Taking a turn!

Well, I think it is time for this blog to take a direction change in its focus. Hopefully, I will be able to update more regularly and share all of my experiences with writing my thesis, teaching lessons for pre-block, and finally student teaching. It is hard to believe that the time for all of these exciting things has come. With this direction change - had to change the background, how cute is it??? Found it last night while I should have been studying for my history test and couldn't wait to change my background, even thought I really loved my other one too!

Off to bed soon, working all day tomorrow, but hoping to update soon!

A weekend of wonderful traditions...

It has been a weekend of some of my favorite traditions here at MC! I can't say that I have one favorite tradition, because I love them all, but Class Day is up there near the top. Yesterday was 2010 & 2012's Class Day. It was a beautiful ceremony and of course, with 2010, it was anything but traditional! On any other typical class day, the sophomores make 2, 100 foot long daisy chains, filled with hand-picked ivy and white daisies, with the front of the chains filled with colorful daisies. Instead, in memory and in honor of the class of 1910, red roses were tucked in throughout the entire daisy chain and the front was filled with red and pink roses. In 1910, the classes chose to make their chains out of ramblin' red roses instead of white daisies. This was a wonderful way to honor this class from 100 years before!

The rest of the ceremony went off without a hitch and came with many tears, from all! I can't believe that next year, that will be us tearing up the beautiful daisy chain. I was also very excited to see 2010's class doll - Iris Elizabeth Green! See, next year, I will be serving as one of the co-chairs for our, 2011's, class doll! I am so excited and already have a book of ideas so that I can remember all of these little ideas that I come up with throughout the next several months!

Today, of course, was graduation. It was a very emotional day - for the seniors are leaving, so they are sad about parting their ways with their best friends; their littles are sad because their bigs are leaving; we are sad because some of the friends that we have made are graduating and are moving on to the real world. When we return on to MC for the first day of classes for our SENIOR year, on August 18, 2010, we will be the only girls on campus with an Onyx ring on the right hand and will be the ones that the rest of the campus looks up to - we are "the big girls on campus" now! And that is what is so hard to believe. Before we know it, we will have finished our last Cornhuskin on Nov. 5, we will have celebrated with our parents at Senior Parent Night, we will have been inducted into the Alumnae Association, celebrated 11th night with our best friends, and we will have torn apart the daisy chain that our littles have spent countless hours making for us and we will be walking across the mound one last time as an undergraduate student at Meredith College. Where has the time gone? It seems like just yesterday that we were moving into the dorms that thought that it was going to be a long four years! Now, we have one year, actually less that one year until graduation and want the next year to go by oh so very slowly!

Who would have thought we would search for a big stick for a week?

Its hard to believe how fast time has flown by, and this past week. Starting last Wednesday morning at 8AM, we having been searching Meredith's campus, high and low, for a stick, what we like to call a CROOK! We were serious. The night before the week-long event started, we even got henna tattoos of crooks on our right wrist - I totally felt like I was in some type of cult or something!

This is a tradition at Meredith in which the seniors hide the crook and the juniors have 1 week to find it. Each day we are given clues and have to use them to help us find the location of the crook. One of the big rules is that wherever the crook is hidden, at least one consecutive inch of it must be showing, but is can be camouflaged. Here is a breakdown of the clues we were given:

Wednesday: Rock-On.

Thursday: Evens.

Friday: Print.

Monday: Quarters!

Tuesday: Gateway.

Wednesday:

I knew you expected my clues to rhyme

and honestly all things happen in good Time
the Halls you have roamed to hunt me down
could lead you to Wonderland or straight out of town
You have often walked near, and in the blink of an eye
it seems my hiding place has been hard to come by
Weather you find me here, or you Mae find me there
and I have to admit you sure did prepare
with your theories and schemes, I heard you got swagger
but I'll freak the heck out if I get found by Mick Jaggerbe sure not to pass by me with such distain
for Belted to one place I will not always remain
I've been hoping for one of you to shed some light
and with the power of the ring it's possible you might
just as a chain of ivy is as strong as it's winkest link
you can only hope to find me if you decide to think
the scores that you keep, Playing these games that we do
will only grow larger and to this I am true
I am fine where I am, ask my brother or niece,
and if someone tell you different, they must be from Peaceladies don't be cranky while looking for me
for all shall be revealed come fourth-your-tee
unless someone like your class cares a whole awful lot
The Crook (that's me) will never be found, it's not
Legacies aren't built on slate, sand or stone
but by the women who take Steps and make each day their own
The Class of Ten wishes you luck and sends you on your way
for the time has come the walrus said and suddenly it was May.

Last Wednesday morning we started at 8 and by 8:50AM, we had found 2 fake crooks already. By 10:30, we had found one more. By 5:45, we had found 2 more. Making a total of 5 fakes for day one!

Thursday brought us no luck and we continued to look. Friday night, we found one in a large bush near the front of campus. Saturday we found another behind a shutter on the alumnae house. We continued to look high and low and still no luck until this afternoon.

