More Homework and Exciting News

This week started off amazingly because I received some incredibly exciting news (no, I'm not pregnant). An article that I wrote and sent to Celestial Shine Magazine is going to be published! Celestial Shine is a magazine for LDS Young Women that has articles on everything from fashion and beauty to increasing your testimony. I contacted the editor-in-chief at the beginning of this month and explained that I was interested in writing an article for them, and asked if they had any topics they were looking for in upcoming issues. One of the topics happened to be "making genealogy exciting." Anyone that knows me well knows that this is a big passion of mine, so I took the topic and wrote like a madwoman! I sent them my finished article last week and was in AGONY waiting to hear back, and on Monday I received the email that made my whole week. I'm not sure what issue my article will be published in, but stay tuned for more details!

On Tuesday after a long day of classes, Jake picked me up from campus (he worked Tuesday night) and when I opened the car door, on my seat was a bouquet of beautiful flowers. It was so unexpected and sweet, and made the long day seem not to terrible after all. I sure do love my husband :) I spent Tuesday evening working on a research paper while Jake was at work. SUPER fun.

On Wednesday everything was going according to the usual plan...until late that afternoon when Jake's phone started buzzing with a weather warning: we had a tornado warning in Rexburg! Right after he turned off the alert, our power started flickering on and off. We lost and regained power more than 5 times in just 10 minutes! It was CRAZY! We looked outside to see what was happening, and it just looked really windy and stormy; not as intimidating as I would have thought "tornado weather" should look. The storm passed after a little less than an hour, and we never actually had a tornado, but it was pretty crazy! Stuff like that definitely doesn't happen in Southern California.

This past weekend was spent studying for finals and working on projects, since the semester officially ends this coming Thursday! I've loved pretty much all of my classes this semester and really learned a lot, but it's been a LOT to handle in one go. Academically I only took 14 credits, but because of all the work that's been required for my "lab work" class (ED 361), it's felt more like 18, which is a HUGE load for one semester. Only a few more left and I'll graduate, though!

This Week's Spiritual Thought

This week I've been thinking a lot about ways that I can implement gospel principles in the classroom once I'm a "real" teacher in ways that won't be too blunt, or get me into trouble. And I've come to the conclusion that the best (and also probably most obvious way) to teach my students about Christ is through my actions, and through the love I show them. In the education department here at BYU-Idaho, we start learning the school's tenants of teaching in our first class. Tenant #1 is "It's about them." I've been thinking about that a lot lately, and about how while my lesson plans and classroom management methods need to be educational and appropriately planned out and organized, I need to make sure that the central theme in my classroom is love for my students.