1. The new staff at my school. As my school is a new charter, we are adding a grade every year. Thus, we doubled the size of our staff in, this, our second year. Luckily, our new staff is as ridiculously amazing, funny, smart, and collaborative as our old staff, leading us to have ridiculously amazing, funny adventures while competing in a scavenger hunt around the South Bay and do ridiculously amazing, smart, collaborative things, like craft engaging curriculum for the 10th grade. Win.

2. My Toms wedges

3. The Neil Patrick Harris-directed production of “Rent” at the Hollywood Bowl. Having never been to the Hollywood Bowl AND having never seen “Rent” live made seeing this production one of the best nights in a long time. As did the impromptu Ke$ha dance party my friends and I had in the parking lot after the show while waiting for the cars to clear out. Throw in the fact that my (dorky) “High School Musical” loving heart got a kick out of seeing Vanessa Hudgens writhe on stage to “Out Tonight,” and you have an epic night.

4. My last week of summer. Last week (aka my last week of summer 2010), I finally met my boyfriend’s family, by taking his niece to Disneyland (my THIRD time since April. Childhood win!) and by going with his family to a Dodger game (which they won 9-1). I also went skating with said niece, my sister, and my roommate, which I haven’t done since I was 10. Lastly, I slept in pretty much every day until 9, which is late for me. Best.

5. Mad Men. Despite the fact that they cut out the scene my roommate was an extra in (Damn you, editors!), I am SO happy to have Don, Peggy, and even Betty back in my life.

6. Feeling like I’m good at my job. For the first time since I started teaching (granted, its only been a year), I feel like I have some sort of grasp on what I’m doing, and I finally feel like I’m the one truly directing what is going on in my classroom, instead of just following along with the crowd because I’m too afraid to venture off on my own. This is all mostly due to the fact that I’ve been helping new TFA-ers get accustomed to my school, but I’ll take it however I can get it. Hazzah for never being a first-year teacher ever again!

Looking back on some of the major turning points of my life, I realize most of them have come out of rash decisions. Momentary whims that turned into life paths and completely new directions.

Rash decision one: Give up theater, after a life time of dance classes, voice lessons, summer theater camps, and a performing arts high school, after a terrible college program audition (complete with crying phone meltdown to my mother) and a comment from my high school drama/playwriting teacher that my play read more like a sitcom. Instead of pursuing an BFA in Musical Theater (which I could not have done solely due to lack of necessary talent…) or even a BA in Theater Studies, I decided to major in Television and Film with the new dream of writing for Television. It was quasi based on my lifetime love of television, but looking back, it was also quasi reactionary. Even so, that decision shaped the next four years of my life.

Rash decision number two: Apply to be a counselor at a Jewish summer camp. A completely random decision a the time, having never attended camp myself. It came up after a third or forth viewing of the MTV Documentary “Fat Camp” with my friend Nick my second semester of college, during which I talked about how I almost went to sleep away Jew camp as a kid, but chickened out at the last minute. I thought about how I had nothing to do that summer and about how much fun I’d had the summer before working at a Performing Arts Day camp, and how I’d always secretly wished I had just sucked it up and GONE to camp that summer, so I, of course, randomly started researching and applying to Jewish summer camps in the Midwest. I heard back from several, got hired at one, and proceeded to have the best two summers of my life 20 minutes outside of Cleveland, Ohio, which in turn led to both my amazing Australian adventure with my two camp BFF’s and my third rash decision.

Rash decision number three: Apply to Teach for America. After my second semester junior year experience of interning and hating life in LA, I felt lost. My rash decision to major in TV was looking like an epic failure after discovering I didn’t, in fact, enjoy working in television, and I had no idea what to do with my life. The only vague thought I had was to maybe apply to Emerson to study Theater Education and circle back to my original love of theater and my new found (Thanks to Camp!) love of working with kids. I doubted I would get in, however, with my limited camp experience teaching drama one summer and my one vaguely related to education class, the Politics of Education. Then I saw one of those pesky recruitment signs touting the (horrifying) statistics about low-income schools, which reminded me of all the things I learned were broken in the education system in my one education class. I went to an info meeting, told my mom I was thinking about applying, and filled out the application in a day, figuring I would let fate decide, since I didn’t really have faith in my decision making skills at the time. Then a funny thing happened. Fate decided I should be a teacher.

