A Little Older, a Little Tanner, and a Whole Lot Wiser

Ok, I know that it has been almost three weeks since I graduated City Year and have last updated, but in my defense, I've have been REALLY busy moving from Florida to Michigan, and then with my summer class and with reuniting with all of my friends. Since a lot of you have been nagging me to finish this blog, though, here it is ; ) :

Graduation Day started for me at 8:00 in the morning, when I took my mom (and my chihuahua, Francheska), to visit the office. After a quick tour, Mom and Francheska left, and two staff members and myself walked to the Wachovia offices for a roundtable with a representative from Wachovia. The purpose of the roundtable was to try to engage them as a corporate team sponsor. I didn't feel that the meeting went very well, but I guess that happens sometimes.

After that roundtable, we walked back to the office for another roundtable; this time with the publisher of the "Miami Herald". I was SUPER excited about this roundtable since I have always been interested in newspaper and would like to be a journalist, but I unfortunately had to leave the meeting early so I could meet the rest of the corps and prepare for the ceremony.

At noon, the entire corps walked to Miami Dade College, which is where the ceremony was to be held that evening. We spent the rest of the afternoon practicing and running though the ceremony.

Around 5:30, my mom and the rest of the audience started to show up. At 6:00, the ceremony began. The ceremony lasted for about one hour, and started off with a wonderful video of our year. The link to that video is here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L-31ANemzws . After that, there were a few speakers, the presentation of the awards, and, finally, the presentation of the diplomas. After the ceremony was a reception, and I got to say "goodbye" to quite a few people. I am usually a very emotional person, but I did not start crying, however, until I said "goodbye" to my Program Manager, Mitch. Mitch has done a lot for me this year, and was always there to help me feel better when I was frustrated, angry, disappointed, or very sick and in need of a ride to the hospital. I guess this is what brings me to my conclusion.

As of now, I have been back home in Ann Arbor for a week and a half. After Graduation, my mom and I stayed in Miami for a little less than a week, and spent the time packing and visiting some of the sights that she has never seen before.

I really have no idea how I should wrap up my experiences from this year. It has been a long sixteen months since I first heard of City Year, and I can't yet say all that I have learned during that time. I can say, however, a few other things:

--Not all of this year was enjoyable. I lost a lot of sleep, spent a lot of time on public transportation, got into quite a few disagreements with my team, got very little recognition for the work I did, and had to do quite a few things that put me outside of my comfort zone. All of this brings me to my next point -

--This year was hard. Really hard. There were a lot of instances that made me feel like I could not make it until Graduation. I did make it, though, and I am exceedingly glad I did.

--The experiences I have had this year are incredibly invaluable. I have learned how to pay bills, how to get rid of ants/fleas/roaches, how to hail a bus or taxi, how to say "how are you?" in Creole, how to work with people that I don't really get along with, how to show a child affection without being able to hug him, how write a resume, how to bring books to life, how to teach a child to read, how to live on $226 a week, and so much more.

--I would reccomend City Year to any 17-24 year-old who is passionate about making a difference in the world, and who will be dedicated to committing to the entire year.

--I will never forget this year.

--I will never regret this year.

Thank you for all of you who have been following my blog. I realize that a lot of these posts were not intersting/comprehensible/gramatically correct, and I am sorry for that. ; ) Thank you, also for your comments. Every comment reminded me that someone, somewhere in the world, was remembering that I existed! Thank you to you all, happy 4th of July, and good luck with anything and everything you endeavor to do in the future.

-Aly



Total hours: 1,856.25

1,845.25 Hrs.

The schedule for today was as follows:

A team showcase presentations, team circles, the rock dedication ceremony, lunch, my team showcase presentation, and then the end-of-the-year party. Instead of attending the party, though, my mom, who just flew in from Michigan, picked me up from work. We went back to my apartment and had a nice dinner together before I had to log in on the computer for my class, and then we went to Baskin' Robbins after that so we could enjoy some ice cream and the photo albums I have made of this year.

-Aly

1,838.25 Hrs.

Today consisted of more team presentations, and speeches from our Executive Director and from Cori Meltzer, who was one of the people who played a major role in starting City Year Miami. In the afternoon, we were supposed to complete a scavenger hunt, but that ended poorly, since my team got into a big fight. : (

-Aly

DUG: 1!

1,830.25 Hrs.

Only a few days left! Today was full of team presentations, and then the afternoon was spent at the park. We left the park early, though, since it started raining.

-Aly

DUG: 2

DUG: 4

I had meant to spend my whole day today doing homework since it is due Monday, but I instead spent the whole day reading and sleeping, which really isn't a bad alternative. : )

-Aly

1,822.25 Hrs.

Today's service was meant to be helping at various local senior citizen centers, but since I had a roundtable to do in the middle of the day, I stayed back at the office and helped with paperwork. Unfortunately, my roundtable was canceled, so I had to spend my entire day until 3:30 filing paperwork. : ( At 3:30, I traveled the Douglas Road metrorail station to help hand out pamphlets for the last time.

After a looong ride home (there was a fight on the bus, and the police had to be called), I got a call asking if I wanted to go out to dinner at Tokyo Bowl, which I responded to very enthusiastically. So, both of the Erins and myself went to this fabulous little fast-food Japanese restaraunt, and had a wonderful time! What a great end to my last full week with City Year!

-Aly

DUG: 5

1,813 Hrs

Yesterday just consisted of more planning for team stuff, and more handing out of pamphlets. My online class started yesterday, though, so I got to leave work a little early so I could get home and get onto my computer in time.

Today started with the P.T. competition. My team did not win, but everyone said that the contest was fixed and that we should have won.

After getting back to the office, we watched Hotel Rwanda. I had never seen the movie before, but knew that I would spend most of it crying, which is what happened after all.

After lunch, we headed out of the office to hand out more transportation pamphlets. I wasn't feeling well, though, so I left that to go home after only about an hour.

-Aly

DUG: 6

1,796.25 Hrs.

Today began at 7:30 a.m., with three hours of handing out the same pamphlets we handed out yesterday. After getting back to the office, the corps enjoyed an amazing lunch provided by one of our amazing sponsors: Comcast. After lunch, Comcast was kind enough to present for us a career workshop, including interview and resume advice. Some time during the day today, I also got to do my year-end performance review with my Program Manager. I really appreciated hearing his feedback, because it was only positive. It is nice to know at this point in our year that he has recognized and appreciated all of the hard work I have been doing this year.

-Aly

DUG: 8

1,786.5 Hrs.

Today was a pretty laid-back day, as most days seem like they will be until graduation. The morning was spent doing paperwork from our exit from the program, and team time for planning our team showcase presentations for next week. After lunch, we planned for the P.T. Competition for Thursday, and then left the office for the sites where we would be distributing the Public Transportation Department's pamphlets.

-Aly

DUG: 9(!)

DUG: 10

With the beginning of June also comes the beginning of hurricane season in Florida. We have already been experiencing severe storms, and, for the last couple of days, a lot of Miami has been completely flooded. The worst part about the rain, though, are the mosquitoes that come with it. I think that most of my body is one large mosquito bite right now. : (

-Aly

DUG: 11

Today should be a very peaceful and relaxing day. All I have to do today is laundry, grocery shopping, and a little bit of studying for the online class I am taking that starts Wednesday.

-Aly

1,776.25 Hrs.

Today was my twentieth birthday, and it started out great by the people at Starbucks giving me a free drink!

I had to be at Bayfront Park a little earlier than usual this morning, because my team led P. T. The rest of the morning was filled by year-end reflection activities. After lunch, we all attended a training giving by the people at Miami-Dade Public Transportation Authority. This summer, they will be introducing their new "Easy Card" system, and we will be helping them next week by passing out flyers; this training was meant to introduce us to the new system, in case anyone we meet may have any questions.

In the afternoon, back at the office, we learned all about joining the City Year Alumni group.

-Aly

DUG: 12

1,766.75 Hrs.

Today was the last day at R. R. Moton. I was definitely in tears when I had to hug all of the kids and teachers goodbye at the end of the day. : (

-Aly

DUG: 13

1,756.5 Hrs.

Today was another short day at the school, and was our second-to-last day at R. R. Moton. : (

After school ended at 11:30, the Moton team traveled to Pine Villa Elementary School, which is a school that City Year Miami also serves at, and is about three miles away from Moton. We went to Pine Villa today for a service day today, and the projects we did were painting a mural on one of the walls, and painting a map of the United States on the P. E. court. I got to help a little with both of the projects, but most of my time this afternoon was spent doing another roundtable - this time with Miami Commissioner Moss.

-Aly

DUG: 14

1,745.75 Hrs.

This morning, I got to sleep in a little bit, since I didn't have to be at the office until 9:00. At 9:00, I participated in a roundtable with a Director of the Beacon Council, which is a council of representatives of local Miami businesses. City Year Miami is trying to get a seat on their board, so the meeting today was meant to introduce them to City Year. After the roundtable at 10:00, I traveled to the school, and spent the day cleaning our classroom and taking inventory. Although I cleaned for several hours, our classroom still does not look much cleaner. : (

-Aly

DUG: 15

1,736.5 Hrs.

This morning, I flew back to Miami. I was sad to leave my family again, but happy that I will be returning home for good in only three weeks!

-Aly

DUG: 16

DUG: 17

This morning, I flew back to Michigan so I could see Libby's High School Graduation. Seeing her and all of her friends graduate makes me feel old!

-Aly

1,728.5 Hrs.

I can't believe how close we are to wrapping up this year! Pretty much everything at the school is all done, including interventions, BBL, J. A., and Starfish. Starfish Graduation was held after school on Thursday, and it went really well. One thing about the graduation that turned out particularly great was that a lot of parents show up. At all of the schools City Year works in here in Miami, parent participation is something that always needs to be improved. I was told to expect between one and five parent to show up for the ceremony, but we actually had around 20 people show up!

