Saturday, February 20, 2010

Andrew and Rachel (Seely) Grover


We are still in Provo. Andrew is working on a Masters in Public Administration and Rachel is teaching Hum 101 at BYU and absolutely loving it. Since London we dated, Andrew decided to major in Linguistics and get minors in Spanish and Arabic, Rachel graduated in English and Humanities, we got married, we went to more school, and we moved to Jordan for four months. In Jordan we lived part of the time at a research center where Rachel worked on her MA thesis and part of the time with a wonderful Palestinian family where Andrew could practice his Arabic. We also traveled a bit in the Middle East and Andrew finally met Rachel's brother Joseph who came home from his mission to Jerusalem, where the rest of the Seelys were at the time. Last year our darling daughter Miriam arrived the week we graduated (Andrew in Linguistics and Rachel with her MA in Art History). She is the joy of our lives and is now 10 months old! We hope this finds you all doing well, we have loved reading your updates.

Friday, February 5, 2010

Meagan (still) Lake

Hello, friends! It has been so long! TOO long! It's been wonderful to read about what you're all up to these days--where you are and the "great and important things" you're doing with your lives. I miss you, and I'm glad to hear that you're doing well!

For an update on me, here it is: I graduated from BYU in August 2008, then moved to Salt Lake and spent that fall interning with the Ensign. When the internship ended in December, I was unemployed and living with my grandparents (which was the awesome part of that equation.) After about a month of job searching, I ended up with a job as an aide in the special ed program at Park City High School. I started it thinking that it would be a short-term thing, and ended up LOVING it. I worked primarily with a boy with Asperger's and a blind girl. It was an awesome job. I got to hang out with teenagers, and learn Braille, and watch all those awkward high school moments but not be in them, and all sorts of other rocking things that got me really excited about teaching.

So when the school year ended, I quit, and in August I packed all of my worldly possessions into my rapidly-deteriorating 1995 Nissan Maxima and drove across the country to start grad school at the University of Virginia. I'm in my second semester of the Master in Teaching program here (Secondary English Education) and am in love with the school, the program, Charlottesville (the city UVa is in), and pretty much life. I'm observing/teaching a 7th grade English class in this total hickville middle school that's out in the middle of nowhere, and it is a RIOT. Those kids are GREAT!! My favorite story so far from my time with them is when we were reading a story about a boy who stumbles across a rattlesnake as he's walking one summer morning. He decides to kill the snake, but has a brief moment of internal conflict over destroying something so perfect and natural. I paused at that part of the story and asked the kids, "have any of you ever had a conflict like that with yourself?" Hunter (who happened to be decked out in camo that day) shot his hand into the air. "Yes, Hunter?" I said. "Well," he jumped in with his adorable southern drawl (written phonetically for effect), "I sorta had something lahke thayt happen when ah killed ma first deer, but then I jus looked down the barrel of the gun and shaht." Oscar's hand quickly went up after that. I called on him. "Ah kinda had the same thing with ma first deer, but I ain't never had a problem killin' squirrels!"

This is my life. And I absolutely love it.

I'll graduate next May (2011), and then will begin teaching high school English. I have absolutely no idea where I'll be living, so that will be one more grand adventure to live out in my own short story :)

We're getting hit with our third snowstorm in a week here, and oddly enough, snow sort of cripples central Virginia. Even the university shut down today, which apparently has happened only once or twice since Thomas Jefferson started this little place. Who would have thought?!

Anyhow. I, like many others, also have a blog, although it's a private one. But I'd love to add you if you want to be added :) To do so, go here.

Love to all,
Meagan