I really fell off the NaBloPoMo wagon quickly, didn’t I? I blame me wanting to soak up every last moment of my last week of college. I’ve done pretty well so far. Saturday, we had a special Saturday taping of “Bay Sate” followed by a read-through slash viewing party that ended with Jillian, Josh, and I singing “I Kissed A Girl” at one of our favorite bars. Sunday, I had my last sorority chapter then headed out to Megan’s to finally eat at a diner featured on our favorite show, Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives. Monday, I had my last photography class (and found out I got an A!), then had a final Gossip Girl viewing party with Jillian, complete with delicious fro-yo from our favorite fro-yo joint (even though it was about 15 degrees when we went to get said frozen yogurt.) Yesterday was my final acting class, followed by a trip to our school’s pub with one of my best school friends who I rarely get to hang out with, then over to my final Bay State taping, after which, I, of course, gave a minor speech and cried. We then had to go to our traditional post-Bay State dinner spot, Sunset Cantina, for drinks, nachos, and curly fries. Mmmm. Josh, Jillian, Megan and I ended our night doing karaoke (I did some amazing renditions of “Come on Over” and “See You Again.” Me=cool. Clearly.) and toasting to future drinks in LA. 

I think the final Bay State has been the hardest thing yet. I’ve been working on that show since the first month of my freshman year, and I’ve climbed through the ranks, starting as a PA and ending as a Co-Executive Producer. All my best friends are now from there, and it has definitely been the biggest constant, besides sorority stuff, in my college life. It still hasn’t hit me that I won’t be back. In fact, it hasn’t hit me that I only have one more college class left, and that at this time next year, I’ll be in charge of my own class. 

The only thing keeping me sane is not thinking about leaving here and instead thinking about going to Australia. I’m leaving next Tuesday, so its unbelievably close. I got an email from the lovely Sarah asking me if I was ok spending New Year’s Eve at her beach house with some friends. Um..is that even a question? When I wrote back, I had to note that last year, I rang in the new year in Israel, and I’ll be ringing out the year in Australia. In between, I’ve lived in two major cities (LA and Boston), and shifted my entire life plan. That makes my life sound much more exciting than it is…or maybe I just don’t realize how exciting my life is. 

Anyway, it looks like my sister will be guest-posting while I’m gone, so that should keep you all entertained. Look forward to that and an emotional breakdown type post come Saturday when I’m in my parent’s car with everything I’ve accumulated through the last 3 and a half years of my life piled around me, driving away from Boston, the closest thing to a hometown I’ve had in a while.

Today, after getting one last email from an LA program director, I went online and clicked the confirm button.

I’m now officially a member of the 2009 Teach for America – Los Angeles corps. 

It’s going to be a crazy two years.

LA bloggers: you better have as good of get-togethers as the Boston Bloggers do.

This  morning I got up early to go to visit the KIPP Academy in Lynn with some other recently accepted TFA corps members and a Boston area recruiter. 

The school looked unassuming. It’s basically a converted church with some modular (trailer like) classrooms surrounding the building. You walk in and there are some murals on the wall, but there is definitely not money pumping into this school. 

Then we walked into a classroom, and my jaw dropped. Every kid was silent, sitting up straight, and appeared to be actively listening to the teacher. When the teacher asked a question, every hand shot up in the air. (Granted, it’s part of their system that every child raises their hand with one, two or three fingers raised, indicating how confident they are in answering, but still, they were all participating.) The room (and every room we went into subsequently) was adorned with sayings like “Every student will learn,” and the school’s motto, “Work hard. Be nice.” We walked into another room where a student was reading a story for the class, and when he got done, every child, after sitting silently and listening to him, burst into applause. In another room, kids were in a number of small groups looking at cells in a microscope and drawing what they saw. Again, there was silence, even as they milled around the room. Even as the kids walked through the halls to lunch, they were in perfect lines following their teachers, not a one out of line. 