Yesterday, the corps split up into groups according to interests, and I got to visit the Humane Society, which was really great, because that meant that I got to play with dogs and cats all day yesterday!

In a couple of hours, I will be heading into the office to help prepare for the Young Heroes Graduation, which will be taking place this evening.

-Aly

DUG: 18

1,704 Hrs.

Springtime in Miami has proven to be beautiful. It rains almost every day now, but the torrential downfall only persists for about five minutes each time before giving way again to the sunshine. Fifteen minutes after a storm, you would never be able to guess it had ever rained, because the sun and heat will have already dried everything. I have never liked rainstorms, but they seem more peaceful here than anywhere else. The sunshine is also amazing. I know that Florida is the "Sunshine State", but it truly is wonderful to see the sun always shining. Another thing that is amazing is the sweet scent of mangoes! A fruit that was always a luxury to find at a store back in Michigan, grows in abundance on the trees here. The smell is in the air almost everywhere, and so many of them fall of the trees that anyone who likes mangoes will have more than they can eat.

I am very exhausted, because last night I woke up with a roach in my bed! Luckily, my cat was able to kill it for me, but I had a hard time sleeping after thinking about 4-inch roaches crawling over me while I sleep!

The past couple of days have been a flurry of planning for Starfish Corps Graduation, which will take place after school tomorrow. Wish me luck!

-Aly

DUG: 21

DUG: 23

Another day of reading and sleeping - what a wonderful way to spend Memorial Day!

-Aly

DUG: 24

A lot of sleeping yesterday, and probably a lot more today and tomorrow. What a glorious way to spend a weekend!

-Aly

1,677 Hrs.

This morning, we didn't have to be in to work until 9:00! What a luxury!

Today, we had our service day at Myrtle Grove Elementary School, which is another school at which City Year Miami has a team - in fact, my roommate, Beth, works at that school. For the service today, I spent the day pulling bushes, weeds, and trash out of a garden, and then replanting the bushes neatly along the fence of the garden. The bad part was that the three people supervising the project all had different ideas of what should happen with the garden, so that meant that I had to pull up and plant the same bushes three times. : ( Also, it was pouring rain most of the time we were doing service, so I got EXTREMELY muddy; I feel like I have never been this dirty before in my entire life!

I know you will never believe it, but I have a three-day weekend ahead of me! I don't even know what I will do with myself!

-Aly

DUG: 26

1,669.5 Hrs.

Today was an amazing day!

Unfortunately, I did not get to take part in the last BBL session. I do not like doing BBL, but I kind of wanted to one last time perform the lesson I had spent hours working on.

Mexico day was today! Since Javon and Jeremiah loved Greece day so much last week, Madeline and I had Mexico day today, and had quesadillas, tortilla chips, and "Mexican soda". We also played cool guitar and castanet music, and played with bubbles (since Madeline said that Mexican like to party and have a lot of fun and use bubbles???). Hopefully we can have Italy day some time before the end of the year. (Included below is a picture of Jeremiah and Javon on Greece day. Jeremiah is on the left, and Javon is on the right. I'm not sure why Javon is making that face...)

Today was also the last day of intervention tutoring. I think that both the kids and I are happy about that. Last night, I made chocolate chip cookies for them, but they were still able to find a way to argue with me about even that - they wanted more than the three cookies I gave each of them.

The last day of the penny fundraiser today, and it was a huge success! The grand total for what we collected is $759.07!!! Now is the hard part, though: getting a bank to take all 75,907 of our pennies.

After school, we spent the time making invitations for the parents to invite them to the Starfish Corps Graduation next Thursday.

-Aly

DUG: 27

1,660 Hrs.

The last two days have been a whirlwind of activity for me. Between counting pennies for the SFC fundraiser, performing BBL sessions, and preparing SFC lessons, I haven't had a single free moment. Tomorrow will be the last day of intervention tutoring, and I will be (kind of) sad. It will also, though, be the last day of BBL (thank goodness!), and the last day of the coin drive - we have already raised almost $600!

-Aly

DUG: 28

1,641 Hrs.

Today was a pretty good day for me, as far as successfully pulling off several projects I have been working on.

The BBL lesson for this week is the last one we will be doing for this year. The book we are doing is called "Actual Size", and is a picture book full of "actual sized" picture of animals such as a giant stick bug, a giant earthworm, the eye of a giant squid, the atlas moth, great white shark teeth, and the mouse lemur. This weekend, I spent a whole lot of time tracing and cutting all of the figures out of cardboard, and the kids liked being able to see and hold the figures and compare them to their own features.

The third day of our St. Jude fundraiser was also a success - the total so far is $391.51. That means that we have already beat our goal of $250, and we still have three days to collect!

The kids also loved the Starfish lesson plan I created for today. Continuing in the unit of "wants and needs", we learned today that some people have to meet their needs, such as clean water and clean clothing, in different ways than other people may meet those needs. The kids are used to getting clean water from a tap and clean clothes from a washing machine, so the kids today got to try out hand-washing clothing, and filtering water. Everyone got really wet, but that made things even more fun. The kids also loved being able to wash my City Year uniform shirts. : )

It is hard for me to believe that it is practically the summer season. Since the weather never changed here in Miami, and I am used to seasons changing dramatically, I do not feel that we have already gone through fall, winter, spring, and now summer again. What a shock it will be for me to go back home to Michigan!

I am REALLY looking forward to going home, but I have just begun to realize how much I will miss the kids. This week is the last full week and the last week for intervention tutoring, next week is the last week for Jaguar Academy/Starfish Corps (next Thursday will be SFC Graduation), and the week after that is last week of school. Today we were told that we should start taking down our classroom decorations, and I wanted to cry.

I have begun to think seriously about becoming a teacher. Education is something I was never before interested in, but I have come to really love helping and teaching the children. I'm not sure, though, that I have any kind of talent at it. Maybe someday...

-Aly

DUG: 30

DUG: 31

As we do each Sunday, Erin B., Erin M., and myself treated ourselves to dinner tonight. Each week, we like to try a different place around where we live, and today we visited the Taco Shop. Apart from everything being a little sticky, the place only taking cash, and the small menu, the food seemed to be pretty good; I had a vegetarian taco salad.

-Aly

1,631.5 Hrs.

Today was the last Young Heroes day, and most of the day was consumed by service in which a handful of the Heroes led us - I got to do some mulching.

When I got home this evening, I spent several more hours working on the BBL lesson for next week.

-Aly

DUG: 32

1,617.25 Hrs.

Just a quick post tonight, since it is already really late and I have to get up early tomorrow for Young Heroes.

This morning, we skipped P.T. and met in the office instead. The reason for this was that we were all wearing business attire instead of our uniforms, and they didn't want to make us do P.T. in our nice clothes. The reason we were in business attire was because of the luncheon we attended today. An organization called "Cool Kids" hosted a luncheon at the Four Seasons Miami Hotel today, and all of City Year Miami was invited as guests for the extravagant event. The food was wonderful - everyone else got to eat some kind of chicken thing, but since I am a vegetarian, I was given an amazing dish of butternut squash ravioli. And key lime pie for dessert. Yum!

-Aly

DUG: 33

1,604 Hrs.

Today, I only spent a little while at the school before having to leave for an event at the office. I was at the school until 10:30, which was just enough time to count $212.15 in pennies!

Most of my time at the office was spent doing prep work. Today, Leadership Florida, which is like a leadership fraternity for the most influential people in Florida under the age of 40, came to visit CYM headquarters. My job was to give my testimonial. After that, I got to be in a group that brainstormed how organizations like City Year can better build better relationships with their sponsors. Later in the afternoon, I realized that the man I had been talking to all day has been on the "Top 40 Under 40" list! How cool!

-Aly

DUG: 34

1,593.25 Hrs.

Today was an exciting day. This morning with my first-grader Jeremiah, we had a "Greece party". A couple of days ago, I took hummus to school for lunch, and let Jeremiah and Javon, a first-grader that Madeline works with, try some. They loved it! Since I thought that they probably don't get a lot of chances in their lives to experience cultures outside their own, Madeline and I decided to make a lesson about it. Today, we taught the boys a little bit about where Greece is and what their alphabet letters look like, and we also had hummus, pitas, pita chips, taboule, grapes, grape juice, yogurt with honey, and dark chocolate. Javon loved it all and shoveled as much as he could into his mouth, but I'm not sure that Jeremiah liked much of it.

Today was also the first "official" day of our Starfish Corps fundraiser for St. Jude, and we collected $90.03! Our goal is $250, but with eight days to go, I know we will be able to raise that amount. $90.03 is 9,003 pennies, though, so I spent a lot of my day today counting change.

After school, we ran the SFC collage lesson again, this time for the Wednesday/Thursday group. This group was a lot better behaved than the Monday/Tuesday group, so I don't quite feel right now like my head is ready to explode.

After work, Mr. Moss again treated City Year to dinner. : D

-Aly

DUG: 35

1,584.25 Hrs.

Today was a totally crazy day. Not even counting the rest of my crazy day, my fourth grade intervention session was terrible because one of my students called 911 during the lesson in order to ask them to come save them since I was supposedly being mean to them. Thankfully, the police didn't actually come, but instead called the school to see if there was a real emergency. My student only spent about ten seconds on her telephone, and I never believed that she was actually calling anyone. I only found out the truth later when the Principal was walking around the school, trying to discover who made the 911 call. I feel completely awful about the whole situation, which makes it look like I let my students run around unsupervised and doing anything they like, which is totally not true. I mean, who would have really thought that a ten-year-old would mess around like that? I certainly never would have believed it to be true. : (

-Aly

DUG: 36

1,572.75 Hrs.

