3 down, 2 to go...

• we're together all day, every day. must we also attend outings together on the weekends as well? hmmm.... i'll pass.
• i think i'm going to see Ocean's 13 tonight. i'm trying to spend as little money as possible since i won't be getting a paycheck for a while. outside of my hair, i've been doing pretty well.
• i'm looking forward to finding out what makes Houston so great. right now, all i know is Moody.Towers, the school where i'm teaching, the braiding shop i found, and Target. i'm hoping that Houston lives up to the hype.
  
• i again question if i made the right choice. it's not so much the workload that makes me question it, it's more about whether or not this is the best fit for me right now. sometimes i feel like this whole teaching thing doesn't fit with my personality. something just feels... off. hopefully i'll feel differently when i'm actually in the classroom at my school.
  
• i guess what makes me worry is that quitting is not an option. well, technically it is. if i wanted to leave training, i could do right now. but, i'm not a quitter esp. when the work/cause is so important.
  
• i procrastinated and contacted the apartment locater like... yesterday. he said he can show me some places on Sunday, but i think i'd rather go next Saturday. maybe we can at least look at a few on Sunday so i can get a feel for where i'd like to stay.
• one of my group members is a cutie. in a different world, he could get it all day, everyday. !
• for some reason i always find it funny that the first question people from home ask me about Houston is, "so, have you found a church yet?"
• funny thing is at one time that would have been a top priority. i'd been thinking i needed to start going to church regularly again. perhaps it'd help fill this void i've been feeling for a while. but, you know, i don't like visiting churches. i really don't. truth be told, i haven't been to a service i really enjoyed in a minute. it seems like there's always something said or done that rubs me the wrong way. usually it's some silly comment against homosexuality. on Sunday i'm supposed to go to church with this lady i know from home who moved down here a year or so ago. we'll see how that goes.
• this week i decided that if i was sleepy, i would just go to bed, even if my work wasn't completed. i still got work done, of course. i can't just not turn something in or stand before my students w/o a lesson plan prepared. but, i'd have to get up really early to complete it. as a result, i'd sleep from 9 pm- 2 am, get up, work until 5:30ish and then get ready for school. it's crazy and it may not be all that healthy. but, it's what works for me right now.
  
• a raise was just approved for Houston Independent School District! yay! i won't be ballin' out of control, but i'll be in a much better financial place than i was with my last job.
  
• i went to HISD to give them my new hire paperwork and for whatever reason they said they needed my transcript from GSU. never mind i only went there for a semester and it wasn't one of my degree granting institutions. *sigh*
  
• so, one morning the dining services here on campus ran out of dessert for our lunches and resorted to serving fortune cookies! sadly enough, we were all really disappointed by that. i tell ya, it's the little things that get you through.
  
• i had to remove Bear.Sh.are from my computer this week. apparently it gave me a virus. great...i'd been using that thing for years. oh, well.
• so, i was considering law school after my two year commitment. now, i'm not so sure that's what i want. from what i understand, the whole structure of law school doesn't make sense from a pedagogical standpoint. and lord knows i don't feel like dealing w/ that frustration for 3 years. but, i may change my mind about it in a a few years. i'm supposed to take the LSAT in december. uhm, yeah, that probably won't be happening.
• i feel like i've already posted about some of this stuff before.
• why does it seem like everyone i grew up with is getting married and/or having children. i feel like we're too young for that.
• i miss Atlanta. like, kinda a lot.
• we started out w/ 12 kids and now that they summer school is no longer required, we're down to 4 students. on the bright side, that means classroom management should be a breeze.
• highlight of my week: a student actually complaining that a fire drill was interrupting the class's learning time. :-)
  

at the halfway mark

well, almost. as of tomorrow, i'll be halfway done with institute. today we actually had a free afternoon off. it was supposed to be a surprise, but some of us got wind of yesterday on the bus when an announcement was made to all bus drivers that school for TFA was releasing early on today. as tired as we may have been, you should saw how we sprang to attention! lol... of course, those of us who heard this message passed it on and so all the morning we were speculating as to whether or not it was true or if we were just being filled with false hope. so, we went to a session today and it started off like any normal session, but like 5 minutes in they announced we had the afternoon off! when we got back to the dorms, they had all kind of games set up, karaoke, a massage station, a Mary Kay make-over station and all sorts of other stuff. it was real cool. to illustrate why this is so significant, i decided to post what a typical day is like here at Institute (note that not everyone is on the same schedule; for example, my school is only 15 min. away from UH, so we get there by 7:00 am everyday):

6:00-6:30 Breakfast
6:30-7:30:Travel to school
7:30-8:00: Classroom set-up and assist with student arrival
8:00-9:00: Teach a small group of students during the Math-Literacy Hour (all collaborative members)
9:00-10:15 Lead teach

10:15-1:00 When not lead teaching, do one or more of the following, depending on the day and on the corps member's individual needs:

• Participate in a differentiated curriculum session, focused on specific curriculum objectives where the corps member needs support
• Conduct a focused peer observation of another corps member and complete a written reflection on it
• Meet with faculty advisor to debrief their observation of classroom
• Reflect and self-evaluate using the Teaching As Leadership rubric
• Plan for or rehearse future lessons
• Prioritize time strategically through the use of a personal action plan, calendar, etc.

