I love it, I love it not...

Random thoughts from the McIntyre house:
Things we love:

• Scott is loving his new job with Fast-Trac Freight Services (I think that's the right name).
• Scott is loving the fact that his algebra class at Metro Community College is not the bane of his exsistence.
• Scott is loving the fact that he has sweet-talked his wife into typing his school papers for him. I've only done two and I'm in no way promising that I'll type all of them, but how can I resist those eyes? :) So he dictates, I type. It's a good agreement.
• Jane is loving (well, maybe "love" is a strong word, but it's going well) her student teaching.
• Jane is loving that her classes, according to her cooperating teacher, are good ones.
• Jane is loving having to read fun books for a change...gotta know what I'm teaching the juniors and seniors!

Things we do not love:

• Scott does not love cutting out small pieces of paper for silly art projects for school.
• Scott does not love getting up on cold dark mornings.
• Scott does not love having to fight with his wife for the bedcovers...I'm a bit of a cover hog when I'm sleeping apparently...opps!
• Scott does not love passion fruit yogart...who knew there were flavors he didn't like?
• Jane does not love spinning (cycling) class at the gym. I go because it's good for me (and I promised a friend I would), but it's a LONG 60 minutes.
• Jane does not love 17 year olds with attitudes.
• Jane does not love adjusting to leaving the house at 7 am every morning.

Gotcha!

This morning I caught two students cheating. No, not in class, but sitting at my computer, in my robe, at 6 am. For their final project, the seniors had to do a book report. They had almost three weeks to read and write the report (which was not complicated), and they could pick any book they wanted. Still, though, a couple of students' reports sounded just a bit too good to be true. So, using what could be one of the best innovations of the 20th (21st? I'm not sure when it started), I used a simple Google search to find the websites that the students copied their reports and/or summaries from.

Seriously, do students think teachers are that ignorant? It literally took me 5 minutes to the plaguarized work. This first week is definately opening my eyes to education today. It's going to be an interesting ride! :)

The big question of the day, though, is this: is it sick that I feel a sense of accomplishment in catching them? Like it was a game that I won? Only a teacher....

And so it begins...

Day two of student teaching is complete. I'm slowly getting use to being called "Mrs. McIntyre." I'm getting to use to the strange clothes high school kids wear to school (the best thus far this week: a t-shirt on one young man that read "I (heart) hot moms"...what!?!?!), and the strange things they say. I'm getting use to walking around with lanyard and nametag with keys jingling down. I'm getting use to unlocking the "women's staff" bathroom (trust me, much better than using the students' bathrooms).

So far I've basically camped at a make-shift desk in the back of the room and listened to what seems like an endless amount of book reports. The new semester doesn't start until next week, so the classes I'm in now are not the classes I'll be teaching, if that makes sense.

The other teachers in the department are over-all great. There is one woman who seems to want to be a bit of a "bubble burster" for the new kid, but I am determined not to let her get me down (Scott gives great pep talks in regards to this subject)!

So that's how it begins...I'm sure the semester will be full of entertaining stories and posts.

A Monumentous Event

Yesterday, while traveling west on L Street somewhere between 50th and 72nd street, a historical event occurred: "Cindy," my trusty 2001 Honda Civic, turned over to 100,000 miles. It's been almost 7 years to the date that I drove my brand new little car off the lot...[moment of silence]...ah, where do the years go? Here's to hoping that she'll be around for 100,000 more.

Things You Should Not Do

This week I have discovered several things that one should not do:

1. Do not weigh yourself naked on the scale in the locker room at the gym. I want to make very clear the fact that I, myself, am not guilty of this offense, but twice this week I rounded the corner into the locker room and came face-to-face with an older, slightly overweight woman weighing herself NAKED on the scale in the locker room. It wouldn't be so bad if the scale was in the far corner or something, but it's right around the corner as you enter the locker room, so you don't realize that people are there until you are about 2 feet away from them, which is a bit akward when they don't have any clothes on. My thought is would a t-shirt and shorts really weigh that much extra?
2. Do not attend a workout class two days in a row when the last time muscles really were worked out was pre-wedding (ie. nine months ago). I hurt all over today. It's a good hurt, mind you, but a hurt nonetheless.
3. Do not buy dinner at QT (yes, the gas station), especially anything that comes off of those warming machines with rollers. Scott and I headed to Minneapolis late last night, so we stopped at QT on the way out and just bought snacks there. I had some very medicore stuffed breadsticks, and he had these little taquito things that were not as good as last time he ate them...plus he spilled the dipping sauce on his sweatshirt in the car. As you can imagine, it drove him crazy to have to drive five hours wearing a sweatshirt that he knew has a spot on it. I love my crazy clean husband :)

There you have it. Important life lessons from Team McIntyre :)

Word of the Year

A friend posed an interesting question via email last week: if I were to sum up the last year in one word, what would it be? Without a doubt last year's word would have been change. Going back to school, getting married, going part-time at work, having Scott's Air Force committment end, having him go back to school and get a new job...lots of change (good!) in our lives last year.

Which brings me to the "word of the year" for this year: trust. By trust, I mean trusting God with the future. I must admit to having a hard time with this one. My dear husband, he's so great about trusting God and reminding me to trust as well. We balance each other nicely in that way, eh? I need to trust God with my student teaching (yikes! what if the high school kids think I'm a nerd?) I need to trust God with my future job (please someone want to hire me for next year!) I need to trust God with Scott's future (let's just say I worry enough for the both of us :)

This list could go on. Bottom line, I'm learning to trust. Ask me how I'm doing on this. Hold me to it. Help me make this the year of trust.