jnspies

OK... So I realize people are dealing with no power for a week and have been dealing with far worse things than I have (since I don't live in Houston anymore and haven't gone without power at all).  However, since my teaching certification was done through Region 4 (in Houston), the whole getting started on the teaching job thing has been delayed.  The principal at the school wanted kiddos in my classroom today.  Well, that didn't happen because HR couldn't reach Region 4 to verify that I am indeed able to teach legally and all (how dare they not take my word).  Anyways, power apparently came back on at Region 4 sometime this weekend.  Once I got the papers I needed to get from Region 4 over to HR, I was officially hired within 20 minutes.  WOOHOO!!!  Now, I just need 25 desks and chairs and I'm set.  The room is totally and completely awesome (thanks to lots of hard work and help from John and my new friend / co-worker Beth).  I'll post pictures once I have desks and it actually looks like a classroom and all.  YAY!!!!!!!!!!!!  I hope it all goes as well as I'm hoping......

So all the way through my student teaching so far (4 weeks), my supervising teachers have said I don't need to student teach because they think I'm ready for the classroom.  I didn't really pay much attention to it because, well, I'd already made up my mind I was student teaching AND I'd already started student teaching.  Last Thursday afternoon, the principal at the school asked if I'd be interested in the 5th grade position they had available (they have WAY too many 5th graders for the number of teachers, so they're adding another teacher).  I told him I'd have to check with Region 4 to see if I could do an Internship at this point.  Well, long story short, Region 4 said to go for it.  So Thursday night I'm rushing through the application process and by Friday afternoon the assistant principal calls to set up an interview for Monday.  Interview Monday went well.  They interviewed 3 other people.  Tuesday morning rolls around and I'm sitting in on the 4th grade meeting during the conference period (I was student teaching in 4th grade) and in walk the principal and assistant principal.  Keeping in mind only 3 of the 5 fourth grade teachers know any of this is going on and then begins the 20 minute conversation of what to do that night for curriculum night with my 2 supervising teachers and myself barely able to keep from asking them if I got the job or not.  Then the principal tells them he has bad news... blah blah blah... they're losing a 4th grade team member... blah blah blah... and the 3 teachers in the dark freak out wondering what's going on and my 2 supervising teachers and myself start jumping up and down and then the other 3 get clued in when the principal says that I'm going to be the new 5th grade teacher!!!!!  WOOOOOOHOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

So... enough with the super exciting part and on with the freak-out.  I found out yesterday (Wednesday) that I'm going to have students on Monday!  Problem:  I haven't even officially started yet.  HR hasn't even contacted me yet.  I'm going to call them tomorrow.  So, basically, the principal is saying my first day on contract, I'm going to have a class.  YIKES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  I freaked out (needless to say).  My supervising teacher (now mentor teacher) talked me down and we talked to the principal and I don't have to follow district curriculum next week (whew).  So, I think I've put together a plan for next week (YAY!) and everything should be fine.  We told my 4th graders (who I've grown rather attached to already) that I won't be in their class anymore.  Some of them cried!  Made me sad....  But then I told them I may be their teacher next year, so that's good news!  They all said they're going to tell their parents to request me (aaaahhhh).  Then they all hugged me in the hallway every time they saw me for the rest of the day.

Anyways, my ramblings of 4th graders will now become ramblings of 5th graders, except now I think my postings will be even less human.  I've already figured out 5th graders are really strange.

So... for starters... I'M STILL ALIVE!  As in, just haven't posted in awhile... been kinda' busy....  but I'm still here.

Update Time:  I'm married now... YAY!!!  I love married life.  We've moved to Belton and I'm loving that too.  I'm student teaching at Thornton Elementary School in Temple and I officially want a job there because it's a great school with great teachers and AMAZING administrators.  I'm in a 4th grade classroom and I've decided that 4th graders are some of the funniest creatures I've ever encountered.  I say creatures because I've decided they won't become human for several more years...  They're a strange bunch.

So one thing I've decided is that I can't just sit quietly and keep the funny things my little 4th graders say to myself anymore.  Everyone would seriously be messing out.  So, here's round 1......

"It was big and bad, but it wasn't a wolf!"  -  G.T. Student (in response to "What do you know about Hurricane Ike?")

