oh P.S. I forgot to tell you

I GRADUATED. with my Bachelor's degree. MAGNA CUM LAUDE! I am officially a Gator Alumnus :)


Moral of the story: My parents think I am smart.

As you can probably tell...I am super busy during my semester...this is no excuse to ignore you. Sorry :( On the bright side... I GOT IN TO GRAD SCHOOL!!!!

1st Day of School

It was awesome! My students are really cute and I enjoyed being in the classroom ALOT!

Here is my first day of school/love myself photo:

Day 5

I used photobooth on my laptop and it had a mirror effect! Sweet!



Moral of the story: Be a Teacher! or at least be nice to a teacher.

I set up my blog to receive blog posts from my cell phone! I hope it makes it easier for me to keep everyone up to date :)

You + Me + Cats make 5

Have you ever owned a cat? I have owned plenty in my 22 years on this Earth, but I am currently the lovely owner of three, let's make that two, precious feline friends. (No seriously, I have three cats) but one of them is CRAZY!!!! I have had one cat for a little over a year and her name is Gracie, but we refer to her as Gracie Lou Who on a daily basis. Than my sister moved in with me in June and she wanted her own cat. I being the kind person I am decided that we could adopt a cute little kitten. However the people at the Humane Society must have taken more than a few classes in the art of manipulation because I ended up with two adorable kittens and a lot less money that day.

Back to my point of the post...The orange kitten is super friendly, loves to snuggle, but he is obsessed with human food. I am not talking like the normal human foods cats are obsessed with, I am talking ANYTHING! He will eat vegetables, icecream, raw meats, chips, cheese, butter, etc, etc, etc. He has resorted to digging in the trash can, sitting in the sink, and jumping on counters to get a little (or many times big) morsel of human food. It's the weirdest/most annoying trait I have ever seen in a cat! I might possible go crazy if I have to continue to chase my food around the house. We have tried to squirt him with a water bottle, but he is determined. I just don't know what to do anymore...

Thesis Countdown:
Pages written: 15
Pages left:5
Days left: -2

I FAIL! I NEED TO GET MY BUTT IN GEAR!

Moral of the story: Life is busy. and Never adopt cute precious kittens.

Crazy is as crazy does

Have you ever had the urge to do something, but you think people might think your crazy??? I get these urges pretty constantly, and I always get criticism from my sister. I really wanted to start an Etsy shop, but she said it would never make money. Then I wanted to write a blog and she said I would have no readers (which is probably true, so if you are out there..let me know).

Right now I am considering starting a 365 project. Basically that means that I am going to try and take a least one picture (of myself or my surroundings) per day for a whole year. I have seen the idea on Flickr and I am intrigued by the pictures people come up with. If by the way, you have never been to Flickr, check it out ASAP! I find it so interesting to see the pictures people take and upload.


Soooo..I thought about it and I am going to try this project for a week. If I get through a week, then I will try a month, and if I get through a month, I'll consider going for a year! The best part about this, is that I plan on sharing my adventure with my blog....

Day 1
I never said I was the best picture taker. That is one of my cats, Cullen.

Thesis Countdown
Pages Written: 14
Pages Left: 6
Days Left: 1

Moral of the Story: Try new things, even if someone stares you in the face and calls you crazy.

Please Sir, Can I have Another?

I am going to my friends birthday dinner at this super cute restaurant on Friday and I am most excited about the bar (and hanging out with my friends, of course). They always have really unique drink specials and love trying new things! Last time I was there I had a Pink Lemonade.

It's made like this:
1 1/2 oz Absolut® Citron vodka
1/2 oz Chambord® raspberry liqueur
2 oz sweet and sour mix

Shake and serve on the rocks.

DELICIOUS!!!!!

and it's PINK!

I know your excited to make it, so do!

Moral of the Story: Party hard (on the weekend).

The beginning of the End

Today is the first day of my last semester as an undergraduate at the University of Florida! I am really excited,but terrified at the same time. I have a 20 hour pre-internship at a local elementary school this semester and as much as this excites me to be in the classroom teaching, I cannot help but to dream about terrible terrible things happening to me...

Example 1: The kids decide they don't like me and they go through the process of gluing my butt to a chair. ( I know I have apparently watched too many movies, but it could totally happen)

Example 2: A gust of wind flows through the classroom and my dress flies wildly in the air and everyone if left to see my pretty panties that I have own for like 5 years. Laughing will ensue.

