Biting My tongue

Girl Surfer 1: Man I like really want a tattoo. This girl that was here before got this really awesome tattoo that said "peace" in Arabic, it was like so cool.

Guy Surfer: Uh ya except she's going back and enlisting in the military, which is ironic...

Girl surfer 1: ya it like really made me want to get a tattoo.

Me: WTF!!!!

Sidenote:

My hair may just self-dread by the time this month is over.

A good ass-kicking

So I think it's fair to say that with all my indulgence (which I have very much enjoyed) this past month, I have needed a solid ass-kicking. I think this month will give me exactly that, and I love it.

Yesterday we began our surfing and yoga classes. At 2:30, we went to the beach for two hours of surfing fun...or waves kicking our asses repeatedly, whatever. It went a little something like this: Fight the waves until you get to the surf instructor, climb on the board, clinging to the edges for dear life, get pushed into the wave, attempt to stand (or not), fail, grab the board and do it all over again. For two hours. I mean, I kind of enjoyed the physically arduous task of getting tossed around helplessly for two hours...err...masochistic? Maybe. Needless to say, I did not gracefully stand up on the board and ride a beautiful Costa Rican wave as of yet, but what's the rush? We have a whole month!

An hour and a half after, we enter yoga class one, complete with jelly-like limbs from our previous debacle. I don't know which was more taxing, the physical exhaustion from trying to contort my body in vinyassa poses for an hour and a half, or the mental exhaustion from trying to reach a meditative state as mosquitoes eat my body alive. Next time, I will lather my body in bug spray.

And today, we do it all over again. I have to say, there is something gloriously relaxing about spending a month doing physically draining activities...They keep you focused in the present and don't give your mind the downtime necessary to obsess over anything remotely stressful or draining.

All in all, I could get used to this.

Monteverde: Cloud Forest

The cloud forest en Monteverde has a series of 8 hanging bridges that allow one the surreal experience of floating above the tree tops and amongst the clouds.




It was a challenge to capture everything we were taking in via photos...



But this is a small taste.



Que disfruten.

Color accent happy

Gabs and my biggest struggle: naps. Yes, naps. We take them, convinced that we will wake up refreshed for a night on the town, but instead end up sleeping well through the night and into the morning hours.

Today we break that trend. It is 9:00 pm and we are sitting at a bar watching el partido de fútbol entre Costa Rica y El Salvador, with dos imperiales and our computers. Life is good.

Needless to say, today was a day of indulgence...but I suppose that has been the story of my life for the past month, and will likely be the story of my life for the near future.

After breakfast, complete with Gallo Pinto (which I have been craving since my days in Nicaragua) and fresh fruit (which Gabby loves...ha), we were whisked off towards Volcán Arenal and the Baldí hot springs.


One of the major highlights of our trek was our discovery of the color accent setting on our cameras. This setting has opened a world of picture-taking possibilities.



If you thought I was camera-happy before...you have no idea what this has done to me.




After a few tourist detours, we stopped for a "light lunch" which consisted of mounds of food at an open buffet, followed by a half hour full-body massage.

We then hit up the Tabacón hot springs...



The hot springs are near el volcán and are tucked into the rainforest. On a good day you can see the volcano from them.


On a day like today, the steam, mist, and fog all blend in together with the springs and waterfalls. I'll take it.



We decided that Tabacón is great honeymoon spot, or a great retired folks vacation spot. While it looks tranquil in the pics, it's actually an upscale hotel of sorts. If you ever venture to Tabacón, steer clear of the overpriced pool bar.



And this is when Gabby almost lost her swimsuit to the waterfall:



And some more color accents:




After our hot spring adventures and some more food indulgence, we finally arrived in pitch darkness to watch the flowing lava of el volcán...and what we saw was...nada. Darkness. Here are some pictures of us admiring the theoretical active volcano that exists behind the clouds:





All in all, I'm quite satisfied with this day, but the gluttony makes me crave a month of surfing, yoga and minimal eating binges even more. Now it's time for some more imperial and fútbol. Tomorrow, Monteverde.

For San Jose Adventures...

Check out Gabby's blog. She is hi-la-ri-ous.

Planeando

I've been here less than 24 hours and I think I'm extending my stay...




July 2: Explore San José, especialmente el mercado
July 3: Monteverde for rainforest and canopy tours
July 4th: Volcán Arenal and Baldí hot springs
July 5th-30th: Surfing and Yoga in Jacó. Weekend trips include kayak and snorkeling, waterfall hike, and a trip to the Caribbean Coast to meet up with Berger around Tortuguero.
July 30th-August 4th: Granada Nicaragua
August 5th: Return to NYC.

En Costa Rica

After a crazy whirlwind of finishing my first year as a teacher, moving apartments, and celebrating MJ with some of my favorite people, Gabby and I have begun our Costa Rican Adventures.

We are currently in San Jose in a neighborhood called Barrio Amón. The cab driver was trying really hard to convince us not to come to this part of San Jose, but my trusted Lonely planet says it's the safest neighborhood to stay for tourists, so I'm feeling a little confused. So far it seems pleasant enough, although I don't want to spend too much time in the city.

We have five days before our surfing and yoga program begins in Jacó, so we'll spend today figuring out how to maximize those days before we take off.

I don't know if anyone still reads this blog, but I'll try to keep it updated during my month here, if for nothing else, then for conserving the clarity of memories made.

H1N1CATION!

PS 161 was shut down by the chancellor from Thursday May 28th until Tuesday June 2nd because of an unusually high number of absences due to flu-like symptoms. Hope no cases are confirmed...

On the plus side...that means 5 days of unexpected vacation!

Heeeya!

I just have to say:

This weekend made me smile. A lot.

Before Celebrating...

Before jumping up and down in celebration of my student's progress in their English Language Arts standardized test scores, it's important to critically examine the political motivations for showing gains in this year's test scores.

Seems to me that Bloomberg needs the scores to look good for his political ambitions, and the test was perhaps conveniently easier this year...

Standardized tests are just political ploys. They mean nothing.

Collaborative Team Teaching

I just spent the last four hours having a mind-blowing conversation about creating an inquiry-based CTT classroom next year. I can't describe how grateful I am to be exactly where I am today-working at my school with talented and inspiring colleagues and friends. Building off of the ideas of talented, ambitious and passionate teachers and learners makes me passionate about life, the work I get to do every day, and the movement we are creating together.

It's official:

A month of surfing and yoga in Costa Rica.

Wednesday, July 1, 2009
New York John F Kennedy Intl (JFK)
Departure (JFK): July 1, 6:00 AM
Arrival San Jose Juan Santamaria Intl (SJO): July 1, 11:45 AM CST (morning)


Saturday, August 1, 2009
San Jose Juan Santamaria Intl (SJO)
Departure (SJO): August 1, 11:35 AM
Arrival (ATL): August 1, 5:56 PM

Decisions Decisions

Where do I spend my summer?
Yoga and surfing here?
or teaching and beaching here?
My life is so difficult.

A Perfect NY day includes:

-A beautiful day on the beach
-Jewelery shopping on the streets of Soho
-A friend's friend's art gallery
-Closing out Essex

Sigh. My life is wonderful.

Where did time go?

I only have 9 weeks left with my kids. What? What happened to time? As crazy as my class is, it just hit my how much I'm going to miss them. I really love them, and they know that. The other day during a "community meeting" about respect, one student said, "Ms. Sadek you care about us too much." Another chimed in, "Ya for real! You like our mom!" Then another, "My mom doesn't even care about me this much!"

My heart melted.

It got me thinking...should I loop up to sixth grade with my kids that will be staying at our middle school? Would I be able to handle the hormonal tantrums of my kids as sixth graders? Do I want to do another year of not knowing the curriculum of that grade?

