819 Hrs.

Today has been a somewhat less than desirable day.

In the middle of the night, my bed broke. I don't know how. I was fast asleep, and all of a sudden I was on the floor. I got up, replaced the wooden slats that had slipped down and the mattress, and fell back asleep. The same thing happened three other times throughout the night, so I was not well-rested at all when my alarm clock went off this morning.

When my alarm clock finally did go off, I woke up to discover that I now have the cold that Cory and his dad probably shared with me. My throat hurts, my nose keeps running, and I have a terrible headache. Because of this cold, I did not end up being able to go out with Cory and his parents today.

A little after noon, my roommate came back unannounced, and he came back with a friend that will be staying with us for a while. This made me incredibly upset since I do not get along with this roommate at all because of various reasons including his unclean tendencies, so now I am trying to figure out how I am going to remain sane while trying to entertain my company for the next few days.

-Aly

795 Hrs.

Nothing much happened today...church, a tour of downtown with Cory and his parents on the Metromover, and then some time in the hot tub. How come I am still exhausted?

-Aly

787 Hrs.

Every part of my body hurts right now.

Today, Cory and his parents and I went back to the Everglades - this time for a canoe trip. For almost five hours, we paddled down a beautiful inlet of water and were able to see such things as an astonishing mangrove tunnel and lots of birds including white ibises, all kinds of pelicans, and a bald eagle.

After we got back to my apartment, we had a "Christmas" dinner that consisted of tofurkey, mashed potatoes, green beans, dumplings, pumpkin pie, and sparkling cider. What an exhausting day!

-Aly

780 Hrs.

Today, I spent the whole day with Cory and his parents, who are visiting from California, at Everglades National Park. The weather was beautiful, and we ended up taking a fifteen mile hike around part of the Everglades. I have wanted to visit the Everglades for a lot of my life, and it was pretty much just as cool as I thought it would be. As we were driving into the park, we drove past a huge alligator that was right on the side of the road! We pulled over, took a bunch of pictures, and then drove the rest of the way into the park several minutes later. After parking the car, we began our hike, and right away spotted another alligator! Once again, we stopped, took lots of pictures, and generally just ooed and awed. The next alligator we saw was not so exciting since it was kind of small. For our next five hours on our hike, we saw dozens more alligators, so it wasn't as incredibly exciting to see them by the time we left. Some alligators were tiny like the ones we saw just emerging from a nest, and some were over eight feet long. Some were hiding in the water so that we could only see their eyes, but most were lying within only a couple of inches of the hiking path. All of them scared me a lot, since I expect to see wild and dangerous animals that close only if they are behind glass! The fact that alligators are also actually very sinister looking did not help, either.

772 Hrs.

Blaring Christmas carols in Spanish and Creole. Palm trees decked with Christmas lights. Eighty degree weather. Shorts and a t-shirt. Riding on a bus at 1:00 a.m. on Christmas day. Tofurkey. A poinsettia Christmas tree. Pip and Francheska. The beach. Miami. I could have never dreamed that one Christmas would bring all of these things to me. I guess that just goes to show that things are never as you plan.

764 Hrs.

Yay! Winter vacation is finally here!

Yesterday, Cory I spent the entire day at the Miami Metro Zoo. It took us a couple of hours to get there on public transportation, since it is down by R. R. Moton. The zoo was very large, and had lots of really cool animals. Usually at the zoos I have been to before, the animals are hard to see and are usually sleeping. At the Miami zoo, though, all of the animals were very active! Being a weekday, it was also nice to not have to battle lots of crowds.

Today, believe it or not, Cory and I spent the ENTIRE day grocery shopping. We bought a lot of food for Christmas Eve and Christmas. One thing that my local grocery store did not have, though, was tofurkey, which is what we are going to have for Christmas dinner. For that, we had to travel for an hour to a Whole Foods Market in Coral Gables. I know that there is a closer location in South Beach, but I really dislike going over the causeway. I have always been terrified of driving over bridges over water becase I have an awful image in my mind of the bridge collapsing and me being trapped inside of a car and drowning. : ( I avoid travelling to the islands whenever I can.

-Aly

Not Yet Winter Vacation

Since it is 80 degrees outside and I still see no snow, I absolutely do not believe that Christmas is only a few days away.

I have not been feeling well for the past week or so, so all I have been doing lately is lying around, sleeping, and reading. This afternoon, Cory and I visited the Miami Art Museum, which was tiny, but free for us "students", so it didn't matter. This evening, I have spent a lot of time cleaning my apartment, which I hope will stay at least moderately clean until my roommates come back.

-Aly

748 Hrs.

I am panicking because after typing in the title of this post, I am now realizing that I am behind in my hours by 102 hours. I don't know how that happend, but I guess all it means is that I am going to have to work extra hard to make those hours up starting January 5th, which is when the second half of the year begins for us.

This week has been very crazy for me. On Sunday, I went down to Bayfront Park to participate in a BBL during Bike Miami. The book we did was "'Twas the Night Before Christmas", and I got to be the mouse that wasn't stirring.

Monday and Tuesday were just like any other days at R. R. Moton, except that our classroom was turned into a winter wonderland. During all of our breaks during the day, my teammates and myself entertained students with games, contests, crafts, music, and lots of sugar. The kids really loved it, and I felt really good about it since I was the one who planned the entire event.

Wednesday was the last day my team was all going to be together at the school before break, so we went out to dinner after work.

Yesterday, I stayed after school with Alex, Madeline, Akilah, and Patty so we could watch the magnet holiday performance. The show was absolutely amazing, and included perfomances from the magnet dance, music, drama, and art students.

Today, I took the day off work.

-Aly

699 Hrs.

This morning, I woke up early in order to attend part two of the Young Heroes Team Leader orientation. The orientation only consisted of a few teambuilders, a little bit of paperwork, and a little of planning with our co-team leader as to what we want the first day to be like it, so it wasn't too much work. After the orientation, I spent a little bit of time calling potential young heroes who haven't quite finished their applications. I went home after only an hour, though, since I wasn't really feeling well.

-Aly

694.5 Hrs.

Since today was a Friday, we had a service day, and the service projects for today actually took place only a few miles from R. R. Moton. The frustrating thing was that I had to be at the site an hour ahead of time in order to prepare the project I was the project coordinator of, and it wasn't until I got all the way out there that they told me my project had been canceled. Instead of being a project coordinator, I was demoted to mulching duty for hours and hours on end. : (

-Aly

685.5 Hrs.

Wow! I can not believe that I did not even get home until 11:00 p.m. this evening!

Today was like any other day, except for what I did after school. J. A. was canceled since we were not actually supposed to be working at R. R. Moton today because of a meeting we were going to have. Since we run Jaguar Academy, they were not going to be able to hold it without us. I stayed after school ended for FCAT parent night. The FCAT is the state test that school children take in Florida. Since a lot of the parents attending the meeting were going to be parents of children we have in our tutoring sessions, it was suggested that City Year put in an appearance at the event. Before that started at 6:30, though, and after it ended at 7:30, I spent all of my time making our classroom into a "winter wonderland" for the carnival I planned for next week. It was a LOT of work, but I am hoping that it will all pay off next week.

-Aly

673 Hrs.

I had a pretty frustrating day today. : (

Yesterday, we were informed that we would be working in the office tomorrow, and that we wouldn't have to even be in until 9:00. As the day progressed, however, we found out that the meeting we were going to the office for was canceled and that tomorrow will be a normal Thursday. When we first found out about the meeting being canceled, we thought that maybe we could still go into the office and do work there since all of our tutor session and our after school program had been canceled for the day. My P. M. assured us all, though, that the tutor session could still be rescheduled. I was really looking forward to getting three extra hours of sleep tomorrow.

The main part of my day was also really frustrating. The kids were particularly devilish again today, and my teammates were also behaving worse than usual.

On the positive side, one of my teammates who has been gone since before Thanksgiving is finally back with us!

-Aly

664.5 Hrs.

Quick to help. That is part of the City Year pledge. Remember that I was trying to do just that while you read my story below.

Since it is very late, I only have time to summarize a little bit of my day for you before I crash into bed.

School today was fine, other than the fact that all of my kids seemed to want to pay attention less than usual.

After getting home, I took Francheska for a walk, and was followed home by two humongous yellow dogs. When I say "followed home", I mean that they literally followed me into my apartment! For those of you who don't know, I am actually very afraid of dogs, so this is not something I would do if I was of my right mind. I gave them some food and water and called the ASPCA right away, but it was hard to get a hold of anyone since it was already 8:00 p.m. When I finally got into contact with someone, they said that they couldn't pick one of them up for three days! They said they could pick one up within twelve hours, since I told them it had a huge gash on its leg and was bleeding, but the other would have to stay here for three more days. After speaking with the animal services people, I was able to convince three of my friends to keep them in their garage for three days and for one of them to pick them up with his car. In the meantime, I found out that the dogs knew how to sit, come, and shake. They were very friendly, and had a good time playing with all of the cat toys in my apartment. They were very skinny, however, and I could see all of their ribs. They gulped down about ten bowls of water and a couple of cups of food each. Unfortunately, they were also crawling with fleas. : ( Within thirty minutes, though, animal services arrived and took them both away. I kind of already miss them. : (

655.5 Hrs.

Another productive day today at R. R. Moton.