Example 3: I freeze. Each and every time I have to talk to the class.(I never freeze when talking, I am actually very good at keeping my mouth moving. I think that this is deep down the one I am most afraid of happening.

I am going to meet my mentor teacher and the principal of the school today. I will be spending all week with my teacher getting the classroom ready and getting to know her. Then next Monday is when the students come! That gives me 1 week to get rid of these silly dreams.

Thesis Countdown:
Pages written: 10
Pages left:10
Days left: 5

That's only two pages a day! I can totally do this!


Moral of the Story: Don't wake up in the middle of the night and be terrified of your future career. Or do.

An ode to my nemesis

T is for the time I have spent writing you
H is for the hours of research I have done for you
E is for each and every page of you I loathe
S is for the silly topic I chose
I is for the information I have yet to learn
S is for the set of honor cords I will wear in December

THESIS!

I have been working on my honors thesis for my Bachelor's degree and I have officially hit the one week time limit to submit my rough draft to my mentor. I was supposed to finish it 6 weeks ago, but I have been preoccupied with laundry, cooking, and taking a freaking break from life. Next Friday is the absolute last day I can turn the rough draft in. My title is: The Effectiveness of Manipulatives Across the Curriculum. Translation: Boring. This is not the topic I wanted, it is a small fraction of what I wanted surrounded by a bunch of stuff that my mentor thinks will look good to the thesis committee. You might ask yourself why I am willing to write a 25 page monster of a paper...let me answer this in 2 words. Honor Cords. I have worked really hard torwards my degree and I refuse to let a silly paper keep me from earning top honors regardless of my GPA. Pray for me to finish this on time.

Days left: 7
Pages written: 6
Pages left to write: 14ish

AND!!!! One of my friends found out that they got accepted to Grad School! I have feverishly checked my inbox all day, waiting for my letter, but no such luck yet! Hopefully soon!

Moral of the Story: Don't procrastinate. Ha. Ha. Ha.

10% Chance of Rain

I never understood why Florida was called the "Sunshine State." It is fact that every single day throughout the months of May through August it will rain. I am not talking about 'light cool your face off with a breeze' kind of rain, I am referring to the 'holy crap my umbrella just broke due to monsoon wind gusts' type of rain.

Let me give you a timeline of today's events:

5:15PM - Get dressed for work
5:25PM- Straighten hair
5:35PM- Apply make-up
5:45PM- Get in car and begin drive to work
5:46PM- Rain begins to fall
5:48PM- Rain begins to pour
5:55PM- Sitting in car because I don't want to get wet
5:58PM- Getting out of car, with umbrella, because I cannot be late for work
6:00PM- Walk into work wet (Yes I had an umbrella, but umbrella manufacturing companies have yet to master the art of horizontal rain.)
6:01PM- Clock in for my shift
6:02PM- Power to the entire Mall goes out (really)
6:03PM- Manager asks me if I think the customers should leave the store....No, I find it completely safe that we have 2 registers full of cash in a dark unlocked store with no working cameras or alarms. YES, make the customers leave!
6:05PM- My manager proceeds to try and close the ELECTRIC gate. She turns to me and asks "why won't it work." (Honestly, I might quit my job for this fact alone. The woman is my manager!)
6:08PM- We finally get the emergency handle to work and are able to manually close the gate and lock it.
6:12PM- Our district manager calls and informs us that if the power does not come back by 6:45 we can leave.
6:13PM-6:42PM - We sit in a dark and quiet store making awkward chit-chat and hoping that we can leave soon.
6:43PM- So close to 6:45...We are in the clear! I am going home!
6:45PM- Locking the gate and heading for the employee exit.
6:46PM- Power is restored...
6:47PM- We shuffle back to the store and reopen. Just my luck. It stinks because NO ONE was in the mall after the power was restored, but that made for an easy shift.

Moral of the Story: Don't believe the weathermen....seriously.

Never underestimate the power of a fork

I am officially no longer a sushi virgin!!!! It seems quite impossible to think that I have been passing over these tiny nuggets of deliciousness for well over 22 years. The idea of raw fish kinda creeps me out, but in the end I found out there are plenty of sushi rolls that do not contain raw or other creepy types of fish. I went to a really nice sushi restaurant in downtown Gainesville called Dragonfly with one of my oldest friends, Steven. The food was fabulous! We had ginger salads (I would eat one everyday if I could find that salad dressing, the chunky yet creamy ginger kind. Does anyone have any suggestions?), cheese wontons with a peach sauce (my favorite part of the night), and then of course sushi rolls. I had the Mango Tango and he had the Krispy Krunch roll. Both were delicious, but here is the best part of the entire evening.