Better figure it out quickly...I've already turned in my preference form for my top three grade-level choices, and if I want to make changes to that, I should do it soon.

Books Books Books

Every once in a while I go on a huge book-buying binge. Unfortunately for my suitcase and my back, the latest hit me when I was in Madison.

What books I buy usually says something about where I am life-wise. So, again, for my own memory, here are some highlights of books acquired:

Siddhartha: Hermann Hesse
The Alchemist: Paolo Coehlo
Bird by Bird: Anne Lemott
Essential Rumi
Palestine Peace not Apartheid: Jimmy Carter
Unfortunately, It was Paradise: Mahmoud Darwish
Darwish Collection
A Whole New Mind: Why Right Brainers will Rule the Future: Daniel H. Pink
The Great Gatsby: F. Scott Fitzgerald
Anthem: Ayn Raynd

Sara 2

Sara 1

Escape Java Joint and Art Gallery.

I just discovered the coffee shop of all coffee shops. If I lived in Madison, I'm pretty sure I wouldn't leave this place.

I am, after all, an escapist at heart.

About F*n Time!

I'm very passionate about bedbugs.

A Shift in Mindset

In taking this week to remove myself from my everyday life, I've noticed a shift in mindset since I was last in Madison. I'm still grappling with how to articulate it, but I think I came closest to verbalizing it when out to brunch with a dear friend this morn.

I've mentally decided to simply remove myself from the career treadmill of life...a treadmill who's pace seems to be set by everyone but myself. From here on out, I set my own direction, my own pace. And often, that direction is not linear, the end goal ambiguous.

It's deliberately about the journey and not the end result.

Siddhartha

Siddhartha listened. He was now listening intently, completely absorbed, quite empty, taking in everything. He felt that he had now completely learned the art of listening. He had often heard all this before, all these numerous voices in the river, but today they sounded different. He could no longer distinguish the different voices-the merry voice from the weeping voice, the childish voice from the manly voice. They all belonged to each other: the lament of those who yearn, the laughter of the wise, the cry of indignation and the groan of dying. They were all interwoven and interlocked, entwined in a thousand ways. And all the voices, all the goals, all the yearnings, all the sorrows, all the pleasures, all the good and evil, all of them together was the world. All of them together was the stream of events, the music of life. When Siddhartha listened attentively to this river, to this song of a thousand voices; when he did not listen to the sorrow or laughter, when he did not bind his soul to any one particular voice and absorb it in his Self, but heard them all, the whole, the unity; then the great song of a thousand voices consisted of one word: Om-perfection.

(Siddhartha, Herman Hesse)

Rules For Teachers 1872

1. Teachers each day will fill lamps, clean Chimneys.

2. Each teacher will bring a bucket of water and a scuttle of coal for the day's session.

3. Make your pens carefully. You may whittle nibs to the individual taste of the pupils.

4. Men teachers may take one evening each week for courting purposes, or two evenings a week if they go to church regularly.

5. After ten hours in school, the teachers may spend the remaining time reading the Bible or other good books.

6. Women teachers who marry or engage in unseemly conduct will be dismissed.

7. Every teacher should lay aside from each pay a goodly sum of his earnings for his benefit during his declining years so that he will not become a burden on society.

8. Any teacher who smokes, uses liquor in any form, frequents pool or public halls, or gets shaved in a barber shop will give good reason to suspect his worth, intention, integrity and honesty.

9. The teacher who performs his labor faithfully and without fault for five years will be given an increase of twenty-five cents per week in his pay, providing the Board of Education approves.

Music in the classroom

I got a beautiful new smartboard in my classroom a few weeks back, and it has completely revolutionized my school day. Not only can I now show awesome videos, newspaper clips, and other awesome multimedia resources to enhance student learning, but, it has made MUSIC an integral part of our day, which make me and all my kids much calmer and happier.

With pandora stations pre-created for different moods, the kids start the day with the Miles Davis station, and quietly shuffle in, eat breakfast, put their things away, and copy down their homework. During independent reading, I go with some Joni Mitchell, Tracy Chapman, or Ani Difranco. During focusing sessions, Chopin is a favorite. And, depending on my moods, sometimes I'll throw in some Keller Williams, afro-funk or thievery corporation. Lisa Hannigan has been this week's addition.

Today, during silent reading time, after I had turned on the music, J.U came up to me and said, "Ms. Sadek? Can you play Tracy Chapman's "talking bout a revolution? I'm reading an Obama book and I think it would get me into it." This made my heart swell just a little.

Not only is the class calmer and happier, but they are connecting their music to their reading in unexpected ways. I mean, who doesn't want music integrated into their everyday lives?

Finding the Hilarity

I've noticed that my blogs have become...lazy. My favorite type of blog post to write is when I attempt to capture awkward life moments because, let's face it, we all know these situations happen to me more often than the norm.

I did a little reading of my blog over the years and the dwindling of quality entries about ridiculous situations became quite apparent. Perhaps I stopped finding the hilarity in life in the same way I used to? Truth be told, I'm pretty sure I lost the ability to laugh at the absurdity of it all during the soul-sucking year of 2008, but, now that my life is not falling apart and my soul has been conveniently returned in near tip-top shape, I'm pretty sure that is no longer the problem. I have miraculously returned to finding moments of hilarity, insanity, and ridiculousness in my everyday life.

I'm just not writing about it.

Maybe I'm just being lazy. Maybe the amount of ridiculous incidents in and out of the classroom are just too many to capture via blog. ¿Quién sabe?

Regardless, capturing these moments needs to happen, so that I can refer back to them and chuckle at myself all over again.

Oh, Guerilla Theatre

This makes my life.

Skinny Jeans

As the year has progressed, the jeans in my classroom on my tween girls have gotten tighter and tighter, and less and less appropriate. They can't sit on the rug because their booties hang out, and their shirts are to short to cover potentially exposed arenas.


So today, I busted out some blunt one on one convos about the appropriateness of 5th grade clothing with a handful of my students. The conversations went something like this:

So, I've become really worried about the way some of you girls are dressing in school. Skinny jeans are not appropriate clothing for a 5th grader, especially in school. You are all starting to grow up and it's not appropriate or safe to attract attention to yourself by dressing the way you do. You can't even sit on the rug because your jeans hang so low! I'm hoping you decide to stop dressing like this outside of school too, but whenever you're anywhere around me, I want you dressing differently from now on. And yes, that means I'll call you out if I run into you dressed like this on the weekends. And yes, I'll continue to call you out for dressing like this until you're 18.

Each girl flashed me a variation of incredulous looks at the start of the convo, But, as my speech progressed, they slowly reverted back to their innocent, child-like selves, nodded their embarrassed heads in understanding, and vowed to the end of skinny jeans in my classroom.

Good riddance.

At a Loss

As an elementary school teacher, I am the single adult responsible for 24 children for the majority of their day. In that, I have the responsibility for reporting alarming behavior that may warrant further intervention.

When a child displays alarming behavior that causes a teacher to seek further intervention, you expect that the child will then get the services they need and deserve. In higher income school districts, that would happen. But, in a lower-income school, what happens when the child's insurance doesn't cover the services that the current situation requires? If all the red flags and warning signs are there, it is all clearly documented, but the child cannot receive the necessary interventions, what happens? Are there no emergency intervention resources available to these students?

It seems like nobody knows the answer, or there simply isn't an answer. All we're left with, then,is a really large, frightening flaw in the services available to these students.

This is exactly how scary situations happen in schools, and only after they happen, people ask: Why didn't anyone stop this? All the warning signs were there!

Strong

That's how I'm feeling.
It's pretty groovy.

To de-stress...

I like to cook meals that look pretty. This is:

1. Lentils with zucchini, squash, yellow and red peppers
2. Tilapia with curry spice, tomatoes, spinach, and portabella mushrooms.
3. Asparagus.

