Tag: school

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Hello from the Grad School Side…

Ah, hello blogosphere! It’s been a while.

Since my last post six months ago, I’ve moved to a bigger room in my house, gotten a[nother]new housemate (the fourth in the course of the year…hoping the current peeps stick around for a bit ’cause house mate searching is stressful), said goodbye to my first fourth grade class as an assistant teacher, spent a lot of summer time at the pool, wrote 8,000+ words in what I hope will become a novel (and logged many hours at local coffee shops in the process), said hello to my second group of fourth graders as an assistant teacher, and started grad school. I also got to celebrate my grandparent’s 60th anniversary over Labor Day weekend in September in Iowa with my mom’s side of the family. It was incredibly special, and I feel very fortunate to have been able to travel across the country to spend time with my family during such a momentous occasion. It’s all been very good, and I’m very happy where I’m at right now, but it’s also been a challenge. Learning to balance working full time with school and school work has been a learning curve. 

I’m in a two year elementary education and licensure program, and this year is what I like to think of as my “chill” year.  I have six credits across two classes each semester. Each class Continue reading “Hello from the Grad School Side…”

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Post College: One Year Out and Still Learning

Being able to obtain an education is one of the greatest gifts the world can offer and I’m grateful for all that I learned in my four years of college–both inside and outside the classroom. That said, I firmly believe that it is possible to learn just as much outside an academic setting, if not more. Going out into the world is a different type of learning than what is offered inside a university setting–rather than developing my critical thinking skills and pushing the boundaries of my mind as I did in college, I’ve learned a lot from personal experiences in the last year. Here I present some little nuggets of wisdom that I took away from my first year out of college. It’s only the beginning and I’m positive there is much more to come from my ventures in learning out in the quote-on-quote “real world.” So, without further ado:

  • Loneliness is sometimes self-inflicted. You and only you have the power to build relationships with the people around you. No one else will do that for you. If you’re nice to people and show an interest in them, they’ll probably like you. For most of my life, I’ve struggled with building meaningful relationships with people and had no idea what to do–turns out it’s way easier than I ever thought and I just over analyze the hell out of everything.
  • An unknown future is only terrifying if you allow it to be terrifying. Too many people are afraid to follow their dreams because they’re afraid of the unknown, but life is too short not to embrace the opportunities you want to embrace. In fact, if it scares you, you’re probably doing something right.

Continue reading “Post College: One Year Out and Still Learning”

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#WeekendCoffeeShare–In Which Change Happens Both Around and Within Me

If we were having coffee, I’d tell you that this week has been incredibly busy…and tiring…

If we were having coffee, I start out with the big news first–I bought a motorbike on Thursday afternoon! My school got a really good deal on a used bike for me; some of the teachers came with me to buy it to make sure everything was in working order and to act as communication with the Thai speaking seller. One of the teachers is teaching me to ride it and with enough practice, I’m hoping to be able to ride it to and from school soon enough! I’m a bit nervous to go out onto the road on it, but also very excited. I’ve been feeling very isolated and dependent on others in my town for transportation of late and it feels very liberating to finally have a motorbike of my own. I can’t wait to explore around my province a little bit more Continue reading “#WeekendCoffeeShare–In Which Change Happens Both Around and Within Me”

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#WeekendCoffeeShare–Life Updates and Realizations

If we were having coffee, I’d probably first give you a big hug (if you’re a hug person, that is…please let me know ahead of time) and then I’d say how good it is to see you. It’s been a few weeks since I’ve joined the coffee share, but life in Thailand has been quite busy.

If we were having coffee, I’d catch you up on the last few weeks. I’d tell you about celebrating Christmas in Thailand at school (where we did Christmas activities the first three class periods before continuing a normal day of school) and on celebrating in Bangkok over the weekend with my TESOL friends–which included ice skating in a mall and going to a really cool bar that looked like Hogwarts on the inside (it’s called The Iron Fairies and if you ever find yourself in BKK, I recommend it). I’d tell you about our New Years Party at school and the MASSIVE, school-wide gift exchange that we did. It was crazy and took at least two hours to pass out all the gifts. Every gift had a number attached to it and every student and staff member got a number on a piece of paper–whatever number you got lined up with a specific gift, and that was your New Years gift! It was so fun and quite a scene to watch. I’d lastly tell you about spending New Years down south on the island-province of Phuket and how lovely and fantastic that was (and I wouldn’t go into too much detail because Continue reading “#WeekendCoffeeShare–Life Updates and Realizations”

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In Which Teacher Britta Heads to Northern Isan (Or, Almost–But Not Quite–Laos)

It’s the moment you’ve all been waiting for (or so I like to think, in my egotistical, self-centered mind).

Okay, but I DO know that many of you have been anxious to hear about where I’ll be teaching in this vast and beautiful country that is Thailand.

Well, it’s announcement time!

**Drumroll please**

— — — —

I’m so excited to announce that in a few short days, I’ll be leaving the beautiful mountainous region of Northern Thailand (I’ll miss you, Chiang Mai! I love you, Chiang Mai!) for the vast and mysterious landscape that is ISAN.

Isan, for all y’all unaccustomed to Thailand, is what we people familiar with Thai geography (or more like just barely familar, in my case) call Eastern Thailand.

Isan is the poorest region of Thailand.

It also has really nice people and the best food. According to my TESOL instructor, at least, who Continue reading “In Which Teacher Britta Heads to Northern Isan (Or, Almost–But Not Quite–Laos)”

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Trinket Tuesday: Awards of Yesteryear

I don’t know about you, but I have this absolute plethora of awards from high school that have been sitting and gathering dust for years in the bedroom of mine at my parents’ house.

Most of them are an accumulation of various accomplishments I was honored with throughout my four years of high school band (shout out to all my fellow flutists out there!), though there are also some from my two years of high school speech, academic achievements such as National Honor Society, and the like.

Part of me doesn’t know why I keep these awards…though they were meaningful at the time, they really do take up a lot of space and don’t have a whole lot of value to me anymore. Yes, receiving marcher of the year in tenth grade marching band was a dream come true–after my entire freshman year of marching funny, or so people Continue reading “Trinket Tuesday: Awards of Yesteryear”

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What am I Doing With My Life? (Or, Getting Through this Awkward Transition Period)

I’m struggling for something to write right now and part of me is thinking “well, nothing interesting has happened lately.”

I mean, I’m an unemployed college graduate living at home.

For the time being.

I’ve been searching for jobs and preparing for Thailand, but life is rather uninspiring right now. Cool things are going to happen in the future, yes, but they seem so far off.

Of course, things have been happening. I have been applying for jobs and Thailand preparations are in progress. I spent all of Saturday with an old friend from high school whom I haven’t seen since December.  That friend happens to have four absolutely precious two week old kittens at her place, so, naturally, I spent the first Continue reading “What am I Doing With My Life? (Or, Getting Through this Awkward Transition Period)”

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It’s That Time in the Semester…

Stress hunger.

It’s a thing.

A thing I recently developed last semester.

In the last month or so of last semester, I was always hungry. I was eating at all hours of the day. 3 a.m.? No problem. I was up writing those papers I had Continue reading “It’s That Time in the Semester…”

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