Today, we had some people from a research firm employed by City Year visit us to see how we work with R. R. Moton. I think the visit went really well, but I'm not really sure what they were supposed to be looking for. The only thing they observed of mine was Starfish Corps. Today was a lesson all about P. T., and we even had a contest to see which team could perform the best P. T. routine. My team lost. : ( Our visitors and my kids seemed to really get into it, and we were even able to persuade our visitors to join in a few P. T. moves with us.

-Aly

Happy Birthday, Beth!!!

Today was my roommate's nineteenth birthday. I woke up early and ran around like a madwoman buying her birthday present, a card, and wrapping paper. I also ran around trying to find a turtle ice cappuccino blast for her. She had one one time at the Baskin Robbins down the street from us, and she has been REALLY disappointed because every time we have been to Baskin Robbins after that, they were sold out of the turtle cappuccino blasts. This morning, however, I called ahead, and they were thankfully not sold out already! Unfortunately, by the time I got home five minutes later, it was already pretty melted and was more like turtle mush, but I think she still appreciated it. : )

-Aly

646.5 Hrs.

Instead of working in the office today, the entire Miami corps held a "recruitment blitz". What this meant was that we all spent the whole day in Miami high schools speaking to the seniors about joining City Year. As it turned out, my particular group only had one class to speak to first thing in the morning, so I went back to the office for the rest of the day to help the recruitment department with data entry and phone calls. The exciting part of the day was that I got home around 4:30 and was able to watch "Gone With the Wind" for the rest of the evening. : )

-Aly

637.5 Hrs.

Nothing much has been going on this week. My trip home was not long enough by far. There were a lot more people I wanted to see and things I wanted to do that I just did not have time for. I have decided that the only advantage Miami has over Ann Arbor is that I don't freeze to death here.

Things have been a little stressful at R. R. Moton this week; all of my teammates have been getting on my nerves for some reason or other. I try to ignore my feelings of annoyance, though, because no one has actually done anything to really offend me in any way.

-Aly

The End of My Vacation

This vacation was most definitely too short.

Today, I woke up early to go out to breakfast with my two of my best friends, Mina and Julie. I miss Ann Arbor so much! After that, Julie and I drove up to East Lansing to visit friends and her rabbit, Bandit. After that, we went to Panera, which is something that I have missed very much since moving to Miami. After that, we were supposed to get together with a few other people to make Christmas cookies, but I had to decline when I realized that I have not actually spent that much time with my family this weekend. Now I am home, trying to find a way to go seven months without seeing them. : (

-Aly

Happy (Belated) Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone! I hope you all got a chance to spend time with you family and loved ones - I know I did!

Yesterday I flew from the Fort Lauderdale airport into Detroit, and arrived at about 1:00 p. m. I couldn't believe how cold it was when I first got here! Dinner was at my house this year, and my aunt, uncle, cousin, and their three dogs had dinner with us as well. Being a vegetarian, I don't usually feast on Thanksgiving, but this year we had "tofurkey". I didn't not think I was going to like it at all, but it was actually delicious!

Today, I am spending more time with my real family, and some time also with my "family" family (my sorority sisters). It feels so good to be home.

Happy Black Friday for all of you out shopping today!

-Aly

601.5 Hrs.

I am so excited to be going home tomorrow!

Today was a really easy working day. For some reason or other, most of my classes and tutor session were canceled or shortened. In addition, it was Wednesday, so school was dismissed at 2:00, and J. A. was canceled as well.

-Aly

583.5 Hrs.

Things are still going really well here in Miami. The children were relatively well-behaved today, and it was an easy day since we only run BBL every other week, and this week was not one of those weeks. For the first time in as long as I can remember, I was actually able to wake up on time and start off my day relaxed rather than rushed, so that also helped my to have a good day. That, and also the fact that I only have to work two more days this week. ; ) One unfortunate thing, though, was that we had a team member out sick today, so we had to worry about covering all of his classes.

J. A. was great, and so was Starfish Corps. The kids are totally getting into P. T., and today we created Starfish Corps teams. My team named themselves "The Cool Kids".

-Aly

574.25 Hrs.

Miami weather is beautiful once again. I think that 80 degrees may be the average for today. Even though I am loving the sun and the warm weather, I am hoping that I see at least a little snow when I go back to Michigan this coming weekend.

Nothing much has been happening with me in the past few days. Things have been running smoothly at the school. The BBL that I planned for this week went over really well, too. The kids have also been absolutely LOVING Starfish Corps, and the lesson that I got to plan for Thursday seemed to be a big hit. On Friday, part of the day was a service day, so I spent my morning painting the outside of a building that is on its way to becoming a school. The cool part of the morning was that my commute to the service site was only five minutes! That is a huge difference from the two hour commute I normally have to take.

On Friday afternoon, we had a college fair/life after City Year fair, the result of which is that I am now seriously considering joining the Peace Corps after I graduate from college. We'll see what happens in the next couple of years, though.

Yesterday, I attended Team Leader orientation for Young Heroes. Young Heroes is the Middle School version of City Year. Last week, I applied and was accepted for a Team Leader position, so yesterday was my orientation day. Starting in January, every Saturday I will be spending my day leading a group of Middle School students in this awesome program.

-Aly

541.25 Hrs.

For some reason, I really had a short temper today and didn't really want to take anything ridiculous from anyone. It definitely didn't help my short temper that the kids were particularly crazy today. I know it seems like I say ever day that it was a crazier-than-normal day, but somehow the continue to surprise me with how wild they can be. The day seemed to go by quickly, though, which was a blessing.

Only eight more days until the break. Yay for that!

-Aly

532.25 Hrs.

As I may have alluded to before, the people I meet in Miami tend to be very odd. For example: today was a cooler day in Miami - the high temperature was at about 75 degrees. The wind, however, made it feel five to ten degrees colder. I thought that this was wonderful weather, especially for the end of November, but apparently, no one else in Miami felt that way. Most of the people I saw today were walking around in mittens, hats, and heavy winter jackets! How funny.

Today was most definitely a Monday. None of the kids I work with seemed like there were ready to settle into school for the week yet. For my first class of the day, I actually had to end up just having the kids sit silently with their heads on their desks. The rest of the day wasn't much better, other than for a couple exceptions. My second first grade group that is usually my worst group of the day did not cause my any headache today. The reason for this is that I took them out to work with each of them individually instead of trying to control all of them at once and by myself. Also, J. A. was awesome today; we ran our second Starfish session, and the kids absolutely loved it.

On the other hand, however, my team's closing circle was filled with complaints and negativity; that kind of ended my day on an unhappy note.

-Aly

Sunday Again

Another weekend is almost over, and once again, I did absolutely nothing this weekend. I don't especially enjoy being lazy, but I needed to be this weekend in order to get over the stressful week I just had.

-Aly

523.25 Hrs.

After spending the entirety of my day off on Tuesday purging my house of fleas, I have discovered that the fleas that were guaranteed to be gone within 24 hrs of the vet's visit are not yet gone. Because of that discovery and a few other things going on in the past couple of days, I have not felt much like updating. The feeling combined with the fact that nothing really special has happened since Tuesday are the reason I have for not posting since then.

As just stated, nothing really special has been happening. Wednesday was just like any other Wednesday, and Thursday was pretty much just like any other Thursday. The only exception to this is that we started Starfish Corps at R. R. Moton on Thursday. Starfish Corps is going to be a part of J. A. twice a week, and is kind of like a City Year for elementary school students. This is a program that is run in City Year sites throughout the country, and introduces young children to concepts such as leadership, community service, healthy choices and healthy living, protecting the environment, and the difference between NEEDS and WANTS. On Thursday, our after school students completed their very first day of Starfish Corps BTA. The kids had a lot of fun and got to play games, watch a skit, and make nametags for themselves. Starfish Corps gets its name from the "starfish story" that most people are familiar with that is about a child throwing starfish from the beach back into the ocean; everyone tells the child that he cannot possibly save all of the thousands of starfish washed up onto the beach, and he responds by throwing one more back and saying, "Well, at least I made a difference to that one."

Today, unfortunately, I had to take yet another one of my sick days. I woke up this morning with an awful migraine, and just did not feel like I could possibly make it into work.

