This semester has been so wonderful, but so crazy and overwhelming all at once, which is why I have been terrible about posting regularly on here (oops…sorry!) I feel like I’m living two lives at once- the life of a teacher, who gets up at 6 AM, gets to school at 7:15 AM, teaches students all day, stays after school to work until 5:15 PM or go to meetings, and then takes schoolwork home. That being said, I still feel like I’m living the college sutdent life because I’m still living in the dorms with my friends, I try to make time to hang out with them, and I’m working two part-time jobs on the side, just to have some sort of income. Sound like a crazy life? It is…but I love it!

Student teaching has been incredible! I absolutely loved my placement in 2nd grade at Walton Rural Life Center. At the school, we have many animals in our barn (chickens, sheep, lambs, a donkey, calves, and pigs) and a green house where students work with plants. The school takes a project-based learning approach, so the learning is more hands-on. I love it! My cooperating teacher was phenomal! Our personalities were so alike and we worked so well together as a team. She provided me with so many good ideas, suggestions, and many times we just sat down after school and talked like good friends do. She has really been a huge blessing in my life. My students were fantastic too- such hard workers!

Last Thursday, I made the transition from my general education placement to my special education placement, also at the same school. On my last day in 2nd grade, my class threw a huge surprise party for me! They kicked me out of the classroom for 30 minutes and when they brought me back in, I was blindfolded and led to the other side of the room. On the count of three, all the students screamed and threw A LOT of confetti all over me! I was coated! They made a crown for me to wear, decorated my desk, and we had a party. There was punch, chocolate cupcakes, and each student made a special card for me. It was a wonderful last day!

So far, special education has been a fun environment to work it, but it’s been a hard switch, simply because it is SO different from general education. I enjoy both, but I’m hoping to get a job in a general education elementary classroom. I’m on the job hunt now…wish me luck! 🙂

This semester, I haven’t been in Concert Choir because of student teaching. Let me just say that during the time that Concert Choir meets each day, my students are just coming in from recess and then we have sharing bag, read-aloud, and reading groups, and there’s not much time to even think about how much I miss singing in the choir and being with those people.

Now it’s spring break, so I don’t have school, and the Concert Choir is on tour, travelling around Kansas, Missouri, Ohio, Illinois, and Indiana, sharing their beautiful music with everyone who wants to listen. My sister is with them and all of my friends keep posting pictures on facebook. I’m realizing how much I miss choir and just how badly I wish I was riding around the U.S. on that tour bus with them. I’m realizing now how much of an impact that choir and those people had on my college experience. They say that “you never know what you had until it’s gone,” and that quote applies perfectly to this situation.

I got lucky and my family decided to take a little spring break vacation to St. Louis. We found out a week after we planned it that the Concert Choir would be singing in a huge cathedral there and that we could go see them! Their music was extravagant. Being able to listen to a full concert of songs that you know and learned is amazing, because you don’t have to listen to try to understand the words; you can just listen and absorb the music. Multiple times, the choir made me smile, laugh, and cry during that concert. It was simply wonderful to hear them sing in such a beautiful setting.

Well this past week has been pretty crazy and non routine for the Bethel community.

With all the snow that fell upon us there was:

-Cancelled classes

-Snowball fights

-Snowmen/igloo/fort making

-Frisby in the snow

-And lots of gorgeous pictures!

On Thursday, a great number of students were out playing in the snow, bringing out the five year old’s in us again.

Unfortuantely with all of the beautiful snow also came cancellation of some activities. One being the Concert Choir singing at KMEA (Kansas Music Educators Association) on Thursday. The choir had been working very hard for the previous couple of weeks preparing the songs that we were to sing at KMEA. After all the work we put into it I was disappointed that we were not able to travel to Wichita to sing because it was a great privilege to be invited to do so. However, now the choir is looking towards and preparing for the next big activity: the spring break trip!

