I am so excited for the holiday season! Not only did my roommate and I decorate our apartment, but the city of Berea decorated too! There’s a small town square about a block from my apartment and it’s bright with Christmas lights! Trees and buildings are covered with festive decorations and the park directly behind my apartment building is decorated too! The trees and the gazebo are red and green and the fountain is lit up with red and green spot lights. It’s nice to see all of these decorations because it can be tough to be away from home at this time of year. Usually I would be helping my mom bake and decorate but we don’t go home until December 14 so everything will be close to done when I get there. I like that I can feel at home here when I can’t actually go home. I even bought (yes, bought… I’m STILL learning to cook and bake) a pumpkin pie to make during finals week!

Whets crazy is… after this week only one more week of classes and finals week. I’m not going to lie and say that Finals are fun but they can be a little stressful. I actually like the set up for finals ….you have set times to take your tests on certain days and you have free time for the rest of it. Like last year there were sometimes two days between certain test and some days with two on one day.

On another note… I’ve started to think about what I want to take home over break. If you live in a residence hall you just leave your stuff in your hall for the month your gone. You don’t have swipe access to your building so its not like you can just stop by and pick things up. I prolly going to take some DVD’s, obviously clothes and my Nintendo Wii . I might even take my computer home…. its times like these I wished I had a laptop. That’s something I recommend when you go to college, a laptop with a lot of memory…..

I have to finish a paper due for one of my finals now, it’s on the social affect on New Orleans from Hurricane Katrina. Did you know if a hurricane causes a lot of damage and death they never reuse the name? There will never be another Hurricane Katrina in history…. Also, before Hurricane Katrina the name Katrina was in the top 10 Girl names and after it hit the Gulf coast it dropped off the list?

So, since I have pretty much concluded that I want to attend law school, I signed up for the LSAT (Law School Admissions Test) a few weeks ago and I take it on SATURDAY. I have been thinking about it all week and have been trying to get prepared. This week and next week are proving to be very busy, as well as thinking about and studying for one of the biggest tests of my life. B-W offered free graduate tests through Kaplan to the students about three weeks ago so I took advantage of that and did so-so. Then one of my professors, Dr. Styles, who has been extremely helpful through this process took basically four hours out of her day to re-administer the test to me. I did a lot better, and it made me feel a lot more confident about the test. I am hoping that everyone’s comments of “you will be fine” will prove to be the truth!! I will get back after Saturday, that is I survive!

At B-W, to round out your liberal arts education, you are required to take a number of physical education courses. Currently, I am in Badminton and Racquetball. Both classes are going awesomely well!

For racquetball, I have had a very winning record both in singles and in doubles play regardless of the pairings of partners in the class. In badminton, we had a formalized tournament and I made it to the semi-finals! This was exciting because, though I’m doing well in my racquetball class, I have played it a lot before so I did not learn too much. In badminton however, I’ve really learned a lot about playing and the amazing work out it can provide.

Unfortunately, we are taking our finals early in both classes, so they will be officially over next Wednesday. Though it will be sad that my tournament play will end, it will be nice to get a break just before finals week, considering the fact that Racquetball was at 8:15am!

Since the beginning of my freshman year I’ve interned with the New Horizons Band Program. It’s a national program with bands all across the country. Our chapter is unique because it serves as a laboratory for music education majors. During my time at BW I served as sectional teacher, ensemble manager, and administrative assistant. Last year as administrative assistant, I pretty much lived and breathed NHB. I did all the paperwork, the music library stuff, coordinated things with the sectional teachers, etc. This year because I’m student teaching I haven’t been able to be involved with the program and it’s been kind of weird. Tonight though I got to go back for the first time and fill in for a sectional teacher. The actual sectional was kind of crazy because I got thrown in with a group I wasn’t expecting, but it was nice to be back. It reminded me of how adult students are both so similar and different than kids. Both are chatty and want to play all the time, but adults will tell you flat out what they can and can’t do and they’re completely blunt about if what you’re doing is or isn’t helping. Being back tonight reminded me how much I learned from them. I started with one horn student and eventually ended up conducting the whole band. More than learning pedagogical strategies though, they reminded me tonight how important building relationships with your students is. I haven’t seen them since July and yet tonight when the conductor announced I was back, the group clapped and gave me hugs and it was so nice to catch up. The NHB people come to student recitals and concerts every weekend and they volunteer their time on Fridays to serve as the demo group for juniors in their final methods course. Even though participating in the extra programs is consuming, I know I’m a different teacher and person because of it.

