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!