Perspective

Back in June, I remember thinking that the second years were too disengaged. I even got a little angry at what seemed like an unwillingness to help us.

"Don't they remember what it was like for them last year? They act like they're so tired... please! It's summer!"

So this is my official apology to the second years for what I thought but never said last summer. With the exception of the fantastic John Darnell, I unfairly tagged most of them as unhelpful and borderline selfish. I get it now!

I was talking to a fellow first year just a couple days ago about how much we are looking forward to summer vacation. At some point early in the conversation we realized that we had the entire month of June to consider before we went on summer vacation. Light bulb moment.

I realize how much effort it takes to get through just a semester of school, let alone the whole year. So by the time June gets here, I will be drained. I am sure that one of the last things I will want to do is teach some more.

So how has my perspective changed? I have even more respect for the second years now. I am half way to where they were when I first met them, so now I have an even better grasp of what they had just endured. I realize that any extra effort they chose to put forth must have come from a good place-the same philanthropic place that drove them to apply to MTC. I hope I can be as positive of an influence to our incoming class of first years.

A Day in the Life

When I was told to write a blog about a day in the life of Ms. B, I tirelessly racked my brain for a way to make it interesting... or at the very least save you from excruciating boredom. After seconds upon seconds of careful consideration, I am sad to say that I came up with nothing. So in contrast to my introduction and with the interest of all parties involved, I will attempt to proceed with careful brevity and try to make this as painless as possible. Here goes!

10:00pm: I turn in for the night and set my alarm for 5:30am intending to hit "snooze" at least six times at 5 minute increments the next morning.

5:30am: My alarm goes off the first time. I usually try to talk myself into getting up at that point, but sleepiness quickly takes over and I hit snooze.

6:00am: My alarm goes off the final time. At this point I've allowed myself to wake up slowly enough that it's not too hard to roll myself out of bed. I take the next 30 minutes getting ready.

6:30am: I try to walk out the door by 6:30. On the way out, I grab something small for breakfast. It's usually a Pop Tart. Today my students told me they thought only kids ate Pop Tarts.

6:40am: I pull into the same gas station every morning and I park next to the same construction trucks. I have never liked to consider myself such a creature of habit, but there is something comforting about seeing the same people at the gas station every morning. I walk in, wave to the usual customers who sit at the booths to the right, and walk over to the coffee and cappuccino machines. I make my daily cocktail of half coffee, half mocha cappuccino and I grab a bottle of water. As I walk up to the counter, the ladies typically say something about my outfit choice for the day. Last Friday they told me I looked like one of my students. I'm usually in and out within 3 minutes.

6:55am: I get to school, clock in, check my mail box, and head to my class room. At this point in the year, I have significantly cut time off of my morning routine. I used to get to school at 6:30 and wait for the principal to get there and unlock the building. No more. Upon entering my room, I flick on the heat- although lately Mr. Buford, the janitor, turns it on for me. The next few minutes are taken by mindless but necessary minutiae like changing the date on the board, straightening the desks, writing the day's tasks on the board, and hooking up the projector.

7:10am: Every other week I have duty in the main hallway from 7:10-7:30. This is perhaps my favorite part of the day. I get to see every student that rides a bus and most of the car riders... that includes kids as young as kindergarten. After only a few weeks of school, certain elementary schoolers started giving me hugs in the morning. When I ask them why, they just smile, shrug their shoulders, and keep walking. Adorable.

7:35-8:00: My homeroom class contains some of my worst students. They are required to read their Accelerated Reader books and take tests on them during homeroom. Getting this group of kids to do so if awful. They're starting to come around.

8:05-9:00: I am lucky to have some of the more rambunctious 7th graders in my first period class so they haven't had time to wake up. They are usually mellow enough to pay attention but not too tired to fall asleep. Perfection.

9:05-10:00: Second period is my favorite group of kids and whether it's recommended or not, I tell them they're my favorites. Some may say that this will give them a sense of entitlement and it may snowball out of control by the end of the year, but so far it has just given me a way to guilt trip them... which is why they're my favorites. Guilt trips and disappointment are actually deterrents for them.

10:05-10:20: Break

10:25-10:45: The first part of 3rd period before lunch.

