The Madness has Begun!!

It's November 2nd everyone!! And that means NaNoWriMo has officially begun! How awesome is that?!

Yesterday was something of a rough day for me. I missed German AGAIN because I couldn't get up! SO FRUSTRATING. I got quite a bit of work done though. I need to come to the library more often to study. It helps me focus better. And even when I get distracted, I always end up going back to what I was doing. If I'm at home, I have this tendency to give it up and start something else ^^;; whoops.

Anyway. Nano.

I was really eager to get going on it, but I didn't actually start until last night. Sunday I threw a Halloween/Reformation day party and two of my friends were there really late. By the time they left it was already 11:30 but I was too exhausted to stay up and start NaNo write at midnight like I have before. I went to bed and crashed.

I didn't want to make NaNo a priority over school because it really shouldn't be. So I used it to my advantage! I didn't allow myself to write it AT ALL until my other work was done. I didn't start writing until after 10pm! And yet, in an hour and a half, I had 1,759 words! Yay! And I don't hate it! It's an introduction which I always dread writing, but it turned out really well =D

I'm happy.

Today I also have a lot of work to do. I was also the first one up this morning. Yay me! Even before Emily, which almost NEVER happens =D It was a good start. I was one of the last ones to leave, but that's ok. I had a nice and relaxing morning. My bed is made, I actually ate breakfast for once, and I'm ready to go for the rest of my day! Yay!! =D

I don't even know what else to say. I'm sleepy but it's probably the music. I have to listen to classical/baroque style music for my French Civ class and write about it. I love that my homework assignment is on Pandora. XD It's pretty great.

Isaiah project = total crap. I don't like how it's going. I might switch to a lesson plan. Who knows? I'm just not doing very well with it. It's due on the 11th or the 12th, I can't remember which. It means I'm running out of time. I'm doing very well with my French project, but because of that I've been slacking in this one.

Why does my school insist on making religion classes so hard? I don't get it. It makes me resent taking them. -sigh- Oh well. Next semester my teacher is supposed to be pretty easy. Here's hoping, right?

Anyway, time to get back to work.

Toodles!

And, just to PROVE how awesome I am, take a look!! (I had more written on it, but the file was too big so I cropped it. Ignore that other random stuff plz XD lol thnx)

School Nazis

I'm totally skipping German today. Oops. I didn't get nearly enough work done yesterday and I had to stay up WAY too late. So I slept in and now I'm going to work through German class. I should be leaving... now actually haha. To get there on time I mean. But I'm not going.

I love German, don't get me wrong. It's the language closest to my heart even though it's the 4th one I've attempted to learn. (Japanese hardly counts on that front... I usually count German as my 3rd language.) I wish I were better at it, but to get better one of the things I SHOULD do is go to class. But it's so STRESSFUL!!!

I can't even say how many times I've wanted to call my professor a Nazi like I and many others in this country call their teachers. I guess it's an American thing because it's not exactly funny... just descriptive in something of a hyperbolic (that's actually a word?!?!) way. But I can't do that with this specific professor. Why? Cause he was in Germany during the war. And he was like... 10? when it started. His father was on one side of the wall and he and his family were on the other. Not funny.

BUT GRAH!!! What else do I call him??? T.T We're apparently really uncreative.

All tough teacher references I've EVER heard involve communists, dictators, and Nazis. WHAT ELSE IS THERE?!?! There are SOOOOO many words in the world!! Why can't we come up with something better?? Or different that I can use??

Anyway. I'm not going because I'm not prepared because I had other obligations. I'm behind in EVERYTHING because I'm human and need sleep and food and stuff. And going unprepared is stressful beyond imagining. I WANT to go, but the class is so small and he likes calling me. We've known one another for a while so he usually calls on me or one of the other kids who went to Berlin. (He was the program director, did I say that yet? No? Ok. Well he was.)

I really do love him. He's awesome. But he's a REALLY rough teacher to have. My room mate is in his medieval German class and she says it's ridiculous there too. At least German is HER primary major. It's not mine and my experience of it (or really lack thereof) is putting me in a SEVERELY difficult position. I'm already behind and I don't know how it's even possible for me to catch up. So I get discouraged. And then I don't go to class. Vicious cycle, ne?

Anyway I need to get to work. Need to finish my French project today. I only have until the 12th (I think) for my Isaiah project and I have almost nothing on it so far. My French project is just a matter of compiling all the information I already have and making it look pretty. Oh and flourishing it all up with references. Official ones haha.

This weekend is going to be long. Tomorrow night I get to go to Maddie's halloween party and Sunday is my day off. Whoo... I can do this. Not even 36 hours. Go team!!!

P.S. Dad told me he's buying me a car. o.O Awesome? yes. Oh and starting me on a budget.

