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I've gained like 4 pounds in the past week. All I've been doing is eating and studying, so yeah... I have to go on a diet when I get home, seriously.
Posts: 2705 | Registered: Sep 2006
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Sometime in the last 6 months I was supposed to have learned Portuguese. Unfortunately, this term paper is showing that my ability is conversational, and not academic.
Ugh, Brazil. Too barroco for your own good. (Or, in this case, mine.)
Anyway--3 classes down! I guess I can celebrate while I write.
Posts: 433 | Registered: Feb 2005
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quote:Originally posted by JonHecht: All I've been doing is eating and studying, so yeah...
Agreed. My entire apartment is in the mentality that since we're all working so freaking hard, we get to eat whatever we want. It's so good. It's so bad.
Posts: 1711 | Registered: Jun 2004
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quote:Originally posted by JonHecht: I've gained like 4 pounds in the past week. All I've been doing is eating and studying, so yeah... I have to go on a diet when I get home, seriously.
This past week I gained so much weight that I jumped a weight class for wrestling. Now I'm having a frustratingly hard time turning all of that added weight into muscle. Posts: 1158 | Registered: Feb 2006
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Friday, I had a friday class and a friday final!!!!!!!!!!! Yuck I can't wait until it's over. That's pretty much all I have left (my thursday class I just need to add two more lines and turn in my project).
Posts: 5362 | Registered: Apr 2004
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I'm so glad the semester is done with. Nothing like working full time and getting an MBA.
I actually just got my grades this morning...still got all A's, keeping my 4.0 alive...with only the spring and summer semesters to go until graduation!
Posts: 1901 | Registered: May 2004
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I've still got one tomorrow (wednesday) and two on friday. Then I'm done for the semester. Yipee! Then I get to play CS:S when I'm not at work! lol
Posts: 349 | Registered: Oct 2007
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My finals are not concluded until Thursday. I'm pulling an all night with my best friend and driving him to the airport the next morning. But I'll come back and party in this thread too! Posts: 14316 | Registered: Jul 2005
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I have finals until next Tuesday, then it's off to India.
This morning I woke up with an awful dream that I'd been studying so long that I lost track of the time and missed one of my finals. Arrrgh.
Posts: 2409 | Registered: Sep 2003
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I've been out of school longer than most of you have lived and I still wake up with nightmares that I have a final in a class I forgot to attend all semester.
Posts: 87 | Registered: Apr 2007
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I have my second to last final in... five and a half hours. Should be easy, though. In class essay.
Posts: 2705 | Registered: Sep 2006
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My school nightmares are always back in high school. I either don't know anyone, and need to be somewhere quickly but can't find it, or I'm expected to perform some music I haven't practiced on stage on an instrument I haven't played in four years.
I've never had a college nightmare...at least not yet. Posts: 1711 | Registered: Jun 2004
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Heading off to a math final in 5 minutes, wish me luck. Then tomorrow its The Executive Branch final and then DONE!
Posts: 14316 | Registered: Jul 2005
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My finals are over, but I've still got one last final paper to do in my post-modern poetry course. It's not too bad, I've got 1.5 pages done, needs to be a total of six, so I'm making progress. I only started about an hour ago, and I quit after writing the introduction and first paragraph and went upstairs and beaded a necklace for a friend. I had to have some type of creative outlet to get my mind off it - I abhor post-modern American poetry. I took it only because I have to take two American Lits and this one was at least with a prof I liked.
So, once I knock out 4.5 more pages I'm done for the semester.
Posts: 14428 | Registered: Aug 2001
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While I'm not in college anymore, I'm still in a college-like class with my student teaching. It's almost over although I'm really worried. I got placed with a sort of lazy/slacker teacher whose main concern is coaching. He hasn't provided any real support for me as a student teacher, and I've had to do almost all of the work that he's supposed to help me on by myself.
I've been extremely limited by the setting I'm in, and neither the school nor the program I am doing this through has offered any support or ways to fix this. As such, I'm exhausted but I feel like I haven't learned much of anything from the experience.
Case in point: I always knew that discipline would be the hardest part for me as a teacher. I don't like yelling. I'm sort of quiet and laid back. In all the prep classes I took for student teaching, they offered up these ways to manage your classroom that involved not having to yell or threaten a kid with detention or having to go to the principal's office. When I got to my mentor's classroom though, I found that all he knew how to do was yell. Since I have to follow his lead and can't really change his classroom, I haven't been able to do anything with discipline. I refuse to yell, but at the same time I can't implement any of the other methods (as they all require a vast remaking of the class). As such, discipline has been listed on my evaluative reports (the ones my mentor did) as the main problem area. On the last report, I was even listed as unsatisfactory in that area. I'm really concerned that I might not get certified and might have to redo my student teaching because of this, which angers me a bit.
