NOW

So you thought I cracked down on them Monday? You ain't seen nothing yet. Wait until tomorrow! It's time to take charge. God be with me.

Peace,
MO

WOW

So first off I want to thank everyone who is praying for me. I really really appreciate it and can definitely say that your prayers are helping! Since my last post I now have someone helping me 1 hour a night with lesson planning until Thursday and I have straightened some things in my head on what the purpose of this institute is. Now it is a good thing that I have this fairly straight in my head now but it doesn't necessarily mean I like the conclusion I came to. I cannot elaborate anymore.

So this past weekend I was freaking out so much over what I was supposed to teach, how I was supposed to teach it, and how I could take some control of my class with assertiveness. I went to church yesterday evening and at Sunday school the message from God was so loud and clear to me. He was asking me if I wanted to live my life on faith or fear. I had been living in fear all weekend thinking about going back to school on Monday not sure of what I was going to say or how I was going to say it. Well I prayed about everything and asked God to help me put my faith completely in him. I had pretty much continually been doing this the whole weekend and I was doubting whether I could actually do it. My biggest fear was going in to my classroom and trying to get 24 kids to stay quiet and raise their hands when they wanted to talk. I feared that I would get all this backlash and I wouldnt know how to respond and I would just give in. Well today right before my class I told God "Here we go" and sure enough at the beginning of class I started my lecture on how we were going to start raising out hands in class or I was going to hand out consequences. I stood firm and held one student after class. I think I made a big step today in my teaching career. I learned that I can be assertive and that the students WILL listen to me.

I am feeling much of my anxieties lifted off my shoulders and it is amazing. I am in love with my God. Its neat! Oh by the way I have a place to live after institute. A friend from church has an extra bedroom. I am very blessed to have known people down here already! I miss you all and hope to talk to you sometime in the near future. AKA after July 14th.

Peace
MO

How?

Only by God's grace!

I have survived week 2 of TFA institute. This is the most challenging thing I have ever been through. The students on Monday were not too bad. I went over all the rules, consequences, and procedures and tried to enforce them. When I say try I mean I gave people warnings on Monday and then became to lenient after that. I really did not establish a very good classroom management scheme. I struggle with being really stern and assertive. I definitely want to improve but I am not sure how easy that is going to be here. For starters I am teaching Chemistry and I am struggling to come up with the material that I am supposed to teach. I have been creating my lesson plans the night before each day and they have gradually become less effective. I am trying to catch up today and tomorrow but I barely got through my Monday lesson plan today and I worked practically all day on it. I am putting all my faith in God right now that I can make it through the next 3 weeks. I fully believe that he will get me through but not without first learning alot about the struggles of teaching along the way.

I have been getting on average 4 hours of sleep for the past 2 weeks and I expect to continue doing the same. BUT on weekends I do try to get more sleep. Last night I got 10 and I am shooting for at least 7 tonight. I am looking forward to this experience being over so that I can immediately get started on planning for my classes in the Fall. I now know that I must do some major preparations to be ready for school in the Fall. I am looking forward to teaching Math though. I believe that the concepts are much easier to teach and therefore learn.

Well I just wanted to let you all know that I am alive and I apologize for not being able to write more. Maybe once I am more than one night ahead of myself. Please pray for me if that is something you do. I need all the prayer I can get. Love you guys!

Peace,
MO

One Week Down...

So let me tell you a little about institute. I work at a high school with about 85 other corps members and we get on the bus to this high school everyday at 6:30 and arrive at 7. We then re-board the buses at 4 and get back to UH at 4:30. So just that is 10 hours! I also spend an hour up in the morning from 5:30 to 6:30 eating breakfast and getting ready to leave. Monday and Tuesday when then had 3 hours sessions that we were required to attend after coming back from the schools. The other nights were pretty free though. Then we have had quite a few assignments that need to be completed and turned into our Corps Member Advisors (CMA) each day. So the first 4 nights I stayed up until 1 and 2 and only accumulated about 20 hours of sleep in a 5 day span. NOT GOOD. Thursday was terrible. I felt like I was going to pass out all day and I felt like I had the flu. My back was aching alot. I think I actually did catch some kind of cold though because my throat hurt for a couple days and my nose is still stuffy. I have never had allergies and I hope I am not just now developing them. I seem to remember though getting slightly sick each time I came down to Houston. I think I may just need to acclimate to the environment.

