Saturday, December 6, 2008

Blue turning grey

So my beautiful orange, yellow and red fall was rather short-lived. The trees are now shades of grey (to match the sky most of the time these days), and the weather has turned from chilly to brrrrrr.

While all this was taking place outside, lots of stuff was also happening inside. Including, but not limited to, THANKSGIVING.

Mom came to visit for Thanksgiving, and we had lots of fun visiting PS 132, eating lots of food and doing lots of shopping. Fun. Here are some pictorial highlights:

Matt Sto ... I mean, Kermit the Frog at the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade.

The best part of the parade? The pooper scoopers! What a fantastic job!!!


Becca and Smurf!


Macy's lalalalalala


Mom taking a picture of me taking a picture of her taking a picture of me taking a picture of her taking a picture of me .... creepy, huh?



And later that day ....


Mom, Becca and Courtney cooking a lovely Thanksgiving dinner.


Bryan doing what men are supposed to do on Thanksgiving: watch T.V.

Here's me caught somewhere in the middle of the kitchen and the living room. As the official Thanksgiving photographer, I didn't really have a place.

There's a party in my tummy! Yummy yummy!



Later that weekend...


The Brooklyn Bridge, probably my favorite spot in Manhattan. Please know that if you come visit me, we will be taking this walk.

Lovely!

Hey mom, you look cold!


I don't have much coming up soon, except that there are only 12 school days until Christmas break. C-R-A-Z-Y. Can't wait to go back to Phoenix and eat some Mongolian, some Ethiopian Christmasy stuff, Caffe Boa and Four Peaks. Oh, and see you all fools again, too. :o)

Sunday, November 9, 2008

I recall Central Park in fall ...

My first real fall:


The North Lake


Leaves!




I made Courtney pose for a dramatic falling leaves photo.


Follow the Yellow Brick (Leave?) Road


Kicking a pile of leaves!! How I've always wanted to do that.



Sunday, November 2, 2008

Two more reasons to love NYC

6. The leaves are changing. I walked by Central Park on the way to brunch this morning, and all the leaves are shades of red and yellow. Expect pictures sometime this week.

7. I went sailing in the harbor last night with a friend from high school who has the very fortunate job of being first mate on a boat. The city never looked more beautiful. Pictures below:


The Brooklyn Bridge from the East River
Downtown and the Brooklyn Bridge (to the right) from the Harbor

The Financial District from the Hudson River


And in other news:

Frodo Baggins and an evil Gladiator on Halloween.

Saturday, November 1, 2008

5 reasons I love NYC this week

1. I found the only Ihop in Manhattan, and it's only 20 minutes away!

2. It snowed! Sure, only for like, three seconds, and only in the Bronx. But it was awesome.

3. Bruce Campbell (of the Evil Dead series) is here this weekend for screenings of his new movie, answering questions and stuff. Jealous?? You should be.

4. Halloween in the East Village is AWESOME.

5. This morning I randomly walked into a street festival in midtown. Turned out to be a Greek Festival. Yum!!

Monday, October 13, 2008

Recap of good times

I don't have a lot of time to recap the last couple of weeks because I have a lot of school stuff to get done today, my day off (bless all these random holidays).

Shon came to visit last week, which was really fun. We ate fried chicken and waffles, went to McSorley's (the bar downtown that is the oldest bar in the US -- Abe Lincoln used to drink there!), shopped along Fifth Avenue, saw all the sights (Times Square, Brooklyn Bridge, Little Italy, yadda yadda), visited NYU and visited PS 132.

Here are some highlights:

Our second round of fried chicken in the East Village.

Manhattan from the Brooklyn Bridge

Some policemen on horses who seemed shocked when they learned I taught in the Bronx. A little too shocked, if you ask me ...


Anyway, besides that, it's been all school for me. Still trying to figure things out. It's hard, but it already feels rewarding.

Until next time, which I promise to be sooner rather than later, ciao!

Tuesday, September 30, 2008

Best Day EVER

So I took a walk around the neighborhood today to take a break from unit planning, and I noticed that they're building quite a few large structures over on 116th and the FDR. After some investigation, I found out they're building (drum roll, please ... ) a TARGET! Whahoo!

Best day of my life!

Saturday, August 30, 2008

I went to Coney Island and all I got was ...

To celebrate my last Saturday before school starts for the year, I dragged Stephanie to Coney Island quite against her will. At the very southernmost tip of Brooklyn sits Coney Island, the beach and small amusement park that has seriously declined in cleanliness and popularity since it's pique early in the 20th century.