Almost makes up for nearly getting run over by a car today. Oh, and the shingles.

Today's Realization:

I need to slow the F*** down.

Thank Yous

So 3 doctors, 3 different antibiotic prescription, 1 anti-inflammatory prescription, and 2 very large percocets later...my ear is still a large red balloon and I can't really turn my neck because my glands are so swollen.

But, I am very grateful to friends accompanying me to the ER at very inconvenient hours, co-workers covering my class so that I could catch a last-minute doctors appointment, and the constant flow of phone calls from my wonderful colleagues and friends at PS/MS 161.

Now, here's hoping my ear deflates!

My favorite thing of all time

Is when spring creeps upon us.

Cooking Skillz

So I'm really proud of myself right now. Usually...okay all the time, I cook pasta. I'm pretty good at varying up pasta sauces, but that's pretty much it.

But, lately my roommate and I have been pushing our cooking boundaries. Lentils, fava beans, eggplant, etc.

Well, this is my newest creation, and probably the best meal I've ever cooked (which may not be saying much, but honestly it was pretty awesome).

Eggplant, ground beef, fresh mozzarella, spinach, tomato sauce, onions, garlic, olives, spices...soooo good.

And doesn't it look pretty?

Comin' Home

New York to Madison

Thursday April 9th
Depart 9:05 am
Arrive 10:58 am


Madison to New York

Friday April 17th
Depart 11:40 am
Arrive 3:00 pm

It's my birthday...week!

I'm mentally preparing for this weekend.

Birthday love from my kids

My kids are orchestrating and extravagant birthday celebration for me tomorrow. They've made decorations, assigned the class food to bring, and talked to my principal about calling me in for a "meeting" so that they can set up. Clearly, they're not so subtle about their little plans, but I humor them.

So, I just got a call from one of my kiddies saying:

F: Miss Sadek...?
Me: Hi F.
F: Ms. Sadek I just wanted to tell you I'm going to be a littttttle late tomorrow.
Me: Why are you going to be late?
F: Well the place we ordered the cake from doesn't open until 7:30.
Me: (crack a smile) You didn't have to get me a cake F_, but thank you. I'll see you tomorrow.
click
Click.

I kind of love them.
When did that happen?

Una Pregunta

My girls come upstairs to have lunch with me today, just because they felt like hanging out. I was amused so I let them hang out. We sat around the round table as they fought for their turn to talk and tell me stories of boys, clothes, and hobos. But, the most surprising part of the conversation went something like this:

N: Ms. Sadek I have a question

Me: Ya?

N: (hesitates) Do you go to the gym so that you can watch boys with their shirts off?

Me: WHAT?

Other girls: (Fits of laughter)

N: No, I mean one time, my mom made me go to the gym and there was this guy that was sweaty and gross but then he took his shirt off and he looked good.

Me: No, N. I do not go to the gym to watch boys take their shirts off.

Today, I got hit on by a puppet

The 40 year old, large, balding gym teacher was walking around with a firefighter puppet on his hand today. Don't ask me why. I have no answers.

As I was walking my children up the stairs, the gym teacher and his puppet proceed to wave at my children. I awkwardly walk past him and the puppet, ready to go up the next flight of stairs, when the little firefighter puppet on the balding man's hand looked me up and down and said, "Mr. ____, who is that?"

The balding large man responded to his firefighter puppet, "That's Ms. Sadék, she's a new teacher at our school." The kids giggled. I was mortified, and of course, extremely awkward.

The puppet responded, "Oooh! Do you like firemen Ms. Sadék?" The bald fat man flashed creepy smile. Giggle giggle giggle, went the fifth graders as they watched their teacher melt into the ground. "Eeeer no?" I finally spat out. I quickly mumbled a goodbye and my giggling kids and I proceeded back to our classroom.

I never thought I'd say this, but today, I'm pretty sure I got hit on by a puppet.

Math Test Day 1

The end is near for standardized tests. Tomorrow is my last day of testing for this school year. My kids rocked it today. Hopefully they'll do just as well tomorrow.

Oh, and...I was the translator for the math test for my two Arabic speaking boys today. I saw the test for the first time at 8:45, administered the test for my 11 English Language Learning students, then tested the two boys separately and translated every question for them verbally from English to Arabic. That was a crazy experience.

Pinch Me

There's nothing quite like the feeling of being a first year teacher and waking up on Monday morning at 6:00 AM to a text that says: STAY HOME! NO SCHOOL!

I don't know if it's more exciting to have a snow day as a teacher or as a student. I'm going to go ahead and say it's more exciting as a teacher.

I love my life.

And it's all small stuff

Whenever we hold on to our anger, we turn "small stuff" into really "big stuff" in our minds. We start to believe that our positions are more important than our happiness. They are not.

(Don't Sweat the Small Stuff; Richard Carlson)

Made it to Winter Vacation!

It was a rough week, but I'm home free! Now, the only thing standing between me and the Puerto Rican beaches is a glorious weekend in NYC.

Dream a little dream

I've had the most intense dreams I've probably every had in the past few months, and when it happens, I'm generally jolted awake with a very strong emotional reaction, and not a good one.

I'm thinking that my subconscious is attempting to tackle emotions that I've managed to conveniently tuck away in the daytime. Needless to say, it's making my few hours of rest more intense than necessary.

Has anyone written down their dreams before?
I'm thinking I might try this out.

Ooooh, we're halfway there!

Oooh living on a prayer
Take my hand, and we'll make it I swear
Oooh, living on a prayer!


I'm officially more than halfway done with the school year.
And Wednesday is the 100th day of school.
Booya!

Puerto Rico in 8 days

I'm Egyo...my skin is not meant to be this white.

I'm Back

Okay, so my blog hiatus is over. I needed a break, but I'm back, literally and figuratively.

I finally feel like myself again. Adjusting to my new life as a 5th grade teacher in NYC public schools has been by far one of the hardest things I've ever done. But, I'm finally at a place where a ridiculous day at school does NOT mean that my whole life is in a chaotic, emotional, ridiculous state along with it. I've been able to separate the emotions of work from taking over my emotions and my life post-work, and that in itself is a huge milestone. I'm making time to be with my close friends (who I could not survive any of this without), to work out, and to do some of the things I love most about New York.

January has been the best month of this crazy journey so far. It has been a great psychological victory to have a month like this one under my belt, and June finally doesn't seem an eternity away.

Highlights of the month include:

-Finally signing up for a gym
-An epiphany about education after speaking with a mentor
-My kids taking the ELA state test (two standardized tests down, one to go)
-Witnessing the INAUGURATION of President Barack Obama
-Seeing some of my favorite people in DC.
-Lost nights with Ms. Corey
-In The Heights with my TFA girls
-Tarot card night with the best girls alive (sans that tarot cards...)

In two weeks, I'll be off to Puerto Rico for a very needed vacation with KG.

Hey, I'm worth it.

Our President Finally Embodies the Complexites of America

In First Family, a Nation’s Many Faces
By JODI KANTOR

WASHINGTON — The president’s elderly stepgrandmother brought him an oxtail fly whisk, a mark of power at home in Kenya. Cousins journeyed from the South Carolina town where the first lady’s great-great-grandfather was born into slavery, while the rabbi in the family came from the synagogue where he had been commemorating Martin Luther King’s Birthday. The president and first lady’s siblings were there, too, of course: his Indonesian-American half-sister, who brought her Chinese-Canadian husband, and her brother, a black man with a white wife.

When President Barack Obama was sworn in on Tuesday, he was surrounded by an extended clan that would have shocked past generations of Americans and instantly redrew the image of a first family for future ones.

As they convened to take their family’s final step in its journey from Africa and into the White House, the group seemed as if it had stepped out of the pages of Mr. Obama’s memoir — no longer the disparate kin of a young man wondering how he fit in, but the embodiment of a new president’s promise of change.

