Linky Parties For All!

I love a good link-up, and after stumbling across this one from Mrs. Latoya Reed over at Flying into First, I knew I had to join in on the fun!

So here's how it works: the graphic below is a Tic Tac Toe board with different categories. You can post about any 3 categories, but they have to make Tic Tac Toe. For example, you can write about any 3 topics that go vertical, 3 topics that go horizontal, or 3 topics that go diagonal. Got it? Great! I will be doing the diagonal that includes college, favorite school memory, and hobbies!

I went to _____ college and a favorite memory...

Well I am going into my senior year at the University of Portland, and I cannot believe how fast time has flown by! I could've sworn that only yesterday, I was moving into my teeny tiny freshman dorm room and meeting my soul sister who just happened to be my roommate! This would begin the road to my favorite memory: meeting my best friends. These 4 ladies have seen all sides of me, and we've kept our friendship strong since the beginning of college, through study abroad, living in different states during the summers, and our busy lives during the school year. Thankfully, we had the opportunity to all live together this past year, and our landlord is letting us keep the house for our senior year as well! There are more memories to be made, no doubt about it. 

Courtney, Susie, Michelle, Me, and Lauren, boating on the Willamette last summer.

My favorite school memory as a kid...

Oh man oh man, this HAS to be in eighth grade. I had a really awesome social studies teacher, his name was Mr. Parker, and he had the world map cut up by continent and placed around different parts of his class (think walls, windows, ceilings, corners...). Before school started, he would let us come into his class and play continent racquetball with Nerf balls and our composition books, and different continents would have different point values. We would play boys versus girls, and at the end of the week, the team with the most points got to go first at lunch. It was AWESOME. He made me realize that teachers could make school really fun, and that this relationship with students could encourage them to learn. Although middle school had a lot of awkward moments (looking at my pictures from back then is painful), there were also a lot of fun times.

Hobbies...

Cooking, crafting, organizing (yes, it is a hobby), going swimming and working out, and DANCE! I've been dancing since I was 4 years old, and I now dance on my college dance team. It's such a nice break from doing school work and dealing with other life stresses, but it definitely takes up a lot of time. I can't believe this is going to be my last season on the team, but being one of the 3 team captains is going to be so much fun! 

'12-'13 University of Portland Pilots Dance Team

Besides dance, I am absolutely obsessed with crafts, any type of DIY, repurposing...anything like that. I've only gotten two of my summer crafts done so far (the memo/cork board and my flower letter), but I'm determined to keep going right up until the moment I board the plane to head back to school in August!

Hope you all had a wonderful weekend!

xo,

I Feel Like a The Fray Song

You know, the one that goes "I'm in over my head..."? Yes. That would be me right now, two weeks ago, and I'm sure two weeks from now. But I like being busy! It keeps me on my toes and away from the s-n-a-c-k-s and TV...feel me?

Since Five for Friday is going on a break for summer (because summer is for breaks, of course!) I'm linking up this fabulous weekend with Miss Nelson over at Run! Miss Nelson's Got The Camera! Which I'm sure is what my summer school kiddos (who am I kidding, EVERYONE) feels like whenever I whip my camera out. Oops. 

Here we go!

Last weekend, my brother made me scale the side of a mountain. Without warning me. He called it a "little hike". Right.

My fearless brother!

Thanks to HoJo's Teaching Adventures, I came up with Friday's lesson plan for my seventh graders with ease: grammar games! They really enjoyed it and they were so competitive!

We love our nouns...especially our "fishs" (fishes). The kids got a good laugh out of that one.

A quick after-work hike up to Manoa Falls! Some scenes from Jurrasic Park and The Hunger Games were filmed here!

Ta da! The picture doesn't do the waterfall any justice, but I didn't want to bring my DSLR on the hike...so much mud!  The water was so cold and the perfect treat after a humid and muddy uphill hike.

Muddy shoes from the hike to the waterfall...and it only got worse after that! But in my hiker's opinion, the more mud, the better ;) 

Enjoy the rest of your Sunday! 

xo,

The Good, The Bad, and The Deficient

I don't like to complain: it doesn't make me feel good, it doesn't make others feel good, and it's generally unproductive. But it's Tuesday, and I have a few things on my mind. Like how I wish I could wear cute clothes to work instead of these horrible tshirts and "dress code" pants. I feel like an inmate. 

