There and Back Again

    Hello again, and welcome to my terrific Tuesday post! (alliteration is key)  As you might've guessed, not a whole lot has happened since last week.  I saw my nephew again this past Saturday and he's still ADORABLE.  Unfortunately that might be the only good thing to happen within the last two weeks.

(Which one is cuter?)

    Although I do still feel indifferent over the whole unemployment thing, I'm starting to get antsy, sitting at home all day either reading for class, typing up assignments or looking for jobs.  I feel like I started in a good place and now I'm back in a meh state of mind where I definitely don't want to stay.  I have a promising interview a week from Thursday, so we'll see how that goes.  Right now, that's my only promising lead, having been dropped from the contenders list of the first job I applied for already.  Fingers crossed for some good news!  Luckily I got called to substitute next week so, baring the inescapable weather conditions, I could be bringing home some bacon, (if only that were really true...)

    Speaking of jobs, I had my secondary education intern orientation this afternoon and I feel really good about all the prospective intern sites at my disposal.  Number one being my alma mater middle school, with two in close proximity to where I live being close second and third.  All of the schools have a lot to offer, and right now I'm thinking I might want to give high school a second go, but for now all I can do is wait and see what happens at the open houses next week, (again, weather permitting).  I swear to God, if these blizzards all pile on top of each other the ONE WEEK I have significant life decisions to make about my future, there will be HELL to pay.

    In YouTube news, video footage released on the first of this month by Shay Carl Butler and Corey Vidal announced some new information regarding the popular and much-anticipated documentary feature Vlogumentary, which will hopefully be in theaters this coming summer.  Obviously they couldn't say too much without giving stuff away, but we shall see the final product soon, which is more than we could say about a year ago when all this started.  To say that I'm excited about this would be a severe understatement.  You can view the two video announcements here:

    Well that's about it.  I'm pretty sure I had more to offer you today, but sadly I left my blogging planner at home and have since forgotten what I had originally planned to do for today.  More to add to next week!  Thursday I will be talking about the various things that happened in TV this week as well as other stuff, (probably).  How's that for a vague description?  I will also hopefully be starting observation work in addition to my open houses next week or this week, so stay tuned for more on that!  Until next time, I remain your faithful correspondent.

PS: THIS JUST IN!  SNOW DAY TOMORROW!! HUMP DAAAYYEEEEE YEEEAHH:)

Highs and Lows

    Hey everyone!  Welcome back to the work week, (for most of you).  This weekend was great for me because I met my very first nephew on Sunday!  Tanner James was born around one o'clock Sunday afternoon to a warm welcome from a very happy family.  They are coming home this afternoon so I will be making plans to visit again this weekend once they get settled in.  Welcome to the world little buddy!  I am so happy to be your auntie and can't wait to spend more time with you!!

    Unfortunately that is the only good news I have this week...  I was regrettably let go from my job last night.  It was an unforeseen circumstance and one that I will not soon forget.  I cannot begin to describe my grief upon experiencing my very first, and hopefully last, termination, but I understood the company policy and that I had severed it inadvertently.  Although I had been unhappy there as of late, I will truly miss all the friends and colleagues I have gained over the last three years there.  I wish none of this had happened, but it was my fault and I will have to live with my repercussions.  I got right on the job hunt last night, however I have certain qualifications I have to adhere to based on the rest of my schooling and my internship coming up this fall.  I wish I could have the freedom to chose any job I can get, even a job in a school system besides the one I already have, but I can't and it sucks.  Hopefully I will find a new job by the end of February, but we will see.  Keep your eyes open for me and your prayers thoughtful.
    On a positive note, after the first week of classes I've found that, yet again, both courses seem to relate well with each other, making my semester a lot easier.  I've been immersed in my reading and trying to keep myself otherwise occupied from my current predicament.  Now, on top of my readings and various assignments I'm also looking for employment, so it's a bit distracting.  In about a week I will be attending a meeting for prospective secondary intern students, so I'm excited to finally put in my picks for schools and learn a little more about the process.  Fingers crossed everything works out in my favor!  Lord knows I need some help these days...

**(SOME) SPOILERS!**

    On the television front, I have yet to watch The Bachelor due to all this drama happening in my real life, but I have heard who got eliminated and I am glad it wasn't anyone in my top three, however I also heard that Nikki was a bit cheeky this week, so we'll see if she can handle this in the long run.  I managed to watch the 200th episode of How I Met Your Mother and it was fantastic!  I'm glad they did a back track on the mother and the ending was so perfect!  I'm still not sure where Lily is going, nor do I know when or where she reconciles with Marshall before the wedding, (should be next week if they find Barney, which they should).  I'm looking forward to seeing where they go from here.

