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
Sunday, February 8, 2009
Saturday, February 7, 2009
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
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
Thursday, February 5, 2009
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
-Aly
Wednesday, February 4, 2009
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
-Aly
Tuesday, February 3, 2009
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
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
Monday, February 2, 2009
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
-Aly
Friday, January 30, 2009
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
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
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