Our salads are delivered to the table and I unroll my silverware, but instead of a knife and fork I am greeted by chopsticks. I think it over and then decide I am going to try it but not by first letting my friend know I have never...ever used chopsticks.

Me: Steven...Do you know how to use chopsticks?

Steven: Yes?? Doesn't everyone?

Me: Apparantly I missed that training course. Is it hard?

Steven: No, it's really easy. Just break them apart and hold them like this.

Me: (Breaks them apart. Fumbles around trying to hold them.)

Steven: No, hold them like this. Kinda like a pencil.

Me: Oh right, I always use two pencils. (Still fumbling and failing, then miraculously getting them in the right position.)

Steven: Ok, now just use your index finger and you can pick up food. (He does this so gracefully.)

Me: 1...2....3...crap I dropped them. (I tried this repeatedly for 6 minutes before...)

Me: Do you think they have those chopsticks that are already put together that I used as a kid for fun?

Steven: No, I don't think they have training chopsticks...let's try this again. Hold this one here and the other one with this finger and blabbity blabbity blabbity.

Me: Yeah, this not eating my salad thing isn't working for me, Can I ask for a fork?

Steven: I'm sure you could ask for a fork, but I might have to move to another table.

Me: Are you embarrased to be with someone who eats with a fork?

Steven: Yeah, everyone here eats with chopsticks.

Me: But I don't know how...and for the record, I would totally not be embarrased if you pulled out chopsticks at a BBQ place.

(The waitress came, saw that my salad was not even touched and asked me if I needed a fork....apparantly I am not the only person who goes there and can't use chopsticks.)

I finished my salad, ate the wontons, and ate the sushi roll. I am not sure that Steven will ever ask me to eat sushi again because I did things a little outside of the box (how was I supposed to know you don't cut the sushi roll in half?), but it was fun.

Moral of the story: Try new foods, sometimes you'll like them and always carry a knife and fork in your purse!

Pick Me, Pick Me

I have officially submitted my application for grad school. I am hoping that I find out before September, but I can possible wait until September 15th. If I do not find out by September 15th, I will start calling people.

Moral of the story: Do not make me wait for a really important decision much more than a month.

#LCLC

So this weekend I went to a conference in Orlando. It was called the Lawton Chiles Leadership Corps and it was held as a way to motivate students to get out and reform the education in the state of Florida. I didn't learn many new facts, seeing that I am studying to be a teacher and therefore should already know the state of education in Florida, but I am going to share some facts with you:

1. Florida is ranked 50th (DEAD LAST!!) when it comes to per capita spending per student. This means that Florida is not taking education seriously and this makes me sad. :(

2. Florida is ranked 2nd for juvenile incarceration....WHAT????

3. Florida is ranked 49th (NOT DEAD LAST, BUT CLOSE) on the number of uninsured children in the state.

There are so many more indicators, but if you aren't from Florida then you most likely don't really care. If you are from Florida or you really want to know more check out this link!

Although I wasn't that thrilled with the conference content...I did get to see a few cool people:

1. John Yi - He works for Facebook and I am addicted therefore I was excited to meet him.

2. Lawton "Bud" Chiles - He is the son of Lawton Chiles who is a great politicion from Florida. The Chiles family gives a lot of support to the children of this state and I commen them on their efforts.

3. Bill Clinton - as in the former President of the United States!!!!! I was in awe! He gave a speech and it was awesome and I was literally 500 feet from the podium. Pictures are coming soon!

Moral of the Story: I will attend anything you host if you promise free food and famous people.

You can call me....

Laura. That's my name, but I will answer to pretty much anything you throw at me. I am from Florida and it is stink'n hot here. We do however have a few good things...Universal Studios, tons of beaches, and the University of Florida. UF is by far superior to any other university (Sorry, but I have to speak the truth) and that is why I plan on sharing my adventures (and sometimes disadventures) as I graduate in the next few months You see, I will in Decemeber recieve the coveted Bachelor's degree followed by two weeks of total relaxation and freedom from school....before I start graduate school in January :(. That is, of course, if I am accepted. Along the way, I let you in on my life, my friends, and my fam.