it's over

I just finished my last paper for my Masters degree. ELMAC is over and it feels so strange. The entire year went by so fast, the whole time I just wanted it to be over, and now that it is, it's unreal. In a year I became a masters level teacher...somehow

wow...

I am really going to miss all my new awesome friends
and living in Ann Arbor.

I have to move back to TC Sunday morning.

Now the job searching begins again...

namaste

Tonight I will have a lot of work to catch up on- probably up late

but I had a pretty awesome weekend

Friday I hung out with my fellow students and ate some Mediterranean food/ice cream

Saturday I had a friend date with Ben and we had fancy coffee at Comet Coffee and saw The Runaways...which was okay, but pretty disjointed. Hung out with roommate at night, looked at stupid bridal magazines and awesome Etsy for Wedding inspirado (We are both getting married this year) and listened to all the Radiohead albums except for Pablo Honey.

Sunday had a wonderful morning/afternoon lolling around the house and doing free yoga videos off of youtube.

I love weekends.

making fun of palin's angry mob

Job Fair #3 a bust.

bummer.

favorite book

"What about little microphones? What if everyone swallowed them, and they played the sounds of our hearts through little speakers, which could be in the pouches of our overalls? When you skateboarded down the street at night you could hear everyone's heartbeat, and they could hear yours, sort of like sonar. One weird thing is, I wonder if everyone's hearts would start to beat at the same time, like how women who live together have their menstrual periods at the same time, which I know about, but don't really want to know about. That would be so weird, except that the place in the hospital where babies are born would sound like a crystal chandelier in a houseboat, because the babies wouldn't have had time to match up their heartbeats yet. And at the finish line at the end of the New York City Marathon it would sound like war."
— Jonathan Safran Foer (Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close)

I need a haircut.

Teacher fair #3

In my job hunt I have went to 2 teacher fairs so far.

#3 is tomorrow.

lets recap...

#1 was a charter school job fair in Colorado and it was insane. You had to be there at least an hour before to get an interview because you would sign up and come back later...it was strange. Not too much progress there, and one man handed me back my resume and told me I just wasn't going to cut it.

#2 was the Oregon job fair, and possibly the largest job fair I will ever attend. There were literally thousands of teachers all trying to stand out. Here you had to wait in line for interviews which was MUCH more effective and you had much more face time.
= 1 positive interview.

lets predict...
I am anticipating a lot of non-Michigan schools at job fair #3 which I am not really feelin'. There are always a lot of Alaska, Texas, Florida and Arizona recruiters which is not where I am looking for employment. I think the options at this job fair are, Ann Arbor, Detroit and Grand Rapids. But I just don't know how it will work because of all the schools closed all the jobs lost in Michigan, how will this work? My hopes are not high...but I'm going to do my thing, along with my 25 other amazingly talented cohort students and hope I stand out.

Lead Teaching
My kids take the test of the Math unit I have been teaching tomorrow...and let me say, teaching Math and Math in general has not been my forte. I am nervous, I am just hoping hoping hoping that they do well, or I will feel like the biggest student teacher loser.

ALSO I am being upstaged my the other student teacher in the building. Sister Mary asldfkjsad;fl, not only did she witness a math lesson I messed up a little, but she brought in A NEW YORK TIMES BEST SELLER CHILDREN'S AUTHOR....the writer of
FABLEHAVEN
which I have never heard of. AND she has a guaranteed job after her student teaching...not fair...not fair. I am clearly the less superior student teacher, and less holy.

And my CT, behind my back, talks about how bad the coffee I make is...

this is just the bad stuff.
There is so much more good stuff than bad.
I do love to teach.

My life= lots of sticky notes

I am smack dab in the middle of lead teaching at the moment.
It is slightly stressful and turning me into a slug when i get home.
I lay out on my bed and my body decomposes into the mattress like a rotting log.

Funny events include...

"Ms. Allen, your eyes, their CRAZY!"
"Well suck my peanuts!"
and a girl calling the lunch lady a hermaphrodite...

Every day is an adventure, and a good one. A goal of mine was to never lead a stagnant life, to never sit down all day, and to make a difference and by golly I'm doing it.

I've had 2 positive interviews- 1 at a private school in Vail, and 1 for the Corvallis school district in Oregon.

Things are looking up.

And life this year is in full bloom already!

Obama is speaking at my graduation...

And Summer in TC is almost here.

I also don't understand how teachers get student attention without a rainstick....

time for better blogging! promise!

we spent hours...

Making this website.

www.mywedding.com/michaelandbrookeandeveryoneweknow

Long time no blog

I shot my first Engagement Session this weekend...and I'm a little excited.
Here's a taste

It was so much fun walking around Chicago and catching the love between a few of my very best friends. I'll post more to my flickr soon.

Everything...wow

I just finished my first semester of grad school.

This has been...the best schooling experience of my entire life.

So what I've been doing the past 6 weeks is working in an Ann Arbor summer school with children from all over the district. These kids were recommended to attend due to their performance in literacy and math. It was very very challenging, but completely amazing.
I worked with third graders teaching concepts of math and literacy to them and planned a lesson every day for when I was there. After summer school we had class at the school where we would discuss context/methods/reflections of the practice.

I feel so good about the teaching practices they are instilling in us and how our own professors are modeling to us, how they want us to teach children, they are treating us as sense-makers so we know to implement that in our own teaching.

Everything we are doing just fits together in the most amazing way and truly makes you think about everything you are doing in a lesson and making it intentional and focused.

Growing up I thought I was inept at math because I never did well in it, or understood it. Now I realize that the teachers were showing us how to do math, but not the why behind the how. They weren't allowing the students to discuss strategies and to question...I can't wait to be a teacher and really set up these children for success and let them question and discuss and feel confident in doing so. That is how you learn.

For some reason I'm feeling really emotional about the end of this semester. Many told me that a large percentage of people who go into teaching, leave very quickly. But maybe they were not taught the why behind the how of teaching. This summer we worked with the children who have the hardest time in school, and I still feel like I can't wait to get back into the classroom and encourage these kids to be interested in learning.

I think I truly made the best choice by going back to school, and I was truly lucky to be picked to be in this program, it is amazing and I am so interested in learning. I am so excited to teach.

its been a long time...shouldn't a left you, without a dope beat to step to..to step to...

in a few words this is where i'm at now

ann arbor
u of m
grad school
studying
my
eyeballs
out
and
loving
everything
about
it
i
study
and
michael
watches
star
trek

This program, is amazing and I feel so good and so right learning how to be an awesome teacher, my professors amaze me and I get to start working with kids next week! LASKJDF.

And I've become more obsessed that usual with children's books...favorites as of late

Happy years :)

2 years of seeing each other today. I love mu

I'm going to miss my friend/Spring came today

Magic

Spring came today :)

I had some good times this weekend with my awesome Traverse friends.

Be safe over there buddy. I miss you already

Essays and Summers and Cellos

I have many many essays to write- many.

But all I can think about is
Grad school excitement
Moving in May
Ann Arbor Summer with Mike
Seeing Andrew Bird tomorrow
Seeing David tomorrow
Cellos
and excitement for my future.

It took me a long time to feel excited about being an adult and I just feel so optimistic/unstoppable now.