Anyway...

The Good
We are halfway through week two of summer school and I have some voracious readers in class! That's awesome. Their enthusiasm for learning, despite the perfect beach weather outside, is amazing. Today we did a lesson about tone and did a variety of activities about finding tone words in The Giver, in song lyrics, determining if the tone of a word was positive/negative/neutral, describing the tone of pictures, classical music pieces, etc, and even acting out how they would say "what are you doing" in different tones (sarcastic, curious, concerned...sarcastic was the favorite tone).  One of my students wrote "I love Kumu Pili" on the board, and at the end of class, one of my extremely witty, but quiet, students changed the word "love" to make a joke about our tone lesson today. My teaching partner and I got a good laugh out of it.

"I feel neutral about Kumu Pili"

The Bad
I'm feeling extremely overwhelmed by the amount of work we need to accomplish in five weeks: reading an entire book AND getting through the synthesis of the book as well as vocabulary and a culminating project, literary terms, grammar, and boosting the students' writing abilities. Besides that, I'm trying to get my ducks in a row to apply for grad school and choreograph a few dances before going back to school so I don't have to worry so much about schoolwork and dance team.

That little duck that can't climb the curb? That's me.

The Deficient
Sadly, some of my students are not so quick to pick up their reading. In one-on-one conversations, I've learned that some of them usually get left behind by their teachers during the regular school year because they can't keep up with what the rest of the class is doing. In our summer school class, they won't ask questions or speak up when things are too difficult, because if their regular school year teachers don't listen, why should their summer school teachers be any different, right? WRONG. It breaks my heart to see some of my students experiencing such a deficit in their reading and writing skills in comparison to some of their classmates (who are nowhere near to grade level writing/reading either...) and I am beginning to get discouraged. So tomorrow, I think West (my teaching partner) and I are going to have a day of catching up with the students, maybe have them make an events timeline, with post-its on the whiteboard, of what has happened in the book so far, and review the tone lesson from today. I just want to see these kids succeed so badly; they are not deficient, the education system is. There's no room for letting any one of them slip through the cracks. 

Tomorrow will be more positive. I'm optimistic (vocab word, woo hoo!)

xo,

Friday (Finally!)

LONGEST WEEK OF MY LIFE!!! Here's my crazy Five for Friday link-up with Doodle Bugs Teaching.  

Summer School began on Monday, bright and early, with the 7/8 split Movie Makers class in the morning, and English in the afternoon with my adorably evil PUEO Program students.  In the Movie Makers class, the students were given the assignment of making a movie trailer in the genre of their choice. Naturally, all of the movies involved murder, and over half also involved some zombie or other monster of choice. 

Kids + cameras + wigs = so many laughs. On Wednesday, we started to get into The Giver in our afternoon classes! The kids LOVE the book, even though they've only read a few chapters so far. We played freeze vocabulary and a few other games to help them shed the whole "I don't want to be in school during summer" attitude. I think it worked!

 On Thursday, we started the I Ku Wa (stand and deliver) show and tell portion of the afternoon, having all of the "kumu" (teachers) perform first to give the students a few good examples.  Having 22 7th graders sit still and listen so attentively was an amazing sight to behold! They absolutely loved listening to their teachers talk about something that they are passionate about, whether it be their college experiences, an extracurricular activity, or places they've traveled to.  I know these next few weeks are going to fly by.

After having a week of "fun learning" as our kids have begun to call it, they had to sit down and take a 40-minute test. They weren't too thrilled, but we made up for it on Friday by giving them cookies and playing on the playground for half of the class period after discussing their test, homework, and vocabulary.  They earned it, and it is summer after all! I'm so excited to continue teaching these lovely students for the rest of the 5 weeks. Even though my college education has prepared me for some of the events I've encountered with these rascals in this week alone, I know that my students will be the best teachers of what teaching in a real classroom is going to be like.  

Props to middle school teachers; if these kids are crazy during the summer, I can't imagine how they are during the regular school year.

xo,

Slacking

I promise, I did NOT forget about my very empty blog (apologies, apologies, apologies). I'll post a Five for Friday tomorrow, but I feel like I have some explaining to do for my undeniable slacking in blogging recently...