And that he wants me to go to Law School for international law or business. Which sounds cool to me. But yeah.... that's gonna take some thought. I hate nothing more than entrance exams, but it'd be worth it in the long run, no?

I think I mentioned this before... who knows. Last post was written during moments of utter exhaustion. So yeah.... doesn't count for much.

David was hard to wake up and kick out of my kitchen ^^;;; At least I got in to all the classes I wanted. CLASSES THREE DAYS A WEEK FTW!!! \o/ I'm excited haha.

Ok done now. Bye! =D

Exhausted

I'm writing this very late at night. Well, for me at least.

Lots of things have been going on lately for a lot of the people in my life.

My brother's girlfriend is gone. Yesterday was their 9 month anniversary and also the day he took her to the missionary training center. She's just down the street and he can't even see her.

I don't know what's going on with David, my almost-brother, but something is up. I asked him what was going on and he was thinking of a response. Or so he said. In actuality, he fell asleep with his head on my kitchen table.

Emily is losing a lot of wonderful people for a lot of different reasons. She's going through a rough time and the school work is piling up.

There are more but it doesn't really matter.

Right now, I want to do everything I can for everyone. I want to be there for everyone! But it's just not possible. I really hate that. I want to be there for my friends, but I'm already behind in school and at work. Work doesn't really matter so much, but I won't get paid any if I don't work. -sigh- It doesn't really matter, but I don't want to slack off at my job just because my boss doesn't care all that much how many hours I work each week.

At the same time, my dad is now pushing me in the direction of Law School. He thinks I should try international business or law. It sounds appealing to me, I have to admit. I wanted to go to law school when I was younger, which was then replaced by the desire to go to medical school. The want to be a forensic scientist fazed in a out as the years went by. The thought of being a teacher has always been there, but it's had its shining moments and its moments of neglect.

There's a lot on my mind, but I'm surprisingly calm. Two projects due before too long and they're very time-consuming. Almost boring. I know the material for the most part and just have to get it all out and in the proper language. I have SO much work to do and very little energy to do it all WITH.

My responsibilities are pulling me in several different directions. I don't like having to choose between two good and important things. For instance, I missed the fireside (devotional) tonight because Carson came over and we ate dinner together. Family v. spiritual responsibilities. Tough decision for me to make.

Anyway I'm really tired. Thank goodness for caffeine or I never would have survived this late. I was planning on working until midnight when I can sign up for classes for next semester, but it didn't end up happening. David is rather distracting.

I just want everyone to be happy. =)

NaNoWriMo - part 3 (self publishing and the like)

Well. The exam was extremely easy. I think everyone finished in under 30 minutes. And after my interview today, I'll be done with that class! Yay! It was starting to get to me. I love being done with block classes haha.

Right now I am continuing to procrastinate doing my other homework. Reading 20-some pages of analyzing art is not my cup of tea, so I'm putting it off. Haven't even made it through 2 pages and am already bored out of my mind. At least it's in English though... If it were in French, I'd never make it haha. I still have 3 hours to get it done though. There are only 2 questions this time, so that's not too bad.

French Civ exam #3 opens tomorrow. Blech. Not fun. At least my project proposal is done, printed, and ready to go. I'm way behind on my Isaiah project, but it's alright. Hopefully I'll get to work on that some time this week. That and maybe get in SOME hours for work. I didn't get in any last week. Boo!

I really want it to be November... Nano will make me incredibly happy and will give me something fun to do.

As for the book as a whole...

I really want to try to tie in some of the stories to one another and give it some more continuity, since I'm lacking a little in that department. I mean, a series of short stories is great, especially because they have a common theme, but tying them together makes it seem more polished and thought out. At least I think it does.

So far all I have is a connection to "Junkyard" and "The Creator." I want Jim (the creator himself) to hear about the Junkyard incident and then to go and try to fix the Androids that were killed in the events preceding it. I don't know if I'll come out and say it upright, but it will at the very least be strongly implied.

I really want to post things about my book online here, but I have 2 issues with doing so.

1. Idea theft.

I'm not too worried about that because I don't think many of my ideas make sense to other people right now. Lots of them are still in picture form and have very little solidified as of yet. Plus I don't think many people are that desperate. If someone could do something with just my basic ideas, they'd be creative enough to come up with their own story and therefore wouldn't need mine.

The second is more important.

2. "Self publishing"

I always want to leave the option open to getting my work published some day and if you "self publish" it's MUCH harder to achieve this. Since this book can be however long or short I choose it to be, based on the number of stories I write, it wouldn't be a particularly difficult one to conceive of getting published one day. So yeah... I don't want to run the risk of not being able to do that because I posted too much of it on the nets.

Rawr. Silly publishing companies.

