so the last few weeks have been really crazy with working and going to school and all. and i told you i'd write a few stories about my students, and i will. i can't go into too much detail though, in case one of them stumbles upon this blog. :)
let me first just say that i have 40 students. they are all fabulous people. i love them much. i have enjoyed getting to know them and hearing their goals and stuff. i really do want to help them in any way i can-- i want them to be happy and successful. i wish they knew how much i care about them doing well. unfortunately, i only "have them" for a semester, so there will be some contact with them for the rest of the year, but i think most will lose touch with me in three months. sad. three months is such a short amount of time to get everything done!
anyway.
soooo first, a few weeks ago, my two co peer mentors and i held a dinner with our students and then held a workshop on effective study group strategies. it was pretty successful. anyway. at said meeting, we had to hand out paper for our students to write down lists of words we asked them to memorize in 30 seconds (the point being if they all compared their lists, they could get all 40 words after 30 seconds, but on their own that had few.) so then at the end of the whole thing, two of my students were sitting at the table and said "here. we drew pictures of you." i laughed. and then i kept them and posted them on my wall at home over my desk to remind me of the reasons why i have this job. the pictures they drew are two of my reasons. [note: i don't even care that one of them spelled my name wrong, as you can see in the picture. and it doesn't even matter that they're not the best pictures in the world either; they're mine.]
so one of my students (male) broke his foot on a door. playing hall soccer. and then i had to go over and make a little house call yesterday to talk to a few of my students, and discovered one of them got in a fight this weekend (by no fault of his own) and got punched in the face. he has a black eye. i asked how his parents responded and he said "are you kidding me? like i'm gonna tell them..." funny kid. and then i met with two students who i hadn't seen in a while at class-- they said they weren't in class for a while because they both had the flu. yummy. poor things. away from home for the first time and no one to nurse them back to health when they're sick. although, i guess one of the guys' moms came up to check in.
we had a good conversation and i was feeling all influential about getting them to come to class and work hard in school, and then i went to class today and they weren't there. hmmmmm. i asked then what their goals were for the semester and one of them said "well, once we get over being sick, we want to go to all our classes." i encouraged this goal and asked if they had any others. they said "well, if you came over here to get us to go to class, our goals are contradictory." i asked them to elaborate and he said "well, our other goal is a second date with you." ... they were just kidding, and i was laughing, but i had to explain that my visit did not count as a date. and then they said "fine. you can call it whatever you want. but our goal is to get you to come back here." hmmmmm... i'm just going to assume they don't really mean that. hopefully i'll see them in class tomorrow.
in other news, our apartment hasn't had hot water for the last 2 days. yesterday we got home from church and the water was freezing cold. not just cold. freezing cold. so tristan called maintenance and they couldn't come till today. so this morning, i had to shower because i was gross. well, i had to at least wash my hair. so i bent my head over into the tub under the faucet to get the job done. i wet my hair and shampooed as quickly as i could, but my hands and scalp had quickly gone numb and i was quite uncomfortable. so i pulled my head out, went into the kitchen, and put the two biggest pots i could find on the stove filled with water. i heated water, and used a cup to pour it over my head in the tub to get the shampoo out. it was at this point that i was so very grateful i had the brilliant idea to buy shampoo-and-conditioner 2-in-1 last time i went shopping.
i used the heated water to wash my face as well and then got dressed and went to class. let me just say, i felt very... 19th century-ish. washing my hair out of a pot of hot water. oh modern conveniences. how i love you. and how inconvenient when you don't work.
sooo yeah.
i've included another picture of my computer screen. the other night i was trying to look up a location for a store that was somewhere around my apartment building, i just didn't quite know where. being resourceful as i am, i plugged the address into google maps, and got the map shown in the picture. ... wow, thanks for that detailed information. now i know JUST where to go. let me just look out my window and see if i can see a giant green arrow anywhere. then
i'll be set. ... ok... so i was kind of annoyed. but then laughed at how ridiculous it was.that's all i have for you tonight. i have to write an 8-10 page personal essay for class thursday and it's supposed to be my 3rd or 4th draft. hmmmm. i have NO IDEA what subject or event to write about and it's stressing me out. today i took a psych. statistics test and got an A on the multiple choice. we'll have to wait to see how i did on the open-ended questions.
i have a new testament quiz opening tomorrow, but haven't studied yet, so... we'll see when i end up taking it.
i got another 100% on a Shakespeare quiz. The professor seems to be even more impressed with me now. He always looks at me when he asks questions in class about things, and when he calls my name for attendance he always smiles at me like we have an inside joke-- a secret from the rest of the class. it's odd. but i'm not gonna complain. it's certainly better than having a teacher hate you.
life has gotten so crazy, it's ridiculous. i feel like i'm so busy- going from one thing to the next all the time. my students take up a lot of my time and energy, but i am enjoying it so much. the only problem is trying to go to school at the same time, but i suppose by what i've written here, it looks like i've got that down too.
life is good.
busy.
but good.
i'm happy. today was a perfect october day. it was my half birthday! it doesn't feel like it's been 6 months. weird. but anyway. october and april are my two favorite months. spring and autumn are my two favorite seasons. and today was a perfect example of why i like october and april. it was cool-ish. not hot, but still warm enough to bear being outside. there was/is a lovely breeze that kept the air moving, and it smelled like fall. there was a crispiness to the air, and the leaves were blowing around, crunching under peoples' feet. the sky was clear (until about 6 pm) and it was just a beautiful day. perfect. it made me want to go buy pumpkins. or rake leaves. or drink apple cider. i LOVE fall. unfortunately Utah doesn't have too many deciduous trees, but they seem to change color a bit and it reminds me of home. as i said, it's days/nights like this that remind me why i am so enamored with autumn. i adore it. i wish i could bottle up days like this and keep them for when things just aren't going right. even a bad day can be made better if its blessed with good weather. a rainy bad day has no redeeming qualities, in general.
anyway. as i said, life is good. i am happy.
-mollie
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