My life right now consists of me trying desperately all week long to figure out how to be a teacher to wild and crazy inner-city middle schoolers and trying desperately all weekend long to forget about the fact that I am a teacher.
It is funny because I refer to my students as my kids when I talk about them, so people who overhear must think I am going crazy as a mother. Among "my kids" I have: 5 who are totally illiterate, 3 who got arrested on Halloween for throwing eggs at a cop car, 1 who is deaf and mute, 10 who have had less than three years of formal education, 1 who was a street kid in the Dominican Republic from age 7 to age 12 running drugs between dealers and users for food money, 1 with unmedicated ADHD, 1 who got expelled from his last school for beating up his teacher, none who are above a third grade reading level (it goes downhill from there), about twenty who apparently cannot hear my voice (especially when my voice is saying things like "sit down, be quiet or do your work"), 15 who get in fights regularly, less than 10 who are living with the person who raised them and over 100 who go to ridiculous lengths to get attention.
So that is what occupies my time and thoughts during the week. Below are some photos I got off my friends camera that show you how I try to fill up my weekends with non-school related stuff.
Every year there is a huge New York City Area singles dance on Roosevelt Island at the lighthouse. You take the tram over from Manhattan and it is absolutely beautiful. There is an awesome view of the city from there. This is me and my roommate Soo.
Mormon night at the Mets. Me, my roommate Cristi and Brittany. The missionaries sing the national anthem and we all sit in the same section and socialize while the Mets lose. Good times had by all.
Cristi bought an antique table off of Craig's list so we started making dinner every Sunday night and inviting people over for a real live dinner around a real live table. Dinner tables are something of a novelty in New York so people go nuts over them. I decided I wanted to start learning how to cook so it is a lot of fun to have people over to test it out on. As it turns out though, our family was not very formal growing up. Cristi is horrified that I put the bottle of salad dressing on the table.
All I have to say about dinner parties is, thank goodness for Laura. I have called her at least 20 times since I got back from China to get recipes or dinner ideas and they are always a big hit. One time I called and said, I have people coming in 30 minutes give me something fast and easy and she totally pulled through. THANK YOU LAURA!!!
The Saturday before Halloween we went to Sleepy Hollow to the Old Dutch Church to attend the reading of "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow." They have an actor read it at the church and they serve hot apple cider. During intermission we went wandering around the creepy old cemetery that is right next to the church. It was dark and creepy, a perfect Halloween activity.
Sometimes when you live in a city that has nothing but tall concrete buildings and people living on top of one another it is therapeutic to get out. The leaves are changing and the northeast is beautiful so we went to Connecticut to a regional singles activity on this guy's property. It was magnificent and a much needed break from crazy NYC.
Every year since I moved to NYC I have LOVED Marathon Sunday. I always watch it in Harlem which is at mile 21 and people are just dying. This year I watched and cheered for 4 hours because I had three friends running. We went to church and then walked straight over so that is why I am dressed all Church-like.
Cristi and I got home from school on Tuesday and Cristi got a call from a friend who builds sets on Broadway offering two tickets to "How the Grinch Stole Christmas," so we jumped on the train and made it just in time. During my time in NYC I have seen tons of Broadway shows but I still love them to pieces. This one had an audience full of kids and the Grinch was fantastic. A definite perk to the city.
