just realized I haven't talked about my birthday celebrations much yet, so here we go :)
My birthday itself was pretty stressful and retarded. I cut social psych early to get my eyebrows waxed, and went shopping at Sears to find a nice cocktail dress for Vegas. Mission accomplished. I got a cute tank top too.
By the time my social work practice class rolled around I was pissed off, stressed out, frustrated, and wanted to go home. I was planning on leaving at break, but our crazy professor got us involved in a community development simulation and I had to observe people. Yet another three hours of my life spent learning nothing.
I came home and my landlords called to check on the thermostat cuz the heater hadnt been working, so they had to come over. Motherfuck. They yell at me for having my computer under the thermostat saying all the hot air is screwing it up, and if I can move it. I refused to. They they yelled at me for having a piano, saying that they didn't want their other tenants complaining that I made too much noise, then had the gaul to knock and ask the other tenants in the house if I was too loud for them. I gave them the bitchiest, smuggest look ever when they both told them they never even knew I was home. Then they went into my bedroom to see if they could place the thermostat in there, saw the huge gaping hole left there from the Ikea delivery assholes (which Josh should have fixed awhile ago) and I get yelled at for that. Whatever.
I ordered pizza and cracked open a bottle of wine after that, K called me and we talked until about 1 am.
Josh came over Thursday to celebrate my belated birthday. I was kind of upset because I hadn't gone to child development that morning, and sat around all day, cleaning, trying to study, etc. But we finished off the bottle of Canadian chardonnay from the previous night, opened up another bottle of Chilean merlot, and ordered a pizza from Mamma's. We played PS2, goofed off on my webcam with some friends, and got crunked.
Friday night Josh's mom organized a small dinner for me with the rest of Josh's family at Cristina's, a Greek restaurant on the Danforth. She bought this relaxation box of relaxing goodies from Lush, which was totally unnecessary but soooo welcome. His dad came, along with his cousin Scott and his wife Cathy, which was the first time we've been not too busy to see each other since I moved back! We had a lot of wine and good food, and then headed over to Savage Garden see Josh's band perform their Halloween gig. I dressed up as a Catholic school girl and looked pretty hot. Too bad there was no one at Savage, and it cleared out as soon as they started to perform - I felt kinda bad cuz Jill and Chuck and I left halfway through their set too. Oops.
Saturday I met up with Cathy again, who treated me to a pedicure and manicure for my birthday. Again, so needed but not necessary! It was so incredibly sweet - the place she took me to was awesome, and it was so great to sit next to each other and chat for a few hours while our feet and hands got rubbed. They asked us if we were cousins... and so it begins! Everyone always thinks we're related, and we're just related by Josh... but its pretty cute. I guess there's some strange Portuguese/Italian resembelence. After that we went to Starbucks and talked some more about everything. I have missed those chats soooooo much and look forward to having many more of them. I came home and ordered sushi. Woo.
I called my mom later that evening and proceeded to have a nervous breakdown cuz I'm still upset and worried about school and money and being fat. I think we were on the phone for two hours. I'm really homesick and I wish I could go back. Its weird because I have SO much going for me up here. I shouldn't feel that way.
Today I got up and cleaned my kitchen, taught, cooked meals for this week, and dealt with my landlords coming over yet again to move the thermostat into the front hallway. I organized some stuff for classes, mainly for my child development and social psych papers I have coming up, and played with Phoenix.
Now I'm watching a show on haunted houses and wanting chocolate. But I guess that goes with that not wanting to be fat thing anymore too. Ugh.
I really need to call the chiropractor and acupuncturist and massage therapist this week. I feel so emotional and off.
I really, really enjoy teaching yoga. I really, really enjoy being a teacher, period.
I always thought my life was meant to heal others, but I think now I've found my true voice and teaching is my thing. I love learning. I love academia. I love explaining things to people, making it easier for them to understand. In a way, teaching does heal others, and its helped me heal myself.
I am so tempted to drop out of school right now, get a work permit, and just support myself being a full time yoga teacher. It's possible, as they're in demand and get paid handsomely, and then there's the perks, like getting three month long paid teaching vacations in Thailand and Costa Rica. However, I am scared that at 35, I might decide that this isn't what I want to do anymore, and going back to university then would suck balls. I only have one year left, so I figure since I've come this far, I might as well finish, right?
Then see if I can get into grad school anywhere for music therapy. Even if that's what I want to do.
Maybe I'll do a master's in music education. I don't know.
I would love to teach at the university level, however I don't know if I'd like that, especially with some of the professors I've had. In my social psychology class and child development class, the profs are decent lecturers but the class average is 50%. Thats a D. I am getting a 67% in social psych (a high C) and a 70% in child developmenr (a B-). Both profs have told me I have one of the highest grades in the course.
This rings a few alarms for me. They say its normal, but really, how normal is it when most of your class is almost failing? Why don't you spend time evaluating your teaching methods since its clear your students aren't understanding the material? Or better yet, how come you're not maybe reevaluating your tests since they obviously aren't a valid way of measuring student's progress? For example: my child development test covered chapters 1-6. It was about 275 pages worth of material. There were 35 questions. On 275 pages of material. When we asked our prof to tell us what to study, her response was we needed to know everything.
I'd almost rather take a 90 question exam, since it would more accurately reflect the amount of pages we had to read and study. When I studied for the first exam, I studied broad concepts and repeated themes of child development, since 35 questions must mean it would be very broad and general. Nope. It asked for very specific models of studies, effects, etc. Not the well known theories of development from Piaget and Bronfenbrenner, but of psychologists who have contributed very little to the developmental field.
I tried to voice my opinion for myself and the class when we had an open discussion regarding the marks received, but she just completely waived her hand and dismissed it, citing that we all just needed to "study harder". How can you call yourself a teacher and do that? How can you not care that your students are receiving low grades? Why don't you think that this reflects your teaching skills, and not our study habits? I am just so exacerbated and fed up with professors who don't fucking care! And to wave off any suggestions that we might have and continuously defend yourself? Why even bother having an open discussion or a debriefing, if all you're going to do is defend yourself and not work to bring about change?
I'm not stupid by any means. I know my shit. I want my test grades to reflect the fact that I know my shit. I want to get into grad school. I bust my ass and end up not doing as well as I'd hoped. Getting the highest mark in the class is of little comfort to me when that mark is a 67% or a 70%, because that still means a C or B will show up on my progress report, and I will have to do yet more explaining to professors during my interview when I apply for grad school.
Im trying to think of what else I can do to pass and get better marks. I seriously can't "study harder" any more than I am doing now.
Colour me jaded.
