I GRADUATED!!!

I CANNOT BELIEVE IT! I AM DONE AT ARIZONA STATE UNIVERSITY!! I CAN OFFICIALLY TEACH!!

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Last Day...

...of student teaching tomorrow...

scary, exciting, unbelievable, sad, happy, went by fast, ready for the future...wait...I am a teacher now?

These are the words that come to my mind when I think I am going to be done with my student teaching semester tomorrow. I have grown so attached to these kids that I am pretty sure I am going to shed some tears tomorrow...

Now the process consists of filling out all these applications regarding teaching positions and substituting...

Thank goodness for...

I am so thankful that I have friends that I can talk to on a daily basis!

I am so thankful for my family!

I am thankful for having Dustin in my life who has brought nothing but joy!

The song that I love right now

This song is a truly a love song and it gets stuck in my head easily...listen and you will know what I mean :)

Zac Brown Band Lyrics

a song that is worth a listen if you have a chance

Free

Written By: Brown

So we live in our old van

Travel all across this land

Me and you

We'll end up hand in hand

Somewhere down on the sand

Me and you

Just as free

Free as we'll ever be

Just as free

Free as we'll ever be

Drive until the city lights

Dissolve into a country sky

Me and you

Lay underneath the Georgia moon

Do all the things that lovers do

Just me and you

Just as free

Free as we'll ever be

Just as free

Free as we'll ever be

Ever be

No we don't have a lot of money

No we don't have a lot of money

No we don't have a lot of money

All we need is love

Free as we'll ever be

Just as free

Free as we'll ever be

Ever be

So we live in our old van

Travel all across this land

Me and you

The Man in my life

So here is Dustin who is pretty much AMAZING!!! I love him more and more every day as I get to see what God has done in his life. He is showing me what God's love really means and how it flows into other people lives.

It is amazing that we have been together for 6 months already! We celebrated by going to Oreganos for dinner, since we love Italian food, and then after he surprised me by taking me to Build-A-Bear. I got to build my very own bear! Yes, I might have been the oldest kid in the room, but it was still quite enjoyable. The bear even talks! I get to hear Dustin's voice whenever I want to say "Hello Miriam! I love you...so much!" It is better when you hear it ;) The bear's official name is Dusty Romeo Bruce but we like to call him our "Lovechild" :]


Dustin, I love you so much and want you to continue to challenge me in my walk with God!

Student Teaching

I have now started my 4th week of student teaching and feel like I should write a little about it or at least give some time of reflection. Not that I do not do enough of that for one of my classes at ASU but still, more of a personal reflection.

One of the girls in my class on Thursday evenings asked a few others if we are having second thoughts about teaching...we all answered with "Yes!" I began to wonder why I even answered yes immediately. I think it is because as a student teacher, we are required to be modeling strategies that we have learned for the past year and a half and be using the structure that our mentor teacher is using. In reality, this is not our own classroom yet and we have a lot of work for us. Even for me being in ELL classroom where everything is so new that the teacher is learning with me how to run the classroom. This is the first year for Arizona to be implementing the 4 hours required for ELLs to be immersed in the English Language in a separate classroom from their home room.

Come a few months, I will be applying for different districts to see if I can even get a position come January. The struggling part is that it is in the middle of the school year. I know that most likely I will be substituting for the spring semester and then find a job for the next school year...but we will see what God has in store for me, right? He is the only one that is giving me the strength to get through right now as I am fighting some kind of sickness for the past two weeks. Welcome to working with kids, right? :)

MASQUERADE

So I was debating whether to just set up a link to the pictures on my Facebook or to attach some pictures on here or what to do...and could not decide so I did both :)

http://www.new.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2357008&l=0efab&id=10032228
http://www.new.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2357028&l=8f5fb&id=10032228

Want to know more about Flat Stanley?

So Flat Stanley traveled with me to Germany this summer and yes, I made a book of just pictures on where he traveled...what, its for my future classroom :)

http://www.mypublisher.com/bookshelf/bookviewer.py?d=tq%3Ey-cppl%60je%3E341%3A645

I PASSED THE AEPA!!!!

For those who have not heard the great news I received on Monday, I passed both sections of the teacher exam that i took back in July. I was so excited to officially have passed the long test. Now all I have to do is finish up my student teaching this Fall and graduate in December and I can become a teacher!!! Yipee!!! It is really scary to know how close I am to being done and starting my career...you dream of it for so long and suddenly it is closer to becoming a reality...wow!

Whats not to love about the summer?

Dustin and are enjoying out time together, we had an amazing date by going out to dinner and then taking pictures at the Train park.

On Sunday we celebrated Aubrey's 2nd birthday...she is getting to be a big girl!! and such a sweet one at that! Below is the cake that Aunt Julie made for the birthday girl...

Of course, I had to include pictures of the boys...they are my loves as well...especially Benjamin with his silly face below :)

Scrapbook has arrived!!!!

My lovely scrapbook from my adventures this summer has arrived and have approved for everyone else to see. Please take a look and enjoy the lovely photos:)

http://www.mypublisher.com/bookshelf/bookviewer.py?d=tq%3Ey-cppl%60je%3E3383786

AEPA

Yesterday I took my teacher certification test, the Arizona Educator Proficiency Assessment, and spent about 3 hours for each section. Oh my goodness was it a bit challenging! I felt my whole energy was sucked out of me by the time I was done with it all! I hope that I passes the test and I know I did but I just am still nervous to get my results. I find out on August 11 whether I need to retake any part of the test. I really do not want to repeat any of it but I came out feeling better about the Subject Test than the Professional Knowledge. The hardest part is that you can narrow the answers down from 4 to 2 but the 2 that you are left with sound both correct. You then have to make the decision which one is the better of the two...why do they do such a thing to us?! Is it not enough that they make us take such long tests in the first place? My hand was in pain by the end of the day since I write 3 short responses and 1 essay, well it was more describing a lesson plan but still.
But someone very close to me reminded of God says about being anxious since I kept saying that I am getting nervous about finding my score out on the 11th:
"Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus."
Philippians 4:6-7

Back here...

