City Year, what time is it?!

Another Friday. In City Year Milwaukee, that means another Unity Rally down at the Sunburst sculpture, another day full of trainings (today's happens to be about how to effectively tutor math), the sharing of crazy stories from school teams, and more. For me today, and probably for the next 40 or so Unity Rallies we have, I will be thinking of my middle school boys. During after-school on Wednesdays we run a program at our school called Weekend Wednesday. This is a little more active than the other clubs we run, but we still try to incorporate an academic/CY focus. This Wednesday, we ran our own version of the Amazing Race. The students were divided into teams and had to follow 4-5 clues around the school to figure out who their CM was. At each station they had to do a task before they could get their clue, or in the case of the last clue, have free time in the gym. I was racing around with 5 middle school boys, and their last task was to perform four sets of CY Power Lunges. This is a PT move we do as a corps at Unity Rallies sometimes, and it's a fun call & response/step. Teaching it to these boys and watching them perform it and get really into it is something I'll never forget. They were watching me so intently, making sure they didn't miss a beat. With huge grins on their faces the entire time they were learning, I had them do an extra set just to test them, and it was awesome. It's always a great feeling when you're able to impart wisdom and know they understand what you're teaching them, but having them be excited about it just takes it to a whole other level. I'm starting to think I need these students just as much as they need City Year.

"What do you say to 50 bucks?" "I say, '50 bucks? You are more than I have.'"

Man. I remember being frustrated with CY people who didn't update their blogs frequently last year, but now I completely understand why. The days are long, the kids are exhausting. And that's only Monday through Thursday. Fridays are always kind of unpredictable, which is nice. I find myself telling my students that Thursdays are the new Fridays, and since Wednesdays are "Weekend Wednesdays" in after-school, technically the week only consists of Monday and Tuesday.

I suppose I should speak about my students a little. I currently have 5 "focus list" students, or students that I pull out for 1-on-1 or small group tutoring in E.L.A. Lucky for me, though, this will all change next week. Because of a lovely little thing called "Third Friday" in urban teaching circles, our school has had its budget slashed, resulting in the layoff of at least 5 teachers. My teacher is one of them. This, conveniently, disrupts the whole middle school rotation, because he teaches science for all 6-8 graders. That's the way my middle school works, by the way. There are four teachers for mainstream classes. They all have their own homeroom in the morning - two 6th grade classes, one 7th and one 8th. After homeroom, they teach an hour and a half reading block to their homeroom students. Then, they follow a block rotation throughout the day, and teach their specialty area to all the grades. However, because my teacher is leaving, the school has to fill the position from within the school. For my class, this means a 3rd grade teacher is coming up. She's only certified to teach through 6th grade, however, so the social studies/7th grade homeroom teacher now has to teach both social studies and science, and my class will move from a block rotation to a self-contained classroom. One teacher, one room, one class of 6th graders. All day.

"Oh, pilot, can you help me? Can you make this last?"

I have survived Month 1 of being a Milwaukean! It's been such a crazy couple of weeks, full of learning, meeting and greeting, laughing, sharing, crying, listening, Unity Rally-ing, hugging, venting, and questioning. It's been exhausting, but it's been awesome. I am proudly serving as a CY Corps Member at Hopkins Lloyd, and I FINALLY got to meet my kids yesterday. We got off to a rough start due to some technical difficulties, but by the end of the day things were much better, and I didn't want to say goodbye!

Today we had our second official Unity Rally down by the Calatrava and the Sunburst sculpture, and then a day at the office full of training and a guest speaker. I was skeptical about the speaker until I saw who he was - State Rep. Jason Fields. During his session, I found myself getting more and more inspired about what CY is doing. There were several times I wanted to either jump for joy or just run up and hug him. I, of course, did none of these things, but just sat back in awe. He talked about his dream of making Milwaukee an international hub. He talked about honor being the most important virtue someone our age could have.

