Saturday, November 24, 2012

Black Friday

It has become a tradition that every year Andy, Cassie & I go out at 10pm on Thursday night after Thanksgiving to witness the madness (or at least the beginning) of Black Friday. People are crazy. Seriously. 
Andy had it all planned out where we would go and the deals we would see..it was awesome until we stopped at our first destination: Walmart. Absolute chaos. So we skipped out on that store and went to Target and then the mall to see the midnight openings. I have to admit at one point in Target, I was hiding out in the card section while Cassie and Andy were digging through the mountains of DVDs. Thank goodness no one wants to buy cards on Black Friday.
 The mall was pretty packed. Andy and I went to slower stores like Vanity, where I bought a scarf, & Eddie Bauer, where everything was still overpriced; while Cassie and Brooke were first in line at the stores with the good doorbusters. By the end of the night Andy & I were eating Auntie Anne's pretzel bites waiting for Cass and Brooke to get done shopping. We were so over Black Friday. But what a night. Here's a few observations I made from this crazy night. 

1. Don't bring your baby Black Friday shopping with you. It's just not nice. 
2. Probably shouldn't go Black Friday shopping if you're unable to walk without assistive equipment (e.g.crutches).
3.  Singing cards are very entertaining and helpful if you get claustrophobic.  
4. No deal is worth the wait in a line that wraps through the entire store.
5. Bring your baby home and put it to bed! Please.
6. People are freakishly patient. Holy lines batman. 
7. Even if you're early, you're probably too late. 
8. People are crazy.
(We went out on Thursday after Thanksgiving dinner as a family and bought a tv just hours before Walmart was a war zone.) 



Girls are crazy about their shoes. 

Monday, November 5, 2012

A Visit with the NCATE

TONS of homework to do for tomorrow...blog time! Terrible...I know...in other news...this morning I was on a panel for the College of Education; the NCATE came into our school recently and rated the College of Education at Western Michigan University "at risk." [What's that mean? Pretty much that they don't think the College of Education is doing it's job and they need to revamp the whole program.] 
In order to defend what the College of Education is doing, they put a bunch of students on a panel and gave us cookie cutter answers to give to the NCATE. Here's my dilemma with being on this panel. I am a Special Education major. Our program is COMPLETELY different than the Elementary Ed/Early Childhood majors. COMPLETELY different--I cannot stress that enough. Their cookie cutter answers could not do our program [or our amazing faculty] justice. 
This got me thinking. Wow. I am so in the right place. Being in the SPED program is overwhelming, stressful, and it drives me absolutely insane. The faculty makes us go over material to the point of nausea and on the same hand, makes me feel like I'm running into a brick wall over and over and over because it's too hard. The lesson plans are exhausting and excessive. The practicums are, at times, uncontrollable and don't even get me started on TEACHlive. 
BUT I have learned so much being in this program and I can honestly say I feel confident to walk into any type classroom tomorrow and not fall flat on my face be successful. I am so proud to be a Special Education major, I am so proud of our program. And best of luck to the Elementary Education Program! 

Back to lesson planning...