1:00-1:30 Supervise student lunch; eat lunch; supervise student dismissal
1:30-2:45 Participate in a core curriculum session, focused on specific course objectives
2:45-4:00: Participate in a corps member advisor group session, reflecting on progress and challenges, and engaging in a discussion of issues within the curriculum
4:00-5:00 Travel back to the university site
5:00-6:00 Free time (work-out, nap, dinner, relax, etc.)
6:00-7:30 Finalize and rehearse tomorrow's lesson plan; grade student work
7:30-9:30 Depending on the day and institute, one or more of the following:

• Attend a workshop
• Participate in a regional meeting
• Attend an institute learning team meeting

9:30-10:30 Individual/Group activities:

• Write lesson plans for the following week, utilizing the resource room as necessary
• Meet with collaborative members to plan and discuss student progress and analyze student work
• Meet with corps member advisor for feedback session

i recognize that there's a lot of TFA jargon in there. don't worry yourself with all of that, of course. just know one thing: we're busy all damn day! of course, i manage to work in a little more free time. but, i do it to keep myself sane.

other than that, not much else going on with me (clearly). i got my hair braided this weekend. it was looking a mess and as much as i tried to work with it, i still looked rough. so, kinky twists it was! this weekend i'll have to find an apartment. i'm going to use an apartment locater and have him/her drive me around Houston to find what i need. (apparently it's the norm for them to do that down here.) even though i won't have to do the leg work, i'm not looking forward to it. for some reason, i think all apartment managers are shady. lol... i know, i know, i'm stereotyping. but, there always seems to be something wrong that you don't find out about until you sign the lease. i guess my mind just keeps going back to my last apartment where i didn't know that the typical water bill for one person was $40! and that damn train ran right by bedroom window all day and night!!! anyway, so i'm just very wary. and i don't feel like being a critical thinker and asking all the right questions. but, if i don't want to be homeless come July 14th, i need to get it together. well, that is all. i may not have been responding to blogs, but i've been reading/lurking! and, of course, i have stuff on my mind that i want to blog about (outside of the summer training thing), but either i don't have the time or i don't have the creative energy to get it together. well, until next time, take care!

i'm here...

hey everyone. this is probably going to be another short post. i just wanted to drop in and provide a little update. so, i'm still learning how to be a teacher and i'm still exhausted. but, so is everyone else. lol... i think when you're around a lot of people who want to do things well even if they don't quite know how to do something yet, well, we're bound to be putting in late hours. i do think that i'll be able to get in bed before 2 am tonight. hooray!

so, i just finished my 2nd day of teaching. well, i wouldn't call it a whole day since i've only spent an hour with my students each day. i did my first lesson on setting today. it went ok. there's much room for improvement as the kids looked hella bored until i started reading a Clifford book. Clifford saved the day! some of my students are real characters. like, the boy who despite being in the 2nd grade is almost as tall as i am (i'm 5'5") and weighs at least 20 lbs. more than me. i haven't asked, but i think he got held back at least one year. (side note: in TX, even if a child hasn't mastered the material for that grade level he can't be held back more than once for that grade. gotta love that social promotion despirte not having the requisite skills for the next grade). and then there's this other little girl who injured her foot a while ago and has stitches in them. this baby likes to pretend her foot is hurting so she can get out of doing work. one minute she'll be crying that it hurts and the next she'll be jumping up to answer a question! kids, i tell ya. but, enough about them. i have two years to talk about my students.

on the bus ride home today, i was not in a good mood. at all. maybe it was the fact that i got like 3 hours of sleep last night. maybe it was the fact that my group members are getting on my nerves (more on that in a moment), maybe it's the fact that i'm tired of being around so many people all day long. (well, except at night. my roommate just wasn't feeling the dorm life, so she went to stay with a friend). maybe it's the fact that i realized that despite how i feel, we're only halfway through week 2. so, since i like to reflect on exactly why i'm feeling the way i am, i decided that it's not really the workload that's bothering me. my old job was intense and while i had much more flexibility in my schedule, i still had a lot to do and learn and a short amount of time in which to do it. so, yeah, i'm tired. but this too shall pass.

then i asked myself, well is it the people you're interacting with? now, i don't know if i mentioned this or if you picked it up, but it takes me quite a while to warm up to people. don't get me wrong, i'm always cordial and friendly. but, it takes me a while to feel comfortable talking to people on the fly and looking for them in the cafeteria so we can eat together and all that jazz. because of this, while i may know a lot of people, i only have a small core of friends. which is cool by me. so, with that little piece of information in the back of my mind, i ask myself, well is that why i feel a little out of place here? it's funny because i find myself wondering if i belong here. (yeah, i know deep down that i do, but remember, this is just reflection). when i'm working with my group, i always feel like the odd person out, even though there are four of us. i'll admit i'm very different from the three of them. we've just lived different lives and it's hard for me to relate to them. i talked to my aunt about it and she said, well, you know, you've been out of school for a few years, been to grad school, worked and done other stuff with your life. so, yeah, i can see why you feel like the sore thumb. they're talking about frat parties, friends here that they have "issues" with, and all this other stuff that frankly, i don't give a damn about. ok, i'll stop there. i'm not trying to come across as depressed or anything like that. just getting my feelings and thoughts out there. damn, and this was supposed to be a short post...