Further than I thought!

If you decide to go into teaching, make sure you're okay with constantly taking graduate classes. You'll be required by state law to continue taking graduate level classes for the rest of your career. If you don't complete the required number of credits in the given time period you can lose your certification to teach. The fun part is that the state (Michigan in this case) doesn't help pay for teachers to meet those requirements. Some school districts do offer tuition reimbursement, but that's not a guarantee by any means. Whitmore Lake offers a limited tuition reimbursement once you've paid for the first 18 credits on your own.

I just looked up my EMU transcripts and discovered that I'll have finished my 18 credits by the end of this summer! Originally I was thinking it would happen at the end of the fall semester, but I didn't realize the last class I took was a 3 credit class. As a result, I'll qualify for tuition reimbursement THIS FALL (if it isn't nixed because of budget cuts, that is). It also means I can apply for my professional teaching certificate, and I'll be roughly halfway done with my Masters Degree! Woo!

In other news, tomorrow is the last day of my second Spring semester class, at which point I'll have officially earned 14 credits!

Busy All the Time

I guess it was a bad week to start showing pictures of how quickly we're unpacking. We're not unpacking that quickly. I'm taking a class in Jackson all week, I started playing soccer through the Ann Arbor Soccer Association on Mondays and Wednesdays, we're both playing softball on Tuesdays through Whitmore Lake Community Recreation, we're attending the AGAPE meetings (we missed the last few...but we're renewing our dedication) on Thursdays, and Friday night is softball with AACRC.

As a result our unpacking progess has been pretty slow, though I'll put up the most recent pictures of our own little favela in the basement...

More Belated Florida Pictures

Mom and Dad auditioning for a J. Crew catalog.

Yummy!
The Florida sun touching down...

A pineapple plant outside Grandma Kastner's condo building. I don't think I'd ever seen a pineapple plant before then. The pineapple was only four or five inches tall.

Extrinsic Motivation - Day 1

The pictures above were just taken (8:35pm EDT, 6/24/07) of our downstairs living space.

Clearly it's a mess. You might be suprised to hear that we've actually done a fair bit of unpacking. Not a lot of unpacking, but a fair bit. However, we have been a little lazy in tackling the issue. Here's how I create motivation for myself: (1) take pictures of the problem, (2) share the pictures with the world, (3) update pictures daily, (4) unpack, unpack, unpack so everyone in the world doesn't think we're lazy slobs.

We'll especially need motivation this week since I have a class that meets every day from 9am to 3pm at EMU-Jackson (Developing Creativity in the Classroom), and we like to try to blow things off. Perhaps we should invest in a cute timer (click & read thing 5 for explanation).

Tagged: Eight Random Things About Me

Soooo...if you're a reader of Meika's blog, you may have seen that she was "tagged" to supply eight random facts about myself (see comments on this post). Although I'm not a fan of chain emails (which this is kinda close to), I'll humor all my adoring fans out there.

To start, I'm supposed to supply the rules of the game:

1. I have to post these rules before I give you the facts.
2. Each player starts with eight random facts/habits about themselves.
3. People who are tagged need to write their own blog about their eight things and post these rules.
4. At the end of your blog, you need to choose eight people to get tagged and list their names.
5. Don’t forget to leave them a comment telling them they’re tagged, and to read your blog.

First: I've just watered two plants (very out of character for me) A couple of gerbera daisy plants at the new Steenbergen/Wildeboer residence were looking a little sleepy. I, of course, knew that plants need water, man.

Second: I've come to realize that you can find anything on the internet. Case in point: while typing the first random thing about me, I thought back to an old Sesame Street cartoon where a couple of kids try to figure out what's wrong with their plant. After 2 minutes of online searching...Voila! Enjoy!

Third: I'm home alone. Ahhhhhhh! (Sam's scrapbooking with a friend; her parents are in Connecticut)

Fourth: I've been conditioned into eating Saturday morning breakfast at the City Limits Diner in Saline. It started for me as initiation into the Steenbergen family (my in-laws, if you don't know). They always go out for breakfast Saturday morning, 8AM. Not too long after Sam and I started dating, I started going to Saturday morning breakfasts. Today Mom & Dad Steenbergern were in Connecticut, but Sam and I still ended up going out to breakfast (not at 8:00...more like 10:30). I recommend City Limits Diner for breakfast...it's not high class, but it is tasty. As for lunch and dinner: I've never had anything other than breakfast there, so I couldn't tell ya.

Fifth: I have IRADD (Internet Related Attention Deficit Disorder). I just made that up now, but it's true. I tried to see if I could find a picture of City Limits Diner online, but I couldn't (perhaps random thing two should change?), though I did take a half-hour tour of some random Ann Arbor guy's blog, looked at race routes through Ann Arbor, and generally lost total focus on my task here. I can't help it interesting looking things pop up when I'm searching for something...