10:50-11:15: Lunch

11:20-11:55: The second half of 3rd period. It is really becoming exhausting to try to calm them down after lunch. Third period is my honors class, but every new student gets put in there because it's the smallest class. Most of our new students this year have not only been below the honors level, but they have also been behavior problems.

12:00-12:55: 4th period is my SPED/inclusion class. I truly enjoy working with the students who have learning disabilities. It seems like they are so much more appreciative and eager. There are also several behavioral IEPs in that class though so a lot of my attention has to be focused on maintaining order.

1:00-1:55: Planning - I used to leave school and just drive around Byhalia to take a break. That is becoming less necessary.

2:00-2:55: 6th period is my worst class behaviorally but I really enjoy their personalities. There are many occasions when I have to put serious effort into witholding laughter.

I tutor after school on Mondays and Wednesdays. After that, I go to basketball practice until about 6:00.

On nights when we have away games, my nights are pretty late. The record so far is 10:00.

So at about twice the required word count, I'll cut it off here. So much for brevity.

Free Write

I was warned about October. I was warned about a lot of things that would happen during the first part of the year. October was supposed to be the month from hell, the month when everything caught up to me and I began loathing my job. We were told of former teachers who said October was easily the worst month of the year. The weather gets colder. Daylight hours are shorter. I was scared of October because August and September were fantastic! How can the good times just end?

They didn’t.

I’m not sure if they were just trying to build things up so much that when it actually came around it wouldn’t seem so bad. In my case, I don’t even think that was the case. October just wasn’t that bad. In fact, a lot of new and exciting things have been happening. We are trying to start a school newspaper. These kids have never had one so they seem to be really excited. We had 35 show up to the first meeting. I’m also working with one of my journalism professors from Ole Miss, Garreth Blackwell, and he has offered to help. He and his wife even donated some digital cameras for us.

I’m also coaching basketball. Now I’m going to be honest, I don’t really even like basketball, but they asked me to help and I don’t know how to say no. What surprised me is that I am actually enjoying it. We have some great kids and contrary to my two weeks of helping with high school volleyball, the middle-schoolers actually try. They dive on the floor, get mad when they don’t play, and they have this amazing competitive spirit. 

Perhaps the best part of October has been that I have gotten to know my students better and better. Their personalities are starting to come out, and while some may caution me about the discipline problems that could bring, I’m happy about it. I laugh at my students every day. I must say that I don’t love the teaching part of my job as much as I thought I would, but I love my kids. They keep me coming back to school every day. They give me reason to roll out of bed in the morning. Discipline has become more of a challenge, but they’re not unmanageable. I would rather have to put more effort into my classroom management than have a room full of kids who are afraid to show me their personality.

Free Write

I have had my kids do a lot of free writing lately. They hate it. But I think it’s a great way for me to gauge their abilities and for them to tell me what they want me to know. In an effort to try and convince them, I explain that free writing is good for you. 

My turn.

It is Wednesday of my second full week of school, and as I sit in my classroom during 5th period planning, (with the lights off) I can honestly say that this is the first day I have actually done something productive with this free time.  My day is split up relatively well. I never go more than 2 periods without a break of some kind. But for some reason, by the time 5th period gets here, all I usually want to do is SLEEP. I find myself just staring out the window most days. Unfortunately for me, my 6th and final period of the day has some of the worst attitudes in the 7th grade. Not only do I lack the patience to deal with them by that point, but I am not even close to being mentally present enough to stay on top of every management problem that that joyful bunch of kids brings.

I understand that it is the end of the day for them too. I understand that the last thing they want to do from 2:05-3:00 is learn grammar. But to be totally honest, one of the last things I want to do from 2:05-3:00 is teach grammar - especially to a group of kids as disinterested as these.

What they fail to understand is that I’m willing to put on a happy face anyway. Sometimes I wish they saw that. It is way more exhausting to be a teacher than a student. Can’t they just appreciate my effort and be quiet, respectful little 7th graders?? Ha! I know that is ridiculous. But one thing I have already taken from this teaching experience is that I severely under-appreciated my teachers. I’m saying that, and I was one of the good kids! I remember thinking that teachers had it easy. I remember thinking that all they had to do was tell us what to do and then just relax. What I didn’t realize was that, more than likely, 80% of their conscious hours were spent thinking about school, worrying about school, dreading school, looking forward to school, planning for school, grading papers for school... you see the theme.

