Introducing...

Ms. Last Name, Geometry teacher. I graduated. They had a ceremony and gave us new name tags and everything. More about that soon.

Now for the Institute.

This week has been one long rollercoaster. Sunday, we pulled up to a driveway full of people: some hot and sweaty (who had clearly been there all day), and some just starting to unload their cars. We were told to come on through, and those poor, tired souls helped us pull stuff out and moved it up to the building for us. We were sent through a maze of tables and stations to register, collect IDs, turn in paperwork, and whatever else we needed to accomplish to get started. Then we were released to find our rooms.

Mine is on the 10^th floor. I take the stairs at least once a day and feel like I’ve gotten enough exercise for a week. My calves hurt for the first two days. The rooms are decent, though. We have a corner desk, several shelves, a little chest of drawers, a kind of sketchy closet, a mirror with a light, and a bouch.

Yes, a bouch. A bed-couch. At night, it’s a regular twin-size bed. During the day, though, it pushes back into the wall to become a couch of sorts, kind of like a hide-away without the huge frame and top cushions. I’ll put up a picture when I get my camera cord back from NM. The bathroom is down the hall. I’ve not had any problems with it, but I’m still afraid to shower without shoes.

Monday morning, breakfast starts at 5:30. The buses to various schools leave between 6:10 and 6:45. Mine leaves at 6:30 exactly. I know this because I missed it the first day, along with about 5 others. This means I caught a ride with another guy who missed the bus, and we drove like crazy (sometimes literally) through the maze of highways in Houston. They have about 7 major highways and interstates, no kidding. Some places have about 5 overpasses all stacked up. I have no idea how people manage this on a daily basis. We made it, though, after looking for a street which I don’t think actually exists, and having to backtrack a mile or two.

The first day involved a lot of seminars on how to take state standards and write a learning objective, from which we can make our lesson plans. Unfortunately, all of those words get interchanged a lot, so straightening out which one someone meant is often a challenge. It was a long day, and I felt a good bit overwhelmed by the time we got back at 4:30. I have a wonderful group of other corps members at this school, though, who are all teaching math. We are guided by a 2005 corps member, who has been breaking his back to help us in any way possible, so I am grateful, and I’m staying positive.

Monday night, all 700+ corps members here were packed into an auditorium. The Greater New Orleans corps made our leaders proud. We have a cheer, and it echoed as we enter the marble atrium and processed into the auditorium. We got settled down and had some good presentations by past corps members, Houston Institute staff and the founder of TfA herself.

The last few days have been much the same: workshops and lectures and seminars from 7:00 to 4:00, with breakfast at 5:45, travel time from 6:30 to 7:00 and 4:00 to 4:30, occasional meetings in the evenings, a little yoga to loosen up, and crash somewhere between 10:30 and 11:30. There was one gem in the midst of this routine. Tuesday night, we had the opportunity within our school groups (called Corps Member Adviser, or CMA groups) to create a personal life map, a sort of pictorial autobiography. We had dinner together, walked across campus looking for our assigned room, got slightly lost and settled in a second-floor common area. We worked on these life maps for maybe 25 min., then shared them for almost another hour. I realized again through this that I have been blessed, and that these people are truly remarkable. Such different stories and paths and backgrounds have all led to this same place.

We're all here for the same reason, and that reason becomes a reality on Monday morning. All our work, our sleepless nights, our lesson planning and re-planning, our coffee downing and hurried eating leads to this. In one week, we have learned what most education majors learning a year or more. What we learned in a day, they learn in a semester. Given, we will not be the best teachers this first day. In fact, we'll all be scared and nervous and still have some bugs to work out. We will be dedicated, though. We've fought so hard to be here, to reach this point, because of our students. Monday, we meet them, and the work is all worth it.

Please keep us in your prayers.

Love and blessings.