Education plus Dedication

One thing that I project to be really important when it comes to being a teacher is staying dedicated. So many teachers become bored or full of angst with their work that they give up. This is not something that I want to do.

This article by the Washington post exemplifies this idea and I think that it's significant as a pre-service teacher to recognize this. Half of all teachers quit within five years. My professor for my Foundations of Education class last year warned us that teaching was hard, but that it gets better.

I recently had an interview with Steve Smith, and English and social studies teacher at Hancock High school for 26 years, and he said, "teaching doesn't get easier, it becomes more manageable."I asked him how he stays motivated and dedicated as a teacher and he told me to keep writing.

This blog is me writing to stay sane so that I can stay dedicated to my work. Even if I won't make that much money.

Heart Berries

This is an image that I did not create on accident. My family went on a raspberry picking trip--as we usually do in the summer--and my brother found a heart-shaped berry. Knowing that I'm a sucker for anomalies in nature and things that are just generally cute/awesome, he showed it to me. I stole it and put it in a basket with other berries (cleverly for contrast) and took the picture that you see here.

It's honestly one of my favorite photos that I've ever taken. Not just because it's pretty, but because I like the story that goes along with it. 

Mine

Brace for tacky & cheesy.


This is my boyfriend. I'm really bad at coming up with nicknames so I just call him "mine" because that's what he is to me, and I'm just a liiiittle possessive (he's really clever and came up with Manda-Bear for me--Manda rhymes with panda, and pandas are bears). I'm posting photos of him not to weird you out or anything of the sort. I like taking pictures of him; it's kind of a bonding experience thing. For the record, I like it more than he does. ;)

One of the first things we did together was I dyed his hair purple. It was a nice bonding experience. We weren't even dating at this point.

This photo was not taken in a public bathroom. It was taken in a public sauna room. Yes, we are in the UP (sauna-land). 

The purple occurred with some malfunction with my camera, I enhanced it in Photo Shop though. Purple hair, purple picture.

Watching my mom get a tattoo together. My parents really like him.

Eye see you. *rim shot!*

This one's kind of trippy. And no I don't mean to stereotype hookah smokers as stoners or anything with the way I made this image. Promise.

He's such a kid (not a baby goat, a person that knows how to have fun).

I might post more on this topic later. Sorry if this offends you; I'm really not trying to be personal and ooey-gooey.

Maturity: Time and Place

This is my dad at a zoo (No, not abusing an animal. He just wanted a closer look at the big kitty on the top lounge-shelf-thing).

My dad's birthday is on and he's turning 42 years old. But really, he's just a big kid. When I was growing up, I was surrounded by big kids--mostly my parents friends/coworkers (my mom worked at the school I went to). Now, I don't know how, but by the age of 12, I had the maturity of... well, my dad. I was mature (sometimes too mature) when I had to be, but I knew how to have fun and be a kid.

My family has this phrase that we say all the time. "Time and place!" My mom usually has to say it. This phrase is a shortened version of "There is a time and place for everything."This is to keep my family sane and appropriate because sometimes we can be over the top and too immature.

Sometimes, it's just fun to break the rules and be a kid. This I know because I have some rad parents... and I'm a college student.

Mom's sunglasses

I'm not trying to be self loving here, but my favorite pictures of myself are of a reflection of me taking a picture of something. And no, I'm not talking about those damn myspace-phone camera-in the bathroom pics.


Here are a few photos of me and my mom.

On the playground at my mom's place of employment.

On a road trip to the UP to visit my brother.

In the UP visiting my brother. I really like this one because there's a reflection of me in one lens of her sunglasses and a reflection of my brother in the other. Aw... family!

Like the rest of my family I love my mom. I think she's really cool. We have kind of a lot in common with each other (not to say that I'm really cool or anything). I've learned a lot from her. 

Burn those books!

One thing that really pisses me off about the end of the school year is when people burn their school books. Sure you may call me a nerd or stuck up, but I think there are better things to be done with these used pieces of writing, even if they aren't going to be used for future classes. 

This image is of an old World Cultures book used at Michigan Tech. I enjoyed the photo op and setting things on fire is fun, but since I've read The Book Thief by Markus Zusak, I've been uneasy about the subject. 

RainWater

One of my favorite things to photograph in nature is the condition of things after a rain. This is most productive if it's sunny out while the surface is still wet, to help with the lighting. Gloomy photos are gloomy. 

Some photos just turn out and I don't even ask them too. This photo was pretty much an accident. I don't mean to discredit my work, but in creativity, accidents happen and sometimes they're good accidents. 

One thing that I think is really cool is seeing things refracted/reflected through rain drops; even when I'm not taking pictures. It's cool how the drops act as little lenses. 

Spider Webzz! I think they're really cool. Spiders, not so much, but when I see a spider web, I get all excited to take a picture of it. Especially when it's created on something really cool. Like a holly plant. And has rain drops on it. Like this one.

I don't mean to brag, but this one was really exciting to take. I love lilies and this one was really cool with how the dew had collected in troughs of the petals. Also, the petals and water looks really sugary. Like frosting. Yum. Now I'm imagining that this flower is from Willy Wonka. But it's in black and white so it would probably taste like licorice. Not so yum.

Wet fuzzies. I'm not a huge fan of this kind of plant, but I thought it was really cool how the water was collecting in the bristles of this bushy plant.

I'm a water person (including in Pokemon) and I think there's not a lot more exciting than seeing cool dew formations on things in nature. I hope you agree a little bit so I don't sound so much like a ditz. Sunsets are cool too, I just think water (being such an essential part of nature) is really cool when it's doing interesting things. Like clinging to a spider web.

All of the photos in this post are taken of things covered in rain or dew. Some of my photos of water-covered objects, however, are me "cheating." Other photo's that I have taken with water are objects that I have spritzed/misted with a water bottle. 

Dance

One thing that I find to be really difficult when it comes to photography, is getting the right setting for the correct lighting. This is very apparent when I am inside and taking photos of a performance.


When I went to Hope College for a year after high school, I was hired as the photo editor for the Milestone yearbook. This meant that I not only edited all of the photos for the book, but I also had to attend and shoot many events. One of the hardest was taking photos of a dance performance.


The following photos were taken at a dress rehearsal for Dance 35. Hope College--Holland, Michigan.

When I was going through photos that I took from this event, I noticed that after flipping through all of the files at a fairly quick rate, that I could make a movie. My method for taking photos for this was: just keep shooting. Haha. The affect is pretty cool and as soon as I have some more free time, I think I'm going to figure out how to stream all of the photos together to make a quick vid.

News and Media visualized

The feeling we get when we see a local news station truck:
Oh, wow,
Maybe I can be on TV
I wonder what can possibly be happening in Holland, Michigan?
Look at her hair! It's just as big as it looks on TV.


I took this photo to capture those feelings and what it's like to feel the impact of media on society--even on a small scale.

This photo was taken in Holland, Michigan on the campus of Hope College during the norovirus outbreak of spring 2008. Yes, there was much news coverage.