The end of the hunt was at 4:30PM today, so we were in the homestretch and were all most ready to give up. I was not on campus because I was at class, off campus, but about 4:15, I got a wonderful text that said "WE FOUND THE CROOK!" At 4:13, with 17 minutes remaining, we had found it!!!!! I instantly had whole body chills and was so excited I didn't know what to do! Luckily, we were out of class within a few minutes and I could race back to campus to celebrate. The whole way back to campus I was shaking with excitement and just could not believe that we had found it! Congrats to Halie Sue Smith for not giving up on the searching and finding the real crook. She found the crook in the large bush that Brittany had found a fake in Friday night.

During all of our celebration and sighs of relief, we all agreed, if someone had told us 10 years ago that we would be going to a school that has a ton of "silly" (thoughts of those who do not understand these time-honored traditions) traditions, and we would spend a week, searching, and digging, and climbing down in manholes looking for a stick, we would tell them they were crazy! But, here we are and we found that darn stick before our time ran out! It's hard to believe my life to be anything different and it's days like today that make me proud to be a Meredith Angel and especially and ODD one!

Tomorrow is Stunt, another Meredith tradition, a lot like field day and mini-Cornhuskin'! Can't wait - all of the 2011er's are on a high from finding the Crook so this will hopefully spill over to tomorrows competitions!

Spring Has Sprung :)

What and exciting night!!

Wow, this has been a rather exciting night! It all started about a month ago when I got invited to join Kappa Omicron Nu, a national honor society for the Human Environmental Sciences majors, which includes Child Development. So at the first meeting we had, when we signed the book that we were a member, I became the 1000th member of the society at Meredith! I made history - woohoo!

So tonight was our induction night. It was a very special ceremony and packed Jones Chapel. Mom and dad came of course and it was very nice for them to meet my professors that I talk about all the time as well as some of my peers.

After a rainy ride home and while I was in the midst of changing the sheets on my bed from flannel to regular sheets (which means warm weather is coming - yay!), my phone vibrated which meant new mail! I checked my email and had two rather exciting emails. The first was from one of my CD professors congratulating my group on our families workshop that we taught last night to some women at Matthew's House in Raleigh. The next one was from an education professor inviting me to join the new education honor society at Meredith - Kappa Delta Pi! I had a feeling that I would get invited to join this honor society, but is was still super exciting to get the invitation - especially on the same night as I got inducted into KONu! Inductions are in a little over a month so there will be another exciting night :)

I am now realizing that all of this hard work that I am putting in is finally paying off. Yes it pays off every semester in terms of my GPA, but now that is paying off and I am getting invited to join some really prestigious honor societies. Speaking of hard work - I am now officially on spring break, but too bad that spring break doesn't mean a break from work to be done - only a break from classes. Have a ton of work that I need and would like to get done so that when classes get back in swing, these things will already be done!

Down Memory Lane...

Well today was the day in which prospective Teaching Fellows had to do the last portion of the process - the big interview! Region 3's interviews were being held at Meredith, so of course I had to help with escorting the high school seniors to their interviews and then waiting to take them back. Over the 6 interviewees I had, and the 15 minute wait time for each, which added up to 1.5 hours, I had a lot of time to buy and play new games on my iphone as well as think back to when I had to do the interview. The whole application process was very intimidating to me and from the beginning of the process I never thought I would actually get it, but luckily I did :)

As I sat outside of the door and could hear every word that was said because the door was so thin, I actually formed answers to the questions and thought about how much my answers would be different if I were in their shoes. Over the past 2 and a half years at Meredith, I have had so many opportunities that have molded me and shaped me into the woman that I am today. I can't even imagine what my life would be like if I had not been blessed the way that I have been and had not chosen the path that I find myself on. These experiences have matured me and made me see education in different eyes. As I compared my own answers with those of the students who actually answered them, I see how much I have grown because my answers would probably have been just like theirs. Having been in their shoes I understood their anxiety and fear of the interviewers and I did my best to calm them down and make them feel prepared and confident going in. It is hard to believe that three years ago I was in their shoes - I can hardly fathom that thought. And then to think that in one year I will be into the full swing of student teaching. Where has the time gone?

I am so thankful for this opportunity to be a NC Teaching Fellow as well as a Meredith Angel and it is days like today when I understand this and it is really put into perspective.

Here goes another week...

Well, this week is going to be a rather busy and complete week!

Monday:

Baileywick (9-12:15)

Lunch

MUS 244 (2-3:20)

EDU 359 (5-6:50)

Tuesday:

PSY 312 (8-9:20)

CD 335 (9:30-10:50)

Pilates (11-12:20)

Thesis Research Group Meeting (12:30-1:30)

Homework in the Library

Dinner

MAYC (6-7)

Wednesday:

North Forest Pines (8-11:30)

Lunch

CD 345 (2-4:50)

CD 438 at Matthew House (6:15-?)

Dinner

Thursday:

PSY 312 (8-9:20)

CD 335 (9:30-10:50)

Pilates (11-12:20)

Lunch

Baileywick (1-3:45)

Mentor Family for CD 438 (4:30-6)

Meredith Does Moe's ?

Friday:

Work

What a busy week...now if these silly boys would finish the super bowl, I could go to bed and get some sleep before the madness begins!