The Kids are Alright

Well I'm long overdue for an update in this thing. Since the last time I wrote, I have gone to San Antonio to visit Lila, met the new Zach (aka. our recently hired supervisor), had my first official Junior class, got officially sworn in as an AmeriCorps member and [finally] visited a church.

I don't know if I can really pound out a long enough entry to give justice to all the things that have happened - so you might have to settle for an abbreviated version. But on the upside - I'm working on my Life of Layton movie and will hopefully be ready to upload it in a few weeks.

Meanwhile...


SAN ANTONIO

I spent last weekend visiting my BFF - Lila - in San Antonio. Not only was it nice to see a familiar face, but it was also cool to see a part of Texas that isn't Austin and to have something new to explore. I think San Antonio is a fair bit bigger than Austin, and I've gotten so used to Austin's size that I was a little overwhelmed. S.A.'s real claim to fame is the Alamo and the Riverwalk. It was a little touristy I guess, but I'm a total sucker for that stuff so I liked it. We also got to check out Jake's Place - the LIG GNS on the Riverwalk. Probably one of the best things about going to visit Lila was getting to see what another AmeriCorps program is like. It's amazing how different our two programs are. We both deal with issues in education, but my program is this grassroots organization that's very small and local and just kind of all over the place. City Year San Antonio is based out of a national organization (City Year) so it's a lot more streamlined and put together. There's more of a focus on method and the group mentality - with chants and matching uniforms. It was definitely a valuable experience to spend some time with that org., but it also made me realize how much CoFo was the right fit for me. So even though I had a great time, it was nice to get back home to Austin and College Forward.


THE NEW ZACH

The new Zach is named Kristen, and she moved to Austin last December after spending 5 years working with NPOs in Los Angeles. I haven't had too much time to talk with her yet, but she seems pretty awesome. We did bond briefly over L.A. on Friday at our AmeriCorps swearing in. I think we'll all miss Zach, but props to Melody for finding us such a rock solid replacement.


MY FIRST OFFICIAL JUNIOR CLASS!

This is the big one. What we've all been waiting for - the start of our own classes. I think even the senior coaches were excited to have new faces on board and to have their own classes fully to themselves. I was super stoked for my first class - and not nearly as nervous as I expected to be. The main focus of my first class was introducing myself to my kids and getting to know them - as well as dividing them up into the teams they'll be in all year. I decided to do teams both to break down the class into manageable groups and also because I feel like a team mentality can really motivate people.
By the time the early class was supposed to start, Fabiola and I had over 50 juniors to contend with, so we split the class in half and each took one. For the record, 26 is still a lot of kids for one classroom! My first class was neither as bad as I'd feared nor as good as I'd hoped. The kids were pretty talkative, and I had to talk over them a lot and ask them to be quiet. But they're fun and happy and they have a lot of personality. They seemed pretty into the team thing - so hopefully that'll work out. I think they haven't quite made up their minds about me yet. I'm sort of a whole new breed - not quite a teacher and not quite a peer. I look forward to sort establishing my role with them - but I think it's going to be a great year.
My late class was much smaller - I ended up with about 14 kids. Somehow I ended up with all the loud, rambunctious boys and Fabi ended up with all the quiet girls so I think I'm going to have my hands full. My I swear - I love every single one of them. They just keep things fun and exciting and to be honest - I think they're really happy to be there and I think they really like me. It's nice having a smaller group to work with, but I don't want to be biased towards one class over the other. I know I'll love all the kids in my early class too - it just might take me longer to get to know them.
Tuesday I'm starting journals with my kids - sa-weet!


SWEARING IN

Friday we had our swearing in ceremony, which was a little lame but mostly awesome. The ceremony was a little chaotic, but there was something very satisfying about making our term of service official. And it was powerful to see all the AmeriCorps members in Austin together in one place. Change is happening - not just at CF but all over - and it's amazing. It's amazing to be a part of it.


CHURCH

I finally went. I almost didn't - I went out last night and stayed out later than I planned - so I woke up this morning and all I wanted to do was sleep. But I dragged myself out of the bed and into the shower and found myself at Central Pres downtown only 5 minutes late. The church is (I think) the oldest PC USA church in town (obviously predating the existence of PC USA) and it's this pretty old building. The inside of the sanctuary is beautiful - very warm and cozy. It was sunny and hot outside, but somehow it was easy to imagine - from inside - that it was a crisp, gray autumn day outside. To be clear - I see that as a good thing.
The sermon was pretty good - this is definitely an outreach focused church - both international and local. After the service I was bombarded by people welcoming me and introducing themselves - it was such a friendly environment and it felt so nice to be around that again. The pastor himself came up to say hello - he's this friendly old man with crinkly eyes. And then this girl, Laura, invited me to go to this young adult thing tonight. So I went to that too and met a whole bunch more people. They were all very nice and I could definitely see myself getting involved with that. The only real downsides were that it was mostly girls and I was by far the youngest. I think I'm also going to check on University Pres because they might have more folks my age.

But things are going well - stay tuned for more news!