Pinteresting Wednesdays

I did write this yesterday and thought I had posted it, but I hadn't!

This made me laugh. I want to make one of these right now! But I will have to wait until tomorrow. :(
If I am ever a mom someday, I want to be a fun one!
Aren't these rings too beautiful? Unfortunately they are pricey. (I think they use real silver.)
And have I ever told you how much I want to have a freestanding tub one day??

Kute Kindergarteners

(Yes, I know that's not how you spell cute, but in Kindergarten it doesn't exactly matter yet. :0)

Well, I was the last person who ever thought I would love Kindergarten, but I do. What started out as a trial to me is now a great blessing in my life. I love each of them and I am learning so much as I try, by God's grace, to teach them about Him and about loving each other and about math and reading. So I'm going to write a little bit about each one. I may or may not finish in one post. So, if you don't want to hear about Kindergarteners, than you don't have to continue reading. I'm gong to go by number instead of name, to protect the young and innocent. :0)

#1 is my little playground friend. He stands and talks to me during recess and tells me the funniest things. Almost every day I say, "So what are you going to tell me about today, #1?" Yesterday he told me about the seasons; spring, snowy, and fall. He says that the one weather we don't have is Christmas because it never snows. He loves to talk and he is smart.

#2 gives me hugs and kisses me on the stomach since that's as high as she can reach and she calls me "My Miss Taylor." She gave me my first and only drawing that I have gotten from a Kindergartener. All the boys have crushes on her.

#3 has a crush on all the boys. She's a bit of a drama queen but she is sweet.

#4 is a handful and he has the biggest eyes. If he's in trouble he looks up at me and I have a hard time being upset. He's the oldest and one of the smallest and he likes to tell me things. All the time.

#5 is a cutie. One of the first weeks of school he told me that I had beautiful shoes on. He's a smartie too. He and #3 get along really well.

#6 cracks me up. She doesn't even mean to be funny but she is. She calls me Miss Taywor and she likes to do whatever she wants to. So she is often in trouble too. She's a tomboy but wears a dress almost every day.

#7 is a sweetheart. She is the crier. I'm pretty sure she thinks that boys have cooties. She cried once because #4 kept saying hi to her.

#9 (yes, I know, I skipped #8 because he left) was very shy at first but she finally opened up. Now she doesn't stop singing or swinging my arms or pretending to be my shadow at recess.

#10 tells everyone what to do. But she is so cute and she wants to do the right thing. She's overly ambitious but a scaredy cat at the same time. I was seriously just as excited as she was when she finally made it down the firepole in the playground by herself.

#11 is actually the definition of sweet and shy. She loves to give hugs and I don't think she's hardly ever mean to anyone.

#12 is tiny and way more outgoing than you would think by looking at her. She got the first good citizenship award and she'll bring me and Miss Nelson random presents. She brings them randomly and they, in themselves, are random. She has the tiniest, cutest voice.

#13 just melts my heart. I REALLY have a hard time disciplining him. He has a slight speech impediment and stutters when he's in trouble and he's missing a lot of teeth. All these things make him all the more adorable. He likes to try and share his snacks with me. He often pretends to be a monster on the playground and kinda hiss/growls at people. So cute! Just believe me.

#14 says everything in the form of a yell. He couldn't whisper if he tried. He talks no matter how many times he has to change his star. But he's cute.

#15 can have a temper. But he is hilarious. He's a cuddle bug and he says the funniest stuff. He told me himself that he's a handful. He also told me this morning that his mom's eyeballs are bigger. He likes to say "See you later, alligator." I will soon devote a post to quotes I have from him.

#16 reminds me exactly of the Peanuts character, Peppermint Patty. So much so, that I call her Peanut. She pulls the crusts off her sandwich every day. She likes to whine but she's so cute it makes even her whining sounds cute. She trips and falls all the time. I think she's going to have permanent scars on her knees.

#17 is kind of in his own world. It took him forever to stop calling me "Teacher." And then it took another forever for him to call me "Miss Taylor" instead of "Miss Nelson." But he's adorable and gives me a lot of hugs too.

#18 looks like the kind that would be quiet and obedient, and he is at least half of the time, but he surprises me often. He always hugs me around the legs because he's so tiny. I haven't quite figured him out yet.

