Tal: [FINAL]ly

With 4 down and 1 to go, I can honestly say this has been the toughest semester of finals I have had yet. I've been pretty lucky the since my Junior year of high school to not have a truly hard finals week. The one that I believed to be my hardest has now been demoted to second place, (sr. year of high school, the week leading up to the first competition of the season... not too fun of a week.)

This semester has seen the good, bad, and the ugly at times. But it has been a great one!

For a while I believed that Mondays were out to get me, every Monday for literally 2 months had some kind of hardship, mishap, or trial that would come along with it. I found myself dreading waking up because I knew that before 7 a.m I would have already had some kind of experience to ruin my day. That's right! Before 7!? Most 19 year olds are still sleeping at 7, but not me. I'm starting off my day with a "Oh, right! It's Monday! How could I forget?" kind of feeling. Well those Manic Mondays began to die off and they would only hit every few weeks! Thank goodness!

Working at the Elementary school, has given me a lot of opportunity to think things through and look at the realities of life as an educator. I won't lie, there has been a few opportunities that I think, "Oh, crap! What am I doing here?! I can't do this! These kids are depending on me to teach them! What did I get myself into, I'm still a kid myself?!?" I still get those feelings but after I calm down and take a step back I've been able to see the good things that it has to offer.

My classes have been great! Well... sorta. I had one class (oh it feels so nice to say 'had'), the teacher made it miserable. I'm not sure I really learned anything, except how NOT to teach from her. But hey, I guess you have to learn that too, right? Other than that my classes were great. I looked forward to Exceptional Students and Children's Literature. I learned so much in them and I enjoyed learning about different things.

Let's get real here, what did YOU do on your last day of class? I'm sure it wasn't coloring, Irish dancing, eating animal crackers, and skipping around the classroom! Well, that was the last day of class in Children's Lit. I felt like a kid in that class haha. But it was a great learning class as well.

A few things I learned this semester...

I take complete advantage of living close to home, and whoops, I've only been to my singles ward 2 times...
Jam is an incredibly random individual
Our entire extended family was wrong... Jam and I are closer than ever and I do not believe a family seperation is going to result in us rooming together.
Even run-down, yucky, smelly, old apartments can be a fun place to live. We have decorated and made our place a cute little cozy place for us.
Some people REALLY have never learned how to clean up after themselves.
If you want to meet a guy in your classes.... DO NOT, I repeat DO NOT go into Elementary Education.
If you want to read, color, work with kids, make posters, find online interactives, and have cool professors... DO, I repeat DO go into Elementary Education.
It is weird being 19 and having people who are over 35 ask you if they can put you as a reference for a job application.
Working with all the ladies at the elementary school is fun, they are not nearly as intimidating as I thought they'd be.
If you have a surround sound, people will really like to watch movies at your place.. :)
I have an AWESOME fhe group. Jam is a wonderful "ma" even if her first husband left her and she married her son.
If you haven't been going to singles ward and the bishop calls you saying, "I have a really hard question for you?" You're gut flies up to your throat and you begin to think "I really am active I PROMISE!" (don't worry, it wasn't about my activity or anything bad, it was actually a very easy question)
Some people do not understand the importance of the UTAH JAZZ!
An apartment of guys can REALLY REALLY love their squash...
Spaghetti is even nastier with tuna in it. And college students need a more wide-spread diet because Spaghetti is nasty, and I'm sure it should only be eaten sparingly!
If your big hair gets stuck in a hanger... Don't ask Jam to help you out, she will just laugh and take pictures!
Sidewalk chalk can be a scary adventure...
And [final]ly I am so much happier where I am at now!