-Aly

497.25 Hrs.

By miracles of miracles, today was a day off for CY because of Veterans' Day. As excited as I was about having a day off, I was also a little peeved that I did not know about it sooner so that I might not have had to take those days off last week to get Pip declawed. As is happened, though, today was a rough day for me anyway. Let me summarize my day for you:

-Wake up and while still in bed with Pip and Francheska, realize that Fran is infested with fleas
-Call vet to beg for an appointment for today
-Spend all day waiting around for the vet and feeling itchy because I now think I may have fleas
-Wash everything in the house, including the linens I just washed on Saturday
-Walk 20 blocks to Target to get all-natural cat litter, since Pip's bandages were to come off today
-Walk 20 blocks home and scowl at my friend who drove by and didn't offer me a ride
-Bandage up about twenty cuts I got on my hands from carrying the box of cat litter home
-Empty litter box and try to drag the bag of litter to the trashcan; it breaks halfway to the trash, so I spend time trying to find a broom with which to clean it up
-Walk to Walgreen's to purchase Boric Acid
-Max out credit card by paying for vet visit and flea medication for both Fran and Pip
-Spread boric acid over every square inch of my apartment
-Shower and frantically try to scrub all of the fleas off of me

-Aly

Another Weekend Gone

Plans for today: absolutely nothing.

-Aly

480.75 Hrs.

Friday was another Leadership Development Day. In the morning, we began with our usual P.T. and Unity Rally at Bayfront Park. After walking back to the office, we spent most of the rest of the day in reflection. On Friday, all 19 City Year sites used the whole day for reflecting upon the results of the recent presidential election, and what they will mean for us and for national and community service. Unfortunately, I missed lunch because of a meeting I had about the service day today for which I was a project coordinator. At the very end of the day, it was announced what City Year committees each member will be serving on. Thankfully, I received my first choice, and will be serving on the "Pick Your Passion" committee, which means that I get to choose any issue I am passionate about and spend this year working for that issue. After work, I rushed home to take care of my poor cat, who can not even get himself to his food and water bowls or the litter box. : (

Today, I was out of my apartment by 6:00 a.m. to head off to the service site. I spent five hours today working with Hands on Miami, which is an organization through Miami Dade Community College that organizes ninety community service projects a month for MDCC's students and other members of the community. Josh Young, who runs Hands on Miami, had asked a City Year Miami to send a couple corps members to be project coordinators for the day today, and I got to be one of them. My site today cleaned up a few miles of railroad tracks that have been bothering the community because of their condition. The whole place reeked of who knows what, and I couldn't take a single step without stepping on trash. I have never seen so much filth in my whole life. A problem other than the trash was a couple of "homes" that homeless people had set up near the tracks. We had to get rid of these as well. It was very sad for me to things that people had collected all of these items to help them survive, and that when they go back tonight, their things will no longer be there. The police officers who were overseeing the project said that this would help those people see "the error of their ways" and that they should get themselves to a homeless shelter, but I'm not sure I agree with the way we just threw away everything without the knowledge of the people who owned it. One of the "homes" even had a roof and walls that were nailed together! It was just big enough for a mattress, and whomever lived there had a massive area full of trash, assorted clothes, knives, dead animals, pillows, stuffed animals, bicycles and bicycle wheels, a cooler, and mound of peeled onions, tons of lemons, and "decorations". When a police officer went in and started pulling apart the walls and throwing out the mattresses, pillows, and blankets, rats and cockroaches swarmed out of the space and all over all of us who were standing there watching. It was disgusting, especially when several four inch long cockroaches crawled up my legs and flew into my face. Cockroaches are something that I never saw until I moved down here. I had no idea that they could get to be that big, and I most certainly had no idea that they could fly! I feel like I may have caught some kind of disease. Also, I have always been grateful for all of the things I have had in my life, but after seeing what I did today and thinking about what it would be like to have to lay every night with cockroaches and rats and to have to live like that, I feel overwhelmingly fortunate. If nothing else, I am glad that I will be coming away from this year with that feeling towards my life.

-Aly

Staying Home Yet Again

Because the vet canceled my appointment only an hour before it was to happen on Tuesday, I had to take another day off today to get my cat declawed. What a problem that has become.

-Aly

458.5 Hrs.

Again, much of the same today. The only difference was that there was finally a big blowup between some of the members of our team, which had to happen sooner or later. Basically, there are two people on our team who take control of everything we do and won't let any of the other team members help them out. Because of this, most of the team was mad at these two members and had been holding in their feelings for a long time. In the meantime, those same two members had been holding a lot of negative feelings towards everyone, who they felt were lazy and never wanted to help them with anything. This morning, one of the team members snapped and just started a screaming match with another member and that actually ended in tears. Throughout the day, the whole team was able to find several times during which we were able to talk about all of our feelings towards one another, but I wish that everything had not started in quite the way it had because of how victimized several people felt.

-Aly

449.5 Hrs.

Since today is election day, I wasn't required to go into work until 10:00 a.m. This was to give people the chance to vote who need it. I, however, had to take the whole day off so I can take my cat to get declawed. I wouldn't have done this if I could help it, but he is destroying our whole apartment.

This evening, a bunch of City Year members and myself are going to a poll watching party. Go Obama!

-Aly

441 Hrs.

Typical Monday today. Same old, same old, other than two new students in my fourth grade intervention group and the beginning of my fifth grade intervention group. BBL was also supposed to begin today, but the only group I had for today canceled. After school programming was also typical - kids complaining about not wanting to be there and me wanting to rip my hair out.

-Aly

Fall Back

Church today, and then working for the Obama campaign!

-Aly

432.25 Hrs.

Since I have been unable to post for quite a few days, let me relate to you whatever I can remember of this past week.

On Tuesday, the day started out with the first grade intervention group, the third grade small group, and the first grade small group that will be at the beginning of every day I spend at R. R. Moton. After that, I helped out in the library from 11:00 to 11:30 since BBL has not yet started. From the library, I immediately went to teach my fourth grade intervention group. On Tuesdays as on every other day of the week, I will be running a fifth grade intervention from 1:00 to 1:30, but that will not start until Monday. The last group I had of the day was a third grade intervention group from 2:00 until 2:30. After the students were dismissed for the day, J. A. ran as usual.

On Wednesday, my schedule was more condensed since the children get out of school an hour early on Wednesdays. My three groups in the morning were followed by a BBL section, my fourth grade intervention group, my third grade intervention group, and another BBL section with only a few short breaks in between. Because of the shortened school day, J. A. also was released an hour early, so my CY group took a bus three miles south to visit another school that corps members are stationed at.

Thursday was picture day and the day before Halloween, so the students were crazier than I have ever seen them before. I had a hard time controlling the students in any of my groups, and a lot of the day was spent by the teachers yelling at children to respect me more. It didn't feel very good to think that I couldn't control my students on my own, but I guess everyone needs a little help every once in a while. On Thursdays, my schedule runs as usual and without any BBL sections. On this past Thursday, however, I left the school at 1:00 in order to travel to Overtown to help out with the Halloween dance at the Overtown Youth Center. I was a bit nervous to be traveling there on my own since Overtown is the worst part of Miami, but everything turned out just fine. The Halloween dance was fun, and I even learned a few new dance moves from the kids I was chaperoning! The dance lasted until 7:00 that evening.

Yesterday, instead of having LDD at the City Year office, we met at the African American Cultural Arts Center in the Overtown/Liberty City area. For most of the day, we split into groups to complete various service projects; I got to paint some sewing tables for the drama and costume department there. The tables turned out beautifully. I painted a butterfly on my table, and some of the other has stars, and mountain landscape, and other such designs painted on them. The good part of the day was that we got to go home at 3:30! As far as yesterday evening, I was sick with a migraine and went to sleep early. I don't even know if we had any trick-or-treaters.

Today, I slept in until noon, and the only thing I have done so far is my laundry. I don't have any plans besides that for today, other than to relax.

-Aly

396.5 Hrs.

I lied. I did in fact do something other than lie around yesterday - Beth and I went down to South Beach for key lime pie. I had never had key lime pie before, so I thought that now that I live in Miami, it would be the perfect time to try it. It was delicious!

Today was just another Monday, I suppose. I woke up at 5:00, left the house around 6:00, and arrived at my school a little after 8:00. After P.T., I picked up my six first grade intervention students from their classes for our tutoring session at 8:45. The children were fairly well-behaved today, because I made it very clear that they would not be getting lollipops if they acted poorly. Thirty minutes later, I dropped off the students at their classes and headed for a third grade small group tutoring session. During the next thirty minutes, I helped my six third graders with a reading comprehension game. After that, I went back to the first grade part of the school for another thirty minute small group tutor session. This group normally consists of seven lovely little monsters, but today they were truly angels. The goal for today was to quiz each child on about fifty high-frequency vocabulary words, so while each individual child was quizzed, I let the other just draw, which worked out very well for keeping the craziness level down.

At 11:30, I had another intervention group with fourth graders, which was thankfully uneventful. At 1:00, I had a meeting with the principal about a new fifth grade intervention group that I will normally be meeting with from 1:00 to 1:30. Normally, after that intervention group, I will be running the Bringing Books to Life program with a second grade class for thirty minutes, but the BBL program won't be starting until next Monday. At 2:00, I had my last tutor session for the day, which is a third grade intervention group.

For the after school program today, nothing special occurred. Homework help, math practice, and the creative writing club is all that was on the agenda.

-Aly

The End of a Weekend That Was Too Short

No plans for today other than resting and enjoying what is left of my weekend. I hope all of you reading this are having a relaxing weekend as well.

