look in your heart and you'll find

Today was my last day in my second grade class. It was definitely a bitter sweet time. I will miss all of them, but having it be my last day with them also means that it is almost the end of the semester! It was a pretty relaxed day in the classroom with the students going shopping at the class store and making Mother’s Day crafts, but it was perfect for getting to have one on one time with each of my children and allowing me to relax and interact with all of them. Before the end of the day we were able to eat cookies together and take pictures as well. It was a great last day even though I already miss all of them and feel like it will be weird not going to their classroom every Tuesday and Thursday from now on.

Not only was today my last day with my little ones, it was also the last day of classes for the entire campus. Tomorrow is reading day and then we only have four days of finals until I get to leave and go back to Indiana for the summer. Despite the stress of this semester, there is little for me to still do before I left. While I am meeting for all five of my classes, I only have one test and one project to complete for finals week. It is definitely nice feeling as if I am finished, even though I still do have to complete my project and do a bit of studying. The end of this year means that I will be leaving campus as a senior! It is crazy to think that I only have one year left of school, but I am ready. Having my last day as the UVP work study on Thursday will also create a huge change for me next year. Without working in the office and doing the tasks that I have gotten so used to doing over the past two years, next year is sure to be a totally different experience. While I will still be on the UVP council, I will be serving as the chaplain instead of the secretary and will be exposed to a completely different set of obstacles in the process of adjusting to my new life at Messiah.

I can not wait to go home in a week. Even though I will only be home for a week before leaving on the 18th for my cross cultural in Germany, it will nice to be at home again and be able to relax and visit with friends before we all split up again for the summer. The rest of my summer, after my 3 weeks across the sea, will consist of working at my daycare in Indiana, which I can again not wait for. I love working with all of the children. I am astonished every year that I am actually able to get paid for doing something that I absolutely love! I cannot wait to get back to my center and once again start working with the children. I just need to get through this last week of junior year and I will be a senior and will be relaxing at home!

This week I have experienced such a great deal of change in all that is going on. While I have spent much of the semester stressed and constantly worrying about what it to come, this week has brought me emotions which have been of excitement and encouragement. Even though the semester is wrapping up which in turn means loads of work and projects and finals, I am quite content about them. It is also nice to realize that God has had a plan for me and that God has always been looking over me ready to provide these green pastures on the other side. And now that is where I hope to be finding myself. After visiting with my family last week, I have felt much more at peace and calm about my life. Even though we were meeting in a time of grieving, we were able to gather together as a family, tell stories about the past, and enjoy the time we had together. It was a much needed time for all of us I am sure. After arriving back on campus over the weekend and starting classes, I began to notice a huge change in how I was feeling and how I was focusing on the life ahead of me. While I hadn’t fully realized how stressed, worried and frazzled I have been over the course of the semester, I now realize that I am no longer as stressed, worried or frazzled as I apparently had been. It is nice to be able to end the semester with happy feelings instead of the aparent distress I have been in. I can now look forward to Centenial Ball on Saturday, the ending of classes, reading day, and the end of Junior year.

The past couple of weeks have been slightly rough. In addition to the stresses of school work, the stress of issues involving my family and friends have been weighing heavy on my heart as well.I have been wrestling with a great deal of emotions and have felt extremely alone in them. While I know my family is wrestling with them as well, they are across the state. Until I leave to see them at the end of the week, I am at school feeling left to my own devices in order to get through what needs to be done.

This morning, however, I was given a bit of encouragement and insight into my stress by one of my second grade students. This morning one of the  young girls in my class walked into school full of unwelcome emotions which inevitably overflowed in her making her unable to do much of anything other than bawl. This young girl was experiencing the same family issue as I was. While all people react to death differently and find themselves in different situations dealing with the death of loved ones the overwhelming feeling of grief is common to all experiencing the death of a loved one. Talking to my second grade student this morning allowed me to see that being 20 years old is no different to being 8 when you are experiencing greiving. She walked into school this morning completely distraught and was still expected to take the terra novas just like every other second grader was doing in the state. After having time to talk to and receive hugs from a number of adults in the building including myself, she was able to muster up the courage and strength  in order to take her test and do the work that was required of her. It was amazing for me to  watch her. After all that she had been through and all of the emotions and thoughts she had wrestling in her, she did what she needed to in order to get through. While I have been going to class the past few days and getting my work done, it was just simply encouraging to know that I am not alone and that if an 8 year old can do it, so can I. So while I go into the schools in order to teach children, I know that in a way they are always teaching me as well. And that right there is just one reason why I absolutely love what I am being called to do.

