Free Write!

Nothing is more exciting then the holidays in the winter, at least for me! I love the winter unlike some people. I think it's so exciting to just look out the window and all you see is bright white snow on the ground, the wet streets, the frosted windows of buildings and the trees all perfectly topped with white snow flakes. I think it’s so pretty and joyful to just walk outside and enjoy the outdoors, even though it's cold or freezing outside. Don't get me wrong; I do not like the cold weather to the point where you are freezing your hands off. Believe me, I know what it's like to freeze outside, I live outside of Chicago in the suburbs! But the good thing about winter is all of the holidays that come along with it. I love the great feeling of having all of your family around for the holidays starting with thanksgiving. I am certainly a family-oriented girl, I love being around all of my family and friends for the holidays. I enjoy those peaceful and relaxed winter nights where all you do is sitting around and hangout with the family or friends sipping on hot chocolate occasionally. I love nights with my friends where we always come to my house in my basement and hangout and watch movies all night. It’ll definitely be different this year as many of my old friends have changed since we’ve been apart, but I do know it’ll still be so great to be together like old times. I definitely feel so at peace in the winter because a majority of people are at a happy state and have the holiday spirit. I honestly can't wait to go home to spend the holidays with everyone back at home, especially since there will be no classes for me during that time!

Project 3: Research-ed Topics

My intended major to study here at Illinois State University is the early education major. Since this research-ed project allows us to go into a deeper topic within our major. When researching what other topics that I can expand my ideas about teaching on is difficult, as they’re many sub-topics of teaching as a major. One topic that I came across in my research was possibly writing about how there is a shortage of teachers around the United States. Writing about this topic may be a little difficult though, as there are few shortages of teachers now except I could talk about shortages of teachers in specific areas of education. Whether the shortage is in subjects or the ages of teaching or grade levels.

Another topic that I came across was the issue with teachers and money. The issue is that there are a lot of teacher cuts lately because of schools or districts going into great debt. The teacher’s cuts have been occurring because of budget concerns within the districts. They can't be going into debt, so what they are cutting back on in schools are the teachers, more of the teachers that are new in the teaching field.

One topic that struck my attention greatly was teacher's salary. Teacher's salary has been an issue for a number of years. What I could expand on this idea would be how much money an average teacher makes in the United States. I could even go deeper into this idea by researching and comparing the amounts of money teachers make all around the world and explain why certain countries pay teachers more or less. Also with this topic I could go into an even more arguments of why some countries pay their teachers more, based on their educational values and economic levels.

Movies!

When it comes to picking out a movie to watch I find myself being not the normal girl. In my opinion I would pick out not the usual girl movies, those movies that guys hate seeing. An average girl would no doubt go to those mushy romantic movies or those "chick flicks." You know those types of movies that are so predictable it makes you think, why even bother watching this movie? There is always the man and woman, that everyone knows they are going to end up together, but they try to trick you by having some kind of event or obstacle that stops the two from falling in love.  Then towards the end of the movie they suddenly fall happily in love and live happily ever after and so on. In my opinion I find those movies being very boring and too dull for my entertainment. The types of movies that I enjoy watching are those high-action movies, comedies or horror flicks. I would much rather watch The Dark Knight over The Notebook any day. Yes, I do  know that the Notebook is one of the classic romantic movies out there-it was good, just not for me. I would rather be entertained by some high action going on or a scary movie where you are almost jumping out of your seat. Some of my personal favorites are The Dark Knight, Transformers, The Hangover, Wedding Crashers, The Longest Yard and Disturbia. These movies just grab my attention from beginning to end. These types of movies have a way of entertaining me so much that i want more and more of these types of movies, I never want to stop watching! I feel like I'm so not a typical girl at all when it comes to movies. I never want to watch romantic movies, and if I do happen to watch one with my friends I'm just not as into the movie as they are. As I see them crying over the movie, and I haven't found this to be so emotional enough to cry at.