Sunday, December 5, 2010

Thanksgiving in Seattle

This year I got to go home for Thanksgiving :) I feel like I had my first real vacation in like 1 1/2 years...well, ok, since I started working at the MTC :) My missionaries are kind of like my children, and so I worry about them if I'm not with them, which makes it really difficult to go away on vacation or anything, because even though I'm not with them, I'm still wondering how they are doing, and it usually drives my family up the wall. But this year, my missionaries left the Monday/Tuesday/Wednesday of the week of Thanksgiving, so I knew that they were in good hands, and I didn't worry about them :) It was awesome to have a vacation, and I was able to come back to school refreshed and ready to get back into studying.

It snowed the day before I got to Seattle, which is awesome - I love snow :) But it's the strangest thing (well, to me anyways) - in Seattle, they don't plow away the snow; not because they don't want to, but because they can't; they do not have the equipment necessary to plow snow in Seattle; apparentely it doesn't snow enough there for them to feel the need to invest in a plow. But the good news is that because the snow was all still there ( it hadn't rained and melted it yet), I got to build my very first snowman!! I know, I'm 24, and I built my first snowman :) My younger sister helped me, and my mom gave us candy to make his face and stuff :) I was so proud :D

So he's got caramel eyes, an M&M mouth, a Tootsie pop pipe, and a Fruit-by-the-Foot scarf/necklace; it was kinda cool - the Fruit-by-the-Foot actually disintegrated into the snow.

Anyways, here's another cool picture from the trip:
My parents had put these pumpkins out on the front porch, and what I think happened was that they got snow on them, the snow started to melt, but left precipitation on them, and then at night they froze, so we got sparkly pumpkins :)

It was a good trip; I'm really thankful that I got to go home for Thanksgiving this year.

Friday, October 1, 2010

October

Highs/Lows for October 1, 2010

Provo, Utah - 90/49
Tucson, Arizona - 99/71
El Paso, Texas - 89/61
Seattle, Wa - 68/50

I've never been in Seattle in October, but I've been to Tucson and El Paso - two places that are supposed to be VERY hot in October - actually October is the most desireable month in those two places because that's when it finally starts to cool down!!! Walking around the streets of Tucson in August and September made me pray for October to arrive because that's when everyone told us it would start to cool down. About mid-way through October, I moved to El Paso that year, and it was still so unbelievable hot, but it cooled quickly as November came. I have lived in Provo for 4 years, and usually at this time of year I'm wearing a sweater! So why are our temperatures comparable to Tucson and El Paso?????? Although...we do get cooler at night than any of the other places...

Thursday, September 2, 2010

Amanda

So I met Amanda during Freshman Orientation summer of 2004 and she has been my best friend ever since; I always joke with her that I made her be my friend, but really I'm grateful that she was willing to be my friend. :) She's the person that I've known the longest outside of my family (with Ashley and Cassie coming in close seconds, since I also met them that same summer); we lived down the hall from each other that summer, and then decided to room together for Fall/Winter of our Freshman and Sophomore year; Junior year, I moved into a house for the Summer/Fall, but I was still always at her apt/she was still always at my house, and then I moved back in with her for Winter semester. That year in the summer/fall, we both left to serve missions for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints - her in Antofagasta, Chile, and me in Tucson, Arizona. It's been about 1 1/2 years since I've been back, and a little bit less than that for her, and a few weekends ago, she graduated from BYU with a degree in English!! I'm so proud of her - she has worked so hard for this! But I'm also sad because today she moved back to California to start her new job. My best friend is now 2 states away. The good news is that there are still cell phones, cars (for visiting), and the internet (aka Facebook) :) And she'll be back in a year to go to grad school.


We have some great times together :) One time there was a party up on campus, and on our way back to our dorm, we rolled down the big hill at the library, and then looked up at the mountains and saw the moon larger than all get out coming up behind them - it was so beautiful! The other night we were up on campus with Jenny and Kerry (our other roommates), and we were reminiscing - we rolled down the hill at the library :) It was so fun!
And she taught me about old movies and music - my favorite singer in Bing Crosby, and I think my favorite old movie is either Roman Holiday or Casablanca.

