Inching Closer

Three of my four certification tests are complete--and I passed all of them.  My next--and last!--on is schedule for May 3rd.  Once that one is done (and passed, of course), I'll be certified to teach Early Childhood-6th Grade (any and all subjects); 4th-8th Grade English, language arts, and reading; and/or ESL classes.  Hooray!

I went to a career fair not too long ago, and most districts say they won't know if they're hiring until June or July, so that's kind of lame.  But that gives me plenty of time to look for a great job, right?  Plus, our lease isn't up until after July, so if we have to move, it'll be at about the right time for that.  See?  Gotta find the silver lining!

This upcoming week (April 25-29) is my last week of student teaching.  I have mixed emotions about this.  I'm happy that I'm that much closer to FINALLY graduating, but I'm going to miss seeing the teachers and administrators, and even the students.  And because this is an 8th grade TAKS week, I won't even get to see most of my students on my last day.  I'll have to tell them all on Monday that I'm leaving on Friday, and then they'll have weird schedules Tuesday-Friday, and it's going to be kind of sad.  But I'm going to go back to the school for the 8th Grade Awards Ceremony in May, and I'll get to see my students--and they'll all be dressed up and hoping to get an award for outstanding attitude, performance, behavior, etc.  That's going to be a fun day.  :)

Also, I sent out graduation announcements today!  It was exciting!  I sent out far fewer announcements than I sent out wedding invitations, but it had that kind of a feel to it--something I've been working to for a long time and that I'm excited to see come to actualization.  If you're interested in coming and did not receive an announcement, here's the scoop on graduation (actually, this is exactly what the announcement says):

The President, The Faculty

and

The Graduating Class

of

The University of North Texas

College of Education

Announce the Graduation of

Christine Gregson Shive

on

Friday, the Thirteenth of May

Two Thousand Eleven

with a

Bachelor of Science Degree in

Education

Summa Cum Laude

Commencement Ceremonies will be held at

The University of North Texas Coliseum at 7:00 p.m.

Of course, the announcement's font is fancier and blah blah blah, but it says those exact words.  And yes, you read correctly: I'm graduating Summa Cum Laude.  Because I'm a genius.  And a humble one at that.  ;)

So, things are starting to come together.  Inching closer to the end, one day at a time. 

No excuse, but at least I'm finally updating?

General public and dedicated (ha!) readers, it's been over two months since my last real update.  Hmm.  That feels too much like the beginning of a confessional.

Anyway, it has been an absurdly long time since last I told the world what's been going on in the Shive house.

February: I'm a little fuzzy on the details, but I know that February included Valentine's Day.  I had a girl scout meeting that night, and we had a bunch of fun.  I baked a couple dozen heart-shaped cupcakes and bought frosting and sprinkles and candies, and the girls and I decorated and ate the treats, then we played games.  We had to wait until we'd covered the official business first, but that didn't take much time at all--it was party night!

When I got home, Jay was just finishing up dinner.  He made us a delicious fondue that we dipped bread, apples, and tiny sausages in.  For dessert, we had strawberries, apples, bananas, and pound cake in a dark chocolate fondue.  SUuuuuuUper good.

Jay and I started watching Dexter on NetFlix.  It's dark, but interesting and I like it.  So does Jay.  We're actually watching it right now!

Of course, I can't forget about Snow-pocalypse!  Or Ice-pocalypse, if you prefer.  That was five unexpected days off school.  And five days when I read waaayyyy too many craft blogs.  But I love them!  And I live vicariously through their crafts, which is good because we don't have room for me to put the crafts I'd make or anywhere to make the crafts.

Um... that's all I remember of February.

March: We have plants!  Yeah!  Jay and I finally went out and bought a metal table, a green bamboo planter, and two leafy and brightly colored plants.  They're super cute.  And they brighten up the whole patio.

My sister's wedding is coming up on Saturday, so that's a big deal.  We're all working to make it as nice as possible, especially with the highly restricted timeline.  It's going well, and I think it's going to be beautiful.

Also, I took my certification exams!  I passed two of them for sure, but I'm still waiting on the results of my third test.  I feel pretty confident that I did well, but I won't know for certain until they post my results.  And let me tell you: this is a difficult wait.

So.  I think you're all caught up with some of the important stuff.  :)

Need To Update

Need to find something to update about first, though.

A Good Week

This week was a great week for student teaching.  I ran the warm ups every day, went on a field trip Wednesday, found a way to make the lesson work when the depended-upon technology didn't, and did everything except plan the lesson on Friday.  And, Friday was my first observation. 

Friday was a pretty good day, actually.  I attended my first department meeting of the semester, taught all day without any help from Mr. C, survived my first observation, and gave out a bunch of detentions.  Half of third period didn't return their report cards (they've had a while, now), so they have detention until they return them.  Hopefully that entices the kids to bring their report cards!?