Back at Moton today, the day started out with the last of the picture testing. I finished with that just in time for my first grade group, which consisted of Jeremiah finishing his alphabet poster today. Jeremiah is one of my first graders who doesn't even know his alphabet, so we've been working on a poster where he gets to copy the way I do all of the letters, and then he got to draw a picture to go along with each letter. Now we are going to work on memorizing the alphabet and the way each letter looks, both upper-case and lower-case.

The rest of the day ran smoothly, and I didn't even have to freak out very much today because my Starfish lesson didn't require much preparation.

During Starfish Corps, we continued with our "needs and wants" unit, and spent the hour making collages. The students got to cut pictures out of magazines, and paste them to paper under either the "need" or "want" heading.

-Aly

DUG: 37

DUG: 38

What a fabulous day! Church, then mall, then dinner with friends - who could ask for better!

Also, Happy Mother's Day, and Happy Birthday to my little sister, Libby, who turned eighteen today!

1,561.25 Hrs.

This past week has been really crazy.

Tuesday morning, I spent my morning in our downtown office doing a roundtable. The guest was a lady who is thinking about giving money to City Year, so she got to meet me (a real live corps member) and speak with me for a while before I had to hurry off to the school.

This week was a BBL week, which meant that all of my free periods I usually have during the day were devoted this week to BBL. The problem, though, is that I also needed to devote all my free time toward helping out with the school play, planning the Starfish Corps fundraiser, putting together SFC lesson plans for the rest of the year, planning SFC graduation, completing the testing that needs to be done for each student in the school, and grading science fair projects. As a result of being stretched so thin, I got very little accomplished of each thing, and seemed to disappoint a lot of people with how poor of a job I did putting each project together. For example, our SFC lessons this week were supposed to take place on a "deserted island", and all I got to do as far as setting up a deserted island was to make a few tiny trees out of brown and green paper to hang on the wall, and they didn't even really look like trees. : (

Also, I have been stressed out this weekend because my landlord is threatening to evict me in three days because he insists that I haven't paid my rent this month, even though I am 100% positive that I did. : ( : ( : ( I think I finally got the whole situation taken care of...

-Aly

DUG: 39

1,525.5 Hrs.

Today was like a nightmare. For some reason, every kid in the whole school decided to act up today, so I am now feeling incredibly tired and frustrated. I didn't even get to run the Starfish program I have spent weeks working on, because the kids couldn't handle it and had to sit in silence with their heads down for 45 minutes. Hopefully, tomorrow will be a better day.

Because I haven't include many photos lately, included below is a picture of a lot of the first graders I work with.

-Aly

DUG: 44

DUG: 46

This two-day weekend has been fabulous - all I've done all weekend is read, sleep, and go to church. I might get another weekend like this in two weeks from now, so I'm enjoying this one while it lasts.

-Aly

1,516 Hrs.

Yesterday, instead of joining the service day at Oleta River State Park, the R. R. Moton team went in to the school to help out with the school's May Day celebration. The day began with all of the classes out on the P.E. court to watch a dance put on by each grade, the wraping of the may pole, and the crowning of the May Day King and Queen. After that, we got to supervise the bounce houses and face painting as the Pre-K - 2nd graders enjoyed themselves with those things. A little later in the day, we got to chaperone the 3rd/4th grade dance. The 5th graders did not get to participate at all in the festivities because they apparently had very bad behavior yesterday while they were trying to practice their dance. At 3:00, we helped with the kids getting to their buses, and then we got to leave the school at 3:20 - what a treat! On our way home, Madeline, Patty, Nick and I went to Chipotle for dinner, where we met Mrs. Webster, who is the reading coach at Moton. We stayed and chatted for about two hours, and had a great time. What a great start to a wonderful weekend!

-Aly

DUG: 47

1,505.75 Hrs.

There's nothing much to say about today - interventions, small groups, poetry workshops, testing, and SFC took up my whole day, as usual. Unfortunately, one of my intervention groups was so bad today, that I had to give detention to all seven of them. : ( The good news of today, however, is that the writing FCAT scores for the fourth graders came back today - and the scores from R. R. Moton were significantly better than they were last year! Yay for the students' and teachers' hard work!

-Aly

DUG: 48

1,496.25 Hrs.

Being a Wednesday, today was especially busy, since Wednesdays mean that I have an hour less during the day during which I have to complete the same amount of work as on a normal day. The poetry workshops continued today as well.

After school during Starfish Corps, I introduced the fundraiser to the Wednesday/Thursday group, and we spent the time working on flyers to post around the school that will advertise the fundraiser. And I was the first person who got to contribute to the fundraiser - 64 cents!

After J.A., Bernard, Nick and I stayed to score science projects, and then the science teacher at the school took us out and treated us to dinner. What a yummy reward!

-Aly

DUG: 49

1,486.5 Hrs.

Today was a great day, because my fundraiser idea for Starfish Corps was approved by the Principal. I have been putting a LOT of work toward planning and preparing for the fundraiser, and it has finally been granted the approval to begin. For SFC, we will be running a penny fundraiser, where the kids bring in pennies and other change for an entire month, and the class with the most change at the end will win a pizza party. The proceeds from the fundraiser will go to St. Jude Children's Hospital, which is the charity the students themselves picked. The SFC students will be responsible for running the fundraiser for the whole school, and today we worked on producing flyers and advertisements to run on the school's morning announcements.

As far as the rest of the day, I was pretty busy. All of my free time was devoted to either Starfish, the picture testing, or the poetry workshops we have going on this week. I am already beginning to feel exhausted.

-Aly

DUG: 50

1,477 Hrs.

Today was another really productive day for me because I got a lot done as far as Starfish Corps lesson planning. Unfortunately, a lot of the time I had wanted to use for planning was instead taken up with testing. The school has to have every K-3 student take a particular test, and since it takes about 20 minutes to test each child, they have asked City Year to help with the testing.

After work today, I went to Patty's house to watch the season finale episode of "Chuck". Yeah, I know I'm a dork.

-Aly

DUG: 51

DUG: 52

Today was my first day off work in over a month, and I spent most of it sleeping. And I feel great! Who knew what sleep could do for you?

-Aly

1,467.5 Hrs.

Today was Comcast Cares Day, which is the day that Comcast tries to get its employees to go and and do massive community service projects. This year, City Year Miami helped to put together CCD, as it is done in every City Year site that is sponsored by Comcast, which is one of our biggest coorporate sponsors. A little while ago, I applied to be a Project Coordinator for the day, and I certainly had no idea what I was signing up for.

The day began with prep work starting at 6:30 a.m. At some time around 8:00, the opening ceremony began, and I was fortunate to be chosen as a member of the P.T. crew that led P.T. this morning for 500 volunteers. We put about six hours of practice into the five minute routine, but it was all worth it.

After the opening ceremony, the service work began. My project was painting one of the bathrooms at Oleta State Park, which is where the event was held, and I led a team of about thirty volunteers with the help of one assistant Project Coordinator from Comcast. The volunteers (including my Young Heroes team!) did a really great job. Unfortunately, though, we ran out of paint before we could finish.

In addition to my bathroom, the other projects that were completed today were three other bathrooms that had to be painted, the removal of invasive plant species, the building of ADA-approved benches and picnic tables, the building of a fitness center and bicycle racks, the re-vamping of a butterfly garden, ropes and poles keeping up the sand dunes were replaced and strengthened, and three acres were covered with dirt and then sod and then plants were planted. And these projects, all together, totally transformed the park! After all of that and when the volunteers left was clean-up, and then we got to go home around 5:30. What a powerful day of service!

-Aly

DUG: 53

1,456.75 Hrs.

More prep work today for the service day tomorrow. I practiced P.T. with the other members of the P.T. crew for three hours this morning, and then I spent the rest of the day measuring and cutting the lumber that will be used to make benches, picnic tables, and fitness equipment tomorrow. Unfortunately, we are far from ready, and we will have very little prep time tomorrow morning before the volunteers start arriving. : (

-Aly

DUG: 54

1,446.5 Hrs.

Instead of reporting to work at the school today, I had to meet at Oleta River State Park this morning. Since I am a project coordinator for Comcast Cares Day this Saturday, today for me was full of prep work at the service site. Most of my day was spent taking inventory of the tools and materials we have for Saturday, but I also spent a good part of the day planning for my project and meeting with the Comcast employee that is my co-project coordinator, in order to ensure that things run smoothly on Saturday. I was not really looking forward to the hard work that I knew had to be done today, but spending a day outside in the sun was not at all as bad as I had expected it to be.

-Aly

DUG: 55

1,437.5 Hrs.

I felt really good today, because I got a lot of work done on the lesson plans I have been putting together for the rest of the year. I can't believe I only have 24 days left in the school! I am more than ready to go home, but I'm really going to miss my kids.

Today was the last Starfish Corps lesson in the "Peace in our Community" unit. My students marched around the school with the peace campaign posters we made last week, and yelled "P - E - A - C - E, that is what we want to see!" It was incredibly adorable, everyone around the school loved it, and my kids had an absolutely fabulous time! It really feels wonderful to see something I planned turn out so well.

I am so tired today that I fell asleep on the bus ride home and almost missed my stop. Hopefully I will not have to work this Sunday, and I will get my first day off in over a month.

-Aly

DUG: 56

1,428.5 Hrs.

I am now so exhausted from this nonstop work that I fell asleep for a few seconds during Jaguar Academy. I need to get some rest. : (

-Aly

DUG: 57

1.409.5 Hrs.

Even though I feel that I can't possibly become any more exhausted, I keep proving myself wrong.

The one bright spot this week was when we celebrated my Program Leader, Nick's, birthday. We went out to dinner on Wednesday night, and then had bagels for breakfast and cake for lunch on Thursday, which was Nick's actual birthday.

