JAGUAR

I'm a Jaguar now!!! I will be teaching at Orem Junior High School next year! I could go on and on with exclamation points because no one will ever understand how excited I am. This is going to be such a good job and I am so happy. After 6 different interviews I knew I was going to find the perfect fit. My interview here lasted 2 hours people! I chatted with the entire social sciences department for over an hour on topics ranging from kids, discipline, marriage, Nordstrom, Diet Coke (the supposed drink from the Gods for teachers but I think I will stick with Dasani). I mean we just talked about everything and they were all so nice. The best part is that I walked into the classroom and there was my friend Allison Jensen from my program at BYU. She also got hired on for next year so I get to work with her! She is one of the most amazing people I have ever met (she actually lived next door to Grandma and Grandpa in Germany). I will do a few things over the summer with the social sciences department and my first required day with the district is August 11! I am so happy, nothing can get in my way. I hope everyone can have their dreams and goals all come together like mine just have. My dream was simple: to teach junior high. Here I am seizing it! I have to give a shout out to my mom and dad and friends and family who coached me through this long waiting period. Love to you all.

CERTIFIED SCHOLAR

HUGE DEAL: I passed the Praxis test!!! That's right folks, I can now graduate and be a teacher. For those of you who are not schooled in the hell that is the Praxis test I will inform you. As part of No Child Left Behind (which I have serious issues with), teachers now have to take an exam in their content area before they can graduate and before they can teach. Well I had to take the history Praxis test which is not hard...it is super hard. The test is 120 question of pure awful. There are study guides for almost every content area except history so you just kind of have to learn everything from forever ago to today. Thats thousands and thousands and thousands and thousands of years people!

I spent days just reading everything I could get my hands on about history, particularly ancient world history as that is a black hole in my knowledge pool. I woke up at 6:30am on SATURDAY March 15 (Josh's birthday) to trek it up to BYU campus to take my test at 7. The test took 2 hours and the questions were really hard. They have free reign to ask you anything, literally anything that has ever happened in the world. Dates, art, rulers, civilizations, periods, wars, dynasties, people, acts, bills, and anything inbetween. And trust me, they asked me all of that crap.

The complete torture that was the Praxis test lasted for 5 weeks after taking it while I awaited my scores. I was physically ill as I curled in a ball in my closet debating whether or not I should even open up my results. Good thing I did because I passed hard core. So if any of you are looking to give someone a gift for how awesome they are, you can save some time figuring out who that should be and send it my way. This test kicked my trash but I kicked it right back passing (not to be cocky), by a large margin!

GRANDMA AND THE RACE

As I am sure many of you know, my obsession with breast cancer started because of my Grandma Belnap. She developed breast cancer twice, years apart from each other. I don't remember her first battle but the second I do remember as I watched her go from one boob to zero , loose her hair, go through chemo, and still be as funny as ever. She came out of the second bout with cancer and has been an extremely healthy (not including the knee replacement) and active grandma.

She inspired me to want to do something so I did. About five years ago I just started reading everything I could about breast cancer and during my sophomore year at BYU I heard about the 3Day. I automatically signed up and pledged that I would raise nearly $3000.00. This didn't seem like it was going to be too hard but little did I find out that raising money in a poor college town with poor college students all around is not the easiest task. After this point I became addicted and dedicated to breast cancer. The theme of my 22 birthday party was breast cancer.

This Saturday (May 10) four of the Belnap kids - Heidi, Lindsay, Josh, Ashley - will participate in the RACE FOR THE CURE in Salt Lake. This race means a little bit more because I just found out that my grandma's breast cancer metastasized and she is know fighting bone cancer that has spread throughout her body, including her lungs. She's a fighter though so lets hope she still has that in her.

I could really use my parents right about now as a lot of crap has been piling up in my life between family (grandma, Jaimee breaking her leg, worrying about mom and dad) school (graduating, finding a job, being a grown up, knowing enough to teach, being a good teacher) and then theres the Corey issue (always a constant in my life but now a much more interesting twist in our friendship). I think I just need to take a vacation from my life and that vacation needs to be in Lake Powell.

GLENN BECK

This is long overdue. I love Glenn Beck. He and I are kindred spirits politically, humorously, and spiritually. This man owns my life weeknights from 7-8 pm with his CNN Headline News program. Leslie and I are his biggest groupies. Yeah thats right, Glenn Beck has groupies.

For those of you who are not subscribed to his daily emails, don't frequent the Glenn Beck website, or if you don't even know who I am talking about I will give you some Glenn info. Glenn started as a regular radio DJ in Connecticut and worked his way through brilliance and charm to a nationally syndicated radio show. In 2006, CNN gave him his own primetime news show and he has been blessing the lives of American homes ever since. He is a comedian/news anchor/genius/conservative/political analyst/economist/future president/Mormon. Basically Glenn Beck has it all. We see eye to eye on a lot of issues concerning the presidential election, the economy, oil, McCain not being a true conservative, polygamy raids, and cats (Glenn thinks that people who have more than 3 cats should be committed).

I first knew I was in love with Glenn when I saw his program right after President Hinckley died. I was already a Beck fan but my love jumped to a whole new level. You should check out his tribute to President Hinckley on youtube. Also look at his website and the wikipedia article (copy and paste the links because I am too lazy to hyperlink them). He came from drug addict to Mormon, what a champ you are Glenn! Please let me be on your show!!!


President Hinckley tribute:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z58eHBnEHhk

Mitt Romney on Glenn Beck = dream team:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jN36O_l9xGg&feature=related

Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glenn_Beck

Glenn Beck website
http://www.glennbeck.com/index.php