And that’s where I am now. One year into my two-year commitment to TFA, which is when everyone in TFA starts asking “What are you going to do next Spring when you finish?” They, of course, are asking so they can steer you into staying in education, thus fulfilling step two of their two-part plan to close the education gap. And for the first time in a while, I’m not feeling like making a rash decision that will throw me in a completely different direction.

Maybe it’s just because my life is going pretty well right now that I don’t feel like changing it and, eventually one small blip will send me looking at law school applications, but for now, for the first time ever, I’ve drafted out a plan for the next five years of my life, based on where I am now right now. It’s weird to write out where I want to be five years into the future, because for the last five years, my plans have been changing and evolving on a regular basis. There has never been a constant, because I have always felt unsure, like I wasn’t good enough to act or I wasn’t cut-throat enough for Hollywood. It’s kind of scary to feel stable and to plan, because I have a history of planning and then pursuing those plans only to chuck them out the window and do something totally different. I even wrote my college admissions essay about how I did this, and after that, I changed my mind again!

But maybe those rash decisions were all just leading me here, to the place I was supposed to end up. I just had to make those giant, seemingly random leaps because I wasn’t going to get to this place fast enough unless I made mistakes, took on random jobs and left a few things up to fate.

Maybe planning just feels scary, because, as I’ve seen, life doesn’t go according to plan, and I’m just afraid to fail. In the past, as my plans have changed or been only a few months ahead of me, I’ve never technically failed. I’ve gotten everything I’ve really tried to do. I don’t know how I would handle it if I made this plan, went for it with all I had, and then didn’t succeed.

Then again, life is scary and unpredictable, as I’ve seen, and I might fail, but I think I need to focus on the fact that right now, in this moment, I’m so incredibly grateful that I made those decisions, and that life, unpredictably, brought me here to this place where I can make plans for my future, because when I think of what my life would have been had I not made those random, rash decisions, I wouldn’t have all the life experience that is now factoring into my plans. I guess I just have to trust that even if life doesn’t go according to the plan, it can still lead you to a good place.

This year has been mildly ridiculous, to say the least. I graduated from college, moved about four times, once across the country. I started my first real job and had several mental breakdowns along the way. I haven’t been the best blogger through all of it, but I’m saving resolutions for tomorrow. Today is just about looking back, so let’s go.

January

I rang in 2009  in Australia, a trip which I recapped past the point of necessity. After I got home and moved in with my parents (since I technically graduated from school in Jan. 2009), I celebrated the Steelers going to the Superbowl (if only they were on the same path now…) and (shamefully) found myself sitting inside a thick Twilight haze.

February

I started the month by taking my first of many trips to Boston for my best friends birthday. I decided to lose 15 pounds by graduation. (I got to 10, so win?) I hit a wall with temporary unemployment, then quickly was given a big project when my 10 pounds of Teach for America reading material arrived in the mail. I freaked out about being an adult and vlogged for 20SB vlog day (which I’ve since remembered I deleted out of embarrassment.)

March

Things perked up in March when I got my Nikon D90 (AND STARTED WRITING ONLY IN CAPS! Clearly, it was necessary) and immediately replaced television with photography. Then, instead of recapping my trip to LA or my weekend in Annapolis, I mentally decorated my future apartment and made Bakerella’s Cake Pops.

April

I was a little lazy with posting until I had a dilemma in car buying, wavered, then finally bought my beautiful blue 2005 Prius (which I’m still obsessed with. 45 mpg? $20 to fill up? iPod hook-up? Yes, yes, and yes.). I then celebrated Passover with some help from my non-Jewish father, failed at blogging (a common trend, no?), fought about gay marriage with a ridiculous pageant queen, and started a new photoblog (which I also failed at). Then, I finally figured out and listed the things that were causing me to fail at blogging.

May

I headed up to Boston for Senior Breakfast at my college and finally decided I was ready to move on from Boston and from college. (I’m starting to doubt that in retrospect…) Then I headed back to Boston a week later for Senior Week. And, you know, for my official graduation from college. Still bizarre to think about.