#19 is adorable too. His mannerisms are very mature. But he's also very energetic and goofy. At recess he likes to hold the walkie talkie for me and pretend that he's on patrol. He helps me look out for bad guys. He takes it very seriously. I told him that he could tell others not to run in the little playground. One day he put his arm around #16 and told her in a low voice, "Do you remember, you're not supposed to run in here? Only outside."

#20 and I haven't exactly hit it off yet. He's a bit in his own world too. But he's sweet and I can always count on him to walk to the bathroom and back without messing around.

#21 does his own thing too. He gets in trouble a lot. But he is super smart. He loves to learn and loves to tell me the things he's learning. I was playing "rock, paper, scissors" with him after school and he pointed out that there was a pattern in who was winning and losing. There's a special little place in my heart for him.

#22 makes me laugh too. She is one of the tallest girls in the class and she and #2 have wars I think about who loves me more. When #2 gave me the picture she drew, #22 came and gave me a hug and then told #2, "Well I just gave her a hug!" She always has fun hair things in her hair. When she and another friend fight she acts like Anne of Green Gables and sticks her nose in the air. But most of the time she is very sweet and funny.

Well, that's the last one. Kindergarten is so fun.

Life, Trials, and Jesus!

So, I just realized that it's pretty much been about three months since I gave an actual update on life. Feels like it's high time.
For those of you who don't know, I am no longer working in the school office at Grace. I'm now the assistant teacher in Kindergarten. I have to say that Kindergarten was definitely not my first choice. In truth, it was my last. Don't get me wrong, I like 5-year-olds and all, but a whole group of them who don't know how to tie their shoes.... Anyway, as I've told many people, the first two weeks were a big trial for me, in my perspective. The thought of being stuck in a little room with all 21 of them, for the WHOLE school year, well it basically freaked me out. A whole year with the same class is a long time when you look at it this way, both of my student teaching experiences were for 1/4 of the year, and then last year I was a teacher aid for 1/2 of the year. Anyway, yeah, Kindergarten. Really doesn't sound like a trial at all when I read it on paper...or blog, but I viewed it that way, and thankfully, God has really used it to teach the things that trials are supposed to teach us.
For one, it's reminded me that I am ALWAYS dependent on Him. This made me realize it more, but I am no more dependent on Him in this situation than I am in any other. I know it sounds silly, but it also made me focus a lot more on heaven. I think there is just something scary when you're starting out a job that you're not sure you love. It's different than just getting a part time job for the summer. For me, as a girl, I don't know when, let alone if I will get married someday. I can't just bank on it, or put my hope in it. So whatever I do, I might be doing for awhile. It just made me remember that I will not be doing anything on this earth for very long compared to eternity, and whatever I AM doing now, I better be doing wholeheartedly for my King! Which made me remember that God has PLACED me here. I didn't just choose it. I know that's a common thing to say, so sometimes we don't really think about what it really means. But God wants me here right now, not just for me, although that's what's helping work all things for my good and His glory right now, but also for the little Kindergarteners. And not just for them, but also to help out Kathi Nelson. That's another thing that's cool because she used to be my fourth grade teacher and now I'm actually getting to know her as a friend. :0)
Something else God is teaching me is about my sin. There are a few Kindergartners who are a bit defiant and will say no to my face. One day it was getting to me and on my break I was reading in Isaiah about the Israelites who were continually provoking God to His face. I realized that whenever I sin, I am just like those little Kindergarteners, I am saying no to His face. And the fact that He would die for me amazes me all over again!
So, I can truthfully say, that this trial made me truly joyful! :0) He has drawn me closer to Him in this than I EVER could have imagined. We are so ridiculously blessed to be allowed to serve Him and know Him! Our great Savior and King! We get to be WITH HIM someday soon!!!
Okay, the other news is that I am officially on High school staff. Sorry Christen, if you are reading this and I haven't told you on the phone yet. That was the news. I absolutely am loving it! I didn't realize that ministry could be this fun! I highly recommend it. One of the biggest surprises to me is the great conversations I've had with many of the girls already. I guess it shouldn't necessarily surprise me, but it did. The staff is great too and I get to go to my first staff meeting tomorrow.
Well, that's life lately. Hopefully I can speak to the readers I may have, and haven't spoken to recently, soon. 'Til then, press on and keep your eyes on Jesus!

