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Yesterday I had my first experience in my practicum class for the fall. This practicum is basically my placement in a local high school where I am expected to observe and take on teaching roles within the classroom. I am still not sure what to think of it this semester. We had a tour of the school, so I have yet to meet the first bell I'll be with, the second period is a planning period for my hosting teacher, and third is seniors.

When asked about the first bell, my hosting teacher told us that it is not a structured bell. It's a program set up with a math teacher in the building. Basically for two weeks she has a set of freshman that did not test on par with their peers upon entering high school. Following these two weeks she trades them with the math teacher (who works on getting them on par with math) in exchange for juniors that are below level on their ACT/SAT scores to help them prepare to retest. And these two classes switch back and forth through the year like this every two weeks.

I'm not fond of having a planning period in the middle of my practicum either. I know it is an important part of being a teacher, but for those observing there is often little for us to do--especially in English where we can't really help a teacher grade since essays and such are often graded on personal evaluations and such. I don't like idle time.

And the seniors are a completely different story. Most of them are already set to be done and have proven to be a rowdy bunch. There was a set of boys who switch seats and names to confuse us our first day. I have a feeling they will be trouble. There's also the fact that the teacher had to already pull students aside to talk about grades when we were there for observation--this is only their second to third week in school. While she was having these talks a group of boys were fooling around trying to draw on each other with pens--I was the one to approach them and tell them to cool it. I know that class is going to be a handful.

You might have noticed I've been using plural pronouns (we,us) when I would usually be using singular-personal pronouns (such as I and me). This would be the other reason I am not sure how this semester will go--I am sharing my class an practicum experience with another student. This means all lesson plans and such have to be worked out with her and it's not an individual experience, which I feel would benefit me more. She seems nice and capable at least...I just hope we continue to work well together. Things could turn interesting if we end up disagreeing.

Today was our first day out at San Diego Comic-Con. But now we are back at the hotel, and I have some con reporting to do.

The day started off early, with us getting up at around 5:00am to shower, eat, and head down to the convention center to pick up our badges. This would have been fine id sleep wasn't so hard to come by in a full sized bed occupied by three people (we have the smallest hotel room known to man outside of the pod hotels in Japan). But breakfast was had and we got in line. It was rather awesome, considering how many people recognized me as Jubilee just as we were finding our place in line.

Registration was painless as always, and I managed to trade off my Superman bag for a Supernatural one for Natalie. From there it was just a matter of getting in line to get to the Exhibition Hall, where I would spend ALL THE MONEY. We headed directly to CAPCOM, where I got a ticket to admit me to the demo of Resident Evil 6 later that day (more on that later) and I stopped to buy some awesome stuff (Dara, I have a DMC shirt for you). From there we went a-wandering. I ended up buying limited edition lithographs of Liara (one for me, one for Sydney), some ME Homeworlds comics, an Adventure Time comic, and two Adventure Time USB drives (one for me and one for Sydney) in this time. I also managed to get a postcard signed for Greer. It was all rather exciting.

At that point we headed back to CAPCOM for some RE6 time--I was literally bouncing. Ask Melissa. No one could have been more excited than me at that point. You could say I was down right jubilant at the idea of playing some of that demo. We were given a half hour to play as many levels as we could. I started with Jake. Now mind you these are demos that are completely different from those released via Dragon's Dogma. Jake's takes place in China and....holy hell I am so in love with this game you don't even know. I also ship Jake and Sherry like burning. This level also proved how difficult the game would be for me to solo--I died once because I initially missed the heal item pick up and Sherry was too far to revive me. Still it was fun and I plan on playing again at least once more this weekend (especially since you get Leon's head-light-thing for trying it).

After that we looped back to the hotel to drop off some stuff before we headed off to the two panels we had planned to see for the day. First was a creature creation panel for Melissa--while not my thing I was rather entertained by the material covered. Then it was the "Most Dangerous Women at Comic-Con" panel--which I went to just to see Holly Conrad. It was a hoot though, the crowd was laughing throughout with the jokes and they covered the topic of women at cons in an entertaining fashion.

And....that was it. Now we are in the hotel room, chilling out. And relaxing. And trying not to fall asleep. Tomorrow will be an early day too, look for a post tomorrow night as well! I plan to check out the Bioware base, meaning I'll have word on the new Earth DLC for Mass Effect to share tomorrow as well.

Not too much has been going on here recently, but I feel like what has happened certainly deserves a post or so. Either way, it's life and what people I care to share it with are on here, so there we are.

