Last Day of Class

Hey Dr. Ries,

I really enjoyed this class and the opportunities that it has given me.  I would probably never have tried to use a lot of this technology if it had not been introduced to me.  One of the different projects that we worked on that I liked was blogging.  You had told me that you liked that I woud write about anything that was on my mind and that is exactly what I liked about it.  I personally do not always like to talk about myself to people and I do not like to open up about different topics, but I felt comfortable with this.  It was almost like a journal that I was writting in that allowed me to be able to express myself.  I also liked the other programs that we used and Iwas surprisingly very happy with them when I finished, but not simply for that.  What I was really happy about was that I felt like I was able to accomplish something and think outside the box about what I would like to use in a classroom when I teach.  I was a little worried about different ways to incorporate technology, but I learned some great different ways to do so.  Thanks for the everything and taking the time to help me whenever I had questions.  Enjoy the summer.

PS.  I also liked that all this typing has allowed me to work on my keyboard skills.  I used to be kind of slow when typing and have gotten a lot more used to it now.

My Two Days (3/3) - A Birthday Party

After we had returned to the funeral home, we found out that we were going to my brother and sistein-law's house so that we could throw my nephew a birthday party.  Yup, the funeral happened to be the same day as my nephew's 5th birthday.  They wanted to continue with a little celebration so that my nephew would not feel left out on his day.  He did not go to the funeral, nor his sister.  They were watched by a family friend for botht the wake and the funeral.  My nephew did not fully understand the meaning of death and that you cannot ever see the person again, so he was not completely shaken over everything.  He is CO CUTE though.  My brother told me that when my nephew woke up, he went and saw his mom to say good morning and she wished him a happy birthday.  He asked her if he looked bigger and then said he was going to weigh himself on the scale to check. 0:-)

The party started out a bit weird as everyone was dressed for a funeral, but it was actually fun.  The food was catered; which was a surprise from my sister-in-law's aunt, who is actually a close family friend.  I played a lot of games with my nephew as he loves board games.  Everyone was taking turns playing.  We also played around with my niece and another baby girl who was a friend's baby.  It was really hectic, but turned into a happy day.  It also happened to be the day of the royal wedding, but I did nto follow it so I would not have even known if it was not for the wedding replays.  It was just too busy and I fell asleep before 10 PM that night.

My Two Days (2/3) - The Funeral

So, the next day, which was Friday, was the day of the funeral.  Since we are family and we were all part of the funeral, we had to first go to the funeral parlor to have a prayer service and pay our last respects before they would close the coffin.  Well, I thought we had to be there for 9 AM and the actual funeral started at 10 AM, my dad thought we had to be there at 8:30, and my brother thought 8:45.  I had to rush to get ready since I thought that I would have an extra half hour.  When we got there, we sat around for a little while.  As a side note, I always thought that the deceased were put in a cold storage like place overnight and taken out the next day.... I was wrong.  Everything was left as it was from the night before.  When the director came in, we had a little prayer service, each went up one last time, and walked out so that the casket was closed.  Then we went to the church in a procession following the flowers, herse, and the limo with my two brothers, sister-in-law, her mother, and two of their really close friends in it. 

The mass for the funeral was really hard.  My sister-in-law and her mother were crying a lot.  I was trying not to cry because I actually hate to cry in front of people.  Ironically though, when I see people cry, especially those that are very close to me, I will start to tear up.  That actually bothers me though because it does not necessarily have to be people that I am familiar with or know on a personal level.  So if anyone is ever crying and you see me purposely looking in every direction but yours, you now know why.  Anyway, the priest said a lot of really nice and personal things that really meant something to the people who knew Gigi.  After the mass was over, we went back to our cars and had to wait about 15 minutes for the priest.  We kind of created a bit of a traffic jam in the parking lot as other people were trying to enter for a funeral immediately after ours at 11AM.  We then went to the cemetary for the final parting.  Everyone was given a a flower to put down beside that casket after the prayers.  Finally, we drove back to the funeral home following teh limo to get my one brother back while everyone else in the limo had to go back for their own cars.  Another side note, I thought that in the cemetary during the funeral, the casket gets lowered and a close relative puts a shovel-full of dirt afterwards.  My dad said that it used to happen, but not so much anymore because some people cannot take the site of that happening and actually jump in to the hole. O.O  I only thought that happened in movies.

