So you may have noticed that I don't post here very often. That was very observant of you. If you would like to read a blog that I will actually post on, you should follow me on my shiny, new, official TFA blog! You can find it at missmckinney.teachfor.us or in my Facebook notes. I hope to update fairly consistently through the TFA process. Of ( Read more... )

So, some of you know this, some of you don't, I don't love to talk about it but it's a huge part of my life. Myalgic encephalopathy/myalgic encephalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome is a disease, widely debated, not widely recognized as real. I have it. Symptoms since I was eleven, diagnosed in the fall of 2007. Please watch this if you'd like ( Read more... )

I got it! Teach for America offered me a job in Chicago today, which I have not yet accepted but plan to. I have waited and prayed and hoped and feared this day for quite a few months now, and I am both grateful for this opportunity and humbled by the task before me.

Packing my bags today to head back to California-- perhaps for the last time? Strange thought. Though I may return home and to CA at least one more time, this will be the last semester of my undergraduate education. Definitely a strange thought. But it looks to be a good semester. Talking with a friend the other day, the subject came up of the ( Read more... )

Tests back, no cancer. So that's a plus ( Read more... )

So I've always thought I was pretty tough when it comes to blood and guts and pain, etc. After all, my favorite story to brag about is the one where I cut a parasite out of my foot with a pocket knife in Uganda. So this week, I had to go in and get some skin samples taken and one mole cut off, checking for skin cancer (no results yet, but I'm not ( Read more... )

Just finished reading (after starting at about 2:30 this morning) the book Under the Overpass, which is the story of two college-aged guys who left everything they had to live on the streets as homeless people for five months. READ IT. What a tale. Their purpose was three-sided: to minister to the homeless they would encounter, to understand more ( Read more... )

Resolutions? I like to think of them more as goals. I've been a little cynical from time to time about New Year's resolutions-- after all, what makes this day any more special than any other? Is there any magic that makes your resolutions come true on this day? No, but it's as good a time as any to reflect, remember, evaluate, give thanks, and ( Read more... )

I've been looking through old things I've written, and here's one from a few years ago that pretty well expresses my mindset going into 2009:
But somewhere along the line ( Read more... )

More soon, perhaps, but ponder this for a while. The hymn "Jesus, I my cross have taken"-- what a backwards and glorious state of mind ( Read more... )