    I've also started watching a newer show, based on my recent infatuation with Jonathan Rhys Meyers.  Dracula on NBC has finished it's first season, with little information regarding a second.  It follows the life and happenings of a really hot version of Dracula, or Vlad in Impaler, as they call him.  I find the suspense and plot line interesting, (in addition to the obvious charisma of Dracula), and hope it is renewed for a second season, however I won't keep my hopes up.
    So that's it basically.  I don't have a lot to report, seeing as the baby and losing my job have taken up the majority of the last few days.  I haven't had a lot of down time following the start of classes, so I will be back Thursday with a hopefully more educational post, (but who knows?).  I will also post my "walk my world" from this week.  Until next time, I remain your faithful correspondent.

Walk My World

    Here we are, on a Friday.  I apologize for the lateness of my post, but I was busy all day with reading, then a much-needed family night.  Trust me, it was entirely worth it.
    Speaking of family, I have some great news!  My sister-in-law is being induced tomorrow and will have my highly anticipated nephew this weekend!  I am so happy for her and I'm very excited to become an aunt.  My only hope is that when I have my first child I am as lucky as she is to have all the love and support that her family has given her.  They've had a pretty rough time the last few months and her family dropped everything and made room for them and the baby, gave them a place to stay and a new job to help support them.  My in-laws are the most selfless, honorable people I've ever met in my entire life.  They surprise me every day with their unwavering kindness.  I suppose that's sad for me to think that that kind of love is unnatural or special when it should always be that way.  Regardless, I have no doubt that that child will be brought up in the best of circumstances.

    On a less emotional note, I have started classes this week, as you all know, and have been engrossed in reading and other preparations for future projects and case studies.  I will be posting on a new page later today directly connected to my Special Topics course about our readings pertaining to participatory culture.  I have also been making preparations to start an observation case study on a student at the school I substitute at.  I already have consent from three different parties, so as soon as I get her class schedule we can start!  I'm super excited to start looking at her writing and see what connections and inferences I can make.

http://wiobyrne.com/walkmyworld/

    In addition to the blog posts and readings for my Special Topics course, we are trying to participate in the "Walk My World" challenge, which is a research study created by William Ian O'Byrne, (you can follow him on Twitter here).  The purpose of this project is to explore the use of digital texts to see how people connect and communicate with each other.  For ten weeks, I will be posting a picture or video snippet of my life accompanied with the hash-tag #walkmyworld in order to provide a glimpse into what my "world" is like.  There are no guidelines or requirements to the posts, but it has to be about your life.  I take that to mean I can continue to post random pictures from various moments of my life, but more diligently.  That is to say I haven't been keeping up with my Instagram as of late, so I will be posting at least once a week for the next ten weeks or so, starting next week.  Should be fun, and I'm excited to be participating in someone else's research!  If you'd like to participate or learn more about Will or the "Walk My World" challenge, you can visit his website here.

**SPOILER ALERTS GALORE**

    On a completely different note, I did get to watch the latest Bachelor, Bones, Castle and How I Met Your Mother episodes from this past Monday.  So far my current Top 3 ladies for The Bachelor are Renee, Andi and Nikki, but we'll see how long that lasts.  I'm just glad that Lucy Lewd went home, finally.  I really like these girls because they seem really down to earth, they're not too young or immature and they seem to really have his best interests at heart.  Again, not sure how it'll turn out, (my father insists that he never picked anyone at the end), but I feel god about this Top 3.

    Bones made me cry AGAIN this week.  I'm not sure what it is with all these TV shows tearing at my heart strings, but apparently they're in a phase.  Wendell was diagnosed with a rare form of terminal bone cancer, so he now has a 10% chance of living through chemo and other treatments.  I died a little, not only because he's been on the show for so long and has been an undeniable asset to the team, but because Brennan SHOWED EMOTION.  If you've watched the show for as long as I have, you'll understand that when Brennan shows emotion, it's a big deal.  Her being sad at his diagnosis, which SHE discovered, shows that it's definitely a hard pill to swallow.  I wish him all the best in this season, but I'm definitely expecting him to die in the finale...fingers crossed I'm wrong.

    Castle was your typical Castle plot again.  After the tumultuous burning building episode we kind of needed a break from the drama.  I was happy to see Alexis (hopefully) break it off with Pi, seeing as he brought nothing more to the story and was basically dead weight in her life.  We'll see if she caved next week, but I'm guessing they're officially over.  It's sad that that was the highlight of that episode for me.