Most of all, she taught me about what it means to have a best friend; I moved around a lot, so I have a lot of friends, but, outside of my family, I've never really been able to keep in contact with people. So to have a best friend who lasts even when you're not in the same place, is a new experience for me...but I know that, even if we never live in the same place again, I'll always be there for her, and she'll always be there for me :) and that's what being a best friend means.

First Days...

When you move, you have a lot of firsts all over again - your first night in your new house, first time hanging out with your new roommates, first time attending your new ward, and, in this case, another first day of school to go along with it. I decided that I wanted to tell you all about it :)

SUNDAY

I got up at 7:30 (for 9:00 church), and took a shower - a VERY COLD shower...great way to start off my day, right? So I got ready, didn't have time to eat breakfast, went to church (where I was starving!) - church was good; I think I'm gonna like my ward; there are a lot of girls though, and they flock around the guys...and since I'm not a flocker...well, we'll just have to see what happens. Anyways, after church, I actually got to spend time with my roommates! First time! It was good - we just went for a walk, and talked, and got to know eachother. Latter Sunday night, I went down to Payson for dinner with my uncle, and then I came back for my ward dessert night...except for I wasn't in a great mood, so it probably wasn't the best way for me to go to a ward activity with the intention of meeting new people, but oh well. Anyways, I went with my roommate, Cicily, and my other roommate's brother, Ben. Cicily is my age, and Ben just got home from his mission in Portugal 2 weeks ago. So we were standing there talking - the activity was on a teeny tiny 20x20 patio, and there were at least 75 people there, but probably more. Anyways, so we're standing there, watching the girls all flock around the guys, and I said to Ben, "I'll bet that if we just left you here by yourself, in less than 5 minutes, some girl would come talk to you." So Cicily and I stepped away, and - I kid you not - in less than 3 minutes, a girl had gone up to Ben and started talking to him! Within like 20 minutes, there were at least 10 girls surrounding Ben. Insane!

MONDAY

I guess Monday was ok...nothing too out of the ordinary; I went back into the classroom at work (I was at a different part of the MTC for the summer); guess who's in my class! My cousin! I told my boss, but she said that it's fine, as long as neither one of us get distracted...plus he's leaving next week to go to the Guatemala MTC, so I think it's should work out ok.

TUESDAY

Today was the real kicker: so I agreed to sub for someone today because Tuesday is my day off; I swear this teacher told me that the shift started at 8:45, so when he e-mailed me the plans, I obviously didn't look too closely at the times. So I got to work today at 8:48...a few minutes late, right? WRONG!! I was 30 minutes late! I was supposed to be there at 8:15, and class was supposed to start at 8:45! How embarrassing!! And then, since I'm trying out this new thing called exercise, I walked to work today, and was of course hungry again, but realized that I had left my wallet at home...good job, Jessica!

So basically...life is good :) Nothing that happened was particularly horrible, but since I'm so tired, everything seems magnified by like 50...luckily tomorrow I don't have to be anywhere until 11:00 tomorrow! Sorry if this sounds like venting...when I started writing this post, it was supposed to be funny, but I think I took a wrong turn somewhere...

Wednesday, June 16, 2010

Final Project...Finally!!!

So I was going to create a game for this final project...and then I found out that that was not the purpose of the project; the purpose isn't for us to learn a new technology so that we can show it off to our students in the classroom, but to learn a new technology so we could teach it to our students, and help them learn through this technology. So I remodified...I still wanted to do something for my Spanish class, and I still wanted it to have something to do with culture (because I think that's harder to teach than grammar and vocabulary), so I ended up doing an exploration project that would be done as a class. I pretty sure that I don't have all the kinks worked out...since I don't know very much about the timing of lessons and stuff, but I'll figure it out when I'm a teacher. For now, here's my project! This example is for the country Mexico :)

Click here for the rubric

And here's the link to see the tour

What we would do is choose a country for to study for a week or two, depending on the size of the country, and then, together as a class, we would learn about the history of the country; then I would divide the students up into groups and have them research different aspects of the culture of the country, and they would present that to the class. Finally, all together, we would use GoogleEarth to create a tour of the country for ourselves to be able to remember what we have learned about this country - ie. history, national monuments, natural beauties, etc. Doing this as a class would be helpful because this way, they don't have to go and create an account for themselves, and try to figure it out, but it would give the students an opportunity to see something new, and by watching me the first time, and then having the chance to create it after that, this would be able to help them explore new cultures, and new places.