-Aly

387.5 Hrs.

Thank goodness for another weekend.

Wednesday and Thursday were much of the same for City Year - tutoring small groups all day, and then homework help and the creative writing club in the afternoon.

Friday was another frustrating Friday in the office; it felt like we accomplished absolutely nothing. Other than thirty minutes spent completing our CPR certifications, the rest of the day consisted of everyone sitting around the office by themselves or in groups "planning" for next week in the schools. My very biggest pet peeve of all time is wasted time, so it is difficult for me to have a positive attitude about our Fridays spent in the CY office when I feel that I could be doing something more productive somewhere else. I do see, however, how the time "planning" could have been spent in a more effective way by teams who have planning to do. This weekend, I plan to work more on completing my to-do list, which is still insanely long.

Something exciting did happen on Thursday, though. My Program Manager, Mitch, asked me on Friday if I would like to be one of two members of our team participate in a new discipline program that our school will be implementing this year. The program is going to be a step before suspension, and will consist of character building for students who have been having behavior problems. Bernard and my job will be to spend two weeks with kids in the program talking to them about why they act up and what some better outlets could be for their anger or frustration. Participating in this program will mean that I don't get to take such an active role in my club, but that is fine with me since I'm not as passionate about creative writing as I was about a newspaper club.

-Aly

360 Hrs.

Today was the first day of our new schedule. My new schedule involves a lot more work, but is still enjoyable. Today was also the second day of J.A., which was somewhat less enjoyable than I had expected it to be.

Once again, Mike, Bernard, and I worked with the third grade group. We won't be working with just the third graders every day, but for some reason, that is how it was done today. For the first thirty minutes, we helped them with their homework. After that, we were supposed to be working on a math program on the computers in the library for an hour, and the kids were really excited to do that. As it turned out, though, there was a staff meeting after school in the library. According to the Vice Principal, no children are allowed in the library during a staff meeting, so he kicked us out and told us that the meeting would be over in ten minutes. The CY members tried to stall by having the kids play games, but none of them were happy with that since they were being deprived of the computers. When it became apparent that the computers weren't going to be immediately available, we then tried to stall by pushing up the schedule and running my club, the newspaper club. The kids had previously been really excited to participate in the newspaper club, but wanted nothing to do with it today because of the issue with the computers. By the time the kids went home two hours later, the staff meeting had still not let out.

Another down part of the day is that I found out I can no longer run my newspaper club. As you can imagine if you know me, I was REALLY excited to be creating a newspaper for the school. The librarian informed me today, though, the SHE submitted a proposal to the school today for a newspaper club, and that she didn't want two newspapers in the school or even for my club and her club to join together to create one larger newspaper. Now, my club will just be the "creative writing club".

-Aly

350.5 Hrs.

Thankfully, I was feeling a lot better today than I had been feeling this weekend, and I was able to enjoy myself for most of the day.

First thing this morning, I met with my first grade group. They were slightly better behaved than usual, but still completely unruly. I didn't meet with my two one-on-one students after that, though, because they were doing some kind of standardized test during that time. I will not meet with those two students again, because tomorrow is when our complete and final schedule with the school begins, and which does not include one-on-one tutoring. During the afternoon, my two other tutor groups went off without a hitch.

When school ended, we had held our first day of "Jaguar Academy" (the Jaguar is the school's mascot, by the way). Every day after school, a group of about sixty students be attending JA, which will be led by the City Year members at the school. For the first thirty minutes of each session, the corps members will help the students finish their homework. The remaining ninety minutes will be spent doing other things, but those other things don't officially start until tomorrow, so I will tell you all more about what those "other things" are when I find out for myself! Today we just spent that time playing games with the kids.

-Aly

341 Hrs.

I can explain my long absence - really, I can!

Early this past week, my DSL line in my apartment stopped working. I have no idea what happened, but it was a severe enough problem that it couldn't be fixed over the phone with tech support; they had to actually send a technician out to fix it this weekend. The DSL being down wouldn't normally have been a problem, though, since I have internet access on my cell phone and can update my blog from there. It was a problem, though, since my cell phone also decided to stop working this week! And even after hearing about these problems, you may still ask why I didn't just use the internet at the library or at the cafe down by the pool in my apartment complex. If you were to ask me this, I would tell you that I didn't do either of those things because I was home sick with the stomach flu for the second part of the week, and couldn't spend much time out of bed.

Now that you have heard my story, do you forgive me for not updating my blog this week??? I thought so. ; )

As of today, I still feel very ill, but the DSL in my apartment has now been fixed. Who knows what I am going to do about my broken cell phone.

Anyway, this past week was pretty routine. I started tutoring a new group of first graders, but as of tomorrow, our schedules are going to all be switched around. The reason for this switch is that we have finally been able to understand what City Year's guidelines are concerning the types of children were are allowed to teach.

On Thursday, the state of Florida sent people to observe the school. Because of the visit, everyone was extremely stressed out the whole week, and a lot of what we did last week was helping to calm teachers' nerves by doing miscellaneous tasks for them.

On Friday, I had to miss work because of my illness.

Ok. Now that you are all semi-caught up with what has been going on in my life, I PROMISE to TRY to be more diligent with updating my blog from now on. No more slacking for me!

-Aly

One More Day of Semi-Relaxation

My to-do list for today: everything from yesterday minus finish laundry, buy film, go to post office, and pay bills. How do the days pass by so quickly?

-Aly

Another Saturday

To Do list for today:

-Finish laundry
-Pick up package at post office
-Buy black and white film
-Eat lunch
-Pay internet and gas bills
-Fill out my time sheet for this week
-E-mail lady about City Year London (!)
-Set up next week's Ladies' Club meeting
-Call Mom
-Fill out Young Heroes Team Leader application
-Complete online CPR training
-Clean apartment
-Talk to maintenance office about fixing the blinds I broke in my bedroom (oops!)
-Buy candy for one of the awesome groups I tutor as a reward for being so awesome
-Call Kathryn
-Call Dad
-City Year "homework"
-Work on Obama campaign

-Aly

297 Hrs.

Yesterday, because of the Jewish holiday, the kids at R. R. Moton had no school. We, however, did not have the day off and instead spend a very busy day doing miscellaneous jobs for the teachers around the school. Some of the things I did were to weed the butterfly garden, decorate classrooms, file papers, and set up the art gallery.

Today we met in the office again for another LDD. The morning started out, as always, with P.T. It was miserable this morning, though, because it was pouring rain. After P.T., we broke into teams, and the graduation requirements were explained to us. This took about 30 minutes, and when we were heading back into the main meeting room to begin listening to another financial literacy lecture, my Program Leader called back myself and three other people from my team. He told us that we were selected to go to a school board meeting that day so that there could be a City Year presence at the meeting, and that the meeting started at 10:30 a.m. The meeting was a special meeting called to approve the contract of the new superintendent who was hired recently, and we wanted to be there since he has been such a big proponent of City Year Miami. The meeting didn't go that smoothly, though, because apparently there is much controversy surrounding the new superintendent and the way in which he was hired. At 3:30, we left the meeting, which still wasn't over, to go to lunch and then back to the office. Back at the office, we filled out time sheets, received some more of our uniform parts, and then broke to go home.

-Aly

280 Hrs.

Wow, have I been busy lately! I'm sorry I have not posted in five days, Faithful Readers, but things around here have been pretty crazy.

Let's start with Saturday. I woke up early to do my laundry (8:00), but that was still not early enough, so I had to wait around for quite a while until the machines were empty. That afternoon, I went over to Trevor's house to use his t.v. to watch the University of Michigan homecoming football game, which was a HUGE mistake because it wasn't very fun to watch us get beat 20-45. : ( Later that evening, a couple more of our friends joined us for a movie night.

On Sunday, I went to church, and that was about it, other than catching up on my sleep.

Monday was the first day of our regular schedule at the school. From 8:30 to 10:00, I have three students that I help for 30 minutes each. During this time, I help them with whatever they are working on in the class at that moment. From 10:00 to 11:30, I eat lunch and help anyone I can find to help. On Monday, I kept order in the lunchroom for a while since the staff was short today, and then I helped the librarian for a little bit since she pulled a muscle in her neck and can't bend over. From 11:30-12:00, I tutor a group of five children in reading. After that, I find myself more work to do until 2:00, which is when I have another small-group tutoring session for 30 minutes. At 3:00, we all go outside to help with the buses and child pick-up. When that is over, we go to the "cafetorium" to help the latchkey kids with their homework until 5:00, when I catch a bus for my two hour commute back home.

On Tuesday, things were pretty much the same. During my break times, I helped in the orchestra classroom. After school, our City Year team attended a staff meeting so we could introduce ourselves to everyone at the same time.

Today, the schedule was a little different since the children are dismissed an hour earlier on Wednesdays. This morning, two of my individual tutoring students were absent, so instead I helped the kindergarten and first grade students learn about safety (look both ways before you cross the street). During my break times, I helped out in the library and with the special education students. On Wednesdays, the afternoon small group sessions are pushed earlier, but unfortunately one of my groups forgot about meeting today, so we missed that session.