What's Been Going On

Today I feel like mainly summing up what has been going on lately in pictures. Probably the biggest change that has happened lately is that I stopped tutoring. It's not like I was dying of too much work. That's practically impossible to say now that I don't have homework or lesson planning anymore. But one full time job is enough for me, and I like actually having time to make dinner at night now. Although I really haven't made dinner too often yet. My favorite girl that I tutored is named Allie and on my last day, she brought me some flowers that she picked from her mom's garden. I thought it was very sweet.

She also drew a picture of me. I think for a third grader she's a pretty good little artist.

I never really wrote anything about my Bible Study's ski retreat. It's a little late now to go into a ton of detail, but it was a really great time. It was fun having a smaller group and getting to have good conversations with people that I normally don't always get to talk to. Plus I made a couple of new friends! :0) We also got to build a legitimate snowman! Something I have not done since I was five, and then it was really my dad who made it.

Recently they filmed a movie in the little group of homes that my friends and I live in. Our guess was that it is because it looks like a camp. All the houses are green, except the owners, whose house is yellow. It threw off my theory a little bit until they painted the front of their house green to make it match! They painted it back shortly after filming. They were around for about a week. Our landlord told us that it was an America Ferrera movie, but we are pretty suspicious about that. The signs said "Parental Guidance." So we'll just have to wait and see. Below is a picture of the lights that were shining into my bedroom at one o'clock a.m. in the morning on the last night of filming! If I hadn't had my blinds closed it would have looked like daytime. Thankfully, I was able to fall asleep before they left.

This is the notification we got the day AFTER they started filming.

I recently went to Chinatown with Melissa Johnson.

We came across this store.... Don't they mean Jade RINGS?

This....

Is what fell out of this...

All we know is that it was called a Sesame ball. Melissa was a little sad when she dropped the inside on the ground. But I don't really consider that a bad thing.
My mom and I like to go to Pasadena together. She has a few senior citizen sites that she goes to to inspect their kitchens and give them talks on nutrition. After she's done we typically either go to this really cool bookstore called "Vroman's", or we get Boba at Tapioca Express in Marino. Yum! I'm so glad my mom likes Boba. I usually sit in the car at my mom's first site and this was my view from the side mirror!

I just love old buildings!

First Graders

Tattle-taling, whining, bickering, name-calling, bloody noses, runny noses, crying, "accidents", hitting, pouting, complaining, yelling, scratching, pinching, biting...
These are just some of the things I deal with every day as a student teacher in the first grade. It's not really anything more than what any parent deals with every day, but still, one might wonder why anyone would willingly commit themselves to such a line of work.
But really, I'm making it sound worse than it is. I've come to enjoy working with first graders for several reasons.
One is that pretty much anything makes them laugh. Every day when I use the overhead and squirt it with water to rinse it off, they crack up. I mean, they absolutely double over with laughter. Sometimes I just squirt it randomly now because I find it highly entertaining. They also laugh at pretty much any joke. The other day the kids were lining up for recess and the boys were laughing over some pretty sad jokes. We had just been reading about butterfly's and so I stooped pretty low and asked, "Have you ever seen a butter fly?" The response was "Ba ha ha ha ha ha ha!" It was great.
They can be pretty funny themselves. One day I was asking my lower reading group what are some things that are not good for the environment, because we just read an article on protecting the environment. One serious little boy with glasses gave me the answer, "It would be bad to shoot plants." I kind of stared back at him for a second and asked "shoot plants?" making sure that I heard him correctly. And he answered back, "Ya, it would be bad to shoot plants with a gun and put holes in them." And I kind of just said something like, "um...well, I don't think too many people would do that, what are some other ideas?" I was willing myself as hard as I could to keep a straight face.
Another thing is that first graders think that any piece of information that they have never heard before is utterly amazing. A few weeks ago I was teaching them what a line of symmetry is. I drew a number of lines of symmetry on various shapes and it wasn't too big of a deal. But then I asked them, "Do you know that on some shapes there can actually be more than one line of symmetry?" I heard nineteen voices yell back at me, "Whoah!!!!"
It's also funny whenever I put a pretty easy question on the board. I hear lots of little voices yelling, "EASY! That's so EASY!" Over and over again.
And little first grade hugs are always a good thing. :0)

What a Friend

I have really been struggling with setting my mind on God throughout the day at school. It seems like everything moves so fast there and my mind is focusing on teaching and what I have to do next and I start trying to do everything completely on my own.
Rick Holland's message on Sunday night was so good about knowing God. I really do want to be thinking about Him throughout the day. For some reason this hymn has been super helpful.

