and post them so everyone can see them!

Swing a Ring

Swing a Ring. What is it you may ask?

Swing a Ring is a physical fitness apparatus is which is located in only NYC and California. It is a ring contraption that has about 8 rings on very long metal chains.
You are supposed to swing from ring to ting and back and fourth to work your upper arms.

I went to visit this contraption ... it is in Riverside Park on the west side of Manhattan. It is so awesome. There was a very nice man there that was willing to show me how to do the rings AND share his chalk for my poor hands. Ok... so I wasn't THAT bad but the fact that I couldn't get my poor feet over my head. It just takes a little effort to flip your feet over your head through your arms and apparently I couldn't get them over my head. OMG! Dang. I feel dumb. O well...

And now it is down pouring. Flash flood warnings are fun.

MOMA

The Museum of Modern Art. It is a great place. I have been there once before but I decided to go again because of the free Friday nights. When I arrived... OMG. The line was around the block and still had a half hour till it opened. After getting (even though it went really quickly) I made the quick observation that I will NEVER DO THIS AGAIN! I love the museum but I would like to actually be able to sEE the poor thing.

It was so freaking crowded that they were still letting people in at like 530. An hour and a half straight of letting people in. It was crazy. I go to a museum to see the art not the back of peoples heads. So if you are ever thinking of going to the free night .. as long as you are willing to hang out and wade through all the people... go for it. Otherwise... pay the 18 dollars to get in and enjoy at your own pace.

Family Bbq

It went really well. It was so nice to see everyone. Sadly Sarah and the kids were not able to come because of army stuff but it was so awesome to spend time with Aunt T and Uncle D with Karen Jake and Lili and dad even showed up. Most of Kathie's family was here.

I got some great pictures of the kids and the fam. Even a picture of Kathie which are very rare and far inbetween. Ill put some up when I get back to NYC on Tuesday.

Laters

OMG!

North Bend is really freaking far from Welches. Aka. about 5 hours and 15 minutes or so. Long freaking drive. But I had a great time with Debbie!

Ahh..home

It is always nice to return home. I love Oregon and I don't remember how much I miss it till I come home. I can't say that it's been the ideal trip but it's been pretty freaking cool.

I mean cool literally. Its freezing here. Ok..so it's not that cold but in comparison it is freaking cold here compared to NYC the last couple of weeks. It hasn't really been below 70 in nyc in about a month. Here its 50 at night. And then driving the topless Jeep up the mt at 10 pm... COLD! I was not prepared for this weather. I have ONE sweatshirt with me and more tank tops than I will ever need here aparently.

BUT! I have seen a large majority of my friends and have been enjoying them so much. If that is becuase I get to talk alot I do not know but its been great. I heart my David and I always will. I think I miss him the most. Then MEghan and Colleen of course because they are amazing. Wendy will always be a part of my life and I heart her mucho.

The one thing I have to say about this trip is realizing how much older we all are. Very few of my freinds have had the money or the want to walk into a brewery and just have a drink with dinner or by itself. Its so amazing to just sit and talk around a drink and not have it be a big deal. I love it! Then spending hours apon hours with friends and just enjoying the company of the other person and not realizing how much time has actually passed between walking talking and drinking!

Its been a great trip and I cant wait for Thursday in Eugene!!!

Updating the last week

Boston. I had a great time in Boston. It was so nice to get out of the city. It was nice to walk around and see all the different sites and sounds of a different city. It was also nice to remember the parts that I had been to with my mom and my fellow camp members back in the day.

Here are some pictures from Boston.

This is Feneuil Hall. This is a very nice market place. You can buy anything from a piggy bank to Abercrombie jeans. You can also see some great street performers.
This is the spot where Ben Franklin read the US Constitution to the city of Boston. It was the first time it was read publicly. That's pretty cool for a girl who's from a place with very little history.
And well. This is y favorite pla ce in Boston. It is a Dunkin' Donuts (DUH!) and it has a Sushi place in the Dunkin'. This was something I saw when I was in Boston with my mom in 2003 and I couldn't get over it. Its one of my best memories from Boston.
So this is my trip to Boston. I had a lot of fun and it was great. Let me know if you want more pictures.

boston and the zoo

Boston was fun. It was nice to get out of nyc but i definitely missed the city. I was in Camberage... where Harvard is... and I walked into an intersection just like I would in NYC and the damn cop yelled at me because I was standing there waiting. He was stupid. I wanted to yell but at the same time .. It was a cop.

Then today I went to the Bronx Zoo with my alumni association. WELL!!! At the Bronx Zoo they have.. that's right.. CAMEL RIDES!!! They have freaking camel rides. Well..of course. I had to ride a camel. It was the whole.. I have ridden a gator the least I could do is ride a camel. So here is a picture to prove it!
or a better picture..

So. By the way... those were pants that annie hemed up herself. and also took an inch off each side. It was interesting.

Statues

Here in the city it is coming close to the baseball All-Star Game. It is getting pretty hyped because of the whole last one in the Yankee Stadium that will be gone after this season. Because of this hy[e they have put statues of liberty all over the city. These statutes are different teams and different stadiums.

Well. In hearing about these statues I had to find them for myself. Well. Of course I cant live with only finding one ... I had to find them all.

After looking two different times online I finally found a map. 42 different statues from The Bronx (Yankee Stadium) to the Statute of Liberty's Island and Ellis Island. I would LOVE to get them all but I don't want to pay the 12 dollars to get the two out on the ferry.

Just another NYC adventure. I will put pictures at some point.

And tomorrow Im off to Boston for two days so I will update when I get back.