What a Week!

Nathaniel had Spring Break last week, but I still had to work.
I guess it was for the best anyway because he had to study
for his first actuarial exam, which he took on Friday. He has
been studying all semester for it. He had to take it at the
testing center at the U of U and had a bunch of special requirements
(eg. They provided a packet of scratch paper, and if he were to
use it up he would have to sign it and raise his hand for another one.
He also couldn't take in the cover to his calculator
and had to get finger-printed. If he were to go the bathroom,
they would take his fingerprint digitally to compare when he came back) .

Lina wrote all that. I'll just add that it was a doozy of a test. There was a big bank
of practice questions online that I was using to study - I did the entire bank of questions once,
then I worked through most of the ones that I missed a second time. Even the second time
through I was only getting about 65% of the questions right,
so I was pretty worried about being able to pass the test.
I took some pictures of all of the study problems I did -
it's a quirk of mine that I love to stare at and admire a
page of my math work, so I laid it all out to see. Anyway,
I was really, really blessed on that test. As I took it, I was
happy to see that I knew how to do all but two of the problems
(though I may have missed more than that), and the test felt
much easier than the practice questions. When I finished,
a little message popped up that said something like, "Congratulations, you passed. You'll get
your official score in eight weeks." I feel really blessed, and I'm very grateful for the Lord's help.
Lina was very supportive, too, and she got me some Almond Joys to celebrate.

(Lina again) On Wednesday last week I had an observation - someone "bigger" than me
comes in to see how well I am teaching. It happens a lot as a 1st, 2nd and 3rd year teacher,
but this particular observation caused me A LOT of stress! I did everything I could think of to
get ready and get him the stuff he asked for, but I just felt like the main problem was going to
be when we went through it after. I emailed him my lesson plans and papers which he looked
through and said they seemed to have the important components of an effective lesson,
but that he had one question that we could talk about after. (We haven't had the best
conversations up to this point - he hasn't seemed to listen and/or
understand.) I called my "coach" to see if she had any suggestions,
and she gave me a few ideas and then decided they wouldn't help
and told me to wear red. Her sister believes it is a confidence color
and my dad told me it is a power color for women. I don't have a lot
of red, or any really, and I feel like a million bucks in a new shirt
so somehow I convinced Than (who was in his PJ's, had just dished
up some ice cream, hates shopping, was ready to go to bed, and
probably rightfully thinks I don't need any more clothes) to run with
me to the store right before it closed. We walked in about the time
they announced the store was closing in 5 minutes. I tried on 4 tops
as quick as a whip and got a fun NEW shirt with RED flowers on it.
I wasn't totally sure about it then, but it has really grown on me. It was even on sale!
Thanks to all the prayers, support, and my new red shirt, the observation went amazingly
and surprisingly well. Usually/Always he asks tons of questions and makes people defend
EVERYTHING they do, but I didn't even get to explain or show him all of my planning
methods and ideas because he was so busy telling me how great it was.

We also stayed with Kevin, a boy with disabilities that we
work with, and his two dogs while his parents were
out of town from Wednesday until Friday. Kevin volunteers at
the DI, takes voice and piano lessons, participates in
Special Olympics and LOVES anything Disney (especially Ariel)
or comic book related. We had a very pleasant time together.
I have known Kevin for almost 5 years now and have "lived"
at his house for a combined total of at least 4-6 months.
Our friends, the Merkets, were able to go to San Francisco over the break and
visit Noel's mission. So we checked up on their cat from Monday-Friday too.
It was easy and simple and they let us borrow some eggs.

It was a crazy week, but we feel very blessed!