Finals Week Freedom

Yes, you all read that right.
It is I, Pili, contacting all of you wonderful readers from the land of she-who-never-blogs.

I'M SORRY I know I said I would blog more but that was before student teaching and TFA and dance team literally took over my life. But it is officially finals week, which means the first semester of my last year of college is almost over! What?!

To kick off this week of celebration (senior education majors don't have finals), I made a delicious batch of banana muffins that I'm sure all of you would enjoy as these months get colder. A little baked treat never hurt anyone!

It makes a small loaf, or 12 muffins. Or more, if you're frugal with your muffin batter.

You need:
A bowl
A fork/masher/mixing utensil
Greased muffin/cupcake pan
1/2 stick (4-5 tablespoons) butter, softened
2 eggs
2 or 3 very ripe bananas
2/3 cup sugar
1 1/3 cup all-purpose unbleached flour
3/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon (optional)
1/4 cup milk

In bowl one, mix the first 4 ingredients. Mash the bananas to your desire. I don't really like chunks of bananas in my muffins, so I mashed the bananas until they were basically soup. Then throw the rest of ingredients into the soupy banana-eggs-sugar-butter mixture. Then spoon the dough into your greased muffin tins, pop them in the oven for about 20-30 minutes, and you're good to go! Go have a cup of hot chocolate or something.  

My oven is extremely hot, so I put mine on for 20 minutes and just checked up on them, poked them with toothpicks, you know the drill. You don't want the muffins to be too brown on top, but you don't want them to be mushy in the center either. 

Pull the muffin pan out of the oven, let those babies cool for about 5 minutes (or 3 if you're impatient like I am), and enjoy!

Hope everyone is staying warm and safe out there! Happy Holidays!

xo,

I See The Light

The one at the end of the tunnel? Definitely seeing it now.

Good news: I taught my last lesson of my work sample today, and my wonderfully insane kiddos are taking the post-assessment tomorrow!!!! OH HAPPY DAY.

Bad news: I now have to find time to sit down and put my entire work sample together: introductions, goals, learning targets, graphic organizers, unit organizer, 12 5-page lessons, pre/formative/post assessments, and learning gains.

I'm running on fumes here, and this is just the first week back to school after Fall Break.

Powers to be, please help me.

xo (and zzzzzz),

October...Already???

Adding the word "already" with many question marks and exclamation points seems to be something I'm doing a lot lately. As in..."It's Friday? Already?!?!?!" or more commonly, "Wait, seriously...it's Monday...already?!?!?!" *cue tears*

BUT! I'm back with my October Currently, courtesy of Fabulous Farley over at Oh Boy Fourth Grade to fill you faithful followers in on my life.

Also, I've really gotten into alliterations. Is it obvious? Hehe...



Currently, I'm listening to my brain cells slowly dying. Honestly. I'm so burnt out from trying to be a college student, a 21-year old, and a teacher. How. How am I supposed to do everything? No sleep and lots of coffee.

I'm loving watching all of the leaves on the trees around campus turn from bright green to yellow, to orange, to red, to purple. Also, looooving the sweater weather (and boots weather!!!) that I get to enjoy on the weekends when I'm not dressing up in teacher clothes. The dean of the School of Education at UP always says, "Dress 10 times better than your cooperating teacher; they can wear jeans and boots because they have a job. You, sadly, do not...yet." Cheers to slacks, heeled flats (because these third graders are TALL), and cardigans.

I'm thinking that I can see the light at the end of the tunnel! Fall Break for the university starts on Friday, and tomorrow is the last day of instruction for this week. Inservice is on Thursday, and Friday is a no-pay non-work day, so I get to take an extra day for my break! YIPPEE!!! I'll be on the 7 am flight home to Hawaii for an entire week. *cue world being lifted from my shoulders* Life is good.

I'm wanting my darned work sample to be finished already, but it's getting there! So for those of you who don't know what I'm talking about, the work sample is a minimum 10-lesson unit covering a subject of our choice, that we have to teach our students. For this first placement, I've created a unit for the 3rd grade personal narrative writing unit, and we're ALMOST READY TO START OUR FIRST DRAFT!!!!! Excuse my excessive exclamation points, but this has been a greuling process. This is the first formal/structured writing for these kiddos, many of whom are ELL students and waaaay below grade level as far as literacy and language arts goes. Merp. We're doing the best that we can, and we've come a long way! I'm so proud of my kids, and I can't wait to finish this unit with them.

