The Teaching Life

So maybe I'm not cut out for being a Bloggess as I can't seem to keep up with it..but this week my wifi has been espeically rough. And this weekend the wifi went out all together. I'm having to blog from my classroom as I take a break from lesson planning. To be honest, this past week was a tough week for me. Nothing went terribly wrong, but then again nothing seemed to go smoothly either. I was not as prepared as I normally am so lesson learned the hard way: planning planning planning is very important!! I took over literature and started a unit with the book Tale of Despereaux (awesome book by the way) that I planned all myself. Next week I start planning for social studies and co-teaching math so by November I will be teaching everything myself. Jenn has started to let me do things and realize for myself my mistakes which has been hard sometimes, but experience is the best teacher. She has also been in and out of meetings this week so she's been out of the classroom quite often. This makes me feel like its more my own class and I kind of like it (sometimes, not always).

This week my supervisor, Dean Carrol, is here to observe us in action. We met her for lunch today and I am very excited. She is a sweet southern lady who has supervised interns (even in England) for at least 22 years. She has made sure we know that she is more like our fan club than anything, which comforts me. Of course I am still a little nervous, and Jenn has threatened our students that if one of them misbehaves that the wrath of God will be brought down..but I'm sure it will be fine. I have some pretty amazing kiddos :)

Here are a few funny moments from the last week. I have started a "Friday notebook" for morning work that includes review questions and a creative writing prompt. I like to make the creative writing prompts fun so the students will still find pleasure in writing. Last week's prompt was: "Write a day in the life of Mrs. Seguin or Miss Brenner." Here are a few examples (written exactly how the kids wrote them):

"A Day in the Life of Miss Brenner"
"What she does is do morning work with us. Miss Brenner then tells us what we are going to do today. We talk and learn with her throughout the day. Then when it its time to go home, she kicks Mrs. Seguin and claims she is innocent."

"A Day in the Life of Miss Brenner"
"Mrs. Brenner probably reads in her spare time when she comes to school. She drinks her coffee from Starbucks. Mrs. Brenner also jokes around with Mrs. Seguin. Mrs. Brenner then teachers us correctly. Mrs. Brenner also drinks with manners."
(Jenn was purposefully slurping her coffee that morning to annoy the students.)

My personal favorite: "A Day in the Life of Mrs. Seguin"
"First thing in the morning, Mrs. Seguin tries to ignore the alarm and pretend its Saturday. Next she asks Mr. Seguin what t-shirt goes best for tally giving. When she gets to school, her and Mrs. Brenner get into a fight about Cowbows being better than the Steelers and vice versa. Then at the end of the day, she stays after and watches dogs doing hilarious things on Youtube. Then she goes home, plays with her dogs, and gets ready to do the same thing the next day."

HAHA that last one still cracks me up. The student even included a picture of Jenn at her desk. My kids also just recently realized that Jenn is the one that "passes/fails" me on my evaluation. Jenn likes to joke around and say "Hmmmm, kids do you think Miss Brenner should fail today?" And the kids play along (most of them will rise to my defense). Well they finally understood OHHH Mrs. Seguin really does have a say in what grade you get!! Haha Now they really try and convince Mrs. Seguin on whether I should pass or fail this semester :) Sometimes they will bring up how they will miss me when I leave, but I don't think they will realize it til I am actually leaving. I can't believe I ony have a few more weeks here!! I'm going to apply to Dodea as soon as possible once I get back home..I have loved this experience and think Dods schools are incredible. It really is "the best kept secret in teaching" as one teacher put it.

Well I don't have any more trips planned until November (unless we go to Cambridge next week for Halloween..but that isn't decided yet) so you may just get teacher updates for the next few weeks :) I'll let you all know how the supervisor observation goes!!

Always love love love

Paris pictures

Thank you one and all for being so patient for Paris pictures. I posted most of these on Facebook but for those who don't follow me..here they are!

I'll start with Meghan's tiny elevator that could barely contain two people..

 

Nutella crepe while waiting for the metro!! That's what a happy, tired smile looks like. I think it was about 215 am by that point. 

Ready for our first full day in Paris!!

Mini Arc de Triumphe 

Arc de Triumphe

We stopped by the Disney store..I took this for my dear friend Rel who is obsessed with the Little Mermaid

Well known bookstore

Lock Bridge

Hello Eiffel Tower!!!

I needed some espresso before going to the top

Top of the Eiffel Tower!!

Entrance to the Louvre

Part of the outside of the Lourve

Mona Lisa

Aphrodite

Cute pastry shop!

Yummy macaroons...so pretty

Picnic and pastry outside of the Eiffel Tower

Goodbye Paris!!!! 