Technically, my day isn't over yet-I'm typing this on the computer in my classroom right now so that I don't go home and feel too tired to update you all. When school is dismissed in 15 minutes, I should be helping with the pick-up and with homework help. Hopefully we'll get to leave on time tonight!

Oh, and guess what? I get to go home for Thanksgiving! If any of you are going to be in town then, let me know!

-Aly

253 Hrs.

TGIF!

Today was a Leadership Development Day, or LDD. Every Friday, instead of working in the schools, we will be going to the office for an LDD. These days will consist of different types of training, and community service on some days. Today, we started off the day with P.T., and then a session of "roses" and "thorns", which is where we were able to share with each other the good and bad parts of the week. After that, one of the Program Managers gave us a presentation on professionalism.

After the presentation, we had an external speaker talk to us about managing our money and credit. For lunch, she gave us free pizza and soda! I have had neither pizza nor soda since I left Michigan a month and a half ago, so they tasted especially wonderful.

During the lunch break, most of the ladies of City Year Miami had a meeting. We have decided that we would like a female version of the club that the CYM gentlemen have started, so we met today to discuss what we would like that club to look like. I think I forgot to write about this when we had our first planning meeting last week, but this is the second meeting we have had.

After the lunch break, we listened to a presentation from the Young Heroes team, which is trying to get CY members to sign up to be team leaders. There was also a presentation about mandated reporting from a couple of people working for the Florida Department of Children and Families. Then, we took some surveys about CY and received our e-mail addresses, cell phones, and bus passes. Some of us also received their paycheck for this week, but for some reason, I did not. : (

-Aly

244 Hrs.

Did the sun come out today? I don't know, because I left home while it was still pitch black outside, and didn't get home again until it was dark. Today was more of a typical City Year day; no more of that getting out early nonsense.

When we got to the school today, I led P.T. Apparently, all of the kids now think that I am the boss, since I tell people what to do and they do it. : ) My first class today went off without a hitch, and I was able to just sit back, observe, and mind my own business. The second class of the day is where things went wrong. While I was sitting in the back of the class and observing, the teacher asked me to grade some papers. Since I was told very explicitly that we were absolutely not to be used for things such as grading papers, I very nicely informed her that I didn't think that I was allowed to do that for her. Upon hearing that, she told me she didn't want me in her class and asked me to leave. I left and immediately went to the office of the woman who is coordinating City Year in R. R. Moton. For the time being, she sent me to work in a Kindergarten class. The children there were sooooo cute! Later I found out that I am now a Union problem, since the teacher who kicked me out of her class spoke with the Teachers' Union about me. I'm not sure what right of hers I supposedly infringed upon, but apparently I did something really bad.

During lunch, Madeline, Nick, and I spent some time in the lunchroom to help keep the order there.

After lunch, one of the teachers invited us to her class to teach them P.T. The kids caught on very quickly, and were really good at it-even better than some of our City Year members! For the rest of today, the kids kept coming up to me and performing some of the routines. How adorable!

In the afternoon, both of my tutoring sessions went well. After the dismissal bell rang, we went to the lunchroom to help the students staying after school with their homework until 6:00.

-Aly

233 Hrs.

I definitely had a rough day today.

The first thing my team did this morning was head down to the library so we could be taped for the tv morning announcements. The students don't realize that those morning announcements don't broadcast to everyone else in the world, so they now think we are movie stars!

After the taping, we went to the classrooms for our one-on-one tutoring sessions. During these sessions, we will be spending some time with a particular student in a class, and will be sitting with them at their desks during that time to help them with whatever they are working on. This was one of the rough parts of the day, because the teachers I had to work with were really mean and made it very clear that they did not want me in the classroom.

After an hour and a half in the classrooms, we had a short lunch break. During this time, I snuck into the orchestra class. When the teacher began tuning all of the students' instruments, I offered help, which she gladly accepted. When I started tuning, the students said to me "Miss Alyssa, you know how to tune instruments?!?!?!" To which I replied, "Yes, and I know how to play them too." "Wow, I bet you're really good!" they said. : )

When the afternoon began, I went to some of the small group tutoring so I could observe and better ready myself for Monday. Unfortunately, I realized that one of the third graders who will be in one of my small groups can not read at all. During the lesson, the teacher just had all seven of the students read the passages together. I noticed that one boy wasn't reading aloud at all, and that when he was following along on the page with his finger, he would keep going forward with his finger even when the other students would go back to correct themselves on something they had read. After a while, the student would get lost and just stare at the page until I would help him find his place again. That made me very sad.

At the end of the day, my teammates and I stayed after school for a few hours to help some of the students with their homework.

-Aly

225 Hrs.

Today, I had to wake up 30 minutes earlier than yesterday so I could get the bus station after the rail station by 7:15. The reason for this is that the principal of our school told us that Perrine is not an area we should be walking around in alone, so my teammates and myself thought it would be best to meet up at the bus station at the same time to travel the last leg of the trip together.

Today was a frustrating day for me. I had to wake up really early today and was extremely tired for pretty much no reason at all (or so it felt to me). Today was a teacher planning day, so there were no students for us to help or observe. We sat around in our classroom doing nothing until noon, which is when we went to the school library for a two-hour training. On the positive side for today, the training was for the tutoring method we will be using for this year, and was very useful. Also, since we still had nothing to do after the training, we were allowed to go home early!

On the down side for the rest of this week, we won't actually be starting to teach until Monday. One of our members was sick with the stomach flu today and two other members can't participate until Monday because of paperwork issues, so we didn't want to start all of our work in the school with only half of a team; that wouldn't have looked very good for us after we committed ourselves to helping a specific number of students. Also, some of the teachers still apparently don't understand what is going on with City Year. We will still be going into the school for the rest of this week, though, to do some other kinds of helpful work around the buildings.

-Aly

217 Hrs.

I have to wake up in five hours from now to start another day with City Year, so unfortunately, I have to make this post quick.

This morning, I woke up at 5:00 a.m. in order to give myself an hour in which to eat breakfast, pack lunch, walk Francheska, do some yoga, etc. At 6:00 a.m., I left my apartment for the short walk to the bus stop. I boarded my first bus, which took me to the City Year office in Downtown Miami that I went to every day for BTA. From there, I caught the southbound metrorail at 6:45. I took the metrorail as far south as it would go, and then caught another bus at 7:45. During the trip, I only had one minor hitch (I couldn't find the metrorail station), but still managed to arrive at R. R. Moton at 8:10, which was five minutes before we were set to begin our day.

After performing a short P.T. routine for the kids, we were let into the classroom that we will be using for this year, and were given about and hour and a half in which we set up, cleaned, and decorated. After that time, three of my team members headed off to shadow the reading coach for thirty minutes. When we arrived at the school, the music teacher had asked us to visit his class at 10:30, so that is what Nick, Mike and I did during that time. I had a great time in the music class, even when the teacher made the three of us stand up in front of his class and perform the anti-drug rap while the students backed us up! After that, the three of us took a turn shadowing one of the reading coaches with our other three team members finished setting up our classroom.

Then came lunch, and after that was more classroom shadowing. At one point, Nick, Mike and I had no specific class we had to sit in on and were able to watch the dance class for a little while. Wow! The students at R. R. Moton are incredibly talented!

At the end of the day, we met with the Vice Principal and a few of the reading coaches and were given our class lists for the year. I will be working only with third and fourth graders this year, unless one of the other people on my team wants to switch lists with me. Sadly, one of the students I will be working with is in the third grade for the third time, so my goal for this year is to help her pass the third grade without having to be automatically promoted.

After the bell rang, we were asked to help with the buses and parent pick-up. One of the students I met during that time asked us to go visit the choir practice, but we didn't end up being able to do that after all. Hopefully another time, though.

Since we don't have any after-school programs to run yet, I was able to leave early and get home by 6:00. What a treat!

The kids were great today, and they seem very excited to have us. I even got lots of complements on my boots and red jacket! : )

I'm super excited to go back tomorrow, but in order to be alive, awake, alert, and enthusiastic tomorrow I have to get some sleep, so, goodnight!

-Aly

P.S. Happy 21st birthday, Brittney! I'm terrible at remembering birthdays, and I'm so sorry about that!

Another Boring Day

I have absolutely nothing to say about today, because today I did absolutely nothing other than go to church. Well, I guess I could say that the church service was nice. ; )

-Aly

208 Hrs.

I was really excited for this weekend so I would have time to relax, and so far this weekend has lived up to my expectations.

This morning, I was able to sleep in for a little bit, but was still able to wake up early enough to get my laundry in before anyone else this morning. While my laundry was going, I walked to the grocery store to stock up on some of the items that I have been going without for a long time. I am very proud of myself because I was able to buy a couple weeks' worth of groceries for only $44!

In the afternoon, I went over to the main branch of the public library to help Irene (one of my fellow City Year corps members) with a service day that she had planned. Along with a few other City Year members, we demonstrated P.T. so we could give the audience a little taste of City Year Miami culture. I didn't stay very long because I had hoped to get to the post office before it closed, but didn't end up making it in time anyway.

