parenting 101:

tonight was my first parenting class.
honestly, i was very nervous. i had no idea what to expect. was it going to be full of mothers/expectant mothers? did i somehow end in the wrong place? everyone's reactions to me taking a parenting class have been a bit annoying and discouraging.  no, i'm not expecting anything in the next few years. can't someone take a parenting class just to be prepared? well that's not exactly why i'm taking it either. i have to, but now i know why. it's more of a children psychology class.

very interesting indeed. yes, the class was three hours long, but fortunately enough, it did not seem that long. once again, the class was full of mostly freshmen and sophomores. it's becoming a bit discouraging as well, but i know i have to get through these classes in order to get into the classes with all the seniors. i'll get there.

so we had a full blown lecture tonight. it was very interesting. the teacher has two masters in children psychology and has done her fair amount of research and experiments on the subject. now, she's even doing a PHD. so i trust she knows her stuff. we have to do a semester long research on corporal punishment, developing a side on the subject. i'm excited to see exactly what stance i'm going to take and why. i'm pretty sure i know where i stand, but who knows, that could change like my many major changes. my name is Indecision after all.

summary of tonight: i may develop a deep interest in child psychology. graduate school?

i saw the sunrise while i printed off notes:

good morning, blog world.
it is 6:45 am, and i am sitting at my computer, fully dressed, makeup done, shoes on, and ready to take on the world. or at least my first class. geography.

another full 90 minutes in a class i've taken about 3.423 times in my life. that's just a rough estimate. well, i've been awake since 5:30. i'm trying this new thing where i get up super early so i can get started on my day, so that by the time class rolls around, i should be fully awake and alert. i've even had time to eat breakfast. but all i'm feeling right now is tired and exhausted. i actually feel like i'm sleep walking. a shower didn't even work. i guess what time one goes to bed is a factor as well in the next day's success. i'll have to try that tonight.

speaking of tonight, i also have had time this morning to print off my powerpoint notes for my night class tonight. 3 hours. and it's a parenting class. i know what you're thinking: "is there something you need to tell us lisa." the truth is, no i haven't a secret, but i do have to take the class for my major.

speaking of my major: i have it all figured out. my major is interdisciplinary studies. which is sort of like a general studies major, but a little more decisive (me decisive, i know weird right?). all my major does is PREPARE me for taking my certification tests for my teacher's certificate. so i graduate with a bachelor's of science in interdisciplinary studies and hopefully a teacher's certificate. but they are two separate things. i'm not graduating with a degree in elem. ed. apparently that's not how it works anymore. the definition of interdisciplinary (which i hate spelling because, frankly, i just can't) studies is sort of a catch all. it's a major that encompasses a little of everything. thus why i am taking a math, geography, linguistics, human development, and parenting class. i get to learn it all. so between all my major changes and my present major, i will probably graduate with at least 90% of the courses offered at unt under my belt. that's a bit of exaggeration, but you get the point.

well this turned into a little longer of a post than i anticipated. good day, all.

bad omens

day 2 of school went like this:
i woke up to a picture falling off my wall at ten til 8 am. worst way to wake up, and usually it's not a good omen when you wake up like this, but i stayed positive.
i drove to school for my first time, having a parking permit and all, and found a spot rather quickly (surprise, people don't take classes at 9 am). i did leave my apartment at about 8:30--> class at 9:30. therefore, i was about 45 minutes early, which meant i would be sitting in the hallway for another 30 minutes. not the most fun i've had all day, but it wasn't bad. i didn't talk to anyone during this time; no one really does talk this early in the morning. it's a well-known social law. don't be a bother before lunch time. something i'm going to have to get over once teaching; kids don't quite understand the social laws.

anyways, human development started promptly at 9:30. as if geography wasn't bad enough; as if i couldn't be around enough freshmen. out of 72 people in my human development class, 44 of them are freshman. and i am one out of three seniors. this is gonna be a fun semester. the teacher is nice. all of my teachers are obviously very well educated in the education field itself. they're serious about teaching and do so with all they have. i appreciate that. we began class with a like "get to know you" activity. this was kind of gut wrenching and cheesy, but you know, it happens. it was a grid set up like Bingo with each square stating something like:

