VOLLEYBALL!!

So my school started a volleyball team for 7th and 8th grade girls and they needed help. Guess who volunteered? Yours truly of course. I am officially one of the assistant coaches for the girls volleyball team. Am I excited?? YES!! I love volleyball, not mention that I am good at it, and I love competition so of course I am excited. We had our first tryout today and we had 15 girls come out. We only plan on keeping 10 so you know what that means...cuts...ugh... That was the one thing I was not looking forward to having to do, but it looks like we won't be able to get around it. We pushed them hard in tryouts so we could see who has potential. Hopefully we scared some off so we don't have to make cuts.

I'm a teacher get me out of here!

So each day that passes proves to me that I am definitely not in a "safe" neighborhood. The local police, others in the neighborhood, and people in the sorrounding area call this place (exactly on the cross street where the apartment building sits) "the jungle"... and to top it off, this building used to be the local drug house. Great. No wonder there is always 2-10 people standing on the corner at any given time of the night, chirping each other about "business". Not to mention the people pacing in front of the apartment looking for their dropped baggies of drugs tossed to the side when the patrol cops roll up or the abundance of little blue baggies littered across the street as I leave for school in the morning. The wise words from the police department, "Don't leave your apartment after dark". Well, I hope I don't run out of toilet paper or something in the middle of the night because I will just be S.O.L. As if that doesn't describe my situation in depth enough, maybe this commercial will help. I'm sure it was recorded in my neighborhood (haha).

Welcome to the jungle...

My first Open House. The school is swarming with parents searching for their child's teacher, waiting to dissect their every thought and move. Waiting to pounce on any sign of weakness. My immediate thought, what have I gotten myself into? Tonight I met most of my students' parents and they couldn't have been more welcoming. I was pleasantly surprised. They were very receptive to me and seemed excited to have me in the classroom. I was also told multiple times that they have already heard so many great things about me from their children, which is great because that means I am already developing a strong positive relationship with them and that will greatly benefit me when I finally take over the classroom. So now, not only are the students and school staff viewing me as a teacher, but the parents are on board as well. They are usually the toughest critics so now that I have their acceptance, things should be smooth sailing from here. After the open house I came home to facebook messages galore about "thirsty thursday" and "going out, what are you doing?" Well, I can tell you what I am doing....grading papers and preparing lesson plans. Ha no more "thirsty thursdays" for the teacher, and I wouldn't have it any other way. :) -although I could do without the soundtrack of gunshots ringing through my neighborhood in the background-

Can you help me with this?

I love love love LOVE my students! I have 31 completely different personalities and a great deal of diversity. I actually feel like a teacher already and it was only the second day today. Things can only get better from here. I love hearing my name called from 3 different students in the hallways at the same time (even after school when you would think they would want nothing to do with me haha). I can't wait until I am taking over the classroom completely on my own and begin pulling out the brilliance that I know is within them (it may not be visible to others, but I can see it there). These students are the ones who get placed in a box and labeled as "hopeless" and who receive the worst teachers. I already hear teachers in the lounge complaining about how kids today don't want to learn and how they hate being there. I don't know what students they are looking at, but the ones I see are the complete opposite. They love learning, and you can see the spark within them ignite when that light bulb in their head goes off while they discover new things. Why wouldn't I want to be here? Who couldn't love giving these children the tools they need to become thinkers and change the world? When students ask me, "Can you help me with this?" I say, " I would love to. That's what I'm here for." Some teachers need to remember what they are there for...and if they don't WANT to be there, why are they still there? Move over and let us who care take over!

You live where?

It is the night before my first day of student teaching and I am excited and nervous at the same time. I can't wait to meet my students! I decided that I didn't feel like cooking and neither did my room mates so we decided to order take out. After we finally decided on a place, we called and ordered our food. Once they took our order, they asked for our address. As I proceeded to give them our address, the man stops me in mid sentence and says to me, " Oh no. I have had two guys get held up over there because it is a very bad area and you are right in the pocket. We don't deliver there." (click--yes he hung up on me). Wow...so I guess he was basically saying, "We don't deliver to the hood." Hmm...if this is such a "nice" area, why can't we even have food delivered? This is a great way to start off the new school week...

Oh no, it's the Po Po!

Is this really happening?? Are there really 15 cop cars behind our apartment building? And a paddy wagon?? Yes, it is. There is a drug bust going down and they are hauling people out the building behind ours off to jail. Did this drug problem magically appear, or was someone omitting important information we needed to know before we moved in here? I am sad to say that the latter is true. Apparently there was a random shooting in the same place last year while the project participants were here. Whose bright idea was it to call this area "safe" again? It seems that the longer we are living here, the more we learn about this "nice" area. If this is what they call "nice" I would love to see what they consider "amazing".

Please don't put me in your car...

I am starting to get to know the other people who are taking this journey with me. They are an interesting mix of personalities, but there is never a dull moment that's for sure. We all decided to go out for our first night as a "bonding" experiencing with our neighbors. We took the L (which I am slowly becoming a pro at taking) to a strip of local bars, had some drinks, and go to know each other better. We have been hanging out with each other ever since. It's really nice how I know that I can go downstairs or upstairs, knock on a door, and chill with whoever is at home. They will be a great support system as I get further into my student teaching journey. While most of us are not living in fear, some are completely out of their element. As a friend was describing her walk home from the local Bally's, she said, "I don't mind the people hanging out outside. It's the people in the cars who slow down and stare at you that scare me. I just want to say, 'Please don't put me in your car. I don't need a ride to wherever you are going.' " Like I said, it's never a dull moment...