Sunday, August 30, 2009

Student teaching

This week is week 3 of my student teaching and so far, so good. The students (fifth graders) are pretty good and I know all 60 of their names! Yay!! I've only had two snarky comment to me, which must be some sort of record. So far I'm kinda working into the classroom and taking more responsiblity. I like it. Hopefully it continues to go well.

Last weekend, Matt and I went to the Madison Zoo and had so much fun!!!! We forgot our camera so we don't have any pictures but it was fun. We got so close to a tiger I could have touched it (but I didn't). And the Madison Zoo was free, even better!!! We needed a fun day out and we got it!!

Monday, August 3, 2009

A good weekend!

I hope that everyone had a great weekend. Matt and I did. Part of my window project this summer has been to replace broken glass. Now, I can do this in theory but then, I can also do a back handspring in theory too, (meaning I know what I need to do but the true question is: Can I do it?) I had been putting it of and putting it off until I just had to do it. So I went to our local lumber yard and told them the size of glass I needed, they cut it, I came home, removed the broken glass, glazing and old points from the window, and replaced the glass with new, uncracked glass. I have to admit, I'm pretty proud of myself. I replaced three windows and Matt and I worked on replacing the fourth. That one was a bit of a struggle but we got it replaced. The new windows look pretty good and you can't tell the difference! The only problem is that I can't wear gloves and handle glass, even broken glass. For the first three windows I didn't have a problem but with the last window, I sliced my middle finger which began to bleed profusely. Now parts of our new glazing have little bits of red in them from my blood. Blood, sweat and tears. (I haven't actually cried over this project yet but I have definitely sweated and now bled.)

Saturday evening Matt and I went to go see "The Proposal." It's a very funny movie with a happy ending. I like that. Do all movies have to be thought-provoking or awe-inspiring? Sometimes, I just like a few laughs. Anyhow, this one is good. A little risque in parts, but still funny. Both Matt and I are Sandra Bullock fans which made us like it even more.

Before the movie, we had about 45 minutes to kill so after we purchased our tickets, we headed over to the mall from the movie theater (about 100 feet). Now, the best part of this mall is the humane society adoption center. They always have cute cats and dogs in there. As always, we headed for the shop to say hello to the animals. In the front window they had two kittens who were just going nuts with playing. They were very cute and one of them looked like Gus when he was a kitten, about 35 pounds ago (ok, not that many, more like 12) They had supercute dogs, rats, and even more cats. For each animal, they have a card next to it with the reason the previous owners brought it in and generally it's something like: couldn't care for, moving, too many pets, new baby, etc. One of the cats, a longhair domino cat, according to it's card, was brought in because of "unrealistic expectations." Now, this made Matt and I wonder what sort of unrealistic expectations might an owner have for a cat? Did they expect the cat to feed itself? Scoop it's own litter box? Maybe balance the owner's checkbook? "I thought this cat would know nuclear physics but I don't think it knows where it's tail is!" "You told me that this cat would change my life but I still have trouble with the can opener!!! Take it back!!" And so on. I had to leave the shop because I was giggling so much at the idea of "unrealistic expectations" and how Matt and I perceived it. It probably means that the owner thought the cat would get along with other animals and didn't or something like that. But the phrase "unrealistic expectations" could mean so much more....

I have unrealistic expectations for our cats: that Mac won't jump on the bed when I'm trying to make it and that Gus will realize that there are more comfortable places to sleep besides purring loudly between our heads while we're trying to sleep. Or there is his litter box issue, namely his misuse of the box. Yes, very unrealistic....