Wednesday, December 01, 2010

I wish I had known that there are a few things that have to come with experience. I really wanted to be perfect for my first session but now I know that is never going to happen, but that is what I love about this job. I also wish that I would have known that it is ok to smile. I am not a professional and I don't have to be an expert; that is why we have reference books in the writing center. I wish I had known how to use them successfully before my first session. I wish I had known that this semester was going to FLY by! I wish I had known that I was going to enjoy being a writing tutor as much as I do!

Tuesday, November 30, 2010

Wish You'd Known

At the end of every semester, we ask the same question: what do you wish you'd known when you began tutoring that you know now? What advice about tutoring (or the class) would you give new tutors next year?

I Needed Thanksgiving This Year

I had never looked forward to Thanksgiving as much as I did this year. I needed a break. However, it started out with the "blizzard" warning, which was supposedly going to hit when I was going to drive home to Alpine (an hour and forty minutes away). So I frantically got out of Ogden, as if to avoid some mass destruction. I was almost disappointed when nothing blizzardish hit. The rest of the week was great. I finally got to see my dad who is recovering from having his shoulder replaced. He gets to sit in this cool chair that moves his arm for six hours a day--so fun, right? I watched a mystery with my dad, a chick flick with a friend, and musicals with my sisters-- the classics: Oklahoma and Fiddler on the Roof. I made 140 homemade rolls for Thanksgiving with my Mom, and I now understand why she doesn't make them often. It took SIX HOURS! I felt so domestic. They were delicious, if I say so myself. Thanksgiving was filled with family and some random friends of family. All and all there were twenty six of us. We had a young man from Pakistan with us who is going to BYU, apparently Muslims and Mormons have many of the same codes of conduct (that's what he told us). My mom, sisters, and I went Black Friday shopping at about 4PM and found success. I worked on my Bibliographic Essay most of Saturday. Sunday I got to see people from the Pacific Islands and Africa see snow for the first time, which was pretty funny. They were rolling around it in church clothes :) Then Sunday I came home and with no blizzard warning there was a blizzard twenty million times worse than said "blizzard" Tuesday. The ironies of life. 40 MPH on the freeway for two hours, almost killed twelve times, carrying belongings into house in a foot of snow equals the price for a wonderful Thanksgiving!