I'm needing (desperately) for my senior year of college to slow down. I don't know where the time is going (actually I do, it's going into my work sample), but I feel like I don't have any time to spend with my friends or do fun things on the weekend anymore. Not really the senior year experience I imagined, but hopefully after I finish this first work sample, I'll have a little more time...before I start the process all over again with next semester's placement (Kindergarten, woop woop!)

Trick or Treat? Treat. As in, I'm trying to treat myself and my body better by working out, eating right, and (as lame as this may sound) giving myself daily affirmations that I am smart, I am strong, and I can do this. "This" as in whatever the day may throw at me. I struggle with self-esteem, self-doubt, and bouts of depression, so this is a big step for me, and I'm really working towards appreciating myself more and showing myself love. Hopefully this attitude of love and appreciation will extend into my relationships and create a more positive environment for me to thrive in!

Hope everyone is surviving this week! Happy October!

xo,

Totally Tired Tuesdays

Okay, maybe I'm not tired to THIS extent, but it's getting there.

I wake up at 5 am. I teach from 7 am to 12 pm. I go to work from 2-5 pm. I have class until 7pm. Then I have dance practice from 8-10 pm. Then I have to finish any homework lesson plans that are due the next day for class. Then shower, sleep for 3 hours, and wake up and do it all over again with a smile on my face.

This work sample is exhausting. Being a student and a teacher is exhausting. Trying to work and get money to drive to student teaching is exhausting. 

I'm just so exhausted.

On a positive note, my work sample (I'm making a unit on writing a personal narrative for my third grade class) is going along quite well, and my University Supervisor (the dude who is evaluating my ability to be a teacher and ultimately will decide whether or not I should get my teaching license when I graduate) told me after my observation today that he has never been more impressed by a student teacher's classroom management skills. *cue small inner victory dance*

I AM SO SO SO SORRY for being a ghost for the past month or so. I'm way more busy than I thought I would be. I'll try my best to get back into the hang of this thing. Really. I know I've said that before, but scout's honor this time (hey, I was a Girl Scout back in the day, it works still).

In Portland news, it is now pouring. Oh wait, I mean it's sunny. Cloudy? Windy? Pouring again? Do I wear shorts and a tank top or my sweats and North Face?  

You get the idea.  

Stay dry, stay sane, and keep smiling!

xo,

Flabbergasted

"Whether we're ready or not, the kids are coming on Monday morning!"

Famous last words, courtesy of the principal of the school that I'm student teaching at this year, as my fellow student teachers and I walked out of the school this evening on the last day of our inservice week.

I'm flabbergasted. Completely caught off guard, had the rug pulled out from under me, any other way of saying that this whole student teaching gig snuck up on me. I'm so so so nervous, but I'm really truly excited. My supervising teacher is amazing, and so are the other 3rd grade teachers, and I can't wait to learn all that I can this semester from them. 

I'm also flabbergasted that it's already Friday, and I've officially completed two weeks of my last year of college. How did the time go by so quickly...

ONE

I'm not a huge fan of cobbler. Pie? YES. Cobbler isn't really a huge dessert in Hawaii, but my housemate convinced me that it would be good. So we went to the farmer's market, bought a bunch of berries, and made the BEST double-decker berry cobbler in the world. I'm not exaggerating.

I LOVE FRUIT

The masterpiece

TWO
Welcome to Room 6! My supervising teacher and I were scrambling to set up our class today, and it is sure to be filled with super student artwork before our open house this Thursday! 

33 students, yippee!

THREE
My mom emailed me my third grade school picture with the caption "Don't forget that you were once in their tiny shoes. Be the best you that you can be." It's so easy to forget that we were their age at one point in time, and that is definitely something I am going to work on this year; patience. 

FOUR

For my work sample this semester, I'm focusing on writing. So here's my weekend homework: reading the complete writing curriculum for PPS, with added emphasis on setting up the writer's workshop and the first unit of writing: narratives! If you veteran teachers out there have ANY words of wisdom to give this complete newbie, I'm all ears...err...eyes.

