Joy of Halloween

I get so excited for Halloween every year although I never dress up anymore. Every year for Halloween we make it a family thing to go to my aunt's house and pass out candy. Being that a lot of my family lives in the country we don't get the opportunity to pass out candy at our houses so instead we go here. However, this occasion is just another reason to be able to spend time with my family. Also, I enjoy watching the children walk up to the house and see what all kinds of creative costumes that they came up with this year. Back when I was a kid I feel like a lot of the costumes were just bought at the store, now we have many websites as Pinterest to be creative and design our own costumes. The joy of Halloween for me, is not about me or the candy for me it is much more than that and it comes from the children!

Pencil Peeve

A huge pet peeve that I have developed in my corresponding teacher's classroom is students with their pencils. I would have never guessed that a pencil could entail so many different things that become a distraction such as pencil top erasers, grippers, and most importantly a pencil sharpener. Students are constantly getting erasers tearing them up and tosses pieces at each other where you later see them all over the floor as well as the grippers besides using these items for their actual purpose. I don't even know where to begin with students sharpening their pencil because first of all they no longer get to use the teacher's pencil sharpener due to already breaking one of hers. However, they all bought their own little ones now. You would think that this would be a good thing, but its definitely not. Students now find a reason to break their pencils just so they can keep sharpening them during class even though they are already perfectly sharpened. They keep finding reasons to mess with their pencils instead of being fully focused in class. I never realized how much all of this bothered me before until now. All I can do is find myself being highly annoyed hoping that I will eventually get used to it.

Grateful, Thankful & Blessed

Here lately I have really been thinking about my life a lot and the reasoning that brought all of this was when I had a conversation with a student and was really trying to get to know them. The student began to tell me about his split up family and how he doesn't really enjoy his step family that he lives with, how they had only local channels on television, no internet and their water had to be turned on and off constantly. As I listened to the student tell me about the life that he has my emotions began to build up and feel sad for the child. It made me really take a moment to look back and reflect on my own life. Many times in life we take things for granted and do not realize how much we should be appreciative of these things. "If we do not feel grateful for what we already have, what makes us think we'd be happy with more. -Unknown" It teaches me that I need to appreciate what may seem like little things such as a roof over my head, the air I breathe, the fresh water I drink, the food that is in my household, waking up and being able to get out of bed & walk, for being to see and hear, having a cell phone, a tv to watch almost any show I want, being able surf the web and most of all having a family who loves me and gets along with one another. Although I could have a list that goes on forever I think that is where I will stop for now. The main three words that I need to remember is "Grateful, Thankful & Blessed" because that is truly what I am.

Is There Ever an End to My To-Do List?

I felt like this weekend I really took a lot of time to work on things for school as well as my personal life to check off my "to-do list". Homework...check. Passports...check. House chores...check. The list that I had written after many countless hours was finally completed, but of course, just as one list is completed another list begins again. Instead of feeling great about accomplishing something, I feel as if another load has been thrown on my shoulders. Do they ever end? If it's not one thing it's another ! I feel like I can never fully catch up on life and the "to-do list" go on forever.

Nothing But Bad Luck

This week already I've had too many moments of just pure bad luck...Why Me & Why Now? Is all that comes to my mind. I tried for the past two days to find an outfit for our pictures next Monday. Guess what!? Still no luck! ...it all started by wanting to go to my two favorite boutiques. So I decided to try and go to one yesterday because they are supposed to be open, but when I pull up to the store I see the lights are off! Still not sure if they are closed or not I get out of my car and approach the building with a sign posted that reads, "Closed, due to a family illness today." After reading the sign I completely understood and no feelings hurt. Although I can just hear that clock ticking in my head as I am slowly running out of time. Well today I decided to try a different place, the other boutique I wanted to see but...Guess what!? This store was closed too even the paper said they were open till 5:30 and it was only 4:30. This time no sign posted as to why they closed early. Here I am now slightly wanting to give up on even trying to find something different. I am starting to think this is all a sign leading up to something, but I'm not quite sure what yet. However, I do know one thing for sure now, call first!! Anyways, rant over. I have learned a very important lesson over just these past two days.