 

Another activity that was canceled was my tennis practices and a tennis match that was scheduled on Wednesday the day it started snowing. The men’s and women’s tennis teams were supposed to travel to Oklahoma to play Southern Nazarene (women) and Southwestern Christian (men). It was disappointing that we were not able to go because I was ready to play and love tennis trips! However because tennis is an outdoor sport (unless you are fortunate enough to have indoor facilities) our tennis season has been put on hold because of all the snow. We have still been working out and doing cardio but as far as tennis goes we’re at a standstill until we can get all of the snow off the courts! Hopefully we will be able to do this soon so that our season can continue on and we will not have to reshedule any more meets!

Our first possible home tennis meet (depending on the snow) is March 5 against Central Christian at 3:00pm. If that is canceled then the next home meet will be Friday March 8 against John Brown University at 3:00pm.

We would love to have you come watch and support our tennis program!

 

Hello all! It’s been a while. Well. Interterm is over and we are three weeks into the spring semester. In the interest of not taking too much space telling you about Interterm when everyone else probably has, here it is: One class, one month. Some classes have no or very little homework, some have hours every night. It’s the equivalent of one week in one day, so it can get fairly strenuous. Exciting things that happened over Interterm include lots of basketball games, Martin Luther King, Jr., celebrations, and a feeling like we weren’t actually in school. The lack of convocation and music classes are to blame for that last part.With the new semester starting, the pressure is looming for us juniors. Most majors involve some sort of seminar paper or internship, so everyone is starting to plan research topics or contact potential student teaching placements. These beginnings are exciting because it’s more choices for us, the students. We get to explore a topic of our choice as a seminar in preparation for whatever we choose to do after college. It’s a point where student research at Bethel is an obvious strength. I’m in the process of exploring topics now, and it’s already exciting!

Hello friends!

It’s been awhile since I’ve blogged, but I wanted to let you know about my interterm class Multimedia Production. While some of my friends went on trips over interterm, or took GE classes, I decided to give myself a break and take a fun class.

I love photography, so I jumped at the chance to use a camera, however this time it would be for videos. I also wanted to familiarize myself with Final Cut Pro X, the video editing program we used in the course. The most exciting part though, was the actual shooting and creation of the video. Although we did learn important concepts related to lighting, sound, etc. we all were anxious to check out cameras and get rolling.

After having learned the basics, my group and I drafted a proposal for our video project, created a script, and began shooting scenes. With the help of fellow Bethel students, who were rather willing to star in our film, we developed a unique and entertaining film. I was thrilled because I got to use my own DSLR camera for the project, which enhanced my videography skills and because it was fun to make our own movie! It was also neat to watch our classmates videos as well, they were also very entertaining.

This class was a great choice and I had several jealous friends who took hard classes. If you are interested in multimedia or just want to take a fun course, I would recommend this one if the opportunity approaches itself!

 

~Samantha

This interterm I chose to take a class through Kipcor called: “Practical Skills for Managing Interpersonal Conflict.” It was an intensive class that lasted four days, which started at 8:30am and went until 5:00pm. In this class we were trained in mediation and took a style profile test to learn more about what our “style” is in every day life and during conflict.

This class has been one of the most rewarding classes of my college career. Not only was I able to learn a lot more about myself and how to improve how I handle conflict in my personal and work life but also how to help other people solve conflict. In this course I really felt like I could connect the information that I learned to my life and use it to become the best person I can be.

This is what a liberal arts education is doing for me. Being able to take classes outside of my social work major requirements has helped me develop life skills and challenged me to think in different ways. I would not have been able to take all the classes such as choir, business, literature and the training through Kipcor if it were not for my liberal arts education. I was surprised at how much all the classes can tie in together. Aspects that I have learned in a business class like “Organizational Behavior” about motivation can tie into social work and what motivates people to change. Learning about my specific “style” in “Practical Skills for Managing Interpersonal Conflict” and learning how to be an active listener can connect with how I will relate and listen to people I am working with and what my strengths are in terms of those ideas in my career as a social worker.