In all the rustle and bustle I have struggled to make some good connections. It is pretty sad but I think I am going to start getting over it because there is so much to do that we all need to focus and cannot spend too much time getting to know each other. BUT everyone I have met is very encouraging and nice. I have learned alot about how to be an effective teacher and it is really hard to process it all at once and try to incorporate it into your classroom from the beginning. I did get to observe the actual class and students I will be teaching and I am fairly excited. The teacher who I am replacing for the summer doesn't seem to have any type of classroom management plan set in place and doesn't seem to expect much from the students. They tried to teach the class and while the students would be talking to each other fairly loud and just not paying attention in general. They really had no plan of action for that behavior. I did catch a few names so I think it will be really cool if I greet them at the door and call them by name and tell them that I am glad that they are there. I'm pretty excited but very nervous too. I will need lots and lots of prayer for confidence and structure. One thing that I am disappointed in myself is that I am not coming up with my lesson plans soon enough. We have been working on them but I have not fully completed them yet. I need to do this because I need some real concrete steps in how I am going to go about this.

I start teaching on Monday! Im scared...

So this is my life for the next four weeks.

Peace,
MO

One day down...

So I survived the first day of Houston Institute! I was expecting to be immersed in the classes as an observer from day 1 but was surprised to find out that for the first 3 days we are in learning sessions from 7:00 - 4:00. So today was rather long and tedious and I was working on 3 hours of sleep and only 7 hours in the past two nights. So needless to say I was struggling at times to stay focused. But there was a lot of interaction going on where I needed to give input so that kept me somewhat alert. I plan on getting at least 5 hours of sleep tonight and taking some coffee in with me tomorrow morning. Just to give you an idea, breakfast starts at 5:30 and my bus leaves for the high school at 6:35. Today I got lucky because the only reflection we used from the pre-institute work was exercise 8 which just so happened to be the only exercise I completed for today. Praise God! And no I did not know that would be the only one we would need. I now have to do some stuff for tomorrow. Homework....when was the last time I did this. :-/

Peace,
MO

Job Offer - Graduation - Flight Back To Houston

Let's talk a little bit more about the High School Math position at Robert E. Lee High School that I interviewed for on Friday. Before the interview I was talking to someone who had worked at LHS for 4 years in the early 2000's. She informed me that the principal would probably show up in jeans and a button-up. Sure enough he did. I was pretty excited to see such a casual personality with this principal, Mr. Amstutz, because that fits me very well. I also was talking to many other 2006 corps members who praised LHS because of it's principal, atmosphere, and that there was a good TFA support system in place there. According to Mr. Amstutz, there were approximately 20-25 TFA 2006 corps members or alumni that worked within LHS. Wow!! Well my faith was telling me that there was no way I could not get this job because it sounded so perfect. This helped me greatly to keep myself calm. As you can see from the title of this post I was offered the job on the spot and of course I accepted! The demographics of the school are as follows: 74% Hispanic 20% African American 5% Asian 4% White and 92% are free or reduced lunch. I am so excited to be working with these different cultures!

I flew back Friday night for graduation on which being held on Saturday. I got in about 10 and then pretty much went straight to Christy's to hang out one last Friday night. Of course we got Papa Dino's infamous cheese fries at about 1:30AM. MMMMM Yum! This was the very last time I would get cheese fries as a college student. :-( I then had to get up for graduation at 7:00 because we had to be ready and there by 8:30. Graduation was slightly boring and lasted about 2.5 hours with a lot of bad name reading and a not so fantastic speech by Oscar Robertson. They made a video to forever idolize the Big "O" and all his accomplishments. I think our graduation turned into an Oscar celebration. Last night after all the exciting graduation festivities I had to say goodbye to my family and friends for real this time. No more "I'm leaving...no wait I'm back" garbage. This time I was leaving for good and I had no idea when I would see everyone again. Hopefully I will be able to come back in December for Christmas. Leaving was pretty darn hard and I ended up getting very teary eyed. It happens.

