Happy New Year!

Holy crap, it's been a long time since I've posted in this.

Well, Happy New Year to one and all who still reads this thing...or waits for updates to no avail. I've been so busy with work and everything that I tend to forget I have this. Then when one of my other artistic cohorts updates theirs, I think to myself, "Shit...I should update mine..." and then never do. Fail.

Since my little 9/11 post, things at work have been very bustling. It's taken a long while, with all of the changes being made to the classrooms and short staffing and school holidays (of which I forgot how AWESOME they could be). I'm finally starting to get things together for the "My Own World" project. It's been weird trying to formulate my own schedule for this, but I think we're finally starting to get things together for it. I just wish the weather were a little better to take some of the kids outside or that I was able to go on field trips with these kids without worrying about staffing. But we'll make it work.

In terms of my own stuff, I've done very little by way of any big projects. I've done a lot of little sketches and doodles here and there, just to keep my hands working. I know it seems a little ridiculous to say, considering I spent four years in art school and haven't done anything with it since graduating...but I've enjoyed my time working away from art and finding my teaching ground with special education.

When I had to teach at the museum, I had very little idea of how to teach or how to make a lesson plan. By the third day, I was winging everything and ready to go insane. Going back to Groden meant learning how to break even the easiest tasks down into simple steps for kids to understand, and setting goals that were reachable. If I had to teach another art class, I would definitely go in with a new mindset on how to teach those kids, and have a better patience threshold, too.

Of course...my tolerance for the kids with attitudes hasn't exactly changed all that much. Whoops.

In any case, that's pretty much been my life since September. With the added snippets of joining a gym after my 23rd birthday, celebrating Christmas in Jamestown, making new friends from work, getting ridiculously addicted to the Twilight series even knowing how horribly cheesy it is, discovering just how many people from my high school class are getting married/pregnant, and a bevy of other stories and incidents.

Here's to me being full of more than just one update every 4 months.

- Krista