Sixth: I'm currently reading Jasper Fforde's The Well of Lost Plots, the third book in the Thursday Next series. Mr. Fforde might have the most active imagination I've ever come across in any media form. The story takes place in a world similar to our own, but with major differences- like the need for Literary Detectives, and the ability to jump into books. I know it sounds weird and maybe not that interesting, but his books might be the most intriguing and interesting books (oops...hopefully an echolocator will fix that error) I've read (period)

Seventh: This may be the most time I've ever spent on a single blog entry. I guess I'm bored...or I'm avoiding unpacking the rest of our stuff in the basement. It could also be a function of random item 5.

Eighth: We're going to NYC in three weeks! It's part of our Baseball Park Tour of the World- we're going to a Mets and Yankees game. Both teams are getting new stadiums for the 2009 season so we figured we need to get the NY stadiums in before then- especially Yankee Stadium, since it's the house that Ruth built (not that we like the Yankees, but we are aware of baseball history). We will be doing other things than just going to baseball games, though an itinerary has not yet been decided upon at the time this entry was published. It'll be my second time in NYC, though my last time was in 1994 as part of a Tittabawassee Valley Fife & Drum Corps East Coast tour. My memories are pretty vague from that visit: I basically remember visiting the World Trade Center and Ellis Island, and not being allowed to go anywhere out of sight of the chaperones.


Well...that turned out pretty well! I can't say I love chain-like things, but this exercise was fun. Rule number four states that I have to tag eight other bloggers to participate in this game, but my blogging contacts consist mainly of Meika. So...here's my compromise: The people "tagged" don't have blogs (that we know of), but they are welcome to post their eight random facts as comments to this posting. You could also start your own blog to keep us all up to date...

The "tagged" list: Sam, Mark, Mike, Mom & Dad W., Chloe, and err...two other people who read this blog that aren't on the list above. Don't forget to sign your comments!

(Oh...and if you'd like to see me do other lists (as Meika has suggested), give me topics!)

Mom's Crazay Birthday Drink

(This is a catch-up post)

Sam and I went to Florida for David & Courtney's wedding the end of April, and as luck would have it, Momma Wildeboer's birthday was the Monday after the wedding. Sunday night Mom, Dad, Mark, Sam and I all went to Clearwater Beach to watch the sun set. Afterwards, we decided to go out to eat in celebration of Mom's brithday (Does anyone remember the name of the restaurant?). The restaurant had a very fancy martini that Mom just couldn't resist...it was just so festive (see video). Does anybody happen to remember the name of the martini? It was Hypnotiq something or other...but I don't quite recall...

Moving Day!

We are now officially residents of Saline, MI. Don't sound like an out-of-towner and pronounce it Say-lean (as in saline solution), the local & "proper" pronounciation is Suh-lean.

We had a lot of help moving & cleaning Saturday, so the move went more quickly than I had anticipated. Big thanks to Matt, Jen, Melissa, Laina, Todd, Mom & Dad W., & Mom & Dad S. for helping. On Sunday we were officially checked out of our first married apartment (aww...tear).

Our downstairs "apartment" at the Steenbergen condo is currently reminiscent of a Brazilian shanty town, since we haven't unpacked all of our stuff yet. At least there isn't a pressing need to get unpacked- we can do it a little bit at a time.

So...come by and visit "our" new digs. Here are some calculated driving distances to Saline thanks to Google Maps:

• Bay City, MI to Saline, MI: 113 miles (1 hour 46 minutes)
• Chicago, IL to Saline, MI: 249 miles (4 hours 1 minute)
• Nagoya, Japan to Saline, MI: Okay...it says it can't calculate this...but it'd be a long drive
• Zeeland, MI to Saline, MI: 163 miles (2 hours 31 minutes)

• Northwood, OH to Saline, MI (suggested anonymously): 59.1 miles (1 hour 0 minutes)

Feel free to leave a comment if your location was left off the list...I'll look it up for you!

Back in the Habit

I recently had to create a lesson using technology for a graduate class. I chose to create a lesson where students had to utilize a blog to respond to articles and have discussion about science related topics. As a part of that lesson I went over some "blog etiquette." Besides refraining from rudeness, checking your spelling, and avoiding plagiarism, it suggested that you should post on a regular basis. If you post just once a month, that's fine, just make sure you post regularly each month. It suggested against writing 15 posts in 5 days and then going AWOL for a month (from Practical Etiquette).

So...the goal is to post at least three times a week- at least during the summer. I reserve the right to change that again in the fall...

Ahuhwha?

I was informed recently that I do, in fact, have a blog...and that perhaps I should be keeping up on it...

In my defense: (1) The end of the school year is always crazy, (2) we're trying to pack and move by this weekend, (3) I was taking a class (I just finished it today, actually).

However, I promise to work hard to update everyone with the details of our life on a regular (i.e. weekly as opposed to bimonthly), as I haven't done since...well...April 7th. Just remember, two months out of an average of an 80 year life span is only 0.21%. I can't promise I'll necessarily update you on all the happenings you've missed the last two months, but I'll try to highlight the highlights, as it were.