After an hour and a half ride on just two subway lines, we arrived, and went straight to the original Nathan's Famous Hotdogs, which was founded in about 1916, or so says Wikipedia. Here is Stephanie in front of Nathan's:


After hotdogs, lemonade and cheesy fries galore, we felt ready to hit the amusement park. But first, we stopped for a little balloon racEing ... notice that extra E in there. God bless Coney Island!


Here's a view of the amusement park from the beach/boardwalk:


I took this photo for Robby:
Unfortunately, we did not ride the pirate ship, because Coney Island rides are absurdly overpriced. However, we did end up riding the Cyclone, the roller coaster that I think was built in the 1960s. It was very scary. Not in the scary roller coaster way, but more in the way that you think constantly "I just saw the wood creak, omg the coaster is going to break and we are all going to die" sort of way. Quite the adrenaline rush. I guess I forgot to take a photo of it. Here's a pretty picture of Stephanie and the beach instead:

After sticking our feet in the Atlantic Ocean, we decided that we'd had enough heat, humidity and hot dogs for one day, so we headed back to good Ol' Manhattan.

On the way home, in a random subway station in Brooklyn, the most remarkable thing happened. Bogart was resurrected!! An advertisement on the wall somewhere near the Manhattan-bound Q train contained a picture of, I kid you not, an exact replica of my precious, prized and now very sadly broken ceramic coyote. Here is a picture of my dear Bogart from the Subway station:

Anyway ... While I was uploading these pictures, I realized I never posted pictures from when Mom was visiting. Here are a couple of those:




That's really all I've got going for now. School starts on Tuesday, and I'm temporarily at the awesome PS 73 in the Bronx. I just don't know how long that will last. My future plans include reading some Wheel of Time, eating a cupcake and maybe, just maybe, seeing the sing-a-long version of Mama Mia! that is playing in Chelsea ...

Sunday, August 10, 2008

A Week of (non)Vacation

I've officially been free from Institute for eight days now, and while I haven't been waking up at 4:30 a.m. anymore, I wouldn't say that the last week has really been a relaxing vacation, either.

Mom flew out on Saturday morning to help me move from the dorm at St. John's into my new apartment, which was quite the process. We rented a small SUV, piled it full of mine and Becca's (my roommate) stuff from St. John's ... for having such small living quarters at the University, you'd be really surprised how much junk we actually had. We filled the car to the brim. One of several times we would do that over the next two days.

After several trips to Ikea, Costco, Canal Street (everyone should check out the free stuff on Craigslist, btw... it's awesome), Lowes and Home Depot, some in a car, some on the subway, we finally furnished the apartment. Whoo hoo! But then we had to build everything. Thanks, Ikea furniture in a box.

Mom left on Wednesday, after working 10 hours a day, with only one tourist day thrown in there on Tuesday when we took a boat ride around the Statue of Liberty and ate dinner in Little Italy.
I finally finished unpacking and building furniture on Friday. Good times. Here are some pictures:

My Room:

View from the living room window:

Though this week has been a lot of work, it's been fun too. It was nice having mom here for a while, and it was definitely fun doing the touristy stuff we did (Little Italy, tour of downtown, walk through central park). I've also eaten a lot of cupcakes, and yesterday I went to a music event at the museum PS1 in Long Island City with Stephanie, who was one of my roommates in Rome.

This week brings TFA orientation at New York University downtown, where we'll start writing our investment, management and unit plans for school, which starts in about three weeks!

Monday, July 28, 2008

Thoughts on the eve of my last real day of teaching summer school

As the title of this entry suggests, tomorrow is the last real day of teaching I have left of training this summer.

Wednesday we are going on a field trip to the Prospect Park Zoo, which I am more excited about than my kids are. Then Thursday all we are doing is administering our end-of-summer assessments for math and reading, and, of course, having a pizza party. (Our rad class won the perfect-attendance pepperoni party! yeah what!)

In between debriefing with my adviser, making posters for tomorrow's math lesson, trying to sort out last-minute apartment details (who needs electricity, anyway?) and trying to stay un-sick, I've done a bit of reflecting of what I've learned the past several weeks.

I think my biggest take-away is, still, something a speaker said on the first day of training: You have to forgive yourself every night and recommit every morning.

After days like today, it's harder than it seems to forgive yourself. But after a month like the past one, I think it's even harder not to recommit.

Sunday, July 27, 2008

A New NYC First!

I saw my first rat in the subway yesterday, waiting for the E train on 51st and Lex.

I can't wait to tell Rinaldy.

Saturday, July 19, 2008

The sweaty, sleep-deprived, partially terrifying adventures of Miss Brite

I am very sorry that I promised I would post at least once a week, yet it has been two weeks since I have posted anything at all. But, as it turns out, TFA training is quite time-consuming. Who'd have thought?