So yeah, even though the semester is winding down, it's still not over. I won't know until Tuesday afternoon if I actually "passed" or not. I'm really scared and nervous. Keep me in your thoughts fellow posters.
Posts: 1960 | Registered: May 2005
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pfresh, I think it will be okay. Make sure you are communicating with your faculty advisors, you are not the first nor will you be the last to be placed in a less-than-optimal student teaching assignment. Speak up about your concerns to the people who make the decision. Your cooperating teacher does not decide if you get certified, the faculty and administration at your university do, so they are the ones you need to talk to.
Your experience is what frightens me about student teaching next year, but take heart - I've heard so many horror stories about placements, and I know for a fact that most of the people who had bad expericences like yours got certified anyway. Sorry it's been so rough, that stinks. Bad enough you work for semester without getting paid, but you aren't even getting anything constructive out of it!
So far in my observation placements I've been very lucky, I've had great teachers to observe. The student teaching placement is the most important though, and I won't find out where I'm placed until next semester. My student teaching semester will be spring 09 - but I have to apply in January.
Posts: 14428 | Registered: Aug 2001
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Well it did turn out okay. I e-mailed my supervisor at the college around the same time I posted this. She just got back to me and told me not to worry. She says since I've fulfilled all of my requirements, I've "passed", so I should get my certification.
Placement really is everything, and I was the student teacher who had the most problems with it from our college. All of the student teacher but four (me and three others) were placed the first day of our pre-service week. Two more were placed by Wednesday. The other person and I were placed on Thursday, but my placement was bad (they put me with a Geography teacher, when my certification is History 8-12 and not Social Studies 8-12). Friday they switched what school district I would be in (because the other one was slow in attempting to fix the problem), and they found me a placement in the other district. Same exact problem though: she was a Geography teacher (which was really bad because I asked the college people when they told me "Did you double-check this time to make sure that it was history?" and they said they had). The next Monday (when everyone else was starting their student teaching) I was still waiting for a placement. Finally Monday afternoon they found the placement I ended up with: a fairly young (he's four years older than me) teacher and football/basketball coach. He's not a bad guy, but he's just not very supportive at all.
I'll have my fingers crossed that your placement goes better than mine did, Belle. Seems odd that you have to apply in January to get to student teaching in Spring 09. We had to apply back in May for student teaching this fall, so it was only 4 or so months apart. Maybe mine was unusual though.
Posts: 1960 | Registered: May 2005
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Wow, you don't get to pick the teacher you student teach under? My best friend starts her student teaching next month, and she did extensive searching before settling on the teacher she did.
***
I finished my last final yesterday and did pretty well, so I'm happy and relieved. Now to get into Christmas mode!
Next term I'm taking a lighter load, and the main class is online, so that'll be a new experience. It'll be nice to have a more flexible schedule, though....we had some hairy days when my daughter was off school but my son (who can babysit) and I were not. It always worked out (hubby took the afternoons off those days), but it'll be nice for a term not to have to worry about it.
Posts: 5948 | Registered: Jun 2001
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I've got a couple years still before I have to student teach, and so far I've been pretty lucky with my placements on observations. I think some of it may have to do with that fact that I've made pretty good friends with the professors who do the placements, but some of it has to be luck.
pfresh, congrats on 'passing'. It can't be easy and more and more I'm starting to get nervous about heading that direction myself.
Posts: 349 | Registered: Oct 2007
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quote:Originally posted by jeniwren: Wow, you don't get to pick the teacher you student teach under? My best friend starts her student teaching next month, and she did extensive searching before settling on the teacher she did.
I wish. The original school district I was supposed to be placed in is the one I went to myself. I had actually talked to the teachers there and one of my old teachers was more than willing to have me as a student teacher. For some reason though, the district refused to place me there (I think maybe they wanted to avoid it because parts of the school are undergoing renovation). It sucks as I know I would have gotten more out of it if I had been placed there.
Posts: 1960 | Registered: May 2005
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My final paper is emailed to the professor (she is already out of town and not on campus, so just asked us to email it) so I'm done!
