How To: Proudness

It's been such a lovely week, generally!

Except for how it snowed yesterday and I almost died trying to get to and from work because they don't plow the sidewalks until it stops snowing.

And how Olson 305 is dying of illness right now. That hasn't been much fun.

But now the snow looks really nice outside and it's so white and sparkly and it's almost Thanksgiving which means I get to go home and eat food and sleep in a bed that used to be mine before a snerb took it over, even if I have a ridiculous amount of homework to get done over break because I'm a procrastinator and I should be doing it right now, but I have become ill so I'm not going to do anything, except fun things, because that's how it works when you're sick. You do only fun things and use your sickness to get out of the work things.

I've been trying to keep a positive attitude because I kind of realized that I let the first things that happen to me during the day influence the rest of my day. And this is most obvious when I go to work at 6:30 in the morning. Because I like my job, but sometimes (all the time) people are rude and upsetting and ask for too much food, like, no, I cannot give you this entire tray of sausage, I'm sorry there are people who also want food who unluckily happened to fall in line behind you, you cactus.

And if I let those people get to me, I tend to hold a grudge against them all day, and that's not much fun. So this week I've punching people in the face when they upset me, and that makes me feel a lot better all the time. I'm so proud of myself for that.

ALSO IN SPANISH NEWS:

I'm sorry I talk so much about Spanish, but this is my blog and I don't care if you are annoyed at the lack of other things that occur here, because Spanish is great and if you don't think so we can't be friends anymore (probably a lie but also be careful, because I punched people in the face this week so nothing is for certain).

SO, IN SPANISH NEWS:

The other day (Thursday), I had to present my lesson plan for my Content Area Reading class, and I presented the entire thing in Spanish! I wasn't even really nervous, because of how much I know Spanish. I just taught an entire lesson to ten of my peers in Spanish and it was great!! And I was so proud of how much I proved to myself that I really do know Spanish and can speak it in a fluid, coherent manner.

But then! After that internal self-validation, my classmates were talking after class and here is a transcript of what occurred: (it's not bragging if I already told you I'm proud of myself, right)
Person 1: I really liked Jen's lesson plan! She's really so good at speaking Spanish!
Person 2: Yeah, sorry guys, when I do my lesson plan in Spanish, it's not going to be nearly that fluid or anything.
Person 3: Me too. I had no idea she was so good at speaking Spanish.

So there's that. External validation is important too?.... Right...?

And then after I left, my professor, who happens to be the same professor who took us to New Mexico last year, ran after me as I walked down the sidewalk, and she asked me, "Jen, when are you studying abroad?" And I told her and then she patted me on the back (very strangely, as is her prerogative (thanks for that word, Dad)), and said, "Your Spanish really is quite good, you know." And then she ran away from me very quickly, and yes, I really do mean ran, because she's a weirdo.

So that was a nice good thing to hear after my lesson plan!

Also, I think it speaks to the fact that I made the right choice in changing my major to not education because after I did so well on this lesson plan, I was proud of myself, but I also didn't feel any want to continue teaching lesson plans like this. I just wanted to do the Spanish part of it. It's really great that I keep finding all these little signs in my life that I made the right choice, because my brain likes to freak out at me for deciding different things. It's building my confidence.

Speaking of different things, I now have a bunch of super weird classes that I'll take next semester. Spanish, of course, which I'm super excited about (if that even needed to be states) is a class about Heroes and Revolutionaries. And then, though, I have anthropology, economics and an introduction to international studies class, which I'm also excited about. AND EVEN BETTER: I'm auditing a linguistics class about grammar, which will be so great I might die but probably not really!!! Mwa ha ha ha ha ha!!!

Oh, I forgot another Spanish news thing. Maybe I won't tell you, because I've done enough bragging for today, but suffice to say, it was really cool and I liked it a lot.

And we won the Spanish talent show! Did I mention that before? My great Spanish class won the talent show which is awesome, especially because we're not very good at dancing. That probably just shows you how not good at dancing and things the other contestants were, though. So that's cool.

Do I have any other Spanish news to share? I don't think so. Probably just that one thing that I won't tell you unless you ask. (What? Was that a hint to ask me about it? No..... What...? No.....)

Don't forget to eat delicious mashed potatoes at Thanksgiving, and also to speak Spanish all the time or else we can't be friends (lies--or are they?).

A Little Something Strange

Hey strange people! Guess what?!?!?! It's the first time I'm going to do something on this blog today! Can you guess what it is? If you're one of those people who like to skip ahead or read the end of things before you read the beginning (no, I'm not talking about you, Mom, not at all), you may already know the answer to this strange mystery. But if you're a normal-ish person who reads things in chronological order as determined by our culture, because other cultures have different ways of linguistically representing time in writing, you will still be confused by my strange rambling. Everything is so strange. But your patience may be rewarded, depending on how you think about rewards.

Anyway. First order of business: Life update. I have a lot of classes right now and lots of them involve writing lesson plans. And those of you who have been around since last year will recognize that pattern that begins to evolve around this time of the year that means I'm using this blog to procrastinate on real work. The fun part of classes though, is that I get to write lesson plans in Spanish, because Spanish is great! Except, my education teachers don't really speak Spanish, so that means I basically have to write all my lesson plans twice, because I have to translate them into English so my strange teachers can actually understand what I'm doing. It's kind of frustrating.