FIVE

I was having an awful week. I'm really tired (prepping for dance team tryouts and the first week of school is tough), homework sucks, and I'm just getting more stressed out by the second. On top of all that jazz, KDog has been super busy, so time to talk and catch up with each other has been extremely limited. Being in a long-distance relationship sucks, but coming home to a vase of roses from the sweetest human in the world made my week take a complete turn from the seventh circle of hell straight on up to cloud nine.  

Hope everyone enjoys their weekend! I'll be indoors, teaching 60+ college girls how to dance all weekend......can someone say advil and water?

xo,

Senior Year, Already?

I'm back!!! I mean, I've been back for a while, but this is actually the first opportunity I've had to breathe since I've been back, hence the shocking lack of blogging going on. Apologies, apologies. I'm a terrible, busy person. Three for Thursday, let's go!

ONE

School started extremely abruptly and without any warning on Monday, with a 4-hour student teaching orientation. Fun? Not really. Informative? It was like having a high-rise worth of steel beams (also known as information) thrown at you rapid fire and you're expected to catch them all and balance each beam perfectly WITHOUT EVER DROPPING ONE I feel like I'm going to cry a lot this year. We have a hefty work sample due (20 lessons, each with a pre and post assessment, as well as 3-4 pages of reflection per lesson), on top of daily lesson plans, and the regular homework we get for class. It'll be fine. One day at a time.

TWO

The school at which I'm student teaching this year has 2 weeks of inservice (yippee!!!!) so I've been helping out my supervising teacher and doing a bunch of pre-inservice work around the school with my fellow student teachers, who are also my friends from school. Yesterday's enormous project was to clean out and organize the dreaded art closet, and man, it really was a 4-person job. We cleaned the closet for about an hour and a half, and it went from looking like people just threw supplies in there, to actually having an organizational system! We were so proud that we took a picture of our final product.

THREE

Dance team tryouts are next weekend! I'm beyond pumped, and my co-captains and I have been furiously working all summer in preparation for tryouts. I choreographed a hip hop routine to "That Power" by Will.I.Am., and I'm working on a pom routine for "Applause" by Lady Gaga. I'm OB-SESSED with her new song, and it's really catchy. It really is going to be a whirlwind year, but I'm excited. Nervous, anxious, and overwhelmed, for sure, but all in all, I'm excited. It's going to be great.

Senior year, here I go!

xo,

So Long, Sweet Summer

Well, I guess that's it. Three and a half blissful months of summer have come to an end, and I'm returning to the land of hipsters, coffee, bikes, and no sales tax in the morning. Mixed feelings, definitely, but mostly just sadness. I know I'll be back, and I know I have a lot to look forward to for this school year, my last year in college, but I'm aching for summer to just magically restart itself when I wake up in the morning, and for these past months to have all just been an amazing dream. 

Wishful thinking, I'm aware. 

So long, sweet summer. I'll see you again. Stay tuned for my senior year shenanigans! There will be many... 

xo (and a little bit of tears),

Five for Friday and Saturday Snapshots!

Where is the time going? I feel like it was only yesterday that I was packing up to leave the chilly Portland spring for the blissfully hot Hawaii summer I had in store. But here I am, less than 2 weeks away from returning to Portland for my last year of college. 

I repeat, where is the time going?! And why is it in such a rush?

Yay for linky parties!!! I really enjoy these linky parties because in the hustle and bustle of the week's activities, I forget to slow down and enjoy all that has been going on! These give me the opportunity (as sad as that may sound) to take a step back and be like, "oh yeah! That totally happened and it was really fun!" So without further ado...

ONE

I made my 17 year old, vegetable-intollerant brother eat broccoli. Approximately 2 cups of broccoli. How? By making broccoli cheese patties and a "cajun ketchup" to dip them in. Cheating? Perhaps. Did it work? He asked for more...

I also made a statement necklace! Yay crafts (and pink)!!

TWO

To celebrate the waning days of summer, KDog and I drove out to Keiki's beach on the North Shore, dove for shells, swam a bit in the chilly and crystal-clear water, and of course stopped for shave ice from Matsumoto's on the way home. The perfect summer day, in my book.

THREE

Look at me and my first legal drink! Yippee! My 21st birthday was on Tuesday, and I celebrated with my family with a nice beach morning and kayak with my brother, dinner at the Top of Waikiki restaurant, and a show in Waikiki just as the sun set over the westside of Oahu. 