At home, things went well, also.  We've been pretty busy (and my week's busy again this week, too--sheesh!), but we had a good night with my sister and her fiance on Saturday night, got some laundry done, and even cleaned up our space.

And that's us.  :)

Badges, We Don't Need No Stinking Badges

All semester, my UNT "bosses" (the people in charge of my program) have been telling me/everyone in the program to make sure and get ID badges from the district.  I made an appointment to have my picture taken and my badge printed out.  I went to said appointment.  I had said picture taken.  The woman who took my picture went to print it out onto my badge came back to me saying the machine was broken and that the people who could fix it were out to lunch.  She'd have them fix it and send it through the school's mail system and that it'd be to me by Friday.  I went to my school's secretary on Friday.  And Monday.  And Tuesday.  Finally, I got it on Wednesday.  Woo!

...I look like I'm balding in my picture.  And I can't even use it to get a teacher discount at New York & Co. because I have to be a "Teacher Teacher, not a Student Teacher."  Poo.

In other news, though, Jay and I have been hanging out at home some and running around a lot.  We saw Oh Brother, Werewolf Art Thou at the Pocket Sandwich Theater with my sister and her fiance--yup, she's engaged as of 1/23/11 (at about 1AM, which is when she called me)!!--a few weekends ago (maybe it was just one?  they all start running together...), and it was alright.  We enjoyed throwing popcorn at each other and strangers, and the dinner was super delicious.  Mmm.

For three trivia games in a row now, the team I've been on (not really contributing to, but sitting with) has won second place; the last two were complete surprises, as we'd been eighth or worse at half time.  So that's going well.  :)

My class at UNT started last Thursday.  Bleh.  I absolutely do not want to take a class, but I don't have much choice in the matter.  I feel like a terrible role model, though.  I'm supposed to encourage the eighth graders to go to college and do well in school and study and be prepared, but I am so reluctant to do any of those things myself.  Oh, the irony.

And now I've updated.  Happy times, y'all.

The Holidays are OVER

Some people like to lengthen the holidays and keep their decorations up for a pretty long time.  I might have liked to do that, but our apartment is way too cramped to keep up a huge tree for very long.  So, Christmas is officially over at the Shive house (except for the window drawings that Jay made with window crayons and still has to clean up)--the tree is down and put away, as are the stockings, stocking holders, nutcrackers and Christmas lights.  Our apartment feels much bigger now, much cleaner.  Thank goodness.

I only have this week left of my much appreciated break (I've paused a long time here to consider hyphenating "much appreciated," and I've come to the conclusion that I don't care--which has led to another, saddening  conclusion: I need school).  I'm playing computer games, watching my DVR, surfing netflix, and washing more clothes than I knew two people could wear. 

Holy Moley!

Well, siiiince Halloween, we've had our first married Thanksgiving and our first Married Christmas.  Lots of stuff has happened at school, I finished my semester (with a 4.0 for the semester!!), I'm on winter break until Jan. 10, and it's almost Jay's birthday.

Where should I start with this update?  School?  I suppose....

I've felt ready to graduate for a long long time now; I am just so sick and tired of school.  I suppose that 18.5 straight years of school will do that to a person, though.  And I know--I'm going to be in school the rest of my life as a teacher.  But as a teacher, I'll assign the homework and projects and essays, not complete that junk.  I had two finals and two final projects to turn in at the end of the semester, and those projects took a chunk of my life, I'm fairly certain.  I think I learned from them though, so that's a plus, and they're over and graded with a big A on them, so that's a definite plus.

After Halloween, we had to throw away our jack-o-lanterns pretty quickly (you may recall the previous post with the gross pictures), but we were able to keep the hay and the un-carved ones until Thanksgiving.  The little area outside our door was super cute.

I think we put up our Christmas stuff the Saturday or Sunday after Thanksgiving, so we've been looking at a lighted and ornamented tree and a lighted patio for a pretty long time.  Except that the tree makes our office/dining room way too small, it's been really nice having the tree up.  It looks pretty and festive and I like it.  When we took down our Halloween/Thanksgiving wreath, we put up a Christmas/New Year sparkly silver star.  I really like that.  :)

Our Christmases were wonderful and we both had tons of fun playing games with our families and making pot stickers with mine (well, eating them was fun, at least; they're not very fun to make), and Nutella Honey Rice Crispies, and all that other holiday food.  Mmmm mm.

And now, it's two days until Jay's birthday, so everything with that, of course, is still undecided.  Very typical, very expected.  I guess that all has to be figured out today, though.  Hmm... looks like it's time to shop!

Later