"I can't tell you where I'd abscond to because then I wouldn't be absconding!" - Random student when asked where he would go if he were to abscond (today's word of the day)

"I would abscond to nowhere because I'm a good boy and I won't do anything bad to cause me to need to abscond." - Worst behaved child in the class, not realizing abscond simply means "to run away secretly" although it can also mean "to hide secretly to avoid arrest"

"This morning I was watching the weather and I thought Ike was the weatherman." - Student randomly telling me this Friday morning

"Everyone's gonna' die!!!" - In response to seeing that Hurricane Ike took up the entire Gulf of Mexico Friday morning

"Are you 50?" - Trying to figure out how old I was... It's funny how they have no concept of age.

"Some affluent people are dapper." - Trying to impress me by using vocabulary words for no reason.  Good use of those words if you ask me though!

This one takes some explaining... They have writer's notebooks.  In the notebook, they have a quicklist in which they had to list a whole bunch of different things the teacher asked them to (family members, best friends, favorite restaurants... and the list goes on and on).  Oh, that was the first column.  In the second column, they were supposed to write 1 describing word for the person, place, etc, listed in the first column and in column 3 they were supposed to put a few words to remind them of an anecdote (probably misspelled) about the person.  In the first column, one child wrote "Dad".  The second column said "raper".  I'm walking around the room glancing at their work, and that was all I saw.  I, of course, did a double take, then saw column 3 said "Nelly".  I suddenly felt much better and simply told him to add another p to the middle to make "rapper". 

OK... I suppose that's enough for today.  Plus, it's 10:30 and if I fell asleep right now, I'd only get 7 hours of sleep and that's not enough when chasing 22 9-year-olds all day long!  Stupid early morning school start times.... 

Goodnight!

So... 2 months from today... Actually, this exact time even (4:00), John and I will be getting married?  Time has completely flown by since we got engaged and so much has happened that has turned my world upside down (in good ways of course).

Anyways, I just haven't posted in awhile and thought just mentioning the wedding is in 2 months would be a good excuse to post.  Plus, I resigned from my job today.  I'm giving them a huge notice, so I've been delaying the resignation for as long as possible out of fear they'd just give me the boot.  Good news is, they didn't.  They're letting me stick around until the end of June.  The only thing is, I have no job to go to at the end of June.  WOOHOO!  Housewife!  (Completely just kidding by the way).  I'm going to student teach in the fall and hopefully get a mid-year position in January teaching somewhere in central Texas.  YAAAYYYYYYY!!!!!!!!!!!!!  No more business world!

OK.  Enough with the rambling and back to work.

BYE (for now)!

OK.  So a benefit to working for a company that does orthopedics is being able to get orthopedic problems checked out with no copays or anything.  This is great for me because I dislocated my shoulder 2 years ago and I've been having problems ever since.  Over the past few months, I've been having increasing pain in my shoulder.  After I dislocated my shoulder, I had no feeling in my arm for a month and I still have a tingling feeling from my elbow in a straight line down to my pinky, but there is feeling there.  I went to one of our orthopedists 2 weeks ago and he gave me a cortizone shot hoping to reduce swelling and hopefully allow the tendon he believes is stuck between my arm and shoulder to fall back out.  Didn't work.  So now he sent me for an EMG with one of the other doctors... NOT COOL.  He failed to mention they shock the hell out of you and then they stick needles in you to listen to your muscles.  Let me tell you...  I find out after the test that it makes grown men cry.  The doctor was telling me to scream if I wanted.  It hurt.  So yeah... Did I mention this test resulted in them finding out ABSOLUTELY NOTHING!  Everything seems "fine" according to the doctor, except it doesn't test the type of nerve that they think is damaged (they apparently just did this to rule things out and see what my pain tolerance is).  So tonight I have an MRI of my shoulder.  Fun times sitting still in small places.  Hopefully that will shed a little light on the problems and hopefully they'll be solvable with no surgeries, although I've been told the whole not having surgery thing is doubtful.  Oh well...  Just thought I'd share... Avoid EMGs.............

If you're interested, we have a website now with wedding details...  www.theknot.com/ourwedding/NicoleSpies&JohnSpurlin

Have a fabulous day!