When I first came to college I did not fully appreciate the value of a liberal arts education. The ability to participate in many different classes has opened my eyes to the benefits such an education can provide.

“The basic purpose of a liberal arts education is to liberate the human being to exercise his or her potential to the fullest.”

– Barbara M. White

On Tuesday night, my Interterm trip to Mexico came to a close and I arrived back at home. Throughout this past week and on the plane ride home, I did a lot of reflecting and thinking about what I would and would not miss about Mexico, and what really irrited me about Mexico.

 

Things that I miss about Mexico:

-The beautiful flowers everwhere

-Seeing very colorful houses everywhere I look…greens, yellows, purples, oranges- you name it!

-The hospitality- everyone that shared with us was super friendly. People in the U.S. just aren’t that way.

-The food- delicious!

-The warmth! There is nothing like wearing sandals, swimming, tanning, and getting a sunburn in January!

-Being able to practice my Spanish all day, everyday.

-The delicious bakery that was right around the corner in Mexico City where we went every morning for breakfast. You just can’t find huge pastries for 60 cents in the U.S.

-Seeing how genuine everyone really was. These people know what really matters in life. They have so little, but are always smiling and work really hard to earn waht they have. They are so thankful for what they have. They are simply determined poeple who are caught in a bad situation.

 

Things that I don’t miss about Mexico:

-Not being able to drive my car- When you’re used to driving everywhere, not being able to drive for three weeks sucks. Then again, the drivers there are insane and there are so many people that I wouldn’t have wanted to risk driving there anyway!

-Putting ALL toilet paper in the trash can. You can’t flush toilet paper there!

-Being stared at 24/7 because of my blonde, curly hair. I got many kisses blown at me and a marriage proposal from men in their 40’s or 50’s because of it.

– Not being able to drink water straight from the tap. Since the water was bad there, we also had to brush our teeth with our water bottle, which was kind of inconvenient.

-The food- I definitely had a couple too many torillas, tortas, and the like. I’m ready for a break from Mexican food.

-Having people talk really quickly to me in Spanish. I usually ended up giving them a blank look and then apologizing to them, because while I speak some Spanish, these people talked so fast that I couldn’t understand anything!

 

Things that irritate me about Mexico:

-How corrupt their government is. Their last election was very, very rigged. The police are corrupt too. It’s ridiculous.

-How so many children do not get to go to school, because their parents (who didn’t go to school either) can’t afford it. So these children might end up like their parents when they grow up, selling their products on the streets.

-How the top 10% of the population controls EVERYTHING and 70% of the people in Mexico are in the “poor” category. These people in the bottom 70% are known as the informal economy. They do not have a steady job and often their wages are only 65 pesos (minimum wage). That is equivalent to around $6.00 in the U.S. That is for a whole day, not an hour.

-How people in indigenous mountain villages are victims of residual poverty. They literally make about $1.00 (U.S.) a day and that is literally only enough for food. 80% of the women in Tlamacazapa have never left their village, so they don’t know what exists beyond where they are at. They had no clue where America was or which way was North, South, East, or West. They spend their entire days weaving very sturdy baskets out of palm leaves, but then sell them really chep to the middle men, who in turn out out and sell them for lots of money in the big towns. They get ripped off, but they have no money knowledge. They can’t afford to send their children to school, so instead they start learning how to weave baskets at a very young age. Chance are, they will never be able to leave their community either.

-1/3 of the Mexican population has diabetes, due to all of the sugar they consume and all of the Coca-Cola they drink. However, they do this because their water is not safe to drink. The government won’t do anything about it. One of the villages we went to had no running water and people had to hike to wells each day to collect water. The water wasn’t even good water, because it was laced with arsenic.

 

There is so much more about this trip that I could share, but I will stop here. Overall, the trip was wonderful. I had an incredible time meeting people, hearing their stories, and exploring new cities.