I'm Alive, I Promise!

And I'm FINALLY a resident of the beautiful, wacky, slow as molasses, interesting, creepy, crazy, colorful city of New Orleans, Louisiana! So if you are ever in the area, hit me up! My hardwood floor is actually pretty comfortable (more on that later). 

Prepare to be overloaded by pictures AND text. Two of my favorite things :)

GUYS.

I have a house, well half of a house, and I have my own room and my own bed and here’s another big one, my very own credit card. 

This is my room, ignore the mess :) If anyone has
decorating ideas, I would LOVE to hear them!
I really need help with that, I'm not good with
decorating at ALL.  Please and thank you! 

I KNOW.  BIGGG changes.

I started my trip down to LA on July 4, after spending only 8 hours at home, and most of those hours were spent cramming enormous objects into my Honda Civic. A came along with me (mainly because I told him he had to drive) and he was a huge help at organizing things and getting everything to fit!  He was FANTASTIC at this since he worked for a moving company in the past, so it was a huge blessing to not have to worry about how things fit!

A and I bid farewell to my family and then headed down the highway to begin our 17 hour drive. We passed through Maryland, West Virginia (I think?), and then into Virginia where we stopped for the evening in Roanoke.

As we were planning out our routes, it suddenly occurred to me that we still had another 12-13 hours to go, and if any of you are like me, you absolutely HATE super, ridiculously long car rides. It’s not because I don’t like spending time with people, but it’s because I get insane bursts of motion sickness. I hadn’t experienced that on the trip so far, but I was a little concerned I might later in the trip.

The next morning we woke up, packed all our things and headed on the road again, but only after stopping for breakfast at a Waffle House, which are all over the south! I won’t bore you with the details of the rest of the ride, except that we passed through several states, Tennessee never ends (and neither does Alabama or Mississippi for that matter), trees seem to line every major highway in the south, gas stations are not open 24 hours a day, and my little car ROCKED gas mileage.

Shout out to this guy for being a champ!

A and I had some really great conversations, some tense moments, he saw me drool a ton all over my seat, then pillow, then his arm, and never once did he complain about driving. Shout out for being awesome, A!

Once we reached New Orleans, it was around midnight central time and the real fun began. I remember the moment we pulled up to my new house and the excitement and nervousness that was flowing throughout the entirety of my body. This is it. This city is where I am spending the next 2 years of my life.  How crazy is that?

My new home! We have the whole first floor!

I fumbled around with the old lock for a moment and finally the door opened and I was greeted with a large, very empty, very dark hallway. My roommate H, was with one of our other TFA friends at the store and wouldn’t be back for a little, so A and I wandered around the house, looking in at all the bedrooms, the kitchen, the bathrooms, the living room. It was all so surreal, and also empty since we didn’t have any furniture.

That evening, we slept on the hardwood floor, which wasn’t terrible, but also not the greatest thing in the world either. 

My door! It's blue like the house :) 

The next morning, Sunday, A and I decided to be productive and go on the lookout for furniture, since I had absolutely nothing except a large pile of clothing to sleep on. We scouted around the city and found some luck in buying a bed for my room (which we strapped to the roof of my Civic and then drove very carefully back to my house, going well below the speed limit. I wish I had a picture of this because it was pretty funny/frightening, but alas I do not. 

Through a very fortunate turn of events, my CMA from Institute (shout out for being the best CMA EVER, you know who you are), posted on Facebook that she was getting rid of some furniture since she was making the move back to her home state. Heart pounding, I was so worried someone had already claimed the precious cargo, so as I texted her asking if it was still available, I didn't get overly excited since I knew a lot of TFA people were looking for furniture. Lo and behold! She said the furniture was still there, so A and I quickly went over to her house and A went to work. What happened next can only be shown in pictures. 

What A fit in my Civic:

1. A bookshelf

2. A desk (strapped to the roof)

3. A very large entertainment center

4. A full sized lamp

5. A large paper organization tray

6. A normal sized jewelry box

7. Me 

8. Him. 

I have never EVER seen anything like this before and the whole time, I kept saying, "A, are you sure all this is going to fit? Maybe we should make 2 trips?" 