I will definitely miss these Hawaiian sunsets in a few weeks.

FOUR

The incredibly kayak adventure began at Kailua beach, and ended at Flat Island, a bird sanctuary not too far out to sea. It was nice sibling bonding time with my brother, who has been paddling for the Waikiki Surf Club and for sport during the school year for the past few years. Needless to say he was far more skilled than I, but we had some good laughs, mostly him laughing at my wimpy upper body strength.  

On Flat Island, with the Mokulua in the background!

 

FIVE

Today, my brother starts his first last day of high school at Kamehameha as an amazing Senior. Although he's pretty twerpy at times, he means the world to me and I cannot imagine my life without him. He puts up with me, shares music with me, and makes me feel not so old and irrelevant. I love him to death, and I can't wait to see what life has in store for him.

11 days left in the beautiful Aloha State. Then it's back to school, teaching, and not getting enough sleep.

Senior year, I'm ready for you.

xo,

Monday Made It! Who Likes Pink?!

I start out each summer with soooo many DIY projects and crafts that I want to tackle. And then I look at my calendar and it's August and I go back to school in a few weeks.

Uhm, what?

So, just in time for Monday Made It, I put my foot down, put on my productive pants (I only have one pair, and they often get lost), and sat down in front of the TV to watch Shark Week and make myself a statement necklace that I've been meaning to since the beginning of summer. Oops.  Thanks to this awesome DIY tutorial from A Beautiful Mess, this craftivity took me under half an hour. Yay!

You will need...

8-12 pieces of parachute cord (ABM's tutorial said to make each piece 8 inches long, but I wanted the statement piece to be a little longer. I went with 10 inches.)
Fabric tape
A necklace chain
Clasps to close the necklace
Pliers
Scissors

Start by cutting the parachute cord pieces to the desired length. 

Lay out the pieces next to each other and tape them down to a flat surface.

Split the pieces into 3 sections, and braid the sections (like the above picture). Be careful to keep the parachute cord as flat and not twisted as you braid. 

Tape the ends of each side together with fabric tape.

Attach a necklace chain to each side of the parachute cord. You will need to attach the necklace clasp in the middle of the chain, also. 

Wrap more tape around the parachute cord and necklace chain to form a cone at each end.

Voila! Wear and be stylish. Happy Monday! Good luck to all of you returning to school!

xo,

Summer, Storms, and Snoozing

Some of you may have noticed my absence from blogging in the past week (or two...woops). I promise I'm not through with my shenanigans quite yet, I just feel like I've had absolutely nothing to write about since summer school ended (sob) and I don't want to bore you all with short and meaningless posts. I'll give a quick recap of the past few weeks:

Summer is quickly wrapping up, and now that it is officially August, I'm officially freaking out. There are 5 days until I turn 21 (party party party!) and 20 days until I go back to school for senior year! I'm beyond excited to return to student teaching, but I'm not at all ready to get out of summer mode and into school mode. Nope nope nope, not yet. BUT, I know that with school will come more blogging, and I like blogging. So many contradictions... 

Our first summer storm "hit" the islands on Monday night. Tropical Storm Flossie gained way too much hype for it's oh-so-intimidating name, and brought a little bit of rain and wind. Very minor, and absolutely no reason to worry, despite the frenzy that everyone seemed to experience (is it really necessary to buy that much water for light showers and minor gusts?).

I've been sleeping. A lot. Which is nice because I know that in 20 days I'll go back into perpetual zombie mode. Sleeping, going to the beach with friends, and more sleeping. I'm really not ready for summer to end, can you tell? 

Live up these last few days of summer! I know I will :)

xo,

Saturday (where is the time going) Snapshots

This week totally flew by. With actual wings. Honest. 
Flew. At jet speeds, quicker than I could blink my eyes, this week, this summer, and all it's marvelous (sometimes difficult) wonder flew with it. Sad face.

Oh, and I have exactly one month until I go back to school. Why.

I'm linking up with Miss Nelson once again for her fabulous Saturday Snapshots!

I am a glutton for Greek food...or ethnic foods in general. I found a small, family-owned Greek restaurant in a less-crowded area of town, and I can't get enough of it! The lamb and fish souvlaki's are amazing. 

