First of all, Happy Birthday to my Grandpa (on the 5th). I can't believe I've lived 3 years without you, and I miss you every day ( Read more... )

I'm back home in H-Town now, after a fairly sucessful 5-week run as a Detroit Public Schools teacher. I know my explanations needed a bit more organizing - I need to take more time to lesson plan and think about what I'm going to do. But I think that may come with getting to teach social studies next year. I just feel like there's so much more I ( Read more... )

So, in a quick Detroit update, I'm now going to be teaching the Algebra 1 kids by myself for the rest of the time I'm there (two weeks). So, I have about 40 students. Things went pretty well on Friday, so hopefully they continue to go well ( Read more... )

We'll try and make this quick :) So, I was by myself teaching Friday, Monday, and Tuesday, as well as the rest of last Thursday. I completely had to make lesson plans up for Monday and Tuesday. The only day I got really frustrated was Tuesday, because some of the kids just didn't seem to get my lesson, and I couldn't figure out how to make them ( Read more... )

I am almost done with my first week at Western International High School in Detroit. The more time I spend here, the more I absolutely love the Broad Fellowship. Mainly it's the people - the other fellows, and the people working with us from MSU, DFT, and DPS ( Read more... )

Today was Diversity Day at orientation. In the morning, we "traveled" around Detroit and learned about the different ethnic communities. It was fairly interesting, but I can only take speakers for so long, and 2.5 hours was too long. We walked down to the New Center Building at lunch, but Gina, Tsoguik, and I decided to go back and get food from ( Read more... )

So this week is orientation week. We started at 9:30 on Monday, and arrived fine without traffic (my roommate and I are riding together this week). I was pleasantly surprised to see a few familiar faces in the crowd, plus everyone was really nice. I found out I'll be teaching Algebra at Western International High School in Southwest Detroit. It ( Read more... )

So I finally moved to Detroit...the dorm room/apartment, whatever you want to call it, is fairly nice. I have my own room, which is probably a little larger than half a Mason Hall room, so it seems really spacious, even after having been home for a month. I don't have cable, but I'll live - I've got plenty of movies and taped television shows to ( Read more... )

It's not fair. Why do we keep losing people, especially the young ones? They've really hit too close to home. I watched Emily grow up over the years - she was one of the ones in Alex's elementary classes that I knew who she was. And while from far away she always seemed loud and hyperactive, she was also fun to watch. And I guess I could also ( Read more... )

“It’s the times we’re so crazy, that people think we’re high. It’s the times that we laugh so hard, we can’t help but cry. It’s all the inside jokes and “remember whens”. Those are all the reasons that we’re best friends!” -Unknown ( Read more... )