Every time his response was, "Why make two trips when you can make one? I got this." 

I know it may seem like I'm making a big deal out of this, but in the moment, and even looking back on it, it was absolutely insane. That's just how A operates though.  

Anyway, Monday started my professional development at my wonderful school and I got to meet some of the people I will be working closely with for the next 2 years!!! AND I got a school shirt, which I'm super excited to show off because it's boss, and also because I'm super excited to start school, which is something I never thought I would say! 

I am so excited to meet the class of 2018!!!  I know this year is going to be filled with the good, bad, funny, and downright ugly, but I am so excited to dive right in and see what happens. So here's to going above and beyond for the next generation! 

As always, love you all, thanks for the inspiration and awesome! <3 <3 Much love. 

Being Honest, Being Real- The Importance of Literacy

Right now I'm sitting in the Atlanta airport waiting for my flight back to Philadelphia. It's crazy to think about how much time has gone by and even though it's only been 5 weeks it feels like it's been about 5 years or so.

I titled this post "being honest, being real," because I think it's okay for me to just lay out everything that's gone down the past few weeks in a way that is raw and real. I know those of you who take the time to read this love me and aren't going to judge me for what I have to say. Also, I've started to realize the way I reflect best is through writing (trust me, TFA makes you get in touch with your feelings whether you want to or not...)

First of all, I'm going to preface this by saying I feel frustrated. 

Throughout my time at Institute, I've been trying to be good with managing my time, but since that has never been one of my strong points, I've found myself getting behind on things and then struggling to keep my head above water. I've also been frustrated because I haven't been able to be as good of a girlfriend as I should be, and that's been evident in the way conversations between A and I unfold. It's so strange because I've always had some feeling that I am remotely in control of what's going on. Not entirely, but I've always at least had a sense of what my next action should be and these past 5 weeks have thrown me in all sorts of directions.

Frustration has also come from the feeling that I've failed my students.

Before you stop and send me something encouraging via FB message or text or email, let me just say that I know I didn't fail them. I did the best I could this summer and I've seen a ton of growth in some of them (can I get a whoop whoop for seeing 170+% growth in one of my kids???)

The fact of the matter though is that only SOME of my students reached this...not ALL of them. And that's what I was really pushing for. I wanted to see these students grow and learn the value of education, but that just didn't happen, and the more I think about it, the more I realize that some of them will never feel the way I do about their education or its importance.

This summer I was teaching a rising senior with a first grade reading level. This student could comprehend some of what we were reading but he could not formulate a sentence, write, spell, or read for himself.

He was a rising SENIOR. In high school.

I remember calling A on the phone and crying to him about the situation and asking him quite passionately, "who the HELL has been responsible for this child the past 17 years?"

That's a question I still can't answer and it's one that haunts me now. I worked with him one on one a few times and thought we were making progress until he just stopped showing up. I later found out that my student dropped out and will become one of the statistics of students who are illiterate dropping out of high school.

I guess what I'm getting at in this post is that LITERACY MATTERS, PEOPLE. I cannot stress that enough and I feel like this whole experience has made me so aware of this! Literacy is the foundation on which all skills are built and if students don't have a working concept of how to read or write, they will forever live their lives being BEHIND. And not just somewhat behind, they will be detrimentally, disablingly behind.

Institute ended yesterday and as weird as this sounds, I wish it would have lasted longer. I think about my kids who have seen incredible growth and who have a renewed passion and urgency for learning and I think about the ways in which I could have better shaped my few stragglers.

I'm not here to save them though. I'm just here to teach them. I'm not here to save them, but I'm here to show them a door that may have been hidden for a long time, and I'm here to cheer them on as they choose whichever door they want to go through! That was a lame metaphor, but it's one that someone mentioned to me before and has stuck with me this whole time.

With that being said, I'm New Orleans bound tomorrow and then PD at my school starts Monday, so the real adventure will be beginning soon.

Here's a great quote I found about literacy too :) All of us can be literacy teachers too, by the way! It doesn't matter if you are a college student, graduate, parent, grandparent, aunt, uncle, it doesn't matter. We can ALL be literacy teachers.