• read 3 cups of tea
• know who G. Stanley Hall is
• know what a zygote is
• born in denton
• have children
• can't roll your tongue
• text while drive

and we had to go around the room and initial other people's squares on what we fit into. this didn't really serve the purpose it was supposed to because i don't remember anyone's name, and i'm sure no one remembers my name. oh well, but it got us talking. next she talked about the syllabus for the next hour. it dragged on and on and on. this class screams: no fun. firstly, i hate group projects and this class is about 40% teamwork. secondly, there is a lot of work that goes into this class, especially for a freshman class. but the one positive so far is that half of it is online. that means we only meet once a week. idk yet if that once a week is going to be monday or wednesday. i'm hoping monday because i would only have one class on mondays. class took up the whole 90 minutes which is always suprising on the first day. another bad omen.

after this class, i had an hour break before my next and final class for the day. so i did what every student on campus does during their lunch break. i went and sat in the campus chat. i hate sitting in there alone like a big ol' loser. but luckily this time, i had a magazine to read. how so many people were in there doing homework already, i don't even know. it's only the third day of school, people. give it a rest.

well then i made the trek over to Wooten Hall, the history building where my elem. math class is (makes sense, right?). first off, that classroom is way too small for the number of students. i have a huge phobia of tight, small, overcrowded places - also known as claustrophobia. it's gonna take a lot of happy thoughts and breathing exercises to get me through that class every day. it does help that the teacher is funny. and a female. it's not too often that female math teachers exist. in fact, that was one of the common math myths she dispelled for us today. she really does have a lot of pride in math and teaching, so i think i have a good chance of learning a lot in this one. let's see, the teacher started throwing bags of counting cubes and towers around.  and when i say throwing, i mean chunking like a mad woman. she was throwing one over in my general direction. it was actually coming right for either my face or the girl's behind me. i'm not sure what was happening, but i just reached up real quick and caught the sucker. it was the one time in my life that i have ever possessed cat-like reflexes (probably another bad omen when the teacher is throwing stuff at students on the first day). anyways, we did a little exercise with these, and now we have to complete homework. ugh on homework.

i am really glad i invested in that planner. it is going to be my saving grace this year. i have continued to keep track of everything and will continue to put my life into that little spiral bound book.

all in all, my hypothesis of the semester is that it is going to be very, very busy.

first day of school

today was the first day of school, although i only had one class.
and it was at 8am.
the professor walks in and the first thing he say, the first thing all teachers say at 8am classes, was why are we taking 8 am classes. what ever would possess us to do that. well, i can only speak for myself, but i like to get things done. on thursdays when it's the only class i have, it's nice to get it out of the way. and boy, did we get it out of the way. we were done in 30 minutes. i'm calling that we will get out 20-30 minutes early everyday. it's geography after all. we all took geography in high school. nothing has changed. no new continents or oceans have been discovered since then. there is no modern day christopher columbus.

bad news bears: it's all freshman. i'm talking obvious freshmen - lanyard wearing, map carrying, orientation shirt freshmen. i was never like that. what would possess a freshman to so obviously stick out like that?

the professor is neat though. i think i'll really like him. he reminds me of a history teacher i had in high school. one of those teachers who cracks jokes a lot. you'd think he would be lame, teaching college geography and all, but he's actually pretty amusing.

after covering the syllabus, we took a "quiz." it involved labeling a world atlas with the continents and oceans. that was my first sign that this class would be a bit of a joke. i learned the 7 continents in 2nd grade or so. i expect our quiz on tuesday will include writing the alphabet. maybe he'll challenge us and make us write both capital and lowercase letters. all said and done, i am thankful for an easy class. this is the perfect semester to raise my GPA.