June

I was officially hired by a school in LA and decided things were going a little too well. I said good-bye to my parents (and learned later I made my mom cry). I took a little trip to Vegas you may have heard something about. I got to San Diego and hung out with an “old” college friend. I finally arrived in LA and started Teach for America Induction and met my future co-workers on a two day trip back to San Diego.

July

I wrote my first and last edition of quotes from the always stressful, sometimes funny Institute and wrote my first of MANY posts about balancing the stress of teaching with just about everything else in my life, in this case, seeing Harry Potter at midnight, a very important priority in my life.

August

I finished Institute and wished I had time to actually document what was going on in my life (which should be the official theme of this year.) Off-line, I started work and started school. I became a teacher.

September

More of the same. I wanted to blog. I wanted to be a normal person (by making a list of things I was going to do, none of which I did until about 3 months later). I wanted to not be tired all. the. time. Things weren’t bad, but they weren’t (that magic word) balanced.

October

After a major downer of a week, things weren’t bad for the moment.I reflected on my 22nd year as I moved into my 23rd, and I  played a little high low game in order to reflect on the good things that were happening in my life.

November

I took a trip to Berkeley to see American Idiot and came back with a severe case of grass is always greener syndrome. I had a week-off for Thanksgiving and was thankful for my awesome co-workers and my Gilmore Girl-like dinner situation. I then promptly discovered I have no idea what I want out of life. At all. Still awesome.

December

I started attempting to reminisce (and again promptly failed at the attempt), thinking back on my trip to Australia. I wondered if I would ever simply be happy and reflected on how my life right now is my biggest challenge.

So that was my year: a whole lot of boredom and family bonding into a whole lot of working and complaining about balance. I still don’t know what I want. I still don’t know how to feel about where I am right now. I still don’t know where I’ll be in a year and a half when this whole TFA thing ends. In this moment, I’m thinking about scrapping the whole regular job thing and giving this photography thing a go, but that’s just today. I can’t trust I’ll feel this way in a week, but that isn’t today’s discussion. Today is looking back. Tomorrow, I’ll be looking forward. Let’s go, 2010.

I want to blog. I really do. It’s just the last thing i think about every day. It’s at the end of my never-ending to-do list, and thus, I never get to it. I want to. I really do. I just want to sleep too. I want to be able to teach my kids a mildly interesting lesson, which means I want to take the time to write an interesting lesson plan. I want to watch Greek and Glee. I want to see my sister and call my mom. I want to talk with my roommates and do my laundry. I want to get to school early to finish my copies, and I want to stay at school late to help my students who are behind. I want to go in on weekends to organize my library and write out a kick-ass unit plan. I want to get my car checked and go to the doctor and the dmv. I want to go to happy-hour with other TFA-ers and bitch about all the things I want to do, but can’t, because when you get up at 5AM, get home at 6:30 and are standing and talking for all that time in between, doing all of those things seems (and basically is) next to impossible.

So…that is my excuse. That is my mea culpa. I’m tired and busy and sad that I’m not keeping up with everyone online or even keeping up with myself. I’m told it will get easier. I’ll adjust to the sleep schedule. I’ll set up an organization system that works. I won’t wake up some mornings wondering how in the hell I’m going to get through the day. I won’t be close to tears on the phone with my mom as my students start coming in the door.

No, things aren’t that bad. My kids are ridiculously fantastic. They’ve already done some great work, but I’ve also seen how much I have to do with them to get them where they need to be. We went on an overnight as a school last week, and while it was a tiring 30 hour trip, our school has such a community now. The people I’m working with are phenomenal, smart, dedicated professionals. I honestly couldn’t ask for a better situation, but still….it it’s so hard. It is so ridiculously hard.

I’m done with Institute. I can’t yet process that and should probably be sleeping right now, so until I can form coherent thoughts on the last five weeks, I’ll leave you with a (slightly edited for the internet) email I received from one of my favorite summer school students. It pretty much sums up how weirdly amazing (and challenging and frustrating and ridiculous) the past five weeks have actually been:

Hey ms b, just wanted to take the time and say thank you for everything you have tought us. Being in your class has been a better experience from all my other teachers and I finally understand English well now. Mr. W and yourself are great teachers I hope both of you have great luck in teaching in the future and thank you again for making me understand English way better.
-Sincerely
E

I’m alive. I promise. This weekend, after staying up for 24 hours on Friday (not. ok.), I started the week feeling like the three weeks I had left of Institute would be ENDLESS. ENDLESS I tell you!

