Friday, February 4, 2011

a slow week ending with el ed adventures!

I am not going to lie, this week has gone by very slowly. I got ahead on homework last weekend, which left me feeling a bit bored this week (weird I know). I keep telling myself to enjoy it, because in the blink of an eye I will be craving 'boredom'. It was a slower week compared to this coming week, but I used that to try and work on next week's stuff, so I was not overwhelmed with it all next week. Tonight is open dorms (what they say is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity with strict guidelines) which will probably find me in another girl's room celebrating a mutual friend's birthday and playing games. Tomorrow I am hoping to catch up on some very very needed sleep, and get a bit of homework done. I work tomorrow afternoon for Alpine's winter camp. I am not sure how much time I will for homework, but that isn't necessarily a bad thing, is it?

Wednesday night, my church started a new thing... catered fellowship dinner. Wednesday nights are hard for most families to get home from work to feed their children to get everyone to church. The leadership has also been feeling like our church has been lacking fellowship, so they decided, in trying to resolve both issues, to have dinner provided at church on Wednesday nights. This week, it came from the Steak Escape! You order what you want (from a small menu) on Sunday, and (at least this past week) your order form is stapled to a bag with your dinner. This past week it seemed to be a huge success. It was fun watching everyone fellowship with each other and laugh! I love the fact that I am a part of this body of believers--I love them so much! I love the fact that I feel like I belong, and I am one of them. I love that I am looked at as an adult. It was so amazing...I was walking over to the food table to get one of the little girls I was sitting next to some napkins, and one of my girls from 2s-5s (new as of about 6 weeks ago) said to her parents "that's my teacher!!!" as she gave me a bear hug saying, "Hi Miss Rebekah". I love being a teacher, I love being loved by those dear children, and I love the energy they create in me. Teaching and children though are not always a bed of roses.

Sometimes instead of creating energy, they zap it right out of me. The fellowship dinner was a huge success, but I think it had some connections to my 2s-5s behavior, haha. They were WILD! It was good though, because I was able to discuss it with my helper (went to school for el ed and used to teach) some tricks to hopefully better their behavior when acting the way they were on Wednesday. They are still doing SO well with their Scripture memory and make me so proud of them.

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WARNING: I had a great adventure today, but be forewarned...I included several details.

Today, I had an exciting (and scary at times) adventure with two other el ed students for one of our art observations. Our driver had received directions from our prof, printed from mapquest. The directions were so weird. They took us on little (what I call) 'bubbles' off the main route, only to bring us back on the same exact road we were just on. We laughed pretty hard about those, especially since we missed our turn for one of those 'bubbles'. We tried hard to follow our directions to a "T", only to find ourselves on a sketchy road with 'residential' on one side, and a huge hill on the other, with a long stair case going up it. We could see a sign, but could only make out something something something Home of the something Hawks (I still don't know what sign says). We giggled a little bit, because the directions hadn't really taken us anywhere. We looked up on the hill and saw what looked like a gymnasium, so we took a few roads that would logically lead us to this building.

On our way up the hill we saw buses, which to us, was a very good sign. We then saw a playground, another good sign. The bad sign though, there was only the one gym looking building, a log cabin, one car, and no signs besides what looked like the back entrance that said something about head start. We decided that wasn't the place so drove back down the hill, saw a woman in her yard with several dogs, and asked where the particular elementary school was. Her answer didn't make much sense, so we decided to head up to what we originally thought was the school, and see if we could ask someone there. (Mind you, we left about 10-15 minutes earlier then we needed to, and we are in the same town the school is in.)

We drive in to this odd looking 'school' that we figure is a preschool, only to find like 4 cars total in the parking lot. It was weird, but we needed directions. Our driver got out of the car and went to the main entrance only to find lights off, cameras, and everything locked. She walked around the building to a back door. While she was in the parking lot of this preschool, this scary looking dog was following her. My friend and I are in the car, halfway laughing, and halfway worried for the safety of our friend walking around this odd building, with what looks to be a stray dog following her. She had better luck at the back door, when a woman awkwardly opened the door and gave her directions.

Remember that log cabin I told you about?!?! Sketchiest log cabin I have ever seen. It was really big, and the 'windows' were all boarded up. It was not cute at all like you think of when you think of log cabins. Next to the log cabin were broken playground parts. All in all, I don't know what happens there, but I wouldn't be surprised if nothing good happens. It was a very scary situation for the three of us ladies, a sketchy part of town, and we were glad to lock the doors, and get back on the road.

We went down the road a few miles, after passing several trailer parks, abandoned homes, and even a "for sale" school building (we had wondered if the school we were going to had actually been sold, and we had been led to a 'dead end'). It is not the safest feeling place I have ever been, but we were already late, and we were determined to find this school! Praise the Lord, we saw a big building in the distance, and the closer we got, we could see the letters to the school name we were supposed to be at. What a relief it was! We pulled in to the parking lot only to find they have absolutely no pattern to parking, giggled a little more as we quickly headed to the front door to find our art classroom. To make matters all the more exciting....

The secretary let us in and we introduced ourselves. "We are ABC students here to observe the art class" She looked at us, and replied "I don't think you are at the right place, we don't have an art class" You have got to be kidding me. I am positive we are at the right school, but what is going on? She gave the name of the school, to which we verified, we were at the right place. We ended up giving her the name of the teacher we were to be observing, and she said "oh yeah, she works here! Let me page her". She sent a sweet student down to show us the way to the classroom (side note: public schools are set up SO weird. they are literally a maze).

The positive part to the story is that we made it to the classroom only ten minutes late, and the lesson was very enjoyable. The teacher did a great job, had awesome control of her classroom, and was very positive. I later learned she is an ABC grad!

We got back out in the car, and each gave a sigh of relief! Getting back should be easy, right? Ha! Not quite! We made it most of the way fine, except we missed one of our roads, and instead were led on to the highway leading us away from where we were needing to go. I was able to recognize where we were and get us back on a straight shot back to school (college). But God still had more in store for us...only one lane open! We got stuck in a bunch of traffic just about the entire way back to school, but we were all happy to see the "Appalachian Bible College" sign. Our trip that was only supposed to take 1-1.25 hours took us 2.25 hours! It was a fun adventure, and I am thankful we were all able to laugh about the situation and make the best of it. Check back in with me next week to see if I am able to make it back there!

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