Alicia Keys

Alicia Keys is performing at Arco on May 11th! I want to go so bad! For any of you family members who may be reading this, Alicia Keys tickets would make a great graduation gift! The concert is only 13 days before graduation...Ha ha. J/K! (kinda.)

Anyway, her As I Am album is probably one of my most favorite CDs ever. It's rare for me to find a CD where I actually enjoy listening to every single song, but this is one of them. Some of my favorites on this album are, "No One" and "The Thing About Love". I love the middle of "The Thing About Love" when she sings, "Oh! Tell me that I'm not the only one going through it all. Oh! Sometimes I feel like I'm the only one going through it all, but it's time, oh it's time, for me to shine." Her voice, along with the music that starts in at that point, make the song so powerful. (BTW, sorry, but I'm no music critic, so sorry if my description seems kinda lame.)

Another one of my favorites is, "Tell You Something" (I would link to iTunes, but I don't know how). Listen to it. Love it. "Imagine there was no tomorrow. Imagine that I couldn't see your face...I wanna tell you something, give you something, show you in so many ways." I love it. Reminds me that you should always live in the present and express your feelings while you can.

Anyway, I've decided to include a link to a video of her performing live at the 2007 MTV Video Music Awards because this is when I fell in love with "No One" and her album. Enjoy!

For Someone Special

Because of a recent event in my life (and since the only people who read my blog actually do know me, I should probably just name that recent event, but I'm not), I've been thinking a lot about the people who enter our lives and the times they come into them. I mean, fatewise. Is there a reason why they step into/out of our lives at the times they do? I don't know.

There's someone who's been a serious part of my life for the past 5 months but now that's changing. Ok, maybe I'll just say what I'm talking about because it's really obvious now. I'm writing about my recent breakup. Although what he and I had was short-lived, I'll always value it and think of it as special part of my life. I'll also always have a place in my heart for him. He's special and he's incredibly genuine. I know that although we aren't together anymore, I'll always be able to count on him. I hope he knows that he'll be able to count on me, too.

And as far as breakups go, there may not appear to be any upside to them, but I'm looking at this in a positive light. I know there has to be some good from this because there was some good that resulted from my past breakups. I've since, grown a lot wiser and stronger. I'm also proud of myself because as I've gotten older, I've learned to value myself. I care more about the things I want in a relationship and I find it important to get those things.

So, I don't know if there was a reason why he was put into my life when he was, but I'm glad he was. I feel like we've done so much in such a short amount of time. I had so much fun with him on many different levels. I thank him for what we had and I'll never forget it. Thanks for helping me expand my horizons, Mad.

Happy Easter!

At Easter time, my family sometimes does more than just the traditional Easter egg dying. We sometimes make cascarones. To make a cascaron, you start by draining the egg parts out of a raw egg. Then you clean and dry the empty shell and fill it with confetti. Once you've covered the hole by gluing on a small piece of tissue paper, you're ready for the fun part. The fun part involves cracking the egg over someone's head and this is supposed to bring them good luck. Today, I took a few pictures of my niece cracking one of the eggs over her own head. I thought they turned out pretty cute, so I decided to post a blog to share them. Here you go...


(I thought this one was really pretty and it might just be the real reason why I posted this blog. I love it!)












Oh yeah, one more thing. HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOM!

Hodgepodge

I chose this title because the contents of this blog are going to be somewhat random.

To begin with, earlier this week the little darlings acted out Goldilocks and the Three Bears and they were in fact, darling. Here is a short video I made of some pictures and video I took with my digital camera. Sorry the first video is sideways. I didn't think about that while recording.




These next pictures are also of the little darlings. We had a "Bunny Brunch" to help celebrate Easter. It's called a Bunny Brunch because the students eat vegetables instead of cookies and cupcakes. You know, things a bunny would eat. Anyway, here are the pictures of my students with their bunny ears on.

Finally, while driving to my best friend, Autumn's house today, I noticed something weird on the sidewalk. I could tell it was some sort of animal, but couldn't tell what. As I got closer, I noticed it was a turkey. I also saw that there wasn't just one, but about 7 of them. They were huge, too. One of them looked like the granddaddy of them all. Luckily, because of the Bunny Brunch, I had my camera with me. The pictures aren't great though because the turkeys were walking around someone's lawn and I didn't want the people who lived in the house to get weirded out because some random chick was taking pictures of their house. Enjoy!

Student Teaching

So I just finished my 3-hour lesson prepping for tomorrow and I'm beat. I'm supposed to make a full lesson plan for all the lessons I teach, but it's just hard because they're so time consuming. This leaves me feeling so overwhelmed because I know I'm only going to start teaching more and more and that just means more and more days of several hours of lesson prepping. I'm going to keep working hard though, because lately, I've been slacking in the lesson prepping area. I'm going to keep reminding myself that this is my career I'm getting prepared for and it's not going to be easy....and trust me, it isn't.

You may be thinking, "What's she complaining about? She student teaches in kindergarten." Many people think that kindergarten is just fun and games. They think all the students do is play, nap and snack. It's true, the little darlings play and eat snack, but they also learn important academic content that's preparing them for their entire educational career. Napping NOT included. They learn reading, writing, math, small amounts of social studies and science and social skills.

By the way, something I just learned last semester that I find very interesting is that children are not required to attend kindergarten. http://www.cde.ca.gov/ci/gs/em/kinderinfo.asp I don't know why a parent would choose not to send their child to kindergarten. So much of what is learned in kindergarten prepares children for their next 12 years (maybe more) of education.

On a lighter note, I'm going to end this blog with two of the things in my teaching that make me smile everyday. First, I love reading stories to the little darlings. This is one part of the day they too, seem to enjoy greatly. They're so attentive and they ask interesting questions. They get so involved with the story and I love watching their faces light up as I show them the pictures. The second thing that keeps me smiling is listening to the kids talk. Kids really do say the darndest things. Some of my favorites are the following. One boy told me he had a Cocker Spanish dog. :) While doing the calendar one day last week, I told the students my mom's birthday was on Easter and one boy said, "You have a mom?!" Finally, on my first day of class, one girl told me (so sincerely, too), "Sometimes when I look at your eyes, they scare me." How can you not smile hearing that? These kids keep me interested in what I'm getting prepared for. Yes, they're challenging as well, but I'm up for it.