On Friday we completed back-breaking service at a local park. Really - I feel like I broke my back! For the entire day, we got to hoe, weed, mulch, plant flowers, and break up concrete for people who, unfortunately, seemed very ungrateful for the work we did.

Yesterday was a YH Saturday, and we took the Heroes to Virginia Key Beach so they could help clean up the bay.

Today for me consisted of church, and then working this evening at the Miami Science Museum. The Parent Academy, an organization we do a lot of work for, was hosting a family day there today, and I was put in charge of the arts and crafts room.

-Aly

DUG: 59

1,356.5 Hrs.

Today at R. R. Moton was just like any other day.

During our Starfish Corps after-school program, we learned about Ghandi's quote "Be the change you wish to see in the World", and made campaign art for our peace campaign.

-Aly

DUG: 65

1,526.5 Hrs.

Happy Easter!

This morning, I went to the Easter service at church. The service was beautiful, of course, but was not anywhere near as spectacular as the service I went to last night.

After church, I went to Jungle Island again, and spent another four hours volunteering for the Easter festivities going on there. My job today was to stand in front of the gift shop and try to sell Easter merchandise.

This evening, Erin, M & M, Bernard, Beth and I had an Easter dinner together of pizza and soda. What fun!

-Aly

DUG: 66

1,522.5 Hrs.

I had to work again today, and I wasn't very happy about it. However, none of the work was very hard or awful. I worked for nine hours at Jungle Island, which is an island right off the mainland that is just a zoo/theme park kind of thing. Apparently, they have a huge Easter "Eggstravaganza" each year, and today, I got to help out at the arts and crafts table.

At 6:00 in the evening, I left work and went to the Easter Vigil service at church, which was another beautiful service. I don't know what I'll do when I have to leave Trinity Cathedral in two months! I think that the cathedral is the only thing I like about Miami.

Happy Easter!

-Aly

DUG: 67

1,513.5 Hrs.

Today was the last day of Camp City Year. In the morning, the campers participated in a bunch of reflection activities, and also in "service" (cleaning up a little around the park we have been using). In the afternoon, we had a carnival! In the morning, I facilitated the arts and crafts reflection activity, and in the afternoon, I ran the shoe scramble relay game. I can't believe I'm typing this, but I'm really going to miss those kids!

Again today, I left work a few minutes early so I could get to church on time. The Good Friday service today was really moving, and had me crying the whole time. : (

I wish I didn't have to work tomorrow.

-Aly

DUG: 68

1,503 Hrs.

Today's theme was the Caribbean. I almost didn't get to camp today, because I missed my bus. Luckily, the person giving Beth a ride also had a seat in her car for me.

At camp today, we finally finished our mural! The mural is something that the campers have been working on with myself and the rest of the arts and crafts programmers all week. It is about seven feet by seven feet, and is covered with zillions of pieces of magazines that we have spent the last month finding and cutting out. On it, there is one person who represents Hawaii, one who represents Africa, one who represents Ancient Greece, and one who represents the Caribbean. Tomorrow, everyone at camp City Year will sign it, and then it will be hung in the CY Miami office. We have worked REALLY hard on it, and I can't believe it is finally finished! I have included a picture of it above.

After work today, I also went to the Maundy Thursday service at church.

-Aly

DUG: 69

1,502.5 Hrs.

Once again, I am way too exhausted to write about my day at all. I am sorry about it, but when I put in a 12.5 hour day and then add four hours of commute time to that, I should be expected to be super tired. I will tell you, however, that yesterday's theme was Africa, today's theme was Ancient Greece, and tomorrow will be the Caribbean Islands. The rest of the days have been pretty much the same.

-Aly

DUG: 70

1,490 Hrs.

Today was another exhausting day. So exhausting, in fact, that I can barely keep my eyes open to type this sentence. I guess I'll have to fill you all in later...

-Aly

DUG: 71

1,480.5 Hrs.

I am so tired right now that I am afraid I will not be able to give a very good account of what happened today.

Today was the first day of Camp City Year, which is a camp we will be running while the students are on spring break. A ton of time in the last month or so has gone into planning this camp, which is for approximately 300 students and is run solely by City Year Miami. I was assigned to the programming team, which means that I am responsible for one aspect of the day's programming, which is arts and crafts in my case. The theme of the year is "globetrotters", so each of my lesson plans had to go along with the country we are visiting for the day. The place we visited today was Hawaii, so I had the students make their own leis. Then, I took pictures of them with their leis on and against a beach background, and those pictures will be printed out and put inside the picture frames they decorated today. Because I am trying to get in as many extra hours as possible, I had to wake up at 3:30 this morning in order to get to the camp by 7:00, so I could help with setup. The day was exhausting, and I almost fell asleep standing up several times. On my way home this evening, I also had to stop at the office so I could print out all the students' pictures on City Year's color printer. What a day.

-Aly

DUG: 72

DUG: 73

I am glad that I will be going back to Michigan soon, because Florida is getting to be too hot for me! Today, it got up to about 90 degrees! Since I don't have a central AC unit in my apartment, there is absolutely no way for me to get away from the heat, and I feel like I'm dying! I know I'm being just a tad dramatic, but it's hot, all the same.

Today, because of a bike race, my bus was 3o minutes late, so I got to church super late, and I was very unhappy about that. I have spent the rest of the day lying on the floor, trying to stay cool. Because of all the time I had to take off work while I was sick, today is probably the last day I will get to relax until graduation - I need to spend every other day until then working to make up the hours I have missed in order to graduate on time.

-Aly

1,470 Hrs.

I know I have said this before, but I am now more exhausted than I have EVER been before.

Today was another Young Heroes Saturday, and the topic was "the roots of violence". In the morning, we learned about bullying and other types of violence, and then we had some time to work on our presentations for the Heroes Showcase. Then we had lunch, and after that, we walked to Little Havana for the Miami River Day Festival. For the first part of our time there, we walked around and asked people to sign our non-violence petition. For the second part, the Heroes were allowed to walk around to the booths, and got to learn about things such as water conservation and other service opportunities around their communities. After our walk back to the office, we had our reflection and debrief, and then everyone was dismissed. For the rest of this evening and tomorrow, all I am going to do is relax. Tomorrow is the last day I will have off all year, because I am going to have to work for nine hours a day for seven hours a week for the rest of the year in order to make up for the hours I missed while I was sick so I can graduate on time.

This morning, I finally got to use the Spanish I have been learning all year. I helped someone figure out what time her bus was supposed to come, and I was really proud of myself!

-Aly

DUG: 74

1,461 Hrs.

I am more exhausted than I have ever been in my entire life. And, I think I picked up some germ at the health center yesterday, because I definitely have a cold now. All of this is bad news, because I think that next week will be the craziest week ever. Am I ready for next week? No. Does that matter? No.

-Aly

DUG: 75

1,450.75 Hrs.

I only had one tutoring session today because of field trips. Everyone in the school except for the fourth and fifth graders went to the Miami Youth Fair, and the fourth graders went on a field trip to a community health center, which is the trip I chaperoned. The trip to the health center was apparently a part of a series of trip the fourth graders go on in order to explore different careers and work environments. We went on a tour of the facility, and were able to see things such as the pharmacy, x-ray and ultrasound images, the cardio unit, and how blood is drawn. Afterwards, we went to a nearby park for a couple of hours so we could relax and eat our lunches. At first, I really didn't want to go on the field trip, since I was looking forward to a quiet day of lesson planning. I must say, though, that spending two hours napping on a park bench in the shade was a MILLION times better than spending the day in our classroom.

-Aly

DUG: 76

1,441.25 Hrs.

Today was a Wednesday, so I was super busy and didn't have many breaks throughout the day, and now I am completely exhausted. My fourth graders were better than they were yesterday, so that was a relief. At 7:30 this evening, I had an hour-long conference call with a few other CY members to talk about Camp City Year, which is coming up next week. I feel like I can never get away from City Year, even in my own home!

-Aly

DUG: 77

1,431.75 Hrs.

A lot of my students were really terrible today. : ( During one of my tutoring sessions, after having students lie to my face, steal my teachers' book, hide their shoes, and then run around the school and hide, I had to have to Principal speak to my class and take away their field trip this is coming up in two days. And all of this was from what is usually my best group, so you can imagine how much worse the other groups were. What a day.

-Aly

DUG: 78

1,422.75 Hrs.

Today was another great day!

This morning, instead of going in to R. R. Moton, I met Lee, Dan, and Saif at the office so we could travel to Commissioner Bruno's office. We had a round table with him all about City Year and the work we do, and it was actually pretty cool. It's been very frustrating to me that I've never been invited to do a roundtable before (especially since some people have done, like, thirty), and I'm not really sure I was their first pick for the roundtable today, but it was still fun to be there.

At school, fifth grade interventions were cancelled because of a field trip, so I didn't really have to do much work until J.A. After school, we ran a Sarfish Corps lesson, and the kids enjoyed so much that I didn't have to work so hard at getting them organized and behaving well.

So, yep, today was pretty great.

-Aly

DUG: 79

DUG: 80

I accidentally slept in today, and didn't make it to Bible study or church. I suppose I needed the sleep, though.

This afternoon, Beth and I went to the mall. It felt good to get out of the apartment for something other for work, which is something I haven't been able to do in a long time.

I am not ready for work again tomorrow. : (

-Aly

1,413.75 Hrs.

Today was a Young Heroes Saturday, and the topic of the day was "The Roots of Poverty". We took a bus down south to Camillus House, which is an organization that provides low-cost housing for people who are in the "transitional phase" - they have an income, but are not yet up on their own feet. For the service portion of the day, we cleaned up the grounds of the complex a little bit, including picking up a lot of trash.

