black tie, cy style

so i went to a gala event for world unity, inc. it was pretty much one of those city year exposure things and they sent ten quick-emailing/responding corps members out to the even with a guy from external affairs. the food was good, we were too poor to bid on any of the items, but it was a pretty excellent deal for a friday night. i ate delicious things and had a good time laughing it up in uniform and chatting it up when the live auction got a little too pricey and i couldn't pay attention anymore.

there was a gospel choir and a tango show.

but seriously, the most important thing that happened this week was yesterday. i was leaving afterschool, saying a general bye from the doorway of the classroom and andre (the kid that spit on me, kicked me, and slapped my glasses off my face -- all in one day) ran up to me and jumped into my arms and said BYEEEEEE! i was in shock. i thought he didn't want anything to do with me. but then, what?! so yeah. it was a total joy.

also i finished all my RASL (research and systematic learning) data entry stuff today and i am all caught up on the last three weeks!!!!! it's so fabulous i don't even know what to say except for its a PITW that came to mind all at once about when you finish a task that it's like a release of energy (putting it in as soon as i find my handbook...).

oh and i turned in a DB (daily briefing) to be used for visitors at City Year Boston. should be a good document. it looks good this month for sure.

good things all around. and my team led PT this week at Copley Square and it was hot. we had incredible energy and enthusiasm for all the exercises, even when the corps didn't get the new ones we rolled out this week. we were patient and demonstrated everything over again. so yeah, go upromise!

back at the office

my street has a little too much action at night. which is why i can't sleep.

but back to BTR. basically, i thought i would be able to write about every day, but i am going to write really quickly about the most salient points because it is way too difficult to cover what i am going to call the entire sensation that was BTR.

we did a lot of workshops that challenged people to open up to each other, to question each other, to work towards educating themselves, towards realizing we have a lot of work to do with ourselves before we start working with the kids, and basically, to bring together a group of 142 (now 141, someone dropped out today) individuals that know nothing about each other in a short amount of time. i dont think we could have developed the camaraderie that we did in four days back at the office, but we managed to do it isolated in the woods, and i am pretty psyched for my corps.

we ate a lot of crazy camp food, did a lot of team building, did some service at the camp where we do BTR (my team helped to build a fence).

upromise william monroe trotter elementary school team serving
in the roxbury and grove hall communities

myself, kevin/r-roy (behind the pole) and matt on the right -- setting a post

i have come to the realization that even though the nametags that we wear every day are dorky, they are still super useful. it is nice to hear my name in our interactions, even with people that i don't know very well but recognize their faces.

so now we are back at the office doing more fabulous training, except it is really hard to sit still all day. i am glad that we will be prepared when we enter the schools because that was one of my biggest fears about teach for america, not being adequately prepared. today the MBTA people came to talk about safety and our role as ambassadors on the T. we get passes to ride around for free, even though they take a deposit out of our accounts. so at the end of the year we get the money back if we haven't lost our T passes. which is pretty nice if you think about all the money we could spend on transportation a month. not to mention 10 months.

on thursday we get to go to our school and visit in the community and do our PT out there. hopefully one day i will get to take a good picture of PT being done so i can put it up here. opening day is coming up for city year in a week and a half and i can't even believe it. our first day of after school is the 25th, which is like, next week!!