However, after getting the afternoon off yesterday (Happy TFA Day!), which then allowed me to get four hours of sleep from 7 until 11:30 before I drove across town to a midnight showing of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince with Stephanie before returning home at 4 to get two more hours of sleep, and after finishing three lesson plans tonight without breaking a sweat (and before 10:00PM!), I’m feeling like the two weeks and 2 days of Institute I have left are totally manageable. Especially since tomorrow at this time, I’ll be rocking out to Kris Allen, Adam Lambert, and Allison Iraheta at the American Idol concert…..andagainonSaturday.

Yes, I am going to the American Idol concert twice. And yes, I am aware that the do-gooders here at TFA probably judge and don’t understand my pop culture obbsesions. I know in my heart, though, that the fact that I’m going twice is just the consequence of a weird set of circumstances that involved me not thinking I could make the LA show, buying tickets to the San Diego show instead, and then finding out I could go to the LA show….but I digress.

The seeing HP and the seeing Kris Allen are the things that are keeping me sane and allowing me to plow through these last two weeks. I went into this thing telling myself that I would not change. I would not let TFA consume my life. I would not burn out by pushing away the things I love and becoming scary-serious-sanctimonious chick. I do want to give all I can to my new job, but not at the expense of my life. So…yeah, no guilt. And I won’t complain if I’m tired, which surprisingly after last night’s weird split up sleep situation, I’m not. (I still got 7 hours of sleep, which sadly, is more than I’ve been getting on a regular basis) Although, this post is sounding more and more like I am super tired. Or like I’m drugged.

Whatevs. The whole point is I’m alive. I’m going to make it through Institute, and I’m going to allow myself to have some fun along the way. The end. Good night.

“We are going to watch a video clip about investing your students from Justin Meli’s class. He’s a little bit TF Famous” – My Curriculum Specialist

“No! Don’t take the dinosaur subtraction! Not the dinosaur subtraction! He’s taking it!” – Justin Meli to his 3rd grader, who happily skipped away with extra subtraction homework.

“What’s the smart student motto?”
“WORK HARD. GET SMART. OOO! OOO!” – Justin Meli’s 3rd Grade class

“What is ‘Team All-Star’ in another language?”
“How did we go from ‘Let’s finish this lesson plan!’ to ‘What is All-Star in Spanish?’” – My co-lab (aka teaching partners) trying to think of a team name (and generally being mini-lesson planning all-stars)

Institute is mostly challenging and kind of stressful….but sometimes, it’s just funny.

Maybe you had to be there. Or maybe I’m just sleep-deprived.

And so LA Induction is over. It’s hard to believe I’ve only been here a week. There are already so many little cliques in the LA corps, and I already have some awesome new friends.

The rest of the week here in LA was solid – we had more info panels about TFA’s corps values and all that jazz. We had a night out at Lucky Strike, and I took one of my new friends out to WeHo to see Grace and check out the area. There was some drama over credentialing programs (it looks like I’ll be going to UCLA. What up, Bruins?!), and a slew of mildly unappetizing food, but overall, it’s been a positive introduction to TFA.

While Induction was good, the highlight of my week was definitely Wednesday and Thursday. Another TFA-er (we’ll call him TT as he is also now my Team Teacher, and I’m feeling like maybe I should code this blog when it comes to work related things…) and I headed down to our school to meet our staff and join them for training at an amazing charter high school in San Diego. The second we pulled up in front of the colorful building and saw everyone standing in the parking lot, I knew I was set – my school was going to be something amazing. Everyone was immediately welcoming, and the energy of the staff was ridiculous.

