I did absolutely nothing today. I watched Band of Brothers for like eight hours straight with Eric. We also picked up some, what we like to call, Flava Flavs, and were completely lazy all day. It was one of the best days in a long, long time.
Note: THESE are Flava Flavs. You may know them as ice pops, push up pops, whatever. All I know is they are delish. Go get some if you don’t believe me.
Look at that good lookin’ mug, eh? Haha, NOT. I woke up late this day and couldn’t figure out how to get my eyes opened and my brain awake.
This is my picture from the Cyclone Aides website that shows who we are, and what we do! So, introducing the 2009-2010 Cyclone Aides for Iowa State University!
So today began intensive training week for my Cyclone Aide job. Just as a review, Cyclone Aides are students working for the Office of Admissions during the summer to help run orientation. Cyclone Aides are undergraduate students who help facilitate new student programs throughout the year. They provide new students with an introduction to campus and its resources, provide campus and residence hall tours, prepare students for academic advising appointments, serve on panels, and share information about Iowa State with new students and their family members.
Cyclone Aides also coordinate the Destination Iowa State program and assist with campus visits and student recruitment throughout the year. We serve on committees that help plan Destination Iowa State activities, such as financial management, surviving your first year of college, the comedian on Friday night of DIS [Destination Iowa State], and many others as
well. Part of our training for Cyclone Aide is over 100 hours of specified training concerning campus resources, departments, colleges, and student services offered to Iowa State students. We have to be prepared to answer literally any questions about Iowa State in a professional and accurate way. It takes a lot of training, and during the Spring semester after you are accepted, you attend two morning trainings a week, Tuesday and Thursday 8:00-9:20am, and then an Intensive Training Week from May 21-29th, where we have a detailed schedule from 8:00am-5:00pm almost everyday.
Today we have an intensive schedule, with speakers and internal panel training, as well as 
informational sessions, phone skit training, etc. Pretty crazy when I look at all the information we have absorbed over the semester, but this week will be even more intense.
We had training today, and then tomorrow, and then a three day weekend. I plan on helping Eric pack up his place, and then just hangout and spend some time relaxing before next week’s intensive training. The three day weekend is for Memorial Day, and I think Eric and I are going to watch a Band of Brother marathon, so it should be fun. =]
Until next time,
I will be learning anything and everything about Iowa State,
Seanna
So, I’ve been here in Omaha for about a week, and Eric’s mom told us all about
Wicked visiting the downtown Civic center. There’s not a ton to do here, besides go on bike rides, go shopping, and relax and hang out, so we all thought it would be fun to go and see a show together.
FYI: Wicked- the story of the wicked witch of the West and why she is the way she is. The story is of the two witches, Glenda, the Good Witch of the North, and the Wicked Witch ofthe West; they were both friends before dorothy ever dropped into the scene, and how they turned into who they are.
Today Eric’s mother, he and I went to downtown Omaha to see if we could buy tickets forWicked. I have never seen Wicked, but everyone always talks about how great it is. I’m not much of a musicals person, because randomly bursting out in singing and dancing isn’t necessarily my thing, but I wanted to see what all the hype was about.
There were weekly showings, but we were hoping to see a Sunday afternoon show. We drove all the way downtown to purchase the tickets, but they were all sold out!! I was pretty excited about them, too. I was willing to give Wicked a chance. But I guess, sadly, Wicked will have to wait.
Instead of going to Wicked, however, all of us went to see Angels and Demons, the movie. I am still not quite sure how to react to it. It was good, but far too graphic for my taste. Being Catholic, it was a little hard to watch men portraying holy figures in the church being burned alive and whatnot. I think that will stay on my list of “only watch once in a blue moon,” list. So I feel I won’t be adding that movie to my collection anytime soon. I thought the movie would be more like Da Vinci Code, which I thoroughly enjoyed. I thought it would be full of mystery and puzzles, but . . . it wasn’t. Rather, it seemed like a gruesome race for lives. Tom Hanks was wonderful, as usual, and the other actors and actresses in the movie were great, but it just wasn’t my cup of tea.
Until next time,
TV sitcoms will have to do,
Seanna
It’s official. Eric has accepted his offer from Parker Hannifin to work a two semester internship, or co-op in Fort Worth, Texas. I’m SO excited for him, but kind of bummed that I won’t see him on a regular basis for basically a year. If you are confused about this, go back and read my post about the future, called Decisions, Decisions. It explains it all, and it’s really a huge long story and my fingers are kind of tired. Sorry. ::shrug::
So, Eric will be working and living in Fort Worth, Texas until December, working his little heart out at Parker Hannifin, and HOPEFULLY this might lead to a job offer after his
graduation NEXT December . . . which would be AWESOME. 