Now after being back from Easter break I feel once again as if it has been forever since I have last written. After only being back to Messiah for just over a week before having another break for Easter, I can feel the stress of the next five weeks while we move into the end of the semester without breaking again before the end. I have had a great few weeks though. Including the nice break with family that I had over Easter, the past two weeks have been a great blessing and two is continuing with that trend.

Today has been one Amazing day and it is not even over yet. I started my day out being very nervous because I had to teach my first full fledged lesson in my second grade classroom today. Even though I had written lesson plans and prepared myself, I still did not feel completely prepared for what I was going to have to do. Once the lesson began this morning however, I felt that everything was going the way I had imagined and all of the children were actually understanding and having fun with my lesson. I was even able to get great feedback from b oth my college supervisior and my supervising teacher. With another lesson set up for next Tuesday which I am also nervous about I am extremely excited to have that positivity going into next week’s lesson.

Today is also TOMS Shoes One Day Without Shoes event, which has been quite a humbling experience. TOMS shoes is a company that provides a pair of shoes for a child in need with every pair of shoes that is purchased ( http://www.toms.com/ ). I recieved my first pair of TOMS for Christmas and have fallen in love with them. They are by far the most comfortable pair of shoes ever. Today though, I am going without them, because of this event. Every year TOMS sponsors a One Day Without Shoes event in order to gain awareness for their cause. There are children all over the world that go shoeless everyday of thier lives and are therefore subject to a number of diseases and infections. Shoes are something I have been priviledged to have my entire life and going without shoes for only one day has been slightly more difficult than I had expected. Even the smallest tasks and walking the shortest distances seems longer and more exhausting. While I am enjoying walking through the grass in my bare feet, always walking with barefeet is not all that it is cracked up to be and I am truely blessed to be able to having numerous pairs of shoes at hand to wear any time I would like.

I feel like it has been forever since I’ve written and there is no way I can write all that has happened in the past two weeks. Exactly two weeks ago from today though, my spring break started. That afternoon, the gospel choir left for our tour to Canada. Despite my nervous before leaving since I had done a great deal of the planning myself, tour was absolutely amazing. I can’t even describe in words how rewarding the trip was and how close the choir became because of it. It is amazing how we can spend at least two hours a week together as a choir and not truly know each other. During our five days on tour though, we became like family. We were able to all be impacted in such a strong way by those we sang for and those we were singing with. No matter where we were singing, at the school, a mega church, or a small country church, we were able to gather together and worship God as a group. After traveling and singing with them from Niagara, Toronto, New York, and back to Grantham, I was actually upset to have to go home for the rest of my spring break.

I definitely enjoyed my time at home though. While I spent a lot of time by myself doing nothing, it was nice to not have to worry about work and to take that time to relax. I did get to see my friends as well and get a little bit of school work done, so the entire week wasn’t completely wasted on nothing either.

Being back at school has been hard to get back into the swing of things. While break rejuvinated me it also helped to make me lazy. Being that I have been back into four days of classes though I feel as if I am getting used to being back again. Next week I will already be back in Indiana for Easter and despite just having a break, it will be nice to have a break again with family and friends.

This week is that last week before spring break. I am super excited for spring break this year not only because I will be able to get a break from classes and hopefully have time to relax at home, but also because United Voices of Praise will be traveling to Canada. We will be leaving Thursday afternoon and missing classes on Friday in order to go into a Christian school in Niagara. I can not wait to leave. It is sure to be an amazing time. Last year our group traveled to Ohio and had a blast. Through the three days we spent together on the bus and singing with each other, we were able to become so much closer as a group. After tour it was amazing to see all of the positive changes to the choir. This year we will be gone from Thursday to Monday and in a foreign country, so I can’t even imagine how much better it is going to be from last year. After all of the planning that I have put into the trip, I am slightly worried about how it will inevitably turn out in the end, but I believe that it will be wonderful and that great things are going to happen to us and through us! In the next entry I write I am sure that I will have great things to say, and I will be thrilled to write about what has happened. I have to get through the rest of this week though with a few projects and tests still to come though before I can officially head out. It is sure to be an amazing time though and I can not wait to see all that is going to come my way.

Things have been picking up now that we are getting to the half way point in the semester. Like I said at the end of last week, the amount of things going on in my life has been stressful. I feel as if I have so much reading, work, and studying to do, but at the same time I am unable to do a great deal of it yet.  For the past week, I feel as if my brain has been thinking and working non-stop. Saturday early afternoon I hit a breaking point worrying about all of the work I had to do before Monday and then hearing about the Earthquake in Chile. A week ago two of my really good friends from Messiah left to do a semester abroad in Chile. Without knowing where the earthquake had occured my brain instantly thought of the worst and I freaked out. Having just spoken to the one the night before (only one hour before the earthquake hit), I couldn’t imagine that being me last interaction with them. With that said it was definitely not my last interaction with them and they are fine, but all my worrying about my own stresses escalated my worries about them. I finally was able to sign on to facebook and see that they were safe and even though I was shaken up I was able to move on to my project and later my loads of other work.

