Ring Day

For those of you who are unfamiliar with the traditions of Texas A&M University, Ring Day is kind of a big deal.  And by kind of I mean really.  At most universities, you can get your 'class ring' whenever.  That's cool.  It's just not how we do it here.  At A&M you have to earn your ring; you have to work your hiney off for your ring.  First of all, you have to complete 90 hours of classes with no more than 45 hours at a different college.  So you can't order it until you are classified as a senior.  You also have to be in good academic standing with the university.  Now these things aren't cheap.  So not only do you have to earn it, it's expensive!  Well I've waited two and a half years for this day and let me tell you I was excited!!!!
This whole process started back in January.  You have to go and get sized for your ring and order it.  Then you have to wait 3 grueling months to wake up at 6:00 am the Monday before you get your ring to register for a time to get it.  Which sounds easy, except the website crashed about 60983418702837056 times and took me and the bestie forEVER to get the right times!  But all that aside, I know have that little hunk of Aggie Bling!

The Family on Kyle Field 

One of the besties!! We both got our rings!

Another bestie and her boyfriend and me!
This captures us well...

One of my favorite photos taken all day!

Gig 'Em!!!

Friendships

SO  I sort of have just about the best friends in the WORLD.  I know that sounds a little braggy but, hello, humbleness ranks right up there with patience in the traits I don't possess.  Let's start with why my friends are so wonderful:
1.  My girlfriends (and sometimes even their boyfriends too) are always up for Margarita night!  This is wonderful because when you have a stressful week of teaching, it's nice to have people you can call up and go out with!

2.  My girlfriends always help me know what's due when and what to study! This is especially lovely because sometimes it's just too much to keep organized in my head

3.  My girlfriends are always willing to listen to me bitch and complain about the men in my life, silly professors, silly work nonsense and really just anything!

4.  My girlfriends let me drive.  This one may sound silly. But it's not. I have control issues, I don't need to pay a shrink $100 an hour to tell me that.  I like being in control and that especially means in a car.  So whenever we go places, my friends don't mind if I drive :)

And the last reason that my girlfriends are THE best is.......(drumroll please)
5.  They're always there for me.  In any and every capacity.  Whether I need cheered up or someone to go to dinner with or just someone to watch tv with, they're always there for me!

Pet Peeve

Quite possibly one of my biggest school/presentation pet peeves is when people misuse PowerPoint.   I’m a huge nerd when it comes to using Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint, so when people use it with their head up their butt, it makes it difficult for me to respect you as an educator/presenter.  Case in point:  I’m in class today and the teaching assistant gets up to teach the class.  I will say that, thank God, her speech was understandable, and the only way to describe the rate at which she speaks would be to compare it to a squirrel on crack.  Here is the problem.  First of all, she has her back to the classroom and she is looking at the screen.  Problem one:  YOU SHOULD NEVER TURN YOUR BACK ON STUDENTS.  We’re not gonna pay attention and you can bet that if you did this in a public school, all hell would break loose if you taught with your back to them. Also, if you don’t make eye contact with me {and you’re capable of it} you’ve lost even more of my attention and respect.  Problem 2:  She’s reading VERBATIM what is on the slides.  Remember that old adage when PowerPoints were just starting to pop up?  If you don’t, I’ll remind you, “Keep about 5-10 words maximum on each slide.”  I’m willing to let this slide {see what I did there?}  because it makes it easier for me to not pay attention when you put everything on the slide.  BUT DO NOT sit there and ONLY read the slides to me.  Last time I checked, literacy, was imperative to getting into college.  Do not insult my intelligence while you’re teaching me. 

Rant over.