For well over two centuries, the United States has been vastly more diverse than its ruling families. Now the Obama family has flipped that around, with a Technicolor cast that looks almost nothing like their overwhelmingly white, overwhelmingly Protestant predecessors in the role. The family that produced Barack and Michelle Obama is black and white and Asian, Christian, Muslim and Jewish. They speak English; Indonesian; French; Cantonese; German; Hebrew; African languages including Swahili, Luo and Igbo; and even a few phrases of Gullah, the Creole dialect of the South Carolina Lowcountry. Very few are wealthy, and some — like Sarah Obama, the stepgrandmother who only recently got electricity and running water in her metal-roofed shack — are quite poor.

“Our family is new in terms of the White House, but I don’t think it’s new in terms of the country,” Maya Soetoro-Ng, the president’s younger half-sister, said last week. “I don’t think the White House has always reflected the textures and flavors of this country.”

Though the world is recognizing the inauguration of the first African-American president, the story is a more complex narrative, about immigration, social mobility and the desegregation of one of the last divided institutions in American life: the family. It is a tale of self-determination, full of refusals to follow the tracks laid by history or religion or parentage.

Finito

Sayonara, Blog. It's been real.

Half empty? Half full?

The Bad

-There are 6 whole instructional days left until break.
-My patience for children is d-w-i-n-d-l-i-n-g.
-There is not enough time to explore the city.
-I have had no hot water in my apartment since YESTERDAY MORNING.
-NY can feel lonely and scattered.
-My good friend is moving off of our couch.
-My real roommate is crazy and a downer.
-Grad school is a waste of my life.
-They didn't tell any of us we'd have to pay for grad school until we'd already started.
-I have zero money to pay for said grad school.
-I am emotionally exhausted...almost to the point of numbness.

The Good:

-I have all my limbs (thanks Zoe)
-I can dance.
-It was 60 degrees and sunny out today (December 15th)
-My kids and I walked to a show at the Apollo theater today.
-I WAY lucked out with my school relative to others.
-I don't live in Madison anymore.
-I don't live anywhere near my family anymore.
-It is not November 2007.
-I finally live in NY.
-There are only 6 more instructional days until break.
-My brother is visiting me.
-BECCA is visiting me.
-This year is almost over.
-LOST starts on January 21st.
-I have plans a-brewing for a wonderful summer.

Shout-outs and Sorries

Student: I wanted to give a sorry to ____ because I said his pimple look like Rudolf. And I wanted to give a shout-out to Ms. Sadek because she look hot today

Me: ...uhhhhh....Okay! Next?!

Class: (fits of laughter)

Soooo awkward.

Making Changes

My kids have started the popularity game. And it's a mean game. We finally tackled it as a class yesterday, but the two kids who have been the meanest weren't ready participate.

I gave one of them the day to let it sink in, and then we had a heart to heart this morning about her behavior. Here's her free-write in response:

I feel like someone opened a Door in me, and it's a nice door. This is my rule. If you see me being mean to someone you give me detention. I am going to say sorry to the people I have been mean to right now.

Sometimes they blow my mind.

Pragmatism

In the words of this girl:

Emotion is taking a backseat now, and strength is riding shotgun.

I am willing this into reality.

A Journey of Sorts

The past two months, I read a sequence of books that have begun to lead me through the process of untangling my thoughts, making sense of this past year, and solidifying beliefs on feminism and spirituality.

This list is more for my own memory than for anything else...


The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd

Standing Alone: An American Woman's Struggle for the Soul of Islam by Asra Nomani

The Dance of the Dissident Daughter: A Woman's Journey from Christian Tradition to the Sacred Feminine by Sue Monk Kidd

A Thousand Splendid Suns By Khaled Hosseini

Girls of Riyadh by Rajaa Alsanea

This has been the hardest year of me life, no question. The next year definitely won't be a walk in the park...but let's hope I come out stronger and with a lot of tough questions answered come June.

Lesson planning is like...

An endless stream of all of the work that went into planning an @ conference or Retreat...

...With none of the fun that comes with the conference itself.

Two and a half weeks til winter break.

On Soulmates

Assignment:
Free-write about an issue you care about

Student writes:

Girlfriend

My girlfriend and I are soul mates. But we fight about EVERYTHING. Like, what are we going to name our kids?

Walk on, Walk on, Walk on

The only steps that matter are the ones that you take all by yourself.


Thank you Katy.

Stopped me in my tracks

For women particularly, but not exclusively, the restrictions and repression breed not always compliance but rather conflict and dissonance. I know this because I lived this way myself for a decade, from my late teens into my late twenties. I lived a double life, secretly satisfying my curiosities about men while lying to my parents because I knew that I was crossing boundaries that weren't supposed to be crossed. I couldn't live with the lies, deceit, and hypocrisy after my marriage fell apart, when I realized that we aren't meant to suffer so deeply just to deny our true selves and realize societal, parental, and external expectations for ourselves....

In any society governed by oppression and rules that don't make sense, there will be rebellion, even if it's expressed privately. To express such rebellion publicly is to me the sign of a mature individual and a mature society.

(Standing Alone by Asra Nomani)

Truth be told..

I'm feeling kind of lousy. I hear that's kind of how you're supposed to feel around November as a first year teacher. That doesn't make it any easier. It's a bit like culture shock. The honey moon's over, you're far away from the finish line and now it's all just painfully real.

I get up and its dark. I get out of school and its dark. Sometimes I see sunlight through windows in a classroom that smells like non-deodorized pre-teens and dead mice.

Sometimes my kids are lovely. Sometimes they're not lovely at all . But always, their stories are emotionally draining and make it impossible to separate work from home and home from work.

They are literally years behind in school, and they don't even realize what that means for their lives. Sometimes I just want to scream: YOU'RE ELEVEN AND READING AT A SECOND GRADE LEVEL! YOU DON'T KNOW YOUR TIMES TABLES! WAKE UP!!!!! Sometimes it's like running on a treadmill and not getting anywhere.

Today, June seems awfully far away.

It's happened...

One of my students called me mom today.

I don't know how I'm feeling about this.

History through my students' eyes

As I walked through Harlem on the way to school this morning, up Amsterdam and past the Apollo theater, the world felt different. Only a few hours before, this same path that I was walking was filled with jubilant chanting, marching, and ecstatic celebration.

My students described their experience living in Harlem during this historic event:

All of a sudden people just started banging pots and pans up and down the halls of my building chanting OBAMA! OBAMA

It was so crazy in my building. People were banging pans together and even shooting guns into the air to celebrate

The streets were so loud I couldn't sleep!

I looked out my window and one guy was yelling OBAMA! He saw me and said, "Hey girl why aren't you celebrating?!" So I started yelling "OBAMA" out my window too.

My dad just kept on hugging me, screaming and crying, and yelling, "I can't believe it!"

My classroom broke out into chants and cheers as we watched Obama's speech today. "It's Obama's day!" said my AP to my students. "You will remember this day and tell your children and your children's children about this day."

When talking about what the are feeling about this very moment:

I was just thinking that Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation to free slaves in the country and about how now we have our very first African American president. A lot has changed.

Why do people keep saying he's black? He's not just black he's also white because his mom's white. So why is everyone calling him just black?

I'm sorry but slavery, that's trash. What did slaves do to anybody except be forced to live here and work without any rights?

Now that we have our first African-American president, it makes me think that I can be the first Dominican president.

----------

Elections

Picture from huffingtonpost.com

Last week, my students made their voices heard by casting their votes at our PS. 161 mock elections.

The results:

In the 5th grade, 89 students voted for Obama. 1 voted for McCain.
In the 6th grade, every student voted for Obama.

Today, I cast my vote for Barack Obama.
Have YOU voted?