on the subject of jobs, i have emailed a couple people about tutoring opportunities. both at kumon tutoring center. one position includes tutoring, one include grading. either would suffice. if i can't find a job working with students in some way, i will volunteer. i already have a pretty sufficient resume, but it's all from my high school year's. it's time to update it.

i hope all of my four readers appreciate my new blog template. i worked hard on it. on the right sidebar, you will find a poll. take it as many times as you want. i won't judge you, nor will i even know if you take it multiple times.

that's all for today. i will be blogging everyday next week for sure. if it goes over well, i'll begin blogging mon.-wed. every week. i need more readers.

the devil of college

i hate buying books.
i haven't even gotten all of them yet and i'm already looking at $500 spent.
there are 4 different books i need for 1 class. and it's a math class. what good will 4 math books do for me? and it's elementary math. seriously?
not to mention, i have to buy 2 lab manuals and numerous online codes.

timing is bad for textbooks right now. they haven't quite made the transfer to online textbooks, but they're trying. so this means that we have to buy the hard copy of the textbook, then a code for the online material which is never in the textbook. not to mention that the code is usually around $50-$75.

ugh just kill me. this is stressing me out and school hasn't even begun yet.
sorry, mom for spending so much money. maybe this whole school thing was a bad idea. i mean come on, $500 on textbooks? ridiculous.  i did talk to someone first who is in the college of education at unt. they said that surprisingly, the textbooks do get used a lot. yay? they better get some use for $500 worth.

here's just a few of the costly textbooks i 'invested' in:

looks invigorating right?
oh my sarcasm really kicks in when i'm stressed.

early morning luck

wake up! wake up! wake up!

i awoke this morning out of no where. i think i was probably hot actually, seeing as that our a/c is out again. but that's another story.

i've been thinking all week that i can't register til friday because my transcript still says i'm a junior, but i have 92 hours which would technically consider me to be a senior.
but i went with what my transcript said. or so i thought i would.
well i awoke early just like every other day, but i decided, for some reason, to check my registration page to see if i could somehow register. low and behold, my transcript was wrong. i am a senior. plus:

that would have been nice to see sooner (keep in mind, this is the page that i see first every time i log into my account-the most commonly visited page). maybe it could have settled my fears a little. oh well. it's thursday morning at 7:40 and i'm all registered for fall 2010.

i did have one very minor tweek to my schedule, but i think it was for the better. it actually improved my schedule.

so here it is again:

Fall 2010

mon/wed:
9:30-10:50-Human Development
12:00-1:20: Math for Elementary Ed.

tue/thur:
8:00-9:20- Earth Science (lab on wednesday 7:00-8:50p)

tue:
5:30-8:20- Parenting in Diverse Families

internet:
Principles of Language Studies

if you notice, my lab went from monday afternoon to wednesday night. the monday afternoon lab was full (unbelievably, that was the only one that filled up). this means i can drive and park at school cause it's after 5p, and i won't miss homegroup on monday nights (monday 6-8p was my only other option of lab time). 

so ta-da, it all worked out. this semester is in motion. now, i just need my mom to pay for it. :)

school starts in 2.5 weeks...

and i have bought my first official school supply.
a planner.
you see, i'm usually really bad at using planners, but last year i did pretty well on using the one i bought.
i just bought it a semester too and could only use it through may. so i bought another one for this year and i'm gonna use the heck out of it. it's difficult finding the "perfect" planner for a good price.