My Two Days (1/3) - The Wake

So, yesterday I talked about having to go to wake and that today was the funeral.  I have to admit, the wake was not that bad.  No one was really crying or upset, which I think is due to the fact that my sister-in-law's grandmother, who we all called Gigi though it was not really her name, was 95 and lived a full life because in all honesty, I think if it was a young person, there would have been a lot of people crying.  Instead, we talked about stories and even looked through pictures that were there on our phones and cameras, not just of Gigi, but of everyone.  I have to say, I had been told that Gigi was really beautiful when she was younger and I was shocked at how true that was.  I only met Gigi about 5 years ago so I have only seen her in her 90+ years.  She looked really small, petite, and frail with some health issues and maybe stood at 5', but that is to be expected at her age.  I found out that when she was young, she was actually 5'7" tall.  I got to see a lot of pictures of her through various ages and it is amazing how much people transform.  Well anyway, everyone was spread about the room indifferent groups talking and I of course was by my brothers while they were telling some funny stories their past.  Now please do not judge, but the only thing I had an issue with was the coffin and such, you know.....  The last time I went to a funeral, I was 5, did not personally know the person, and was not allowed to go up and see.  So I had never seen anyone dead before.  People have said that a lot of times, the deceased do not look like they did when they were alive, however SHE DID!  Everyone was even remarking about how she looked so good.  I became better with it after time, but I guess my initial discomfort must have shown because when I was just standing there, my brother said I looked awkward.  Other than that, I was fine there for the whole night.  We had stayed later than what we even had to and eventually left maybe around 9:30 or 10:00 PM.  We made a stop at home so that my younger brother and I could change, then went to a diner for dinner.  By the time we got home, it was well after midnight and after having been up since around 7 AM and doing nonstop school work until 7 PM and then going to the wake, I was dead tired and fell right to sleep.

Oh, before I forget, in case I have never mentioned this before, my oldest brother can be such a moron sometimes (though they each have these moments).  There is no other word for it.  When we were looking at pictures on my camera, we came across the previously mentioned St. Patrick's Day video with Gigi dancing and my brother decided to hit play.  Well the volume also happened to be all the way on high, so anyone in the immediate area could hear it so it started playing Irish music and you could hear laughter.  I was watching with my brother and a friend of my brother and my sister-in-law while telling him to turn it off.  She found it really funny though that when going through my camera, there were random pictures by each other.  For example, it went from a picture of Gigi on July 4th two years ago to a picture of a gorilla and other animals(courteous of a zoo).  He tried to show his wife, but she said it was too soon.  He did finally block the speaker after a minute so no one could hear it because I said no one should.  Let me just say, watching a video of her dancing while her coffin was like 5 feet away felt just a little bit creeepppyyyy to me.  When I told my dad later, he said he saw nothing wrong with it and either did my other brothers since some funerals actually play videos.  Am I the only one who thought this was wrong/creeepppyyyy?