• I am nearing the end of my FIRST WEEK OF TEACHING. Granted, it's only for 4 hours a day, and only 2 groups of 11 students, but STILL! I teach english to 22 at-risk seventh grade students in an afternoon program, and I'm amazed that I'm still standing. More tomorrow.
• I've literally spent every night of this week planning the following day's lesson, looking over vocab words, and wondering how on earth I'm going to get the attention of my rowdy students for the next month. We're big fans of activities and we hate tests (duh).
• I am losing my mind. I thought I misplaced my planner and it was right smack dab on my desk. I obviously need more sleep.
• I'm tired. Is this how I'll always feel, every night, for the rest of my life as a teacher? Maybe I need to use my time more wisely. I'm trying to sleep enough, hang out with my friends after work, and go to dance classes like I did when I was just a TA, but now that I'm actually in charge of teaching lessons, maybe I need to cut back on life a little bit. 

TGIF. Honestly, this has been the longest week of my life, but it's worth it. The students LOVE The Giver, so that's one less thing to worry about. Now to direct all of that energy...

xo (and lots of zzz), 

Holy Halfway Through June

I think my title says it all. I mean, are we really halfway through June? ALREADY?! Where is the time going? Where is my mind?! 

Today we began lesson prep for our summer school lessons. The way this works is with one lead teacher who oversees 8 of us student teachers, who are working in pairs with 6th and 7th graders (so four pairs total, 2 pairs per grade level) to teach two different books: 6th graders have 21 Balloons, and 7th graders have The Giver. For never having read the book before, I breezed through that baby in a day. I just could not put it down! So all of this lesson prep and thinking about the culminating project got me thinking that it is currently June and I should probably jump on my "Currently..." list for this month, courtesy of one of my favorite bloggers, Farley, over at Oh' Boy 4th Grade. She is just so darn spunky and her posts are always fun to read. Here's my June Currently list...

Currently....

I'm listening to Jack Johnson's new hit "I Got You." I love Jack (Hawaii natives, woop woop!) and his music is so soothing. This tune is perfect for relaxing at the beach, eating dinner on the lanai (porch, for those of you unfamiliar with Hawaii lingo) at sunset, or taking a nap in a hammock under the palm trees. Ah, summer. If only summer could consist solely of relaxing beach naps and meals. 

I'm loving my beach days and early morning hikes! Last week, I hiked up the Lanikai Pillbox Trail and watched the sunrise. Although I had to wake up at 4 am, the view was worth it.

The Mokulua as seen from the first bunker on the Lanikai Pillbox Hike

I'm thinking that I am SO out of my element with teaching 7th grade this summer! I've only actually taught/assisted with grades from preschool to third, so I'm a little nervous about having to teach "big kids." They're going to be taller than me! I have to breathe. It'll all work out, right? Right.

I'm wanting more time and motivation to exercise. I really want to lose weight this summer so that I feel better about myself, but I'm finding it hard to make time to get in shape. Any advice? Tips? Words of wisdom? I'm all ears.

I'm needing more prep time for all of these lessons! 5 weeks, 50 minute periods, 23 chapters. Can do. In 2 days? Mmmm yes. It will get done. It must! Our team has some pretty good ideas so far, and in all honesty, we're aiming for our high-risk kids to develop a love for writing and school. If we can accomplish that, then our summer session will be successful.

Last but not least, my 3 vacation essentials are nail polish, my phone, and sunglasses. The nail polish I'm currently obsessing with is Essie's Penny Talk, shown below. 

I'm obsessed with the rose gold jewelry trend going on, and hey, who said it just had to stick to hardware? Penny Talk is like a rose gold chain, except for your fingers! It's the perfect shine and color for summer. My second vacation essential, my phone, is more like my life essential. I mean, Instagram, Facebook, email, texting...I can't leave home without my precious phone. My third but probably most important vacation essential is my tortoise shell print sunglasses I got from Target that was the feature of my Target Accessories link-up post. My eyes are extremely sensitive, and I have horrible vision as the result of way too many hours reading in the dark (yeah yeah, you were right, dad). My sunglasses provide not only protection, but also a little extra style for my comfort-first summer outfits. 