One of my lessons is a reading lesson about a short story in which a poor man finds a bag of gold in the forest and the rich man claims the poor man stole from the bag of gold and then the king turns them into parrots and cooks them over a fire (only parts of that summary are true, but I'm not going to tell you which parts).

The other lesson is on a bigger scale, and involves actually planning a whole unit about actual things and it's terrifying and so much work and I'm dying. But not really. Just a little bit. It's hard to figure out ways to make informal commands interesting to 9th graders who don't love grammar like I do.

The other two education classes are like death, and I don't want to start with them because then I'll have to rant about them and possibly bore/offend you. Which would be bad.

OKAY I'LL START WITH THEM. YOU'VE CONVINCED ME.

First of all, educational psychology, you are so scary and actually, no I changed my mind I don't really want to complain about you because literally we haven't learned anything important, because the teacher used to teach third grade and still kind of treats us like third graders. We spent 45 minutes watching her take notes as a demonstration on good note taking. I think that if we've gotten this far in our educational processes, we've probably already learned an effective way to take notes for ourselves, BUT I GUESS NOT BECAUSE WE'RE THIRD GRADERS. Sorry, I forgot how old I was for a second.

Also, TIME FOR THE SURPRISE! I was so annoyed I doodled this picture in my textbook.

This is an image of a monster with people coming to stare at him, because he looks weird, and that's what our culture does when it encounters something it doesn't understand. 

It was an act of rebellion again everything that is happening in that class. Also, it's probably an accurate depiction of one of my roommates. I won't tell you which. You'll have to decide. Maybe you can even vote, if you feel so inclined.

Second of all, diverse and exceptional learner is even worse because the professor is vaguely (and did I mention that this is a class about diversity?) racist, sexist, homophobic, and able-ist. Which I'm pretty sure is not a good way to be if you're suppose to teach future teachers how to not be those things. But I'm just a lowly student. I know nothing.

Which is apparently what my professors think we students really do know: nothing. Like, why are we learning how to take notes? Why did you GRADE OUR NOTES like we're 8? Why do we work in groups to do nothing? Why do we debate theories that are actually basically the same thing, and should not really be compared to each other in terms of differentiation? I don't really have answers to this because I know nothing. Right.

So, all this complaining is probably getting a little tiresome, but I just wanted you to have a little background for the thing that I'm going to tell you now.

And that thing is: I've decided to switch my major!

And all you people who have known me for more than like three years for sure know that this is a huge decision because I've always wanted to be a teacher and that's all I've thought about for forever and changing is a major life decision that led to quite a few life crises during the past few months. But now that I've decided, I'm actually super, duper, really really excited!

I'm going to be majoring in Spanish (so don't worry, I haven't entirely changed everything about my basic personality) and international studies. I'm really excited to start studying cultures and all the things that entails. Plus, SPANISH IS GREAT, HAVE I MENTIONED HOW MUCH I LOVE IT?

And I don't want you to think that I'm just changing my major to not education because these education classes are horrible or too hard or something, because that's not true. Certainly, they are frustrating, but I've just kind of had a feeling that education isn't something that I should be doing right now at this point in my life, and I've had this feeling for a while (a couple months, at least). It's weird to see something that you were once so passionate about slowly slip away from you and become something strange and unfamiliar, and it's a little bit sad. But I think that for a while, I was starting to feel like being a teacher was a duty that I had taken on, something I had to fulfill, like a promise to someone else, instead of a calling that this was what I wanted to do with my life.

And as someone who has spent many years in a classroom, I don't want to inflict duty and apathy on students who deserve passion and excitement.

Also, I would like to point out that I still really, really value education, and that I think it's important to consider the ways in which our educational system could be fixed or changed or manipulated to fit our students better, and that I want to make sure everyone has access to the best education that they can possibly find, and I want to emphasize the excitement that I get from learning. I just don't really want to be in the middle of it anymore.

WHICH IS SO WEIRD AND DIFFICULT.

But I am really excited about international studies and Spanish and I'm ready to move on with my education, even if it's in a different direction than I initially planned. Even if it's in a different direction than my six-year-old brain planned as I made my brothers be my students before they could even speak (and also before they could even sit up without help, probably. Sorry, Matt and Packy.)

And that is why this post is so strange. It's because everything is so strange, and through this strangeness, I've learned that things aren't always set in stone, even if your mind is made up. Because sometimes your mind doesn't really know what your heart wants. Brains are really good at thinking and reasoning through problems, but they're not so good at feeling the emotions behind problems. And that's why sometimes, I think, it's probably okay to let your heart do some decision making. Not all the time, because hearts are pretty sneaky and will stab you in the back with the knife of betrayal if you let them think too much. But sometimes, sometimes it's okay.



PS: Okay, so I didn't know that when I posted this on Facebook, it would display the picture of the surprise instead of the picture it usually puts there, so if you want to complain about the lack of surprise, please contact Facebook. Sorry.