Homecoming, Homegoing

This weekend was thankfully and conveniently a three-day weekend so I was blessed enough to go back to Grove City to visit for Homecoming 2009. It was such an odd and bittersweet experience saying hello to old friends and goodbye (again) to college life. And here's one very small example of life moving on without me - sniff - the huge trees next to the entrance to South that I walked through for three years are gone! No more do girls have to squeeze between the massive trees or have a head-on collision trying to run in or out when it's raining and cold. Ah, Grove City life.

However, despite all the changes and such, it was good to go back, see friends, and realize that I miss it so much because I had such a great time there and met so many amazing people! So yay good times, great friends, memorable professors and the collegiate life and academia!

Bonsai!

Recently, I have discovered the joy of different themes on the background of my webmail. This lead to the discovery of a fun background with characters that do different things depending on what time it is. And the fox is trimming a bonsai tree as we speak. Or I write. How exciting my life is.

In other news, I'll be traveling back to the Grove this weekend for Homecoming! Yay! I am so excited to see good friends and go back to an atmosphere I've found myself missing these past few months. Pray for safe travels, please. I'll be carpooling, but it's still a 3-hour drive to "the meeting place."

In other news, I was observed twice last week! Contractually, we are supposed to be observed 8 times per year (four "rated", four "non-rated") by members of the administration and our curriculum supervisor (mine is the head of the world languages division and used to be a German teacher). However, we're apparently not supposed to be observed back-to-back as I was. Either way, I have two non-rated observations over with! Whew! Now I need to focus on my classroom management and warm-ups at the beginning of class.

And, I'm a genius! I went to Wal-Mart this afternoon and bought four binders - one for each level of French. I'll be making a "phantom student" for each class collecting all my tests, quizzes, handouts, etc. so next year, I have everything in order and I won't have to write up too many new things or search frantically for something I'm trying to find. Yay!

Whew! That was a lot of uninteresting goings-on here, especially since I hadn't written in so long, but there's my life for pretty much the past few weeks. Bleh.

Also, tonight for dinner - BLT. Yum.

Purpose

Being a teacher, I think about objectives a lot. In lesson plans there's a "teacher jargon": TSWBAT. This stands for "the student will be able to..." and following it, the objective and goal of the lesson should be stated.

As students of the Bible, what should we be able to do?

God outlines his entire objective for our lives through his Word; and, on occasion, we discover something more specifically applicable to our lives at a particular point, the objective of the lesson (instead of the unit or even course). I was touched today through an email from a friend which had the following verse in it. If there was ever something so encouraging yet direct and giving purpose to our lives, I don't know what that was. Being bogged down by the stress of my first few weeks of teaching, I had forgotten to focus on that which is above and what God has in store for me and wants me to do! What a meaningful and great wake-up!

"I am the Lord; I have called you in righteousness;
I will take you by the hand and keep you;
I make you to be a covenant for the people,
A light for the nations,
To open the eyes that are blind,
To free captives from prison,
And to release from the dungeon those who sit in darkness."
-Isaiah 42:6-7

Speed Limits

So while on a small roadtrip to visit family this weekend, I passed a few of these signs and imagining how they enforce the speed limit via airplane did amuse and entertain me for a good fifteen minutes.

Update!

So it's been a really long time since my last post, but alas, I was mostly without internet access this summer due to camp and reason yaadeedah and whoopdeeloop. However, I am now in Maryland, setting up my new apartment with some new furniture, dishes, and the like (yaaaay financial obligations...) along with getting ready for school starting in a week and teacher training starting Monday.

"That's quite a whirlwind of events, Abby," you must be saying. Well, yes, yes it is... I interviewed for this job on Tuesday afternoon and within 10 minutes had been offered the position, accepted, and was packing to leave. My mom was able to come out with me (for which I am sooo grateful!) and we left Wednesday afternoon and arrived here Thursday. I spent about 5 hours doing paperwork on Friday and then went and saw this apartment, got it, and moved in this morning! It's crazy, but now that I have a place to stay, have met a few people, know my way around at least a little bit, and am becoming more organized by the minute, my mind is calming down and I am becoming slightly more confident about my job. I hope I can be a great teacher!