Okay, first, can we talk shopping? I love shopping for everything from clothes to home accessories and school supplies. I'm rather obsessed with buying the perfect school supplies. Anyways, I don't know how I ever survived without a nice wool (blend) pea coat and sneakers. I've lived in Asheville for 3 years now and finally decided to make the jump! I'm definitely a sweater person so the 40% off pea coat was a steal. Yet I wear sandals all the time. This wasn't always true. I once had twenty-some pairs of sneakers. I won't try to analyze why I only own one pair of sneakers now, but today I got pair #2, my grey and pink Asics Ultimate 81 in the mail today!

Hm, I think my new pea coat and sneakers will go to great use this fall as I actually might go out into nature. I did this a lot freshman year, but since I already had that experience then, I never really needed to go outdoors again. :) We are blessed with nature in Asheville and it's not something I'm used to, particularly because I have terrible balance, can barely swim, and hate bugs. Because of this, I'm actually going to find someone to make me do these things and maybe even camping! Oh!

This weekend, my friends and I are going to have a fall picnic. Tomorrow, I'm spending the day cleaning. Trust me, we're in dire need of some tidying up. With so many options, who would anyone want to clean? Right?

So I'm a history major with a psychology minor. I'm getting my license in 9-12 social studies, but at one point, I wanted to add on 6-9 language arts until I realized how much I love my high schoolers. Still, I decided to take the Middle School Methods course anyways. Okay, my advisor teaches it and I learn so much from him about teaching any student. But I love that we don't just meet in class. We go to the middle school all the time. This week we saw the literacy coach. We each also get placed with a teacher there and get to interact with the teacher and students. The students are working on a unit called the Hungry Planet and my class is collecting canned foods to take on their field trip to the food bank. I definitely think this is the best thing about our education program, the field experiences. When we talk in class, everyone connects the theories or whatever to things they've seen in classrooms.

I am extremely nervous. I had advising with my profs and it seems like I have so much to do yet I'm graduating?! I don't want to go yet. What's even more of struggle is anticipating my meeting for student teacher observations and placement! I'll be at a school for about eight months! Clearly, I have a request and wrote a hopefully convincing request. I know wherever I go, I will love the students and connect with them, but today, I just had such an amazing day tutoring. We're doing our mid-semester reflections with the students where they make comments about what works, what doesn't, and any additional comments. I let my students fill in "additional comments," which included "Bring Julie back!" from a super adorable sophomore and "Thanks for the best tutor ever!" from a junior I've known since she was a freshman! :) I LOVE THEM TOO! I think my positive experiences have come from being with the students consistently and some interpersonal skills. My main goal, and I wrote this in my self statement, is to surround the students with an upbeat, encouraging environment.

Tomorrow, Alex and I are getting together to forge ahead with the Education Club. I'm definitely recruiting my tutors for this!

*Oh, I've totally got the handshake with one of my students down. It takes us 5 seconds to do the whole thing and this is done when I see him and once I return as they leave the class. :)