Welcome!

Hello! This is my first time every creating a blog. I suppose I cannot refer to myself as an anti-blogger anymore. . . First of all, I am really looking forward to our class meetings. I am really eager to learn about the technological side of teaching, since I don't consider myself very familiar with anything online other than AIM, Facebook, and email.

Second, I'd like to tell you a little about myself. My name is Melanie, but everyone calls me Mimi. I have a twin sister named Melissa, but everyone calls her Missy. How did we get these nicknames? When my older brother was younger and we were born, he couldn't pronounce our names. All he could get out was "Mimi" and "Missy." We both decided to come to the U of I because of the excellent reputation and the awesome school colors of blue and orange. I applied to the University of Iowa and Purdue, both of which had the same ugly school colors as my high school (black and gold), so Illinois just stood out. I knew I was interested in Math and I always thought about teaching, so I figured Illinois was a great school for me. If teaching didn't work out, I could always head in the accounting direction (which I'm glad I didn't because I've heard it's a bit on the boring side. . . no offense, accountants! )

I am 98% sure I still want to teach. The only thing that keeps me a bit skeptical is the issue of classroom control. I'm not really a controlling person. A few years ago, I would have considered myself someone who lets people walk all over them on occasion, and I don't think this is the type of person that should be heading a classroom. Now, I feel this campus and my experiences have helped me become a completely different, better, more outgoing person, but I suppose it still concerns me a bit.

Why did I choose math? It always seemed the easiest to me, and I also loved that you could check yourself in different ways if you were unsure of yourself - a method not so useful on Literature or History tests. Plus, so many people have this terrible fear or severe hatred of the subject, and I want to try and convince as many people as I can that it is a fun and useful subject.

Where am I going? CRAZY! I am taking what I've heard to be the hardest math class in the sequence on this campus this semester, and I am also trying to get two jobs - an America Reads America Counts tutoring position and a Calculus I tutoring position. I know that when I student teach, I want to head north to the southern suburbs of Chicago. I know that this is where I want to live after I graduate because I love being near the city (No offense Chambana residents), so the sooner I start getting inside those schools, the better. This does make me a little sad because I won't be on campus the last semester of my college career :-(

As for now, I am just enjoying myself and absorbing as much information as I can. They say these are the best years of our lives, so I'm trying to have as much fun as I can getting involved on this campus!