My life has been absolutely crazy these past few months. Adjusting to college life & not having Amy breathing down my neck, living away from home. Not to mention we’re in the middle of a flipping pandemic! I go home for break on Wednesday & I’m staying home until January 20th or so. I decided to not come back to school after Thanksgiving break because nobody would be here. Campus would be deader (is that a word?) than it already is (because of the cold temperatures). So no thank you to that. I’m excited to be home but I have a feeling that will only last a week or so before I start to want to come back. Im just happy I won’t have to do much school at home so that relives some tension between Amy and I. I’ve also started calling her Amy and she isn’t a fan of it. I should call her mom but Amy is just what comes out. Who knows why. I’m mostly excited to go home and see Connor, my brother. Ever since I’ve been away at school, I’ve started to really miss him. I’m not sure if he feels the same but whatever I’m just gonna act like he does.

I’ve been student teaching at a local public elementary school in Decatur and I absolutely love it. I’m working with a second grade class and I really think second grade is the place for me. I’ve taught a total of two lessons so far and plan to teach two more next week. When I leave on Wednesday of next week I’m really going to miss the second grade kiddos. They call me Miss Jones and ask for my help sounding out a word and it just makes my heart melt. I’m getting a taste of my life career and I’m only 19. I think I wanted to become a teacher because of all the influential teachers in my life. My 4th grade teacher, my 8th grade LA teacher, my 10th grade LA teacher, and my high school SSD teacher. I know that’s more than most people but I’ve always had a relationship with my teachers. I haven’t found that teacher here at Millikin yet but it’s just a matter of time.

Hey everyone! It’s been awhile since I’ve blogged but I have to use this platform for a class here at Millikin so I figured I’d keep up blogging!

I just moved on campus on Friday so it’s been a bit of an adjustment for sure. My classes are going well and I have a bunch of new friends (don’t worry Taylor nobody has replaced you… not sure why I decided to add that because it’s not like you come on here haha). I have a favorite professor so far (although all of my professors are amazing) and she teaches my critical reading/writing/research class. Obviously I haven’t met her in person but she seems incredibly fun and I’m looking forward to the class. My education classes are going well, too. One of my classes is a “student teaching” class where I need 40 hours so I’m splitting it up between Ballwin Elementary and Marquette (hopefully). The other education class is an intro to American ed and it’s interesting so far. I wanna take an education class that’s like bulletin boarding 101. Who knows if that actually exists.

We aren’t allowed to have parties or gatherings on campus because we are in a “soft” quarantine for 2 weeks (the 2 weeks started Friday I believe). Because of that, campus is pretty quiet because we’re all in our dorms on zooms all day since we don’t have in person classes. It’s definitely been a weird way to start my college experience but everyone feels weird right now.

Well I’ve hit the point in boredom that I decided to go through my phone and organize my apps. I came across WordPress and figured I should start blogging again. I’ve always seen people’s blogs (through my email) but I hardly got on here anymore to write my own blogs. I’ve decided it’s time to start blogging again because one day I’ll look back on these blogs during this cray time and be able to reminisce. Not much has changed with me since I was in creative writing. Im still coaching 14 year old brats in volleyball. To be fair not all of them are brats. Just some. My mom is still stupidly annoying (Durham get on her), I still suck at math, and I still spend my whole life at tutoring. Even with COVID-19, I still do all of this stuff twice a week if not more. I still coach because I send out daily workouts to my players and they send me back a time lapse of them doing the workouts. My mom well is my mom and doesn’t ever stop bothering me. Ask Durham about her. It’s his favorite parent. And tutoring has moved online to Zoom. So I’m stuck at my house but still doing all of these things. Speaking of being at my house, I’m so freaking sick of it. I’ve only seen Taylor (my best friend) a couple of times and I haven’t been to a store in I can’t tell you how long. I’m such a social person that being inside all the time makes me go crazy. I want to go back to school so bad and get back into a routine but I just don’t think it’s going to happen. My senior year will probably be finished on Zoom. But I guess it’s kinda a way to remember my senior year?

The question of “why didn’t I graduate early” crosses my mind daily if not multiple times a day. But I realized that I didn’t graduate early because I’d be missing half of my senior year. I know I just said that it crosses my mind many times a day (which it does) but I just keep reminding myself that if I did graduate early, I’d be missing out.

I traveled to Memphis last weekend with my volleyball team. That was an experience. We got down there Friday night and played at 8am Saturday. It was non stop play from 8am Saturday to 1:30pm. Then I made the girls go back to the hotel and shower and nap before we went out to dinner. Dinner was a shit show because we waited an hour and thirty minutes and then the service was even slower. I had a bunch of grumpy volleyball players lol. We played Sunday and lost in the third round of the gold bracket. That was upsetting but it meant we got to start the drive home at a reasonable time. I slept the whole way home lol. Okay I gotta go finish my senior readers writers homework. I was blogging to take a break 🙂

Apparently you can’t do anything without getting into some type of drama. Even with adults! Lemme explain what I mean… I coach 15 year olds in club volleyball. I’m an assistant and we have a head coach and then another assistant. Those other two coaches hardly let me do anything. If I tell a player to fix their swing or get lower, they go tell the girl to disregard what I said. It bothered me quite a bit. They also were making major decisions without me, such as the freaking line up for tournaments!! Then an email was sent out and that’s what set me off. The email pretty much said the other assistant (let’s call her Jenny) and Sarah (head coach) didn’t want me traveling with them because they don’t want to be responsible for me because have too many other coaching responsibilities, so I can stay home or come to the tournament. If I went to the tournament, I was told to drive separate, get my hotel room (mind you their hotel room is being paid for by the club but they “forgot about me” so I have to pay out of pocket $600 to cover the hotel cost), and only talk to them at the tournament. Okay does anyone else see what’s wrong with this? Number one, I’m 18 so technically you’re aren’t legally responsible for me. Number two, could you of maybe told me about this at the beginning of the season? I got super frustrated by this email and called the club director. After I told her everything, she was beyond pissed off at how this was handled and how I’ve been treated this season. The director told me that I was gonna be switching teams and that was the best thing I’ve heard all week. I got switched to 14’s and the head coach of that team, told me if I didn’t eventually switch teams, she’d just take me haha. So I had my first practice with my new team last night and it was absolutely the best practice I’ve been to in awhile. Before I switched teams, I dreaded practice. But now, I can’t wait for Tuesday’s and Friday’s. But, tell me why these 2 adults acted like this? There was a much better way to handle this and I’m only 18 and knew that! But, it’s over and done with. Now, I have to go learn 10 new names of my new players.

