Lord,
Please give me patience and strength. I'm so close to giving up.
Amen

Selfishness

Over the past few years I've noticed what a selfish person I am when it comes to relationships. I always expect more from the other person than I am willing to give. I never want to be the one that invites, I want to be invited. I don't want to call, I want to be called. I don't know why I am like that. As a child/teenager I struggled trusting and opening up to people. I think my 8th grade year hardened me the most. I had my first boyfriend in 8th grade. And with boyfriends come drama. So, because this boy was in my close circle of friends, I lost friends. It's weird to me to look back and see how many friendships of mine were ruined because I wanted to hold his hand. They thought I was moving too fast and so I was shoved out of the group. Ironic since most of them had been having boyfriends since 4th and 5th grade. Also in 8th grade I lost my small group leader, my soccer coach, and my favorite band director. All of these people left with no legitimate reason and I was hurt. These were the people that I trusted more than anything. So, in turn, I closed myself off to people.

Today I struggle with opening up to people. I complain about not having friends when it's essentially my fault because I don't always want to talk to them. It was always so different with Lucas. I could always open up to him. Even in high school I'd come to him with all my problems that I couldn't bring to anyone else. Sure, I had other boyfriends in high school, but they only saw my tough side. The side that didn't cry. The side that didn't care if they called or not. The side that didn't rely on anyone for anything. When me and Lucas began dating I continued to open up to him. I remember feeling so liberated to be in a relationship where I could actually trust the other person. I could completely open up and show him my emotional crazy side and he wouldn't hit the door running.

Unfortunately, I made a huge mistake. I thought that was enough. I completely opened myself to him and I thought that would show him that I love him. Couldn't he see that I treated him so much differently and cared about him so much more than anyone else I had ever been with? Well, see, the thing is, he can't. He wasn't there in my other relationships. He didn't know how I acted when I was alone with other boys. He didn't know that I had cried only once in the presence of another boy, and that cry had essentially gotten me dumped. He didn't know that in high school I refused to go to dinner with boys, fearful of what they would think when they realized how much I ate. haha. Silly me. Lucas was special. But me acting different was only showing myself that he was special, not him.

Recently I was challenged to read a book. And by recently I mean about two hours ago. This book is about showing a women what it is that men need to feel loved. I spent the last hour reading it. And I didn't just read. I want to learn from it so I also took notes. I've decided that I'm going to go on a little love dare of my own making. Each chapter of this book focuses on different things that are important to men. There are seven different "revelations" that the author brings to share with women and I am going to do my best to spend the next seven weeks working on those seven things. The book is really written for married couples, so I haven't quite figured out what I'll do during the sex chapter week. But that's okay. I'll work it out when it comes haha.

I really want to take the focus off of my needs in this relationship. The book emphasizes that if he is getting what he needs, he will inevitably be giving me what I needs. Men long for respect, which shows them love. Women long for love, which shows them respect. It's a difficult concept to understand but this week I plan on working hard at showing him that I respect him, even when I am struggling to feel loved.

Anyways. I really should sleep. I just couldn't sleep until I got some of my thoughts out of my head and "down on paper" so to speak. The good news is I still have 5 hours until I have to wake up.

-Kristina

Woohoo

On Monday of this week I had a meeting with my lovely French professor. In case you haven't heard, she's no where near lovely. But, anyways. I made my way to her office to talk about my paper that I had to turn in the next day. I was terrified. To say the least. And rightfully so. Throughout the course of our 45 minute meaning she told me that I was dyslexic. That I had no right being at college. That I hadn't learned very much if I was a third year student and had no intellectualism. Okay. So maybe intellectualism isn't a word. Maybe she was right? Anyways. I came out of the meeting bruised and battered and in tears. So I made my way to my room and started completely rewriting my paper. I tried to follow her suggestions as closely as possible. I proofread it several times. Finally, I was done. I felt like I had done my best and there was nothing more I could do, so I was even relieved to turn it in.

While I was sitting in class waiting to turn in my paper I realized I hadn't done something very important. She makes us grade our own papers. She wants to see how we think we did before she gives us grades. I pulled the grading rubric out of my binder hoping so much that for some reason I had done it, and just forgotten. To my horror, I realized that I hadn't. I absolutely panicked. My stomach was in knots. I couldn't focus on the class discussion. In the middle of class my teacher asked for our papers with the grading rubric attached. I sheepishly pulled out my paper and the blank rubric, fearful of the yelling that was to come. Then I looked over at the girl who sits next to me. And she had nothing. Her printer "didn't work." I knew in that moment that I was off the hook. The scolding I would receive from the professor would be nothing compared to what she would get. However, I did get a little one. And after class she sent me down to the language lab to fill it out. I had an hour to get it turned in, which was fine, I had class in 30 minutes anyways.

After that fiasco, I graded my paper. I gave myself a 78 but I was doubtful she would give me anything above a 60. I decided the best thing to do was completely forget about it. I didn't want to worry about it, so I didn't. In fact, when I went to class on Thursday I wasn't even expecting to get the paper back. But, she walked in, and the first things she said was I have your papers graded. And then she pulled them out. Just like that all my fears came back to me. I was trembling with hope for at least a 65. She gave it to me and I immediately searched the front page for some numbers. There were none. In fact, my front page had very very little writing on it. I hesitated, wondering if she gave me back the wrong copy or if she really had only corrected a few things on the first page. I furiously tore through the next 5 pages. Oh my. I really hadn't done that bad. A few grammatical errors. A few transitional sentences that didn't work. A few sentences that were incomprehensible because my French was so bad. But essentially a pretty good looking paper.

