Fall Quarter

Hello all! I am starting my final year of college at Eastern Washington University. This quarter is going to be a very, very stressful one. I am taking five classes. The first class I am taking is Student Centered Reading programs, which is focusing on tailoring individual students reading programs to their specific needs. Next I have, Reading for Language Diverse Students which is teaching me about how to work with ELL Students, or English Language Learners. Also, Content Area Reading, Management and Assessment, which is showing us the importance of bringing reading into other content areas such as science, social studies, art, music, P.E., etc. this class is full of non-reading majors so it is a little slow moving and repetitive of a lot of my other classes, it also contains mostly secondary education majors which feel like they don't need to be there because they wont have to teach reading. Man are they wrong! Then I have Instructional Media and Technology, this class teaching me about all new ways to bring technology into the classroom, I think I will learn a lot in this class but I know it will be very stressful because most of the things we are planning on talking about I have never heard of before. And last but not least I have Music Methods for the Elementary Classroom Teacher, this class will be a blast! On the first day of class we got to dance around, play games and sing. It was a lot like being back in Elementary school music class.

On top of that all I am now placed in a Kindergarten Classroom at Opportunity Elementary School in the Central Valley School District. And this I am very excited about! My cooperating teacher is a friend of mines Mom. I am really looking forward to getting to know my students and being able to finally put all of the knowlege I've been gaining into action.

As most of you have probably already heard, I moved in to Brewster Hall, which is one of the dorms on campus. So far I am having a blast and I really like all of my roommates, who I already knew. And I also got a job working in the Hall office, which is so nice! My work is less than two minutes away from my room, so no long commute, and has flexible hours and best of all I get to work on homework while I am there!

This quarter is shaping up to being a very busy one, but I am looking forward to it keeping me on my toes! I'll make sure to let you all know more as I go along!

KelliJean

Book Club BBQ

I decided to have my book club over for an end of summer barbecue this week. I have a very cute red Weber BBQ that my roommates have used several times this year, but I had not. I figured how hard could it be, I've watched them use it & I have cooked on charcoal grills before. Well, as it turns out, it can be difficult to light charcoal especially if you forget the lighter fluid. Once that problem was identified it was pretty easy to get flames. However, I could not keep the flames going or seem to get the charcoal hot enough. After an hour of trying, I gave up and cooked the turkey/veggie burgers inside.

The burgers were really good I mixed into the ground turkey chopped carrots, onion, & spinach. My new food processor that I received for my birthday worked fabulous.

The really funny part is, I am just really impatient because after the burgers were cooked & we finished eating I went back outside & the BBQ was all ready to go. So I ended up BBQing the rest of the burgers outside at 8:30 at night.


Tiah

Dunnottar Woods

This past Sunday Caryn, Safina and I went out to Dunnottar woods, which are about a 10 min walk from where we live. We had a great time exploring and are looking forward to going back for some more explorations. We saw Shell House which is a little house that the inside is all shells. Unfortunatly I lost my footing and fell while walking on the side of a hill and now have a very purple large bruise on my leg and my shoulder is very painful. I was fine when we were in the woods so when we found the rope swing we had a lot of fun swinging on the swing and taking photos. We found a beautiful waterfall with a bridge over it and took several photos here as well. Next time I don't know what we will find but I am sure it will be tons of fun!

~Meagan

Ceilidh

Last night Caryn and I went to a Ceilidh, which is a traditional Scottish social dance. It was a surprise party for a man at the Church we are going to, his 50th. It was tons of fun. One of the great things of Ceilidhs is that it does not matter if you don't know the dances cause the bands will walk you though the dances before you do them. I was asked to dance by a very nice 10 year old boy from the church and we did a dance called strip the willow, which for the part of the dance that it is your turn all you are doing is spinning around, makes you a bit dizzy by the time it is over. The rest of the dances that I did me and Caryn were partners and it was fun to get to learn the dances. This was the second Ceilidh that I have attended and I have really enjoyed them. For dinner we had traditional stovies, they were very good. I found out that I actually like beetroot as well. The man who's birthday it was had no idea that he was getting a Ceilidh for his party but he enjoyed it a lot.
~Meagan

Adventures in Stonehaven

So yesterday was a sunny day and Safina, Caryn and I needed a break from the constant work so decided to walk out to Dunottar Castle. Along the way we went into one of the fields and climbed up on one of the big rolls of hay and took photos. It was very entertaining watching Safina and Caryn get up, I some how was the best at getting up and I very quickly would get up. Because I was the best I got volunteered to be the one who set the timer on the camera on the ground and then run up and sit for a photo, 10 secs. Then we walked out thinking of ways we could combine our names into on, finaly set on Safrygan. We found a blackberry patch and picked some blackberries to enjoy and they were very good, tart but great. We then walked down the hill to the beach and along a rocky beach and back up the hill on the other side. It turned out to be a great afternoon.

~Meagan

Dorm Move In

Saturday was the big dorm move in for KelliJean.

She moved back to Eastern Washington University and moved into a dorm for the first time (as a senior). Much to our parents dismay.

We were very lucky that she was able to get a job on campus in the housing department, which allowed her to move in a week before the rest of campus. Her dorm only has one small, very slow elevator. I'm not sure how it will work next weekend when the majority of students move back into the dorm.

Her room is small, but once everything is unpacked & put away it should be nice & cozy.

Tiah

Birthday BBQ

Two weekends ago we had a birthday barbecue to celebrate my Dad's 60th birthday. There was beautiful warm weather all morning in the Tri-Cities, and then about 30 minutes before guests were suppose to arrive, the wind picked up & the clouds moved in. So we packed up our supplies from the backyard & moved everything to the front yard hoping the house & bushes would give a little protection from the wind.

The BBQ turned out great, my cousin Art did a fabulous job as the guest chef on the BBQ Grill. And the downpour did not arrive until everyone was finished eating.

Tiah

Braemar Gathering

I got to see the Queen!!


So very exciting I went to the Braemar Gathering this year and this highland games is very special because the Queen attends, well she attends for about an hour. I went with my classmate Rod and we got seats infront of the heavy events but these seats were not great and so ended up after an hour walking round a bit and finding standing room directly accross the field from the Royal Booth, which meant good view of the Queen when she arrived. It was great fun, they do all the events at the same time so you get to see lots of things all at once. They had the traditiaonal caber tossing, hammer toss, tug-a-war and many other events. I think caber tossing was my favorite but the throwing a heavy weight over a high bar was a close second. In one of the running events there were two men that actually wore kilts, which they don't usually do this for the running events. Another cool even is running up a hill where they go and run up and back down this giant hill close to town. Although we were a ways from the Queen it was still really cool to see her. Many of the Royal family attended the games. Over all it was a very cold and enjoyable day.
~Meagan