On Being a W.A.S.A. (White Anglo-Saxon Atheist) in Yonkers, NY

I am a chameleon. Not in the sense that I can change my skin color or make my eyes move independently of one another, but in the sense that I feel I can blend in anywhere. Of course, this is aided by the fact that it is becoming less and less weird to run into people who are living in Milwaukee now, but went to school in Texas and were born in Brazil have Swedish girlfriends (for example). I am nowhere near this diverse; born in the Bronx, raised in Yonkers, went to school in Ohio, and now live in Milwaukee. I guess I technically lived in Italy for two months somewhere in there, but I don’t really count that. This background would technically make me a transplanted but native New Yorker, which I felt described me perfectly until I came home to New York after four years of university in southwestern Ohio. I lived on the Lower East Side in Manhattan for a month after graduation, subletting a friend’s apartment for a measly $1100, and seemed to immediately fall back into step with the artfully chaotic lifestyle of the city. I moved back to Yonkers after that, and it was not until I went to visit my university that I realized how quickly I could change. I could be a huffy, hurried, seemingly anti-social young professional on the subway in New York, saying things like “cawfee” (coffee) and “hahrable” (horrible) one minute, and the minute I started talking to my friends in Ohio, I was laid back, open to making small talk with strangers (that would’ve gotten you killed in NY), and speaking like a true Midwesterner. How did I master this?
I’m not sure. Maybe it’s because my parents moved around so much when they were growing up, and I sort of did the same (although I don’t remember it, and we never really moved as much as my parents carted me around to their various biological conferences). My mother, born in College Station, Texas, moved to San Francisco when she was 4. My father was born in Perry, Iowa, and moved to Riverside, California just before his seventh birthday. They both moved to Amherst, Massachusetts when they were in their mid twenties for graduate school, and remained there for awhile – my mom moving to the Bronx first and my dad following a few years later. I think it’s the nature of not living and settling down in the same place where you grew up that makes you look at the new place’s culture from a third-person-omniscient-esque perspective. My mom and I have often had conversations about the differences between New Yorkers and San Franciscans, or New Yorkers and anyone else, basically. New Yorkers, or more specifically, people from Yonkers, are either Catholic, Jewish, or Black (meaning they’re either Baptist or Methodist). We were constantly the only atheists on the block, which was hard to explain as an 8 or 9 year old to people who only knew the “Yonkers trichotomy”. A perfect example of this is a situation that occurred at my mom’s gym. I was probably in 3rd grade, and I would go to the gym and sit and do my homework while she did an exercise class. In her class was a mom of one of my classmates, and one day after the class, we all happen to be walking toward our cars together. My classmate’s mom asked, “So, Barbara! You must be excited about Mary making her First Communion!” My mom, never missing a beat, just smiled and said, “Oh, we would be, but we’re not Catholic.” It just so happened that we both reached our cars, so we were saved from an awkward moment and just said our goodbyes. After we got in the car, my mom laughed a little and said, “Wow. She probably thinks we’re Jewish.” As an 8 year old I couldn’t understand why the obvious alternative to being white and not Catholic in Yonkers was being white and Jewish, but sure enough, my classmate’s mom started asking my mom questions that hinted at our supposed Judaism. Moses probably rolled over in his grave.
In addition to the recognition of said trichotomy, there was another incident that led my parents to refer to all Yonkers Italians as the “Nostaglias”. This came from a typographical error on a flyer from my youth sports club for a pasta dinner one weekend. The flyer urged, “Come join the Nostaglia!” (in addition to having spelled “nostalgia” incorrectly, it also seems to be a common Yonkers error to capitalize words not because they are proper nouns, but for emphasis.) For those of you who may not know, -aglia is a common Italian last name suffix, pronounced in Italian like –alya, pronounced in Yonkers like –aglia. My parents just thought this typo was absolutely hilarious, and came to refer to any Yonkers Italian-American resident who spoke with a loud, New York accent, greeted everyone with two kisses on the cheek, and most likely had dyed hair and fake nails as a “Nostaglia”. Stereotypical? Certainly. But you’d be surprised how many fell into this category.
Furthermore, I was actually convinced up until 10th grade that everyone in Yonkers who was white was Italian, Irish, Polish or Jewish (of Eastern European descent). My sophomore year of high school I met my best friend, Micole Baclija. Of Lebanese and Croatian heritage, I felt a kinship with her on the sole basis that she was NOT Italian and neither was I. Our two other best friends, Liz Van Buren and Amanda Sayegh, were half-Jewish and Arabic respectively, which I found extremely humorous. It seemed as though we represented the B-side of Yonkers.