Now on to this very cool story. Or at least I think it's pretty cool. So my plane's departure time was 9 AM this morning and Dave got me to the airport at about 7:45 so I had plenty of time to get checked in and get to the Delta Terminal C which many know is not really connected to the other terminals and you have to take a bus over to it. I thought it would be smart to check my bags outside so that I could get through everything quicker. I ended up getting in a line with the slowest human being in the world. I sat in his line for about 35 minutes watching people in other lines fly through their lines. I just kept thinking to myself that if I stuck it out I would be fine and I didn't really want to lug my 2 huge bags, one weighing 46 lbs and the other 64 lbs, and my smaller bag over to the another kiosk. Well I actually ended up going to a different kiosk because all of them were empty and I finally got checked in at 8:20 AM. So I'm freaking out a little bit and start running to security and end up finding it a pretty long line. My line seems to be going slow and when I was just about to send my bag through the line stopped for what felt like 5 min. My bag then goes through and of course I didn't do everything thing completely right and they want to scan it again. OK well they scan it again and then they want to search it. Apparently you are not only supposed to put the less than 3.* ounce bottle of liquid in a baggie but you also have to take it out of your bag so it is visible. Also they couldn't see through this little clock that I got as a gift from tribunal and they felt it was necessary to take chemical bomb tests on. By the time I got through security it was now like 8:42 and I'm freakin out even more. I book it to the tram that takes you to terminal B. Then I run up the escalator to the terminal C bus. I get to terminal C and as I am walking into the gate area I hear them doing a last call for my flight! This is the latest I have ever been for a flight. I seriously almost missed it but I didn't.

Continuing my story... I sat down in my seat on the airplane and saw that the lady next to me was sleeping which was good because I did not want to talk because I had to read/sleep. Well she opened her eyes, noticed my new TFA shirt and asked about the program. I figured I would just have to tell her a little about it and that would be it. Well she was very inquisitive and I began to tell her about why I as an engineer was doing this program. Turns out she is a former teacher who agrees with most if not all of TFA's core values. She also knows my 8th grade science teacher through this program she coordinates in many high schools throughout Ohio. Everything she talked about I was very interested in and she seemed very interested in everything I had to stay. Our conversation went from the philosophy of education to our similar faith beliefs to my relationship with Danielle and relationships in general. It was just so amazing that I was sitting next to a woman that had very similar views on things and loved the Lord as I do. Again I feel like God placed her there for a reason. I got her contact information and I will be definitely using her as a resource in education. I told her about how God has been blessing my life in very visible ways in the past year and she was telling me about how she has been blessed in her lifetime. She leads mission trips to Jamaica and her church, Crossroads, is heavily involved serving the people in Over the Rhine and South Africa. What makes things even crazier is that she was telling me how she didn't even have a seat when she checked in. They just "randomly" gave her the seat next to me. So our conversation lasted the entire 2.5 hour flight and in the middle of it I was thought about telling her about the book "Irresistible Revolution" by Shane Claiborne because it would explain a little of why I wanted to live in community with my students' families. Well towards the end of the flight she wanted to give me a book that she thought I would like based on what I had been talking to her about. Guess what! It was "Irresistible Revolution". I got so excited and I told her that the book would change her life or at least it makes you want to just sell everything you own and go live in community with the poor and share all resources. She was about 1/4 of the way through and wanted to give it to me. I am very glad that I have read it because this will now give her a chance to finish it. One last blessing I saw from this encounter was that I was worried about getting my bags from baggage claim to the shuttle. Well she was very willing to help out and I was able to get everything to my car very smoothly. The words I am writing cannot convey enough how awesome this experience was. I felt God so much in this encounter it was ridiculous and my eyes welled up when I thought about the greatness God was revealing to me. Wow!

Well now I am at institute in Moody Towers at University of Houston and in about 4.5 hours I will be getting up for breakfast and getting ready for my first day of summer school. We are not teaching this week but we have alot of learning to do before next week. This should be a very interesting week and I am looking forward to every minute of it. I know that God will provide a very exciting and enriching experience and will work through all of us to help close the achievement gap. We will see how things go. Until next time.

Peace,
MO

Houston - TFA Induction

I finally made it to the hotel in downtown Houston after circling the place a couple times because I kept missing the entrance and the dag gum one way streets. The minute I walked into the hotel I began to meet other 2007 Houston corps members and I have been trying my hardest to remember all their names. So far I am doing a pretty good job I think. Most everyone is very excited to be here and are fairly outgoing.

During my registration process I found out that tomorrow I will have a interview tomorrow at 3:00 PM with the principal from Robert E. Lee High School for a math teacher position. I am a bit nervous because they told us to prepare a long time for this interview and I haven't really prepared at all. BUT I have been through interviews before so I am hoping this experience helps and I can just charm them. I also have faith that if this is where God wants to place me he will. What is kinda neat is that the school is in an area I am familiar with and I just went to a coffee shop there last night and really liked it and was hoping that I would find something like that near me when I moved. This school is also very close to the church I now go to in Houston. I do plan on going to a different church within the community I live in but I was hoping I could also go to the evening service on Sundays at my current church. It seems to me that this school location would work pretty well for me.