That is the point of internships for Engineers, in case you never hear this, I’ll tell you a secret. You intern to work in the Engineering world- hiring companies want validation that an employee will be beneficial and profitable to the company, so they tend to hire within their well and their own trained flock, for lack of a better term. So in order to work for a company as a salaried position, one must first have an internship or some sort of experience with that company. Just like my grandfather [the parents I live with], he went to Iowa State for Engineering and had to stop school for a year to work and get money, so he worked as a draftsman for Rockwell Collins, and sure enough, after he graduated, they offered him the job of a lifetime in Richardson, TX, and as they say, the rest is history!
So anyway, back to Eric, hah, after my major tangent, he will be in Fort Worth, living in Hawks Creek Village. This place is terrible! It has a pool, workout facility, a CAR WASH and DETAIL center IN the complex, gated communities, a golf course, a running/walking/biking paved trail around the entire course, and SO much more. He’s excited to have a one bedroom apartment for the first time in his college/education experience. When he moved to Minneapolis, he had a roommate, so this will be his first time on his own.
Don’t worry, I’ve already run to Borders Books and bought him a Better Homes and Gardens cookbook. I’m on top of it.
It looks like a great opportunity, a great place to live, a lot of interesting things to do [because let's face it, if you're around Dallas/Ft. Worth, there's really no limit to what you can fill your days doing!] and he will be about an hour from my parents! What a perfect opportunity to get to know them better!
In all seriousness, I really do admire him for the strength and courage to undertake such change, after being back at school for only a semester. He’s such a driven individual, and I love him for that. He’s good at what he does, and he’s motivated and determined to achieve his goals. I’m proud of him, I’m just going to miss him. 
But on a happier note, yep! He’ll be a Texan soon enough! It’s funny, because he’s been asking me about Texas A&M individuals, since he found out he will be working with five other interns from A&M College Station. We’ll see how he fares.
So until next time,
I will be packing him into oblivion,
Seanna
Yipes! Transcripts come out tomorrow! I’m so nervous!
I will admit it, I feel like I bombed my Latin class. I can only say that now as I know I cannot get a good grade in that class if I tried. I studied hard for my final, but won’t know for sure how I did until I get my transcript at 5:00am tomorrow. Yes, yes, you must be thinking I’d be nuts to wake up just to check my transcript.
And you’d be absolutely right.
So I’ll just wait until whenever I wake up, and it will be the first thing I do before I brush my teeth. That’s a little less obsessive, and more realistic for my as of late sleep schedule. Just the other day, I slept until 11:30am! That’s insane! I know some people can sleep until like 1:00pm, but I can’t do that without being up all night. What a vicious cycle, man.
Anyway, about transcripts.
Transcripts are basically the “report cards” of college. They are a permanent records of all your classes and grades, honors and special awards while at college. Your classes are listed, then your grade, and your semester and cumulative GPA [or grade point average] are derived from those numbers. It’s important to keep your transcript clean, i.e. no failed classes or terrible grades.
It seems that it’s always easier to drop in your GPA than raise it, so beware of that. From experience and my friends’ experiences as well! If you remember anything about what I have written! Remember that!
So, anyway, Omaha is going well! Eric and I took our bikes out today. He bought clipless pedals today, so it was interesting to see him negotiate those. We biked about eight miles around Lake Zorinsky in West Omaha, about twice around. We were hitting a top of ten miles an hour against the wind, but then averaged about eighteen and a half miles an hour for the rest of the ride, so we were clipping. It was wonderful, but now my allergies are on full alert. I’m pretty sure I’m going to scratch my eyes out before the itching stops. I’ll have to stop by and get eye drops. I’ve never had problems with allergies til I got to the Midwest, and I’m not quite sure why. But if you have allergies, make sure you know what they are and watch out for those.
This is my bike: a Dawes Sheila Size Small, but imagine it in pale blue [I'm not much of a pink gal, but it still has red bar tape and accents, so it's actually a pretty cool combination]. Ahhh, it’s gorgeous. Shimano shifting brakes, front and rear, with 24 speed, 3 gears, drop handlebars. It’s love at first ride.
