Updates

Hi, everyone!

I am now in Houston for Teach For America's five-week institute (basically, teacher boot camp). I will be student teaching at West Briar Middle School along with other Hawai'i special education teachers and corps members from all over the U.S. Houston is one of five TFA training sites across the country, and corps members from Houston, Hawai'i, Memphis, Greater New Orleans, Mississippi Delta, New Mexico, Rio Grande Valley, South Dakota, and South Louisiana attend.

Here is the actual link to my school:
http://www.wheelm.k12.hi.us/index.html

Another TFA corps member who will be at my school, Amy, and I visited on Friday before we left Hawai'i. Everyone at Wheeler is really wonderful, and I look forward to being a part of their staff. They told me that in addition to my 6th grade special education classes, I will also be teaching a World Language elective to many of the 6th grade students. I'll learn more when we get back to Hawai'i on July 14. I will be teaching in a portable classroom, so that will be an adventure as well!

I will be living with Jenn, who also went to CWRU, but we aren't exactly sure where we will be living. We didn't have time to look for housing during Institute, but we have a much better idea of where we want to live after talking with the 06 corps members, school administrators, and other locals. I also will probably be buying a used car when we get back.

Last night, we got some much-needed sleep after some long flights. We left our hotel at 6:30 PM on Friday for the airport, flew Honolulu to Las Vegas, had a four-hour layover in Vegas, flew to El Paso, stopped for a little, then flew to Houston. Carmen, an 06 Houston corps member AND the person who got me hooked on TFA (she worked as a Campus Campaign Manager at CWRU during her senior year, then convinced me to apply for the same job) is amazing, and she and her roommate picked us up from the airport around 10 PM on Saturday. As soon as we got back to their place, we CRASHED-I didn't sleep on the planes or in the airports, so I was exhausted.

The next five weeks are going to be really challenging. The bus for my school leaves at 6:15 AM every day, and the days and nights are long and packed full of student teaching, seminars, classes, meetings, and work. But I am ultimately excited because there are over 700 amazing new corps members here, and we are going to learn SO much and gain so much experience that will be vital once we start teaching!

My laptop is being fixed somewhere in the U.S., and it should ship back to Hawai'i in a few weeks. In the meantime, I rented one to use for the time I'm in Houston, so I have regular computer access and can update my blogs accordingly!