After the students left, all of the Team Leaders went over to Liana's house for a Team Leader Appreciation Dinner. It was really fun to relax, eat good food, and hang out with the people that I work with every Saturday. I didn't stay very late, though, because today really wore me out and I was feeling totally exhausted by the time the students left.

-Aly

DUG: 81

1,404 Hrs.

Today was in interesting day.

The day started out with a Unity Rally at 8:15, just like every other Friday. After the Unity Rally, though, the corps members split into groups. A few weeks ago, we were each given a survey about what interests us, so today we were put into groups pertaining to what we are interested in. My group got to visit the state attorney's office, which was really cool for me because that is what I am interested in doing for a career. Since Friday's are apparently pretty slow days in court, most of what we got to do was talk to a bunch of judges and lawyers and sit in on a little bit of a traffic court session. We did, however, get the chance to sit in on about thirty minutes of a felony trial, which was cool. This morning was very informative and fascinating for me, since it gave me the chance to see what goes on in a typical day in the life of a state attorney. Things were a lot different than I had expected them to be, but still very interesting.

For the afternoon, we had to go back to the office and complete some computer proficiency training, which is one of our graduation requirements. This meant that we had to send an e-mail and replicate an excel spreadsheet.

-Aly

DUG: 82

1,395 Hrs.

Today was, thankfully, a pretty uneventful day.

My fourth graders were wonderful once again, probably because rewarded them with candy for their behavior yesterday. The seven of us went through an entire party-sized bag of skittles in only thirty minutes! Now that I think about it, though, I kind of feel bad about the sugar rush and than sudden drop those kids probably put their poor teacher through.

-Aly

DUG: 83

1,386 Hrs.

Today was such a great day with City Year!

The day today was fairly short and easy, since the team left R. R. Moton at noon to drive up north to visit the offices of Comcast, which is the sponsor for our team. The people who we met at Comcast were extremely warm, welcoming, and supportive of City Year, and it felt good to know that we have such people behind us and the work we do. We had a round-table discussion with two representatives from the company, which gave us some time to introduce ourselves to them and for them to ask us some questions about the work we do at Moton. Not every school-based team gets their own individual sponsor, so we are especially lucky to be paired with a sponsor that has supported City Year so strongly and for so many years.

At the school today, my fourth grade intervention group was so awesome that I was almost in tears! They are usually my best group, but I wasn't expecting much today since they were so terrible yesterday. They, however, were early, attentive, respectful, quiet, and interested in the lesson, and it totally blew me away when they acknowledged how much better the session is if I don't have to yell at them. Afterwards, on the way to lunch, they even walked in a quiet line to the lunchroom instead of running down the halls screaming. I don't know what happened to them today, but I would give ANYTHING to see that behavior again.

-Aly

DUG: 84

1,376.25 Hrs.

It was really rough getting back into the swing of things today. My students kept insisting that they shouldn't have to do any work this week, since when I was gone last week they did no work at all. I don't blame them for being reluctant to start intervention again after the FCAT tests are done and over with and they now have no motivation to be better readers - I am feeling that same reluctance and lack of motivation. In my first class, I had to drop the whole lesson for the day in order to yell and give out detentions, and in my second class, I made four of my six students cry. What a day.

My third graders were a relief, though. They genuinely seemed to have missed me. In the after-school program, we did a science experiment where we got to make ice cream. What fun!

-Aly

DUG: 85

1,367.25 Hrs.

My day today = a whole lot of lying around.

-Aly

DUG: 86

1,368.25 Hrs.

What a long, exhausting, terrible week! I hope you all will forgive me for neglecting my blog for so long after you hear what has been happening with me.

Tuesday was the last day of FCAT testing. Yay! I served as a proctor in the morning, and then worked with my third, fourth, and fifth grade intervention groups during the afternoon. In the morning, I felt a little queasy, but just attributed that to not eating a good enough breakfast, and did my best to ignore the nausea. My P.M., Mitch, happened to be visiting the school during lunch, so he took those of us who were interested in his car to Burger King. I was really excited about the great lunch I had made for myself and brought, but went along for the ride so I could get french fries and a soda. When I got back, however, I wasn't feeling too well after eating the fries, so I left my lunch in the fridge to eat the next day. By the time we did BBL at 2:00, I was really feeling tired and lethargic, so I took a short nap after the students were dismissed from school since J.A. had been cancelled for the entire week. On the train home at 5:00, I suddenly felt like I had a fever, so I stopped at Walgreens on my way home to buy a thermometer, which told me I had a fever of only 99 degrees. Over the next hour, however, that fever steadily increased to 105. I was also concerned about my ear, which was swollen and hard to hear out of, and had been that way for the past week. I e-mailed Mitch to see what would happen if I missed work the next day due to a hospital stay (since I have no more sick days to use this year), and he volunteered to drive up from his home in South Miami (which is about a 45 minute drive) in order to drive me to the hospital. I spent that night in the Emergency Room, and was told that I had an infection in my middle ear, and a case of bronchitis. Mitch drove me home at 3:30 a.m. with a perscription for antibiotics and orders to stay home until Friday.

On Wednesday, I woke up feeling even worse. The doctors at the hospital had been able to get rid of my fever and sore throat the night before, but both were back with a vengence. I could not even sit up in bed, much less make the fifteen-minute walk to the pharmacy to have my perscription filled or to get anything else I needed. Out of desperation, I called Mitch again, and he drove to my apartment to get the perscription so he could fill it for me.

On Thursday, I started to feel a little better, and was able to get out of bed for a little while. I could still not get rid of my fever, though.

At around 1:30 a.m. on Friday morning, I woke up and could not breathe. I crawled to Beth's room and banged on her door so she could wake up and call 911 for me. A couple of minutes later, Beth and I went off to the hospital in the ambulance. I stayed at the hospital this time for another 7.5 hours. After a bunch of tests were run, I was told that my infection had spread even further and had given me strep throat. I was sent home with even more antibiotics, and Beth was allowed to take the day off work to stay home with me.

On Saturday, I woke up feeling a lot better, and had the bright idea that I could walk to the grocery store for myself. After trying that, I was so worn out that I could not get out of bed again for the rest of the day.

Today, I woke up without a fever, which is the first time my temperature has been back to normal in about five days. My throat doesn't even hurt anymore, but I still do not have even the least bit of a voice. Even whispering takes the energy out of my and causes me to go into a coughing fit. I am supposed to be on bed rest until Tuesday, which is when I can go back to work, but I am concerned about how I will teach if I have no voice. Charades, maybe?

It broke my heart not being able to go to church or Bible study this morning. : ( Stupid bed rest...

-Aly

DUG: 88

1,335.25 Hrs.

Today was the fourth day of FCAT testing for the fifth graders, so I spent my morning proctoring an exam. The only things that ran as scheduled today were the fifth grade and third grade intervention session. The fifth grade session was easy, since today was a chapter checkpoint and I didn't have to teach my students any new material. Third grade was rough, though, as always. One of my students, Jeron, misbehaves every day. He is very disrespectful towards myself and the other students, and is very distracting as well. I use to stop the lesson every time he acted out in order to bring him back under control, but I now know that stopping the lesson every few minutes is detrimental to the learning of my other students; I am forced to sacrifice Jeron's learning so that his behavior does not ruin the learning of four other students. This is a really tough thing for me to admit to and do, especially since Jeron does not even know his entire alphabet and needs the help more than any one else.

-Aly

DUG: 93

DUG: 94

Nothing much going on today. I went to Bible study this morning, which I loved, and church, which disappointed me. There was supposed to be an author that I really love giving the sermon today, but she ended up being the most boring speaker I have ever listened to. How unfortunate.

On my way home, I stopped at the grocery store, and now I am going to attempt to make myself dinner again. Mexican rice pilaf...yum.

-Aly

1,326.75 Hrs.

What a week! I can't believe how stressful things have been with the FCAT. Luckily, all students, with the exception of the fifth graders, are now done testing. The fifth graders still have to take the science tests on Monday and Tuesday, and I still have to proctor for those two tests. I am extremely glad that the rest of the year will be so much less stressful, since the FCAT has been the focus point of the whole school year thus far.

-Aly

DUG: 95

1,308.5 Hrs.

Proctoring today seemed to go a lot faster than yesterday, and pretty much everything else today was canceled because of the test for one reason for another, so all I had to do today was proctor and paint the mural after school for a couple hours. Then, I got to go home and hang out with my very best friend and her boyfriend, who are in town on their spring break. It's sad that Julie and Brian are in town for most of this week and the only time I will get to spend with them is the two hours I spent with them today, but I guess that's life. : (

-Aly

DUG: 98

1,300.25 Hrs.

Today was the first day of FCAT testing, so I spent my morning as a test proctor for one of the fifth grade classrooms. This meant that I spent three hours on my feet circling the classroom watching the students take their tests. Watching the students take the FCAT test has made me feel incredibly thankful for the school I went to. In the Saline schools, no one stressed out about the MEAP tests because everyone in my school did well without even trying too hard. At R. R. Moton, the whole schoolyear is taught to the test, and there is TONS of pressure on the students to pass the test so the school won't be taken over by the state and so the students can pass into the next grade. A lot of the students were so stressed to take the test today that they threw up or broke down crying in the middle of the test and were unable to finish. Unfortunately, the school is required to put that much emphasis on the test in order to have any hope of passing its students. I really wish there was a better system to test the students and the schools than the one already in place.

After school, the CY team stayed to paint a mural at the school since the after-school program has been canceled for the two weeks of the FCAT.

-Aly

DUG: 99

1,290.75 Hrs.

Today was the last day before the FCAT - yikes!

Today we also went back to the schedule we had before the extra computer time was added for all of the intervention students, which was a relief for both the students and myself.

