The World Spins Madly On.

“Night is here, the day is gone, and the world spins madly on…”

There are many times throughout the week, day, hour even, where I feel like this. City Year kind of has that affect on a person. It is my nature that I become extremely obsessed with one thing, and will not stop focusing on that one thing until I am just so sick of it that I never want to look at it again. This, unfortunately, is how I have been with some students. Until now.
Again, like so many other things in my life, come back to skating and the lessons I learned from it (another reason why sports are so important in a child’s development – they teach the child lessons they will not forget for the rest of his or her life). A person only has so much energy s/he can expend over a given time. For skating, that given time might be a senior long program, or 4:30 min. If a skater expends all of her energy in that first step sequence, she has nothing left to give for the remaining 3 minutes, where a lift, a NHSS, and a bunch more elements occur. With City Year, if a corps member expends all of his/her energy in the first three months of service, the months of January through May are going to feel MIGHTY long. The days making up those months are going to feel even longer. Pacing oneself is as important in skating as it is in City Year.
I think back especially to my junior year of college, when I had the most trouble with skating because of being on senior, having a ton of asthma issues, etc., and I think how I can relate it to my city year. You have to practice like you perform. You have to put forth 100% effort 90% of the time. While this is not ideal obviously, we are all only human, and just as our Dean of City Year, Charlie Rose, said, “You have 135 days of service left this year. Give me 130 great ones.”

It’s awkward to interrupt your own thought process, but a song just came on my iTunes as I was writing that I just HAD to put down. It’s a group of lyrics from “The Cave” by Mumford & Sons, and I think it’s a silent pledge I’m going to take for the rest of the year. It’s a pledge I’m going to make to my students.

“I will hold on hope, and
I won’t let you choke on the noose around your neck
I’ll find strength in pain, and
I will change my ways
I’ll know my name as it’s called again”