As this week has progressed, the stress has stayed, but so far no more breakdowns, and I hope there will be no more to come. Despite the busyness of this junior year, taking it one day at a time needs to become my way to deal with what is thrown my way. While this weekend is going to be yet another weekend of non-stop thinking, I know I don’t have to worry. I’ll get through it just like I did last weekend. While a breakdown might come every once in awhile and the worries of life might become too great, there really is no need to worry. You will make it through from day to day. If everything on your list doesn’t get done or if you don’t succeed in every task, that’s ok. None of us are able to be 100% perfect 100% of the time, and that’s all ok.

This week was my first week in my Junior Field Experience placement, and I am loving it! It has definitely been a new experience being in a second grade urban classroom, but I am soaking up and enjoying every minute of it. Tuesday was my first day and while taking in all the new faces, sights, and sounds was overwhelming, it was nice to finally be back in school and be able to work with students again. Even though a lot of first days are typically spent observing, I was able to get in the classroom, have interactions with the students, and help them, even in the smallest ways. Despite my mixed reactions leaving that day, I was still extremely excited to have the school, students, and supervising teacher that I do.

Being there this Tuesday and than going back today was even more exciting. The class was really excited to see me back and all gave me the biggest smiles when they saw me walk down to the cafeteria with thier teacher. Throughout the day I was given numerous opportunities to work with the students and get to know a little more about them. Even though I havn’t started any “planned teaching” or lessons, I feel as though I really am becoming part of the classroom and beginning to get experience through even the small things I am doing with the students.

The past few days I have been stressed with the amount of work I have to do and the amount of time I have to do it in, but going to school today made it all a little better. The students didn’t care if I had homework to do, they were just excited to have me there. Being able to give them that and spent that time with them was very refreshing. Even though being with students all day can be draining, there are still times when their smiling faces can take away any frustration and make the world seem a little brighter.

I absolutely love snow. I mean I love it. It is one of my favorite things ever! Ask anyone around me and they will tell you how much I absolutely love it. I really believe that if it snowed all year long I would be one happy person. That has made this past week amazing for me.
Over the past week Messiah has gotten somewhere around three feet of snow in total. It is the blizzard of 2010. After getting a great deal of snow last Friday into Saturday, the snow began again Tuesday night and didn’t let up until last night again. This has lead to the past two days becoming Messiah snow days! Since coming to Messiah two and a half years ago, I have experienced only one two hour delay. It was a very pleasant surprise to wake up yesterday to find that classes at been canceled and then learning that they would once again be canceled today. Being snowed into campus these days has allowed me to take advantage of the snow as well as take advantage of the time for relaxation. Even though I haven’t participated in the Messiah tradition of sledding down Cemetery hill this year, I have been able to get out and have my fair share of fun in the snow. Even walking around and seeing the absolute beauty of everything covered in white is amazing. There is nothing in this world that can compare to the overwhelming excitement and joy I get from seeing a fresh layer of white snow on the ground. It is absolutely stunning. Having the snowflakes shimmer in the sun and cover up all of the half dying grass and mud is amazing. I have been so excited to see the world in such beauty these past few days. Even though I know it will eventually melt away, looking out the window and seeing its beauty now is worth it all.

I feel as if the past week has actually spanned over a number of weeks instead of just one. Last Thursday at this time I was home in Indiana with my friend Jocelyn showing her around my little Western Pennsylvanian town. Over her trip home with me for j-term break, we visited a number of my friends from home, toured Indiana, traveled to Pittsburgh in the freezing cold, and celebrated my Mom’s birthday. It was so nice to be able to show Jocelyn a little bit of my life at home and have a break from Messiah before starting up classes on Monday.

This week has presented itself with a number of new challenges/experiences. Monday was our first day of classes. Being a junior Education major this semester’s classes was completly blocked out for me with education classes and involves me going into the classroom two mornings a week. After not having any classes since the middle of December, it was really difficult getting out of bed on Monday and starting to get back into the swing of things. Now that a couple days have gone by it seems to be getting better, but thinking about actually having class still seems like slightly a foreign concept to me. While being at school without classes was such a nice experience, the experience of getting back to school and actually having classes is a little rough. I feel as though this will be an enjoyable semester though. While it may present itself with some new and exciting challenges, I am ready for them. I am ready to make the most of my time here at Messiah and get ready to be thrown into a classroom. Bring on Spring Semester!