Shivers' Big Journey!

You may be wondering what in the sam hill is that title about. Well the short answer is that it's the title of a book. In one of my classes we had a project where we (4 people in a group) had to create a book online that was accessible and offered assistance to students with disabilities. We came up with the idea to have it centered around a penguin named Shivers who wants to swim to the North Pole from Antarctica so that he could go work for Santa. I created all of the illustrations for the book which I am quite proud of. I drew the outlines on paper. Then I scanned them into the computer. In a free program that is like photoshop I put all the color in. Then I overlaid them on photographs that everyone in my group had.
I was a lot of fun to make, and for the first time in my college career I didn't mind staying up late to finish this homework.
Here is a link to the book
Here's my favorite picture

Homecoming Weekend

Beth and I had a great time this weekend. Her family made the long seven hour trip from Escanaba (six for me). They took us and Beth's sister Jackie and her husband Eric to the MSU hockey game against Ohio State on Friday and we all went to the amazing football game on Saturday.
I had never been to a hockey game before and it was a lot of fun. We were in the third row right by the action. I looked around around the 2nd period and I noticed that I was literally the only person wearing just a t-shirt. I guess they breed em' for a colder climate in the Dutch city.
Before the game we watched the band perform at Adams Field and march to the stadium. The sad thing is that this is my 5th year here at State and I didn't know that they did this. It was cool though. Eric was in the drum line when he went to Michigan State and he said that if anyone tries to run across the road or break the line when they are marching they have permission to break it and beat them up. He said this happened once while he was there.
The game as you probably already know was quite the thriller. We were all going crazy on the last play. Our seats were right on the goal line and I knew it was a touchdown.

Overall it was a great weekend, and I had a blast spending time with Beth and her family. Now it's back to reality...

It's Pumpkin carvin' time

So Beth was all excited to carve some pumpkins so we decided to give it a whirl Saturday night. We visited her sister Jackie, and her husband Eric after the football game. Their little boy Eric has grown pretty fond of me. He's really into video games and playing with his Nintendo DS. I brought mine over with my hacked game card (holds like 15 games I downloaded off the internet). Ever since then he thinks I'm the coolest person. I guess he cried on Friday when he could't see me. At dinner I found out he asked if he could spend the night at my house hahaha. Unfortunately my apartment isn't equipped to handle small children...
We ended up picking out some pumpkins at a place in St. Johns. We only had one carving kit, and Beth broke one of the two saws about 2 minutes in. I was reluctant to give her the other one...
We ended up having to go get some more tools to finish the job.

Can you guess which pumpkin belongs to me? That's right, the one with He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named on it! In non-geek terms it is the villain Voldemort from Harry Potter (O.K. I guess that's still geek terms). Beth's is the cute ghost, after four broken saws hahaha. We kept the seeds and cooked them. They are pretty good with a little salt on them.

The Cider Mi!!

 One great thing about living in East Lansing is that we are pretty close to Uncle John's Cider Mill (about 25 minutes away). Beth and I decided to to go there on Sunday. We don't have that many pictures so we brought her camera along and the tripod I got her for her birthday. It worked like a charm and we got a couple nice shots.

It was crazy busy there. They have big inflatable things for the kids (like Crazy Bounce).  I was tempted to go on them, but I figured I wouldn't endanger any children's lives. We bought some cider and doughnuts which were delicious. Then we ventured out into the corn maze. This thing was intense and we quickly got lost. We kept passing this one couple and each time the were walking further and further apart, and the guy looked angrier and angrier.
At one point Beth and I got a little heated trying to decipher the map...

Just kidding, that was staged. After about 45 minutes I could tell Beth was getting a little sick of it so I used my superior navigating skills to get us out. It was a good thing I had those 2 weeks in the scouts.
All in all it was a pretty great day, and we got some much needed photo-memories to cherish like my favorite shot of the day that Beth and I both made into our profile pics at the same time.

Kickoff to Summer

Hey everyone, looks like it is time to sit back and enjoy summer. It felt like it would never get here. Sadly I only had a couple weeks to rest my brain because I started summer classes today. Summer classes at State are split up into 2 semesters, and they go by really really quick. I'm only taking one class this semester 4 days a week, but I'm taking 2 the second semester. During the second session I have a class that goes from 6pm-10:50... Not looking forward to that one.
I successfully completed my first overnight shift at Speedway (11pm-8am). There were a few characters, most notably an extremely intoxicated man that could barely take his wallet out to buy cigarettes (5am) I had to count his money for him. At least he donated all of his change to Children's Miracle Network because he said he would just lose it. Speedway is also giving everyone in my store a fleece jacket because we sold the most cookies in our district... So yeah, pretty awesome. Now I can just donate my NorthFace to charity, or Jeff...
The Ruckus is running good, and it's a real head-turner when I'm on it. I parked it outside a gas station today and some guy came in and said he tripped over it, broke his ankle and was going to sue me. The man was missing all of his front teeth and had a ponytail... We ended up chatting about mopeds for a couple minutes, and after he dropped 6-10 F-bombs about other drivers cutting him off when he was on his I quickly gave him the "Well, see ya," and politely left. Nice guy.

Update

Sorry it's been a while since I've updated my blog. I've been really busy with school, a lot of projects are starting to be due so there have been a couple late nights. My roommates and I were reminiscing about the good ole' days and someone mentioned how they used to tuck their arms into their sleeves, pull their pants up and put wear their shoes on their knees to make it look like there were a little person. It's probably no surprise that I used to do this too. I decided to bring the look back, you're looking at my new facebook profile picture.

Almost everyone in my 400 level Teacher Education classes have gotten their student teaching placements for next year. Sadly I still have another 20 credits to go so I will be taking summer classes and then one more semester of them in the fall. I plan on living in an apartment with my friend/current roommate Shane and two other of our friends. The plan is to keep working at Speedway and substitute teach after I'm graduate because I won't be able to start my student teaching until the following year. Then the plan is to live at home and get a placement somewhere in Grand Rapids.

The Ruckus is running great for me, I just can't wait until I can ride it without a winter hat and gloves on. On Wednesday I was running late in the morning. I was planning on taking the moped and getting there in like 10 minutes but with 15 minutes before class started I looked outside and it was pouring out. I only had one choice... I had to power through it. I put some sunglasses on to keep that rain out of my eyes but they fogged up about halfway through. I ended up pretty soaked by the time I walked into class, but I was on time.

Waiting For Superman

I rented the documentary on the US school system "Waiting for Superman" on netflix a few weeks ago. My plan was to invite some friends over from my TE class but never found a good time. Tonight I finally broke down and watched it when I got back from work. I watched it with my roommate Dan and his girlfriend Aimee (who is also an elementary education major.) If you haven't heard of the movie if shows the story of like 5 families that have to enter a lottery in the hopes of getting their children into a good school.
It was the first movie that my eyes kind of welled up since I saw Air Bud like 10 years ago. You know the scene where he has go get rid of him and says, "Go away! I don't want you anymore!" He totally did, but that's beside the point. It was just so sad that basically the only way these kids will get a good education is if they win the lottery to get into one of the very few good schools in their district. Most of the lotteries were like 800 applicants and 20 openings.
One of the biggest points I took away from it is the problem with ineffective teachers. The movie claimed that after a teacher has tenure it is basically impossible to fire them. So there are all these crappy teachers out there but there is no way to fire them. Obviously this movie only presents one side of the argument, but the side it presents is a pretty strong one.
I encourage you all to watch it and then we can discuss it next time I see you.