Since I am blessed to have a job where I get the entire summer off, I am taking a vacation back in my homeland of Wisconsin! I love living in Pittsburgh, I do, but in my heart, I am a small town girl. I come home to my awesome, wonderful, quirky, small town that I love.
So here is my list of how you know you're from a small town, in no particular order:
1. You live on the outskirts of a town whose population is "Uncorporated" which means "your town was too tiny for us to count".
2. You stop your car in the middle of the road to talk to person walking on the side of the road for a solid 15 minutes. My mom literally did this 2 days ago.
3. Walking into the local grocery store (Piggly Wiggly, in my case) and you immediately see 5 people you know. I talked to my friend's mom/elementary music teacher for 15 minutes the other day!
4. People crank their neck and point fingers as they see your out of town license plate rolling through town.
5. When you tell people who you are, they ask you about who your parents/grandparents are, where they live, and whose places those used to be.
6. We have no stoplights in our town. Unless you count the one that only lights up when a fire engine goes through town.
Yes, all these delightful qualities add up to one pretty special town! I will continue to enjoy my time at home for another 2 weeks. Allows me plenty of time to get back my Wisconsin accent!
Friday, June 22, 2012
Sunday, June 10, 2012
A Tale of 2 Celebrations!
This past week, I got to celebrate some pretty exciting things! 1. Julia, Ryan, and I all finished up our first year of teaching, in-service days and all! 2. I celebrated my birthday!
The three of us (Julia, Ryan, and I) started out this crazy year moving out here with each other, so it was only fitting we celebrate our accomplishment together! We have been each others' support systems and family this past year. There have been exciting and amazing moments, and moments that were challenging. Through it all, we made it! Year one, done.
We celebrated by going to a new pizza place and getting ice cream afterwards. A bit glutinous, yes, but we just finished a year of teaching! We figured we could splurge a little...
Saturday also happened to be my birthday, which we celebrated Friday night as well as with some shopping Saturday. I was gearing up for a pretty mellow and uneventful day, then, lo and behold through the wonders of Facebook, I discovered my church from Wisconsin, Bethel OPC, was sending their youth group to Washington DC for a mission trip. They just happened to be stopping for the night in the Pittsburgh area!
Julia and I met up with them and had an awesome time! Three of the leaders who were along on the trip were former teachers of Julia and myself, so it was really fun to discuss teacher stories! They also somehow got an ice cream cake to the hotel and surprised me with it! So sweet of them. My cousin Jeremy was along on the trip as well, so it was a great little reunion. We shared our limited knowledge of the Pittsburgh culture and also enjoyed the Wisconsin accents of all who were visiting!
To top it off, Sunday we talked with the husband of one of the teachers from my school and he shared with us his love for....Culvers! We literally talked about it for 10 minutes. It pretty much made my day! And made me crave Culvers.
The whole weekend made me grateful for my life here as well as making me very excited to go to Wisconsin soon! Summer has already been so delightful and relaxing, for which I am very thankful! Now I'm looking forward to taking some time to visit the great state of Wisconsin and see family, friends....and to satisfy the craving for Culvers!
The three of us (Julia, Ryan, and I) started out this crazy year moving out here with each other, so it was only fitting we celebrate our accomplishment together! We have been each others' support systems and family this past year. There have been exciting and amazing moments, and moments that were challenging. Through it all, we made it! Year one, done.
We celebrated by going to a new pizza place and getting ice cream afterwards. A bit glutinous, yes, but we just finished a year of teaching! We figured we could splurge a little...
Saturday also happened to be my birthday, which we celebrated Friday night as well as with some shopping Saturday. I was gearing up for a pretty mellow and uneventful day, then, lo and behold through the wonders of Facebook, I discovered my church from Wisconsin, Bethel OPC, was sending their youth group to Washington DC for a mission trip. They just happened to be stopping for the night in the Pittsburgh area!
Julia and I met up with them and had an awesome time! Three of the leaders who were along on the trip were former teachers of Julia and myself, so it was really fun to discuss teacher stories! They also somehow got an ice cream cake to the hotel and surprised me with it! So sweet of them. My cousin Jeremy was along on the trip as well, so it was a great little reunion. We shared our limited knowledge of the Pittsburgh culture and also enjoyed the Wisconsin accents of all who were visiting!
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| An oreo ice cream cake. Seriously the best thing ever! |
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| More cousins! |
To top it off, Sunday we talked with the husband of one of the teachers from my school and he shared with us his love for....Culvers! We literally talked about it for 10 minutes. It pretty much made my day! And made me crave Culvers.
The whole weekend made me grateful for my life here as well as making me very excited to go to Wisconsin soon! Summer has already been so delightful and relaxing, for which I am very thankful! Now I'm looking forward to taking some time to visit the great state of Wisconsin and see family, friends....and to satisfy the craving for Culvers!
Monday, June 4, 2012
Mission Accompished!
This is it. I've reached the end of my very first year of teaching! It has been quite the year and it feels AWESOME to have come to the end.
As I reflect on the past year, it is so cool to see how much my students have learned! They have worked unbelievably hard to accomplish all they have. In 2nd grade this year, we have made animal diagrams, memorized dozens of Bible verses, learned double and three digit addition and subtraction, labeled prepositional phrases, discovered what homonyms are, learned how to spell words from write to educational, studied people including Abraham Lincoln to Martin Luther King Jr., discovered how to write 2 point paragraphs, and so much more.
Whew! This group of kids worked hard to learn all this new content and I could not be more proud of them! Not only am I proud of all they learned, I am so proud to see how much they have grown in other ways in 1 year. They have become more responsible, more independent kids and I have gotten to witness it first hand! How cool is that?
These kids are so special to me. Not just because I got to teach them, but because they are my first class and will always be my first class. These children are hilarious, kind, loving, loud, crazy, smart, sensitive, caring, and a whole lot of other adjectives! I can't begin to even describe my relationship with my students. You spend 7 hours a day, 5 days a week with kids and you get pretty fond of them!
While watching RTCS's high school graduation, I realized the immense reward in being a teacher. We get to help our students find their way, figuring out what they want and who they are. Then we watch them leave, go into the world to try and conquer it! In what other profession do you get that joy? I have said it before and I will say it again. I love being a teacher!
Now I am going to start soaking up my summer vacation! Another reason I love being a teacher :)
As I reflect on the past year, it is so cool to see how much my students have learned! They have worked unbelievably hard to accomplish all they have. In 2nd grade this year, we have made animal diagrams, memorized dozens of Bible verses, learned double and three digit addition and subtraction, labeled prepositional phrases, discovered what homonyms are, learned how to spell words from write to educational, studied people including Abraham Lincoln to Martin Luther King Jr., discovered how to write 2 point paragraphs, and so much more.
Whew! This group of kids worked hard to learn all this new content and I could not be more proud of them! Not only am I proud of all they learned, I am so proud to see how much they have grown in other ways in 1 year. They have become more responsible, more independent kids and I have gotten to witness it first hand! How cool is that?
These kids are so special to me. Not just because I got to teach them, but because they are my first class and will always be my first class. These children are hilarious, kind, loving, loud, crazy, smart, sensitive, caring, and a whole lot of other adjectives! I can't begin to even describe my relationship with my students. You spend 7 hours a day, 5 days a week with kids and you get pretty fond of them!
While watching RTCS's high school graduation, I realized the immense reward in being a teacher. We get to help our students find their way, figuring out what they want and who they are. Then we watch them leave, go into the world to try and conquer it! In what other profession do you get that joy? I have said it before and I will say it again. I love being a teacher!
Now I am going to start soaking up my summer vacation! Another reason I love being a teacher :)
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