When reality slaps you in the face.

HOLY COW! The last couple of weeks have been absolutely insane! As soon as the break ended and classes started up again, I got a serious taste of reality. Seeing the assignment expectations for an entire course all in one place (syllabus) is stressful enough, but I had an entire work sample to worry about as well as lesson planning for my class. I can't begin to describe how much was on my plate all at once. I can now look back and say that I handled the anxiety fairly well. My nails and eyebrows might not agree but that's another story.

My work sample ended up being a total of 107 pages. OUCH! I can say it was well worth the effort. I was pretty proud of the product.

So, work sample #2? Yeah I've already started working on it because I begin teaching the unit a week from Monday. Things are going so fast lately. So, why not post a to do list so that I can look at the long list of giant assignments and have a panic attack.. Joy.

To do list for the next few weeks:

1. Write lesson plans for 3 of my lessons. 
2. Create the slides and lesson plans for the other 4 lessons. 
3. Make the group activity for lesson 8/9 on the similarity of ipads and iphones
4. Video tape my lesson on Feb. 6th.
5. Don't be an idiot on that day because the principal is coming in to observe you. 
6. Also, don't be an idiot on the 8th either, because your supervisor is coming in to observe. 
7. Write a 3-4 page paper on my classroom management philosophies by Thursday. 
8. Have the draft of my Plan for Teaching pretty much complete by Wednesday.
9. Plan for teaching must be entirely done by Wed. the 8th.
10. Finish application on edzapp.
11. Do an awesome job on my civil rights test on Feb. 4th. 
12. Order transcripts and test score reports for when i'm job hunting.
13. Fix up resume so that potential career placements want to hire you on the spot.
14. Do all of the crazy amounts of reading for class. Don't be a loser and get behind on this. 
15. Find time in all of this to watch Battlestar Galactica. :)

Number 15 is in there purely to help put a stop to any potential panic attacks. 

Good thing there are funny pictures of animals to make me feel better.

Go Ducks and stuff!

Well, New Year's was a miss and then a total hit. Kevin and I decided that we would just call our New Year's dinner our anniversary since we were going to eat out anyway and are trying to save money. We ate at The Loft (next door to Turtles). It has fantastic food, but very poor service. We arrived around 6:45 and were planning on leaving an hour later since he had to be at the wine bar at 8pm to start setting up with the band. Shame on us for thinking we could order 2 salads and an appetizer and be out of there in an hour. We had a lovely time chatting and gazing into each other's eyes (yuck), but it took an hour and fifteen minutes to get our salads. Finally, Kevin got up and talked to the owner (who we know, by the way). Our food came pretty quickly after that, but by then it was already 8:10 so we had about 5 minutes to eat and go. UGH!

We got to B^2 Wine Bar at 8:30pm. All was well as soon as I got to see the lovely Wendy. She is absolutely glowing with baby making goodness. Seriously, she looks great. However, cooking a child requires a lot of sleep so I only got to see her for a short time before she went home to sleep. All of our other friends were lame this year and decided they had better things to do than hang out with me and listen to Taste. Their loss. :) I was 2 white russians in at this point (the drink, not people), so it was certainly time to dance. Let me paint the picture for you. B^2 (pronounced B squared, but I have absolutely no idea how to make that a superscript on here) is a wine bar located in North Eugene in this "mini city" called crescent village. It is pretty far away from the University campus, and thus, contains no college students. I'm pretty sure I was the youngest one there. So on the dance floor there were a BUNCH of adorable older couples (40's and up) and then there was me. Yup. I danced like a rock star all by myself. It was probably pretty entertaining. I doubt any of them have ever seen someone so happy to be dancing their heart out...alone...on New Year's Eve. haha...

BUT it was fine because at midnight I got to kiss my one and only, wish him a happy anniversary, and got a slow dance with him while the rest of the band played a smooth tune. That made my night. That and this random old guy stopping me in the bar and telling me that I was the "top-shelf when it comes to women." Win!

After we left the wine bar we headed to our friends place (Doug and Mattea and their new dog, Zep) to doze off in a peaceful slumber. We were greeted with a hoppin' party instead (and taquitos in the oven). We decided to join in on the fun and stayed up until 3:30am. I'm really getting too old to be staying up that late, but it was New Year's after all. It was a blast and we are eternally grateful to Doug and Mattea for always giving us a place to stay when we visit Eugene.

THEN yesterday we hung out with Jesse, Nichole, and Ashley to watch the Ducks play in the Rose Bowl. I could go on about the awesomeness of this game by discussing Wisconsin's failed 'over-the-head-jump' by Ball and Chip's epic leprechaun dance, but I'll spare you and just let you know that WE WON!!!

GO DUCKS!!!! 

I don't know... I'm wearing duck gear, at least.