My New Blog & Summer So Far

This is it! My summer blog for 2008. I wanted to start a blog for my trip to France to have an online place to record my thoughts & experiences and put up pictures and share with friends & family. However, I have been partaking in summer break for over a month now and thought I should start writing that down. Chelsea has me on a literary streak, I think. I keep reading these books that she gives me & now I think I want to keep a journal and write poems. So far I've read The Kite Runner, Looking for Alaska, The French Way, and Jesus Land. I have been taking the bus to Lemoyne everyday for my micro-econ class, so I've had a lot of time to read. I've just had a lot of time in general lately... but not boring veg.-out-and-watch-t.v. time-- real time to read and spend time with mom and dad and grandma and Chelsea and Jane and Brigette and Stephanie and work and sub when the hours come up and it has been awesome!!! I was looking forward to France so much that I kind-of forgot to get psyched up for the beginning of my summer, which has been really cool so far:

• I'm already done with Teaching in Urban America (TiUA) and I think it really turned out to be a great experience. I was at the Charter High School of Applied Technology (CHSAT) in Buffalo. I didn't do a whole lot.. just kind of sat and observed and graded papers and made copies... but it was still pretty good. I had a pretty cool teacher who was a swim coach and really, I think, real with the kids. I learned a lot about urban education and its challenges from the readings and discussions. I don't think I really got to see some of the thoughest situations (in schools like Grover Cleavland that are steeped with gang violence and where only 3 kids come to school and put there head on the desk and refuse to do work, becuase no one does work and they don't want to stand out becuase standing out in that kind of school is bad) I never saw gangs or any real violence at all. My kids were in uniforms and knew that they couldn't mess with the rules. For the most part, they wanted to be in school and they had families that supported them and teachers that knew they had families supporting them. CHSAT also had its problems with a very young and inexperienced all-white middle-class teaching staff and a poor, mostly minority student-body. But it was an exciting time to be there. The first class was graduating and many students were going to be the first in their families to attend college. The young teaching staff was also energetic and everyone was waiting in anticipation to see whether or not this charter school experiment would be a success or not. I was so worried about TiUA, but it turned out to be fine. Staying in the dorm as fun and driving back and forth to school with Rene and Tabitha was entertaining and I definately got excited about student teaching and about going back to Houghton in the fall, even though every year by springtime I don't think I can handle another year of college (funny thing for someone who plans on making a career working in a school to think right?)
• And now it's Summer: Part II and I am basically livin' the life and beginning to get excited for Summer: Part III. Wow! It is late and I should go to bed now!! I will be more detailed with this part later it seems! Look foreward to a post tomorrow!