This is easily the most time-consuming thing I have ever done. But I’ve said that before. Today at lunch, unsolicited, a few of my kids decided to tell me what the general consensus was about Ms. Buccilla. They said that most kids either think that I’m mean (good!) or that I’m really nice (not sure how I should feel about that). They said that the ones who think I’m mean are the ones who act up all the time... duh. I just kind of sat and listened. But the conversation got me thinking. I work extremely hard every day to put out a specific product. That product includes me, my appearance, my attitude, the content that I teach, and the way I teach it. That product is the calculated result of an effort to make material fun and engaging, beneficial and structured. What I realized though, was that no matter how much effort, how much preparation and thought I put in, the kids are still going to think what they think, and learn what they learn. I can’t force kids to like me, respect me, or even learn everything from me. But I can try. 

Besides time-consuming, I came up with a few more adjectives for my experience:

brutal educational (for me)

arduous educational (for them)

demanding illuminating 

edifying rare

inspiring uncharted

uplifting

exhausting

impossible

possible

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Brent the Warrior Monk

My response to the blog of Brent Bonds: Entertaining and enlightening. Delicious and nutritious. 

I was fortunate enough to work with Brent over the summer. He split his time between our class and the 9th/10th grade English class. Not only did I thoroughly enjoy watching him teach, I learned from him. He put crazy wigs on his bald head and wore scarves, hats, and jackets just to grab the students' attention. He taught them to play flip-cup as a review game. And they learned from him. But enough of my brown nosing campaign and more on his blog.

It is one of the most entertaining blogs I've read. He manages to throw in references to warrior monks almost flawlessly, and still there is substance. It is an honest blog, regardless of who it may offend. This passage illustrates that idea perfectly and it ranks among my favorites:

"I'd like to see a new wave of teachers who do more than teach to tests and who rely more on trenched experience than empty research. It is a perfect time to revamp our schools of education, which I must admit I have always thought were Mickey Mouse courses. It would be nice to see a change of emphasis from a minimum of subject area classes and too many less-than-valuable education courses to a system that requires a great deal of core subject-work and supplements that in-depth knowledge with a greater hands-on apprenticeship."

I could not agree more. He wasn't afraid to say that he thinks education courses are Mickey Mouse, and talks about how and why he thinks it should change, and I'm pretty sure he's right!

One of my other favorites, and a perfect example of how he turns the painful requirement of blogging into something he and the rest of us can enjoy:

"In three weeks time, at the current rate of personal growth, I expect a golden transformation. A glowing apotheosis. I, Brent Bonds, will have become a teaching god."

I think he may have succeeded. 

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Summer Training

This summer was easily the most intense of my life. I have never really had a summer in the typical, kid sense of the word. I was always playing competitive sports... softball, golf. Until college, my goal every summer was to play well enough to get noticed by a college coach and earn myself a scholarship. Once I achieved that and got to college, I was required by my coach to play in amateur tournaments all over the country or I wouldn't be eligible for fall qualifying.

There was a lot of pressure.

That was nothing.

I didn't know what pressure was back then! While at the time I thought everything in the world was riding on whether or not I played a good round of golf, what I immaturely failed to realize was that it didn't matter. Not at all. And certainly not to the kids whose lives I've just been thrust into. They don't care if I was a college athlete. They don't care how hard I worked every summer or even if I was a success or failure. They just want me to teach them. That's pressure.

So this brings me to the matter of my summer training. I must say that without it, I would be feeling infinitely more pressure going into the actual school year. We taught summer school in Holly Springs, Mississippi. Students were bused in from a couple different districts for a total of around 250 students. which is a lot of students in one summer school.

We had anywhere from 25 to 30 kids in the 7th and 8th grade English class. It felt like 100 kids for an inexperienced, fresh-out-of-college student with zero training, but it was undoubtedly the best training I could have possibly received. It was like a mini school year. I saw the steady decrease in student focus and behavior as the weeks passed. I had high and low days, successes and failures. I reached some kids and failed to reach others. I learned how to plan a lesson, come up with assessments, and attempt to make grammar interesting. 

By no means do I think I am ready for the coming school year. I'm not sure if first year teachers are ever fully ready for that. I actually still hesitate to even call myself a teacher. But I am licensed, and regardless of what my feelings are, I will be in a classroom of my own in a matter of weeks.

