Builder or Breaker?

I went to a really awesome presentation today. There were so many great things that were said but one just really stuck out to me. I sometimes feel that I hear a lot of complaining throughout my day. And I very rarely take part in it but I have really been trying to stay positive and not complain about things that are in place to help me grow and become better (getting up early and going out in the cold, cold, cold doesn't count in my opinion:)).

John Hilton III was the presenter and he shared this poem that I think we should all hear. It is a great reminder to stay positive and to take joy in the things we do EVEN if they are hard and even if they seem meaningless. Life is not meant to be easy and no one becomes great because they have always done easy things. Challenges help to make us better and hard things help to refine us. We could all do better and we could all do well to really think about this poem. :)

I watched them tearing a building down,

A gang of men in a busy town.

With a ho, heave, ho and a lusty yell,

They swung the beam and a side wall fell.

I asked the foreman, "Are these men skilled?,

The kind you'd hire if you were to build?"

He gave a laugh and said, "No, indeed, common labor is all I need.

I can easily wreck in a day or two,

What builders have taken years to do."

And so I asked as I went my way,

Which of these roles have I tried to play?

Am I a builder with a well-made plan, lifting others the best I can?

Or am I a wrecker who walks the town,

Content with the labor of tearing down?

Let's all strive to be builders and be a little bit better today than we were yesterday.

i LOVE learning

I just love it. Ever since I switched to elementary education I've felt like I can't learn enough. There is just so much to KNOW as a teacher! Almost too much. A lot of times I feel like I am drinking from a fire hydrant and I am just trying to catch as much as I can that will help me to be a good teacher. There are just so many great ideas out there but it is also SO hard to keep them all straight. I am trying to put together a place to organize my ideas but there are literally so many that I don't know where to start. I have lists on my iPhone that I add to anytime I hear an idea that I love but I want to organize those thoughts into groups and such. ANYWAYS, that is not what this post is about.

I have 1 week left until my practicum (this is like a mini student teaching--I am doing mine this semester in 6th grade! Ah!) which will be until the end of March and then I have 2 weeks of class left. 2 weeks!! TWO. And then I will be done going to classes at BYU. Except for my one class spring semester. This thought is really sad to me. I literally love all my classes and all the people I go to class with every day. I am grateful for the good ideas I get and for the practice I get and for the help that my knowledgeable professors give me. And since I am in Elementary Education I get to learn about all subjects. It's just that much more learning! 

Good thing being a teacher means CONSTANTLY learning. I know that teaching is going to be so difficult and so different than anything I've ever done before and it is going to require me to work hard but I think back on the past 18 years and think, I may not know how to teach but I am a dang good student. I've been a student for 18 years! And a lot of teaching, especially my first year, will be being the best student and learning everything I can from my team and all the people assigned to help me become better. I am blessed because I want to be the best I can be and I love conquering difficult things and I know this quality will help me next year. 

I am really going to miss BYU so much when I am done in a few weeks. I've been here the last 5 years and I feel that it is a huge part of my life and who I am. In a way it is my home. And now that my other home in WA is being sold I consider it home even more. I am extremely grateful that I came here. Only good things have come out of this experience. But for now I need to soak it all up because it really will go fast from here.

I felt like this post needed a picture of some kind...

Some of my besties from the ELED program.

I am a teacher

I decided today that I'm 100% thinking like a teacher now. I got an email and the subject said "Integration Bee" and I thought to myself "Well that's weird... do they just give you several different objectives from different subjects and see who can integrate them the fastest? The best?" I was confused so I opened the email and realized it was from the math department at BYU (because of my minor) and it was talking about who could integrate the fastest. As in calculus. Haha