My last two weeks have been spent waking up every morning between 4:30 and 5, taking a heat-stroke-inducing school bus from Queens on a very slow and agonizing drive along the BQE to southern Brooklyn to P.S. 001. That's when the day really starts.

The next 9.5-10 hours are the best of my day. That's when I get to eat breakfast and spend time in the classroom with Abel, Abiel, Gabriela, Anthony, Jonathan and Rinaldy, my six ESL 3rd and 4th graders. They are so far behind in math and reading, but they are also extremely astute and perceptive ... Like when I talked to Jonathan on the first week about how we have huge goals to accomplish by the end of the summer and he asks me for a detailed plan about how we're going to do all of these things at once. It's awesome, because they get it. They know they're behind and they know they have a lot of work to do to catch up. But that doesn't get them down. That only makes them want to work harder. Which makes me want to work harder.

So that's basically why I haven't posted like I promised. I've been up at 5, in bed at midnight, with no rest in between (except for the afternoon nap I attempt every day on the bumpy, sweat-soaked bus ride back to queens) just so I have a slight chance of not messing up those six incredible little people too badly the next day.

Thursday, July 3, 2008

Work hard. Get smart.

I'm almost finished with my first week of TFA Institute. These past four days of waking up at 4 a.m. and going to bed between 12 and 1 have been insane. I've never worked so hard in my life. But at the same time, I don't know if I've ever had more fun.

Here are this week's highlights. Unfortunately, I don't have any picture yet.

Monday: My first 6 a.m. bus ride to the school in south Brooklyn where I'm teaching summer school 3rd and 4th grade ESL. My first impression? This place is incredible. From my classroom I have a clear view of the Statue of Liberty. With a little leaning, I can see the Manhattan skyline. I wish they were hiring for the school year.

Tuesday: The work is really starting to get tough. I took a seminar on administering reading assessments. It's not just theoretical knowledge. I have to administer them to my new students tomorrow. I took another seminar on backwards planning. Not theoretical either. I have to create a plan of all the summer's objectives now, so I can start lesson planning later this week. Thank god for my collaboration group, the three other new TFA teachers who I am working with this summer. I really lucked out getting them (Allison, Patrick and Chana) as teammates. I think we'll work really well together.

Wednesday: We learned how to write lesson plans today. I have to write two tonight for next Monday and Tuesday's writing lessons. I have no idea what I'm doing, but at least I don't have to teach math ... yet.

Thursday: Even though this week has seemed like two months, the work I am doing feels so rewarding already. I was in the resource lab in my dorm at St. John's, where TFA has provided thousands of books that we can check out and utilize in our classroom, and I came across so many of the books that I loved when I was in the third and fourth grades. A Wrinkle in Time. Matilda. Shiloh. Then I realized that there's no way, based on my students' reading diagnostics, that they would be able to get through even a chapter of one of those books. The most advanced of them (some of whom are entering the fifth grade in the fall) are reading at best on a third grade reading level. But most of them are barely on a first or second grade level.

We have so much work to do.

Sunday, June 29, 2008

One week done, five more to go!

Teach For America induction week is over, and boy was it a good one! We heard from so many different speakers all week who were so inspiring. And we also heard from so many people who were very real. So all in all, I'm scared, but very inspired to get going.


Institute begins tomorrow, and I find out today where I'll be teaching summer school (which starts July 7). So before the heavy work begins, I took some time yesterday to hang out in the city with Anjali and her cousin, who were in town from D.C. We spent our day on one of those bright red hop-on-hop-off downtown tour buses, which we rode from Times Square to Battery Park. We got off to take the Staten Island Ferry around the Statue of Liberty, but we never got back on because of the torrential DOWNPOUR we encountered. One packed, sweaty, wet and smelly subway ride and one sketchy gyro dinner later, we wound up at a comedy club that Jerry Seinfeld sponsors (or something like that). Here are some photographic highlights:


Times Square on the big red touristy bus. Our tour guide was quite the comedian. He asked the tourists who was from the South, and asked us if we knew what southern hospitality was. When everyone shouted "yeah!" he told us: "Well, you're not getting any of that here. In New York, hospitality is not getting hit in the face by a stranger." He also told us after we put on the white provided rain ponchos that we looked like members of the KKK. Strange sense of humor, that one.


Along our walk toward the Staten Island Ferry we found the Department of Homeland Security!


The view of Manhattan from the Staten Island Ferry. I wish it would have been sunnier out, but I still think it's beautiful.



The Statue of Liberty from the ferry.

