My mom brought home all her counting bears one day to wash them, then to let them dry accordingly, she layed them all out on this large towel. I thought it was one of the most interesting pictures anyone could take. Enjoy!
This is how my life in college is going to eventually pan out. I will graduate upon receiving the following various majors and minors, along with a few endorsenments…
Welcome to my future:
a major in elementary mathematics
a special endorsement to teach middle school math
a structure of the disciplines minor (which is included in any college of education program)
by the way, what the heck is a “structure of the disiplines”?
a intergrated elementary science minor
an early childhood education minor
(which is a speical endorsement to be able to teach k-2 grade.)
that is all. but it is a lot i think. i am currently trying to be able to teach high school mathematics, i emailed my elementary math advisor and asked her opinion on the subject, so we will see. that would be so sweet, if i could take a test and pass it. it is what i am doing to teach middle school math. i just take a test, and pass it, and i can teach middle school math. i really don’t want to teach puberty crazed perverts (middle schoolers). so what are you graduating from college with? is that scary? that i have it all figured out, and you are not sure what the heck you are doing? i don’t mean to alarm you, cause i hadn’t figured it out until now. which now that i look at it, it’s a heck of a lot. it’s also more schooling, that i don’t necessarily need, but it’s like this:
so i could get 3 minors. that would be fine. BUT, if i only had a minor in math (which i am 2 classes away from obtaining), then i would not be able to take the test and get the special endorsement to teach middle school math, which i kind of want.
here’s another thing. the major in math comes already with a pre-packaged minor, the structure of the disciplines one, so i really don’t need the other minors.
reasons for the other minors:
science: i only need like 2 more classes to have a science minor, why not?
early childhood ed: now a necessity if i want to teach the alpahabet, the sandbox, or how we tie our shoes, if you get my drift.
so that is all i know right now. i if i find another minor or endorsement that i am close to getting, i will update it. either way, at the end of this semester, i will have met a huge goal in my life:
being able to subsitute teach. from now on, no matter where i move, no matter what state in the US, or any English speaking country, I will be able to substitute teach. this is a huge relief on my part. i am happy!
I was sitting at the computer when this event occured. This event was apparently the funniest thing that has happened all day. I will tell the story, but it is up to you to use your imagination, and fill in what it must have looked like.
Austin and dad are in the family room watching a show on the history channel. I hear my dad say that Boots wants to come in now, and I look over to see him OUTSIDE! I watch as Austin gets up, makes his way over to the door and opens it. Boots immediately senses the inclusion he is about to partake in, and runs the opposite way. He then tells me to “Get my cat”. I get up and go over to the door. I open it and step outside. My sweet little kitty is stretching out in the sun, rolling over back and forth, obviously having the time of his life. But this does not last long, for when he sees me, he turns from “sweet kitty” into “I must escape Cruela D’vil for she will turn me into a coat! kitty”. But before he leaps to his feet, I see it in his eyes that it will be a game. He knows this, he is toying with me, he will make me run back and forth across the backyard, and he will take much pleasure in witnessing this. Before I have a chance to give him my “Bring It!” look, he is up and sprinting across the grass towards the shed. Since I have now been silently challenged to a game of cat of mouse (literally), I decide to show this creature why the human race is far superior to the animal race. He may be smart and quick, but I am smart, quick and 12 times his size! He is now in the shed, using his much smaller body against me, he has crouched behind the massive “necessary yard equipment” (according to my dad). I then use my little brothers “necessary game equipment”, in this case being a hockey stick, to prod him out of his hiding place. Once again he is sprinting across the grass, with me in hot pursuit. As we round the pool for the third time I notice a couple of things: 1) I miss playing softball (rounding the pool is a little like the rounding the bases, except in “the game” we are playing, the goal is to get the cat home, and in softball your goal is only to get home). 2) I am really out of shape. 3) Realizing how out of shape of am has made me think that I will not catch this cat, which of course only fuels more motivation. And so, I run on. Finally after a couple of laps around the shed, the pool, and the table, the cat is becoming tired. He runs towards the porch and seeks refuge under a chair. Now is the time when I expect him to pull out his boxing gloves (for he has no claws, rather “gloves”), and his fangs. Instead his little kitty eyes look up at me and I watch him transform back into “sweet kitty” right before my eyes. I reach under the chair, pull him out, lift him into my arms, and open the door to come inside. When I step inside I am confused and a little appalled at what I see in front of me. My dad and Austin, who have not moved at all, are laughing so hard at me when I step in, I begin to feel very insecure and a little upset. Austin tells me to sit down on the couch where he finally gets up from. I sit in his spot. He then tells me to stay there and watch, as he demonstrates what he has been watching (out our glass door) for the full 10 minutes that I was outside chasing the cat. I sit and watch, all of the sudden I see him run in a furry across the backyard. Then he runs from that side to the other side. He stops and comes back inside and asks me this: “Now how funny would I look chasing this tiny grey cat all over the yard, when all i can see is you running back and forth, arms outstretched in front of you, attempting to catch up to the feline?” My dad explains that it looked like a movie, or a comedy sketch, happening right in front of their eyes. I then informed them of the most important fact, that I won, and I held my head high as I walked out. They of course, continued to laugh.