I finished the movie Smoke Signals about 5 minutes ago. I made my entire family (all 13 of us) sit down and watch it. This is only the 3rd time I’ve watched it over break. I’m completely obsessed with it as you can tell.

My family from Ohio leaves tomorrow and I nanny from 7am-8pm. The family I’m nannying for lives down in Clayton/U-City so I’ll have to wake up kinda early so I can be down there by 7. For the most part during break, I’ve been sleeping to 10 or 11. So waking up at 5:45am is gonna be fun. But don’t you worry. I practically napped all day to make up for the fact I have to get up early and won’t nap tomorrow.

I’ve also officially decided what college I’m going to attend next fall. I’ve chosen Millikin University in Decatur, Illinois. I emailed the admissions representative asking what the next step is now that I’m officially going to school there. I think the next step is roommate and housing applications. I’m happy I made a decision sooner rather than later so I have better housing options. I’m definitely living on campus for the first 2 years. I’m also debating on bringing my car to school freshman year. Does anyone have any pros or cons about that?

I hope everyone had a great holiday! My family from Ohio came in town and it was a complete shit show. But what’s new when all 15 of us are together. My cousins Abbie and Zach are super close with my brother and I so they practically spent the night at my house every night which was fun. Christmas Eve was fun as we all hung out and then went to 4pm church. Church was super freakin’ crowded and filled with people of all ages. Normally, church is filled with old people but on Christmas Eve I saw people my own age. Christmas day was fun but we had to go down to my aunts house and celebrate Christmas because they left for Atlanta the next day. It was hectic but honestly what family Christmas isn’t. The day after Christmas, we went shopping. I went with my mom, grandma, Aunt Jill, and cousin Abbie. We were successful in purchasing too much wrapping paper. Finally today we celebrated Christmas with my grandparents and the family from Ohio. It was really fun because it was just the older kids and we really didn’t have to babysit. Later tonight we are going to see Jumanji with some of my friends. I think it’s gonna be fun but who knows. Okay it’s time for a family game called “The game of poor life choices.” We’ll see how this goes.

Hey y’all. I’m back. I thought since I wouldn’t have to blog since class was over, that I’d stop. Yeah well I realized that blogging and writing is really therapeutic. I haven’t written since the final and I’ve really missed it. Creative writing really impacted me and made me realize how much I like it. So thanks Durham. Oh and Durham, I have a Christmas present for you that I forgot to bring before break. You’ll love it. I crack up every time I see it.

My cousins came into town today. I haven’t seen Abbie since I saw her at Butler and I haven’t seen Zach since April. I’m super close with my cousins, they are like my brother and sister. We’re eating dinner at my grandparents house and then they are coming to my house to spend the night. Earlier today, I baked 80 sugar cookies so we will decorate them tonight. Okay it’s time for dinner. We’re having pot roast and I don’t know how I feel about that. We’ll see if it’s good.

Today after spending 4 hours at tutoring studying for finals, I came up with a genius Christmas present for my grandparents. The cousins are going to take a picture with them and then we’re gonna frame it. But that’s not all. All 7 cousins are wearing matching shirts that I made that say “cousin crew.” Then my grandparents will have the same shirt except my grandma’s shirt will say “Me-Me” and my grandpa’s shirt will say “Poppy” because that’s what we call them. Isn’t that brilliant? What grandparents don’t want a picture of all of their grandkids and matching no less! I bought and made the shirts today during my study breaks.

On Tuesday, my grandma had knee replacement surgery. She spent 3 days, 2 nights in the hospital which was more then we expected. We thought it would just be 1 night. She’s home now but struggling quite a bit. I feel so bad for her because she absolutely hates not being able to come to the grandkids events and games and things. It’s absolutely killing her. I’ve gone to see her daily since Tuesday which makes her happy. I just sit there and rub her knee while she tells me how good it feels or when to stop because it hurts. I’m hoping her recovery will only get better from here but I’m not so sure.

I normally spend my flex time doing something productive but not today. First block I ate lunch and hung out with some friends. Second block I came to Durham’s room because I was hopeful he’d put on the movie but he didn’t because a student is testing. So now I’m just sitting in his room blogging and trying to be semi productive.

This weekend is filled with volleyball. Tonight I have a score keeping clinic from 6pm-9pm. My team isn’t even going to be there. I’m helping out one of the other coaches teams who has family in town. Im hoping after I’ll be able to hangout with some friends but I’ll probably be exhausted and just want to go home. Saturday I’m studying for finals and going to tutoring. I actually enjoy tutoring because my tutor is pretty fun to be around. She makes jokes and makes doing math actually fun. Sunday I’m not going to church because of volleyball. We have practicals from 8am-1pm. Then I’ll come home and get ready for the football banquet. The banquet is where our season like ends for real. It’s gonna be a rough night because I’m not ready for it all to be over just yet. I haven’t decided what I’m wearing yet but I need to figure that out.