June 6, 2010
Amazingly after beginning this journey 22 months ago; September 12, 2008 (one week after Jonathan and Anna's wedding day), it is coming to an end! Purusing graduate school quickly became my dream and goal after obtaining my undergraduate degree in education. However, I must admit I never thought this dream or goal would come to fruition (or frutation~according to Trish) so soon. But I couldn't be happier, prouder or more excited to cross this off my own personal "bucket list."
Throughout this journey I have grown both personally and professionally. I have made friends, met a handful of new people, reconnected with old friends (Hailey Kirkland, now McMurtrey) gotten to know teaching colleagues better (Cori Long), become friends with people I was just aquaintences with during my education program at BSU (Alicia "Ace" Clark) and I have traveled this entire journey side by side my favorite aunt, godmother, teaching role model and friend. Professionally, I have been given the tools, resources and guidance to become a teacher I never would have been just three years into my teaching career.
This journey has been exciting, rewarding, challenging, stressful and more times than not, very exhausting (both mentally and physically)....but it has been worth the journey. We have all stretched ourselves to be better people and educators. We have tapped into our own inner-creativity that most of us didn't even know existed. We have brushed up on our writing skills through reproducing multiple rationales (with an e). We have written more lesson plans in a 22 month time frame than one thought imaginable. And we have bought more text books and art supplies than most of our budgets could afford.
Most importantly, together, Lesley Cohort 13 has laughed, learned, loved, confided in and cried together....but one thing is for sure, we will all look back and smile on our memories....and there are many.
As for my love....Thank you for putting up with me during this long journey where most of my free nights and weekends were consumed with writing papers, putting together projects, writing lesson plans, rehearsing presentations, researching, writing more papers, reading text books, stressing, meeting deadlines....and just when I would finish one class and have a breath of fresh air, this viscious cycle would start all over again...11 times over.
Thank you for helping me make some of my various projects....projects that were grand inside my head, but could have never been completed alone.
Thank you for helping me with ideas for lesson plans, projects and presentations when I had exhausted all of my own creative ideas.
Thank you for being so understanding when I was a grouch the week before my Lesley weekend and the week after....there is something to be said for weekends. We all need a break!
Thank you for doing the laundry, cooking dinner every night and making breakfast more often than not when I probably would have starved otherwise, and gone to work wearing dirty underwear. (By the way you have become a great cook and I don't know if my cooking skills will match up!)
Thank you for cleaning the house during my Lesley weekends....it was always refreshing walking into a clean smelling house after a long eight hour day of class.
Thank you for always texting me during my Saturday classes in the fall when I would miss a BSU game.
Thank you for always reminding me to "have fun" in my Friday night class after a long day, and week for that matter of teaching.
Thank you for listening to me bitch (more than my usual amount) about anything and everything!
Thank you for having pizza and wine and Colstone dessert for me after my last night of class. It meant a lot!
Most definitely, thank you for being my support, my crutch to lean on and my constant reminder that I could attain this goal, I could accomplish my dream and I would survive. Now it's my turn to do the same for you. I love you!
My metaphor of me as a result of my Lesley journey..."I am the sun rising over the path less taken." Someday I will get this art piece framed, when I have repaid my school loans and hopefully get a raise for this master's degree. Who would have ever thought the economy would be in such turmoil that our salaries would be frozen upon graduation!
Our instructor for our last class, Susan, created a very special and memorable ceremony for us, encompassing "drinking vessels" for a toast, cake and a special graduation cap.
Hailey's cake making skills showcased...how cute is that? It was neopolatian and it was delicious!
The Hidden Springs crew...from left to right...Mrs. Broadie, Mrs. Olsen, Mrs. Long & Mrs. Goble
Long time friends from McCall and then we even spent a semester together as DG's at UofI. What a small world it is to reconnect through graduate school!
I still remember my beginning years of college, volunteering (in Mrs. Olsen's 5th grade class at Hidden Springs) so clumsily and awkwardly, yet with such innocence and a heart set on teaching...now here we are together seven years later graduating together with a Master's in Education and teaching together at Hidden Springs Elementary. What are the odds of that?
The top of my graduation cap....modge podged...of course!
Now that my eyes are swelled up with tears of reminiscing about this journey...I'm off to cook dinner! And while this bolg entry is bittersweet....after all we are so close....we have one and possibly the most important deadline to meet...our thesis due date...June 28th. It will come soon enough, I'm sure!
Lesley friends....I'll miss our memories, but not the weekends!
Best of luck in your future endeavors....just remember Trust the Process!!!!!!
Best of luck in your future endeavors....just remember Trust the Process!!!!!!
Here's to all of our successes yet to come!
Congratulations!! We are so excited for you!!
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