Bad and Crazy Days

My Easter Break had something different happen every day.  One day there was new furniture, another day I went to help my brother with my niece and nephew, and Easter was rocky.  We almost had to cancel our plans and have a back up because my sister-in-law's grandmother was on her death bed.  My sister-in-law and her mother were at the hospital everyday; which is why I helped my brother with the kids since he had very little sleep that day.  I never saw my sister-in-law and her mother so exhausted and sad before.  They were also having different problems with the situation so nothing was easy for them.  They had issues trying to get a priest to come so close to Easter so they called the monsignor of my church and he was able to call someone in the area who could go to them since the hospital was kind of far.  The priest who went had really comforted them because he had also lost his mother just 3 weeks before and knew what they were going through.  Sadly though, she passed away Tuesday morning, but she was able to go peacefully in her sleep.  The wake is today and I have to go immediately after my last class.  The funeral will be tomorrow morning and everyone in my family, including myself, is involved in it in some way.  My sister-in-law has made herself feel better though to know that her grandmother is reunited with her grandfather now, who died aroung 50 years ago.  Her grandmother loved him so much that she never remarried or even tried to, even though they were married for only 10 years when he died.  She was fortunate though to have lived to the age of 95 and be able to see two great grandchildren born, especially since she did not have her son and daughter until her late 30s and at the age of 40.  From what I have seen and heard, she never took life for granted and always tried to have a good time.  I even have proof as I filmed her on last year's St. Patrick's Day doing the Irish jig at 94 even though she usually needed a can just to walk!!!

Professional Development Workshop

So, I went to the professional development workshop on Friday and I found it interesting.  We learned about a program called Geometer Sketchpad that allows you to make graphs really easily on the computer, but you can also color the graphs and animate them.  There is also the option to calculate using the graphs and a lot of other activities for the different areas of math.  I have to admit though, I felt a little weird at first because it was all actual teachers and one student teacher, so I was kind of unsure of what to do.  I didn't even realize that we had to grab a packet when we came in and I was unsure if I should sign the attendance sheet, but the other teachers said I should as proof I was there.  I even got one of the Board of Education Certificates that shows that I completed the workshop and I just have to add my name. 

I also felt bad that when we were looking at this one activity in the beginning.  The activity had one "x" at the top and then two more below that, then three, and so on until there were about eight rows to form what kind of looked like a tree or triangle where you could click and hold the "x" at the top and move it left or right.  When the "x" moved to the right, so did all the other ones, but moved so at different lengths and when it was moved left, every other row moved left while the rest went right.  Now, the presenter, a teacher, said that if this is used in a lesson, then it should be introduced to the students first because he did not even know what it was for a while, but was eventually able to figure it out.  He asked if anyone else could tell what it was and I already knew when he was first showing the movements so I waited a few seconds before saying that it was where the different functions would be on a graph with the different positive and negative values of "x" changing.  I felt kind of awkward that I was able to answer in seconds what took him a while to figure out because I don't think he was expecting anyone to know what it was really. :X I think it took him off guard because he had to ask me to repeat what I said.  Then you could hear all the "ahhhs" as the other teachers realized it after my explanation.  I don't believe he was offended at all though because I am with him every morning before second period and I talk to him all the time, but I still felt bad for it.

I Like My Observations

I have been enjoying my time at the high school that I go for my observation hours.  The teacher is really nice and she tries to give me any tips possible that will be useful for me when I become a teacher.  What I have been doing when I am there is that I go in during first period because she has a prep period and she told me that coming too early will result in me just sitting there.  Then when I go to her first class with her, I hand out any papers to the class if she has any, take notes during her lesson, and then walk around the room afterwards during the class work problems to help anyone who needs it.  This has actually been pretty easy until last Friday.  I do not remember ever learning certain charts and things when I learned algebra like box plots and tree diagrams, so I was a little nervous when the class was doing the tree diagrams.  I paid attention to the lesson and was actually able to learn and then help the class with it.  In the algebra 2 honors classes, I helped to grade test papers; which does not bother me at all.  I like that I am able to go through to mark and if they have it wrong, go through their work and show them the correct operations or simple errors that they had made. 

The next day that I am going is this Friday and it will be interesting.  The school has a half day that will let out at 12:30 and then I am going to go to a professional development workshop.  I do not really know what will be talked about because the teacher had told me and invited me last week and I wanted to check with my professor first if this was possible.  I hope that I will actually be able to learn some new ideas or concepts that will help me.