It's been a while.
Summer is almost over for me, and I've been preparing for my Phase Two Student Teaching. Yes, despite all the issues I had, I did pass Phase One. This semester, I'm at a middle school, and I have my pick of 6th, 7th, or 8th, since my mentor has all three classes, as well as 5th graders that are part of a special STEM-focused program at the school. I'm technically going to be teaching inside that program, which has a heavier emphasis on cross-content curriculum (meaning that while I'll be teaching English, I can use historical fiction, or non-fiction materials that cross over with history or science or whatnot).
I'm already really looking forward to this round; my new mentor is much younger than my last, and has already met up with me to discuss curriculum, school atmosphere, his own background, and his ideas on teaching younger kids. He's invited me to a school meeting that's going to be taking place either the 10th or 11th.
My younger brother got an accounting job at the church where we work. He still works at the coffeeshop, but now he also works upstairs in the office. He actually has his own office now, with a nameplate and everything. My younger sister got a job at Petsmart working in the doggie daycare. She literally gets paid to play with puppies for eight hours a day.
I'm so proud of them. It's weird; I'd always been the one making more money, so I was the one buying them random stuff, but now I'm the poor one, and they're the ones buying me lunch and soda and stuff. It's slightly emasculating, but I'm so stoked; I didn't think my sister would ever get a job, and my brother is so HAPPY!
All last week was some big religious Worship Leader's Conference that was heinously expensive to go to (upwards of 225$ a ticket) that we in the shop got to watch for free because someone didn't turn off the church broadcast. I even landed a bit of overtime-- which is a big deal because the church HATES giving out overtime to anybody.
One of the newer girls at the coffeeshop is a bit of a flake, so Joey and I landed our buddy Kevin a job there. I'm pretty stoked; he's a cool dude and demonstrably more reliable than she is. She's a super nice person, but she doesn't get that if you're going to be off, you have to tell us a few weeks in advance, not just a day or two.
We got a new chicken. She just showed up in our yard. I have no fucking clue where she came from, but she sleeps in the garage while the others sleep in the coop. She's not very social.