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In My Students' Shoes

As a requirement of MTC, I video taped one of my early lessons, in fact, my first lesson. While at this point in time I hate the fact that I have hard evidence of my lack of teaching abilities, I think that down the road it will be pretty neat that I have my first lesson ever on video. Even if I do hate it though, I certainly learned a lot from watching it.

First and foremost, on the surface, I realized I hate my voice. I'm pretty sure that is a natural response, but I really had no idea I sounded so annoying. What I thought was intense fluctuation in my intonation sounded like a glorified monotone. I can't believe the students came back the next day. Maybe it helped that my first lesson was a Friday, first period.

I didn't move around nearly as much as I though I had, and the few board-hugging steps I took seemed forced and calculated. Not knowing the students' names didn't help either. So when I called on someone, I did this awkward point with my clip board, which I'm sure they saw right through.

One thing I thought I did well was the lesson itself. I was teaching pre-writing for an autobiography, so I played them a clip of Vh1's Behind the Music on T.I. It was someone they respected and knew something about and it was a show they were all familiar with. I began playing it without even giving them some things to look for. So then I awkwardly paused and gave them a list of four things, which I later realized they didn't understand. After it was finished playing, I pulled the projector screen up to reveal three graphic organizers drawn on neon poster board. This was one of the things I think I did well. It showed them I was prepared.

On the board I had drawn a Venn Diagram, a cause and effect map, and a timeline. I filled the organizers out with events from my life. I had been told that students enjoy learning about their teachers... they didn't seem to care. But back to the point.

I watched the video that night and then again yesterday (2 weeks after). I can feel that I have already gotten better. There is far greater volume and excitement in my voice. I am starting to connect with the kids, and I move around so much now (touching all four walls) that I have actually been told to stand still a little more. 

My nervousness has turned into excitement (at least internally). I can't wait to see myself in two years.

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Reluctant Blogger

My whole life I have been stubborn. It's not that I have problems with authority or taking orders. All of that is fine and a natural part of growing up. The problem has usually been that I don't like to do unnecessary things. Busy work in class always frustrated me. Homework for the sake of homework never got completed. Scenic routes aren't really my thing either, and admitting that there is nothing wrong with standing in a grocery store check-out line in the south for twice the time I would in the north has been something I have struggled with for my four years at Ole Miss. 

"Where else do you have to be, Andrea?" 

"Anywhere but here," I usually retort. "It is totally inefficient to stand in line at Wal-Mart for this long."

So here's my point: I am stubborn on nearly every level. I will argue with you about whether or not the sky is blue if you really want to. I will take any side of any argument and enjoy arguing it. So coming into teaching, I figured I would have no problems letting my students know exactly how I felt, exactly what I expected, and exactly what would happen if they chose to go against me. I figured they would be able to sense the brick wall that is Miss Buccilla. 

NOT.

As I have said before, I have discovered this odd contrast between Andrea and Miss Buccilla. Andrea lives pretty happily without concern of approval from much of anyone. Miss Buccilla secretly begs for the acceptance of her young students. So as a result of this dichotomy, that hardened disciplinarian that I assumed would exist in the classroom is remarkably absent. 

So all of that was so that I could simply say this. The Reluctant Disciplinarian helped me. It was probably too anecdotal, which caused me to begin tuning out what I was reading - much like I do when people get too anecdotal in conversation. (It's that whole aversion to unnecessary things) But I could relate to Gary Rubinstein in a number of ways. Even though Andrea is very different than Gary Rubinstein, Miss Buccilla has a lot in common with him.

If I had to choose one piece of advice to immediately take from the book, it would be to develop a teacher look. According to Rubinstein, "the teacher look says, 'There's nothing you can do that I haven't already seen, so don't even bother trying.'"

That sounds wonderful. I have already tried it a couple times and it has been entirely ineffective. In fact, it even produced some laughter. But I had teachers (and a mother) who had that look down to a science, so I know how effective it can be. I know that there will come a point in the year when my voice is like poison that my students immediately shy away from and ignore... so I need a look.

I think that devoting a significant amount time practicing my teacher look in the mirror is entirely necessary and time effective. This blog however, was completely unnecessary.  