As to the student teaching, not only do we not get to pick what teacher we're assigned to we don't even get to request the school. We submit our application, tell them our preferred subject and grade (for me it will be 7th or 8th grade English) and then wait until we're told what school and what teacher. Anyone student teaching next school year has to apply in January, so I will apply even though I won't student teach until the following January.
We have no choice in our observations either, they're assigned to us. My observation site this semester was more than an hour away from my home, and with morning traffic I had to leave home at 6:30 to get there before 8:00 am. Very frustrating. Fortunately I had a good teacher, so it all worked out.
Posts: 14428 | Registered: Aug 2001
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quote:Originally posted by Belle: As to the student teaching, not only do we not get to pick what teacher we're assigned to we don't even get to request the school. We submit our application, tell them our preferred subject and grade (for me it will be 7th or 8th grade English) and then wait until we're told what school and what teacher.
That sounds closer to how ours was. We specified what school district (of three possible) that we preferred and then we listed our certification area and what within that we would like to teach if possible. In my case, I listed my old school district as the one I wanted to be at and World History/10th grade as the subject I wanted to teach (partially because that's really what I want to teach and partially because that's what the teacher I knew who would work with me teaches). Unfortunately that didn't work out and I got put with my second choice for school districts. At least I didn't get knocked down to my last choice. *shudder* That would have been bad.
Hooray, only a half day more of actual student teaching. It's almost party time.
Posts: 1960 | Registered: May 2005
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Wow. Maybe it's because my friend is getting her degree through University of Phoenix that the difference between your program and hers. She has had to figure out all her observations on her own, which has actually worked out pretty cool, since she's observed in probably half a dozen different districts now. It's been interesting to hear her observations of the differences. She's going to do her student teaching in my son's school district, which is great, because he'll be going to the high school she's working in next year. I should be able to get the scoop on the teachers to seek out, and the ones to avoid.
Posts: 5948 | Registered: Jun 2001
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I had my last final yesterday and it was definitely my worse one. Still I think I can come out of that class with a B, we shall see. Either way I'm all done! Coincidentally I get to pick up my family, flying in for the holidays from Japan tonight!
*leaps into the party fray* Posts: 14316 | Registered: Jul 2005
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The way it was explained to us is that with so many universities in our area that have education programs, and given that undergrad students are an extra burden on teachers and administrators in the public schools and a potential security risk (given that most of us have not completed our background checks yet) they needed a system to control how many undergrads were flowing in and out of the public schools in the area.
So, our university submits requests to the various school boards, and the principals of the schools involved agree to let us come in. Then, they begin placing us with the most experienced teacher available in our subject field. At UAB, we have to observe in at least one suburdan school district and one urban school, so depending on what pre-teacher education course you're enrolled in, you're sent either out to the rich suburbs or to the inner cities. This semester was my rich-suburb semester and the surburb they chose was way on the other side of Birmingham from me, so I had to drive through Birmingham at rush hour to get there.
I would have loved to have set up my own observations, I would have picked someplace much closer to home! As for student teaching, it's my understanding you submit your zip code and they try to find the school district closest to your home, but in my case that won't work since you are also not allowed to student teach in a system where your own children attend. Still, maybe they won't have me driving too far.
Posts: 14428 | Registered: Aug 2001
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It's amazing how after only two full days of getting home, it feels like it's where I belong. My dog is happy to see me. I fit right back into the family. I hang out with my highschool friends, just like back in highschool (i.e. drinking coffee and chatting for hours at Barnes and Noble, then going to Applebee's for hours for half price appetizers).
It's very relaxing.
I hope everyone else is enjoying their in between semester breaks.
Posts: 1711 | Registered: Jun 2004
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I'm done! I only had one final, and it was on the first day of final week (today). I'm finished with all projects and papers, and with the possible requirement that I make some revisions to a thesis paper next week, I'm done with the semester, and done with undergraduate work.
How close are you other Hatrack college students? My school has always been early with the start and end of the semester , and all of my high school friends still have a week left.
So I'll be here, celebrating the end, waiting for others.
Posts: 1711 | Registered: Jun 2004
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I just got home from one final (who schedules a final from 7:00pm to 9:30 pm!! My university, that's who.) I have two more on Thursday and I'm done.
Shouldn't be too bad!
Posts: 14428 | Registered: Aug 2001
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I had a couple of evening finals...but they usually started in late afternoon and only ran into early evening. This was four years ago, so maybe my memory has dulled a bit. Posts: 1813 | Registered: Apr 2001
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, and all of my high school friends still have a week left.