So, after having booked a ceremony site (and officiant and organist), reception site, and we reserved the date with the caterer and florist, apparently we're ahead of where we should be for wedding planning.  YAY!!!!  I have the best wedding planner in the world (my step-mom) who has been AMAZING.  All it takes is one email saying I'm concerned about 1 little thing and then 10 things get done.  It's pretty cool.  Now if we can just get the caterer to not charge more for labor than the food actually costs, we'll be in business.

Poll Question #1:  What toppings would you want included in a mashed potato bar?  Anything other than bacon, cheese, and chives? 

Poll Question #2:  What do you think would help pass time between the ceremony and reception for the guests while waiting for our pictures to be done (and yes we're going to do most of the pictures before the ceremony so it shouldn't be more than 30 minutes... I hope)?

Poll Question #3:  Who thinks John should wear a pink tux?  Haha... Just kidding!

So... Since pretty much all of you are friends with 

jspurlin, I know you've already read his post.  But I just wanted to put one of my own too.  =)

This past Thursday, John proposed and I said yes (of course)!  He took me to Vargo's in Houston where we had a nice dinner then walked through the gardens.  He took me to a gazeebo and told me how great I am (his words not mine... promise) and got on one knee and proposed.  It was so beautiful and perfect!

This past weekend we went to Temple where we met up with John's parents and my parents.  I was so nervous about the parents meeting part of the weekend, but it went REALLY well.  They're planning trips together... Scarey...  Anyways, we met with a caterer and looked at reception sites.  Official details:  Wedding will be at First United Methodist Church in Temple and the reception will follow at the Cultural Activities Center in Temple.  Colors are pink and white (not pastel and not wabam pink... but a nice pink).  Flowers are going to be lots of gerbera daisies.  I'm soooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo excited!  We picked a caterer and we're just waiting on details from them.  We went to the florist and looked at lots of pretty flowers too.

Anyways, just wanted to give my version of things.  YAY!

 

I rarely have nightmares, at least ones that are vivid and seem real, but I had one last night.  John broke up with me in the nightmare and all I remember is I was begging and pleading with him not to, but he wouldn't give in and was being so not John about it, like it was no big deal and he just decided he was finished and it was completely out of the blue.  It was because he got Lai Lai's (sp?) and we were supposed to be going out together for dinner and getting something healthy since we're doing Weight Watchers Online and he got all pissed off saying I was trying to control his life.  *sigh*  At least it was just a nightmare...  I don't want that to happen again...

 I just want to say... Life is good right now.  I like my new job... A LOT... I really like my new apartment, as well as my roommates.  John has awesome friends who offer to help me move.  The move went semi-smoothly (but I still have unpacking to do).  It's Debbie's (one of my roommates) birthday today and we're having a surprise party for her tonight and I'm really excited about that.  Lucy (Elysia's... other roomate's Dachsund) has finally decided to not be scared of Debbie and me (but she's still scared of the boyfriends).  Going to see my parents this weekend and John's parents next weekend.  John is the most amazing boyfriend ever.  LIfe is just... well... good at the moment.  YAY!

Very accurate (and funny) quote I saw today...

"When we find someone whose weirdness is compatible with ours, we join up with them and fall into mutually satisfying weirdness - and call it love - true love." Robert Fulghum.

That is very extremely John and me.  We have started taking over each other's weirdness.  But I like it.  =)

Well it's been so long since I posted that there's lots to talk about so I'll just dive right in...

I'm moving (again)!  Same complex, different apartment.  I'm really excited because I'm going to be living with 2 really good friends (Debbie and Elysia) in a 3 bedroom/3 bathroom apartment that is basically a townhome without a garage.  We have a gated patio that's really nice and lots and lots of storage.  The only drawback is the teeny tiny kitchen.  But, for a savings of $300/month, I really don't care, especially since I'm still in a really nice apartment.  I've also discovered that I have a hard time being alone.  I enjoyed the 3 months of living by myself, but I really don't like being home alone whenever John ( jspurlin)and I do our own thing for the evening (which is rare, but I still don't like being home alone in those instances).  Another good thing is that he gets along really well with Jarvis and Colby (Debbie's and Elysia's boyfriends), so I think we're all going to have a really good time.

