Alternate Universe

I have literally been in an alternate universe ... I have mentioned before that I am doing Teach For America and as a part of that commitment, I have to spend 6 weeks this summer doing induction/Institute. Induction was the week after I stopped working so I literally got one day to get things done (doctors appointment, dry cleaning, alterations, errands in general ...) before reporting for duty at SMU. I actually had to stay in the SMU dorms (without Mr. SG) for that first week. This was an especially interesting experience for me since my house is about a 2 minute drive from SMU. But the week was a great time to get to know other Dallas corps members (we are called corps members) and get to know what our next two years will be like.

Then immediately I drove down to Houston to move into more dorms at Rice University and begin my journey of Institute.

For those of you who have never known a TFA corps member or had anyone explain Institute to you then you probably have no concept of what this experience is like. So I am going to paint a little picture. The logic behind Institute is to take classes (our sessions) to learn how to be a teacher in a low-income, high-risk school. Really, to learn how to be a good teacher period. The second part of Institute is that we get to teach summer school.

This schedule is abnormal. I have never worked this hard in my entire life. My whole day is taken up by TFA material. My brain has no room to think about anything else. If you do not use every moment you have to work, you will drown in the expectations.

Here is my sample schedule with alternate endings, because the evening isn't always the same.

Morning:

5 AM Wake-Up (Get stuff together, get dressed for the day, walk to the cafeteria to pack my lunch in my lunch box, get breakfast. )

6:36 AM Load Buses (we take buses to our school sites)

7:15 AM Session with our advisor
7:30 -9:00AM - First session of the day
9:00-10:30 AM - Second session of the day
10:30-11:30 AM Lesson Planning Time (Or time to meet with students/ mentor teachers)
11:30-12:10 PM Lunch Duty
12:10-1:10PM Lesson Planning Clinic (session on different aspects of lesson planning)
1:20-3:35 Teaching/Observations
3:35-4:00PM Meeting with Advisor
4:05 Load onto School buses to go back to Rice
4:30 -12:00 Eat dinner, work, work, work, work, work, work ..... literally I do not stop working. On a GOOD night, I get to bed at 12. The alternate ending is this:
4:30 - 3:00 AM Work ....

I barely talk to my husband ... and thank God it was my birthday on Thursday or I may have never had taken the time to talk to my friends and family.

I am learning amazing things and have never been so inspired in my life. I cannot wait to get started teaching again in August.

BUT as you can see, blogging is not feasible. BUT when I get back we have sooooooo many fun things to catch up on. We are throwing an engagement party, have some fun house design updates and many more things NOT related to teaching. So bare with me and you'll have a working blog to come back to in late July.