As you can see, Socrates is now living in the most luxurious “Greek” tank I have ever seen.
So I was thinking about renaming this site: “The stories Austin sends Stephanie”, because they are so freaking funny. I have to post what he has recently written me.
First, some background:
Austin has a fish. One fish. He a blue fish, who has a bit of a temper if you ask me. His first tank was a 2 1/2 gallon tank, which if anyone doesn’t know how small that is, it’s the size of a piece of paper turned sideways. For fishtanks it was small. The next size austin moved up to was a 10 gallon, because his fish outgrew his other tank. This is the most common fish tank people buy. It is not too big, and not too small. Well it was far to small for Austin’s fish. He wanted bigger. He went and bought a 20 gallon. Another fact: fish grow only as big as their environment allows. If you get a fish and keep it in a small tank, it will remain that small, once you get him a bigger tank, the fish will grow to how big the tank is. It’s actually a remarkable thing in nature if you ask me. It makes sense. Well a year later (now), Austin has decided that his fish needs something bigger once again. I suggested to him a 30 gallon, which he took into consideration, and then put down as soon as he saw his “Ultimate Fishtank”. The one he bought was a 55 gallon tank complete with wooden stand. The kind you see in the fish stores, but never think of buying. It is HUGE. Keep in mind that his fish is only 2 inches big right now. We joke around about what he is going to next, the fish will grow big, and then what will Austin do next? The hot tub? Then the pool? The zoo? When will it end?? So when I left for school yesterday morning, the tank was set up in his room, without the water in it yet. The following is a story that Austin emailed me yesterday:
After I dropped Becky off at school, I went home. It was like 10. I can’t go back to bed after I get up. So I had like 3 hours to kill. I was going to until I got back from work to fill up Socrates’ new tank, because I figured I would need Joey’s help. But since I had so much time to kill I decided to do it myself. Mom said yesterday the best way to do it was to hook up the hose. So I brought a hose to the upstairs bathroom and tried to hook it up to the sink. That didn’t work. The hose was a pretty long one so I threw it out the bathroom window and hooked it up to the faucet outside.
Then I went downstairs and outside and hooked it up. My first worry was that, when I turned the water on, the hose would fly out of the tank. So I turned the water on very slowly and ran as fast as I could upstairs. The hose was fine, but hardly any water was coming out. So I ran back downstairs and turned the water up a little higher, then ran back upstairs to make sure it didn’t fall out again. It was fine. While the tank was filling I was going to set up the filter but guess what? THE FILTERS DON”T FIT!!!! It is very hard to describe why they don’t “fit” in writing. I probably already showed you the problem by now, because I’m kind of mad about this. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, ask me when you get home.
So while I was groaning about the filters, the tank was getting close to full. It was time to turn off the hose so I ran downstairs and turned off the water. Then, for some stupid reason, I thought it best to unscrew the hose. When I started to do it, water started shooting out on me. I thought I turned the valve the wrong way, so I started to turn it the other way. I could hear water rushing through the pipes, so I knew that i had it right the first time. So I turned it off again and tried to take the hose of again. Water spit out at me again. I figured it was just the extra water left in the pipes. I kept unscrewing it until it was completely off. Then I saw that the water wasn’t coming out of the faucet. It was coming out of the hose. My first guess was that this was the water left in the hose, that made it half way up to the bathroom window and was now being pulled back down by the force of gravity. So I threw the hose on the ground and wanted to wait for the water to stop coming out of the hose. But the water was exactly trickling out, it was gushing out. Something was wrong. Finally, 5 seconds later, stupid me realized that the other end of the hose was still in the fishtank and I was now syphoning out the water that I had just put in. So I ran upstairs and pulled the hose out of the tank. I didn’t lose that much water, probably 3 or 4 gallons.
The dogs were going crazy, because they tried to follow me and I was always running them over. The first time I had to run downstairs Lucy was looking out the back door. I ran towards the door and she freaked out and ran into the basement. Then I had to run upstairs again and Lucy was just coming out of the basement when she saw me running right at her again and she went back into the basement. It was kind of funny.
The tank water was freezing cold. I filled up the rest of the tank (remember because I lost some water) with really hot water, hoping that would even it out. It didn’t. Then tank was freezing cold. I put in some plants and the giant Parthenon, which looks pretty small now. My arm was freezing when I pulled it out of the water. It was like Lake Superior. The tank looks awesome though. I guess I’ll buy a bigger filter. It would be better to have one big filter instead of two small filters or, rather, one small filter and one medium filter.