- I was taking my Advanced Writing English class--Technical Writing. I heard it was a breeze, especially from the professor I signed up for. Turns out, she gave up her class to someone else. I though, OK, no big deal. Apparently, the teacher (but in reality, a grad student) I got thought someone died and made her Queen of AllmattersEnglish. She taught straight from her powerpoint slides (which she instructed us not to do--what the heck?) and she gave us dumb projects that she graded way too harshly for the in class time she gave us to work on them. We were required to write a 10-12 page research paper, a proposal (of which there was no page requirement but she said that she would think we were missing something if we didn't have it at least be 4-5 pages long. That's half the original paper length, woman!), and to top it all off--a 4-5 page review of a classmate's paper where we had to talk about its strengths, weaknesses (not being too harsh or easily, otherwise WE would be docked points), check the correctness of its quotes and resources AND give a grade that was within 5 points of what the teacher would grade it. Freaking ridiculous, right? I'm so glad that's all over with. I couldn't put up with her cheery but hard-A crap any longer. I was so ticked off from it all that I now only semi-regret writing her a scathing student review. She deserved it.
- Anyways, I also got a job. I'll embarrassingly admit that it's the first in my college career. Fortunately, it deals with my major. It's called SEEL (Systematic & Engaging Early Literacy). Essentially, it's developing early elementary lessons that are geared toward teaching literacy through strategic but fun activities. If that doesn't make sense, I suggest that you check out their website--http://education.byu.edu/seel. It's pretty interesting :) I started volunteering with the SEEL team back in February, gathering materials for the lessons that are used in the classrooms. But in April, I got a paid position and my first assignment was to do assessments. Throughout the year, the Kindergarten kids were taught letters, spelling, reading and other skills like sound onset and rhyme and I tested them to see how well they learned those skills. It was kinda fun because the kids were cute but it took weeks to do and got old because I had to test 50 kids 3 separate times. @_@ But I've got different tasks now and it's pretty great! The people I work with are fun and smart and I'm hoping that this will help me get into grad school (Pleasepleaseplease)!
- Oh lastly, I was engaged and planning my one and only wedding. It was so hard to do by myself. Normally, girls around here (going to school, LDS, have family close by) usually have their moms plan their weddings and the girls periodically just give their input. I wish that was me! I didn't even go all out on my wedding by choosing a fancy-schmancy reception center with a caterer, hundreds of flowers, etc., etc. and it was still hard. I could at least ask for help and opinions of family members and my wonderful BFF Candice Thomas. Without her, I would have crumbled under the pressure of trying to get everything to be decent, nice and put together. Candice and her family were like my family away from home--they helped me look for places to have the reception, made food for the reception, helped set up and take down the decorations and there for the much needed moral support! Oh how I love and appreciate them!!
So on August 9th, 3 days before my wedding, we drove to the Salt Lake Capitol Building to take my Bridals.
I really like this picture...except that Loren's hand on my stomach makes it look like we're expecting. Not the case, fyi.It was around this time that it happened. A tour bus of Chinese tourists unloaded from their bus and started walking up the stairs to where we were. They were flabbergasted when they saw us. We were shocked to see them. They started to take our pictures, too! They kept saying things to each other in Chinese, with the occasional English phrase shouted at us--"Beautiful!," "Congratulations!," "Wow!," and the like. I felt so weird. They were expecting to see American-type architecture and learn historical things...yet we were their first site. Sort of funny.
So as my photographer (Lacey) was taking this picture, a couple of Chinese ladies stood right next to her to take my picture. I felt like a star ^_^ So when they finally entered the Capitol Building, we all had a good laugh at the odd situation we were just put in. And then, a bus full of Italian tourists flooded the steps!! No joke! They were a tad bit more understandable when they were talking amongst themselves (all good things, of course) and they even chanted for us to kiss so they could take our picture! Haha :) We kept running by the tourists and they were always so sweet. That was the highlight of my day, by far!
Here are some of my fave pictures...even though you can see all of them on my facebook page.
If I have time tomorrow, I'll write about my wedding day. Stay posted! :)