Less than 2 months in the classroom...

and my kids beg to dance to "numa numa."

Let's see how many more @ dances they'll know by heart by the end of the year.

If you want to cause a corps member meltdown....

Yesterday, after surviving possibly the worst day of school so far-complete with not one, but two temper tantrums, both of which involved screaming, crying, and kicking things-I came home to my apartment at about 7:30 pm ready to crank away on my work.

I was feeling good, on top of things. Ya, there were two ridiculous tantrums, but I survived them. And, I'd had an incredibly productive Sunday! I had actually created all of my lesson plans for the week-first time all year. All I needed to do was get home and plan for my yearly one-to-one meeting with my principal that was happening the next day. Should be a piece of cake...I have my data, I have my tracking tools, I know where I want my students to be...I just have to type it all out, print out all the beautiful excel trackers I've created...it'll be great.

So I come home and am chatting it up with my roommate as I'm looking for my beautiful laptop with all of my beautiful pre-created lesson plans and beautiful pre-created trackers...and then I ask..."Hey do you know where my computer is? It was sitting right here on the coffee table"

She stops, turns around, and quickly goes to her room saying, "you know what I think happened...I think my friend took your laptop by mistake earlier today."

"Where does she live?"

"...Brooklyn"

2 hours, a nervous breakdown, and 20 missed calls to the poor girl who stole my laptop later, my computer was back in my loving arms.

Moral: Don't ever fucking steal a corps member's laptop.

A fifth grader's thoughts on Social Security

My second priorities is socials security, I pick this prioritie because we don't want people to get hurt and stuff like that, we don't want people to do bad things. For example, what if a person go's in your house and you don't have social security, so the person steels from you and you can't do nothing about it. What are you go to do?

A Milestone

A lot of folks have been asking me to blog or talk about life as a teacher. The truth is, most of the time I don't know where to begin. I spend 10 plus hours in my classroom every day, and could probably write novels about each day and the feelings that I have to unpack and sort through when I get home, that is, in between creating my lesson plans and grading papers. Without having time to properly reflect on each day in my own head, it's a challenge to try to articulate any of it in blog form and to friends.

Forgive me.

But, today it is time to blog about something incredible that happened.

A bit of background. Every few weeks, I give each of my students a reading test to measure their reading progress. The first round of these that I did felt like someone was perpetually slapping me across the face. Yes, I had heard over and over that my students may be well below grade level, but to SEE it and HEAR it in MY students is something very very different.

The first week of school, one of my lowest-level reading students tested at a "K" level. A K is equivalent to about an early second grade level?

And yes, I teach 5th grade.

So her and I had a reality check conversation, set our end of the year goals, and set our daily goals for what exactly she needed to do to reach her first of 6 benchmarks in order to meet her goal.

Today I tested her again. She whizzed passed the K, proudly read through the L, and confidently read at a solid M level until our time ran out, and I had to tell her that we'd have to wait to try the N tomorrow. She looked like she was about to cry, grabbed her goal tracker and ran out the door (with permission) to show the principal all of the growth that she was able to make in one month.

Today was the first day that I saw, heard and felt the tangible results we achieved together for all of our hard work this past month.

It has made why I do what I do so much more real.

CNN commentary: So what if Obama we a Muslim or an Arab?

By Campbell Brown
CNN

Editor's note: Campbell Brown anchors CNN's "Campbell Brown: Election Center" at 8 p.m. ET Mondays through Fridays. She delivered this commentary during the "Cutting through the Bull" segment of Monday night's broadcast.NEW YORK (CNN) -- You may find it hard to believe that this remains an issue in this campaign, but it does.

The candidates, both candidates, are still getting questions about Barack Obama's ethnicity and religion. If you are even semi-informed, then by now you already know that of course, Barack Obama is an American.

Of course, Barack Obama is a Christian. Yet just a few days ago, there was a woman at a rally for John McCain incorrectly calling Obama an Arab:

Woman at rally: I don't trust Obama. I have read about him and he's an Arab.

Sen. John McCain: No ma'am, no ma'am. He's a decent family man, citizen that I just happen to have disagreements with on fundamental issues. That's what this campaign is all about. He's not, thank you.


Now, I commend Sen. McCain for correcting that woman, for setting the record straight. But I do have one question -- so what if he was?

So what if Obama was Arab or Muslim? So what if John McCain was Arab or Muslim? Would it matter?

When did that become a disqualifier for higher office in our country? When did Arab and Muslim become dirty words? The equivalent of dishonorable or radical?

Whenever this gets raised, the implication is that there is something wrong with being an Arab-American or a Muslim. And the media is complicit here, too. »

We've all been too quick to accept the idea that calling someone Muslim is a slur.

I feel like I am stating the obvious here, but apparently it needs to be said: There is a difference between radical Muslims who support jihad against America and Muslims who want to practice their religion freely and have normal lives like anyone else.

There are more than 1.2 million Arab-Americans and about 7 million Muslim-Americans, former Cabinet secretaries, members of Congress, successful business people, normal average Americans from all walks of life.

These are the people being maligned here, and we can only imagine how this conversation plays in the Muslim world. We can't tolerate this ignorance -- not in the media, not on the campaign trail.
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Of course, he's not an Arab. Of course, he's not a Muslim. But honestly, it shouldn't matter.

When you write well, you read the world.

Fuerza Bruta

This is definitely the coolest performance I have ever been to.

Author of the Kite Runner's Wash Post Article:

McCain and Palin Are Playing With Fire

By Khaled Hosseini
Sunday, October 12, 2008; Page B05

I prefer to discuss politics through my novels, but I am truly dismayed these days. Twice last week alone, speakers at McCain-Palin rallies have referred to Sen. Barack Obama, with unveiled scorn, as Barack Hussein Obama. Never mind that this evokes -- and brazenly tries to resurrect -- the unsavory, cruel days of our past that we thought we had left behind.

Never mind that such jeers are deeply offensive to millions of peaceful, law-abiding Muslim Americans who must bear the unveiled charge, made by some supporters of Sen. John McCain and Gov. Sarah Palin, that Obama's middle name makes him someone to distrust -- and, judging by some of the crowd reactions at these rallies, someone to persecute or even kill. As a secular Muslim, I too was offended. Obama's middle name differs from my last name by only two vowels. Does the McCain-Palin campaign view me as a pariah too? Do McCain and Palin think there's something wrong with my name?

But never mind any of that.

The real affront is the lack of firm response from either McCain or Palin. Neither has had the moral courage, when taking the stage, to grasp the microphone, turn to the presenter and, right then and there, denounce the use of Obama's middle name as an insult. Instead, they have simply delivered their stump speeches, lacing into Obama as if nothing out-of-bounds had just happened. The McCain-Palin ticket has given toxic speeches accusing Obama of being a friend of terrorists, then released short, meek repudiations of some of the rough stuff, including McCain's call Friday to "be respectful." Back in February, the Arizona senator apologized for the "disparaging remarks" from a talk-radio host who sneered repeatedly about "Barack Hussein Obama" before a McCain rally. "We will have a respectful debate," McCain insisted afterward. But pretending to douse flames that you are busy fanning does not qualify as straight talk.

What I find most unconscionable is the refusal of the McCain-Palin tandem to publicly condemn the cries of "traitor," "liar," "terrorist" and (worst of all) "kill him!" that could be heard at recent rallies. McCain is perfectly capable of telling hecklers off. But not once did he or his running mate bother to admonish the people yelling these obscene -- and potentially dangerous -- words. They may not have been able to hear the slurs at the rallies, but surely they have had ample time since to get on camera and warn that this sort of ugliness has no place in an election season. But they have not. Simply calling Obama "a decent person" is not enough.

