It's FINALLY over!

I’m all done. I feel as if my life is now over. That horrible PRAXIS 2 is done. I hope I passed. I feel like I was pretty comfortable with most of it, but I just don’t know. And I won’t know for a month. That really sucks. Oh well. But now, I’ve been up since 6 this morning, and I got back at 3, and now I’m just not really sure what to do with myself. I don’t have any brain left, so I’m sure not going to work on anything. There’s just no way. I’ll do my reading on Sunday night if I must, but I can’t do anything right now. Nothing would go in. And I want to do something fun, but I can’t find anybody to take me anyplace, so I guess I’ll probably just watch tv. Anyways, so yeah. Oh, and after all of that evil hassle with the pencils, I only ever used one of them, and so I don’t know what I was flipping out for. I think it was because that was the only thing that I was in control of, and so I felt like it had to be done right, because it wasn’t like I could study or anything else. I hate not having control!!!! How pathetic am I?

Number 2 (pencils, you morons!)

Well. . .I don’t know if anybody actually even reads my beautiful sunshiny little blog, but I’m going to vent anyways. I would just like the world to know that I am very angry with my ancient computer that shuts down whatever program it is that I am trying to use, and proceeds to hate me, until it’s too late for what I wanted to use it for. That might make no sense, but I bloody well will not proofread my blog.
I’m also pissed off at the United States Government and their stupid horrible hoops that they make me jump through, just to be a certified teacher. I mean, a few hundred years ago, the only qualification a teacher had to have was to graduate from high school. Now, though, not only do I have to go to four years of college education classes, and student teach, I also have to pay $205 to take a 4 hour long test to tell the US Govt that I can teach. Because that will help them know. Sure. I think that my quality of writing on a 2 hour long essay test will be a great indicator of how well I teach Kindergarten. Right. Oh, and then they tell us that we have to bring our own number 2 pencils—not a problem, right? I have a million—oh but wait, they have to be NON-mechanical. What do we live in, the dark ages? I have so far asked at least five people, and do any of them have even a pencil sharpener? Um, no. I found non-mechanical number 2 pencils, but I can’t make them pointy.
Anyways, I guess I’m done ranting. If any of you are up this Saturday morning, you can send happy thoughts towards me, as I sit in a dark, cold, room, with a bunch of other morons who want to be teachers, writing my fingers to the bone (I hope), and trying not to hate my life.
On the happy side of life, I went to Wal-Mart last night and bout these cool cartoon classic dvds for a dollar each. So I think I’m going to go watch Inspector Gadget Saves Christmas now.

whoops

I think there was some misconception about the last post--I wrote it. No first grader did. No, my first graders write stuff like, (and I quote) "Miss Cox is going on a walk on the park sidewalk. She's exercising." (yes, i know, clearly delusional children, but who am i to destroy their happy misconceptions about me). Another wrote: "I have dogs and their name is :Doze. and :Sam and I love my dogs and I love Miss Cox." (That's the one I get to tutor--i'm glad i have a subject who loves me as much as her dogs!)
I'm sure I'll be posting lots more about the things my first graders do--Hey! It's not my fault that teaching is my life!

Who understands?

For my Teaching Language Arts class, we did writer's workshop. Well, this is my favorite piece, and I cried when I read it in class yesterday, but I think that was mostly because of how tired and stressed I was. It's kind of cheesy anyways.


Who Understands?
The cold is quickly approaching the mountain. Autumn is beginning, and as I look out my window at the fog that seems to blanket the entire world, I am reminded once again of my years where there was no fog, no cold, no Autumn. It doesn’t seem right to be chilled to the bone, even wearing four layers of clothes, while the sun shines merrily up above.

The sun is meant to bring warmth during the day, just as the absence of it at night should bring a chill to the world. I now understand why visitors to my homeland never realized how much colder it would be at dawn than at dusk. Even still, the dawn of the coldest “winter” morning in my world, is not half as cold as the mid-day of a chilled October day on Lookout Mountain.

When I return to my home for Christmas break, a part of me always expects it to be freezing cold and wet when I get off the airplane. And yet, I am always wrong. Instead, I step out into the cool, dry evening air and immediately smell the nearby sewer outlet. The temperature is forgotten as I take a deep breath, and realize that I have returned to normality. Visitors wrinkle up their noses and think, “What is wrong with this filthy country!”, but to me the smell means home. I am back. Perhaps it is simply that the 30 hour trip has worn me to the point of insanity, but I think it is much more and that the world that I grew up in is such an integral part of me that even the ugliness is beautiful to me.

The differences between this-my home country, and America-my passport country are endless. There is no good way to describe them to an inexperienced outsider. Both worlds have their own beauty and ugliness. Both worlds are such a part of me that I love them both, and I don’t know where I’d rather be.