Over the next two days (TT and I had to leave early, sadly enough, to get back for TFA stuff…) I sat in on some amazing sessions on reading, project-based learning, creating a team culture in your classroom, and planning. Our team met to talk about where we want our students to be and to brain-storm project ideas, and we got a mini-tour of the school. The best part, though, was when we got back to the two houses they rented out in La Jolla for the whole staff. We played vollyball. Our assistant principals made us a ridiculous dinner. We learned our personality colors and battled via posterboard about whose group was best. The “young” crowd (TT, an ’07 corps member who is our resource/special ed teacher, and another recent grad schooler, JC – who is a giant ray of sunshine and the only female on the engineering side of the school) stayed up until midnight watching You Tube videos and just talking. It was so relaxed, so welcoming, and so…fun. The group is amazingly well rounded, with TFA-ers, recent grad school grads, and veteran teachers, many of whom used to be instructional coaches. I do not think I could be in a better position going into my first year of teaching. Any time I asked a question, it turned into a half an hour discussion with advice, ideas, and support. One of the VP’s came up to me and made sure to tell me that we are all new at this school and to project-based learning, to make sure I didn’t feel overwhelmed. We laughed and planned, and I honestly didn’t want to leave.

Sadly, TT and I had to drive back Thursday afternoon, after finding out we will be team teaching (we’ll have the same 60 students – as each student only has two core teachers), so we can plan together all summer at Institute. After bonding over our mutual feelings on TFA and getting some brainstorming done on the drive back, we stopped by the school, as I’d never been inside, and our principal insisted we go look at our classrooms. We walked through the hallways and into the courtyard where our rooms are. (Side note: how weird are California schools, with their outdoor walkways and classrooms that open directly to the outside?!) As we walked up to the building, I saw that there was a sign on my door that said “Ms. B(restoflastname)” (Sorry, internet paranoia setting in!) My heart literally stopped. This whole teaching suddenly clicked and was real. I’m going to be a teacher. All these kids are coming to this new school full of (I hope!) excitement and possibly fear, with expectations and wishes for high school, and I’m the one who has to teach them, who is going to be school for them. I really hope I can live up to those expectation.

This past week has flown by. I got to LA last Saturday, spent the weekend with my lovely sister, Stephanie, spent the week seeing my LA program buddies, Grace, Patrick, and Sarah, plus caught up with some other newly minted alums from my school. It was pretty much the perfect last week of freedom – watching endless amounts of TV with Stephanie, lounging by the pool with Patrick and Sarah, having one more night out on the town, and SLEEPING. Oh the sleeping…

You see, I’m already missing sleep a bit, which doesn’t bode well for my next few weeks, because yesterday, I officially started my 2-year commitment with Teach for America. This week is what is called Induction, basically an intro to the region with just our fellow LA corps members. Next week, the true madness begins when corps members from four other regions will join us for Institute, which is the actual training part of the summer. This week is all about learning about our area, our mission, our goals, and all the nitty gritty bureaucratic details we need to take care of to actually qualify to teach come August.

That doesn’t mean it hasn’t been a teensy bit crazy – not overwhelming quite yet, but getting up at 5:30AM on a Sunday definitely isn’t standard operating procedure in my life, so…a bit crazy. I think the only thought I’ve been really capable of forming so far is that it is so nice to finally be around people who get it – get why I’m doing this, get what Teach for America is, and get how I’m feeling at this juncture in my life. I’ve already met some crazy cool people, and I’ve already been BLOWN away by conversations I’ve overheard and been a part of. I had no doubt coming in that the corps would be an amazing group of people, but to finally see this group and be able to start to see the possibilities of what everyone here is going to accomplish is pretty amazing. Just seeing the ’08 corps members who have just finished one year of teaching – seeing the passion they have for their kids, seeing the eloquence they have when speaking about their experiences – is insane.

And it’s only just begun. Mostly, we’ve been sitting participating in sessions about the philosophies and core values behind TFA, the kinds of goals we are going to be setting, and TFA’s expectations for us, but we’ve also been listening to people’s stories about why they decided to join “The Movement”, and it’s amazing to hear all the things that have brought people to this point. I honestly (and I’m trying not to let this get too cheesy) am SO excited to see what this group of people accomplishes in the next two years and beyond.

And yes, my title is a direct reference to my favorite cheesy high school film, “HIgh School Musical” inspired by the TFA staff members constant insistence that “we are all in this together.”