Also today, the new Executive Director of City Year Miami visited the school and we got to have lunch with him. Up until a week or so ago, CY Miami did not have an Executive Director, so now we finally have a boss instead of just and "acting" boss. Hopefully he will be able to clear up some of the issues our organization has been having; it is hard to function without someone at the top of the pyramid.

-Aly

DUG: 100

DUG: 101

Even though Sundays are my days to relax, I still feel stressed every time Sunday comes around.

I had the brilliant idea to make myself actual meals for breakfast and dinner today, which took I lot more effort than I had planned for. My citrus fruit and arugula breakfast salad was good, as was the sparkling ginger lemonade I made for myself this morning. The fajitas, though, we nothing special, and definitely not worth all the work that went into slicing a zillion pounds of vegetables.

This morning I went to bible study and then to church, and this evening I attended a meeting for the City Year "inspirational book club". Unfortunately, this was our first meeting, and only two people were there. : (

Once again, I am getting to bed way to late. How does this keep happening?

-Aly

1,281.75 Hrs.

I know I write this every week, but this week was definitely the most exhausting ever.

Wednesday morning, Francheska and Pip both got into a bag of chocolate. I could do nothing at the time other than go to work, but after a meeting in the morning about test proctoring for the FCATs next week, I called the vet to see what I should do about the both of them. The vet recommended that I rush home right away, which meant taking an unexcused absense from work. : ( When I got home, I rushed them both to the vet, only to hear that there was nothing to do for them now other than watch them to make sure they had no averse reactions. I'm really glad I paid so much money to hear them tell me that.

Thursday was really stressful since it could have been the last day I will be meeting with my intervention students before the test.

Yesterday was another LDD day, and we learned about human trafficking and also about how to fill out our tax forms.

Today, I took a personal day from Young Heroes so I could go to a volunteer orientation at the humane society.

I am not sure if my students are ready for the FCATS next week. I guess I have done all I can for them, though.

-Aly

DUG: 102

1,261.75

This afternoon was the FCAT pep rally. FCAT testing starts Tuesday, so the pep rally was a fun way for the students to get motivated for the test. City Year led the students in some P.T., and also gave a few motivational speeches. I spoke to the students about test-taking tips such as getting a good night's sleep, eating breakfast, checking their work, etc.

-Alyssa

DUG: 106

1,252.75 Hrs.

Why is it that my students are crazy on Mondays? As I remember, myself and my classmates were usually pretty subdued on Mondays since it was a Monday and we were sad to be going back to school again for the week. When did that change?

The FCAT is next Tuesday, and I reminded my intervention students that the intervention sessions will be shortened again once the test is over. This means that they will be able to go back to their magnets and will have to see less of me making them read, and I will get my planning time and lunch break back. Surprisingly, about half of my students were excited to hear this, while the other half was sad. Most of the time, I have no idea whether my students love me or hate me. The students who are most vocal about their hatred for me are also the students who give me hugs when they see me in the mornings.

-Aly

DUG: 107

1,243.75 Hrs.

This week has seemed like the longest week EVER, and I don't even know why!

Friday, the half of the corps that did service for Habitat for Humanity last week did a mini recruitment blitz this week. That means that we broke up into groups of five and dispersed ourselves at various college campuses in the area to try and recruit members for next year. Being a Friday afternoon by the time we got there, however, the campuses were pretty dead, and we did not meet our recruitment goal. : ( We were close, though.

Saturday was a Young Heroes Saturday again, and we learned about drugs and alcohol. I know I wrote that that topic was supposed to be last week, but I was wrong. Last week, we learned about the homeless population. This week, the students made their own PSA's about drugs and alcohol, and then we got to watch what everyone else made.

Today, I attended church and the first day of bible study. I have spent the rest of the day trying to recuperate and ready myself for the upcoming week!

-Aly

Days until graduation (DUG): 108

1,216.75 Hrs.

I don't know why, but most of my students were exceptionally well-behaved today; I hope whatever happened today continues to happen every day! I know, I know - fat chance!

Today was an early-release day as well as a day without BBL, so it was a pretty easy day. After the students were released from J.A., we spent some time planning for the FCAT pep rally next week, and then I left a little before 5:00 so I could get to church on time for the Ash Wednesday service. Unfortunately, the service was long, and it is now 10:00 and I am still waiting for my dinner to finish so I can eat it and go to bed!

-Aly

1,208.25 Hrs.

Happy Mardi Gras/Fat Tuesday!

Since today was Fat Tuesday, I took paczkis into school to share with my R. R. Moton team. Since I only just found out a couple of days ago that most people don't know what they are, I did some research about the paczki and found out that they are Polish and are popular in Poland (obviously), as well as in Michigan. ( Who knew?) A paczki is kind of like a jelly- or custard-filled donut, except that it has a whole lot more calories. They were orginally made on the Fat Tuesday so people could use up all of the things such as sugar and butter that they would not be allowed to use during the next forty days of Lent. I have eaten quite a few during my lifetime in Michigan, and I was delighted to be able to get ahold of a few to share with my team, and they were much appreciated!

The FCAT is in just two short weeks, so things have been coming down to the wire. Everyone at school is stressed out, and I can only imagine how the students are feeling!

-Aly

1,199.25 Hrs.

As I asked just recently - how does time go by so quickly? How is it already Monday again?

Today was a very busy day for me because I had a lot of things to plan and very little time during which I could do that planning. Also, a lot of the people on my team seemed to be having a bad day today, so their emotions kind of wore on me as well. I also had to give one of my students a detention today, which put further unnecessary stress on me. I only like to give out detentions as a last resort since I really do not feel that it is my place to give them (contrary to what the teachers tell me), but I told the student that she would have to have a detention if she talked back to me again, and sure enough, that was enough to provoke one more final sarcastic remark from her and thus earning herself the detention.

I am glad that I was never interested in a career in education, because I really do not think that I am cut out to teach. When a student just stares at me blankly when I am trying to teach him something, I become frustrated if I can think of no other way to explain myself. I lot of times, for things such as the multiplication tables, I only know what I know because I have memorized the information over many years. How many ways can I find to explain to a child that 9 x 9 equals 81? I do always try my best, though.

-Aly

1,181.5 Hrs.

Thursday, I spent most of my day in the office instead of at R. R. Moton. This is because I was preparing today's Daily Briefing. The Daily Briefing (D.B.) is a kind of newsletter that is distributed to the corps at each Friday morning Unity Rally. I was asked to create the DB we used today.

Today, half of the corps, including myself, was supposed to help build with Habitat for Humanity. They actually ended up finishing the house early, though, so today we just helped reorganize their warehouse and store. My team had to sort and move thousands and thousands of hurricane shutters. For those of you from the north who don't know what hurricane shutters are, they are corrugated pieces of thin but sturdy metal that is placed over windows in preparation for a hurricane. Some of them are just made out of tin, but some are made out of steel and are very heavy. My team's job was to sort them into piles according to length, which wasn't very easy since it seemed as every single one had its own unique length. After sorting them, we had to put them nicely back on the shelves. This took us about seven and a half hours, but we were finally able to finish. I have never been so exhausted in my whole life.

I was embarrassed because I was apparently too weak to effectively move the shutters, so I was put on my own "special" project. This project consisted of me picking up all the tiny shutter pieces and putting them into a bucket. : ( That only took me a little while, though, so I made sure to try even harder to be helpful when I went back to the original project! Why am I so pathetic?

Tomorrow is a Young Heroes Saturday, and we will be learning about the influence of drugs and alcohol.

Sunday, I plan to recuperate from the past week and rest up for the week ahead.

-Aly

1,164.25 Hrs.

How do the weeks go by so quickly? How is it already Wednesday again?

My mornings seem so empty now without my first graders. Instead of starting work at 8:45 a.m., I now don't start until 9:30 a.m. (although I still arrive at the school around 7:45). That extra time I am now able to use as planning time.

In one of my small groups today, I was speaking with one of my students who is always goofing off and not paying attention, and she finally confessed to me that she acts the way she does because the work is to hard for her. After promising her that I am here only to help her and that I will help her with anything any time she needs it, her attitude changed drastically for the better. : )

With my first grade small group today, we made flashcards. The kids loved using the markers and notecards! When I was in grade school and college, I made flashcards for EVERYTHING - that was my main study method, and I bought 3x5 cards by the thousands. Now that I am teaching lots of kids and have an extremely limited income, getting ahold of even ten notecards is a luxury! Today, the notecards I was using were provided by the kids' classroom teacher.

The rest of my day was packed since Wednesdays are early-release days and also because this week is one of the weeks we do a BBL lesson.

The kids in my after-school program couldn't stop talking today! I had to yell over them for an entire two hours, and now my throat hurts like crazy.

After work, a couple of my teammates and myself stayed to clean our classroom. What a mess!

-Aly

1,156.75 Hrs.

Going back to work today was easy since I did not have my first graders to wear me out first thing this morning. At the end of the day, my boss was super nice and let me go a minute early, which meant that the public transportation schedule would allow me to get home an hour earlier than if I had left work a minute later than I had.

The best moment of the day today was when one of my students told me that Harriet Tubman invented slaves.

-Aly

1,149 Hrs.

What a day!

My plane took off from the Detroit Metro Airport at 2:30 p.m. today, and I was definitely not ready for my trip to end. I got home around 7:00, and I have been trying to grocery shop, do laundry, clean, and do other various chores and errands since then. I can't believe I have to go back to work tomorrow!

-Aly

1,141 Hrs.

Where have I been for the past few days? Not in Miami-I have been back home in Ann Arbor, Michigan!

My mother's birthday was on Friday, so about three months ago, I bought airplane tickets and planned to surprise my mother by coming home this weekend. And boy, was she surprised! I have no idea how I managed to keep the secret so well, either!