    How I Met Your Mother is getting more and more daring with their story line as we saw Lily and Marshall finally had the fight they needed to have, but it ended in disaster.  Lily ended up leaving in a random vehicle after calling an unknown person for a ride out of the inn.  She didn't say where she was going either, so we could be following her anywhere next week, but I'm most curious to see who it was that she called.  Marshall will most likely be heartbroken so close to the wedding, but we all know from previous episodes that Lily makes it back in time for the ceremony with everyone else, so we'll see what happens.  We haven't seen the mother in a few episodes either, not since she helped Marshall, so I'm eager to see her during the wedding reception.
    That's all for this week.  I'm expecting to post pictures of Tanner when he arrives, so look out for those on Tuesday, but for now I'm going to try and enjoy my weekend.  Here's to more reading and two blog posts today instead of one!  Until next time, I remain your faithful correspondent.

Leveling Up in the World

    Hey all!  Welcome back:)  It was a nice weekend for me, despite working, (and then realizing I have almost the entire week off...lame).  Still no baby boy from my sister-in-law, but we will definitely see him by the end of next week if it doesn't happen soon.  Can't wait to be an auntie!!  Other than that, nothing really exciting has happened yet, so unfortunately it's another Tuesday rendition of Boring Blog, which, apparently, a lot of you actually like, so maybe I'll keep this going.
    Also, this is currently happening in the classroom I'm in today...not sure why someone would keep something so obviously creepy in a Social Studies classroom, but who am I to judge?...

    First things first: I start my final semester of courses today!  First class on deck is "Special Topics in English Teaching" with the wonderful Alecia Magnifico.  I am most looking forward to my classes this semester, especially this one.  The class I have tomorrow is "Teaching Writing in the 21st Century," which sounded very interesting to me.  I'm looking forward to broadening my horizons as an educator and learning more new and captivating ideas this year to prepare me for my internship this fall.

    Second thing: Pokemon update.  I have now obtained all eight gym badges and have made it to the chambers of the Elite Four, (FINALLY).  It literally took me about four hours to get through just that section, battling all of the trainers on the long and winding road up to the Pokemon League.  After reviving at least three of my top Pokemon about six times, I made it to the Pokemon Center before the main building, (thank God for that, because I don't think I'd make it very far without one.  I thought it was a little ridiculous to have THAT many trainers on the road just to enter the area where the Elite Four are.  Then each of them have four Pokemon each level 63 and higher, plus the Champion who has a whopping SIX Pokemon level 65 and higher, so I'm in for a rough night if I try to take them on.  The gym leaders were too easy and Victory Road seemed a bit too difficult for the amount of preparation I was given, so we'll see how that goes.  I might try to level up a bit more before attempting to take them all out, (I'm currently at about 75 with my top two Pokemon and around the mid-sixties with the rest of my party).  I am most proud of the legendary Pokemon, Yveltal, who I was able to catch on my first try, which almost never happens.  Props to me!

    In general, I'm a huge fan of water and fire types, however I can see now where it would benefit from having a grass or psychic type in combination with these types.  This is the type of strategy and planning I was looking for when researching this game as a type of literacy.  There are different kinds of people who play: people who play to get through the game, people who play to catch all the Pokemon they can get their hands on, people who want to get higher level Pokemon as fast as they can, people who want to find all the hidden items, artifacts and other gems around the game, etc.  Game play ultimately depends on what type of person you are, and it's interesting to see me categorized among them.  I haven't played like this in a very long time, so I'm still getting used to immersing myself completely in the game, (much to my husband's dismay).  Since I've played older versions before, I went into this thinking differently than someone who would just be starting out fresh without ever having played the older versions.  There are also people who have played every single version up until this point, and they are used to playing a different game than I am, having experienced some of the newer versions that I have not.  I'm interested in continuing to log my progress and even write in a journal to gather data so I can maybe turn this into something beneficial.  We shall see, but I'm enjoying myself nonetheless.
    So that's basically it.  Nothing exciting or substantial happening with me this week.  Starting my courses, baby maybe and possibly taking on the Elite Four before I get dragged into the homework routine again.  I will be catching up with all my shows today and tomorrow, so there might possibly be another TV review on Thursday if I have nothing else to talk about.  Also I've added two more tabs to the top of the blog: "Open Letters" and "ENGL 889."  The first tab will be dedicated to various individuals/situations I find particularly interesting/amusing/annoying/etc. while the second will be dedicated to responses for my new Special Topics course in English Teaching, which will be linked to my class' blog page.  Feel free to check both tabs out and I will keep you updated on posts via Twitter, etc.  Until next time, I remain your faithful correspondent.