Stay tuned for more updates from seventh grade (oh goodness gracious). Students come on Friday!!!!!!!! 

Happy Wednesday! Have a wonderful rest of the week!

xo,

My e.l.f. Addiction

They're here, they're here, they're finally here!!! Last week, e.l.f. Cosmetics had a 50% off sale on their Best Sellers, so naturally I spent an easy $20. Bad for my wallet, but very good for my face. My package of 7 goodies (plus two extras!) arrived yesterday and I could not WAIT to try them out and review them for you! So here we go!

Please excuse the horrible lighting and the fading flower-print comforter; my camera is going through a midlife crisis and my bed was the only clean surface this morning (oops). So we have, looking at the second picture (top to bottom, left to right), the 32 piece elf studio eyeshadow palette in Natural, 2 zit eraser pens, a jumbo lip gloss stick in Pink Umbrellas and another one in Movie Star, a matte lip color pencil in Tea Rose, a waterproof eyeliner pen in Plum, and then the two goodies that I didn't order but magically appeared in my box (thanks, elf!), a pressed mineral eyeshadow in Beauty Queen and an eyebrow treat & tame duo in Dark. To prevent an overly long and wordy post, I'll do a quick summary of Needs and Nots:

Need

• Eyeshadow palette and pressed mineral eyeshadow, especially if you like natural eye colors (very smooth application, very little fallout, LOTS of colors to choose from that are pretty accurate Urban Decay Naked palette dupes!)
• Jumbo lip gloss sticks (color isn't too intense, very smooth application that doesn't have any weird smell or taste, isn't sticky like lip gloss, more like a sheer lip balm-y lip stick. Pink Umbrellas is a perfect natural pink color.)
• Zit eraser (had a little one forming this morning, swiped the eraser over it twice before I went out tonight at 5, and it was basically gone!)
• Eyebrow treat and tame (if your eyebrows are a little thin but you don't want to use a pencil to color them in, this is perfect)

Not

• Matte lip pencil (I was really disappointed because it wasn't what I expected, but this product is true to it's name. The color is flat, matte, lacking in any and all shine. Tea Rose made my lips look a little purple/pink, like if I was an 80's Barbie...not really my look). 

I have yet to try the waterproof eyeliner pencil, but I've only read good reviews about it! I love the affordability and color payoff of elf Cosmetics, and I can't wait to see what other products they create! 

Have a great week!

xo,

Five for Friday!! (and more guinea pigs)

HOORAY FOR FRIDAY. I thought this day would never come. It's been a long past two days of summer training/orientation and we haven't even started curriculum planning yet (oh boy). Anyways, I'm linking up this Friday with Doodle Bugs Teaching's Five for Friday linky for the first time! I think it'll be fun to reflect back at my week, since I usually can't even remember what I had for breakfast at the end of the day. Here we go!

Monday

Presenting, her royal highness, Hazel the guinea pig! This baby bundle of joy was given to my friend and I to take care for a few days while her real owner was on a trip. Needless to say, this little thing was so adorable, and her cute looks got the best of us. She ran around all over my living room and decided that a good place to hide would be underneath my couch...so we had to corner, capture, and re-cage the tiny beast. Trust me, guinea pigs can be very quick and sneaky. 

Tuesday

I love hiking, and the views in Hawaii are gorgeous. So I woke up at 4 am to go hiking up one of the famous sunrise-viewing places on the island: Pillbox Hike in Kailua, Hawaii. It's roughly a mile hike, a little more, that is steep and rocky in some places. To put it simply, you kinda have to scale a mountain to arrive at abandoned, graffitied military bunkers, but I promise that the view is worth it. The picture above was taken around 5 am from the top of the first bunker, overlooking Lanikai and the Mokulua. 

At 5:48 am, right on cue, the sun began to peek out of the clouds. Although the hike up to the bunkers was pretty much done in the dark with the aid of flashlights, and took a little under an hour to complete, the hike back down took about 20 minutes, leaving more than enough time to get to Cinnamon's Restaurant in Kailua before the morning crowd.