Tonight was pretty low-key as well. At 6:30, I headed over to Trevor's for a movie night; we watched "Mulan" and "The Lion King". It is now 11:00 p.m., and I am already home from Trevor's and ready to go to bed and get lots of sleep tonight. I'm going to need lots of rest before starting at R. R. Moton on Monday!

-Aly

206 Hrs.

I am now officially a City Year corps member! Whoo hoo!

This morning, I had to wake up extra early to take a bus out to South Beach, which is where our Opening Ceremony was held. For the first couple of hours we spent the time practicing the ceremony. After that, a few of us were able to go the the Champions' Reception where we would mingle with the people who made City Year Miami possible.

At noon, our Opening Day Ceremony began. The whole thing was awesome because of the incredibly high level of energy that the corp and everyone else in the audience had. The ceremony was about an hour long, and featured speakers such as the CEO of City Year, the Senior Vice President of City Smith Barney, members of the Miami-Dade County School Board and the Board of Commissioners, and a City Year Alumnus from City Year's first corp in 1988.

When the ceremony ended, everyone headed out to do a few hours of community service. I painted and helped garden, and other members of the corp completed various other projects in Liberty City.

City Year officially begins for me on Monday-I can't wait!!!

-Aly

P.S. Jose, here is the shout out I promised you! ; )

196 Hrs.

Absolutely nothing was accomplished today in terms of getting us more ready for helping the children, but we somehow still had a full day. All we did today was rehearse the Opening Day Ceremony and rehearse what we were going to do when the Florida Volunteer Commission visited. They visited our office today for a few minutes since they were a key component in getting a City Year site in Miami, so we had to make sure we greeted them well.

Tomorrow is Opening Day/service day! I can't wait!!!

-Aly

P.S. The picture below is of me in my lovely Timberland uniform.

188 Hrs.

I definitely did not want to wake up this morning. The lack of enthusiasm I had for today was entirely because of the fact that I stayed out until 2:00 a.m. this morning hanging out with C.T. and M & M. I know I should not have done that on a weeknight, but "so it goes."

To begin our day, we went over to Bayfront Park for P.T. After that and until lunch, we didn't really do much of anything, the reason being that the schedule for the day had been really messed up and they couldn't actually find anything else for us to do. After lunch, we listened to a workshop about how to encourage kids in the classroom, and then got to leave about 30 minutes early. At 6:30, Yasmine picked Erin, Erin, M & M, Beth, Bar and I up and took us out to Coconut Grove, which is where we would be attending out first Generation Engage meeting. As stated on the Generation Engage website, "GenerationEngage is a nonpartisan youth-civic-engagement initiative that connects young Americans to political leaders, to other civic organizations, and to meaningful debate about the future they will inherit." We met this evening at a restaurant to hear a Florida State Representative talk about Florida's education problems. It was really interesting to hear the person talk, but kind of frustrating that we were late to the meeting, couldn't find seats, and didn't get to eat any of the delicious food that was promised us. After the meeting, a bunch of City Year corp members went across the street to The Sandbar, but I was hungry and tired and decided just to go home.

I'm so excited-only one more day of BTA!

-Aly

179 Hrs.

Today was the first day we got to wear our uniforms! I was super excited about this for several reasons, one reason being that we were not told we would have to wear business casual every day during BTA, so I did not pack much of that to bring with me to Miami and all I had to wear was one black skirt and one pair of terrible black high heels along with a couple of tops. The uniforms look pretty dorky (brown Timberland work boots, khaki pants with the elastic waistband sitting above my belly button, and a white polo shirt that I swim in because it is so large), but it looks very nice and is incredibly comfortable. I was also excited to get the backpack that is part of our uniform since the only purse that I thought to bring with me is a small purple wristlet.

This morning, Charlie Rose, who is the Vice President and Dean of City Year, visited our office. He was given a tour of our office, and after lunch he spoke to us for a while about his life and the work he has done with City Year and other organizations. The rest of the day was the Red Jacket Ceremony. During this ceremony, we all sat in a circle and each person would stand up and announce who he was dedicating his jacket to before putting it on and zipping it up. The point of dedicating our jackets was to recognize people who have helped us get where we are today and to think about who we want to put on our jacket for each day to make them proud. I dedicated my jacket to all of you-to everyone who has ever had an impact on my life to make me the person I am today.

The ceremony was long, and we got out of work an hour later than usual. When we got home, Beth, Bernard, and I went to the gym, but only for a little while because the arthritis in my knees really started to bother me.

Two more days of BTA!!!

-Aly

170 Hrs.

Only three more days of BTA! I am incredibly excited about this.

This morning, we started off the day performing PT at Bayfront park. From there, we went back to the office for a workshop on City Year culture. After that, we learned a little bit about the event occurring this week, including the Red Jacket Ceremony tomorrow. The red bomber jacket that each City Year members wears is a very special article of clothing that stands for unity, pride, spirit, discipline, and the hard work that has gone into earning the jacket and will be completed in the months to come by the person wearing the jacket. According to City Year's "Idealist Handbook 2008-2009", "Giving a bomber jacket is one of the highest honors that City Year bestows on champions" (p. 138). We also learned a bit about the Opening Day ceremony that will be on Friday.

After that we had lunch, and after lunch we received our uniforms! The rest of the afternoon was spent trying on uniform pieces.

-Aly

162 Hrs.

This weekend was, thankfully, very relaxed for me.

On Saturday, I let myself sleep in late, and then went to South Beach in the afternoon with Erin, Erin, Bar, and Trevor. I got in the water once, but spent most of the time just sleeping in the sand. Surprisingly, I did not get sunburned! I guess that SPF 85 sunscreen really does work. At around 10:00 p.m., I went to Trevor's house for a party that didn't turn out to be as exciting as I had hoped, and I ended up leaving pretty early.

This morning, I accidentally slept in past my alarm and missed church, but fortunately still made it to a planning for a service day in Miami that one of the CYM corp members is organizing for next weekend. I got assigned to the PT committee, which means that I will be a part of the group performing a demonstration of our PT during the event. The rest of today was spent reading the newspaper, cleaning, and relaxing.

Five more days until Opening Day!

-Aly

160 Hrs.

TGIF! I don't think I have ever needed a weekend this much.

My day today started out with P.T., which was fun, as always. After that, we walked back to the office and created some skits about different problems that may occur with corp members. After that, we played a game in which we broke up into seven teams and each team had to create a community. Before anyone could build anything, though, one representative from each team had to go up to the "city council" and present their idea to them to see if it would be approved. The corp members had no idea, but ahead of time, each team was tagged as either upper class, upper-middle class, middle class, lower class, or impoverished. The idea is that it was easier for the upper class communities to build things they needed than the lower class communities. We were a lower class community. In the beginning, I was the representative, and went up to the city council to ask permission to build a hospital. Twice I was asked to let other representative go in front of me before I got the idea that the city council was not going to listen to me. When I went back to my team, we decided to revolt, and that is where everything with my team went downhill. We were supposed to be demonstrating civil disobedience, but half of my team wasn't listening when we discussed the revolt, so when the city council finally decided to listen to us, I couldn't get my team to stop yelling. After listening to our request for a hospital, the city council agreed to grant us one, but only if we would also build a liquor store with neon lights and a prison. I agreed to those terms since I thought it best to compromise, but later my team started screaming at me because I made a "stupid decision". This made me very frustrated because I felt that they were taking it too seriously for a game. Right after all of that, the game was ended. After the game, Binsen, one of the senior corp members, set out for us a feast that was a "taste of Miami".

After the lunch break, the corp sat down for an hour to learn about reporting suspected child abuse. Then, we filled out our time cards, and got out two hours early!

For the rest of tonight, I plan on relaxing and going to bed early. Everyone else will be going out to a club on South Beach tonight, but since I am not yet 21, that option is out for me. I will be glad to catch up on my sleep, though.

-Aly

151 Hrs.

Even though today did not seem like a particularly boring day, I still feel that there us not much to update you all on. BTA is winding down to its final days (only one more week of training, and then opening day!), but to tell the truth, I still don't feel very prepared for the upcoming year. How on earth am I going to be able to teach these children? They say we will taught the school's tutoring methodology in the next week of BTA, but it is hard for me to believe that this will really happen.

I got paid today! This is especially exciting because I have never had a real job before and this is my first paycheck ever!!! I am very proud of myself.

This evening, Beth, M & M, Erin, Yasmine, Mack, Mike, Bernard, Danni, Alisha, Jenny and I went out to a karaoke bar. I did not sing, of course, but it was awesome to see everyone else up there having a good time.

4.5 hours of sleep, nine hours of work, and then it is the weekend. TGIF!

-Aly

142 Hrs.

Today was yet another emotionally draining day. The reason for this may be the incredibly low maturity level that a lot of the corp has been experiencing lately, but this may also be because of a few other specific things that happened throughout the course of today.