Tropical Storm (now Tropical Depression) Erin moved in this morning.  I know Houston is just on the outer edge, but it's still weird to me.  I've lived most of my life in hurricane free zones and this is new to me.  This is actually just like a thunderstorm, but it seems to be lasting awhile.  It woke me up this morning at 5:45 and that really sucks since my alarm was set for 6:00.  That last 15 minutes would have been nice and it just kinda' makes me angry that I missed out on it.  Everyone at work is running late because of a major accident on 290.  I guess I'm scheduled to arrive at work at 7:30 and pretty much everyone else gets here at 9:00.  The phone has been ringing contantly with "I'm running a little late due to the traffic."  Do they not watch the news?  Did they not know that the weather (and therefore the traffic) was going to be bad this morning?  I did.  I got to work on time and it did take longer than usual.  I just planned for that.  

So... As some of you may remember... The chiller got replaced in my office this past weekend.  Things went as smoothly as we could have expected (with the exception of having to call the police to get rid of the hookers who were trying to steel the equipment from the a/c people).  The a/c is up and running again and it's FREAKING COLD!  I"m wearing a sweatshirt and it's still really really cold.  The next step in our a/c solution is to install digital thermostats that can be adjusted from a computer via the Internet.  Pretty cool if you ask me, but for now, we can't adjust anything and it's really cold!  I guess that's better than being hot though, considering you can always add layers, but you can only take off so many (especially while at work).

Well, I suppose I should get back to work now.  I hope you all have a fantabulous day!!!

I spent more than 24 hours without getting on the computer for anything.  No computer from the time I left work on Tuesday until I got to work this morning.  I'm estimating something like 32 hours.  It was refreshing.  The world didn't end shockingly enough and I didn't miss out on anything important.  I have no idea why email is so addicting, but I've decided it is, and it isn't worth it.  If something is that important... people will call, right?  I hope everyone is having a fabulous day... I'm tired...  5 hours of sleep is not enough! 

FYI... The a/c problem at work has been resolved.  All of my trying to talk some sense into people paid off and self contained portable a/c's are being rented.  WOOHOO!

So... This is too funny to pass up... This guy at work (who refers to me as a "nice lady") just came in and said... "Is there a Chiptel anywhere around here?"  Elysia, the HR Assistant, and I just looked at each other stunned.  My initial reaction was something like, are you serious?  When I realized he was completely serious... I pretty much did everything except fall out of my chair because I was laughing so hard and for the rest of the conversation (which involved referring him to Freebirds instead), I referred to Chipotle as Chipotel.

This weekend was... for lack of a better way to put it... AMAZING!  I had so much fun just doing a whole lot of nothing out of the ordinary.  Friday night John (jspurlin) and I went to see Bourne Ultimatum.  It was really good, but one part made me mad.  I won't say what it was because I don't want to ruin it for anything else.  Saturday we just kinda' chilled and then went swimming with some friends from church and then to On The Border for dinner.  That was lots of fun, except for the swimmer's ear part, but that went away on the very first dose of ear drops.  Then Sunday morning,  I woke up feeling like crap (I think I even had a fever), took a Sudafed, fell asleep for another hour, then I was completely fine.  I don't know what the deal was, but I'm still chugging along today.  Once I got over the 1 hour plague, John and I went to see Waitress.  If you haven't seen it, I seriously recommend it.  It was really really REALLY good.  Best chick flick I've seen in awhile.  John even seemed to really enjoy it.  I have one little disclaimer about it though... If you go see it... Plan on going to get pie afterwards.  We did... House of Pies... Great place, but split the pie.  It's really rich and neither of us were able to finish our piece!  Hmmm... So after pie, we just hung out at John's apartment and played Fluxx... I love that game.  So that's really all I've got today.  Work hasn't treated me too badly today.  Just thought I'd throw that in.  It's been busy, but nothing bad. 

I hope everyone has a great week!  And... I have the most amazing boyfriend in the world... Sorry if you find that cheesy and annoying, but it's very very true!

So I finally gave in to my boyfriend and joined LiveJournal.  I'm not real sure how all this works and people will just have to be patient with me until I get it down.  I'm giving it a chance and we'll see how it goes.  I'm not so sure I'll always have the time to post, but hopefully I will.  If I come up with something interesting... I'll post it.  I guess I'll have plenty of posts though because right now my life is full of traveling, talking goats, bullet holes in cars, LOTS of movies (3 this past weekend), possible changes in my life that I can't get into in a public setting (but I'll do friends only posts to take care of those), and who knows what else... life is always entertaining for me.  So for now, I should go back to work...  I'll post something good soon!