So at the dinner tonight we had to wear a nice shirt and tie. I am not too bad at tying a tie but sometimes I have trouble and I thought I would just look around online to see if they had anything that could help. I found this really good site that has a step-by-step tutorial on how to tie a full windsor knot. It was pretty funny because it was literally step-by-step. Check it out if you want to know what I mean. How to tie a tie (Full Windsor)

At dinner I met a guy named Omar who graduated from Yale and he made me feel much better about not doing any of the pre-institute stuff. He just graduated this past Monday and he has also not started to write any of the reflection papers they wanted us to write. My roommate Micah has completed all the pre-institute material and it kinda worried me a bit at first. I was told by my transition team leader that I should not stress over it. So I'm not going to!

I met some really cool people today! God blessed me with a strong Christian roommate! I took a trip back to Jill's apartment, whom I have been staying with the last couple of nights, because I forgot my suit which I will need for my interview tomorrow. My new friends Stephanie and Abby kept me company on this trip and we talked alot about my Christian faith because Stephanie is agnostic and was very interested in knowing what I believed about many different things. I think it is amazing how God has put these people in my life to let me share my faith too. I have never felt comfortable with it before but over the past year I have become much more comfortable in my faith and being able to share with people. Another cool thing about Stephanie is that she is in a very similar boat as me because she has just started a relationship with her boyfriend a month ago so we can talk about how crazy we both are for starting these relationships right before we leave for at least 2 years. I am excited to share with her about my relationship with Danielle because it will be another opportunity for me to share how God has blessed my life.

So I was really proud of how well my mom, Danielle, and I had packed my car for my trip down. Literally you could not fit anything else in the car after I got in the drivers seat. I could see perfectly out my side mirrors and semi-perfectly through my rear view mirror. When I got to Houston on Tuesday night I asked Jill to take pictures of how sweet of a job we did. So we took pictures of each side of the inside of my car and then we opened the trunk and took a picture. Well then we needed to close the trunk but it didn't close right away. So we moved a couple things around and out of the way so it could close. It never did, even after taking every single thing out of my trunk. Apparently I broke it when I overstuffed it and forced it shut. Who would have thunk. The latch was not locking because it was not far enough down to hit the bar that made it latch. So I took it to a mechanic this morning at 7AM to have them fix it. They fix it and I go to pick it up and pay and the bill is $0.00. I asked the guy why and he told me it was because he wasn't sure how long it would last because they just adjusted it slightly. So needless to say I am not going to open my trunk until I know everything that I put in there is coming out just in case it breaks again.

Well breakfast is at 6:30 AM tomorrow and it is 10 till midnight. So I am going to be finished with this post. I hope I can continue to post about my soon to be crazy life in the future!

Peace,
MO

Cincinnati to Memphis

So I left this morning at 10:30 AM from Cincinnati in route to Houston. I made it to Memphis around 7 PM Cincinnati time. I would have been there about one hour earlier if it hadn't been for this big traffic jam in Bowling Green, Kentucky. They had construction going on which made things go to one lane and I think there was an accident involving a semi because when I finally got past everything I saw a tow truck lifting up a semi. During this traffic jam I moved 5 miles in 75 minutes. It wasn't a whole lot of fun but I was able to maneuver my bags around and sneak out a book to read while I was sitting still or rolling at 4 mph.

One random thing about the packing situation. I know I mentioned how I had to fit everything in my small Chevy Cavalier and that I was going to do a couple things to help out like putting all my DVDs in a 240 count CD case and packing most of my clothes into 2 large suit cases to bring on the plane back from graduation. (Wow that was a long sentence. I'm not sure if that is a legal sentence.) So what I wanted to say was, it is amazing how perfectly everything fit into my car. Even Jessica's, another TFA'er, printer! I don't think I could fit one more thing in there BUT I did fit everything I wanted and it is very snug and secure. I just see this as another one of God's many blessings as of late that I have noticed.

It was hard leaving Cincinnati knowing that I am not coming back in 6 months like I usually do. I will be gone for at least 2 years. It hasn't really set in yet that I may not see some people ever again. I am hoping to see many people at graduation this Saturday and Friday night too. It is hard to believe that we are all going to take different paths in life and hopefully keep up on each other's lives. This is just the beginning of another amazing chapter of my life and I look forward to every single second of it!

Peace,
MO