Cambridge, London and Wicked

Hello my darling blog readers. I have finally mustered up the energy it takes to write a fabulous blog post..I don't know if any of you realize how exhausting teaching is. However, this week is a short week since we had Monday off for Columbus Day, and about 5 kids have been gone a day due to sickness. Here's a fun fact..it's quite difficult to teach a new topic when you have five kids missing, and then 6 kids are pulled out of class for gifted and talented. I was teaching 7 students at one point this week..crazy. Okay, enough about the classroom for a minute..I know the reason you are reading this blog post..its for the traveling. Well first off, I was able to stay the night at Jenn's house last Thursday and went for delicious sushi with her, my friend Kali and her cooperating teacher's family. It turns out that Kali's CT and my CT went to high school together and they now teach 15 minutes away from each other in Dods (small world). Then Jenn and I stayed up late drinking wine and eating cookie dough..I'm so blessed to have a friend in my cooperating teacher :) Even though she teases me about being Doogie Howser for blogging. I told her to stop using that reference..not only do I not quite understand it, it shows her age ;)

The next day was a professional development day meaning no "school," so I was able to work on lesson plans and homework. Then Jenn picked up all of the OSU student teachers and took us to her house to get ready to go out in Cambridge. Our friend Corey who is a 2nd grade teacher for Feltwell invited us and some other friends to his house to cook out and then go out afterwards. And when I say house..I mean PENTHOUSE SUITE. Goodness gracious his place was amazing. Here are some pictures from that night.

This is me, Jenn (yes, the infamous Jenn) and one of the first grade teachers, LuLu

LuLu, Micaela, me, Corey, Kim, Kali, and Joey

Penthouse life

It was an extremely fun night. Maybe too much fun. I think we have all decided we are too old to be living/partying like college kids anymore (which is sad because most of our ages range from 21-24). We left on Saturday around noon for London, taking the train into Kings Cross. It was then a small journey to our hotel to put our bags down and a take a quick nap. We then made it out to shop around for a few hours before heading to a Mexican restaurant to eat. I was surprised at how yummy it was, although they did describe the queso as "Texan cheese sauce." Silly british people. Afterwards we headed straight to the hotel to succumb to exhaustion. 

On Saturday, Kali, Kim and Micaela went to Oxford to support Kali running the Oxford half marathon so Erin and I stayed and explored more of London! We "slept in" til 9 and then left by 10 to take the tube to Baker Street. 

We made our first stop at a official Beatles store that contained lots of merchandise and cool Beatles-y things. 

Right next door was the Sherlock Holmes museum so of course we had to go! I love Sherlock Holmes..the movies..the BBC show Sherlock is incredible..the books..just in general. The museum was set up to be like the house Sherlock and Watson lived in..each floor was set up as different rooms with various things that would they would be known for. At the top floor there were life size wax characters from his books, including Watson, Sherlock, and Irene Adler. 

It was super rainy that day..excuse me looking like a drowned rat :)

After the Sherlock Museum, Erin convinced me to try Indian food for the first time. I'm always open to try new food, but Indian food has always intimidated me. However, Erin and the owner of the restaurant gently guided me into the world of Indian food..and made me a believer. It was all delicious and the perfect amount of spice for me. I had a small quail and some various vegetables, and shared some of Erin's scrumptious food.

We then spent most of the afternoon shopping and popping in out of interesting shops. We went to this humongous, fantastic store called Liberty that we both fell in love with. It was 4 large stories of almost everything you can think of. A chocolate store, perfumery, stationary, scarves and accessories were on the first floor. The second floor was all designer clothes..including vintage designer clothing!!! I was touching Prada, Chanel, The Row, Alexander McQueen and more..I couldn't believe it. (I kinda felt like Carrie Bradshaw). The third floor was all things Christmas, including trees, ornaments, advent calendars, and cards. The fourth floor was furniture (kitchen, living, dining), bathroom stuff like scrubs, candles, lotions, and carpets and fabrics. I would go back to that store in a heartbeat..absolutely fabulous. While I wanted everything in the store..I settled for some cards to send to loved ones back home. After coming down from that cloud 9 experience, we made a quick stop for Argentinian ice cream and then popped into the national gallery in Trafalgar Square before meeting up with the other girls. Once we joined them, we grabbed some italian food and strolled over to look at China town. We took one more look at Trafalgar Square as the other girls hadn't been over there, and then made the trek back to our hotel to crash after the long, amazing day.

On the last day, we started bright and early to see as much as we could before seeing Wicked that night. We made it to the London Tower (which most people think is the London Bridge..its not. The London Bridge is actually a normal, average looking, concrete bridge. The London Tower is the large, impressive brick bridge with blues and turquoise railing). We toured the inside and learned some interesting facts and saw the engine/boiler rooms. Pretty cool stuff.

One view from the Tower of London. The views were gorgeous.