This is Eric’s bike: a Specialized Sirrus Sport. I don’t know the 411 on his bike, because well, it’s his bike, but I will tell you that Specialized is a great brand for biking, and if you’re interested in biking, please feel free to check out their website here
Anyway, so we took our babies out for a ride, and it was awesome. We were driving to the lake and pulled up in the parking lot to like thirteen young to middle-aged women doing weight lifting and yoga in the parking lot. There was a guy trainer yelling at them to get up and work it, so it was kind of hard not to laugh, but we managed to keep our cool.
So until next time,
I will be biking my heart out,
Seanna
Only after going back and thinking about the title of this post do I think it might not come off the way I wanted it to.
Oh well.
So today Eric and I headed out to Omaha. After hanging out in Ames a couple of days, we finally packed my three suitcases and my “Martin Tub” [the name I gave to my Wal-Mart plastic tub that carries everything I need for surviving in Martin for Orientation], and Eric’s stuff and headed to Omaha for two weeks. I’m not sure how often I will be able to get to the blog, but I will try my best to keep up! I don’t have much longer before I am writing my farewell post [hopefully just for the summer 
] so I have about a two month break from lonestarcyclone.com, sadly enough. But never fear! It will give me plenty of info to dish out in my posts in the fall! Plenty of juicy tidbits and dirt to let you in on. Just kidding. But really.
I’m happy to go to Omaha for about ten days. It’s nice to have a break and not actually have anything planned. Besides riding our road bikes together and hanging out and enjoying each other’s company, we’re also going to see some friends in West O, as the Omaha-ians call it, and catch up with his parents. Eric’s brother’s fiance also lives in Council Bluffs, which is right next to Omaha, so that will be fun to catch up on. Katie has asked me to be her personal attendant on the day of the wedding, so I’m pretty excited for that. She’s my soon to be sister-in-law, so I might as well get to know her. Hah, hint, hint.
I’ve been taking trips to Omaha since fall of 2006, when Eric and I first started dating. Memorial Day Weekend, in fact, was the first time I went and stayed with him and his family. I had met his family two weeks before that when they drove up for a football game [back when both of us were in band together! sheesh, it seems like so long ago!], so I had already gotten to know them and everything. Oh, how the time flies. It’s weird to think about it now, but that’s a completely different post. Good idea for a post, though. I’ll make sure to jot that down! Coming soon, advice from a college student on “What I Wish I Knew!”
Anyway, hope all my readers are doing well! I know it might seem a tad bit boring if you read my blog and it’s not all necessarily about school, but I think it makes it more interesting for you to get to know who I am.
Wow. Check out the difference between these pics! Hah! The top one is from the week I visited him in Minneapolis, if you were following, last summer, and the bottom one is from the first trip to Omaha! Not only does time fly, but your self-concept and your appearances sure do, too!
If you have any questions, feel free to email me! Wish me safe travels!
Until next time,
Seanna
So, I finalized my plans for student teaching: 8 weeks in Omaha, 8 weeks in Puerto Rico.
The way Student Teaching works at Iowa State for Early Childhood Education majors is
we have seven semester of classes, including child development classes, general education requirements in mathematics, social sciences, physical sciences, and reading and english language. We then have labs and child development classes associated with programming curriculum for ages birth to 3 years and 3 to 8 years. We also have an included endorsement for special education for mild to moderate disabilities. After all of these, we begin our curriculum classes that teach us pedagogy, or basically “how to teach,” so we have one methods class per subject we are required to teach, i.e. reading/writing, mathematics, social studies, and science. After that, we go into the field and spending two separate rotations student teaching. We work with a cooperating teacher to basically teach and take over that class for a semester [or half of a year, since they don't call them semesters!] and then after that, we graduate with a pending teacher license once we have passed all required tests and evaluations!
So student teaching is a HUGE deal.
We are basically responsible for an entire class. There is a required amount of time the student teacher is to be independent in the classroom, i.e. the regular teacher leaves the classroom and does not come back sometimes then entire day. It is so important to have this experience before going into the field of teaching- it’s the equivalent of an internship, except we affect young children’s lives and their love of learning with our internship. Chya, no pressure, right?
So it’s pretty difficult to study abroad as an ECE [Early Childhood Education] major, because our classes are pretty much laid out for us, in a four year plan, semester by semester, and there is not a lot of wiggle room to fail a class or fall behind in your schedule. Many classes have to be taken together as part of what is called a “methods block,” because the classes are all intertwined in what we are learning, and we have practicums, or mini-student teaching experiences in classrooms around the Ames and surrounding cities to fulfill requirements for the class, including lesson plans, specialized behavior reports, and even behavioral or academic interventions. It’s intense, but oh so much fun. I became so attached to my last practicum placement. It was very sad to leave them, and I had altogether been with them for only eight full days of class [Monday and Wednesday for four weeks]!
