Back to School!

So the summer is pretty much over and the teachers are back to school. We are getting our classrooms ready and having meetings about schedules, policies and procedures.

I am glad to be going back to school but a little sad too. I really hoped we would have a child. Another teacher that I work with is also hoping to adopt. We share stories of others we know and things we have heard. (She has a greater connection to her agency than we do. They work only in North Carolina and have many picnics and things for their families. They are working with so many more in this area than our agency. While the support is nice, they are limited to adoption opportunities in North Carolina.) It is great to have someone else who understands and has the same worries and fears I do.  We both hoped that we would be able to adopt over the summer. I have started to make plans for being gone if we do get to adopt before school is out.

There have been a lot of changes at my school- teachers moving grades, teachers changing schools, new administrators, etc. The school focus last year was math. It will be interesting to see what it is this year. Change is hard but can be good. New people bring different experiences and may help us solve some of our continuing problems.

It should be a good year. Some things will be different and I can’t wait to see what the year will bring!

College



Wilson Hall- JMU image from hushmathalam.com



I loved college. I had lots of friends and a great job. Many LDS kids decide to go to Brigham Young University. I went to BYU for a tour. They put us in a golf cart and drove around and then took us to the top of the Kimball Tower to point things out. The campus is VERY big and there are LOTS of students.  When I got into the golf cart I thought maybe this isn’t the place for me. Then when we had to go to the top of a building to see everything, I was convinced.  

I’m from Virginia and going so far from home was scary and to know that it was such a big place was too much. I chose to go to James Madison University. I loved JMU. It was smaller, closer to home and I had a friend going.  



I was able to get a job at the dining hall. I did lots of different things there. I helps serve food, make food, bring frozen things up from the basement, and clean the building (I only did that once). It was a great place to work with lots of flexibility and I could work a lot or a little depending on what was going on that week.



I was close enough that I could go home to see my family whenever I wanted. That happened less and less as the years went on. I also had great jobs in Virginia and the bosses wanted me to work when I was in town.  I was very lucky to have such an easy time in college.



Utah Valley University image from hubpages.com



Jake wasn’t quite so lucky. Jake struggled in school and was scared that college was too hard.  He tried several community colleges in Arizona and was able to make some progress but it was slow going.

When he moved to Utah he tried Utah Valley State College (now Utah Valley University).  There were some false starts and it was slow going at first but he was able to make progress and once we got married the progress really picked up and he graduated! There was a time when he said If I graduate and now he talks about going back to school for a masters degree!