After the London Tower we made the very long, roundabout, scenic walk to Shakespeare's Globe. I think Micaela's gps had it out for us..it took us the longest way possible. Kali and I decided not to go in as it cost a pretty pence and I was hungrier for food rather than prose and poetry. Its actually not Shakespeare's original globe either..the first globe burned down when Shakespeare (in all of his brilliance) wanted to try and shoot a cannon in one of his plays.. and one of the blanks caught the thatch roof on fire (good going!) This globe was designed by another gentleman who died before even seeing his creation completed. Ah well, here it is.

Sorry, I look awkward hah

We grabbed a yummy lunch at Pizza Express (which sounds bad and fast foodish..but its actually amazing) and headed to see Kensington Palace. This was also a long, roundabout journey (again, I blame the gps). We somehow ended up taking a back alley that led us to the street that has all of the Embassies on it. I doubt we were supposed to be there, but it was cool to see each country's embassy! We then made it to Diana's Memorial Park (I think), which then led us to Kensington Palace. I'm not sure what we were expecting..maybe something very grand and elegant like Buckingham Palace, but we were surprised when we finally found it.

This is the Queen Victoria statue with Kensington Palace behind it

I mean its beautiful, just different than expected.

A little history lesson: In 1689 King William III and Queen Mary II bought a large house on the edge of London and had it renovated to be their house (Kensington Palace). The Palace is divided into two, the historic state apartments which we visited, and the private part where some of the Royal Family live (William and Kate!) We saw The Queen's apartments and closet (where Queen Victoria, Queen Anne, and Queen Mary II lived) and the King's state apartments (including drawing rooms). Lots of history and beautiful artifacts.

We were also lucky enough to see the new exhibit that opened this summer featuring dresses worn by more recent royals such as HM The Queen, Princess Margaret, and Diana, Princess of Wales. 

HM The Queen in the 50s

Princess Margaret in the 60s

Princess Di in the 80s

I loved this exhibit. So interesting and personal. After this tour of the palace, we had to jet off to get our bags from the hotel and get to the theatre in time for WICKED. This was my favorite part of the day, nay, the whole weekend. Now I loved musicals before. You can ask my family, I'll watch Newsies, Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, White Christmas, Phantom, Les Mis, you name it I'll probably watched it 100 times. But there is nothing..NOTHING like seeing a musical on stage. You might as well have opened Pandora's Box when I saw Wicked because now I can't get enough of them. The soundtrack has been on repeat in all of our rooms since Monday night. The seats were great..pretty close to the stage. Micaela said she actors having british accents in their speaking and singing bothered her a little..but it didn't bother me in the slightest. I just can't emphasize how fantastic it was.

the stage (from our seats)

Yes, I'm cheesing pretty hard..I was just so excited

The play started at 7:30 and ended at 10:30. We made it back to the tube to get to Kings Cross and then had to take a train to Cambridge, only to be picked up by a cab to take us to the Filton. We didn't get back to our dorm til 2 am.. and we still had school the next day. Oh but it was worth it!! 

I also forgot to mention that I bought this children's book at the London Tower to use in my future classrooms. And as a memento of the places I've been. I may try and add my own pictures to the places I have been in this book.

For example: 

Hey! I've been there!!

Well I apologize for the long post..but I had to go into detail about this amazing weekend. Please continue to send your love to this happy hearted teacher. I've been lucky enough to not get very homesick, but I sure do miss the little things every once in a while. Like being able to call up my mom or dad anytime I want, pop over to Jordan's or my friends houses to hang out, Homecoming at OSU (with walk-arounds, the orange fountain, tailgating), etc. But I wouldn't trade this experience for anything.

Always love love love

Paris

Please forgive me my dear blog readers, your Blogess has been too busy the last few weeks to update you on teaching and traveling abroad. Well fret no more! I will fill you in on Pais. However, I had a small slip of the brain and forgot my phone in my dorm when I went to Paris..so I'm borrowing a few pictures for the moment. I will update with more later. 