What's next: Like I said before, Institute starts tomorrow, which means that the cakewalk is over. Luckily, since Friday is the fourth of July, we get off around 1 p.m., so that will be a fun little break. Other than that, I'll be in classes all week learning classroom management techniques, how to write lesson plans, and everything else that comes with the classroom.

Tuesday, June 24, 2008

Battles

It's the end of my second official day in New York, and I can say now that I'm facing a lot of battles in my future. The real work hasn't even started yet (the last two days have just been full of workshops, registration and what we like to call "Drink For America" activities), but I've already begun the fight against my own insecurities about leading a classroom, my concerns about finding a place to live and, especially, the ridiculous humidity that has made me look less like myself and more like a creature from the "Critters" movies.


But the humidity is just the beginning.

I had dinner tonight in the East Village with a Teach For America alumna (of the 2005 Bronx corps) who reiterated how many times in her two years she wanted to quit. Her school was a nightmare; her principal was even worse. Everyone has told us in the past two days that it's not even a question: we ARE going to fail. Every single one of us. I just hope I can learn from my mistakes like we are supposed to be able to do. I'll find out soon enough. Institute starts on Monday, and I start teaching summer school July 7.

On the brighter side of things, I am loving New York (despite the damp, damp heat). We are staying in residence halls at St. John's University in Queens, and it takes about an hour and a half to get into Manhattan by an intricate system of buses and trains. I went into the city for a happy hour last night (as part of Drink For America week, of course) and then again tonight, like I said, for dinner with a former corps member. It's incredible, and I don't think I could be happier with my decision to move to NYC. I've met a handful of incredibly smart, talented and nice people in the past two days, and I'm really looking forward to working with them for the next two years.

At the end of the day (the second day, anyway), my overall impression, so far, of Teach For America, the people and the city, is that I know I have so much work ahead of me. But when I think about the success stories I've heard, and I realize the difference I can make, I don't think there is anything worth fighting for more than this.

Wednesday, June 4, 2008

Back in town

So I'm back in Phoenix (for several weeks now), and while I'm missing Roma, I'm pretty excited for everything that's coming up.

Even though I won't be traveling to exotic locations and sampling strange foods in the years to come, I feel like I'm still traveling through life. (Every day is a journey, right?) So, if you're interested, you can keep up with this blog, hopefully, for the next couple of years to see what I'm up to as I move to New York City and start teaching elementary school. I'll post all the best stories of the crazy things my students do. (But hopefully they won't be transfixed on their hands and use their sock elastic as dental floss.)

So here it goes:

Since I've been back I've traveled to Oklahoma and New York, seen a lot of movies (in English!) and eaten a lot of hummus dip.

Here are some photographic highlights of the last few weeks:


A lovely State Press mini-reunion.


New York City from the reservoir at Central Park. I went to the city for a job interview, which I failed, and some teacher certification tests, which I owned. I also marched in a pride parade. So at least it wasn't a worthless trip.


The gigantic praying hands at ORU in Tulsa, OK. I went to Tulsa to hang out with Kristi on her graduation party weekend. It was quite the experience.


The Taco Bueno was the best part!!


Except for the giant golden oil driller. If you squint, you can see me down by his left foot.


What's next for me? I'll be spending the next two and a half weeks saying goodbye to Phoenix in the best way I know how: Four Peaks peach ale and hummus dip.

Thursday, May 8, 2008

Il fine

Questo e' il fine dei miei viaggi in Italia. Sono triste, but un po' eccitata a ritornari a casa mia. Anch'io sono felice a laurearmi and trasferirmi. Ci sono molte cose buone che devo fare, ma molte sono cose buone. Arrivo a Phoenix sabato alle 5:10. I prossimo due giorni daro' il mio ultimo esame della universita', compero' molti cannoli e vedro' tutti i miei amici qui a Roma. E, tristemente, diro' addio a l'ottima citta nel mondo.

Grazie a tutti per leggere questo blog. Ci vediamo fra poco!

Monday, April 28, 2008

It's been a beautiful (and almost stressful) week in Rome ... with papers due and finals in sight. Luckily, I still made some time to enjoy the incredible weather we've been having. Here are some highlights:


A post-nap photo in the Villa Borghese. After this nap I walked (for almost three hours) to the Villa Ada, which was beautiful, but crowded (and exhausting).



The Piazza Del Popolo, the largest piazza in Rome.


Last Wednesday Annalis and I went row-boating on the lake in the park. Che romantico! Here's when I rowed us into a wall and we got stuck in a plant. Believe or not, but I was the better rower.


On Sunday Stephanie and I went to the beach at San Marinella, about a 20-minute train ride north from Rome. It was our last attempt to avoid studying for our final (which was today ... one class done!)