School's out for now, but that doesn't take out school related news entirely. I recently received my financial aid notification, which frankly is a godsend this year. I have $2000 in a transfer award, $5500 in a Pell Grant and miscellaneous funds in subsidized federal loans. Meaning school is all paid for the full year. And that, ladies and gents is a huge load off my back.

In other news, I'm looking at getting my own car sometime this year. I have no idea what make or model it will be, I just know that it will hopefully happen. This will bring me a step closer to getting out of the parents house too, considering a mode of transportation was the biggest set back for me.

This summer is looking to be busy too, with July being the busiest. I'll be helping out as an interpreter for the World Choir Games in Cincinnati this year, which is both exciting and terrifying. However, most of the participants are third and fourth graders from Japan--adorable. I'm sure I have nothing to worry about. Then, immediately following this event, I'll be flying out to San Diego for SDCC. Mmmm Comic Con how I missed thee. I am really excited for that too!

The only other thing keeping me busy this summer will be my two jobs. I have Tuesdays, Fridays and Saturdays at the ware house starting next week (A change from Tuesday, Thursday, Sunday) and then Gamestop is giving me hours whenever they can on days I don't work at the warehouse. Busy busy busy.

So...what's up with you people?

WELCOME ALL OF THOSE FROM THOSE AWESOME FRIEND MEMES (Of which I think there is....one of you).

This makes you one of the cool kids. Awww yeah. I apologize in advance if I am boring 8|a School and RL are doing ALL THE THINGS with my internet life lately.

A list of 100 books! I stole this from suckmy12inch. Bold the ones you've read COMPLETELY, italicize the ones you've read part of. Watching the movie doesn't count. Abridged versions don't count either.

( B-B-B-Baby, touch and repeat. )

Hi...I like to read. A lot. Actually most of these books I picked up in 6-8 grade, because I loved classic literature. Very few of these were read initially as a required reading (Moby Dick being the main exception. I will never again read that novel unless I HAVE to). I should pick up the few on here that I haven't finished completely 8|a I hate leaving a book unfinished.

I am currently sitting in my campus Starbucks, waiting to pass the hour that lies between now and my seminar. Today has started off fabulously so far.

I've had only one class so far, which was my modern American literature class. I have to say it will certainly be a class I will enjoy, if only for my professor. He's an older gentleman, of Chinese decent and I want to either adopt him or marry him I'm no sure which. He has an odd sense of humor, and laughs at all of his own jokes. He also can recite the opening chapter to Pride and Prejudice word for word--he demonstrated this fact to us in class. Also, the exams in this class? All open text, take-home, multiple choice exams outside of the fourth exam which is our final (and only) term paper. I think I'm in love.

The rest of today looks to be interesting too. As I said, in an hour I have a seminar. This class will be the time I will normally be in a high school for observation for the rest of the semester, but the first two classes are seminars so that we can be introduced to our faculty advisor from NKU, and so that we can be assigned to our schools that we will be observing at. I'm rather excited for that class. Then, to top off the day, I have my Japanese class. Last semester the topic was an intensive study for the JLPT, but this semester it's focused on Japanese folktales and myths with the final project consisting of translating one of our texts to English. It will be challenging, I'm sure, but I am also sure that it will be an interesting and fun class.

I'll likely be updating again later today when I get home with the final verdict of how the day went, but for now it is an awesome day.

the END OF THE YEAR meme


In other news I am rewatching Lie to Me. Awesome. I also need to look at my icons here again...because lmao I feel they are lacking.

Today...Today I got to talk to Sydney for an entire hour on the phone. It might not seem so long to some of you but since my mother initially blocked her calls last year our calls have been limited to short snippets of conversation via the phones of friends. It was either that or XBox Live for us to talk. More often than not it's been through XBox Live...which is not always conductive to actual conversations considering my mother often comes in asking who I'm talking to, what I'm doing, etc.

But today...I was able to call her from a phone that was mine, while I was out shopping on my own (since Mother had a doctor's appointment randomly. YAY being abandoned for once). Most of that hour was spent wandering around Kohl's aimlessly, not really looking for anything, just so I could waste the time away talking to her. It was...wonderful. I missed the sound of her voice so much. I was so happy it was hard not to cry. I am looking forward to being able to call her more as I get back to school and I have drives home and breaks between classes to use up. ♥

Here's to hoping this means things on that end will continue to go well until I graduate and I can move out of here to a place we can call ours.