Start of November

HAPPY NOVEMBER! November is easily one of my favorite months (again, I feel like I say that almost every month, but November really is one of my favorites). One, I love that I can finally start to wear sweaters and boots on a regular basis, and I love the fact that November holds the month of Thanksgiving, which is easily one of my favorite holidays.

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It has been another crazy week for this blogger, which has resulted in a major hiatus from writing any new posts. I will try not to get into the habit of writing "catch up" posts, but that's what this one is sure to be, so prepare yourselves for a long one!

My week started off on a crazy note, as I had class, immediately came home to get ready for Westwood, and set off to teach lessons #5 and #6, with #6 being observed by my university observer, a former teacher of 35 years. I met with her afterward to debrief, and I left feeling really encouraged, and I can honestly say that these felt like my best lessons yet. I taught over propaganda and propaganda techniques, so the students were pretty well engaged through the entire lesson, because I shared some fun commercials with them to demonstrate many of the techniques. Though it was a fun lesson, it was a huge relief to have that observation done. One done, one to go!

Tuesday and Wednesday sort of passed by in a blur - lots of class to attend and school work to catch up on (it feels like every time I finish one thing, I add three new items to my to-do list). It's full speed ahead for the next five weeks, and I will be more than ready for a break once it's all over. Though you would probably leave this page if I started describing what I was doing in my classes, I do have to share one thing that we did in my UTeach class. You likely feel this way about poetry, but it is quite an intimidating thin, and it often has a negative stigma attached to it. I'm certainly not pointing any fingers, because unless it's written by Shel Silverstein, I probably won't like it (or I just think I don't like it). So, the idea of having to teach poetry one day (aka next year), is pretty daunting. We worked with a few different poem forms, and though I still wasn't a huge fan of many of them, there is one that I really liked, and that is probably because it allows you to write about yourself - which is obviously something I enjoy doing! It is called "I Am What I Am," and naturally, we tried our hands at this poem, so I might share that poem with you guys in a later post. You probably won't be surprised to read a lot of the things in this poem, but it was fun to try and make these different attributes sound somewhat poetic.

Halloween

And as many of you probably celebrated last night, or plan to celebrate this weekend, the last day of October is best known as Halloween. 

I normally don't do a whole lot for Halloween, as it has fallen on a weird night of the week these past few years, and I have also been unlucky in the fact that I've had an exam the following day. Not that I'm likely to do anything too crazy, anyway. Even in high school, Halloween was also pretty low-key for me. I got in a car accident on Halloween my junior year (which resulted in me standing on the side of the road wearing my mom's Halloween vest), and I played in a volleyball game against our rival, Memorial, on Halloween my senior year (capturing the district championship). So, long story short, when we got an email saying YoungLife was pairing up with a "fraternity" (aka a group of boys who created their own fake fraternity) to throw a Halloween party, I decided it would be fun for me to go. Of course, my costume didn't come together until the last minute, and I saw a whole lot of Austin while trying to find it, but now I have a banana costume to add to my costume collection, and I feel like it was a very worthwhile investment.

When Dylan said he wanted to be a gorilla for halloween, it only made sense for me to go as a banana, and thus, our costumes were born. The party was a good time, except my roommates and I were easily some of the only seniors there, but it was still run dancing to Taylor Swift's 22. I even crawled into bed just after midnight, not making it too difficult to get up and go to class this morning.

Workout

I didn't have to go to Westwood today, so I got to get in a good workout for what feels like the first time in a week. That's not really true, but it is the first time that I didn't feel pressed for time. So, today I did a combination run and arm workout, and though my arms are sure to be sore tomorrow, it felt like a really great workout. So, without further ado, this is what my workout looked like:

And now I plan on making this Friday a really productive one. I have a lot of work to do this weekend, so I'm going to get as much done today as I can before Sarah and I go out for a suite 1 dinner date. Have a great Friday!