NaBloPoMo Wrap-up

Today marks the last day of NaBloPoMo, but to be honest, at times, I completely forgot I was participating. My daily post has become such a part of my everyday routine, that I never felt like it was a chore to have to post. I only ran out of things to say a few times. Maybe only once. Guess I am becoming quite the chatter box. What would the written expression version of a chatterbox be?

My other goal for the month of November was my 30 Day Shred Challenge, which started out strong and fizzled towards the middle of the month. Overall I did the routines fairly consistently with an average of about every other day. Not bad. I had hoped for some amazing results, but I mostly noticed that my endurance improved. I sure sweat a lot and felt great each time I finished a workout, but I can't say that my challenge resulted in a smoking hot "shredded" bod. Oh well. I won't toss Jillian aside, I still think her workouts are hardcore. I just don't think the results are as drastic as she makes them out to be.

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I can't believe tomorrow is the first day of December! In a mere 19 days, I will be home in CT with my family! ::BIG smiles::

Since tomorrow is December first that means we get to start our advent house! When I was little my mom always made a paper chain with one link for each day in December leading up to Christmas. She would write fun activities on the slips of paper and each day my brother and I would get to remove the link and read what we got to do that day. Sometimes it was some kind of outing like going to the library, or an activity like baking cookies. Sometimes it was something simple like everyone singing a Christmas song together. I always loved doing our special chain, so I continued the tradition with my college roommate. Our activities got a little more involved including trips to the mall for holiday shopping and dinner at our favorite restaurant. The chain was always about having special moments with the ones you love.

When my husband and I got married, I started to do the same advent type thing with him, but I recently got this cool little advent house from my mom. Each day has a door that opens to a small compartment. The perfect size for a little piece of chocolate or a small note. Since my husband is really busy during the week, I didn't want to put in too many activities that required us going out, so I wrote footrub or backrub on a lot of his little notes. He never tires of getting pampered like that. I also included a few that said, relax with a glass of wine/beer or watch a movie together. My favorite (put in for my pleasure) was read magazines in bed. Sometimes he gets a little chocolate too.

I really enjoy doing an activity based (or appreciation based) advent because it means more than just getting a piece of candy. I use the month of December as a chance to show my husband how important he is by doing something nice for him everyday and making time to spend with each other.

Tonight I have to make all his little notes to get ready for tomorrow!

productive weekend!

I am happy to report that my 20 pager is complete! I spent a lot of time yesterday finishing it up and I have to say I think it came out pretty good. It's really difficult to write research papers that include so much of what other people have thought and said. I can write from my own perspective all day, but when it comes to rephrasing very smart things said by other people, I am often hard pressed to make it sound better than how it was phrased before.

I still have some final editing to do, but the drafting stage is done and that is the hardest part! I started out trying to cheat the margins a little (yep, I'll admit it!) but by the end of my writing, I had enough even with 1" margins. I don't think my teacher is going to be super picky about that, but I had a little bit of guilt over using bigger margins just to make the paper longer. I always teased my husband about that when he was in grad school because he would write headings that included 5 lines of information that was totally unnecessary just to make the paper longer. He would write his name, the teacher's name, the course name, the date, the assignment name...Then when he finally started the paper the first line would be about a third of the way down the page. Silly boy!

I still have two more assignments to do to finish out this quarter, but neither is that awful. The biggest is the unit plan for 10 global picture books with a common theme, but the maximum page allowance is 6, so I am not too scared of that. I already have the books and the theme, so I just need to make the annotated bibliography, and write up a few lesson ideas and goals as if I were using the books in a unit. I will post my list of books because some of them are pretty cute.

Now that my paper stress is over, I am off to the gym!

Nürnberger Christkindlesmarkt

Last night some friends and I went to the opening of the Christmas Market in Nürnberg. It was so fun! During the holiday season (last week in November through Christmas), each town/city has its own Christmas Market. The one is Nürnberg is quite big and was definitely jampacked with lots of people and holiday spirit. Not to mention half meter long sausages! Whew.

I took a lot of pics and posted them on my other blog, but I know you guys enjoy seeing bits of Germany as well. Here are a few highlights:

This was how big the crowd was watching the presentation of the Christkindle (Christ's child) angel that sets off the Christmas Market season.

drinking some Glühwein (special holiday wine)

lots of Lebkuchen (gingerbread)

handmade walnut people

The children's market had a few rides

We are going again next weekend! Can't wait.

PaperPaperPaper

Nothing much to say today besides that I am trying hard to get my 20 page research paper completed this weekend. I have a little over 13 pages done at this point, which is good, but I am struggling to find the motivation to do the rest. I am getting anxious about the thought of turning it because I heard from other students in the program that they always thought they were good writers until the began the doctoral program. Apparently, they really give your stuff a beating in order to demonstrate the high standards of academic work at this level.

Fun times.

It's hard to just turn something in without having any feedback along the way. I have spoken to my advisor about the topic, but he has not checked in on the written part at all. I guess my best is all I can offer and if I end up with not great feedback, I still have plenty of program time left to improve.

The paper is due the first week in December (can you believe that is next week already!?) but I am hoping to turn it in at the end of the week as opposed to the beginning. That is just satiating my stressed mind right now because that gives me 7 days instead of 3.

Blogging is so much easier than research papers!

Cloud Nine

I have a lot to be thankful for, but the one thing that is making me the happiest today is my Algebra friend, "Henry." Henry and I work together a few times a week in his math class. When I first got assigned to him, I was told that he is very behind the other students and lacks a lot of fundamentals. He definitely struggled and was not able to keep up with the other students in class. We even started working on completely different, basic stuff in order to help him fill some of the gaps in his understanding.

Today, the class was working on the elimination method for solving simultaneous equations.

Sounds like fun, right?

Henry rocked it out today in class! He was able to do the problems (still with prompting) but with much more intuition and confidence than just three weeks ago! When the teacher gave the students an equation to double or triple and asked them to write the answer on their little whiteboard, Henry was right in there with the rest of the class, despite the very short amount of time the teacher allowed for answering.

When the teacher had the students begin working out some problems independently, Henry and I sped through about 5 and moved on ahead of the rest of the group because he got it! Seriously, I wanted to cry. I am so unbelievably proud of this guy. And I can tell by the look on his face that he is proud of himself which makes it even better. When I first met Henry, he barely spoke and I can just see his confidence increasing. He has started asking me questions and chatting sometimes (which is big).

Like I said, I have a lot to be thankful for, but today I am mostly thankful for the chance to help students realize their potential and to help them experience success in school.

Turkey Lurkey

graphic from www.busyteacherscafe.com

I don't know how many of you will be doing the blog thing tomorrow, so I'd like to wish you all a

Happy Thanksgiving!

How sad to be in a country without Thanksgiving. I will be going into work tomorrow and sitting through German class tomorrow night instead of enjoying a nice home cooked turkey dinner.

:: sigh ::

Please enjoy some stuffing and sweet potatoes for me!

But truthfully, I don't need the meal in order to reflect on what I am thankful for.

I would love to spend the day with my family, but I am thankful I will get to see them in less than a month over Christmas break!

Have a great day everyone!