High School

Now, I was definitely not one of those high school girls.  I hated just about every second of it.  From the school dances in the gym, to group projects with pot heads and slackers, to analyzing Shakespeare, I have very few fond memories.  And by very few, I'm sure I could count them on two hands.... maybe even just the one.  Every time I come back home (especially when I come home by myself) I still feel kind of like I'm right back in high school.  Although, now when I come home, I can drink, so that already makes life better now than in high school.  But when I come home, I miss the simplicity of high school:  I very rarely had homework, and when I did it was easy,  I never had to read text books,  I could lie my way out of anything at school,  and I had a small group of friends that I saw all the time.  Now, I barely have time to see friends between work and school, and school work.  I also knew exactly what I wanted to do without any hesitation.  Now, I've discovered that teaching may not be my thing but that I want to do something that requires more schooling, and more money.  Great right?  Yeah, not so much.  High School may have sucked for a lot of reasons, but everything was a hell of a lot easier back then.

Valentine's day

I. Hate. Valentine's. [NOT Valentime's] Day.  It's one day out of the year where your guy is supposed to bust his butt to find a gift and pay way to much for flowers for you.  I would much rather, {that is if I had a man}, have my fella take me out to a fancy dinner or have flowers delivered to me at work on some random day than have him conform to these cliches on Valentine's Day.  It's all just so insincere to me.  Given that, I've decided that if I'm going to be miserable on this terrible 'holiday,' I might as well have a bunch of kick-ass baked goods to dig into.  The plans as of now are to have a rum cake (it's in the oven right now) and a bunch of conversation heart themed sugar cookies using these as my example.  May your Valentine's Day suck less than mine.  [that's about as positive as I can be]

Personal Growth

So ya know how you always hear how great the classics (books) are and how you just have to read them???  Well most people do this as a part of their high school education.  Some people, just buy Sparknotes and ask one of the 4 people in the class major points before a test over those readings.  This is how I passed high school english.  That and waiting until the last minute to work on major projects that my mom would help me with.  (she understood Shakespeare, obviously that gene skipped me)  Why am I talking about this now?  Well I've decided to work on myself as a person and reading more was one of those things I wanted to improve upon.  So I decided to tackle the beast:  Great Expectations by Charles Dickens.  Now, when I was supposed to read this, I frequently said, "Now I know why they say things hurt 'like the dickens! It's because reading anything by Charles Dickens is physically painful."  I may have been a tad dramatic.  But only maybe.
So why does this matter?  Well here is the objective: (written in ABCD format....education majors get this):  Given the book Great Expectations, Hannah will read at minimum 5 chapters per week with 100% comprehension measured by a retell of the story to Twyla once weekly. [yes that is how detailed the objectives on every single lesson plan I write is supposed to be].
This is currently day 3, I've read the first chapter and am planning on getting at least another chapter read today!  Personal growth had better be completely worth this.  It is Dicken's for goodness sakes!

Goals

We're not talking about soccer here folks, we're talking about career and life goal: the scary ones. When I was 15, I had a ten year plan. It went something a little like this: I knew that by 25, I would be happily married, teaching elementary school, with a baby (or at the very least one on the way). I'm now 21. A mere 4 years away from that plan and I gotta say, that ain't gonna happen. A lot has changed for me since I was 15. Since I've been in college, I've come up with a different "plan" if you will. My new plan is, first, to graduate and get certified to teach. As of now, and God willing I pass all my tests, I will be certified to teach all grades in special education as well as general Ed in an elementary school, and English as a second language. And depending on how much I like my current field placement, I may seek some middle school certifications (God help me). Hopefully, after I graduate, I'll get a job that will help me pay for a masters in administration. And THENNNNNN maybe, just maybe I'll continue my education with some sort of degree in education law so that I can be an advocate. (this is all in an ideal world where time and money have no meaning obviously). And every good plan has a plan B. (Mom, if you're reading this, you may just want to stop there because I already know you don't like the back up plan) Plan B. If that all doesn't work out for me, I'm planning on moving out to Las Vegas and becoming a cocktail waitress. After being in Vegas for about a month or so, I'll meet Holly Madison and we'll become best friends and I'll make frequent appearances on her tv show where I'll become so liked that I will get my own spin off show and then I'll live happily ever after!!