Is inaction tantamount to consent? The McCain campaign certainly thinks so when it comes to Obama and incendiary remarks from the Rev. Jeremiah Wright. By their own inaction, then, are McCain and Palin condoning these slurs? Or worse, are they willfully inciting the angry and venomous response that we have been witnessing at their rallies? If not, then what reaction are they hoping to evoke by their relentless public suggestions that Obama is basically an anti-American liar who won't put "country first" and has an affection for terrorists? Do they not understand the kind of fire they are playing with?

I -- and, I suspect, millions of Americans like me, Republicans and Democrats alike -- couldn't care less about Obama's middle name or the ridiculous six-degrees-of-separation game that is the William Ayers non-issue. The Taliban are clawing their way back in Afghanistan, the country that I hope many of my fellow Americans have come to understand better through my novels. People are losing their homes and their jobs and are watching the future slip away from them. But instead of addressing these problems, the McCain-Palin ticket is doing its best to distract Americans by provoking fear, anxiety and hatred. Country first? Hardly.

Khaled Hosseini is the author of "The Kite Runner" and "A Thousand Splendid Suns."

Parent Calls

So far I've spoken to the parents of three students.

My first phone call was in English
My second was in Spanish.
My third was in Arabic.

I love my job.

First steps in my classroom

Today was my first real day in my classroom at my school, and the clearest description of my initial sentiments was...overwhelmed.

I was overwhelmed by the fact the the teacher who just retired after 22 years left me all of his possessions.

All. Of. Them.

Piles and piles and piles and piles of books, text books, test prep books, old wrapping paper, old bulletin board paper, old loose-leaf paper, old student work, old student notebooks, old art projects, glittery snowflakes whose glitter is no longer on the snowflakes but rather at the bottom of my bookshelves/ And, did I mention piles and piles of books?

Walking into my classroom I didn't really know where to begin. There were mismatched desks set up in clean rows waiting to be molded in the way that I chose, shelves and shelves of books waiting to be sorted through, and of course, the dreaded cabinets with unknown belongings and the possibilities of animal droppings waited to be peeked in.

After getting over the initial shock of just how much work setting up my classroom would actually take, I realized that I actually am really lucky. I am LUCKY that I have a school with books! Some schools don't have ANY books! I am SO LUCKY that my library is leveled...many of my TFA friends have had to level their libraries from scratch! I am even MORE lucky that my literacy coach and other new teacher coaches spent hours of their lives this summer sorting through the learning lounge where even MORE leveled books exist. I am LUCKY to have piles of materials to sort through and keep, lucky to have a smart board in my classroom, and yes, I am lucky enough to have a beautifully air-conditioned room.

I am also so appreciative of the staff at my school. They are all REALLY helpful and doing just about everything they can to make us new teachers feel a part of the team and that the work ahead of us is manageable. I didn't go more than 20 minutes today without a fellow teacher peaking his or her head in, and actually spent a good chunk of time poking my head into the fourth bilingual grade classroom across the hall and asking for advice on just where my centers should go and just how I should arrange my desks, which just turned into him helping me move all of my desks around for about 40 minutes. Our new teacher mentors were just wonderful and would drop by to help us move bookshelves, desks, rugs, chairs, and whatever else. My fellow fifth grade teachers are also fantastic people and I know that I can and I will be leaning on them for a lot of support this year.

Basically, although I'm overwhelmed with the mountain of work that is ahead of me in the next few days (and I suppose the next two years), I am starting to realize just how lucky I am to be working at my school.

Tomorrow, Sydney and Izaz take on my classroom with me. three people to tackle the mountain of my classroom is certainly better than one...

I'm a teacher

I'm officially a teacher. On Monday, my 4 person collaborative group and I met and taught the 17 beautiful second-graders we are teaching this summer, and meeting them and working with them makes why I am here and doing what I am doing so tangible.

It's hard, I'm not going to sugar coat it. I get up at 5 every day, on the bus at 6:15, and don't get back to campus until 5. I work on lessons as soon as I get back, and sometimes I have sessions at night. We have our rough drafts for the following week due along with our final drafts and prep materials for the following day lesson, so there's always something to be done and never a stopping point. I haven't gone to bed before 12:30 any night, with the more likely sleeping time has been 1 or 2. That is an average of 3 to 4 hours of sleep a night, and by Thursday afternoon I am delirious.

We teach one subject each week, and then rotate the next. This week I taught math, and next I will be teaching a morning block of phonics and interactive writing. When we're not teaching, we're learning through curriculum and literacy lessons, corps member adviser sessions, or lesson plan creation at our school sites. Lunches are generally working lunches.

We get observed once a week, and I have never seen a better way of giving feedback than the TFA way. My adviser basically watches my class and writes down practically everything I say and do and then everything the students say/do in response, making the feedback debrief probably the most useful thing I've ever received. I can target the areas I need to work on with such precision because of this process, and am so excited at how clearly I can see my areas for improvement and the steps I need to take to work on them. I'm guessing this will make my learning curve high, and I can already see huge progress in my lessons and in my execution in the classroom.

It's hard, and I love every minute (except the bus ride). I don't even want to think about how tired I will be in 2 weeks, but I never dread waking up in the morning, and as soon as I see my kids, all my energy rushes back and I just get caught up in their bubbling excitement.

Kyle, we'll see if I get to blog again. It's doubtful.

Queens

I'm all moved into my dorm room in Queens and it feels like freshman year all over again, except that most of the people I'm meeting are actually really awesome and with super interesting stories.

I live in a suite with 10 girls. We share a common living space and a half kitchen. I live in a triple with two girls, one from Chicago that went to Michigan and one from Jersey that went to Rutgers. We share a bathroom with the double room next door.

Yesterday I got here after spending a relaxing Saturday and Sunday afternoon with some of my favorite people ever. I arrived to 550 corp members going through 10 stations of paperwork, fingerprinting, etc. Very organized and very overwhelming. It was so so great to see familiar faces amongst the crowds, and especially to see Ms. Katy Hayes at the laundry station after a 2 week hiatus.

I guess it finally hit me that I'm doing this, like...for real, during our official welcome last night. I got butterflies and was like ooooooooh mannnn. I've been waiting for that to catch up with me.

This week is nice. We have a few days to get settled before the real work begins next week, and for that I am grateful. Today I will make a target run, perhaps go see our beautiful new apartment, and open a checking account. I got a little preview of my new neighborhood yesterday, and it made me so happy.

More updates to come. Miss everyone. A lot.

Black Sand Beaches

Sunkissed and smiling ear to ear after spending the day on black sand beaches in El Salvador. Me encanta la vida.

El Salvador

The lonely planet has never scared me prior to going to a country. It scared me last night before we hopped on a bus to El Salvador.

Luckily, a few lovely AIESECers picked up, and our last adventure begins.

Oh, and we saw some dudes carrying machetes. Awesome.

Xela

Right now we´re in the middle of the Xela portion of our trip. The sun wakes me up at around 730 every morning and by 8 katy and I are off exploring the city until noon. The city is quaint and I feel safer walking around here than in Guatemala. Everything is within walking distance, and our school is a 30 second walk from the city center, which is a beautiful park surrounded by old colonial looking museums, banks and restaurants. The winding streets are lined with strings of brightly colored houses, each distinguishing where they begin and end with crisp colors of blues, oranges, pinks, and greens. The city is surrounded by mountains and volcanoes, and on a clear day, you can see them boldly stand against a bright blue sky.

After lunch with our host families, we head back to Sakribal to begin our 5 hour long one on one Spanish classes. We speak in Spanish with our teachers who speak no english, and get subjuntivo and direct and indirect objects drilled into our conversations over and over until they seep into our brains and make our heads spin. Yesterday we took a needed break from class with our teachers to visit a weaving coop that supports the indigenous women of surrounding villages, and then we climbed to the top of a hill to overlook the city as the sun began to set.