1. planners are usually so expensive, especially from school. 
2. there's never enough space to actually write what needs to be written.
3. the decorations are usually a bit too much and over the top.

the planner i bought might be a it too decorated like i said, but it had everything else i was looking for. not to mention, it was the last one of its type in the store. it's has sufficient space to write each day which is very important to me. :)
and it came with stickers, which i'll probably never use. but the biggest selling point was its to-do and shopping lists in the back (which are perforated so they can be torn out when needed.) i always seem to need a shopping list at the least inconvenient time. so if i take this planner with me everywhere in my purse, problem solved.

who else do you know who can write a whole blog post about one single planner?

reason #1

school is starting up again all over, and can i just say that i love, love, love the feeling of the beginning of a school year.
i love the change that hangs in the air. not to mention that new school supplies are one of my favorite smells. i may be weird, yes, but i know i'm not the only one who feels this way. i'm sure every teacher falls in love with the new school year. that's one reason that i'm not worried about my decision to teach. i live for august and september when school supplies are arranged on the store shelves and the sound of nerves and excitement fill the air. this is my favorite time of the year next to december, so it's only natural i get to continue to experience it everyday.
i can't wait!

it's a waiting game

1 more week until i can register and all i can think about is how much i want this schedule.
i keep going over the different classes, and the change from last semester to this semester is shocking. the funny thing is that this just excites me more. i finally feel like i'm doing something i'm going to put my whole self into. hearing my adviser say that i have a 3.4 GPA fuels me even more. and finally being sure of what i'm doing and studying will help me push my GPA even farther up. this semester, i will NOT get anything less than a B. it would be even more awesome if i got all A's, but in college that's doubtful. i'm okay with that realization tho.  i just really want to get these classes registered, so i can really, truly look forward to it all. until then, i anxiously wait.

progress?

let's recap on today's adventures and misfortunes:

i arrived at the college of education advising office promptly 15 minutes early. the student before me must have been late because he went 15 minutes over into my appointment. but you know, that's okay cause i was almost late too, thinking my appointment was at 12:30 instead of noon. (glad i checked in the morning)
anyways, i met with vic. oh, vic was a funny guy. he was an older gentleman with graying chin length hair combed back. the hawaiian shirt, although it was not all bright and colorful, was still a bit distracting with his chest hair peeking out the top. but altogether, i would like to call him my adviser because he was very helpful and nice. not to mention he might have been one of the happiest people i've ever met.

anyways, he went through the classes i've taken and plugged classes in where they met requirements. we were afraid of reaching the hour limit to where the state stops paying half of my tuition and i have to pay twice as much per credit hour. turns out that since half of my credits were from a private school and dual credit, i don't have to ever worry about reaching that point even tho i have 86 hours right now. and i have a 3.4 GPA. not too shabby considering all i've been through with changing schools and majors so many times. so that concern of mine was put to rest.

then i was worried about if i had to take a foreign language. cause let's be honest, my tongue was not made to speak anything other than english. i'm from texas after all. no foreign language for me. there are 3 or possibly 4 science classes i have to take. bummer. and quite a few math classes. double bummer. (sidenote: i don't care what you say, mom, i am NOT good at math. apart from that, i hate math.) but i am stoked for all the psychology classes i get to take.

my last concern was what to do about actually being accepted into the college of education. first of all, i don't even need to be accepted yet to begin the classes i need. there are 18 classes i can choose from before i even have to worry about the classes in the college of education, so i had a plethora to decide between. i was worried about when i was going to fit the inconvenient THEA test in. that was the only thing standing between me and my acceptance into the college. well it turns out, my brain really saved me back in high school. my awesome TAKS scores saved my butt there, so now all i have to do to become part of the college of education is the application in the fall when i receive my formal degree plan. so there's my last concern covered.

so i'm all excited, and i run home to register and get this show on the road. BAM! registration closed yesterday, yet the advising office wasn't open til today. the math didn't add up here. so i'm stuck with this perfect schedule in my "shopping cart" until next wednesday hoping i can some how slip into all these classes. nothing can come easy for me.

i'm taking miracles at this point, so if anyone can grant me one, that would be great.

here's my schedule for now:

mon/wed:
9:30-10:50-Human Development
12:00-1:20: Math for Elementary Ed.

tue/thur:
8:00-9:20- Earth Science (lab on monday 3:00-4:50)

tue:
5:30-8:20- Parenting in Diverse Families

internet:
Principles of Language Studies

now let's see how much it changes come 8 days.