Day 24: Happy Spring Break from the Pinay Teacher!

Spring Break is here!

Time for me to vacation!

Hope you all get rest!

Day 23: A Proud Pinay Teacher

    I did progress monitoring for all of my students in my caseload yesterday. I gotta say I am super proud of each and every one of them! They all have made so much progress since the last time I progress monitored them. There were some kids I was worried about, but I was very surprised by how much they know. It is spring break next week, so I am a little worried that all the information we just learned is going to be gone after that one week. I have faith though that some information will stick and hopefully when the kids come back from spring break I don't have to reteach them everything!

Day 22: A Broke Pinay Teacher

    I try to save money. I really do! There are just some things in life where I get tempted to purchase or experience... Today my friend bought tickets for our whole friend group to watch TWICE in Chicago! I am of course excited to watch TWICE since I've been a fan for the past 5 years, but that means more money being taken away from my bank account. I like to reason with myself that since they are a K-Pop group that they won't always come to the United States for a concert. Nowadays though more and more K-Pop groups come to the US for their tours so my reasoning is start to sound unreasonable. So far this is the second concert ticket that I purchased this 2023, but the Lollapalooza lineup just got released yesterday... The lineup is SO GOOD! I really wanna go, but I have no idea how much those tickets will be. There are other artists that just released their tour dates that are also tempting to purchase. I have so far restrained myself from buying those tickets (haha such as Taylor Swift), but I don't know how much longer until I give in to buy more concert tickets! 

Day 21: The Pinay Teacher and the Long Hospital Visit

    Just to preface, I did not go to the hospital for myself. I went with my mom to the University of Iowa Hospital to get her on the list for a kidney transplant. She has been having kidney problems for the past 10 years and only got on the list where we live this past year. To help increase her chances, we have been going to surrounding states and adding her to the kidney transplant list. Today was just a full day of learning more about kidney transplants and my mom having to do all these medical tests. The doctors kept emphasizing how a living kidney donor is the best option. Sadly no one in our family can donate a kidney due to other health issues. We are starting the process of finding a living donor, but also hoping that we will get that phone call from any of the hospitals. 

Day 20: A Hard Day for the Pinay Teacher

    Today will be a short post since it was a very rough day. I try to do my best to support kids every day as a learning behavior specialist, but it can be a battle. Today felt like I lost the battle and it's difficult to get back up. I know I will still get back up because I will do anything for my kids. I will keep saying to myself things will get better. I will continue to grow from the experience and know what to do better next time. I will keep serving my kids and be the support that they need.  

Day 19: The Pinay Teacher and the Surprise 21st Birthday Party

    Today is one of my very close friend's 21st birthday! I helped plan her surprise birthday party with her mom, boyfriend, and some of our friends. We had the party at a nice Spanish restaurant in the city. My friend was surprised until she saw some of our faces on the mirrors that were in the restaurant hahaha! The food was amazing and they had very tasty sangria. It was a very memorable 21st birthday for my friend and a fun time for all of us to catch up on life. Some of the highlights that I found out from some friends I haven't seen in a while is one of them is planning on going to Denmark for her undergraduate studies, another friend is going to study abroad in Japan for two weeks this summer, and another friend is graduating with his associate's degree in May! Lots of laughs and celebrations today:)

Day 18: The Pinay Teacher, Three Asian Stooges, Three Course Roulette

    I reunited with my high school best friends also known as the Three Asian Stooges! We were given that friend group name by our high school history teacher because we would always be up to no good in the hallways. Whenever we meet up, we always struggle on what to do together that's new and exciting. My one friend suggested that we do three course roulette. This is where each of us will either choose where to eat our appetizer, entre, and dessert. My friend chose to get some cheese fries at Portillo's. I chose for us to get tacos at Burrito Parrilla, and my other friend chose to get a dessert at H-Mart. It ended up that all the places we wanted to go to were on the same street. We realized that the next time we all hang out we can do a three course roulette again but in other main streets that have a bunch of food places. It was a lot of fun to do and had us explore restaurants we each would want to go to.