After class finishes at 7, katy and I hussle back to our street in the dark. The twenty minute walk is the most tense part of our day, as catcalls and dark alleys cause us to quicken our steps, clutch our bags, and be alert.

We live on the same street 6 houses apart, and after dinner, I can run to Katy´s to flop on her bed and watch TV. Our families live on the same street, but seem worlds apart. My family bathes with buckets. I get fed bread and honey for breakfast, a hotdog and cucumbers for lunch, and soup for dinner. My family makes meat twice a week, and so far my hotdog has been the only meat I have tasted. My door has no lock and doesn´t close, so I have to tie it shut with a ribbon. The front door of the house also doesn´t close, and has a padlock on the inside in order to open and close it, meaning someone always has to be home to let others in or out of the house. Katy´s room has a bathroom with a shower, 3 couches, a tv, and a dvd player. She eats big delicious meals every day, and her mom makes me extra pancakes when she finds out that my breakfast was 2 tortillas and some cheese.

Overall, I love this city. It makes me nostalgic for Granada, Nicaragua and the experience I had there. I sometimes wish I could just stay here for the whole summer, or hop a plane back to Granada and live there.

This trip has been so different than anything else I have done because it comes at a time of complete transition. I have nothing holding me back right now. Nothing is on pause back home. I don´t have a job that I am taking a vacation from. I don´t have an undergraduate education to go back to. I don´t have an apartment that I am going home to. My undergraduate life has ended, and my life as a corps member has not yet begun. I can really just be here. In the moment. Living now. Everything else seems so far away. And, while I know that in a few short weeks I will be on whisked back to reality, right now I can just enjoy the fact that I am here and having an amazing experience.

Tales from Guatemala

I knew this trip would be ridiculous when we started it off at hooters. Our first night consisted of ladies in scandelous clothing serving us wings as Katy´s boss belted sexual hearing. Needless to say, there are too many stories to tell,and this lady will surely tell some of our tales, but for right now, I will attempt to describe one particular tale...

So, Katy´s friend Raquel wanted to have us and a few friends over on Thursday night for "movies and pizza." She lives with her husband Danilo, his friend Ronal(d), and her cousin Evita from Belize. Starting the night off on Thursday were all of these folks, Katy, her friend Nikki, her awesome friend Abner, and myself. With so many people in the apartment,spending the night there would be tricky. But, Raquel told us not to worry. Her friend Fabian lives in the apartment above hers and had plenty of extra rooms for people to stay in.

Fabian, The 30 plus year old neigbhor, joined us early in the night, and was sending the creepo vibe hard within the first 20 minutes of his arrival. Instead of movies, Raquel stopped and bought drinks, and the night turned into supersticious storytelling of ghosts and spirits. Fabian managed to interrupt the conversation to sing rap songs, make starwars references, and appear as creepy as possible throughout the night. With every sip he took, the comments became more creepy.

At some point, of course, Raquel told Fabian and Ronal(d) that I was Egyptian. "EGYPTIAN?!" As Fabian asked me about mummies and pyramids, Ronal(d) ran to his room to grab his phone so that he could play me an Indian song and ask me to translate it. My persistent "I´m pretty sure that´s not Arabic" statements were lost in the excitement, and I resigned to losing that battle and flopped onto the couch to attempt to dose off.

This is when Ronald felt it necessary to pet my forehead...multiple times. The first time I swatted it away, but his persistence led to my various "no me toques" accompanied by hand swats. As this was going on, Fabian wanted some attention, so he started yelling "sara" and crossing his hands over his chest like a mummy. "Sleep like this." Awesome.

So, with the creepy vibes near an all time high, we decided it was time for bed. At the same time, katy and I started desperately thinking of how to get out of sleeping in Fabian´s apartment. We casually asked Abner in front of everyone if he was sleeping upstairs with us and he was pretty noncommital. Raquel started walked up the stairs with Fabian, showing us the way to the apartment, and as she turned up the corner katy and I started desperately whispering to Abner that he better not freaking leave us up there with Fabian alone, and we bully him into staying with us.

As we entered Fabian´s apartment, we realized it is a completely pimped out, rico suave bachelor pad. There´s a spinning DNA strand in the corner, a bright orange fold out couch, orange walls, crazy looking bacardi bottles, a glass table with pink chairs...the works. "Please sit please sit" He kept saying, "Please sit". We kept telling him thanks but no, we want to sleep, as Raquel laughed and muttered "ha, these girls are gonna get raped." "Please sit, I´ve never had an Egyptian and an American sit at my table. Please sit." Katy then decided to shut him up by sitting for 2 seconds on a pink chair, and instantly he turns on the music. She jumped up and we told him to show us the room. Abner, Katy and I entered into a room that looked pre-arranged for our visit. Fabian rambled about the beds, the blankets, pillows, and asked us if we wanted drinks. We quickly replied no, and kept saying goodnight to get him to leave. When he finally left, we shut the door, locked it, and burst into fits of giggles. As I dropped my pants to change, I said, "it´d be pretty hilarious if he came back".

Knock knock knock.

He tried opening the door but we´d locked it. I quickly put my pants back on and we opened it, only to have him speak to us for 20 minutes more about blankets, pillows, drinks, etc. He grabbed the fan from his room and plugged it into the outlet in our room, explaining to us in detail what each button was for. At this point I´m facing the back wall and just laughing my ass off, and Abner and katy are uncontrollably laughing as well. Finally, he told us he was heading back down to Raquel´s, and we quickly closed the door, turned off the lights, and peered out our window to see if he was leaving the apartment. We couldn´t see him, couldn´t see him, he wasn´t leaving...

Knock knock knock.

We all jump, and don´t open the door, but instead simply asked, "what´s up Fabian"...he responded..."I just wanted to say how happy I am to have an Egyptian princess sleeping in my house."

And with that, Katy and I huddled on our twin bed, and woke up two hours later to get the hell out of that apartment and hop in the back of Raquel´s pick up truck to get to the Academy by 7 am.

Its a great accomplishment

I'm a college graduate, I have a beautiful apartment in NYC to look forward to, and I am living the life in Guatemala right now. Life is good

This...

is what effective Organizational Growth looks like.
The Rae Group should take notes.

UPDATE: As awesome as this article is, the numbers are a bit off. UW is actually 3rd nationwide this year:).

En dos semanas...

I will graduate. This is something I've been ready for since November. While I'm getting antsy to dive head-first into my new adventures en Nueva York, there are a few things that I will miss...

-State Street-sans the construction. It makes me sad that I have to share my last weeks of living in this idyllic Madison neighborhood with construction trucks.

-Coffee shops: I don't know why, but I have never had an easy time finding Madison-like, easily accessible coffee shops in Nueva York. This might just require a bit more exploring on my part once I get there...

-The Gilman House. The old @ house has been home to many great friends and many great memories. Never thought I'd be living there my senior year.

-The terrace. The weather has not been conducive to my exploiting the terrace in my last few weeks as a college student in Madison.

-Spring time in Madison. Again, this year's not making it easy for me to get my fill of the springtime activities of bascoming, the terrace, state street, etc. before I take off.

-My friends. I have slowly but surely been weened off of having all of my favorite people living in Madison within 15 minutes of me, but it still makes me sad that once I graduate, there will only be a few stragglers left to hold down the fort for the rare weekend visit. I guess I will just keep plotting to make them all move to New York. While that plan seemed far-fetched about a year ago, it's actually naturally happening before my very eyes, which makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside.

-My family. I will miss having my mom make me delicious home-cooked meals and seeing my brother at least every Tuesday and Thursday in my geography 101 class.

One thing I won't miss is procrastinating writing my Spanish paper by blogging...and on that note, back to mi análisis del graffiti en L.A. y el rocanrol en México...