On Thursday, I took the day off of work, and arrived in Detroit around 2:00 p.m. Since then, I have been enjoying myself with friends and family and a very relaxing few days. I even got to see some snow!

I'm not sure that I'm ready to leave for Miami tomorrow, though...

As of today, I have been living in Miami for exactly six months. Six down, four more to go.

-Aly

1,117 Hrs.

Yesterday was the day of one of the FCAT tests for the fourth graders, so things were really tense for the school. Since students at R. R. Moton a lot of times don't do so well on the FCAT tests, everything had to be perfect for them yesterday. This included keeping the school ABSOLUTELY silent, so the CY members were posted outside of the testing rooms as "guards" and peace-keepers. That took up almost all of my morning.

Today was a Wednesday, and was not a rough as most Wednesdays can be. As per our tradition, the other corps members and myself went out to dinner after work; today's dinner was a special "Valentine's version", so we went out to a "romantic" Italian restaraunt and gave each other chocolate and flowers. What fun!

-Aly

P.S. Here is a really cool link you should check out. It is a link to a clip that was on one of the local news stations about City Year Miami's Martin Luther King, Jr. Day of Service we had in January. http://uvu.channel2.org/PublicSite/Video.aspx?id=4063&skin=2

1,103.5 Hrs.

Today, Madeline and I were informed that we will no longer be running first grade intervention as of next week because it is going to be taken over by one of the teachers since the students' grades haven't been improving as they should be. Madeline and I feel badly about this, because we feel as if we have failed at our job. We were told that this is not the reason at all for this happening, but I still can't help but feel a little like I let everyone down.

-Aly

The Beginning of Another Week

Today was pretty relaxing...after church, I did some laundry and other chores around my house, and then I tried to make myself dinner. I burned the food though, so that was kind of disappointing.

-Aly

1,094.75 Hrs.

Yesterday was another LD Day in the office, and gave us time to plan with our teams, meet with our committees, and learn about Black History, health, and the environment. At the end of the day, the corps got together to take a group picture, which I think will turn out to look really cool! Yesterday was a pretty good day because there was very little down time. Usually on Fridays in the office, a lot of the day is spent, I feel, doing absolutely nothing, and I really dislike that about Fridays.

Today was a YH Saturday, and the theme was "Exploring the Elder Generation". Throughout the day, the students learned all about ageism and stereotypes, and hopefully learned a little bit more about what life is like for the elderly. All too often, young people think of the elderly as "slow", "good for nothing", or "lazy", and this is the viewpoint that we tried to change today. For the service portion of the day, some of the time was spent making cards and tissue-paper flowers for residents of an elderly care facility in Miami, and the rest of the time was spent on a "people scavenger hunt". What this meant was that we let the students walk around downtown Miami in hopes that they would meet as many people as possible from a wide range of age groups. What fun!

After YH, I walked to the grocery store for my groceries for the week. I bought myself some items so I coul make eggplant parmesean, which will be the first real cooking I will be doing since moving down here six months ago. I have always been too exhausted or too rushed to cook, but I am really getting tired of macaroni and cheese and frozen pizza!

-Aly

1,077 Hrs.

The weather is chilly in Miami again. In fact, today may have been the coldest day of the year for Miami-37 degrees! Brr!

-Aly

1,068 Hrs.

Today was the most exhausting of all exhausting days because I worked from 8:15 a.m. until 4:45 p.m. without a single break - not even a lunch break. Because the FCAT is starting next week (!), I was teaching kids non-stop today. The hardest parts of the day, I think were the parts where I was transporting students. Kids take a really long time to get anywhere, and since I did not even have breaks in between classes to get to and from each class, I felt that today I was constantly yelling at students to hurry up, stay in line, quiet down, and to not crowd the hallways. Since moving the students took up the majority of my teaching time today, I was hard pressed fit each thirty-minute lesson into approximately fifteen minutes. And at the moment near the end of my day during which I felt the most frazzled because I was late, I had ten kids each yelling for individual help, I was trying to take attendance, and I was had a teacher I was trying to speak with, I had a student hand me an incident report for me to fill out for a student who fell down the stairs and scraped up his shin yesterday during my watch! However, I tried to take it all in stride, and keep heart with the fact that I only have one more day at the school after this, one day at the office, one day with the middle school students, and then I get a day off!

-Aly

1,060 Hrs.

On the inside of all of the metro buses in Miami is an LED marquee that projects the current date and time; I presume they are there for control freaks like myself who like to know exactly how late the bus is making them for their next appointment. Those clocks' accuracy usually amazes, but sometimes they are a little off. Today, I rode a bus that told me it is currently July 11, 1999.

Because of a lack of better things to do, I started to reminisce about what life was like ten years ago. At that time, I would have ten years old and about to enter the fifth grade. Suddenly, the thought struck me that I would have been just like my students are now! Then I started to think about how I sometimes have a really hard time connecting with my students, so I then thought that it might help if I could only remember what life was like for me at that age.

The more I remembered, the more I realized that myself at age ten was absolutely nothing like my students ate age ten. Is that because the World was different ten years ago, or because the world I lived in is so different from the world my students life in? Or is it simply because I was a very unique child???

Here are some things that have not changed:
-Friendships and relationships are the most important things in the World
-Grades and report cards are not really that big of a deal
-Extra attention from adults is something to strive for
-Standing out from the crowd is a bad thing
-Parents are the source of all love, support, and safety-parents who destroy that also destroy the child
-Candy is a massive motivator
-Anything done on a computer is automatically fun
-No thought is given to school work once the bell rings at 3:00
-Appearance is everything
-Every child needs to be praised as often as possible

Here are some things that are different:
-No Myspace or Facebook
-Cell phones were not used for constantly or for cheating during tests
-I never dreamed of punching anyone in the face
-Adults were meant to be obeyed, not doubted
-Everyone I knew (except myself) had a mommy and daddy who were married and raised their children together
-If I didn't eat breakfast in the morning, it was because I was in a hurry to get to school-not because my parents couldn't afford it
-Being able to read by the first grade was a given
-No school uniforms!
-I was never worried about being shot when I left my house
-Guns were only tools that superheroes used

What will this teach me about my children? I am not sure yet.

-Aly

1,050.75 Hrs.

Today was an exhausting day. Maybe because today was the first day off after a week-long "break" from the school? I don't know.

-Aly

1.041.75 Hrs.

This week started out pretty well - Sunday was the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Bishop on Southeastern Florida, so there was a huge ceremony at my church that a lot of special people attended, including the Presiding Bishop.

The rest of this week has been the Advanced Training Academy, which is like the Basic Traning Academy we had for City Year during the very first month of my time here. On Monday, we held our meeting at the University of Miami, and got some reflection time, as well as behavior management training. Charlie Rose was also there and did some really cool teambuilding activities with us. Charlie Rose is the Vice President and Dean of City Year. On Tuesday, we met again at the University of Miami for some more teambuilding activities. Wednesday was a team day, which meant that our team got to spend the morning together eating breakfast and playing games. In the afternoon, everyone met at Crandon Park for a Bar-be-que. Yesterday, Steven Spalos visited from City Year Headquarters. Steven has been with City Year from almost the very beginning, and was visiting yesterday to give us a talk about "The Anatomy of Peace". This workshop was meant to help us work better within our teams. We all had dinner together afterwards, and then we had another talent show like the one we had at BTR. Yesterday was a twelve-hour day!

Today, everyone was supposed to meet at Oleta River State Park at 8:30 a.m. I took the bus, but my directions were not correct, so I ended up getting lost and wandering around Miami for two hours! : ( I finally made it, though, and was able to help with part of the service project, which was getting rid of some of the invasive plant species that have started to take over the park. After that, we had lunch and then got to spend some free time kayaking, swimming, and sun bathing.

My plan for this weekend is to do absolutely nothing.

-Aly

984.25 Hrs.

I feel more exhausted right now than I can ever remember feeling.

On top of a full and tiring week at R. R. Moton, today was another full and tiring day with the Young Heroes. The day started out with P. T. at Government Center. Until lunch at noon, the Young Heroes participated in workshops about the "Middle School Generation". This was all about how they are perceived as Middle School students, what life is like for those of their age group, difficult things that Middle School-aged students have to deal with, etc. After lunch, we traveled over to Allapattah Middle School to plan, paint, and pick up trash.

-Aly

975.75 Hrs.

Yesterday was even colder than the day before. I am surprised that Miami would ever reach these temperatures. Everyone else is also surprised, because these are apparently the lowest temperatures Miami has reached in YEARS.

Today was an office-based day. The exciting part of the day was that I got another pair of pants! Timberland is supposed to provide each corps member with three pairs of pants, but up until today, I had only been given one pair of uniform pants that I am expected to wear for the six or seven days I work each week. As you can see, it is incredibly exciting for me to now have two pairs!

Most of the rest of today was filled by disability training, which is one of our graduation requirements.

-Aly

956.5 Hrs.

Today was really cold! As part of our City Year uniform that Timberland gives us, we were given an all-weather jacket that has a hood, a fleece lining, and is extra long - almost to my knees. I never thought I would have a need for it, but I put it on this morning, along with my City Year sweatshirt and an additional long-sleeved shirt under my City Year t-shirt. The temperature was only about 40 degrees, but the additional wind chill factor made it feel like 25. I know that I should be used to weather a lot colder than that since I AM from Michigan after all, but it was a shock to my system since I am now used to only warm weather. I suppose that I have now become a true Floridian.

Today was also the start of the new intervention schedule, which meant that I had not a single break today - not even a lunch break. All of my intervention sessions are back to back, and I'm not even allowed travel time between each one. The worst part of my new schedule, though, isn't the added work load; the worst part is that the kids now hate me for something they think that I am personally making them do, which is attend intervention for an hour each day instead of their magnets. The mental battle I have to do with the kids because of this a million times more exhausting than not getting any breaks.

