Learn to Teach.

I am officially a volunteer at a local elementary school! I am doing this with a class I'm taking for my gen. ed. courses for college. I'm so excited! I go every Friday with my class and we help out and teacher assist when it is needed.

The children are SO precious! They are hilarious and so inquisitive, always asking questions. I cannot wait to become a teacher...can I just skip over all of these required classes and get to it?! Not likely...

I'm currently with a first grade class, but this Friday we switch gears and get moved around to have a broad experience while we are there. It is so cool watching them interact with each other and it's you they are looking up to, that's a really great feeling and a big deal. I hate it when people say teaching is not a good job, or there's no money there. Sure, there might not be a six figure salary, but you impact the lives of so many people a day.

I know I still say, "I remember that from third grade," or "I learned that from my first grade teacher." Elementary school years, to me, are the years of our lives! I only wish I could go back. No worries, no problems.

Volunteering has been such an awesome time so far. I can't wait to have my own Pinterest-perfect classroom and impact the lives of "my children," as my third grade teacher would say, everyday! Yay, teaching!

Opportunity strikes when you least expect it.

As I sit here in my dorm room, of course thinking about all the things I could be doing besides this, I start to reflect on everything that has happened in the past couple of days. Today, in particular, I thought was one of the looooongest days of my life.

I have a Western History & Culture class that is three hours long, believe me when I say I'm not complaining about the time, because I could be taking a lab and that would be awful. But, I don't agree with anything the teacher says. I think it's because she wants to be some sort of therapist and college kids are the last people that want to listen to someone on "changing your life."

She gave us a big project today, that actually got my attention. We have to visit an organization committed to "the good life." One of the options she gave us was to go to a Buddhist temple or mosque. That sounded really different to me while I was sitting at the horrible swivel desk.

Isn't this what college is all about?

I started to think of how great this opportunity would be for me. I have grown up in the South and have attended many Baptist churches, but nothing like a Buddhist temple. I have heard stories of how beautifully crafted they are and how calm and welcoming they are too, but I've never put myself out there and visited one. How cool would that be?!

That was really the only thing I got out of the whole three hour period, but it was something to think about. On a more filling note, I got Chinese food for dinner. Oh!, how many ethnicities and religions impact our lives everyday that we never really pay attention to? Probably more than you'd think.

Back to Blogging!

I recently have been more into blogging and what better time to document my life then while I'm in college? For the past few weeks here, everything has been so exciting. I moved from a little beach town on the coast of NC to Charlotte! What a culture shock if I do say so myself. UNCC has been quite welcoming. I joined a youth group called Young Life and over the past weekend we went on the Great American Camp Out retreat. It was so fun!

We hiked to this beautiful waterfall and it was one of the coolest things I have ever gotten to experience. I'm so thankful that a poster on campus led me to this amazing group of people.

I'm going to continue with this blog in hopes of seeing my life change over the next four years. I really cannot stress enough how excited I am to see everything pan out. I definitely want teaching in my future. I feel like everything is right on track to where it's supposed to be and that's an awesome feeling to have as a freshman in college.