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What I've Learned About Myself

I've learned that I'm not as good at time management as I thought. (Notice this blog was posted 10 minutes before it was due).  I've learned that I am not as mean I as I thought. I have learned that I am not as intimidating as I've been told. (In fact I think my college-age friends are more scared of me than my middle schoolers). I've learned that I like kids a lot more than I realized... and not just my little sisters anymore. I have realized how easy it is for me to care for someone who, prior to one month ago, I had no knowledge even existed. I have not learned why yet, but I have discovered the interesting fact that, even though I normally do not bother with whether or not someone likes or approves of me, I am desperate to gain the approval of these pre-teens. I have learned that I am extremely unorganized, which I guess could go back to the time management thing, but it has become such an obvious flaw that I feel it's ok to mention twice. 

I have learned that I will be teaching 7th grade writing, which is a state tested subject. In fact a double state tested subject. The Mississippi Curriculum Test 2, and a state writing test.

I have learned that challenge excites rather than scares me. 

I have realized that being a Division I college athlete was easy.

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My First Couple Weeks

It is Friday of my third week of summer school, and as I am sitting in the teacher work room 30 minutes before the day begins, I am realizing that my time management skills are not what I thought they were. I am still in the honeymoon phase, where even on my worst days I find something positive... or at the very least I try to turn something negative into something funny.

Will my optimism subside? I hope not. Have my first couple weeks been way harder than I had imagined? You bet. Here is the deal. I have learned so much in a short two weeks of summer school, and my teaching abilities have taken the drastic jump from non-existent to passable. I have gotten to the point where, on my good days, I actually feel like a teacher, not just a college graduate beginning the next step of my life. So that gives me hope.

As far as my students go, they are great. They are bad. But they are great. This is the first year that summer school has had enough students to actually simulate a real school year, so the behavior problems I have encountered have been very authentic. We have 30 kids enrolled in our classroom, which means we have somewhere around 25 on a given day. For a first-year novice at classroom management, that is a lot of kids. But like I said, it's great.

We eat lunch with the students everyday so I have gotten to know them outside the class. I'm not sure yet if that has helped or hurt me. There seems to be such a fine line between having them respect me and having them be too comfortable. So I don't know if my recent slip in effectiveness is because they are too comfortable or because it is week three and they realized that they only have two more weeks with me.

At some point, I will have all the answers to these questions. I'll let you know.

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Cold Call, Cold Heart?

This week we were supposed to try a new questioning technique during our lessons. To me, "cold calling" seemed not only to be the simplest, but likely the most effective idea. Let me first define cold calling. The teacher takes either a bunch of pop sickle sticks or a stack of note cards and writes the names of one student on every card. For each question asked, the teacher pulls a name from the group and calls on that student. At this point... in theory... the student whose name gets called perks up from their usual morning lull and aptly gives the answer. In theory.

Since the teacher pulls names at random, it is meant to keep the students on their toes. It is meant to motivate them to pay attention so that when they are called on, they know the answer. It is meant to increase learning.

I was really excited to try out cold calling. Every lesson I have taught thus far has been first period and, needless to say, the kids are less than eager to volunteer. I figured that I would finally get to see them demonstrate all of the information I had helped them learn. 

At first it went pretty well. They were able to answer most of the questions with ease. I had been teaching about the writing process and they were able to list all of the graphic organizers and their corresponding styles of autobiographies. They also remembered the things I told them to look for while editing. But when we got to the last three things I wanted them to look for: spelling, grammar, and punctuation, we had problems. 

Up until that point, I had been cold calling on kids to go write their answers on the board under the corresponding heading that I had written. The student that I called on knew the answer to my question. He said it aloud before I asked him to write it on the board. This actually happened to be one of the better students in my class. He always volunteers, he never sleeps, and he is always polite. But the look of terror on his face when I asked him to write his answer... spell his answer, sent a chill down my own spine as I felt so terrible about what I knew was about to happen. 

He shuffled up to the board and picked up one of the dry erase markers. In tiny handwriting, he apprehensively wrote spelling. "Good!" I encouraged him to keep going, but at this point, the rest of the class had picked up on what was going on. Laughter began spreading around the room, and as I shot them "the look," he turned to a classmate to see if they had the words, grammar and punctuation written on their paper. No luck. As casually as I could, I walked up to the board to "save him." I took the marker, whispered in his ear and said, "Don't worry, I've got it."