We talked to a number of the teachers who were TFA alums (over half the faculty is made up of TFA-ers), and each of them said the school culture was responsible for it all. Students come in the summer before their fifth grade year and learn the rules and expectations of the school, and from what I saw, most of them were meeting those expectations. (And the ones who hadn’t that day, we saw head into lunch detention.) The biggest thing to note is that these are not necessarily the “gifted” kids from the district. Kids are put into a lottery to get into KIPP, so theoretically, any school could achieve these kinds of results with their students. (The stats are staggering – if you are a minority student in Boston Public Schools, you have a 3% chance of graduating from college. If you attend KIPP, you have an 80% chance.) You set specific expectations, and these kids meet them. You don’t need exessive funding and high caliber technology. You need strong educators working towrads a specific goal and sharing that goal with their students.

We looked at a bulletin board filled with “Life Maps” the kids had created about their lives. Almost every one of them had a pit stop that said something to the effect of “I started KIPP Academy and started loving school.”  

One of the things that struck me too, was how weird it was to be in a middle school again after so long. I mean, I have such distinct, vivid memories of my middle school days, but being at a school like that now, it seems so different.  Also, it was creepy (and encouraging) to see teachers who looked about my age commanding the attention of a classroom of students. I mean, when you are a student, even the young teachers seem old, so it was hard to picture myself as one of them, but seeing those kinds of teachers now altered my perception a bit. I could totally see myself being them. 

When we walked out, one of the other girls asked if you could fall in love with a school in an hour, because she definitely had. I did too, and what made me most excited about the prospect of accepting TFA’s offer is that 30% of the LA TFA corps members teach in charter schools like this one. In fact, they place in LA’s KIPP academy. If I could get into a school with like-minded individuals like KIPP, I feel like I’d really be able to put all my efforts towards working with my students, rather than dealing with bureaucratic bullshit that comes with working in some of the larger public schools. Luckily, we fill out preference forms where I could make that preference known. 

So at this point, I don’t know what I’m waiting for. I want to accept, but accepting is still a scary thought. I told myself this morning I’d wait until I finished reading Relentless Pursuit, but I can’t imagine the last 50 pages are going to convince me not to do it, which is basically what would have to happen for me to reject the offer. I mean, after everything I’ve seen and been told, can I say no? 

I think what’s really sealed it for me is seeing myself in the corps members I’ve talked to, which is what scared me the most about my LA entertainment industry internships – I couldn’t see myself being one of the producer’s or executives. I just wasn’t like them. These teachers and TFA staffers are like me, and that is comforting. I know it will be hard and stressful, and I’m sure I’ll have days I hate my life and cry, but to be around people I relate to, doing something that is ultimately important is what I’ve been wanting and asking for. I can take a challenge, and I think I’ll take this one.

Yesterday, I had some time to kill before going to work, where I would sit around doing nothing, so I figured I might as well stop at the bookstore and pick something up to read. I’d been dying to read American Wife by Curits Sittenfeld, because I LOVED Prep, but when I got to the store, I remembered a book that was mentioned anytime I looked up LA – Teach for America. 

It’s called Relentless Pursuit: A Year in the Trenches with Teach for America, and it actually follows four ’05 corps members through their first year in the program. I hesitated before purchasing it, wondering if I really wanted to take in an account of what my life could be like – gritty, terrifying details and all (especially, as no matter how journalistic the author’s intentions may be, she is still writing a book and needs conflict, and I assume, tended to gravitate towards the more dramatic, compelling [and thus more frightening  me] stories.) Despite all that, I ended up buying it and reading it all last night and at work today. 

I was 100 pages in when a Program Director from the LA office called me last night. Unfortunately, 100 pages in, the ’05 corps members were deep into their “What the hell am I doing here?” phase, which may have colored the percentage I gave the PD when she asked what my odds were of accepting versus rejecting. (I told her I was about 80/20, when really,  I’m probably more 95/5.) She was extremely helpful, though, not pressuring me and really giving me all the information I asked for. I definitely felt better after talking to her. She told me the story of how she cried gonig to the airport to training, thinking “What if they made a mistake when they picked me? What if I’m not really cut out to do this?” Then, when she got to induction, the first thing the TFA staffer told them was “We didn’t make a mistake.” Then she said the same to me. 

