California, here we come!
On this week’s agenda:
- Live in the sunshine
- Spend time with friends and family
- Explore
- GRADUATE!
- Take a million pictures
- Relish every moment
I’ll probably be posting via instagram, so if you have one and are interested, follow and/or comment me @elgriz!
A little graduation preview because my regalia came in today! That fantastic looking crushed velvet is actually light blue and not white/gray like it looks in this picture. (Taken with instagram)
Twenty-nine days until I’m in sunny Southern California! I’ve tried not to let myself think too much about it because its always felt so far away, but now that the one month mark has passed all bets are off!
Just received an email from USC conferring my degree!
I officially have a Master’s degree!!!!!
The teacher I worked with in economics emailed yesterday to tell me that we beat out all of the other traditional high schools in the district with our economics benchmark scores! The only school to beat us in the district was the high school/college hybrid school!
I’m so proud! I taught them half of what they know! Ahhh!
Q:how is it at USC?
Anonymous
My experience with USC has been different from most because I’ve done my Master’s online from Tennessee. Like any school, it has flaws, quirks, and days that make you want to pull your hair out, but the most impressive thing about USC (or at least Rossier School) is the academic rigor and standards. The professors are leaders in their fields and I’ve never met a professor that I didn’t learn from and like tremendously. Personally, I can’t say enough good things about USC or the Rossier School of Education. The MAT online is a game-changer for higher education and I’ve had an excellent experience. I’m certainly proud to be an almost alumnus!
Fight On, Trojans!
Four days post grad school:
I’m sleeping through the night again.
I read a book for fun.
I took time to straighten my hair.
I made lunch plans with friends.
I’ve been in the sunshine.
I spent the weekend in the mountains.
Hello, free time! I’ve missed you!
…and then it was finished.
I posted this at the beginning and now I’m at the end. It’s not the official end yet, but I finished student teaching last Thursday and posted a few final assignments today! Now I just have my exit interview on Tuesday and wait for final grades to post.
We administered benchmark exams on Thursday and my guiding teacher gave me the best compliment as I was leaving… He had scanned all the grades in and compared them to the previous semester so he told me that if I had any doubts about what I had accomplished while I was there then I needed to look at the scores… This semester’s classes improved on every single standard over last semester’s classes! My students exceeded my expectations and to say that I am thrilled feels like an understatement. My first thought was “Wow, I didn’t screw them up!”
I can’t even begin to wrap my head around all the learning and experiences that I have had in the last 15 months at USC. I’ve been mentored by some of the greatest educators in the country and made some of the most wonderful friends and colleagues. Grad school has been so difficult, but I’ve grown so much as an individual and as an educator (I can call myself that now!), it has made me cry more than a few times, and it has made me pick myself back up in order to live and learn even more.
Being at the end feels like a long time coming and like a complete whirlwind all at once.
This means I finish grad school in a week and a half!
Thank you all for your prayers, good vibes, and mad Harry Potter magic-ing skills. :)
three day weekend
forever long to-do list
don’t want to do any of it
whine, whine
complain, complain
One of my students told me that she learned a lot today.
I’m so happy! Student teacher for the win!
I’m reflective like a mirror.
Well, for better or worse my PACT assessment has been submitted. Naturally, I don’t feel that it’s my best work, but after 20-30 pages of commentary and reflection I don’t think that anyone could feel good about it!
I would really appreciate your prayers, good vibes, extra good karma, or whatever niceties you’ve got to spare because successfully completing this student teaching rotation and graduating in May are all contingent upon passing. You can also try sending telepathic messages to my assessor. I don’t know who it is, but it’s like the room of requirement… if you think about it hard enough, your message will find him or her.
Anyway, there is literally pain radiating from the fingers on my right hand to my elbow from the carpal tunnel syndrome this has given me. My fashion sense has devolved into believing that leggings are acceptable leg-wear. My diet for the last 72 hours has mainly consisted of waffles, chocolate, and a rotation of diet coke and diet dr. pepper. My constant companions have been a bottle of Advil, a tube of mint Chapstick, Sara Bareilles singing away in my headphones, the pretty scarf my sis bought me to cheer me up, and the knowledge that by this time tonight it would have to be finished because there was no other option.
Now since my brain has short-circuited and I no longer know what I’m typing, I’m going to go to bed where I will sleep forever (but not really) and eventually rejoin the land of the living, non-reflective, normal people.
Things Your Teacher Prep Program Probably Doesn’t Teach You…
Always include a legality clause. As in… When using school computers to search the internet, do not search or comparison shop for illicit goods or activities.
Today I conducted a comparison shopping activity for my economics class. The assignment was to comparison shop for something that you are in the market to buy… like laptops or shoes.
What is more disturbing: That some of my students decided to comparison shop for uranium and hit men or that there are (apparently) at least three places to purchase each of those things on the internet?
They thought they were being funny, naturally, and hell (or the government) has not unleashed its fury yet, but lesson learned… Every assignment will now include a legality clause! :)
Teaching is never boring!
My family are all on their way to eat at the Loveless Cafe and I am beginning my ninth hour sitting here at my desk going over tomorrow’s lesson plan, writing a *%#^(*! paper, and working on this stupid PACT with no end in sight.
Class for the next three nights and a peer critique on Thursday night as well.
I’ve already had one emotional meltdown today and I’m fighting having another.
I just need for the next two weeks to be over with NOW.
I wish tomorrow were March 5th.
Oh and one of my last single high school friends get engaged yesterday (I am genuinely happy for her), but yeah…
This fml moment brought to you by the 16th of January.
«end rant»
saturday night will commence as follows…
PJs and glasses on
Finally forcing myself to sit down and write a paper and work on the PACT (Performance Assessment for California Teachers) since the deadline is looming in 13 days.
Drinking champagne from a scooby-doo glass like a boss.
Listening to a playlist of catchy and/or trashy dance songs.
As Pink says, “Don’t get fancy, keep it dancey.”