That was the end of cold calling for the day. I felt like I couldn't risk humiliating another student. I understand that the whole point is to help them learn. But at that moment, I don't think I was helping anyone learn. It certainly seemed like more of a distraction than anything. My thoughts are this: in a "good" school district, where everyone is at grade level and can at least spell the words that they have been seeing over and over again in their lessons, cold calling might be a good idea. But in these districts, and especially in a summer school English class, I need to find a different way to promote participation.

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Lost

Delta Autumn was initially a book that I had no interest in reading. I'm not saying that I don't want advice, or guidance, or background on the area in which I will be teaching. Honestly, it had a lot to do with the fact that I have so much to do right now. This is all so new and stressful. I have only taught one lesson so far, but for the past week, I have gotten less sleep, food, and Andrea-time than is probably healthy.

But I did read the book. And I'm glad I did. Actually, I'm even glad to be writing this blog right now (even if it is a day late). Reading and writing have always been such a release for me. I have the ability to lose myself in whichever of the two I'm doing. So when I get to use both and write about what I've read.......... Ok I'm back.

Herein lies my distress with teaching English in poor, rural Mississippi though. My kids do not have the privilege, and yes it is a privilege down here, to get lost in a work of literature or their own writing. At the seventh and eighth grade levels, I have students who cannot read or write. My how foreign, how very sad that is. Perhaps the toughest part though, is not the prospect of teaching these 15-year-old middle schoolers how to read. I can teach a kid how to read. What's difficult is knowing whether their lack of classroom participation is because they want to be difficult or because of their illiteracy. I caught myself getting frustrated with a child who was not doing his work, only to find out he couldn't do his work. I felt terrible.

But as the book reiterated, the challenges presented by this subject are exactly what drove me to it. Reading and writing are so imperative to success. People can get by without being good at math or science - I'm living proof! But for these kids to be able to get out of or improve their situation, they have to be articulate. They have to be able to write a resume. They have to be able to pass the same tests as the private school kids.

At this point, I think one of the best things I can do is to demonstrate proper English in the way that I write and speak. All day, every day they are exposed to adults who use improper grammar.  I've heard stories from second year teachers who say that, in the middle of their lesson on verb conjugation, the principal will come over the loud speaker and say, "Today you be taking tests." So I will demonstrate. I will make them demonstrate. The book says, To learn something, you must use it."  They will use it. I want to make my classroom a haven for the kids who get made fun of for not being able to read, and I want to start everyone on the ground level, because even the ones who excel in these schools would be considered less than average writers at a good school. It's time to stop the cycle of completion grades and begin holding these kids accountable. 

We'll see.

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First week of MTC 2010

Yesterday, during day two of the Mississippi Volleyball Corps (not to be confused with the ever time-encroaching Mississippi Teacher Corps), I had a second year ask me if I was ready to quit yet. While I obviously realized this was a joke, I quickly jumped into a mode which has become so familiar. The good impression mode.  I answered with a smile and a vehement, "No! This is great!" 

Now let me stop you here.... when I say that I was in good impression mode, it is not to say that I did not mean those words. MTC has been great thus far. I truly have loved every moment of it. My classmates are amazing. Every one of them. We are all so different, so excited, so nervous, so raw. I click with each of them for entirely different reasons.  Dr. Monroe, Dr. Mullins, Buck, Ben, and the team teachers have all been so wonderfully supportive and understanding of our situation. They have aptly withheld judgement in the midst of our most unwitting moments as first-week MTCers.

Now back to the original question. While of course I don't want to quit, at that moment, while standing in the Campus Creek pool, I realized the importance of such humor. All week we had been inundated with information. We heard stories of success and failure. Positive and negative. Encouragement and candor. The one theme across every one of these stories was, "it happens to everyone." Everyone has successes, and certainly everyone has failures. But if I have learned anything this week, it is that we learn from and lean on each other. We joke. We do not hide from the fact that this will be hard, but we approach it in such a way that makes it manageable. 

I am not scared of the year to come. I am, as I said before, so excited, so nervous, so raw. I feel lucky to be surrounded by people of such a caliber that they are willing to take on this great challenge. Good luck MTC class of 2010.

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