Look out Apollo!!!!

Jaden and I went ice skating last night and you have got to see this kid! He is amazing on a pair of ice skates!!! I helped put them on and the he just took off walking around on them by himself. I thought he would need help getting used to walking with them--false. He showed off by walking forwards, backwards, sideways, and with his eyes closed!

We went to the Olympic Oval which is a speed skating track, not your typical skating rink. The oval is huge, about the size of a running track. We went around the whole track 5 times!!! Each time we went around Jaden just got better and better. The first time he held onto my hand and the wall. We basically just walked around on the ice with little stutter steps.We went pretty slowly but Jaden taught himself how to stop using the toe pick and stopped himself from falling quite a few times...but we did fall...a lot. Jaden was such a good sport, he just said, "I'm okay!" and got back up and kept going. After the first time around, which took about 30 minutes, we had to take a break because the zamboni had to clean the ice, which took FOREVER. Seriously, 23 minutes to clean the ice. We were getting antsy.

When we got back on again, Jaden started getting more brave and picked up speed. We went around in less time with fewer falls with every lap. Then he started actually gliding a little bit on the ice, closing his eyes, taking little jumps, weaving his feet in and out a little, and then...he let go of the wall...and then me! He started doing it all by himself. Then when he would fall, he would say, "It's okay to fall because that's how we learn." On the last time around he only fell 2 times! That is incredible because the track is ginormous and it was only his first time! Way to go Jaden! We had so much fun! He did say that he wished his family was there so that they could see how good he was. So here are some videos of him skating. Sorry they aren't very good, I'm not the most coordinated skater/photographer.

Movin on Up

I'm done!!! I took my last undergraduate final yesterday!!!

Also, I thought I'd show everyone what Nathan's stocking looks like. Mom is so good!

And if you notice the new location, it is due to the increase in population of the family. And look how far up the stairs I am!

In other news: I am now unemployed! Hooray!!! :o)

You mean there's a right answer???

Granite School District came to BYU to interview secondary education majors graduating by next August today. I received a call a few weeks ago telling me to sign up for an interview and since I didn't think they would call every single education major, I was feeling special and signed up. I'm still not positive if I want to try and teach first and pursue a Master's Degree or just go to school first. I figure it depends on if I can get hired or not, so I prepared for the interview anyway.

I got up at 6:30 this morning so that I could actually do my hair. No joke, this is the first time I have ever blowdryed, curled, and styled my hair since I've been at BYU. Then as I got into my car I noticed a gigantic run up my nylons so I had to go back and change them. My interview was at 9:00 but I was supposed to be there 20 minutes early to fill out paperwork. I realized at 8:00 that the resume I sent the district had a typo on it (how EMBARRASSING!) so I printed out a new one to hand into them, hoping they hadn't looked at the one I submitted online yet. I also discovered that my professor still hadn't given me the letter of recommendation I asked him to write on Monday, so I only had 1, instead of the 2 to 3 the district asked for. :-(

Anyway, I got there at 8:30 and started filling out the paperwork and tried to calm myself down because I felt like a lot of things were not going my way. I told myself I had 30 minutes to relax, spit out my gum (I wanted to have spearminty fresh breath), think of awe-inspiring reamarks to say in my head, and reapply chapstick. Five minutes later the guy called my name and I just stared at him like, "Uh...yes..." while thinking, "I'm not ready yet!"

So I go into this teeny tiny coat closet and sit down and there was no room to put all my stuff so I just sat there and held it, I had to swallow my gum like a teenager going to talk to a teacher trying to not get 5 demerits, and my lips suddenly felt dry and pasty. Then he pulled out my resume with the typo on it and I cringed. Then he said, "So you want to be a PE teacher. I saw on your resume something about soccer." I thought he was referring to my coaching internship so I started to explain it but then he said, "Did you see that BYU game with the girl?" (he started making hair-pulling gestures) I explained to him my familiarity with the situation.

The man says the HR person who scheduled the interviews got sick so he was filling in and didn't really know much and couldn't answer any of my questions, which was a little frustrating. Then we got down to business and asked:

1. What are the most important things to do during the first few days of the school year?

2. How important is it to work together with coworkers and how would you do it? (Seriously??)

3. What are the best teaching methods you would use...or something like that...I turned my answer into that question regardless of what the actual question was.

4. What kind of relationship do you want to have with students?

and the big one...

5. What is unique to you as a teacher? How will that help you to teach?

I felt like my answers were well articulated, I don't think there's anything I wish I would have remembered to say or said something else instead. But because my interview was so far ahead of schedule I had to sit outside the interviewing closets and finish my paperwork while the 2 interviewers talked and waited for the next interviewees. I overheard the man who interviewed me asking the other interviewer (a woman who actually knew what she was doing) about the questions and she said, "I have not been impressed with the responses I've been given so far. Nobody has gotten any of them completely right." I stopped writing and thought, "What?! You mean there are actually right and wrong answers? I thought they just wanted our opinions and were trying to get to know our teaching philosophies and stuff." She continued to explain that we get certain points for certain answers and then there's an overall score at the end...I had no idea. It felt like we were just shooting the breeze public school teaching style. Then I started to feel really dumb and juvenile. She said that the 1st question about the 1st few days of school no one had gotten right. She said everyone says that setting up procedures and routines is what is most important, (which is what I said and I was pretty proud of my answer) but the RIGHT answer is to learn everyone's names. What??? As a secondary level teacher with 150 students you think learning everyone's names is more beneficial than keeping everything under control until I can get a chance to learn everyone's names?! Fine. I missed those 3 points completely.

In conclusion, I don't think it went that well. But I'm okay with that. This interview is just the first of many and it was good practice experience...I guess. Schools don't even start posting job openings until April 1st so then we'll all have to re-interview or something anyway. I just thought I would let you all know. Have a good weekend! Only 3 more weeks until Christmas!

The Next Big Step

I got my student teaching assignment today. I'll be at Oak Canyon Junior High in Lindon, UT. I googled it and it says it should be an 11 minute drive from my apartment...excluding traffic...and snow...I don't know much yet except I'll be at that school the entire semester. They usually try to get us at a junior high for one half and a high school for one half, but I guess not for me.