I just finished finalizing my degree audit, which is basically your schedule of classes at Iowa State, with my academic advisor, and once I apply for student teaching next fall [for next spring] I think I will have a pretty awesome chance of getting the placements I want for student teaching!
We have two separate rotations for two separate reasons: we basically have four requirements, in two rotations.
1. We must teach in an exclusively special education room.
2. We must teach in an inclusive general education classroom.
3. We must teach children in either PreK or Kindergarten.
4. We must teach children in a grade from 1st through 3rd grade.
So, it works out that one of your rotations, whether it is your PreK/K or 1st/3rd grade rotation will be special education, and the other will not. You have your choice as to which one you would like to assign to each. Since I want to study abroad for the second eight weeks in Puerto Rico, I must first teach in the states for eight weeks, pass my competency in evaluations, and finish my special education requirements here in the US, since other countries structure that type of thing differently. Then I can choose from a variety of locations for ECE majors, including Rome, Norway, Australia, New Zealand, Puerto Rico, and more [depending on the semester planning to student teach]! I chose Puerto Rico because it is close enough to the states, I don’t need to speak Spanish to go there, and another good friend of mine, Kassi, who is an ECE I have known my entire college experience, will be going, too! I would go on my own, but I am pretty excited to go with another person!
The school in Puerto Rico is a private, international school that speaks both English
and Spanish, but classes are taught in English, so there is no foreign language requirement to student teach there. I’ve talked with the headmaster when he visited Iowa State for an informational session, and he is a wonderful administrator! I am so psyched! Now, I just need to scrape up the money, which really isn’t too bad when I start to plan for it. It is about $1,400.00 to study abroad and student teach in Puerto Rico, but any student student teaching abroad automatically receives $800.00 worth of scholarships for doing so, so it won’t be too bad. Between saving and planning, and applying for other available scholarship from the College of Human Sciences, I should be able to pull it off!
My first weeks, you ask? I want to stay with Eric’s parents in Omaha, NE [one of the out of state options for student teaching: sadly, Dallas was not an option, and I don't know Houston well enough to go there, even though it was the Texas option]. This would help me save on rent and other money issues while trying to save for graduation and afterwards. Also, since Eric’s brother is leaving for Greece this August and won’t return until next June, I get to use his car, so I’m pretty excited for that, too! [I always wanted Rob to get the internship in Greece, but this is just a perk!]
Whew, I know this was a long post, but it was definitely worth it.
Are you interested in a major concerning education? Questions about student teaching? Or any questions I didn’t answer in this post? Feel free to email me! seanna@lonestarcyclone.com!
Until next time,
Seanna
News Update: I am going through my Cyclone Aide training binder, getting ready for Orientation, and figuring out how to memorize all the information I need to know for this summer. I came across my requirements for my Cyclone Aide backpack, and for those of you attending Orientation, you may ask any Cyclone Aide at any time for any of the following, and they will whip it out of their backpack in a jiffy for you.
I went to SuperTarget and bought these ALL in travel size. Amazing. I love Tar-jay.
So there you go- my backpack in a post. I feel like I have the Batman belt equivalent of a CamelBak. As prepared as a lifetime Boy Scout.
So! Who’s going to Orientation!? Email me and let me know! I want to know to look for you and meet up! It’s always great to help new students on campus!! =] And if you need anything, don’t hesitate to ask. I’m ridin’ low.
Until next time,
Seanna
It’s time to move out of 1016 Buchanan Doolittle. Into boxes to go to Omaha, NE, to put my stuff back in boxes, and then move to Martin residence hall during June, then move to Frederiksen Court in July, then back to the exact same room to 1016 Buchanan Doolittle. It’s taken Eric and I two days, a billion hours, many bags of trash, and lots of cleaning supplies, but I’m finally moved out.
Literally. I just finished like ten minutes ago. I was so proud.
Now it’s all sitting in the trunk of his Montero Sport, and I’m hoping that by blinking really really hard, it will make its way up the stairs in to Eric’s closet where it will be stored this summer. =]
So far, no progress on this subject. I’ll keep you updated.
Until next time,
I will be working on telepathy-
Seanna