So I made it saefly back to Phoenix Sunday night and saw my family right away as we celebrated Ethan's 4th birthday. But it is so hot here!! Todays forecast says it is suppose to be 114 F ...ahhh!!!! It is way too warm for that!!! Summer really has started here!! But that is what we have a pool for. I have gone swimming at least twice every day that I have been back.

I do miss being in Germany though!!!!!

My last day in Regensburg

(<-orientation, the group)
I cannot believe that today is my last day here in Regensburg. I feel like it was just yesterday that I had arrivd here and had no idea where anything was. Of course the city feels ten times smaller now that I do know where to buy my groceries or where the Post Office is or the Bank and of course the best places to eat food.

(culture class, Thurn und Taxis)

I am both sad and happy to be done since the school part is over and I can actually enjoy my summer...wait, I have summer right now, I had no idea since I have been working very hard in my literature class. But guess what! It has paid off since my professor just told me my grades and I got an A in the culture class and an A- in the literature class. I am so happy to have gotten the grades since I was so worried that I would get a B.

(<-some of the group at Walhalla)

It has been a great experience to be with this group despite the different interests that we all had. There were no major arguments amongst roommates, even when some people got locked out or had a rommate that snored nice and loud. But what can I say that came out from it all, an awesome learning expereince, great food and even better stories to bring back across the ocean.

Tonight we are having dinner as group to say thank you to the host families that housed two girls in the program and for us all to be together one last time. We are all axcited to go home but I believe half of us are staying somewhere in Germany for at least a week longer.

By the way, Deutschland is amazing in Fussball because even many of the locals said the they could not beat Portugal in the game. Oh we definitely showed them!

some different foods from Deutschland...

So here are some various foods I had throughout the weeks that I have been here, some are German dishes and others are just foods that I decided to try while I was here. There is a picture of how my night stand looked with all the food I bought so that I would not have to buy lunch everyday, since that got a little expensive to go out all the time:

Walhalla

So the pictures above are from our cultural excursion on Tuesday to Walhalla. There are so many facts that were told about this place that I don't think I can remember all the facts without getting them mixed up with things that we saw along the way. But what I can say is that this was not originally from here and that it was transported here in the 1800s or something like that. There are some amazing views from up here though. The picture in the bottem right shows the way to Regensburg though. As usual, there was construction on the stairs so I didn't take too many pictures of them.

Fussball Feber

Tonight is an important for the Deutschland soccer team, we need to beat Austria in order to continue on and everyone on the news is predicting a strong win. I hope this is true because last Thursdays loss was quite sad...the calls were not too fair in my opinion really...I am working on my homework just so that I can have a chance to watch the game...this time we are not going to a bar to watch even though we would have a bigger screen than the tiny 13'' tv in our room...but i can work on other things in between...

A bike trip around Regensburg

+ =

I decided to rent a bike for the day just go where ever I felt like...6 hours on a bike though makes you quite sore the next day...but the town is not that big and even if you think you are lost, all roads seem to end up in the Altstadt. If i really wanted to, I could have followed the Danua River north from here and ended up in the next town over. Along the way was a map to show where everything was if you were doing a bike tour in the area. I think that it is cool that you can do that. I mean we have had several bike groups stay at our hotel. Considering we have been at the hotel for four weeks now, we know when people are new at the hotel and how long they stay. This weekend was the first time we had another large group stay at our hotel. They seemed to have come for a conference because they all had the same shirts on.

I definitely covered all sides of the Altstadt. On the east side was where I followed the river; on the south side was where I went up on a hill to the see the church and have an overlook of Regensburg; on the north side i visited the Univeristy again; and then on the west side I went over to where we have classes at the Gymansium and had coffee and cake at a small cafe.

I took some amazing pictures along the way:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2325097&l=bdf81&id=10032228

Eagles Nest

So we took our last excursion on Friday to the Konigsee und Eagles Nest. Both were really pretty places to be at but too bad we were just so rushed all the time and the weather was very cloudy. It rained off and on throughout the day. We even had snow when we were up at Eagles Nest!!

Our first stop was the Konigsee which is located between two mountain terrains. The tree go all the way down to the water line and makes the water look really dark. In some places though the water is shallow enough that you can see the bottem. This was especially true by the barbor where we got onto the boat we took over to another location. Everyone was so hungary that all they could think of was food when we landed. I must admit, I was excited to finally try the German Potato Pancakes because that is one of my favorite meals at home. We had limited time for looking around and so I only was able to take a few pictures of the church that was built there. Some people in the group were enjoying the ducks:)

Our second stop was Hitler's Tea House which he had only officially visited 14 times in his life because he was scared of heights. What a birthday present this was for him when he hardly ever stayed there! The weather was nice since it cleared up enough for us to have an amazing view. I had been here 4 years ago but it had snowed. Not this time, or at least I first thought. After taking a few pictures the clouds began to move in and it began to rain. The rain eventually turned into snow and it got really cold. After a few more pictures I went in to enjoy the warmth inside. But it was worth going to see some parts of Austria from up there!

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