Blondie

Some days I'm happy and other days I'm like SO THIS IS WHAT INSANITY IS

Paintings

My dad sent me this picture recently--the day before Ethan and I left for Pocatello to return to school I finished this painting of the Italian coast my dad had requested for his office. So happy with how it turned out!

I love my family and all of the opportunities they have given me to do wonderful things!

Hair: The beginning

Decided to change things up with my style. About every two years I get incredibly antsy about my hair and yearn to either chop it or color it like a rainbow--luckily, this time I chose the latter.

I went all in. Bleached my whole head. Tried to color it a pretty dark purple and blue, but instead my hair turned a strange pink and fuschia and teal mixture. Eventually I may go blonder, or completely red. I'm enjoying this.

At first I hated it, and then my lovely teacher, Dr. Cha, exclaimed that I looked like a "fairy".

Also, I realized that now I can look like a Final Fantasy character!

 

 

Out of Place

In addition to the millions of social development education classes, anthropology classes, english classes, and music classes, I am taking a methods class on incorporating music into the classroom. Surprise surprise it's all girls. Nothing like an all girls class to remind you have how strange and out of place you are.

We discuss the topic of childhood cognitive development a lot in that class, mainly how play and physical activity is important to individual growth.

Somehow video games got on the topic, and everyone was circle-jerking about how terrible video games are for children, and that the only ones that children should play are WiiSports and Just Dance games etc. Because video games 'lead to attention disorders, are bad for eyesight, and promote bad behavior'.

No. No. No. 

I'm sorry, but that's incorrect. It really irks me when people make judgements based on their own biases.

It has been stastically studied (even in surgeons!) that people who play video games have more developed fine motor skills, better critical thinking, better reaction time, are able to recognize patterns better, better eyesight (yes), and are able to better focus on multiple tasks and accomplish them more quickly.

This is not limited to playing educational games, either. Games like Skyrim, Portal, Fallout, Halo: they all rely on quick judgement in stressful situations, problem solving, and fast reaction times. Video games are not mindless, there is so much cognitive development going on, so much strategy and complexities that are really great in aiding brain development.

I just wanted to get this out. Video games were and are such a huge part of my life: my escape, my avatar, everything I wish I could be in real life.

Miraculous Destiny

Today I had my first elementary school observation, and even though I was only there for two hours I can already feel my eyes opening to the miraculous destiny ahead of me!

I can't even begin to express all of the emotions I am currently feeling towards these new opportunities in my life. What a change this year has been since the last--and I'm not just referring to my marital status. I am evolving, slowly capturing the essence of my potential and nurturing it into the structure of my life. I am becoming a strong force in the world again, pushing my way upstream through the swimming salmon.

This transition from music performance to education has been one of the most eye-opening experiences I have cultivated in my academic journey. I love music, don't get me wrong. I love playing and I love watching myself grow as a musician; but this is different. This is expanding every horizon of my mind and rewiring the structure of my being. I am now observing the most quintessential aspects of human nature--our cradles of cognitive and emotional development--and analyzing why we as humans grow the way we do. My goal is to observe and potentially capture the very essence of human nature--how fascinating is that? And it's not purely in the role that psychology plays, it is not prodding and poking at the human psyche to understand how we think, it is understanding the process of human development from cradle to cradle--the life cycle we all experience and what is affecting that progress. And not only that, but I get to impact this development; I get to nurture and provide encouragement and key emotional and educational needs, it's so thrilling!

My evolution (although just in its adolescence) has shown some...possibly negative...side effects already. I thought I had buried my overly-competitive spirit long ago, back when I was angry and opinionated and disaffected. Oh ho, but if it hasn't vehemently come back. Being finally plunged back into the world of analyzing, discovering ideas, reflecting on my own experiences, I have become that fearsome warrior of the English language.

I want to say I hate being the know-it-all, but...but I can't, yknow? It feels good again.

Let me be vain for a little bit. Just this once. There was a book we were supposed to read in my Human Rights Lit class, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, and one week I was a little behind on the reading; of course that was the week we had our first quiz and I did pretty poorly, given as I hadn't read the chapters.

I felt really retarded, and figured the professor thought I was another idiot girl who never did the reading or couldn't comprehend the material (even though it was one of the easiest, above-the-surface books I have ready in a while). I even confessed to her that I had done badly on the quiz because I had gotten behind. She said something like "oh don't worry, it's pretty dense material and can be hard to get through". I was like wut no no no.

We were assigned a reading response based upon our findings in the novel. I decided to kick its ass to prove that I was indeed not retarded. I love writing papers. I'm weird like that. I can't even express how it feels to reflect and analyze on an idea--and not just every day, theme related ideas. I like thinking complexly and against the grain of the norm. I like playing devil's advocate. I can't help but view everything with multi-faceted dimensions. There is no clear cut here, no realm of absolutes. I guess that's what makes the being evolve, though. Adapting.

So I wrote what I thought was going to be a way-off-target paper since I basically called the author of the book (it was an autobiography) a giant liar. She was.

I like arguing different points and perspectives. I love the abstract world.

I later got an email from the professor praising me on my paper and gushing about how much she loved reading it, and she even asked me if I had considered becoming an English major. Once. No. She then asked if she could post my essay up on the class website to use as a model essay for other students. Sure. Apparently, according to her, this was one of the only papers she had ever read that had received a 100%. Felt pretty good about that. Unfortunately, in my attempt to be impressive, I set a very high bar for the rest of my work, so now I'll be expected to continue birthing insightful and breathtaking papers...which isn't gonna happen. So, that sucks.

In other news, I accidentally corrected the Writing Lab administrator on her spelling in front of my class. I felt really rude, but it was a reflex. Oops. I have been complimented many times by my teachers for my insight and understanding of classroom discussions and for my technical ability, and I am finally proud of that. It sounds horribly vain, but it is also the crux of my life; I love learning, I crave knowledge and discovery--realizing and acting upon ideas that have never been uttered before. How is this not exciting to everyone? I can't wait to breathe this yearning into the shells of my young learners' ears.

Continue evolving. Expand your perspectives and thoughts, and be fiercely strong in all aspects of your life.