Then I came to the rubric. She had used the same one I did, so I could see what points I gave myself versus what points she gave me. When I looked at the first page of the rubric I literally got butterflies in my stomach. I had given myself a 16 in textual organization. But she had given me a 17. She had given me MORE points than I had. This couldn't be real. I flipped to the next page. She gave me the same points I did. Then the next. I skipped over the rubric part down to the overall grade. French ones look an awful lot like sevens. So at first I thought, oh she gave me a 19%. That's awful. As my stomach began to fall I noticed the notch through the stem of the 7, indicating that it was a 7. My professor had given me a 79% after telling me just the day before that it was an awful paper and that I was wasting my time. Not only did she give me a very very high C, she gave me more points than I gave myself. I couldn't believe it. It seriously brought tears to my eyes.

This grade on this paper was exactly the confidence booster that I needed. How could I not feel 80 times better about this class when I almost got a B on the very first paper. I am feeling so much better about this class now. Don't worry though, you'll still have to hear my frustrations and stresses. I'm still super stressed, I just feel more like I can do it. Yay. =)

-Kristina

Another post about my 4th graders, plus some love for my Valentine

Last week I taught my 4th graders for the first time. It was kinda thrown at me 2 seconds before I had to get up and teach. It was a bit stressful but I loved every minute of it.

Ms. Johnson was teaching double digit times double digit multiplication. I settled at the end of a row where there is an extra seat, right next to Teya, expecting to just sit and watch. Then Ms. Johnson surprised me, she looked at me across the room and said, "Why am I doing this, you come do this, and besides I need to take a bathroom break." And just like that, she had walked out. Leaving me alone with 20 fourth graders, a projector, and a pencil. I shakily walked to the front of the classroom. Then I remembered how horses are, they can smell fear, I figured those kids could too so I immediately pulled myself together and took my place next to the projector.

It was a fairly easy lesson to teach, I just followed the teaching style of Ms. Johnson so as not to confuse them. I did a few problems with them and then gave them a few to do on their own. Only one girl got both of the problems right, but it was their first day with that kind of math so I'll cut them some slack haha. But, overall, it was a wonderful teaching experience.

I also met Ethan Starkweather for the first time. Ethan is the kid from Extreme Makeover who has been diagonosed with Prader-Willi. He was such a happy, smily kid but I felt for him everytime he asked Ms. Johnson if it was lunch time yet. I can't fathom having that kind of disease. In case you don't know what Prader-Willi is it is an extremely rare genetic disorder. It causes low muscle tone, labored speech, trouble breathing, and because of a malfunctioning hypothalamus, a constant feeling of extreme hunger

I had the best Valentine's Day that I've ever had. Recently I have started reading thepioneerwoman.com. It's a blog that is written by someone who cooks, homeschools, photographs, and gets up at 4 every morning to work the ranch. She has recently published a cookbook and Lucas got me her cookbook for V-Day. We chose some recipes from the book, lasagna and blackberry cobbler, and made them for dinner. We also watched the olympics for a while. It was wonderful getting to spend that time with him. The food was amazing and we did a wonderful job cooking it. However, the blackberry cobbler "cooked" for 1.5 hours instead of just 1. That's what happens when the oven isn't on for the first 45 minutes. Go me. =( Lucas didn't even laugh at me. haha. Good thing to cause I felt ridiculous. But, anways. It was a wonderful Valentine's day mostly because I love my Valentine. I love you Lucas.

-Kristina

Miss Hickey

This week I started my observations with Ms. Johnson's 4th grade class. I'll be with them once a week and I'll teach them at least 8 lessons. I'm so excited. The school that I'm in has fourth graders go to two different classes. Ms. Johnson teaches math and science, and Ms. Rodriquez teaches the reading and social studies. So essentially I have to classes, the 4-1s and the 4-2s, but I will only spend about 20 minutes with the 2's each week. I think that this set up is my dream job. I would absolutely love only teaching math and science to 4th or 5th graders.

The students in my class are wonderful...of course, I've only been with them once. My opinion could change after they get to know me and start acting more like themselves. We'll see in a couple of weeks. When I first got there Miss Johnson let them all ask me questions. It was crazy to see how different they all were just in the questions they asked. I got questions from "What's your favorite color?" to, "Have you ever kissed a boy?" It was fun though and through this I learned most of the 4-1's names. I'll probably never leave the 2's. Oh well.

Something happened while I was there that essentially made me more determine to be a teacher. It showed me what it is I like about being in a classroom. My students are learning multiplication right now, and so they were doing a facts sheet. Facts sheets have 100 multiplication problems on them and the students are timed to see how well they can do. They just recently started doing these like last week and they all keep a progress chart so they can visually see how much they've improved since the last test. After grading their papers, Ms. Johnson asked who had improved. One boy, Avery, improved drastically since the last time they had done it. He raised his hand and had a huge smile on his face. Ms. Johnson walked over to look at his paper and her jaw just dropped. She went through and graded it really fast and found that yes, he really had only missed 19 of them. She immediately hugged him and both were just there smiling for a while. Later, Ms. Johnson told me that on tuesday, two days before, when he had last done it, he had missed 82. She said that was the biggest improvement over two days she had ever seen. She then asked Avery what he had been doing and he said he'd just been studying a lot at home and doing flashcards and stuff.

The point is, I really enjoyed that moment when I saw Avery's face light up because he had done so good. I could actually see how proud of himself he was and how proud Ms. Johnson was of him. I just would like to be a part of those student/teacher moments that are so profound.

Okay. I think that's all.

-Kristina