Wednesday

Crafts, crafts, and more crafts!! I've wanted to make a letter for a while, but didn't know quite what I wanted to put on it. Jewels? Flowers? Photos? I opted for an array of purple and violet roses I picked up from the craft store, and after a few hours of gluing flower buds onto the wooden letter, my letter was finished! It is now resting nicely in my room alongside the note/cork board I made earlier!

Thursday

Ladies and gentlemen, we have our final two colleges.  On Thursday, my brother came back from his college trip with my parents, and proudly announced that he narrowed down his colleges to Chapman and Colorado State...so he can either be a Panther or a Ram. I told him that for fashion purposes, I look best in red and white, but he looks best in green and yellow. Only time (and scholarships) will tell which school he chooses, but I'm excited for him nonetheless. Yay for college!!!

Friday

And here begins the lesson planning. Along with 3 other teammates, I get to plan and teach 7th grade English lessons for this summer. I've never read this book, but I've heard very good things about it, so I'm pretty excited to start! We start curriculum planning next week (phew), so I'm going to be doing a lot of reading and thinking in these next few days!

Have a wonderful weekend!

xo,

e.l.f. and a Baby Guinea Pig

This will possibly be the shortest blog post to date, but don't worry, I will definitely have more to talk about at the end of this week!

1) e.l.f. Cosmetics is having a 50% off sale of their Best Sellers items, which means everyone should go and spend at least $20 on their site PRONTO. I've ordered 2 jumbo lip gloss sticks, a matte lip pencil, a pro mini eyeshadow palette, and 2 zit erasers. I can't wait to receive everything and review the products (I'll also review the products I received from my last late-night e.l.f. splurge!

2) Raising a baby animal is similar to raising a baby...kind of. I'm babysitting my friend's baby guinea pig for a few days while she's on a trip, and although she's cute, she also eats, poops, and pees like no tomorrow. Oh and she also makes the squeakiest noises at top volume in the dead of night. Joy. However, she's so darned cute and is content to sit on me and watch Law and Order SVU and Teen Wolf episodes while I go online shopping (she seems to like Pinterest a lot).

3) My summer shenanigans have somewhat subsided for the time being; I start orientation for the summer teaching job on Thursday and I can't wait for this new experience.

Pictures and more to come later in the week!

xo,

DIY Paint Chip Memo/Cork Board

I have a habit of collecting colorful things that I think are pretty, even if they have no current use. Like paint chips. So naturally, I looked for a DIY project for my paintchip collection, and Pinterest did not disappoint. I stumbled upon Shannon's DIY Paint Chip Memo Board over at Burlap & Lace and just fell in love! I combined that with a corkboard idea that one of my housemates created during the school year, and voila! The paint chip memo/corkboard was born. I'm forever making to-do lists, so I thought this was absolutely perfect! 

Materials:

Frame with plexiglass, not actual glass

Paint chips

Tape

Corks

Hot glue

Poster board

Step 1: Gather enough corks to fill half of the frame.  I used a 16x20 frame and needed 90 full corks to cover a 16x10 space. I only wanted to use half of the cork instead of a full cork for the cork board, so I got 45 corks, soaked them in hot water for 10 minutes, cut them in half (the hot water soak makes them less crumbly), and came up with 90 cork halves!

Step 2: Cut the poster board to fit your frame and measure the halfway mark to make the memo and cork board.

Step 3: Arrange your paint chips to create your memo spaces and tape or glue onto the poster board.

Step 4: On the plexiglass, glue the corks down to create your cork board area. I learned this the hard way: the "glass" part of the frame CANNOT be actual glass, because nothing will make the cork adhere to the glass. Plexiglass, however, gets along well with hot glue, which will make your cork board-creating process a lot smoother. 

Step 5: Admire your handiwork!! 

A DIY project like this wouldn't be complete without a linkup! So this little piece of work is my contribution to Super Handmade Sunday hosted by Sarah at A Cat-Like Curiosity and boy oh boy do I plan to keep adding to this linky as often as I can! I love DIY projects and really do need to get started on tackling all of my Pinterest plans. Thank goodness for summer.

I get to adopt my friend's guinea pig Hazel for the next few days as she goes to Alaska, so be prepared for lots of little animal lovin'!!

xo,