My last day with students is May 30th... 8 1/2 more days of school... very hard to believe! I do have to go in on June 2nd, 3rd, and 4th for whatever wrapping up that is to be done, but for the most part I feel like I have reached the finish line...
I am grateful that it feels like, at least to me, the time from January 18th, which was suppose to be my last day, until now has flown by... In many ways I feel like I have simply put one foot in front of the other and eventually wound up completing my second year of teaching...
Looking back, I am glad I had this more than challenging experience, but I certainly wouldn't want to do it again. For a handful of reasons I am glad I stayed for the second semester (winning the penny war with my students, stopping to see the trees of good things/students that had become so lost in the forest of chaos and frustration), BUT overall things really didn't change, except me, and how I dealt with the situation, which turned out to be a good learning experience. Most days I did manage to leave all of the chaos behind when I got in the car to drive home. The 40 minute to an hour commute (depending on the bridge traffic) did me a lot of good! And on the weekends I learned to leave both my teaching work and my masters work alone and spend the entire day doing something with Nolan that we both enjoyed. (movies, gun shows, antiquing in Pensacola, Milton, and Mobile, and just hanging out) I am very much looking forward to some much needed time off at home with Nolan and Sandi... I will be looking for a new job/volunteer opportunities, but not just yet. I have a lot of what I feel like has been "lost" time to make up... so that is what I can't WAIT to be doing...
The end of May also brings excitement as Nolan is rounding the corner to finishing primary, which will lead us to finding out what type of plane he will be learning to fly next/for the remainder of his flight career... (well, I suppose for the most part... things do change) Right now he is back in the simulators for the next 4 days, and he only has 11 flights left... 6 of them will be accounted for when he makes a cross-country, hopefully at the end of May...
Selections (which is when he is told what he will fly) will also determine whether or not we move here very soon, or not. We are both excited about moving; it seems we are both ready for some place new, as well as the fact that we are in a routine of moving about every eight months and we have been in our current house for seven months now! haha
Sandi has been helping our vet pay his child's or future children's college tuition... we seem to make at least one visit a month with her allergies and chewing the hair off of her back. This time they gave us a strong shampoo to wash her with twice weekly, as well as put her back on an anitbiotic for the next three weeks. It has only been one day, but there does seem to be some improvement; let's just hope we can stay on this course! :-) Before bathing her last night, we took her down to the "park," which is really just a huge field behind the middle school near our house, and let her run around ( with Nolan ;-) )in all of the mud puddles.. it has been raining here quite a bit lately. The days of the week seem to fly by, so lately she has only been getting to run around two days a week... I plan to make it a daily activity for the two of us (and of course with Nolan if he is available) once school is out!
I am now officially at the halfway point of completing my Masters in Special Education!!! I started my 4th semester, of six, at FSU this past Monday. I am learning a lot, but am also confirming that it really is the "special" ones that I want to work with... For one of my classes this past Spring I had to assess and create an IEP (goals) for the student based on the assessment I gave. The student I worked with was a 7th grader who is selective mute. It was such an eye opening experience, and by far the best day I had at Bellview... and it was my day off! Getting to know this student and find out exactly where to begin to help him to improve his math and reading skills, in particular, was just plain fun, interesting and a challenge!
And because I really dropped the ball on this one... but better late than never...
Venture back with me to Friday, March 14th to...
Nolan's Tie Cutting Ceremony!
This is a tradition that occurs following a student’s solo flight in primary, as yes, Nolan had solo'ed before during IFS. This solo was in a T-34...
Nolan and Lt. Palmer (Nolan's "on wing")
At the ceremony, Nolan and his “on wing,” or instructor pilot (IP), exchanged a funny story about flying with one another... Nolan's on wing brought up the fact that he puked a lot there in the beginning and how one time the puke bag got caught when Nolan moved the seat and it ripped open, so next thing he knows, Nolan is coming back to the plane with a bunch of cleaning supplies... ;-) Nolan reminded him, Lt. Palmer, of the time when he passed where they were suppose to turn to take off, even after Nolan had asked him if he was just following the guy in front of him and he replied back, "No and something about always paying attention" Good thing Nolan WAS! ;-) These stories are then judged by a panel of other intructor pilots (Judge Almighty and Judge All Powerful) who then decide how good or not so good the story was and charge them a fine... (either way there is some fine) Then Nolan presented Lt. Palmer with a bottle of his favorite alcoholic beverage as compensation for his many hours of instruction.
Judge Almighty and Judge All Powerful and "the boot" that you had to "pay" the fine to...
Thankfully Nolan didn't have to pay too much!
Thankfully Nolan didn't have to pay too much!
Nolan headed into VT- 2's "line shack"
Oh and notice how rather "short" Nolan's tie is after being cut... supposedly the shorter the instructor cuts it, the better the student is as a pilot...The longer tie would be so that the person flying with the student could still tug on it to make corrections to what the student was doing... (hopefully that makes sense)
Just a random extra -
Nolan and I really like the frozen tiramisu at Olive Garden... so Nolan had the genius idea of taking the ingredients off of the menu and trying to replicate it at home and we were successful thanks to an online copycat recipe! The only changes we would suggest to this recipe is quite a bit more ice cream, as the drink was good, but VERY potent! ;-) Oh and we forgot the biscotti, but it definitely needs that too!
FROZEN TIRAMISU1 1/2 ounces Kahlua
1 ounce Amaretto
1/2 ounce Tuaca
2 scoops vanilla ice cream
Blend together and top with whiped cream, biscotti, and grated chocolate.
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