Happy, Happy Thoughts

YAY!!! I finished my paper today! I am so excited. After I finished, I felt like jumping up and down. I felt better about it than any other review of literature I've ever written, and I had FUN writing it. That has never happened before. It's a beautiful day!!!

Grading, Yes I Am

So now I'm grading and writing. I'm excited because I feel that my paper is taking shape and I feel that I have many things to say in it. Now I'm working on grading my students' projects so I can return them to them on Wednesday. I'm almost done! WOW! I really am impressed with my students this semester. It seems that they have done a lot of extra things that students in other semesters haven't. It has really been very impressive!

Paper, Paper, Paper

I haven't posted anything in awhile. I've been working really hard on my paper and projects and grading, but I still have lots to do on all of them, so I guess I need to get to working more!

Last night was so great! We went on the Polar Express train ride with Lori and Jordan, Clint, Megan and boys, and Vibeke's family. It was so neat! What a fun (and probably expensive) hobby to have! They had it set up really nicely and we had such a fun time. Then we went back to Lori and Jordan's for hot cocoa and a little visiting. It really was a good night!

Twinkies!!!

We were trying to be like Nuni and Sofi, except it wasn't planned. We both went to walk in the indoor track and noticed we both had on khaki pants and green shirts. Aren't we funny?
So ladies, when you come, be sure to bring your khakis and green so we can all be the same. ;) ;)

Fun things in Baltimore

While I was in Baltimore, I got to do and see some fun things. First, I got to go to the Cheesecake Factory. Mmmm... was my key lime cheesecake good. I had to get it to go though because I was too full to eat at the restaurant.

The next morning, we decided to tour the USS Constellation in Baltimore's Inner Harbor. It is one of the last sail warships the Navy built.
It is really quite a fascinating ship.



Staying in Baltimore was great! I don't think I've ever slept so well in a hotel. Wow! I slept hard every night and the bed was super comfortable. It must have been all of the pillows.



And then I had to come home. It was a fun trip. Here I am in the Baltimore Washington International (BWI) Airport.

The End.

Baltimore

I finally have been able to get onto the internet. Baltimore has been great. It is a beautiful old city! It has been somewhat cold here, but it is November. Our presentation went really well and we had some good attendees. I am feeling a lot better and have taken several opportunities to take naps! ;) It has felt really good. I'll post some pictures of what I'm doing here when I get back. I need to get over to the opening session, so I'll write more later. Love you all!

Pictures

Clint told me I didn't post enough pictures, so here's one of the Disneyland Magical Castle, Mickey Mouse, and the hotel I stayed at while I was in Anaheim - It was the Quality Inn Maingate - Just about 3/4 mile from Disneyland.

Horray for Friday!

It's Friday!!! I can't believe how quickly this week went! So about Saturday while I was at AECT, I lost my voice. It was pretty much gone on Sunday too. I did go to Sacrament Meeting, but I found someone who could sub for my primary class. I basically slept all day. Monday was interesting because, although I had a little more voice, I still didn't have very much. So my portion of class was very short and my students talked in groups about their projects. Monday afternoon, I just slept too. Tuesday, I decided I'd go to the doctor, and he said that I had lanryngeal tracheitis or something to that effect. He gave me some cough medicine with codeine (that wakes me up) and some expectorant drug that opened up my lungs really well. So I've been coughing and spitting and being a real lady as I've worked to get over the craziness. I am feeling a lot better today than I have all week.

This weekend I'm getting a presentation ready to present in Baltimore. I'll be going there on Tuesday. I am also going to grade my students' midterms that they did while I was gone last week. Then I'll work on creating a bibliography for a paper I need to write before the end of the semester. Then I hope I'll have time to take a nap...I guess I'd better get busy. Life is good!

Last week was too crazy...

I didn't think I would be so busy last week, but I had lots of meetings and lots of things to do. The weekend was busy too. Now I'm on my way to California. I hadn't heard about the fires there until I arrived at the airport in Salt Lake. I'm sitting in Phoenix now waiting for my next flight. I am hoping that I'll be able to make it there okay. I am going to a conference at the Hyatt in Orange County - They say it's really close to Disneyland. So won't that be fun! The conference I"m going to is the Association of Education Communication and Technology. I haven't been to a conference for IP&T before, so it might be really interesting. I think this one will have lots of techies (sp?). It'll be good. It's nice to have a few minutes to sit for a little bit.

If I see Mickey Mouse, I'll take a picture!
Love you all!

Busy, Busy

Yesterday was so funny. For IP&T, we started having a lunch once a week so people can mingle and network with each other - faculty and students. So I decided if I took a crock pot with soup in it, then I could drop it off and leave it during the day. So that is what I did. Every time I walked into the McKay building, I could smell the soup all the way down the hall and a number of other people told me the same thing. So I made chicken soup and Sara Joy made chili. I also made some rolls and we had chocolate chip cookies and pink icing cookies. I was really excited to see how people did start to meet other people. It made it all worth it. We even had other people from other departments coming by for a cookie. :)

Last night I worked on my research synthesis assignment and I think I know what I want to do my research on. I want to understand how ESL teachers learn how to teach. I want to look at Elementary/Secondary teachers, Higher education teachers (like the ELC) and I also want to look at schools that are not affiliated with a university to see if the program that the students attend affects their learning. I am really excited now!

I also had an insight that was interesting to me. I was reading in 1 Corinthians 3:16-17

16 Know ye not that ye are the ^atemple of God, and that the ^bSpirit of God dwelleth ^cin you?

17 If any man ^adefile the temple of God, him shall God destroy; for the temple of God is ^bholy, which temple ye are.
Always before, I have just thought of this as being moral cleanliness, but really, I think it encompasses all of caring for our physical bodies. It includes feeding them, exercising them, expanding our mind through our studies (spiritual and temporal), resting, and caring for our emotional needs, etc. So I decided I need to work more on taking better care of my own body.

Great Day

Today has been an interesting day. I attended the BYU devotional today. The Senate-Majority Leader, Harry Reid, spoke on Faith, Family, and Public Service. I was really impressed with him. He talked about growing up in a mining town in southern Nevada. He said his education is what changed his life. Especially because that is where he came into contact with the Church.
Afterwards, I had agreed to meet a former student to help her on her paper, but she said we needed to go eat lunch first. She is funny because if I order something small, she gets mad at me. I decided I'm going to take dinner to her family on Sunday because it is her birthday on Saturday. Then I helped her with her paper.

This afternoon I have been researching a couple of different topics. I'm trying to decide what I want to research for my class this semester. For one of the classes I am going to write about how students develop their language in study abroad programs. In the other class, I think I want to research how people learn to be teachers. I don't know why finding a topic is so hard. I guess there are many topics I am interested in, so I have a hard time pinning it down to one focused topic.


Tonight I'll go teach my Daily Dose class. We have had a few new people come to class, so that has made it really nice. It's good to have a group to teach rather than one or two.

Please Help!!!

Does anyone have a good soup recipe to use in the crock pot? I need to make a soup on Wednesday and need some good ideas! Thanks!

The First Day

So here's the first day on my blog. I should have been reading an article for class, but I created a blog instead. Lori was my assistant. So... this morning I taught my class about understanding how the context of a conversation helps us understand the meaning of it. It was pretty exciting. Or not. Then I met with one of my students because she missed class the other day, so I caught her up. Lori came by the office then and so we've been working oh so hard. In the middle of our "studies" I got an email saying that I had messed up a test for a project I am doing. I had to fix it and try to find a new test to give the students. It's making me a little nervous. It'll work out though, or it won't.

Now, it's time to hit the books.