I noticed that, since I started writing about Nanowrimo, my audience has tripled! Thanks everyone for reading my blog :) I really appreciate it. I'd really love to hear from my readers. As of yet, my blog has 0 comments and it makes me a little sad. So if you have a second, leave a comment please. I'd love to hear from you!

Maybe once I finish my French homework (and maybe read for Isaiah as well haha) I'll update with more stuff about my book. I need to develop several of my characters a LOT more. I have general ideas for stories and I know HOW my characters will respond to their situations, but I have very little idea about the WHY of it all. It seems important to me.

Anyway. I'm REALLY stalling. I need to get back to work.

Only 2 more months of this semester!! It's kind of hard to believe it's already half over. =3 Oh how time flies.

Bye friends!

Obama's Idea of Better

This makes me very angry.

I don't understand why it's so hard to listen to people who actually know what they're talking about. Hiring new math and science teachers and pushing "test scores" harder isn't going to fix the problems that public school systems have. Simply admitting there's a problem won't fix it either.

I keep hoping things will get better, but it just seems like they're getting worse. And it doesn't seem like we (as present and future teachers) can do anything about it. We can't make them understand what real, good teaching requires.

Teaching new teaching methods is all well and good, but if the students don't care, it hardly matters. I wish they would stop blaming teachers for the number of drop-outs. The best teachers in the world can't MAKE students want to learn.

Students will still get pregnant, need jobs to support families, run away, or any other manner of things. Did you know suicide counts as dropping out? How messed up is that?

This country has no idea what it's doing. And I admit, I'm still a student. But it doesn't take an idiot to see that it's not going well and things need to change. I'm not an idiot, so I think it's safe to say this "reform" is a joke.

If you want good results, talk to the people who know the field. Don't just make something up and throw in some big words and the phrase "it's what's best for the children" and think that will pass. It won't.

Rawr.

This is Bound to Be EPIC!

Jamie posted this on her LJ. I decided I had to share. I was going to teach in Japan this past summer, but due to illness, I missed the last interview and couldn't go. Instead, I went to Berlin and had the time of my life.

Maybe one day I'll still get to teach in Japan. Wouldn't that be awesome?! But for now, I can only dream.

In the mean time, here is this drama. Hopefully more to come soon!

New Secondary Education Student Orientation

It's "suggested" that, at the start of your major (whatever that may be), that you go to the meeting held by key faculty members of your specific school. This morning I went to mine.

It was pretty boring at first, talking about exams I don't have to take for a few more years still, but then something happened and a light clicked on. They talked about doing a minor in TELL (Teaching English Language Learners - aka English as a second language). I, of course, already have 2 majors and a minor, but it really got me excited.

I thought about doing TESOL (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages) which is basically the same thing, but this minor is shorter and the classes are offered not only at night, but also during every semester and both terms. Now, here's the consideration part.

If I were to do this, I would have to sacrifice my German Studies major and take French Teaching with 2 minors (German teaching and TELL). I think it would be a good idea since 1) it won't take me any longer to graduate if I did that and 2) it will certify me in 3 languages, not just 2. And I already speak English fairly well, so there's no need to worry about that too much (note: "fairly well" is meant to be extremely sarcastic).

That's mostly what I've been thinking about today.

I wasn't as productive today as I had hoped to be. I felt AWFUL most of the day. I got everything done that I had to, but I could have done more. The next few days are gonna be pretty stressful, so I hope that doesn't make things worse, you know?

My first exam (French civ.) is Wed-Thurs. My second (Writings of Isaiah) is Thursday and my third (German grammar) is Monday. Woo! They're not letting me take it easy this year are they? Haha. It'll all be fine, I just have to have the energy to study. Naps will probably be necessary.

Haylee and I are meeting up tomorrow to study German and stuff, so that should be... ok. Hopefully. He (our professor) gave us a sample exam, so we know exactly what kind of questions will be asked. The only problem is the amount of material and my inability to learn over 100 German verbs, their meanings and all their tenses in under a week in addition to studying for one equally difficult exam (French) and one possibly detail-oriented exam (Isaiah). I don't know much about the Isaiah exam, but it shouldn't be as hard as the other two. For one thing, it's in English. Well... the test is anyway. Saying the book of Isaiah itself is in English is a rather debatable stand-point.

On another, slightly more random note, I have been motivating myself all day by telling myself life isn't as bad as my pessimistic side would have me believe. This is mostly referring to my IBS, by the way. It is extremely painful at times and that is rather distracting.

Last night I was moping about it because it wasn't getting better even when I upped my dosage of meds (which, by the way, I am very allowed to do. Encouraged to, even, when problems arise). I thought to myself "I'm doing everything I can and nothing helps. This is totally not fair." In response, I heard David Bowie (as he played the part of King Jareth of the Goblins in "Labyrinth" back in the 80s). This was his answer to the female lead (ironically also named Sarah) when she said the same thing.

