i heart animals in a big way

Everyone looks so healthy in those pictures...maybe just tan, in any case, everyone is looking good. well, maybe that's just in comparison with the extreme pallor and dark undereye circles that have come to define my daily experience. Did i mention that my feet smell? But on a lighter note, I shower every day here and am actually about to go do that right now.

So, today was my first day of teaching third grade summer school! The kids were great and I think I did a pretty good job of asserting authority without being too mean and unfun. I also had to team teach someone else's block because her uncle died this weekend and so her mind has understandably been elsewhere. She's my favorite person in my collaborative so team teaching with her was really fun. We role-played the rules and I was the bad student who did everything wrong. I play that role in almost every role play in our sessions to. What can I say, it comes naturally to me :).. Brings me back to my salad days of mischief making (which was simply my way of expressing my enthusiasm for the material, hehehe)

...so after teaching my block and teaching with eileen (uncle who died), I then had to sprint (not quite literally but i did walk very quickly in the heat) to my interview for 6th grade science with live animals. I got there so early that I stopped on the corner and got an egg and cheese sandwich and then went up to the school. It was really cool and my interview was with the teacher (also TFA) who has had my job for the last two years and is switching to teach latin next year at the school. We chatted for an hour and totally hit it off, he was so nice. Then, we went back to the principal's office, and (without talking to andrew, the guy, at all) she was just like, ok, I just have two questions for you: Why do you want to work here? What makes you think you'll be successful? So i had one of those blackout old school moments (i'm referring to the debate scene if anyone's confused, if you haven't seen the movie...you haven't lived, go rent it so you know what im talking about) and must have said something at least moderately convincing because when I stopped talking, she was like, congratulations you're hired.

i was so psyched, am still psyched, and now crashing from overload. today was quite the epic adventure, as charlie would say, who incidentally is starring in a disney sailing reality movie for which he will be taking off the next year from brown.

"uh...there's this guy. his name is asyrian and he's reigning terror. we're trying to bring him down."

I almost never laugh out loud when reading and I just spit water all over my computer.

Addicted to our blog

Let's face it. I've created a monster...But until you guys stage an intervention and send me to blog rehab, I'm afraid there's nothing I can do to beat the habit..I just had to tell you guys about "sick gains" because I think you will appreciate it almost as much as I did and no one here could ever understand....

So TFA has all these acronyms and phrases, like things they talk about all the time that just become part of our everyday vocab (I guess it's sort of like brainwashing...) and one of them is "significant gains." "Significant gains" is probably the thing we hear most often because everything we do is focused on the ultimate goal of making "significant gains" with our students, which I think is about 2 grade levels, maybe 1.5 or something, anyway, not important...

So at our morning meetings, my program director (his name is Nik without a C and he's from LA, very California-dude, I'm sure you get the picture) would always talk about making "sick gains" with our students and I thought it was like the funniest thing I'd ever heard and sort of couldn't believe it/could because he was such a "dude." So every day, I was so entertained and so nostalgic hearing the word "sick" over and over (the way it was meant to be used)...that is until I realized that he was actually just abbreviating and what I thought was "sick gains" was actually just "sig gains" which is way less funny but still very LA. Needless to say, my respect for Nik without a C dropped like 5 notches that day and our relationship has not been the same since.

Shout out to Uncle Sam

Please tell him I'm sorry I couldn't make it to his 230th. I know it's a big one but I promise I'll be there next year!!

Alright, fine. Enough procrastinating--back to work on the "system of consequences" for my third grade summer school class. Kiddies arrive tomorrow...Yippeeeeeeee!

Schloppy Joe Jr.

The food here is really...funny. I prefer not to go into specifics because it is depressing but let's just say this: If the Ratty and the cafeteria in Billy Madison had a one night stand that resulted in the conception of a cafeteria baby, it might look something like Montgoris Dining Hall at St. John's University (although the hair net gene must be recessive because they're not really into that here...wait, is that illegal?...hmm...probably.) Anywhooo, Odwalla bars have become my addiction and life source. However I am disturbed to see on the package that their headquarters has moved from Santa Cruz to Half Moon Bay. Quite the tragedy.

And then there was LIGHT

siiiiiiick.