So I have a few snaps for Erin moments recently. This is not a humble brag. This is a full on gloat fest!
Tuesdays and Thursdays are some of my favorite days because I go to Pilates and just breathe out my troubles. My Pilates instructor is the loveliest lady and always closes our class with a lights-out stretch sesh. It's OOHHHHHMMMazing! She pulls your body to fully stretch you out. All of this is in the dark and with quiet zen music playing and I'm not gonna lie, sometimes, I leave that place so high on life that I just skip to my car! Anyway, speaking of my car...THIS GIRL PARALLEL PARKED HER BABYDOLL MADDEN YESTERDAY! Ok, I love love love my gym! It's so much better than my old gym. (Definitely a trade up not break up!) But the only downside is there is no parking...like ever! Especially no parking during Pilates time. So as I drove up to the gym I said to myself (something I do all the time in my car. Sometimes I also talk to my self like I am my very own Casey Cobb personal assistant), "Oh crap, Erin! There's no parking. What are you going to do? Well, you're not going to get to Pilates on time. You're going to have to sit behind the pole. Well that sucks. Oooooh! Ooooh! Ohhhh! I could parallel park? You can't parallel park? You can barely park! Or can you? You don't know because you haven't ever tried it except for your driving test. I did kill it during my driving test! So are you going to try it? ABSOLUTELY PRINCESS! Let's go for it! Okay, if I remember right, we pull up we crank the wheel 3 times to the left. Okay, cranking, turning, going backwards. GREAT! Okay! Now we're cooking! We crank 3 times to the right? (crank 3 times to the right) Ok, that seems okay! Let's just straighten ourselves out. Don't wanna look like the car equivalent of a walk-of-shamer. Ooooh! OH YEAH! THIS GIRL PARALLEL PARKED! (cue awesome girl dance in car) ERIN! Snap out of your dance! Now you're gonna be late because of car dancing!"
I like to think my celebration dance looked something like this:
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| source Because don't we all look just like that when we do something silly? |
This was an actual verbatim transcript of my self-talk! Dueling Erins for sure! I shoulda taken a pic but I was dark...I am more of a Cher from Clueless kinda girl myself, "What's the point? Everywhere you go has valet!" Actually though in Erin World, everywhere you go has parking garages. Why? Because this in NJ/Philly and we know what's up!
Another Pilates gloat fest moment-
When the big hunking athlete guys come to Pilates "for a cool down"
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Because after about 10 minutes they are panting and dying and making wildabeast sounds in the back of the studio. I get on my high horse (or high bridge) and just do my 8 minutes of teasers like Beyonce would! Shoulda gone to ballet once in a while boys! I love when the grown, muscley men cry during planks. It makes my heart of stone smile. Is that bad?
Anyway, back to student teaching! So I start student teaching on Tuesday and I couldn't be more excited! Because I will be dually certified (special ed/gen ed) I will be spending 7 weeks in a K-2 self-contained Autistic Support classroom and 7 weeks as a gen-ed 4th grade teacher in a co-taught (eek I'm excited because my dream teaching job would be to be a special ed teacher in a co-taught classroom!). Today I went to visit the K-2 self contained Autistic Support classroom! TCNJ's masters track has you pick 1 of 5 possible "focuses". I picked reading. I haven't really been in classrooms with students with severe disabilities in a few years. Mostly I worked with students with learning disabilities/ADHD/ADD/high level Autism etc. This will be a new experience for me and I'm excited! I learned two new things today in the 45 minutes I was there. I am excited to be in this environment because it is something totally new and different to me. I want to soak up as many diverse special education experiences that I can.
My co-operating teacher or Co-op as I will probably refer to her, is amazing! I can tell she loves her students and her job. Her brain is a treasure trove of information and I can't wait to pick it and learn more. She had a TCNJ student teacher last year, too, which is good because she will know the ropes. (This is especially good because I don't know any of the ropes! Not even a thread!) The students seem great and I can't wait to work with them! Just as a disclaimer, I will not be posting anything about the students when I write about my STP (student teaching placement) for confidentiality reasons. I will just write about lessons I made/things I learned or tried or failed miserably at! I'll tell about my experiences and what it is like for me--not the kids. I learned today that I will be learning to mark/graph/track progress using a precise systematic spreadsheet. I learned all about how my lesson planning will go and a bunch of other cool things.
I felt prepared and lost simultaneously. I felt like I knew the forest but not the trees. If I lost you there let me explain. I knew the philosophies and logistics just not the exact terminology. Since I have been riding on the reading track, I missed out on some of the terminology used in severe disabilities' classrooms.
I officially start on Tuesday!! I'll post a recap about that experience then! I have a ton of fun stuff coming up this weekend including a much needed Girls Nite with Jess where I will be picking her brain about student teaching and life in general! Then, I have dinner with two of my old babysittees. I used to babysit them when they were 3 years old and now they're driving! We're gonna do a dinner and catch up! Then Monday I have an interview info session at TCNJ and then family movie night! We're thinking Frozen!
I hope everyone has a great weekend! I'm off to shop! What? I need new student teaching clothes! It's important :) Can't go naked!
Love Love Love,
Er
Anyway, back to student teaching! So I start student teaching on Tuesday and I couldn't be more excited! Because I will be dually certified (special ed/gen ed) I will be spending 7 weeks in a K-2 self-contained Autistic Support classroom and 7 weeks as a gen-ed 4th grade teacher in a co-taught (eek I'm excited because my dream teaching job would be to be a special ed teacher in a co-taught classroom!). Today I went to visit the K-2 self contained Autistic Support classroom! TCNJ's masters track has you pick 1 of 5 possible "focuses". I picked reading. I haven't really been in classrooms with students with severe disabilities in a few years. Mostly I worked with students with learning disabilities/ADHD/ADD/high level Autism etc. This will be a new experience for me and I'm excited! I learned two new things today in the 45 minutes I was there. I am excited to be in this environment because it is something totally new and different to me. I want to soak up as many diverse special education experiences that I can.
My co-operating teacher or Co-op as I will probably refer to her, is amazing! I can tell she loves her students and her job. Her brain is a treasure trove of information and I can't wait to pick it and learn more. She had a TCNJ student teacher last year, too, which is good because she will know the ropes. (This is especially good because I don't know any of the ropes! Not even a thread!) The students seem great and I can't wait to work with them! Just as a disclaimer, I will not be posting anything about the students when I write about my STP (student teaching placement) for confidentiality reasons. I will just write about lessons I made/things I learned or tried or failed miserably at! I'll tell about my experiences and what it is like for me--not the kids. I learned today that I will be learning to mark/graph/track progress using a precise systematic spreadsheet. I learned all about how my lesson planning will go and a bunch of other cool things.
I felt prepared and lost simultaneously. I felt like I knew the forest but not the trees. If I lost you there let me explain. I knew the philosophies and logistics just not the exact terminology. Since I have been riding on the reading track, I missed out on some of the terminology used in severe disabilities' classrooms.
I officially start on Tuesday!! I'll post a recap about that experience then! I have a ton of fun stuff coming up this weekend including a much needed Girls Nite with Jess where I will be picking her brain about student teaching and life in general! Then, I have dinner with two of my old babysittees. I used to babysit them when they were 3 years old and now they're driving! We're gonna do a dinner and catch up! Then Monday I have an interview info session at TCNJ and then family movie night! We're thinking Frozen!
I hope everyone has a great weekend! I'm off to shop! What? I need new student teaching clothes! It's important :) Can't go naked!
Love Love Love,
Er
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