Although I love it here, when it comes down to crunch time, I can’t wait to go home! I have several big papers coming up and I have finals in every single one of my classes, which is odd because many English classes will assign a paper instead. I guess I got lucky… hahaha Anyway, I think I will be okay as long as I space them out. I am half way done with one paper and my portfolio for my Teaching Methods course has been in production all semester. I just have to put some finishing touches on it after my last day of teaching!

Speaking of that, I will complete my field experience at Ford Middle School on Friday and I am realizing how much I am going to miss it. I have become attached to my students and the school, so it will be tough to say goodbye! On my last day I am bringing in brownies and playing games with them. It should be fun.

I will blog more later. As for now, I’m back to lesson planning!

Hope everyone had a wonderful thanksgiving?! I definitely did! It is probably one of my favorite holidays. All I did over break was eat lots of turkey,mashed potatoes and bread and watch t.v. We also did a little shopping. 4 days of doing nothing was absolutely relaxing, but I did get tired at the end of it from not doing anything, hehe! But I wasn’t ready to get back into study mode when we got back to school yesterday.
I have massive amounts of work in the next 2 weeks after which is finals week. I still have my 6 page Econ paper to write and other papers including a huge group presentation in another class. So I am hoping to get a lot done this week so I can study for finals the following week. I have to pack and study during finals week as I am moving out of the dorms, scary! I cannot believe that I graduate in 3 weeks. I will have to keep you updated on my activities for the spring and after!

Okay, so usually people are happy when classes are cancelled right? Well, with finals in 3 weeks, virtually every paper and project are due soon. In my International Organizations course, we have a group project (my partner and I have corporate malfeasance) and case memos (about different case studies). We don’t really know how the professor wants us to analyze the last one (about the IMF and Zambia). So, he pushed back the due date and said we would discuss any questions in class today. However, professor Morales-Ortiz’s plane was delayed in New York back from Puerto Rico, so he isn’t here! It’s not his fault, of course, but all of us were standing around the class room this morning trying to figure out what to do and what was going to happen. There might not be enough time to still cover the EU, do presentation, and review for the exam. But at the same time, I’m really excited that I only have 5 more classes of LAS! Unfortunately that means our group projects are due soon.. I think I have a group project in at least 3 of my classes. This week alone I have 4 papers due (not including any of the projects). So, my blogs for the rest of the semester will probably revolve around academics (just warning you).

I’m pretty sure i mentioned that I went to the Career/Internship Expo a couple of weeks ago. Well, I took the applications I got there and filled them out over Thanksgiving break. And two days after filling out two of them on line, one of the companies (Ben Venue Laboratories) called me and offered me a job. I have a interview on Wednesday (tomorrow) at three. So that’s just proof that the Career/Internship Expo is not just a waste of time. Hopefully, I will walk away tomorrow as a lab assistant or something. Who knows?

As for Thanksgiving, mine was a good ‘ol time. The sweet potatoes were great (crunchy chopped pecans cut up inside of the potatoes) and that’s all that matters at Thanksgiving. Hopefully, y’all’s potatoes were good too. If they weren’t, i apologize on behalf of the Thanksgiving board of executives (yes, i am a board member). Anyway, i’ll get back to y’all after i (hopefully) get hypnotized at MNM this week (i did it last year and it rocked!!!)

You read that right, math paper. In my History of Math course, I had to write a research paper with a minimum of 10 pages. We had the freedom to choose any subject, so I chose to focus on the Ancient Mayans of Mesoamerica, and look at the early mathematical developments that they had, and the affect of their methods on modern day artihmetic and algebra.

It has been very interesting to study their methods. Probably the biggest change is the fact that they had a vigesimal system (base-20) - let me break that down further: we are on a decimal system (base-10), which means that for each place-value position (ones, tens, hundreds) they are powers of 10 - our system is the adopted Hindu-Arabic system. As I said the Mayans are on a base-10 system, so their place-value positions start from 20 and go up accordingly. ALSO! They only use THREE symbols to express numbers - a dot (value of 1), a bar (value of 5), and a shell-like symbol for zero. They combine dots, bars, and shells to make any number they wish. It’s really pretty fascinating how simplistic, yet advanced, their system is.

Sorry if that was kind of boring or if it even flew over your head, but I’m so excited about my paper! It’s due next week and I’ve been working most of the semester on the research and writing it. I’ll be happy when it’s finished and turned in. Until then, Mayan math will be on the brain!