This morning started out with the whole corp practicing P.T. They announced yesterday that about six corp members will get the chance to lead it on opening day, and I really want to be one of those people, so I worked really hard at it today. I specifically wore pants today so that I would be able to stretch my legs all the way during the exercises, and I made sure to yell the loudest and be the most enthusiastic. It was most definitely hot outside during P.T., but it didn't bother me too much since I was trying so hard to do a great job.

After P.T., we went back to the office and did a spiderweb game. For this game, one person held on the the end of a piece of thread, and then passed the spool to someone they felt connected to and explained why they felt that connection. The second person would then wrap the thread around their finger and then pass the spool to someone they felt a connection to. The end result was that every member of the corp was connected to everyone else by the spiderweb. That game made my day because my friend Brian passed the string to me and said he felt connected to me since we are going to get married someday! The explanation behind that joke is that Brian apparently has aspired to be the First Gentleman since the age of ten, and since I am going to be the President of the United States someday, Brian seems to think that he needs to marry me. The joke was even funnier, though, since almost no City Year members had heard us joking about that, so it came completely out of the blue for most of them that Brian and I are going to get married. The corp members couldn't stop laughing after Brian said what he said, and neither could I!

After that, the rest of the day was taken up with workshops focused on public speaking, which were very basic and only presented information that I was already familiar with. It is always good to reiterate the basics, though, I guess.

Wow! I can't believe it is already 9:00 p.m., and I feel like I haven't done anything since I got home. I think I'm going to go to bed now, though, since I REALLY need to catch up on my sleep. Good night, everyone.

-Aly

133 Hrs.

Another night of little sleep, and another long and exhausting day. I enjoy hard work, though, and this is what I expected of a year of volunteer service, so I am not at all complaining.

This morning, the people on my R. R. Moton team went to visit our school. Below, you will find a picture of the welcome they gave us, and of my team. We met with the Principal, the Vice Principal, and a bunch of other people involved with what we will be doing in the school this year, and they loved us! We spent about four hours at the school, and during that time we looked at our schedule for the year, explored the layout of the school, and watched some of the classes. I am super excited for my work in the school to begin! After we got back to the office, we did some more teamwork building games, created a skit (which is a learning tool City Year apparently loves), and talked a little bit about the program we will be implementing this year in the schools called "Whole School Whole Child". I don't really know yet exactly what WSWC is, but I will definitely let you know when I find out myself.

-Aly

124 Hrs.

Hour update: before the retreat, I had 53 hours. Last week, including the retreat, gave me 62 hours. Today gave me nine hours. Therefore, I now have 124 accumulated hours.

Ok, I'll admit it. I lied on Saturday when I said that I planned to hang around the apartment and do nothing. At 9:00 on Saturday evening, Trevor, Jarrel, Bernard, Erin, M & M, Beth, Yasmine, and I went to see the movie "Burn After Reading", which was an ok but not great movie. After the movie, we went to Trevor and Jarrel's house and met Kevin there. We were planning to invite a lot more people and have a party, but the ball never really got rolling, so we just hung out there for a while. I finally got home and into bed at 4:30 a.m.

Sunday morning, I had to wake up at 8:30 to get ready for church. Church was great again, and the sermon was amazing; I am very happy that I found Trinity Cathedral. After getting home from church, I stopped at the grocery store for salt and pasta, and then walked home and slept for about five hours. I didn't do much else for the rest of the evening, but didn't get to bed until late again since I was instant messaging people until 1:00 a.m.

Today I woke up early again for work. Today was a very low-energy day, and only involved us doing easy things such as filling out our time cards and talking about and commenting on the retreat. The day seemed to go by incredibly quickly. When I got home, I went to the gym for 30 minutes, walked Francheska, and then made myself dinner (pasta, pears out of a can, and chips ahoy cookies). The plan now is to clean my apartment and then get to bed before midnight so I can get at least six hours of sleep. Let's see if that actually happens. ; )

-Aly

BTR, ? Hrs.

As you have probably read, early Wednesday morning I left for the Basic Training Retreat (BTR). Wednesday, I woke up at 5:00 am, said goodbye to Francheska and Pip, and hauled my luggage and sleeping bag onto a bus and over to the City Year Miami office. I was feeling really terrible with a cold, and upset stomach, and a fever, and was really thinking about skipping a trip, but I ended up getting on the bus anyway for a four or five hour drive to Kissimmee, Florida. When we arrived, we went right to the camp's dining hall, where I found out that no vegetarian food would be served during the weekend. : ( After that, the first day of the retreat was filled with teamwork building activities. I did learn what school I will be serving in, though: Robert Russa Moton Elementary School, which is a magnet school for the arts. Can you guess why they placed me there? ; ) I don't yet which grade I will be teaching, but it will most likely be 3rd grade. Wednesday evening, we closed at 9:00 and had free time until 11:00. During that time I spent some time and the campfire and then playing the game "Mafia", which is apparently a big deal at City Year retreats.

Thursday, we woke up at 6:30, practiced PT, had breakfast, and did some more teamwork-building activities. The highlight of the day was an exercise we did called "the privilege line". During that activity, the whole group started out in a horizontal line, and each person then could forward or backward for each command. Some of the commands were "step forward if both of your parents have college degrees" or "step backward if you have ever felt threatened because of your race". The result was people all over the spectrum, with the underprivileged people at the back of the field and the people born with lots of privileges at the front of the field. It was really and eye-opening activity, and showed, among other things, both that we will encounter in our lives people from all across the spectrum and that even people born with seemingly nothing can make something of themselves and get to something like City Year. Thursday evening, we played Mafia again (I was the first person killed!), and got in bed at 11:30.

Friday morning was spent on a low ropes course, and Friday afternoon was spent doing service work around the camp we were staying at. At one point, I got bit/stung by some sort of bug, my thumb turned purple and got really swollen, and I lost all feeling in my thumb to the point of where I couldn't even bend it! I took some Benedryl and my thumb is fine now, but how strange! We left the camp around 5:00 pm, but didn't get home until after midnight since one of the buses broke down and we waited with it for a while to make sure that there would be some way to get everyone home. When we got back to the office, Beth, Bar, Erin, Erin, M & M and I missed our bus by only a second, and had to wait at the bus stop for another hour for the next bus. We finally got home at 2:30 am, and I was able to crash at 3:00 am.

Today, all I plan to do is rest, do laundry, swim in our pool, and relax.

As for the question mark in the title of this post: I have no idea how many hours of our retreat will count toward my hours. I will find out on Monday when we fill out our time cards for this past week.

-Aly

53 Hrs.

Today was much of the same at BTA. I guess the only thing we did differently today was to get fingerprinted. Since we will be working in the schools, we have to have our fingerprints taken so they can look us up in the "database" as part of a background check. I've never had my fingerprints taken before, so I felt really strange having it done. I even thought that they still used ink pads-they don't, though, they use a scanner machine.

At 6:00 am tomorrow I will be leaving for the three-day Basic Training Retreat (BTR). I am definitely not looking forward to the retreat, but I am dreading it even more now that I have developed a fever in addition to my cold. I also feel bad about leaving Pip and Francheska for three days. : (

I will be home around 10:00 pm Friday evening, but who knows if I will have enough energy then to tell you all about the retreat. Have a good week, everyone!

-Aly

44 Hrs.

About 30 min. earlier than usual today, Beth, Bar, Erin, Erin, M&M and I left for BTA. We had to meet earlier this morning since we would be taking buses to a different location in order to be trained by the Red Cross in disaster relief. Because of all of the devastation that occurs in Miami and Southeast Florida each year as a result of the hurricanes, City Year Miami thought that disaster relief would be a good opportunity for us to help out our community even more. The training ended up being pretty dull and lasted for over three hours, but we are now all on the call roster for this hurricane season to help in Miami and the Florida Keys.

After that, we were bused back to the office and learned a little bit about the schools we will be helping in. We were let out early-around 4:30.

When we got home, Beth and I went to the gym for 30 min., and now I am exhausted.

As for Hurricane Ike, it seems like it will miss us completely. Thank goodness!

-Aly

Sick Day

Nothing much going on today.

Last night, Beth, Erin, Erin, M&M and I went to the gym to "work out", and then went over to Erin, Erin, and M&M's apartment to play cards and Twister. I am the Twister queen, but I lost a game last night when Erin decided to push me over. ; ) I walked back to my apartment around 11:00 since I have been coming down with a cold and wanted to catch up on my sleep, but at around midnight, Bar brought home a couple of guys to play cards. Needless to say, they were very loud and I didn't get the sleep that I wanted.

This morning, I decided to let myself sleep in and skip church because I am feeling absolutely miserable. I know that I'm coming down with some kind of cold because my throat hurts, my whole head feels congested, my nose keeps running, and I've sneezed at least a billion times this morning.

No sign of the hurricane yet. Miami hasn't been evacuated as of yet, but it's still predicted to hit land on Monday or Tuesday as a category 4. I guess we'll just have to wait and see what happens.

-Aly

35 Hrs.

I'm sorry I was unable to post yesterday, but our internet was down.