Paris: Kim, Kali and I left for Paris on Friday October 4, getting dropped off at the Cambridge train station by Jenn. We then took that train to Kings Cross in London where we then got on the fabulous Eurostar. I honestly loved the Eurostar, I wish we could do all of our traveling with it (very quick customs/security, ride in style and comfort, get there quickly..what's not to love?). We arrived at 10:30 and was picked up by Kali's friend Meghan, who we stayed the weekend with (she is in France studying abroad for the semester). I sure was glad to see her..we were already hit by culture shock when we stepped off the Eurostar. We could't read where to go at all..we had been very spoiled in England in the sense of we could read where to go, or ask someone for help. Here? We were lost. Meghan quickly showed us which ticket kiosks to use and how to maneuver around France's metro stations (which is essentially like the tube) and we made it over to her tiny, adorable apartment (after fending for ourselves from the drunk boys and homeless people). And I cannot emphasize enough how tiny this girl's apartment was: there was a small bed, small table, small sink, small fridge and small shower-all in a room the length and width of two twin beds. It was 800-900 dollars a month for that little piece of real estate on the 8th floor (lots of stairs!); HOWEVER, its major perk was that it had a lovely view of the Eiffel Tower. This view inspired us to try and go see it once we set our bags down. We got distracted by a street vendor selling crepes (I got a warm Nutella  crepe...mmm yum!) but eventually made it by 2:30 am to the Tower. Unfortunately..nobody told us the lights of the Eiffel Tower turn off around 1:00 am. So the first time I saw that monstrous building it was late, dark, the lights turned off, and I was surrounded by hundreds of dirty rats that occupy the area around the Tower at night..AND IT WAS STILL MAGICAL. I'm telling you, I was in awe of the size and detail of the Eiffel Tower..and I was surprised because I had seen it thousands of times on postcards, cheesy posters, etc. It was still amazing. Finally we made our way back to Meghan's apartment to crash and prepare for the next few days. 

On day two: We started off the day with pastries and coffee (of course). We then made the walk over to see the Notre Dame which was gorgeous. It was free admission, so we walked inside and were met with beautiful architecture and stain glass everywhere we looked. Another of Kali's friends (Kim- I will probably say Chinese Kim to not confuse you with my OSU Kim) that is also studying abroad in France met up with us as we began walking to the Arc de Triumphe. Which was an awful lot of walking. We passed the Louvre, the mini Arc de Triumphe, and other beautiful buildings along the way. We also popped into a few stores for some shopping (yes, of course) and was introduced to "community dressing rooms." This long walk (it took a few hours) famished us..so we decided to stop for lunch. Chinese Kim knows quite a bit of French, so we let her do most of the talking as the French can be a little rude if you do not speak their language (or start off saying a conversation in English saying "Parlez vu anglais?") However, the waiter was exceptionally odd..constantly trying to tease us but coming off as weird and a little inappropriate. He was always touching me and OSU Kim, trying to put mustard on us, splashed Kali with water, etc. If we were in America or in England, this waiter would have received a few choice words..most starting with some four letter words. However, none of us really knew what to do or how to handle this situation. So we took our abuse and got our delicious food..and didn't leave a tip (our passive aggressive way of being angry I suppose). After, we stopped at a well known book store that is known for famous authors visiting (such as Hemingway...etc.) We then made our way back to the Eiffel Tower..watched it light up..and took a tour to the very very top! At every hour on the hour, the Tower's lights blink for a few minutes which is very beautiful. And we saw a proposal (yes..aww how cute..how original..). The lines took a long time but the experience and view was incredible (It took about 2 1/2 hours to get through everything). When we completed our tour, we were tired and exhausted and made it to another restaurant. Let me stop here and brag about the food for a minute..the food is probably the best part about France. As much as I love seeing the buildings, architecture, and sights...I just love food. I will never be able to have a croissant in America again without comparing it to Paris croissants. Or bread in general. It is just that amazing! After we ate, we stayed up and walked around some more, all because there was a large festival going on and there was a rumor there would be fireworks designed by the man who designed the pyrotechnics for the Beijing Olympic Games. As tired and exhausted as we were..we stayed up..and waited..and waited.. For no fireworks. By that point, I was so tired I didn't care, so we trekked back to Meghan's apartment to crash.

Day three: This day may have been my favorite. It was a lot less of a touristy day, much more relaxing and about seeing the culture and people of Paris. We got our pastries and coffee, and took a nice walk down by Notre Dame again..passing by the picturesque bridges and stopping to take lots of pictures at the Lock Bridge.

(Kali, Megahn, me, and Kim)

We then strolled to the Louvre as it was a free admission day for all of the museums. We didn't spend too much time there as it was quite crowded, but we did see the Mona Lisa, Aphrodite, and several other well known paintings/statues/pieces. We then bought bread, wine, cheese, and macaroons (at a well known pastry shop) for a lovely picnic in front of the Eiffel Tower. This was my favorite part of the day! People had their kids and dogs out..their own picnics..it was still nice weather..gorgeous view..it was perfect. Meghan took a few pictures of us..and then a nice guy took a few including Meghan. If you are friends with me on Facebook, you may have seen these pictures but I'll share them anyway. 

 

We had to get a jumping pic!

We then got our bags from Meghan's..said our goodbyes (we will see her again in Dublin) and made it back to the Eurostar. It was a very long weekend but very fun. To be honest, I probably wouldn't go back again unless I had someone who knows French..it is much easier to get around and communicate with people that way. 

I will end the post here and start a new one to blog about my latest weekend in London (as this one is already long). 

Au revoir!!!