The Chronicles Of Nay

Happy Sunday! I hope that everyone had a great week! This week was super crazy and hectic. For one I traveled last weekend so Monday was exhausting. However, it was so worth it! One of my cousins retired from the military and the police force so he had a retirement party. I enjoy getting together with my family so much! I am so glad that I went. For many years I wouldn’t attend these kinds of things because either I had to work or something else or this or that. Here I am sitting on over 70 days worth of what most people call PTO and I realize, work will be there when I get back. I have made it a point to do more family things! My dad sometimes gets a little doom and gloom, but he said it best, he said that we can’t wait to get together, we never know how much longer we have!

I went on a date Sunday evening with a guy and it went well we talked about an other date then he quickly let me down. I will write about that in another blog! haha There is a lot to unpack there and I have an “Am I the Asshole” question to follow up! haha so stay tuned for that!

Tuesday the kids didn’t have school and we had conferences with parents. I mean sure it was a great idea but the problem is that the parents we need to see are the not the ones that showed up! The parents that showed up were the parents of the kids that are doing well! We also don’t make it super easy, I mean yes I know my working hours are their working hours. But if we are going to meet more families where they are we have to think outside the box! So there we sat in the cafeteria all day staring at each other! I am having to move classrooms by the end of the week because of construction so I would much have rather been packing in my science storage closet. At one point two different administrators told me I would get some time that day to pack, but I didn’t I am stressed about the packing situation that I woke up at 2 o’ clock this morning and yesterday morning, having a slight panic attack! There is so much to do and no time to do it in! If anyone is thinking “man I would love to pack up a science storage closet this week” hit me up! I can make that happen!

Ok so the reason for the blog! School Science and Mathematics Association conference. I love this conference! I have gone now for about four years. It is small and familiar. The first one I went to I was not even a graduate student yet. I presented, as a teacher, on some research that was happening in my classroom and sort of how it affected my classroom. I for sure didn’t know what the heck I was doing there! The TCU community that I was there with, but not with, was very supportive and welcoming. I was not quite a grad student at the but they all treated me as part of the group. Looking back I think that was by design as Molly was trying to talk me in to starting the program! haha sneaky woman! haha

Then I went a couple times just as a graduate student trying to figure out life. This is the first year that I presented as a graduate student. One of things I like so much about this conference is that it is so easy to network. It is easy to talk to people from different universities. It is also small so it isn’t as intimidating to present.

This presentation we did this time was a little different because I was presenting on work that Lex and I had done, we were the experts. We presented on the curriculum we created last spring and summer for the Dragon Fly Mercury Project. In case I haven’t made you listen to what I was doing with this, it was a one day data collection community science experience. Students go out in to national parks and collect Dragonfly Larvae (commercial: I felt like a horrible science teacher, I didn’t realize that dragonflies were born in the water until I was part of this! oops!) They were asking for curriculum that would make this experience more than just a one day event.

Our presentation was more on process of creating curriculum. We for sure thought that we would be able to knock out the entire curriculum in a semester! *Spoiler* that was not the case! We worked on it for a semester as a class with Molly and for a week during the summer. Molly is really good at sitting back and letting us jump in and then in a month when we realize we are in over our heads, she is also really good at helping ground us! Anyway, we presented on the process of how we decided on middle school standards, on the number of lessons, the content of the lessons, the lesson plan template and the decisions we made. It is crazy to think of all of these decisions that needed to be make!

I am so grateful for so many of these opportunities that I could have never imagined! This whole PhD experience is wild!

Speaking of PhD experiences, I need to work on a presentation that is due this week! So if you wanna hear me nerdy out a little more let me know! haha I hope everyone has a good week!