Since the students are released from J. A. at 4:00 on Wednesdays (school ends at 2:00 instead of 3:00 on those days) and we are technically required to work until 5:00 p.m., the R. R. Moton team has a tradition of going out to eat together every other Wednesday as a sort of "team bonding time". Since, for the last two times, I was dragged to places I did not want to go to, it was my turn to pick the restaurant today. I chose Panera. I had been looking forward to Panera since last Monday, but when we got there, it turned out that they were all out of the soup that I had been specifically looking forward to. What a let-down. : ( It was still fun to go out to dinner, though, and much better than sitting in a classroom.

-Aly

947 Hrs.

Congratulations, President Barack Obama! Even though I wasn't able to vote for him (stupid Michigan laws...) I was still able to work on his campaign. I am so glad that he was elected!

Today was, as always, exhausting. Instead of leading my interventions today, I took all of my students into the library computer lab during their respective intervention times in order to have them introduced to a new computer program we will be using in addition to the Voyager intervention curriculum. The kids don't know it yet, but, starting on Thursday, the kids will no longer be able to attend their magnate programs because interventions will now be lasting for an hour instead of just thirty minutes. That means that until the FCATs are done at the end of March, none of the intervention students will get to do anything they enjoy during the school day. : ( This makes my job a whole lot harder. Not just because this means that I now don't even get a lunch break, but because it means that the students now have a lot more of a reason to hate me.

-Aly

938 Hrs.

Today was the MLK Day of Service, as well as the Opening Day for Miami's first ever Young Heroes Corps.

This morning, I woke up at the time I normally have to wake up, because I had to be at the City Year office by 7:00 a.m. in order to plan for the day and meet some of the Young Heroes. Some of the students met us at the office and followed us to the service site, while some of them met us directly at the site.

By 9:30, all of the students were finally in their places for the start of the Opening Ceremony. I was very proud to watch my students get sworn in for their six months of service. Fortunately, the ceremony was brief, and then we were able to start our service.

I don't like a lot of the physical service I do with City Year, since almost all of it has to do with mulch and picking up trash. I enjoy volunteer work and have been volunteering for most of my life, by sometimes it seems as if all City Year is good for is picking up trash and spreading wood chips. I realize that this is all work that needs to be done, but it is hard for me to imagine that the people we work for can't find ANYTHING else for us to do, EVER. Since I was with the Young Heroes today, the service work we got to do was scrapbooking. The scrapbook we made was for some kind of global peace project, and will be sent to a group of people in Honduras, who have already sent us a scrapbook of their own. We got to spend some time learning about Honduras from some of our own corps members who have lived there, and then we were set off on our own to work on scrapbook pages. How fun!

I could have left for home at 3:00 p.m., but I decided to help the Young Heroes Program Leader get twenty kids back to the City Year office via bus and then rail, so I got home around 5:30, which is a lot earlier than most Monday nights!

-Aly

928 Hrs.

Nothing special has occurred this week. I had to work yesterday since all of City Year completes service on Saturday and Monday because of MLK weekend, but it was nice since we only had to work for half of a day.

Tomorrow is Opening Day for Young Heroes. I can't wait!

887 Hrs.

Unfortunately, a lot of people that I have to work with in City Year annoy me. While I am learning a lot of patience from being forced to work with these people who frustrate me so much, at the same time, I go home almost every day feeling worn down from this frustration. I have realized that one thing I most definitely need to learn from City Year this year is how to just ignore people instead of letting myself get worked up over the things they do. I have not been successful yet...

-Aly

878 Hrs.

Yuck. I have spent the last four days being sick. : (

-Aly

862 Hrs.

Lately I have felt like I forget most of what happens to me during the day by the time I get around to updating my blog at the end of each day, so today I am going to try to update at the day goes on from the computer in my classroom. We'll see how this goes...

8:25 a.m.

This morning, I let myself sleep in until 5:30. I usually wake up quite a bit earlier than that, but I was feeling exhausted this morning. Cory is leaving in a few hours to go back to Washington D. C., so it was sad to say goodbye to him. At 6:16 I left my house, and my bus arrived twelve minutes later. After a twenty minute bus ride, I had a thirty minute ride on the rail, and than another forty minute ride on a bus. At around 8:05, I arrived at R. R. Moton. Patty and I are the only corps members here today, even though we are supposed to arrive by 8:15, so now she and I are calling around to try to find out where everyone else is. We skipped P. T. this morning since it would have looked really lame to have one leader and only one corps member doing P. T.

9:26 a.m.

I just had a tutor session with my first graders. Once again, they were well-behaved until a particular student showed up. I told them I would reward them with some recess time tomorrow.

10:06 a.m.

For the past half hour, I have been in a fourth grade class helping out with a small group of students having trouble with reading. This group is different from the groups that I normally work with. Most of my other groups are called "intervention" groups, and they are chosen by the state of Florida. If a student scores a 0, 1, 0r 2 on the state test called the FCAT, they are required by law to be given help for thirty minutes each day for the next year with reading. The program we use to teach those students is called "Voyager", and is a program that has been developed by the state. The fourth grade group I just taught is just a group that the teacher has given to me because she thinks they need extra help. Some of those students are in an intervention group, but not all of them. During that time, I help with whatever the teacher needs me to help with. Today, I was timing students on a reading passage.

10:51 a.m.

Lunchtime! I am typing this as I am waiting for my Easy Mac to warm up in the microwave...

For the last thirty minutes, I was working with another small group; this time, a group of first graders. For that class, I take out the students individually to quiz them with flashcards and help them read the books that go along with the flashcards.

I makes me sad when kids get mad at me for making them do something that I have no control over. The kids hate tutoring and hate me for what I make them do, but I don't have the power to take them out of it.

12:40 p.m.

At 11:30, I taught another intervention, but this time with a group of fourth graders. This particular group really like to challange my authority, but I've taken to carrying around a stack of detention slips, which seems to work as far as a visible reminder for them to behave themselves. At noon, I was supposed to have a third grade intervention, but none of my students ever showed up. I was told that they all went to recess and forgot.

1:38 p.m.

At 1:00, I held a fifth grade intervention. After having to kick one kid out, the session was very productive, and I will be bringing the three remaining students candy tomorrow. : )

8:58 p.m.

When school ended at 2:00, Jaguar Academy began. Only about eight students were there, so it was an unusually easy day. For the first hour we helped them complete homework, and for the second hour we spent the time helping them practice reading in preparation for the FCAT, which is in two months. After work, the R. R. Moton team went out to a Chinese buffet. I am finally home now, and ready to go to sleep.

-Aly

853 Hrs.

Work went well today, other than the fact that I am become increasingly frustrated with my team at R. R. Moton.

The first tutor group that I teach during the day which takes place at 8:45 a.m. consists of a large group of first grades. That thirty minutes really wears me out, because it is difficult to get anything done during that session, including getting the students to sit down and open their books with hurting each other. Today, however, my first graders were little angels! One of my students was absent for most of the lesson, and when she arrived for the last five minutes and all of my students became completely out of control, I quickly realized that she provokes each and every one of them into bad behavior. I don't yet know what I will do about that for the future.

I also had a little bit of an issue during my third grade tutor session when one of my students refused to participate. I told her that if she did not read along with the group that she would have to stay after class and miss her magnate class until she read the passage to me, and that is what I ended up having to do. After thirty minutes of several calls to her parents and stern words from myself and her teacher, she finally decided to read the passage, but only in a voice that was almost unintelligible. What a not-so-good end to my day.

-Aly

844 Hrs.

It was rough going back to work today. : (

-Aly

Back to Work

I don't want to go back to work tomorrow. : (

Today, I went to church, bought some groceries, and did my laundry. Thankfully, I got to relax for the rest of the day.

-Aly

835 Hrs.

I could not update yesterday because my internet was down. Thankfully, someone from AT&T came out today to resolve that for me.

Yesterday, Cory and his parents and myself set out at 5:30 a.m. so we could catch a couple of buses to the Miami Airport to pick up a rental car. The morning was almost a disaster because we had to wait FOREVER for a shuttle to the car rental place, and the only number we had to call was not being picked up. We finally got our car, though, and set out for the Florida Keys. Key West is about a four hour trip from my apartment, and the way there is a series of bridges connecting a lot of the Keys and other tiny islands. Driving through the various Keys, the Atlantic Ocean, the Gulf of Mexico, and Everglades National park was beautiful, and we stopped once on the Bahia Honda Key in order to eat the lunch we had taken with us. Shortly after making it to Key West, a bicyclist hit and scratched our rental car with his bike, so we had to take some time to deal with that. For the rest of the day until sunset, we visited Hemmingway's house, the Little White House, Mallory Square, the southernmost point of the United States, and we traveled down mile-long Duval Street, which allowed us to see the Atlantic Ocean at one end and the Gulf of Mexico at the other. I finally got into bed around midnight.

Today, I had to wake up at 4:00 a.m. so Cory and I could drop off his parents at the Fort Lauderdale Airport and return the rental car to the Miami airport before 7:00 a.m. The bus we were waiting for at first at the Miami airport never showed up, so I was really worried about making it back to my apartment before the AT&T guy got there; he was scheduled to be there sometime between 8:00 a.m. and noon. Thankfully, we made it back only a little bit after 8:00 a.m., and I was able to take a short nap before the technician arrived at 10:00 a.m. For dinner, I was able to cook pizza in my new oven! After living in my apartment for four months, I feel that it is about time I had a working oven!

Since I have to go back to work on Monday, I plan to spend the res of my weekend doing nothing but relaxing. I can't believe this is the last break I get until the end of June. : (

-Aly