As for yesterday, it definitely was NOT boring. Yesterday was our first service day and we were going to go to a park in Overtown to paint and garden, but as of yesterday morning, we were unsure that we would be able perform that service. A lot of uncertainty has been surrounding our lives lately because of all the hurricanes and hurricane weather headed our way. We were able to go to the park, though, and I was assigned to the team that built and painted a trophy case for the local youth rec center. At about 1:30, all of the corp members were evacuated from the service area because of a shooting that occurred in the park we were working in. We went back to the Cy office, and spent the rest of the day talking about what had happened and about Hurricane, which is a very severe hurricane that may very well hit us. I wasn't really worried about the hurricane until yesterday, but now I am terrified. The storm will probably hit us early Monday morning and I may not have power for up to a few weeks after the storm, so I don't know when the next time is I will be able to update. Please keep all of us here in Southeastern Miami in your prayers, though.

-Aly

26 Hrs.

Today was another long but fun-filled day with City Year. What we did was much of the same as we have been doing for the past two days, but I felt kind of frustrated today because of how much time was wasted by everyone talking and fooling around when we should have been listening to the people speaking. It's great that everyone is feeling so comfortable around everyone else, but I just wish that we could all remember to be respectful toward the people running the program and toward our peers.

Something different we did today, though, was to start learning City Year PT (physical training). PT is something we will be doing in the mornings before we start working, and is meant to help us become alert and enthusiastic each morning. They are just silly/fun exercises that a few of the CY members have made up. Today I felt incredibly silly, though, since I was wearing a skirt and high heels, and we were out at a local park learning these exercises!

-Aly

18 Hrs.

The goal of City Year is to provide youth with an opportunity to complete an entire year of service, or approximately 1,700 hours. Throughout the year, Corp Members count their hours in order to be sure that they complete all of the 1,700 hours before graduation from the program in mid-June. From now on, the titles of my posts will be the tally of how many service hours I have completed thus far, in order to keep myself and other updated as to how close I am to reaching my goal. Yesterday and today I completed 9 hours each day during BTA, and those hours go under the category of "member development".

Today was much of the same as yesterday. I don't know if I enjoyed my time more today, but it was different because of the sense of camaraderie the has already developed between the CY members, and also because of the fact that a lot of the boring introduction stuff is now finished.

I can't wait until the ball actually starts rolling!

-Aly

BTA Day 1

Today was the first day of City Year Miami training! Training was from 8:15 am until 5:00 pm. Overall, it was fun, and I am super excited for this upcoming year.

A lot of the day was just ice breaker games and getting-to-know-you games, which I am not usually thrilled about but were fun with the City Year group today.

There isn't really anything else to report for today, though, believe it or not. I did have a good time, however, and I can't wait to go back tomorrow!

Countdown to Basic Training Academy

Today I stayed home with a migraine, so nothing really to report. I spent the day reading the 235 page handbook for City Year in order to be prepared for the Basic Training Academy (BTA) to begin tomorrow. And, after reading through the handbook, I have found that any City Year member who has a personal web page with which they convey their personal views must display this disclaimer:

"The contents of this Web site do not reflect in any way the positions of City Year or AmeriCorps. For official City Year policy see http://www.cityyear.org."

-Aly

"Have a great day. Why not? It doesn't cost you anything!"

Today, for the first time, I rode the bus all by myself, and I didn't even get lost! I was just going to church, which is only three miles away from my apartment, but I am still very proud of myself.

This afternoon, Beth and I took three buses out to Little Havana to visit Villa Vizcaya. Villa Vizcaya is a mansion that some bazillionaire built in 1910. The house is beautiful, but the ten acres of gardens are even more so. Admission to the house/museum is usually $12, but today was the last of three free admission days they had this summer. On the way back home, though, not surprisingly, Beth and I got lost. First of all, we couldn't find the bus station where we needed to catch our bus, so we had to take another bus to get to the bus station instead of walking there. We were an hour late for the bus we needed, and didn't know if another one was coming, so we took the metrorail to the metromover to the bus station, where we caught a bus back home. All in all, an hour long trip took three hours.

As for the title of this post-Beth and I seem to meet the most interesting people. This was something that a homeless guy told us while we were waiting for a bus. I think it is wonderful, though, don't you?

Included in this post are a couple of pictures from today. The top picture was taken in the orchid garden at Villa Vizcaya. The bottom is of the inside of my church, which really does no justice at all to how beautiful it is in real life.

-Aly

A Day in Little Haiti

Thankfully, Francheska is just fine now. She stayed up most of the night panting and licking her paw, but a little bit before dawn, she slept for an hour and woke up feeling better.

Today was again one of those days where Beth and I did not do much of anything. Beth, Erin, M&M and I walked around Little Haiti for a while (which begins just across the street from where I live), but Little Haiti is not a very exciting area and there is not much to report about that trip. I'm sure, though, that when CY training begins on Tuesday I will miss the time I got to spend sitting around and doing nothing all day!

-Aly

Registration Day and a Night on the Town

Today was City Year registration day! If you think that it sounds exciting, know that it really was not. It was great to finally be starting something that I have been anticipating for so long, but what it turned out to be was four hours of filling out paperwork. Sorry, but nothing exciting to report there.

In the evening, a group of six City Year members went out to Viernes Culturales. What that is is a festival that is held in Little Havana on the last Friday evening of every month. The festival is held on Calle Ocho (eighth street), and involves music, dancing, free food, art, and lots of fun. The experience was fun overall, but what was not fun was getting to and from Calle Ocho. On the way there, we got off the bus at the wrong stop, couldn't find the next bus, and ended up wandering around the not-so-great parts of Miami before finally stumbling upon Calle Ocho. On the trip home, was missed the last bus out of Little Havana and had to bribe one of our friends with a car to pick all six of us up and drive us home.

When I got home and took Francheska out for one last walk before bed, she stepped in something in the grass, jumped back out of the grass onto the sidewalk, and started shaking her paw and biting at it. I carried her home, but she shrieked and whined the whole way. One we got back to the apartment, she started to frantically lick her foot, and wouldn't put any weight on it. I couldn't see anything in her paw, but she began to get very upset and pant. Since it was 12:30 am, the only way I could get to a vet was to beg another one of my friends to drive me there, but it turned out that I couldn't go to a vet anyway since I have no money, and they need the money on the spot when they treat her. Right now, she is curled up under my bed, holding her feebly shaking paw in the air as she winces.

-Aly

The Pictures I Promised

This is my bedroom in my new apartment.
This is Beth by our mailbox.
Southbeach
Our first piece of mail!
Francheska after the walk to PetSmart. We were just outside the door to the store at this point, but I guess she decided that it was time to stop.

These aren't all of the pictures I will be posting, but this is all I have to put up right now. Also, look for another post coming later today!

CYM countdown: 5 hours

-Aly

New Friends

Woo hoo! Beth and I met six new people today!

My last day of freedom was today. This morning, Beth and I walked a mile and a half to the nearest PetSmart. Why did we do this? Well, Pip is all out of cat food, and PetSmart is the only place where I can find the particular brand of cat food that he will eat. My bright idea was to take Francheska with me, but apparently, anything more than a half a mile is too far for her to walk, so I ended up having to carry her most of the way there, and all of the mile and a half back to our apartment. The walk was incredibly hot and tiring for us, so when we got back to our apartment Beth and I immediately got into our swimsuits and jumped into our pool. After getting back from the pool, I discovered that my face and neck were burnt from the sun, and that I had awful heat rash all of the back of my legs. Walking to the grocery store, then, was like torture, since the sun and heat outside made the heat rash even worse.

After I had had time to relax a little, three guys from City Year called us and invited us to pizza. That was fun because we got to meet some really cool guys with whom we will be working this year, and also because we got free dinner. ; ) As soon as we got back, three girls who are also in City Year Miami and live in our apartment complex called us, so we went down to the pool to meet them. All six of our new friends seem very nice, and it was also cool to be able to have some fun before starting work.

Oh, and I've forgotten to mention another new friend I have made: Bar, my other roommate. He also seems very nice, and I'm glad to say that I feel like I will have a very pleasant time this year in this apartment with my two roommates.

I'm sorry that I have not updated everyone in the past few days, but I have really been doing a whole lot of nothing. I've spent the last few days in my apartment just waiting around for the bug guy and the maintenance people to fix everything up. I have internet in my apartment now, though!

Still no mail. Anyone willing to send me anything to brighten up my day a little???

CYM countdown: 16 hours

-Aly

All Dressed Up and Nowhere To Go

Once again, Beth and I have nothing to do and nothing to report. We contemplated spending the day at our pool or at a beach before I discovered that I don't actually own a beach towel. Anyway, neither of us were too jazzed with the idea.

Did I write yesterday about our first piece of mail? I can't remember. Anyway, Beth and I were super excited to receive our first piece of mail yesterday! It was from AT&T, and was addressed to "Neighbor". That's me! How exciting. If anyone would like to send me REAL mail, however, that would be much more exciting. If you don't know my address and would like to, please comment on this post with your e-mail address, and I will send it to you.

CYM countdown: 5 days

-Aly