Teaching for the Institute

“A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies, said Jojen. The man who never reads lives only one.”

- George R.R. Martin, A Dance with Dragons (or the real title - Game of Thrones Book 5)

    As much as I love Game of Thrones, and maybe this is why I like it so much, it is really hard to just pull out a line of text and make it be meaningful in any other context that would be interesting for non-Game of Thrones readers or listeners (good God, it's hard to wrap my brain around the fact that it exists). I found one! 

   The reason the above quote is meaningful in the context of this week's blog post is that I FINALLY got to start teaching for the Institute of Reading Development (hereto referred to as IRD for the sake of not having to type that many words ever again). I have been in training with IRD for the past month. What this means is, I trained for teaching these classes for the same amount of time I trained to understand the complexities of how an Apple/Mac computer works. It's kind of interesting for me to think about.

   You know how I feel about "teaching" for this program but I have been excited to get into the class. Well, I did it! Before I get to that experience though, my OCD requires that I tell things in chronological order and I didn't start teaching classes until Saturday. 

Monday - Nothing of interest happened last Monday. I believe it was the day I spent rigorously scrubbing the stone floors. They get really dirty and Miya hair is just everywhere, always. I discovered that I could get Miya fur out of the rugs by taking her fur brush and scraping it against the rugs. I am amazed at how well this worked. 

Tuesday - I had a meeting with the PUC HR department. I turned in all of my new hire paperwork. I have to say I am so stoked to begin working for them towards the end of summer. I am going to have to take days off from teaching with IRD in order to make sure I can attend all orientation and training workshops for PUC but, obviously, they are the priority. My supervisor at IRD knows about the situation and is actually pretty excited for me too, so, we're going to work together to make sure it all works out. I am just so excited to start REALLY teaching. Also, even a meeting that is as dull as meeting with HR to turn in papers was a pleasant and exciting experience. What I mean to say is: I AM EXCITED TO BE WORKING FOR PUC SCHOOLS!!!! 

The rest of the day was boring. 

Wednesday - Last training day for IRD (yay!).

Thursday - I don't remember Thursday. Therefore, I have determined that I can definitively state that Thursday didn't happen. We skipped it! Aren't you glad I forgot about it? This means you had one less day in your work week! Unless your Daniel, then I am sure you spent the whole day in your office working. 

Friday - Now, Friday was pretty cool. I slept in and then did a little bit of preparation for teaching the next day. Daniel and I then went to Santa Monica and spent a couple of hours on the beach. We actually went swimming in the water this time. We've been in So Cal (this is how Southern Californians refer to the region, I don't think I like it, but, for the sake of not having to type a lot of text, I will use it) for more than a month and this was the first time we had taken more than a few steps into the ocean. It was wonderful. We just walked out as far as we could and than tried to ride the waves with our bodies. One wave was particularly scary (I got pulled under and twirled in a circle under water a couple of times) so we retreated to enjoy the sun and build sand castles. I also read my book (I'm currently rereading The Jungle - there is something so alluring about this book for me) for a bit. 

Afterwards Daniel had a networking dinner with some of his fellow Berkelee graduates. We went to this really awesome, totally out of our spending league, mall called The Grove. It was incredible. It had a huge pond with a tiny waterfall and fountain in it and a trolley that went through it. It was an outside mall... and there were a ton of people with puppies. I want to go back to there. Also, while we were driving there, I decided that I really liked the area and neighborhood. The houses actually had lawns there... super plus in my book. We both kind of decided that this might be a great place to land once we start making enough money to get a house. It's a part of the actual city of Los Angeles but is pretty close to West Hollywood as well. We even looked at a map and decided that it would only add fifteen minutes to my commute to CCMS (Community Charter Middle School - the school I work at for PUC) in the opposite direction of most traffic. It would be perfect and I want to live there. Anyway, dinner was really nice. We splurged a bit and I had filet mignon. I didn't talk much but I enjoyed listening to the music talk and we were seated outside so I got to enjoy the ambience as well.

Saturday - To start things off, Daniel and I decided to start running in the mornings. Well, Saturday was the first day of our running because it was the first day that I actually had a schedule that we could fit into a routine. Stupidest idea ever, not for Saturday so much, but I was incredibly sore on Sunday (also a day I had to teach). 

First day of teaching! Okay, the day was really hectic. I arrived at the site I was teaching at that day pretty early but the janitor only arrived 15 minutes before my class started to let me in. They also moved my class to a different room, which caused some confusion for my students' parents. Also, there was no where near enough desks or chairs in the room, which meant I had students sitting on their parents' laps as well as people standing the whole time. It was a bad situation. To make matters worse, I forgot the class books we were reading for one of the classes. This makes it pretty hard when you are teaching from a scripted lesson plan. Luckily, I'm pretty good at thinking on my feet and we read from books that all the students received in their material kits. 

