I’m teaching!

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I need to pay more attention to things eh?  lol  I was confused.  I’m teaching physical science, which is much simpler than the physics course.  Here’s the description:

Designed for students with minimum prior preparation in mathematics and physics. Especially appropriate for prospective elementary school teachers. Inquiry laboratory approach to basic concepts of measurement, forces, motion, energy, temperature, and heat. Four hours of integrated laboratory and lecture a week for one semester.

This should be lots of fun, though I have no idea how to teach this stuff, since I’ve never taken a class of this type.  It should be interesting though!

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Oh Lord what did I get myself into?! I’m going to be an AI (assistant instructor) this semester, which means teaching full lectures! It comes with a raise, around $300 a month which is awesome. I’ll be teaching 2 sections of physics 303k, which is the first semester for engineers. Thankfully I feel pretty comfortable with that type of stuff in general, and I’ve worked with the engineers in my labs. But that also means I need to do tons of prep work if I want to give them decent lectures. After all, this is my one shot to learn as much as I can about teaching before I apply for jobs. And, this is the only shot these kids have to learn the basics of mechanics and heat. One good thing is that I won’t have to do much grading, because the homework is submitted online. I wonder if I’ll get a TA? lol, that would be awesome and funny. I’m so nervous right now…this is so crazy, but awesome!

You know what’s most funny…I created this. I didn’t commit to it consciously, because I was too scared of the workload, but I still did. Knowing that I wanted to teach in the fall, I knew I needed real teaching experience, not just teaching labs. I think this is a good example of only creating in as much detail as you can handle comfortably, because if I had gone for this, I would have freaked out and not gotten it. So instead I can freak out now! lol I just hope I can handle the workload of my classes. Hopefully global geophysics won’t be too difficult! eek!

Deep breath… Woohoo!

Brilee

We had a lot of fun with my nephew Brilee over break. We had him overnight leading up to Christmas eve morning, when he had his own Christmas morning. As you can see, he had a lot of fun opening all of his presents. He made a pretty good haul. Thankfully my little star wars toys were a big hit with him, as he carried them around all the time and had them fight each other.

He’s now a bit over 3 years old, and loves anything to do with superheros. He can name them all off, including ones I wouldn’t know off hand, like green lantern and captain america. But my brother reads a ton of comics so he’s been exposed at an early age. He also really like star wars, which makes me happy. We learned he enjoys turkey, since he ate a whole bunch on Christmas eve. Carrie made a big turkey dinner for the family, and we invited my grandma over. It went over really well. Hopefully that will turn into a yearly tradition. It makes Carrie feel more at home during the holidays, and my family doesn’t eat well very often. Here are some pictures of my grandma (my mom’s mom), my dad, and Brilee. We’re looking at her cards that she learned to make recently, which were pretty good actually.




We managed to get everyone together for fun and exciting family pictures towards the end of the trip. Brilee behaved pretty well actually, though most of the time he was trying to watch Voltron on tv. But heck, who doesn’t love Voltron?

 (for those who are observant, check out the orbs in the picture above.  You’ll want to click on the picture to see it larger.  They’re crazy!)

Other fun memories, without pictures… On the last night, Brilee had a lot of fun showing me all of his toys in the other room.  It was almost like he was showing off, showing how much he knew.  It was very cute.    We took some of the toys and took them into the room where Carrie and I slept, which used to be my brother’s bedroom.  I was supposed to be packing, but I wasn’t going to ignore him either.  So packing had to wait.  When I was upstairs, he found a piece of Taffy.  Carrie told him he couldn’t have it, which turned into a standoff apparently.  She didn’t tell me this though, so I said he could have it, though he already ate plenty of candy that night.  This just shows the value of communication!  He was mad at Carrie for a while that night.  What I found interesting was that she gave her a toy, and then proceded to take his toy and beat hers up.  He was acting out his anger, but not by hitting her.  To me that’s a pretty sophisticated thought process.  After a while he seemed to be over it, and gave her a piece of chocolate after I suggested it.  Quite an experience though.

It’s too bad that it will be another year or so before we can see him again, because it was really interesting to get to know him.  He’s a good kid, I just wish he had more interaction and guidance at his mom’s so his speech could catch up.  But it will in time, I’m not overly concerned.

I’m glad I got the chance to get to know my nephew better.  It’s wierd to not have a connection, but now I feel like it’s there.  And that’s totally awesome.