Oh hello, I didn't see you standing there.

I suppose I should introduce myself. Hi, I'm Lauren! I'm very excitable at this moment so please bear with me. Like many college students do when they have free time, I took a nap today. Although I was curled up in an awkward ball in the living room chair, it was nice to sleep for a little while.

Let me back up a few steps. I'm a Secondary Education student at the University of Maine at Farmington with a concentration in social studies and a focus in history. I don't live on campus. I never have. I also work and take dance classes on top of going to school full time so the free time I had to nap this afternoon was rare.

I'm in a class known as practicum. Most students either groan or nod their heads in understanding when the "p" word is uttered. For education majors, practicum is a 12 credit block of classes that is a combination of classroom learning and field experience. It is a lot of work. Half of the semester is spent in a local middle or high school teaching and gaining field experience while the other half is spent in the classrooms learning about how to plan classes, write lesson plans, integrating technology into classrooms, and manage the classes. Even though practicum students are only in the classroom for half of the semester, the amount of work is the same, but it is compacted into a very short amount of time. It is a fantastic journey, but a very tiring one.


Working also takes a lot out of me. While I was in the classroom, my manager was good enough to schedule me to work mainly on the weekends so I had the week to do my homework. When working 20 hours a week, that usually means a long shift or two. By long shift I mean 8-10 hours. I'm used to working 10 hour shifts, they don't bother me. But when I'm running on a few hours of sleep and have a crap-ton of homework for Monday, then it's going to bother me. Or working when I've had little sleep, that's fun too.

As I type this, I realize that it's quite negative and I titled this blog "A Sunny Disposition." Whoops. I usually have a positive outlook on life. Like over the summer when my roommate brought home a kitty. We had been talking about getting a pet for a while and one morning I got a picture from her of this incredibly cute kitten that was a stray and wouldn't leave her alone. We decided to give him a home and he was very happy about that. He may be a pain in the butt because he loves to shred cardboard boxes and paper, but he's still our Demitri.

This is Demitri Sheldon Hobbs. He forgets how to cat sometimes.

Demitri loves to cuddle and run around. We often find him laying in weird positions and/or in weird spots. Like the other day when he shoved his head between the cushion and the back of the couch while he was sleeping. Or the time I got back from grocery shopping and he hopped into the reusable shopping bag once it was emptied. He's our special goober kitty.

We have only had Demitri for four months and I already have so many stories about him that I just have to share because they are cute, funny, or they make me shake my head. I've told so many in class that my classmate probably know as much about him as how to integrate technology into a classroom.

Well I need sleep, so I'm going to bed now. Stay shiny.