The Home Stretch...

Hey, all!

What can I say?

Only two more weeks (and a couple of days) until I'm going back to Indiana. I have loved most of my time here, but I am SO READY to be home. This next week is starting to phase me out of my classroom... :( I'm excited to have a little bit lighter load, but also sad that I'll be leaving all my kiddos here. I cannot tell you how many times I have been called mom in the past few weeks, which really makes me laugh. So many of my kids in my classroom randomly call me mom on accident, but the girls at the dorm seem to do it on purpose. I always tell them, "I'm too young to be your mom!"

Tonight was our Thanksgiving program. We wrote an acrostic poem about what Thanksgiving meant to us. I will probably post it later. The program was fantastic. You could tell people put a lot of effort into doing the different parts of the program. I would post pictures and the videos I have of the two dance groups, but I don't have permission of parents to have photos/videos of their children on the Internet.

I'm really hoping the next two weeks fly by. I'm going to miss the people here at the school, but I am more ready to graduate (25 days!!!), get my teaching certification finished, and find a job. I know I want to be close to home. If there's anything this experience taught me, it's that I need that support system of mine nearby. It was kind of a struggle being out here with just the other student teachers, but it made me a bit stronger. I had to deal with certain feelings and emotions on my own without those I love most physically nearby. That was really hard. I love being able to just sit down with my friends and hang out. That's when we have the deeper conversations. Just the "hey, how has your week been?" for the past 14 weeks has been rough. I've been able to have semi-deep conversations with friends on video chat and whatnot, but I miss the face-to-face, real-life connection.

I also miss my churches. Both of them. So much. The churches I've attended here have been great, but there's something about my home churches (in Mooresville and Bloomington) that these churches just didn't have. Maybe it's the people. That's all a church really is. I did enjoy the people at both of the churches I attended, but there's something about being at Calvary, seeing Jackie McDonald's smiling face, getting a hug from Debbie T., or hearing Mike and Barbie sing. There's something about seeing Pastor Stewart and his family come into the building on Sunday mornings, all six children in tow. There's something about Life Line, being around all of the friends from my teenage years, hearing Pastor Tim preach, going to our large Sunday School classroom with the College kids and another class. There's something about seeing my best friends and worshiping God with them. I miss it, and I just can't wait to be home.

I miss all my family and friends so much. My dad changed his profile picture on Facebook to a picture of him and me from my senior prom. I almost cried, because I felt like that was his way of saying he misses me and can't wait for me to be home. I miss seeing my mom. I showed a picture of my family to my cooperating teacher, and she said I look just like her. I do, and I miss seeing her so much. I miss my friends. I miss having sleepovers and talking in parking lots until our parents are wondering where in the world we are because we said we'd be home an hour ago. I miss hanging out at Megan or Lyndsey's house and playing games with everyone. (Which, by the way, should totally happen much more often than it does...) I miss randomly going over to Rusty's apartment to hang out and watch TV or get OrangeLeaf frozen yogurt. :) I miss going to Brittany and Stacy's apartment and cooking in their kitchen or making trips to Walmart because it's so close.

I miss things being less than an hour away. The closest Walmart is over an hour away. The closest big city is 2 hours (and some change) away. Luckily we have some amenities here (a video store, movie theater, grocery store, 4 fast food chains, and several restaurants), but it's still like an hour and a half to a Walmart. That took some getting used to. Not that I needed to go to Walmart a lot,  but it would've been nice to have a place to kill time where people didn't notice you walking around so much. Bashas' (our grocery store) does, however, have much better music than Walmart. Does Walmart even have music? I don't remember, to tell the truth. Now it's Christmas music (which should wait until at least this Friday), but they used to play the hits from the 80's and 90's. It was amazing.

I miss trees. It sounds weird, but it's true. the only trees I've really seen on the Rez have been pinyon trees and a couple of cottonwoods (WHICH I HAVE AT HOME!!) in a town called Cottonwood.

I miss cooking and baking. So. Much. No ovens/stoves are in the dorm, so I've been making everything in the microwave or just eating food you don't need to cook. I am stoked for this weekend, for I will be making a pie. And possibly lots of other things.

Well... That's about all I really need to say tonight. Bottom line is that I miss home so much, and cannot wait to be back. However, these next few weeks will be bittersweet, as is leaving any place. I'm just hoping I make it through alive and well, without too many tears. :)