I am taking drastic measures to be successful this semester

As I have said before, this is my last semester before I student teach and so I have to make sure I do well in ALL my classes and ALL of my tests. Well, my classes are actually not my biggest stresses right now (that's a first).

My biggest stresses right now are passing these dang prerequisite tests that are required for all Elementary Education majors at BYU-I to pass. I have passed the first one, but this second one is killing me and I've barely touched the third one because it scares the bejeebies out of me! I keep psyching myself whenever I try working on the problems on the practice test because I get test anxiety really badly and I think "I can't do this! I'm not going to pass these tests, so I'm not going to graduate!" And then I calm myself down and tell myself that I can do it. But when I try again, the same thing happens and its just a vicious cycle that's gotta stop.

I talked to my dad yesterday about it and he flat out told me that I have to stop doing that because its doing more damage than good. He told me that my primary focus this semester besides my classes is to pass those tests. Besides passing my actual classes, eating, and church, that was to be my focus this semester (I guess the whole sleeping thing is important too). So I have been cutting back on things I love. I am not taking ANY dance classes this semester, which is really hard for me since I love dance so much but I've wanted to be a teacher for too long to let dance stop me from graduating. I have also cut back on my social life a bit. It's mostly been limited to church, FHE, and maybe doing something on a Saturday with friends. After talking to my dad last night, I knew something that I had to do that would seriously make an impact on how much time I have to study this semester.


I have banned myself from my facebook account (temporarily).

I have found myself wasting way way WAY too much time on that thing and I decided that I was going to have prevent myself from getting tempted to go on there. So I told my dad what my password was and I told him to change it so I wouldn't be able to get on even if I tried really hard.

My first trial of that came today in my practicum when my cooperating teacher asked me if I had a facebook. She told me she has one and she said that's a faster way of getting in contact with her if I needed to ask her something. Immediately when she asked me that, I thought "Heather, don't give in. Emailing will suffice. You don't need to regain access to your facebook to keep in touch with her."

Well, now that I've spent a good 15 minutes on my blog writing this, perhaps I should get on to studying so I don't have to ban myself from blogging too.

Reflecting on the past- Part 2

I was thinking about what I said in the last post and in the beginning, I said "my interests as a teenager". I should have said "my interests as a kid" so it would encompass my child-years to my teen years.

Ok, so the next round is of all the shows I was into. I loved a lot of cartoons, but I'll just stick in Rugrats for now to cover the Nickelodeon shows.



And of course, ya gotta have the movies!

SPACE JAM! (the title isn't really supposed to be in caps, I just love the movie)


While I was Disney World, I was trying to figure out why I like Sorcerer Mickey so much. I think this is the reason why.

I'm pretty sure it's at the beginning of more than just 101 Dalmations and The Great Mouse Detective, but I could be wrong.

I suppose I could find more videos to take up more of your time, but I'll just say this instead:
I LOVED watching cartoons and movies as a kid and I still continue to love them today!

Reflecting on the past

So I was cruising around youtube today and I came upon David Archuleta's latest video blog (yeah.... I'm kinda subscribed to his channel... and David Cook's). But anyway, I usually look at the comments on his videos, but I've watched his videos enough that I know what is usually said:

"David ur so sweet! I love you!"
"You have such a good heart and you are an angel, luv you!"
"He is so cute! looooovvvvveeee hiiim!!!"
"David you are so talented! Can't wait to see u perform here!! I'm ur biggest fan!"

Yeah, I know. It's kind of sad how well I know the comments on his videos. Every time I read comments like that, I think "oh my gosh, these girls are so immature." But then I think 'wait a minute, I used to be their age. That's what I usually said about the Backstreet Boys, N*Sync, 98 degrees, Hanson, Jonathon Taylor Thomas... I'm pretty sure I could go on, but that's just a few of my teen obsessions.

After thinking about that, I started getting really nostalgic and started remembering what I did as a teenager and what I was interested in.