Sarah: "It's not fair!"

Jareth: "You say that so often. I wonder what your basis for comparison is."

[In case you're wondering, it sounds like this: click here!]

I have to admit I laughed, because Jareth has a point. So I kept telling myself that all day and if the sentiment wasn't enough to put a smile on my face, the glittery Goblin King was. Oh David Bowie...

Anyway it's getting rather late now (in srs bzns college kids terms) and I haven't felt well, as stated, so I'm going to get some sleep and hope things are better tomorrow.

Life is so crazy, but I love every minute of it. =D Yay optimism! (Hopefully this will not soon be replaced by endless pessimism like is sometimes is in my life haha. We'll just have to wait and see.)

Starting Off

Hello everyone! My name is Sarah. I am a French Teaching and German Studies double major at ***** in *******. I am currently on my way to becoming a French and German teacher at the secondary education level (meaning Middle and High School).

Right now, I'm just starting on the education track in my studies. I already love it, and it's given me a lot to think about. I wanted to start this blog to keep track of all the thoughts I have about what kind of teacher I want to become. I won't graduate for another 3 years (making me a "super senior" because of my two majors) and I'm afraid that, by the time I actually am certified to teach, that I'll have forgotten the important things I learn along the way.

My favorite class this semester is called "FLANG." It simply stands for "foreign language," but it's really the introductory course in to the secondary education program. It's purpose is to explore different teaching methods and things of that nature. It will only last for the first block and I've completed 2 out of the 8 weeks total so far.

This past week, we had the opportunity to observe a German class at a middle school in ****. (Just so you know, we break up into groups according to language. I'm with the German students right now since there are only 3 of us, but I'm going to beg and plead and cry to get to visit French classes too haha.)

This teacher - the first and only one I've observed so far - taught me a lot without even meaning to.

My first impression of him was not a very good one. He didn't seem to be teaching his students much of anything at all. In fact, I was horrified by the fact that, by the third week of school, his 1st year students had yet to learn the German alphabet. He told stories, many of which lasted more than 15 minutes and had little to no purpose at all, and joked and didn't do much in the way of teaching.

But the students respected him. All of them. He didn't have ANY discipline issues while we were there. And in middle school? That's impressive.

That caught my attention - as did his frequent grammar mistakes that even I caught (I only started taking German in January, so I figured his German should be far better than mine since he's been teaching for 10 years). But that's beside the point.

He taught me the importance of continued study and of revisiting the countries where your language is spoken (he hasn't been back to Deutschland since 1993). But he taught me something even more important.

He built his program up from nothing. He had 2 classes at the beginning. Now he has 1 less than the SPANISH department and he is the only German teacher in the school. The kids obviously love him and enjoy his class. He fights for the program, which I know is a difficult thing to do.

He incorporated fun in to his lessons. He's friendly and open with his students. They probably think of him more as a friend than anything. He relates to them and knows the "slang" and all the jokes they know. He makes a big effort to be on the same level they're on. He plays German music and films and has books available to anyone who wishes to read them. He offered anything he has to us (myself and the other 2 German students). He told us about conferences and forums and made a great deal of helpful information available to us. He gave us his email address and told us to come back if ever we wanted to whether we told him before-hand or just showed up. He talked about a blog he keeps for his students and their parents to see and use, especially for the times when students are absent from class. He gives them projects they'll enjoy and does everything he can to make them interested in the German language.

But at the same time, he told us there is currently no German program at the high school in that school district. He will teach those kids all the German they will probably ever learn, and he's wasting time trying to keep them entertained. Not that that's always a bad thing - you can't be strict all the time - but having a lesson that's more than 10 minutes long out of an 80 minute class isn't an unreasonable thing to expect. Even if half the class were lesson and half fun and games, I still think it would be better than it is now.

So, while I have to admit I still question some of his methods, I respect him. And he's taught me that earning your students' friendship and respect is an extremely important aspect of teaching.

I don't want to be like him, exactly, but I can learn a lot from his open and laid-back attitude.

I want to find a balance between the way he teaches and the way my own German teacher is going on with us. One is too lax, the other slightly too intense.

It's only the third week of school (or nearly I suppose, since it's Saturday) and I already have learned so much.

I also know that he enjoys teaching them and he really cares about and loves them. That's an extremely admirable and rare quality in teachers these days and I want to be like that. It's hard, trying to find ways to make it work when you have nothing else to go on but your gut instinct and when you haven't spoken German to anyone but your beginning students in years. It's got to be discouraging at times, but if he thinks so I couldn't even tell.

Thanks Mr. Sigafus. You taught me a lot.

And I still have a long way to go.