I actually enjoyed this project; GoogleEarth drove me nuts because it was so slow, so it took forever to learn how to create a tour, but once I finally got it all figured out, I think this project turned out pretty cool; a couple of my roommmates said that they wish they could have done something like this in their HS Spanish class - it would have made it more interesting :)

Wednesday, June 9, 2010

Final Project

So for our final project for my IP&T class (yup - it's finals time already!!!) we have to do a technology project using a piece of technology that we haven't used before. So I'm going to make a game using power point for my future Spanish class to help them review different tenses (present, future, preterit, imperfect, etc), and also to help them learn different cultural aspects that we will have learned about different Spanish-speaking countries. I'm excited to make it because I've never done something like this with power point before, but I've seen it done, and I think it's really amazing! I'm really excited to work on this project more; right now I'm still working on deciding what information I'm going to put into the game. More updates to come!!!

Internet Safely Update

This internet safely assignment, now that I'v finally had time to work on it, it actually quite interesting. My friends all tell me that I have very maternal instincts...which is true, I guess - I feel very protective of anyone and everyone around me, and I want to take care of them. So when I was reading about internet safety on several different websites, most of the stuff seemed like common sense to me; but the one thing that really stuck out to me was that parents should talk with their children. I guess it makes sense - since it's important to talk to your children about many different subjects (especially with the way our world is going lately), it is equally important to talk to your children about internet safety.
I was talking with my cousin about this, and she, having two little girls of her own, is concerned about this for them. As they grow up, she wants them to be safe in all aspects, and be able to have a good life.

I was also able to read a few talks about what the apostles have to say about this. I thought it was interesting how they talked about the importance of using the internet for good, because that it where most people are turning for answers. They encourage people to have blogs and to use them to promote the Church, and the ideals and the values that the Church stands for. One woman that they quoted told a story about how she had blogged about one April general conference that she had listened to, and her friends had read her blog, and were quite interested and had many questions about what else the apostles and prophets of time had said. The Church has really been working hard to use the internet for good; for example, they are working on the new www.mormon.org website, and they are asking members to create a profile for themselves where they can show that they are regular people, like the people who will look at these profiles, and the members will provide answers to questions that many people around the world have. Here's the link, if your interested:

http://www.mormon.org/mormonorg/eng/new-mormon-org

Tuesday, June 8, 2010

Copyright assignment update

So after looking at some other people's copyright assignments, and doing a little bit more research, I realized that the "Twilight/Taylor Swift" song only had ok copyright...I thought it was pretty good, but not it's just ok. They didn't have any credits at the end saying where they had gotten their clips or where the original song had come from, or anything. So now I'm on an excursion to find a good example of copyright usage...

Ok - here's what I've found.



I love this Josh Groban song!! When I was on my mission, and feeling down, this song would always pick me up. So when I found this video, I was excited! I especially love what this person had done with the part where Josh Groban says, "you...are...loved..." :) but the copyright for this video isn't that great...although it's better than the other video that I found. They did credit the song, which was awesome, but they didn't credit the many, many pictures that were included in this video. It's wasn't for educational purposes, just for entertainment, so I'm pretty sure that this is not up to code when it comes to copyright laws. Sad days...it's a good video.

Wednesday, June 2, 2010

Latin American Greetings video

So I had to make a movie for my IP&T class that I could use in my classroom some day; I debated for a while what type of video I wanted to do, since my major is FACS, but my minor is Spanish teaching, and I want to teach both. I ended up deciding on doing something for my Spanish classroom, since my last project was focused on my cooking classroom. In Latin American countries, people greet each other differently than they do in the US and more Americans are a little surprised when they receive a kiss on the cheek instead of a simple, ''hello, nice to meet you.'' So I decided to create a video about greetings, and the proper way to create people south of the US border. My good friends, Amanda and Emily, were kind enough to help me...although when I told them what I needed help with, I'm sure they were wishing they didn't love me so much :D



I think this video would be beneficial to students who watch it because it compares and contrasts the different greetings that most people are accostumed to from different places around the world. This would be a good demonstration, and then offer a good practice idea for the students to be able to practice their Spanish, and also what they have learned about another culture.

