The Remarkable Soul of a Woman

As a spirit daughter of our Heavenly Father, happiness is your heritage. You are a choice daughter of our Heavenly Father, and through the things you create and by your compassionate service, you are a great power for good. You will make the world a better place. Life up your chin: walk tall. God loves you.

-President Dieter F. Uchtdorf

Raspberry Milanos and Orange Juice

My first two grad classes ended last week. I'm still working on a few papers, but after tomorrow afternoon I will officially be done with them. I have thoroughly enjoyed my classes and the discussions we've had in class, but towards the end of the class I got fairly frustrated. I'm not sure if it was just the nature of the two courses I was taking, or if it was the nature of education, but we just seemed to talk in circles. We spent approximately 6 weeks discussing educational theories and what is currently working/not working in our current educational model. I firmly believe that to be a good teacher it is critical to have a firm understanding of what the issues are. However, if all we ever do is talk about this issues, how is anything ever going to change? In the 6 weeks and endless conversations we had in my two classes, we never really quite got around to how to fix the issues.

I don't think anyone can argue that students that are coming from lower socioeconomic backgrounds, cultural differences, ELL students, Special Education students, and other underrepresented groups are at a distinct disadvantage. The studies have been done to back this up. It's an accepted aspect of the public school system. It's important to understand this in order to teach effectively, BUT what are we going to do about it???

In our last class discussion we were doing a general wrap up and I commented that I was frustrated because we didn't seem to discuss any possible solutions. This opened up a can of worms from many of my classmates about how easy it would be to fix if we just fixed it. I wrote in my notes - We're studying multicultural education and the myriad of difficulties and problems associated with multicultural education. Yet, we are treating it as if there is one blanket solution that will fix all these issues. It's naive and won't work.


The more I study and the more I learn, the more I'm considering going on and getting a doctorate in administration or policy or something. It's the administrators that determine the culture of the school. I'll definitely teach for a while but long term goals may be changing and shifting.

Life is good....

....just sayin'.

Happies

Being called darling, three times by the cashier at Zupas the other day.

Seeing a young dad teach his son how to ride a bike driving back from work.

A wonderful late night and waking up in a good mood despite the lack of sleep.

Turning in a paper that I actually had time to prepare for.

Finally having a washer/dryer at home and doing laundry at home.

The neighborhood cat that likes me the most for some inexplicable reason - especially considering I can't touch her due to allergies.

My adorable, almost three year old, niece dressed up as a ladybug for her first ever ballet recital.

Not feeling stressed and overwhelmed about school.

Practiced our song for Sunday and we sound pretty good (now just need to write a talk).

The flowers I planted in pots outside my backdoor are not only still alive, but thriving.

Highland Games on Saturday - real men wear kilts, or at least they'd like you to think so.

Check, check..1..2...is this thing on?

It's reality check in the Buie household...hard core reality check time. I've been in school a mere three weeks and oh my heavens, it is kicking my butt. I am still loving everything about it, well almost everything, but it's so much harder than anything I've ever had to do before. To kind of put things in perspective, in order to be considered a full time student at the graduate level one must take 9 credit hours. Full time for my particular program is 18 or 19 credits - almost double. I am taking 9 this term and I'll be taking the same number next term in addition to field placements in actual classrooms to be followed by student teaching shortly thereafter. I was planing to do all of this while still working full time. I mean, who really needs sleep these days? Well, apparently I do. I also would like to have some semblance of a social life and try to maintain my sanity. I didn't think this was too much to ask. Again, apparently it was.

So lets rewind a week, shall we? After a wonderful and deliciously relaxing Memorial Day weekend, I went to class rejuvenated and excited to get back to work then Wednesday rolls around...I got my first paper back on Wednesday. Umm...... Not so bueno. Turns out grad school is hard, really hard. From there the week turned into a downward spiral of stress, extreme anti social behavior and on several occasions almost breaking down into tears. So what am I going to do about it, you may ask? After doing the research and thinking and praying about it all, I do have a solution. One that I am not going to talk about right now for logistical reasons. However, if all goes according to plan, and you're all good little children, I may be able to tell you all by the end of the week.

In other news, I had another pretty fantastic weekend. I woke up early on Saturday and played tennis with Lisa. Hey! I play tennis! Or at least, I try to play tennis. I took lessons when I was a wee young thing and haven't played in over a decade but it's still fun. Showered, ran some errands with the mum, came home worked on my paper and had a few hours to kill. I then went on a picnic up Big Cottonwood Canyon. Now, when I first proposed a picnic I was envisioning a park or something and playing Frisbee and what not. I, accordingly, wore shorts, a tshirt and flip flops. Did you know there is still snow on the ground up at Brighton in June? Well there is. We still had fun, though. I should probably learn to pack a spare pair of shoes and socks and a sweater..possibly gloves and a hat....and maybe snow boots. But really it was a fun night.

Next week Lisa, Shannon and I are all speaking and singing in church. We haven't been in the ward a month yet and they've already put us to work. The ward is pretty small, probably 40 or 50 that come regularly, so it's no surprise there. They wanted us to speak over Memorial Day but thankfully Lisa and Shannon were out of town. So between writing another paper this week and field placements and class, I get to write a talk...without being given a topic. I've got a couple ideas mulling around in my head but nothing too concrete so I'm open to suggestions!

Update of Sorts

May has been a busy month for me. Moving, school, work, guys...it's been busy but good. I still love my classes and school but I am finding it increasingly difficult to stay on top of everything. I had to ask my dad to change the oil in my car because I didn't have time to do it between class and work. I'm barely keeping up on my reading but I love the discussions we are having in class and the do enjoy the readings. It's just sad that I don't have the time to devote to it that I would usually like. I also need to register for the Praxis 41 English Content Exam. I shouldn't need to spent too much time studying for it but I should at least brush up on some of the content. I don't know how the students going full time fit it all in. I guess most of them aren't working but it is still a fairly intense program.

I've had a pretty fantastic weekend. I went to the Outlet Mall in Park City and did some shopping on Friday night with Lisa. Saturday I finally got some flowers planted out back. I opted for some flower pots instead of planting something in the ground out back. I just don't have the time to maintain it and the more I thought about it I didn't really want to spend all this time improving someonelse's property. So we now have three cute flower pots on our back porch. Saturday afternoon I went to a Bee's game with a great guy and had a lot of fun. Of course I had today off and spent the morning at the zoo with the fam and then a picnic in the park. I also got a cute pair of Converse and a book I've been wanting for a while. All in all a pretty fantastic weekend!

Should I be worried...

I started grad school on Monday and I after two classes I absolutely love it! I'm still having a hard time wrapping my head around being in class every day for three hours after work and planning my time well enough that I get all my reading done, but the classes themselves are fantastic! We get to talk about learning and education and teaching....all the things that I am passionate about. Now if we could just incorporate shoes somehow, I'd be in heaven. But really, it's amazing. I was worried and anxious I wouldn't be able to hack it but I'm loving it so much that it won't matter if it's hard or not because I'll be enjoying what I'm doing.

My first class I got into a debate with one of the other guys about school funding and governance. We went back and forth for a good ten minutes and it was so invigorating and I had to really think. He challenged me and I challenged him. My dorky, geeky little heart was in absolute heaven. It makes up for the craptastic work week I've been having.

Really, if I knew how great grad school was going to be, I would have done it ages ago!