eight months.

So, it's been a little over 8 months since I last wrote a blog. I'm sorry to report that not much has changed in that amount of time! A few things have happened, of course. The fall semester marked my final semester at school where I completed my student teaching. I taught in 1st grade for two months and then moved to 4th grade for the last two months. I learned a lot during that semester, but it was a lot of work and I am so thankful to be finished.

The day I finished student teaching (the Friday before Christmas) I began packing to move back home. That was a very tiring weekend of packing, cleaning, and hauling boxes and furniture! By the time I was driving home Sunday night, I felt ready to collapse. The next week was Christmas, which brought with it a different type of busyness. It was good to visit with all of the family, though.

January flew by quickly! Looking back, I didn't accomplish much, but my days were always full. I worked part-time for my mom, and spent the rest of my time taking a mini-vacation and doing nothing much.

The last weekend in January was a weekend I had been looking forward to for a couple of months. My dad took the family to San Francisco for the weekend to celebrate my mom's birthday. The main reason for visiting San Fran, though, was to go see Wicked again. It was great, even on the 3rd time around! The rest of the weekend was filled with some fun shopping and eating out, of course. Somehow I have become the elected driver in my family whenever we go somewhere, even just out to dinner here in town. Not sure how this happened, but it meant I drove most of the way to San Fran and back. I did insist on my dad driving in the city because I have never driven there before. And, of course, driving in a big city is nothing like driving in LA...

Oh, I should mention the cab ride (read as: death ride) we took from the Italian restaurant we ate at Saturday night down about 6 blocks or so to the Orpheum theater for Wicked. I'm honestly not sure how this guy's cab still had working brakes the way he abused them. Green lights to him meant speeding as fast as possible toward the next red light. Car in front of him? He'll just whip around them, no big deal. I was sitting in the back seat without my seatbelt on because I was changing my shoes from my walking flats to my standing heels. (We had walked to dinner and there was no way on earth I was walking uphill in those heels). Anyhow, we were all glad to make it to the theater still intact. The plus side to the fast drive was the lower cab fare we had to pay for a quick ride! haha

Finally, this last week I made the trip back down to Biola to apply for my credential. I went down Monday night and had dinner with my sister and then I stayed the night with her. Tuesday morning I drove over near school and visited my fourth grade class in the morning, had some lunch, then visited my first grade class in the afternoon. I left about 2:30 and drove over to school for my appointment. I had to pick up my official transcript from the Registrar's office and, since it was the second day of classes of the semester, I didn't know how long that might take. Of course, it ended up taking only a couple of minutes, leaving me with about 45 minutes to kill before my appointment. I ended up going into the Ed Dept and checking to see if they could take me early since I was already there. Ends up she could, so I was glad I asked! The appointment took all of 8 minutes and I should have my credential this week! :)

My project this week is to apply for substitute teaching. This requires me to go downtown and have my fingerprints taken (again) and to also have a TB test and physical. Oh, the joys...