Wednesday, May 12, 2010

Internet Safety

Internet safety is an interesting thing...when I've asked people what they know about internet safety, most of them are actually confused by my question: antivirus safety? surfing the web safely? what kind of internet safety are we talking about here???
When I learn more I will let you know...I'm in the process of learning about this right now :)

Copyright Assignment

So I'm still working to understand the copyright laws...and I was looking for some videos that do and don't follow the copyright laws, and I found this really funny one taking the Taylor Swift song, "You Belong With Me", but changing the lyrics so that Jacob (the werewolf) is singing them to Bella about how she belongs with him, and not Edward. As I'm watching this video, well, first, it's hilarious; second, I think this person did a good job with the 30-sec rule - only showing clips for 30 secs at a time from different sources...but I'm not sure if a)they are allowed to change the lyrics, and keep the music, and b) if this was made for the appropriate purposes of teaching, scholarships, and research. The good news is that I did find this video under the Advanced Search section "free to use, share, or modify, even commericially" section...there's still a lot that I need to learn!!!

Friday, May 7, 2010

Screenshot

So after a long last search for items to subscribe to, and the difficult task (alright...I'm exaggerating a little bit...)of getting this screen shot onto my blog. And here it is!!

On my reader, I subscribed to a few different things - mostly recipe blogs, and a few to some Spanish teaching/teacher blogs. These types of blogs are both types that will help keep my informed in my fields of study. One of my favorite recipes that I've found so far is one that is similar to one that my mom used to make when I was growing up: it's a simple recipe for Macaroni and Cheese
It's a really simple and organic recipe that kids love!!

Monday, May 3, 2010

Why is it so late?!

So, of course, it's about mid-night...I was supposed to go to bed more than an hour ago! But then I remembered that today is Monday - aka - MISSIONARY LETTER DAY!!!!! so i went to one of my elders blogs (the only one that I knew about until about 60 minutes ago...), and read his letter home for the week (bless his mom for posting them!!); then I noticed that his companion from the MTC has a blog too! So of course I had to go and read it and become a follower of both of their blogs...still not really sure what that means, but oh well...and then, I started thinking about my missionaries, and how much I miss them, and how it's been almost 4 weeks, and I haven't heard from any of my Veracruz missionaries even though they promised they would write!! I know, I know - they are busy, I understand - I was there! But still...
Anyways, it's a good thing that I work at the MTC and am around missionaries all the time! It helps some when my missionaries out in the field don't write to have other missionaries around.
So then, after I thought about the missionaries, I thought about my 3 awesome friends, and how I told them I would create a blog just for us so we can all keep in touch as we all grow up and move on with our lives in different parts of the country. I'm so glad that the 4 of us are friends - even though we haven't all been together for like 3 years, we know that we can always count on each other no matter what - and, in the words of Sherkan (the tiger), "that's what friends are for" :)

Wednesday, April 28, 2010

My first post

So I'm taking a technology class for my major so that I can know how to use technology in the classroom...whenever I finally get out there...and one of the assignments is that we have to create a blog! So here I am!! :)

I like technology...I spend actually quite a bit of time using technology, usually my computer; I rarely go anywhere without it...and my family makes fun of me a little for that...mostly my brother ;) From this course I hope to learn how to better apply what I know about technology into the classroom setting so that I can better help the students that I teach learn in a more effective way that is appropriate for their level of learning.

For my extra gadgets, I chose to put a slide show of sunsets on one side (which may be changed in the future to pictures of my family and friends), and a headline news gadget at the top. I chose these because I love pictures, and I like to see things and share things that make me happy, and, for the headlines, well, I don't read the news a whole lot, I usually just catch what I see on-line; so I figured I'd put the news here so that other people and myself can know what's going on around the world :)