It has been quite a while since my last update, but I can guarantee you that I have remained busy. It is midterm week here at Elmira College. Thankfully, I only have one midterm in Foundations of Education! The test should be fairly easy since it is a 1000 level course (that I need to graduate, of course), and I already have 100% on a section that was worth 30% of the midterm grade. I am not too worried.
I have been incredibly busy in classes, though my lowest grade thus far is an A- in Animal Behavior. I am hoping to finish out the term and to bring my overall GPA to a 3.8. I am hoping that this will help me with medical school applications, which are due really, really soon!
Apart from a never-ending pile of schoolwork and labs, I have also had practices for cheerleading. I know that this is not going to make sense to many people, but I have a consistent standing tuck and star-toe-tuck now! I have also been working my roundoff handspring layout, I just need to go higher. Our team is hitting skills that we have only dreamed about for the past four years. I am so happy to be on such a talented team that has the opportunity to be beyond successful this year! I was also voted captain by my teammates! We have four captains this year, which may seem excessive, but it works for us. We all compliment each other very well and have strengths where others have weaknesses.
Through cheerleading, I have been participating in the Elmira College SOAR program. The SOAR program is a program through which student athletes volunteer their time to go into and area elementary school and provide their assistance with primarily reading to one classroom. Two members from each sports team volunteer to participate in this program. I along with a freshman, Alice, have volunteered for cheerleading. Those two members are then assigned a classroom that they are to help with for the year. We are assigned to a fourth grade classroom, which we got to meet today. We are there from 12:30-1:30 every Thursday and we are able to assist them with ELA (English Language Arts) mostly, but hopefully with some science too! The children were very excited when I told them that I was a biology major and that I get to take a lot of science classes. They were also had a lot of questions about what college is like, how much work we have, how we got into cheerleading, and what teams we cheer for. It was great to see their interest in higher education and every student raised their hand when they were asked if they were planning on attending college when they were older. Some even had their college choices all set! Though I did not hear any for Elmira College...Their teacher was actually a graduate of Elmira College and played hockey here. A lot of the teachers at this elementary school have some connection to Elmira College, which was nice to see. We were able to help them with ELA today where they were reading a play. I was surprised by the types of words they were expected to know at that grade level. I have to admit that fourth grade is in the distant past for me, but I do not remember having to know what "indignantly" meant. The class was so enthusiastic about reading and learning in general. They greatly impressed me with how well they read and how well they could define difficult words. I cannot wait to return next week and to again help them. I am also going to talk to their teacher to see if I can talk to them about being Miss Fulton County and about my platform because it is truly meant for their age group.
It is unfortunately time to study for my education midterm, so I will have to end this here. I promise to update sooner than I did this past time!