This is what happens when students steal your phone...I probably had about 30 pictures of my teaching partner and I in various frozen poses of speaking, not to mention a few videos of my phone being passed from student to student. Note the completely unattractive shade of yellow that our summer uniform shirts were...gross. Oh, how I will miss my summer school students. 

Our morning TA group for 7/8 Movie Makers! We're quite the attractive bunch, if I do say so myself. We decided to get all dressed up on the last day (yesterday) for the Academy Awards, during which we showed the best movies from each group, and presented them with little trophies! It was so cute, and the kids loved seeing which movies won which awards.

Hammin' it up for the cameras, as per usual. I can't believe how quickly these past five weeks flew by. I'll definitely miss the students and my TA/teaching partners.

Of course, the last day of school ALWAYS calls for an ice cream party! All of the kumus quietly rushed our students through lunch and whisked them away to our classroom atrium, where we had set up an ice cream bar for them. They were so surprised and may have drifted off into a sugar coma for the rest of the afternoon (oops). They worked hard this summer, so we thought the definitely deserved the treat.

My two Hawaiian Immersion School students! I love them to pieces. At Hawaiian Immersion, they learn all of their subjects in the Hawaiian language, so their English skills are not up to par. We worked a lot this summer on strengthening their writing skills since their reading and comprehension skills are already amazing.  Since I can speak Hawaiian pretty well (but not as well as these two!!), we would converse daily in the Hawaiian language, and their fluency blew me away. I will miss them and our conversations dearly, and I can't wait to see how they blossom into the scholars I know they will become. 

Since yesterday was the final day of the PUEO Program, we had a culminating ceremony during which some of the scholars from each P-level would present a few things they learned during the summer. The program runs from grades 6-12 (P level 1-7), and each grade level has a variety of classes they take during the summer. For P2, the P-level I was teaching, their morning classes were Movie Makers and Marine Biology, and their afternoon classes were Math and English.  Our four P2 student speakers were very nervous the day of the ceremony, but they delivered their speeches without any problems at all. I was so proud of them, and I can't wait for the day when I can watch them graduate as P7 scholars. All of the tears!

Hope everyone is enjoying their Saturday! 

xo,

Monday Made It: Food Edition

I have been meaning to link up with Tara at 4th Grade Frolics and post this recipe for Monday Made It for oh, about 3 weeks now (oops). Better late than never!

The cultural diversity in Hawaii is reflected by both the population and the amazing ethnic foods, so I wanted to share one of my family's favorite recipes! This recipe is for a kalbi marinade, which can be used on chicken, beef, or even vegetables. Kalbi is a Korean dish that is very popular and super easy to make! I make this a lot for parties, and in advance of a busy week so I can freeze the leftovers and have ready-made meals, prefect for a girl on the go.

Ingredients:

4 cloves of garlic (or more, if you're a garlic lover like me!)

3 stalks of green onion (more or less to your liking)

1 1/2 cups of soy sauce

1/4 cup brown sugar (white sugar also works, but I like the flavor that brown sugar gives to the marinade)

3 tablespoons vegetable oil

1/4 cup sesame oil

2 tablespoons toasted sesame seeds

4 pounds of your preferred meat/vegetables

Salt and pepper to taste (the marinade has enough salt as is, so I usually just add a 1/4 teaspoon of pepper if anything)

   

   

Marinade/Prep:

In a food processor, chop up the cloves of garlic. You could use a knife or a garlic press, but I think that you keep more of the garlic flavor by using the processor. Finely chop the green onion, and combine your garlic and green onion in a bowl. Add in the remaining marinade ingredients and mix thoroughly. Put your meat/vegetables in a container/tupperware and pour the marinade over the meat/vegetables until covered evenly. Put the container of marinating food into the refrigerator for a minimum of 4 hours. ** I leave the meat in the fridge overnight to soak up more flavor!

   

Cooking:

Heat grill to medium-high (medium if you're cooking vegetables since they will take a shorter amount of time to cook). Take your meat/veggies out of the marinade and drain the excess marinade. If you want, you can save the marinade to coat the meat while you're grilling it. Grill meat until it is lightly charred and tender and cooked to your desired level of "doneness". 

Serve with hot rice and your choice of korean vegetables (my favorites are cucumber kim chee and bean sprouts) and enjoy!

xo,