Milwaukee Blog #1

My third day in Milwaukee has barely started yet, and already I feel like I have done so much. I’m still waiting on my mom to bring up the rest of my luggage, my dresser, and my mini file cabinet, and then I have five boxes that should be here tomorrow as well. But I love my apartment – SO much more room than I had last year, and windows to boot! My roommates, Nancy and Meiyan, and I are getting along really well thus far; it’s helped that we’ve been chatting back and forth all summer. We all have similar interests and outlooks on life, which I love.
Our apartment is on the outskirts of Marquette University, and owned by realty group that seems to employ only Russians. Which, don’t get me wrong, is totally awesome – our landlord, Gary, is a Russian silver fox with an awesome accent. We’re right off a main street, too, so there are a handful of bars, restaurants and shopping within walking distance. We stopped by an Irish pub called Murphy’s last night, got a pitcher of draft Strongbow, and chatted about life, and ended up getting serenaded by a group of drunk college boys. They sang, “All I Have To Give” by the Backstreet Boys – all around a good first night in Milwaukee ☺.

New York, you're (not) bringin' me down.

Crowd rushing by Ground Zero, NYC.

You could not invent a city like New York. Wild, fast-paced, ambitious, and dirty, upon first glance. It doesn't take long to see the other part of the city, though. I'm talking about the one where a businesswoman balances her purse, briefcase, bagel, cup of coffee, and cell phone while gracefully weaving through pedestrian (and automobile) traffic at a breakneck pace. She does not drop anything, even when she reaches for the free copy of AM New York from a man outside the 42nd St. - Bryant Park subway station. Instead of keeping your eyes fixed on the tops of skyscrapers, you notice the couple eating breakfast by the fountain on Madison Ave. or the Chinese family (all eight members) walking their youngest son to school on Hester St.

On my last day in NYC, I deliberately walk and take the subway to soak up as much New York-ness as possible. "Days Like This" by Van Morrison plays on my iPod, and it seems very fitting. Moving back to my parents' house after four years of college freedom plus an extra month in the city has made me regret this moment. I know it's not forever; I have a teaching job lined up in Milwaukee in August. I guess it's just the principle of it.

Un'anno por una riflessione.

This week is the one year anniversary of a lot of things. My debut (and final) performance in the senior division at the synchronized skating national championships, the decision to stop skating, my whirlwind trip to belgium to visit my fabulous best friend, the purchase of my trusty olive green longchamp (still in my possession today), and the beginning of a relationship with a wonderful guy.

I've had scads of time to think and reminisce as I round the corner on my third hour in the Dayton airport waiting for my connecting flight to Atlanta.

A year ago I was a world-class athlete, and was seriously unhappy because I didn't love my sport anymore. I hadn't loved it for a while - after my study abroad experience, I began to fill my heart with love for other things. I was growing out of my childish belief that skating was who I was, that it defined me. I spent two months without my love, and to my surprise, I survived. And upon my arrival back to Oxford, back to the skating world, I was enlightened: "Skating shouldn't define who you are, it should enhance who you are." A slightly more specific version of the "who you are defines what you do" saying. After that summer, I was no longer the impassioned ice skater hungry for a world championship title. I wanted to be, though - and I think it is this want that kept me going through the numerous asthma attacks, the early morning practices, the weeks I spent more hours on the ice than in class - but at the end of the year I realized it wouldn't be fair to my teammates who still wanted that championship for me to continue skating. Now, I have found passion in many other things - and many other people - that I never would have found if I didn't end my skating career.

A year ago I was unsure of my place in the world, unsure of what the future held. For all I knew I would be spending my fall semester in Buenos Aires. Now, I have more direction, and am spending next year giving back to people in a city much like the one I grew up in. Children who face budget cuts with the beginning of every new school year, who don't get to play football after school because there isn't enough funding for it, who don't get to take swimming as a part of gym (and instead spend gym class sitting on the gym floor while the coaches try to figure out how to deal with 150 kids for 47 minutes). Children who have dreams bigger than their bank accounts. I can't wait to go back to the kind of place I'm familiar with after spending 4 years in privileged microcosm. It will be intense, and it will be hard. and I can't wait.

A year ago, I was without love. Sure, I had familial love and friendly love, but something wasn't there. It's true what they say about things coming along when you least except them. For all I knew, I was going out to celebrate my best friend's 21st birthday with a few friends. Little did I know the stranger who challenged my knowledge about the lyrics of American Pie would be the one to fill the void.