The teaching wasn't bad. I was a little pampered during student teaching in that I had a microphone for when I was teaching classes. I have no such luxury with IRD. My throat was dead by the time the second class was over. I've decided that I made a good choice in not making elementary school teaching my career choice. Kindergarten, First, and Second graders are all very cute, but they are also extremely crazy and I'm not sure they are really controllable. Also, they don't logic very well. I need kids that can logic. Oh well, only four more weeks and then I might get a couple of secondary classes. I actually do have one class with Jr. High kids this term, so I'm pretty excited for that.

Also, Shawn and Diana came to visit us this weekend. This is the only reason they came to California, not to go on an amazing scuba diving trip for absolutely free, but to visit us! They arrived after I got done with teaching and we showed them our house and ate out for dinner. I was very happy to see them and it's exciting to have people we love around to talk to again. They slept in our driveway that night. I enjoyed that too, for some reason. Yay! People! I miss people!

Sunday - Sunday was my second day of teaching. I was incredibly sore and I had to transport heavy boxes across Pasadena City College a couple of times... other than that, classes went well. I only have 8 second graders in one of my classes. They are ALMOST controllable. 

Shawn, Diana, and Daniel went to Universal Studios on Sunday. You can imagine how amazingly happy I was for them, since I've been begging Daniel to take me to Universal Studios for the past month and he has consistently told me that we don't have enough money. However, Shawn paid for a VIP pass for him and they had a ton of fun. AND! He also bought Daniel an annual pass and we have all agreed that Daniel has no excuses to not buy me one and now we can go! So, THANK YOU SHAWN! Really though, I am glad that Daniel got to spend some quality time with his dad. Also, I found out that Shawn Brown fixed our freaking water pressure! OH MY GOSH, yes! I can finally take a shower where the water actually pushes the grime off of my body! And, what's this - shampoo comes out of my hair now!

Monday - I woke up Monday feeling incredibly awful. I could hardly move any muscle in my body without it screaming. My feet felt like I'm sure the guy from Misery's feet felt. Also, my throat was sore from all the teacher talking I did over the weekend. Sigh, I hope this gets better. 

You will probably be getting blogposts on Monday for a while. Monday is technically a day I don't have to teach, even though I do a lot of administrative work: meetings, inventory, planning, reporting, and calling parents. Still, I have more time for myself and will have time to write a blog post. I am more excited for Thursday and Friday because I try to get as much of this administrative work done as possible on Monday so I can have a true "weekend." Still, I'll have a bit of work to do anyway. 

We went shopping for groceries today. I had a reason I was going to tell you this but I forgot that reason. Darn, well, yay for groceries! 

Well, that was my week. It was pretty awesome. Oh! I remember now! The reason for telling you about groceries! So, we had enough money left in our grocery budget to get snacks. Daniel chose to get Oreos and a Wal-Mart brand of Oreos. The patent on Oreos must have ran out. Anyway, for the sake of science, I have documented my experience with a taste test comparison of these Wal-mart brand Oreos. This one is for you Jessica!

Right: Oreo                 Left: Twist and Shout (I know, right?)

I have broken down the experience for how I eat Oreos. I do not take my Oreos with milk, however, so if you want to know how Twist and Shouts compare with Oreos when using the Milk Method, you'll have to ask Daniel.

1) When I eat an Oreo, I first twist off one of the ends. What you'll notice when you twist off the end of a Twist and Shout is that, often, the cream is not centered. However, you'll notice from the above picture that there is more cream than on an Oreo.

2) I first eat the end that I twisted off without the cream. The Twist and Shout, in comparison has a darker cookie. Also, it has a slightly sweeter cookie, but nothing that is going to drive you too crazy.

3) I then scrape off the cream from the other cookie with my teeth. The cream of the Twist and Shout is noticeably softer than that of an Oreo. Other than that, they pretty much taste the same. 

4) I than eat the other cookie half. 

So, for those of you who are going to walk down the cookie isle at Wal-Mart and see these two packages next to each other, I have solved your dilemma. Twist and Shouts are, of course, cheaper than Oreos. Also, if an Oreo is a 5, I would rate Twist and Shouts at a 4.5. They weren't bad. I wish their cream was spread on evenly but I suppose that has nothing to do with the taste of the cookie. So, buy the Twist and Shout, you probably won't even notice they aren't Oreos unless you try to reseal the package. The Twist and Shouts don't have the cool, probably still patented, resealable packaging of Oreos. 

Well, that's all from me tonight folks! Have a great week! Love you!

<3/ Brandy

Violinist in Venice - Brandy Brown