Nomad/Graduation Fest May 2008

Tuesday, May 20, 2008

Depart: 6:21am
Chicago, IL

Arrive: 9:10am
Charlotte, NC

Depart: 11:30am
Charlotte, NC

Arrive: 1:29pm
Guatemala City, Guatemala


Saturday, June 7, 2008

Depart: 2:25pm
Guatemala City, Guatemala

Arrive: 8:14pm
Charlotte, NC


Depart: 10:20pm
Charlotte, NC


Arrive: 11:22pm
Chicago, IL

Swimming with crocodiles for an education

A South African village is demanding that a bridge be built across a crocodile-infested river to stop children swimming it to get to school.

Read more here.

Four-Legged Mayor in Trouble

This is as ridiculous as the movie Best in show...

Only it's real.

A $125,000 Starting teacher's salary: brought to you by TFA alum

I will be closely following this experiment...

It's a Dream Day, Baby

I fell in love with Pedro Albizu Campos Elementary within the first 30 minutes of my interview on Tuesday. Located in Central Harlem (on 134th street), and named after this guy, the school's student body is made up of about 83% Latino (mostly Puerto Rican and Dominican), 14% African American, and a small but growing number of Middle Eastern students. While about 96% of students qualify for free/reduced lunch, the school sets high expectations for their students and and demands a committed staff in pursuit of academic success.

To make sure that students aren't held back by limited resources, the faculty recognizes the importance of collaboration between the public and private sector, and continues to apply for and receive corporate grants in order to create a resource-rich learning environment in an under-served district. Because of these efforts, the school boasts:
-2 fully equipped computer rooms. (Children begin to learn dual-systems in kindergarten!)
-1 fully equipped music room with keyboards (through a partnership with VH1)
-A theater (this made my day).
-Beautiful, colorful classrooms with electronic chalkboards
-A colorful library media center
-An art room
-A science room
-A 2 million dollar athletic track and field complex
-The "Say Yes to Education" grant, which allows 114 kindergarten students, upon high school graduation, to attend the college of their choice for free. In addition, it provides tuition support for all siblings, and full time social service workers throughout their k-12 educational experience.

Oh, and, Albizu Campos Elementary won the "Best of the Best" Intel and Scholastic Schools award in 2006 for their innovative "school as a community" model.

I know. It kind of seems like I made this place up. But I promise, it's real.

I will be teaching there this fall.

Even though the snow followed me here...

I just can't help but love this city, and can't wait to make it home.

Who Knew?

Did anyone else know that "under God" was only added to the pledge of allegiance in 1954 because of a sermon given by Eisenhower's preacher?

Winter in Wisconsin

Extra workers sought to fight snow on UW-Madison campus

Feb. 20, 2008

by John Lucas

Record-setting snowfalls could translate into extra cash for University of Wisconsin-Madison students and others hired to help clear campus sidewalks and stairs of snow and ice.

Officials are hiring extra workers to help with snow and ice clearance to help keep the campus safe for pedestrians. Snowfall after snowfall, paired with rain and subzero temperatures, have taxed the ability of crews to remove all of the ice and snow from the 933-acre campus.

Students and others are invited to enlist to augment the current Physical Plant staff in snow removal efforts at a rate of $11 an hour.

“This winter has dealt us challenge after challenge and we need to find some extra workers to help us remove the ice and snow,” says John Harrod, director of physical plant at UW-Madison. “This is a great way for students especially to make some extra money and help us keep campus slip-free.”

Work is available immediately, clearing ice from sidewalks, and in the event of future snowstorms. Students living within walking distance are particularly valuable because many Physical Plant staff members have a difficult time reaching campus in poor driving conditions.

To be able to work, participants need to first register with the Physical Plant Custodial Division at the Service Building Annex, 1225 University Ave. There, participants will be asked to fill out a W-2 form (bring a Social Security card, birth certificate or other qualifying ID) and specify potential work hours, ranging from 7 a.m. to 11 p.m. Workers would be assigned to work by phone.

Participants must make a minimum 2-hour time commitment.
Anyone participating should expect to do physical labor. Participants may be asked to shovel, use ice picks and small machines, such as snow blowers.

For more information, call Physical Plant Custodial, (608) 263-3081 or visit the Service Building Annex, 1225 University Ave.

Thank You

It's things like this that remind me how much I appreciate the friends I have.

The little things.

Cita de mi profe:

Vi a un gato, y me parece un perro...y pensé...Shit! Wha happened?!...desmasiado medicina.

On a completely unrelated note, what does this look like to you?

Si Se Puede

Ramblings in Bathroom Stalls

Something that has always intrigued me during my time at UW is the unyielding commitment of female bathroom users to express themselves via bathroom stall ramblings. I am always appreciative of these women, as they provide me endless entertainment during my frequent visits to these stalls, my favorites being Van Hise and College library.

I have many questions about these ramblings. Who is taking the time to write on the bathroom stalls? Do they logistically plan to write eloquent poetry and prose on the stalls before they enter? Do they wash their pen along with their hands after said bathroom experience? Some of these entries seem like they took quite a bit of time...do individuals schedule time in their day to add their two cents to the ramblings? Do they check back for comments on their work throughout the semester? Do men write on their bathroom stalls?

But I suppose my biggest question is this: Does the anonymity of bathroom-stall ramblings provide an outlet for women to scribble thoughts they would not dare not say under their true persona? Does it push them to ask questions that they may be too scared to ask of their friends, peers, professors? Does it provide women a venue to boldly state their true opinions?

All I know is, I have read more bold statements from women in the ramblings on the stalls than I have in many classroom discussions in my 4 years at UW.

Life's Big Questions.

What goes back and forth, back and forth....Forever?

Some Love

My roommates help me stay grounded and maintain my sanity.
I love them.
And I love the Gilman house.

Assessing The Damage

8:00 AM:

Katy ventures into the battlegrounds to assess the damage we inflicted on the Mice.
She carefully tiptoes through the living room and inspects the traps. My eyes follow her every step through the crease between her wooden doors....nothing yet. She ventures into the kitchen, with cat-like fixation on every crevice...

nothing...

nothing...

I wait....

BAHAERACAHGAGHHHHH!!!!

Becca and I pounce out of bed, and Katy's sole shrill scream becomes a bellowing chorus of The Gilman Girls screaming in unison at the sight of our first mouse-trap-inflicted Fatality.

The Damage so far:
-2 Deaths by Mousetrap: one in the cupboard, one on the kitchen floor.
-One death by Kyle's heroic bucket maneuver yesterday night.

The war continues...

And Then There Were None

The Women of Gilman and their loyal comrade Kyle have put their foot down.

They have declared that the Mice of Gilman shall no longer grace their presence.

The traps are set. Hearts race. A thick fog of intensity fills the air.

We anxiously wait for the first trap to snap.

There's gonna be a genocide
-Becca Keleher

Awkward-o Turtle-o

I had to do a 20 minute "role play" by phone to test my Spanish proficiency for TFA. I had to pretend to be a teacher (crazy, I know), and the woman on the phone was a worried mom.

I hope I'm not as awkward in actual conversations with parents next year.

Oh, and they're still letting me teach in a bilingual classroom.

Back to Life

I went to Egypt in a confused and confusing state, and returned to Madison with some mental clarity. I left under the assumption that I had lost a part of myself, a piece of my identity, and that that Egypt would give me the answers of what I needed to revert back to. Two weeks later, I came home to Madison with the realization that I do not have to revert back to anything, but instead that I simply have to continue to build upon the person that I am and to evolve and move forward in that personal growth. I came home realizing that the idealized and nostalgic vision of Egypt doesn't exist in the way that I always expect it to. I realized that in ways, Egypt is more confused and confusing than I am. I don't know if I will ever figure it out.

It's good to be home.