Goodbye Mr. Fish

Four years ago Louisa E was three years old and went to the petshop and picked out her very 1st pet fish. She named him Sharkbait Oooh Aaahh (Nemo's new name in Finding Nemo) after her favorite movie that she got for her 4th birthday. A few months after her birthday her family moved to Virginia. She decided that Molly, her nanny, would do a good job taking care of Sharkbait. He came to live in our house shortly after we got married. He was our first pet. Today he died. Sharkbait was one of the oldest pet fish I knew. He even had a personality for fish. Whenever Jay would talk to Sharkbait through his bowl he would puff up his face at him and or swim towards him at the edge of the bowl. I know he's just a fish but I'm a little sad. Goodbye Sharkbait.

Yes, we can.

This is what Courtney, Inara and I did last night.

Student Teaching

I have been so blessed this semester to be placed in a wonderful school with an amazing Cooperating Teacher. Laurel has been teaching for 15 years and has had 4 student teachers before me. I have been placed in 4th grade at Ott Elementary in NISD. Over Christmas break I was really having a hard time trusting the Lord for my placement. My cooperating teachers from two other placements had expressed interest in me student teaching for them. I was very sure that I would be placed at either of these great schools and really hoped that this would be the case. After an eight day illness in January and a one day hospital stay I received the news that I was at Ott. At first I was nervous and unsure of this placement because I was going into the school blindly, not knowing anyone. I had never had this situation in any of my placements before. My CT has been welcoming to me since the first day we met. She got me a desk to work in (which I was FLOORED about) and made sure that I felt at home and that we would be sharing this class. Ott is a very large school at 1300 students. We have 9 classes per grade and about 24 students per class. Even though the school is big they do a wonderful job of building community between the teams and making it work. The administrators do a great job of making each student teacher, faculty member, and assistant feel like an integral part of the team. I have learned so much from Laurel and the other members of our team. One team member I have been especially blessed by was her student teacher from last year (good sign - they hire their student teachers :-) ) He has been great at giving advice and sharing with me where he was this time last year. Tomorrow my CT will be absent so, with the sub's help, I will be teaching the class. I am so excited!!