So here we go, a trip down memory lane..... *goes through fog of the past*

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(ok, so it wasn't that much fog, but I'm lazy and I need to go to bed eventually)

In the 90's, I was between the ages of 4 and 14, so I can literally say I was a kid of the 90's. Of course, kids play with toys and so I got all sorts of the popular toys. Remember the whole Elmo and Furby crazes? Yeah, I wasn't into Elmo, but I thought Furby was awesome! Unfortunately, I gave my poor parents a run for their money because the year Furby was popular, I got a "Millenium Furby" (ok, so apparently they came out in the late 90's, but they were still in the 90's!) instead of the baby Furby. My parents had bought me a baby Furby first and then I saw a commercial for the big Furby's and I said I wanted one of those instead.



Another very popular toy that both my brothers and I got for Christmas one year.

Nano and Giga Pets! I know there was also Tamagotchi, but we had the other two.
I had a Nano kitty and a Nano dog and I think my brothers had a Giga Monkey and a Giga Dinosaur

(I found this picture on a another website- its not mine)

I think my brothers enjoyed this next toy of mine as much as I did:

The Easy Bake Oven!!!


Mike and Tyler were always asking me whenever I got out my Easy Bake Oven if they could have some of cookies or whatever I would make. I got some really good baked goods out that thing! That was so fascinating how I would dump the packet of cake mix or cookies or brownies into the mixing bowl, add water, pour it in the small pan, put it in the oven, and in just a few minutes I could pull out (with the nifty hook-ish spatula that came with the oven) a very nice looking treat. Oh man, those were good times.

As you can probably tell, I did a lot of things with my brothers as a kid, so of course, I played a lot of video games as a kid.

My brothers and I played so many games on that thing! Let's see, what all did we play?

Sonic the Hedgehog was definitely one of my favorites

I think we also played a few Disney games on there like Toy Story and Aladdin (I still remember running as Rex in Andy's room to beat the timer and also flying on the magic carpet in Aladdin)

I watched TV a lot too, so I switched between Nickelodeon and the Disney channel (that's a shocker, huh?)


*sigh*

Oh, the good old days of the GOOD Disney channel.

Well, that will be the first chapter in our little flashback to the 90's.

Until next time!

So far so good!

Well after a few days of stressing about going into the schools for my practicum class, I finally had my first day there. I'm in a 3rd grade class and I have a really easy-going teacher. I love it. I was slightly terrified when we were going in, but after the first half hour or so, I managed to calm down and really observe the students and how the teacher managed the classroom. I teach my first lesson tomorrow, so that will be interesting. I'm kind of excited for it because it's a grammar lesson. :) We'll see how it goes!

I'm ready- let's do this!!

Well the main reason why I was stressing for the semester is over with, which was finding out where my placement would be for my practicum. I can just tell you that I am ready for this. I will be in a 3rd Grade classroom and I am really excited because my Early Field placement was in a 2nd grade classroom. This is going to be a great semester!! Yes it will be difficult, but I can do it!

New and LAST semester.... yipes!

Ok I am officially starting to freak out. My last semester starts tomorrow and I already have an assignment due. I'm going to get to it in just a second, but I have to let out my anxiety. I'm a little scared right now, ok strike that- I am A LOT scared now. I have my practicum two days a week where I am in an elementary school all day and then I have three other classes on Tuesdays and Thursdays. I'm auditing my religion class on Mondays and Wednesdays because I've taken all my required religion classes and I just thought this one would be interesting (World Religion). Anyway, I'm going to be doing lesson plans up the wazoo because of my practicum and my Math Methods class. *inhales and exhales* I've gotta just take it one day at a time. If I let myself think too far ahead in the week with everything I've gotta do, it won't get done.

One day at a time, Heather, one day at a time. Now I'm off to do that first lesson plan due tomorrow. *sigh*

My goals

This is slightly cliche, but I am going to write down my goals for this year. The difference between my goals for this year and the past years is that this is in the public eye. People may read this and may ask me about my goals, so it forces me to actually do them. Ok, so here goes:

#1 Pass all my math tests

#2 Get at least a B in all of my classes

#3 Earn enough money to pay for my books and both of my Praxis exams

#4 Pass both of my Praxis Exams

#5 Have a positive experience in my Practicum

#6 Finish my Letter of Introduction before the end of January

#7 Go on at least 3 dates with guys that ask me out instead of me asking them

#8 Earn enough money to pay for my semester of Student Teaching in the Fall

#9 Be more social while still getting good grades

#10 Spend more time with my siblings

I'm sure I've got more, but that's all I can think of right now.