What a Friend We Have in Jesus

What a friend we have in Jesus, All our sins and griefs to bear!

What a privilege to carry Ev'rything to God in prayer!

Oh, what peace we often forfeit, Oh what needless pain we bear,

All because we do not carry Ev'rything to God in prayer!

Have we trials and temptations? Is there trouble anywhere?

We should never be discouraged, Take it to the Lord in prayer:

Can we find a friend so faithful Who will all our sorrows share?

Jesus Knows our every weakness, Take it to the Lord in prayer.

Are we weak and heavy laden, Cumbered with a load of care?

Precious Saviour, still our refuge; Take it to the Lord in prayer:

Do thy friends despise, forsake thee? Take it to the Lord in prayer;

In His arms He'll take and shield thee; Thou wilt find a solace there.

It helps to know that I can pray to God about anything throughout the day. Listening to this hymn in the morning on the way to school helps me to think about how God is present with me throughout the day and He knows everything that I am doing or thinking about. Nothing is hidden from Him.

Finally!

So, it has been a loooong time since I have put anything on here. A reflection of how crazy this semester has been so far. It's not so much that I have a ton more work, there is just less time to do the work that I now have. Anyway, over all, I have really enjoyed student teaching. Way more than I ever thought I would.

I was reading C.S. Lewis' book, Perelandra, right before I started student teaching and I read something in there that almost perfectly described how I felt about student teaching at the time. It says, "The thing still seemed impossible. But gradually something happened to him which had happened to him only twice before in his life. It had happened once while he was trying to make up his mind to do a very dangerous job in the last war. It had happened again while he was screwing his resolution to go and see a certain man in London and make to him an excessively embarrassing confession which justice demanded. In both cases the thing had seemed a sheer impossibilty: he had not thought but known that, being what he was, he was psychologically incapable of doing it; and then, without any apparent movement of the will, as objective and unemotional as the reading on a dial, there had arisen before him, with perfect certitude, the knowledge 'about this time tomorrow you will have done the impossible.' The same thing happened now. His fear, his shame, his love, all his arguments, were not altered in the least. The thing was neither more nor less dreadful than it had been before. The only difference was that he knew - almost as a historical proposition - that it was going to be done. He might beg, weep, or rebel - might curse or adore - sing like a martyr or blaspheme like a devil. It made not the slightest difference. The thing was going to be done. There was going to arrive, in the course of time, a moment at which he would have done it. The future act stood there, fixed and unaltered as if he had already performed it. It was a mere irrelevant detail that it happened to occupy the postition we call future instead of that which we call past. The whole struggle was over, and yet there seemed to have been no moment of victory...No sooner had he discovered that he would certainly try to kill the Un-man to-morrow than the doing of it appeared to him a smaller matter than he had supposed."

I'm starting to realize that I think it's kind of impossible to become very godly if we are never willing to get out of our comfort zones. One of my biggest struggles in life has been the fear of man, and the thought of having to get up and teach in front of a group of strangers, another teacher, and, once a week, a supervisor, absolutely terrified me. But I thought, somehow, I will most likely get through it. And now there is only a week left of my first assignment and it wasn't that bad at all. God truly helped me get through it and even greatly enjoy it! I had a wonderful teacher to learn from and a great class and now I am really sad to leave! The kids in the class are really sweet and some of them are so hilarious. There is this one kid who kind of reminds me of a little Taylor Hicks. Anyway, we kind of joke around sometimes and it's gotten to the point where he's a bit sassy with me. In class on Friday I can't remember what he said to me, but I was like, "Excuse me?" And he said, "What? You make fun of me, so now I'm getting back at you." Then I told him that you don't get to get back at the teacher. That's the privilege of being the teacher. Anyway, it was kind of funny, but I'm a bit worried that I'm not strict enough. I really try, I think it's kind of hard because I feel too young to be a teacher and the kids think I look too young to be a teacher also! Oh well! Now I'll see how first grade goes.

All in all, God has just been showing me how faithful and gracious He is, even when I am so unfaithful. I am so thankful that I have hope in Him!