Turkey time!

Happy Turkey Day a couple days early to the thousands of loyal readers out there. I'm overwhelmed by the generosity and the astonishing amount of food being sent in to the home office of the blog. Stellar!

It turns out that I'm really the turkey this year (no different than any other, actually). The past week was a big one school wise. First, I completed my clinical observations, including teaching a lesson in one of the classes I worked with. It was ok but the kids were pretty tough, mainly acting up a lot and not paying a lot of attention. I got most of them to do part of the lesson although I wasn't very happy that they didn't all do it. But the teacher was pretty pleased with how many of them actually did so whatever. Anyhow, I'm thinking that one of the things I'll want to do is start my classes out very tough from a discipline perspective. Hopefully that will avoid problems as the semester progresses. Anyone who knows me though knows that I'm pretty laid back in general so this will be sort of tough for me to do. We'll see how it goes.

I also taught a mini grammar lesson in my grad class last night. It was only 10 minutes long but we had to prepare an entire class long lesson. It was a lot of work! I can see how the first year of teaching is really going to be grueling, creating all these lessons from scratch. I think it will get easier once you are able to re-use things in future years. This was probably the most work for any assignment we have in this class so hopefully it will be smooth sailing from here.

I received my student teaching assignment for next fall. It's at a middle school that is about 10 minutes from my house. Unfortunately, I've decided that I'm going to postpone student teaching for one more year. It's primarily due to finances. We just haven't been able to save up enough money to allow me to quit my job as soon as next fall. I'm disappointed because I would really like to move forward that quickly but barring a financial windfall in the next 3-4 weeks, it will be out of the question. The upside is that I'll be able to focus on adding an endorsement, which will allow me to teach in a subject besides English. Since I'm focusing on middle school, I'll probably try to get the endorsement in technology. Business is another interest but I don't think there's a big need for a business teacher in middle school!

So, that will mean I'll have a few more classes to take but I will also have another year in which to take them. I need to work out my new schedule with my advisor pretty quickly.

One more Shakespeare play to go, Much Ado About Nothing. I just finished Merchant of Venice, which is really not very funny for a comedy. But I should be done reading by this time next week!

Travelling home to see my family full of turkeys for Thanksgiving. It will be just an overnight trip due to a bunch of strange schedules but that will allow me to get home quickly, which will be sort of nice. Unfortunately, that means I won't be able to see any of the friends from my hometown, which is always a very fun part of the holidays. Oh well, they're probably tired of my ugly mug anyhow. The upside is I get to spend all day Friday with my boy Q playing poker on his birthday. Sounds great to me!

Congrats are due to D & B, who had a healthy baby boy last Friday. Samuel Neal (again my recommendation of the name Ace was shot down!) is home with mom and everyone is doing great. Glad to hear all is well.

Plans are coming together for one of our family trips scheduled next year. In February, we'll be packing up the kids and trekking to Disney. This will be coupled with a record release weekend for one of my favorite bands, where 2 concerts will be played and general silliness will ensue. I can't wait, it really should be fun. And it looks like we're going to get the hook-up on a timeshare from one of my boys, which should be quite sweet.

My fantasy football teams are complete disasters. 1-2 again this week, barely squeaking out my one win. Here's the lowdown:

Boom Kings: 4-7, will take a minor miracle to make the playoffs
Nice Guy Dick-Taters: 5-6, have a shot at the playoffs but need a strong finish
Come On Sucker Lick My Battery: 6-5, should make the playoffs, jockeying for position right now

Is it baseball season yet?

Until next time.

Ace