Today, I got about 150 pages further in the book, as I actually do nothing at work, and am now into the stage where the corps members are seeing results. It’s uplifting after all the crap they’ve been through, but still tough to read. I mean, at this point, I feel like I can’t turn down the offer, but it’s so hard to say yes to something that I know at some point will cause me to say, “Why the hell did I sign up for this?”

To me, it feels like I have to choose between feeling underutilized, bored, and powerless and feeling challenged, stressed, and tired (all. the. time. according to most former corps members.) In the book, one of the male corps members who admitted to crying on the drive home some days said, even after all that, he still wouldn’t trade places with his friends, who, according to him, were working low level jobs as “glorified salesmen” and spent their days bored out of their minds. And right now, I’m feeling the same way, because my main complaint at every job I’ve had (besides camp) has been boredom and the feeling that I’m too smart to spend my day making copies and answering phones. Why would I turn down a job where I get to be in charge 95% of the time, where I get to lead a group of people, where I get to use every skill I’ve amassed over my life? Plus, there’s that whole job security thing. 

Tonight, 256 pages into the book, I went to the matriculation dinner, which was basically a free dinner at a delicious Italian restaurant with TFA alumni and the recently accepted, soon-to-be corps members. I really connected with a girl who taught 7th grade literacy in New York. We talked about her classroom management strategy, finding your teaching style, and what books her kids liked to read. (Unsurprisingly, they were all addicted to Twilight.) I could see myself in her, and I could see myself having the same struggles she described, but also the same successes. She helped me see myself doing this more clearly. I told her I wanted to teach middle school over high school, and she assured me that as that is rarely the case, I would probably get to teach middle school if I made my preference known. That helped calm my nerves about potentially being stuck in a class with 12th graders barely two years younger than me. 

Tomorrow, I have my last round of TFA investigation. I’m going on a school visit to a KIPP middle school outside the city. Hopefully, once I’m there, I will really be able to envision what my life would be like if I click that ominous “Accept Offer” button. I’m so close to being there, but I just want to be sure.

I thought while I’m in the midst of figuring out my next life move – I have a phone call with someone from the TFA LA office tonight and a matriculation dinner tomorrow night that I’m hoping with solidify a decision for me – I thought it would be fun to dig through my old, real, paper and pen diaries to see what I wrote when I decided on my current life situation – where I would be attending college. (Partly inspired by some amazing diary excerpts from Dooce and Metalia.)

March 7, 2005

I feel like I’m on the brink of something big, the calm before the storm. Soon things will start happening and everything will start changing. Hopefully for the better, but still changing. Nothing will ever be the same. I’ll get college acceptances soon, figure out where I’m going, finish high school! I mean, I complain about how slowly this year is going, but it’s all going to be happening soon. 

(Next came an extremely concieted rant about how I can’t wait to be surrounded by my intellectual equals which actually contains the phrase “I just want to fit in without conforming.” Wow. Just…wow.)

I just want to know where I’m going next year NOW! I want to be able to really envision myself in college. And I must say that saying “I’m going to [college that waitlisted me] or “I’m going to [college I currently attend] both sound extremely good right now.

___________________

March 31, 2005

And I’m going to [where I go now]! Yep, after years and years of looking, the search is over. 

It’s so weird after all this time and all the searching that I’m am actually done. I know where I’m going to college – where I’ll be spending the next four years of my life, where my degree will be from. It’s crazy. It doesn’t feel real. Maybe it will set in once school ends. 

Wow, typing that all out – I realize my diaries are a lot more boring when typed out and that I took myself way too seriously in these writings.  I do, however, think it’s interesting that I feel exactly the same way now as I did then. I know my whole life is about to change, but I don’t feel like it at all right now. I’m still here at school, hanging out with my friends, taking classes. No one else is close to the end, so it just feels normal. I think once I make a decision about TFA, it might seem more concrete, but right now, its still this weird idea I can’t quite grasp.

As for my second entry, it’s bizarre that that single decision has brought me here, that I’m still living out the consequences of that day (in a good way!). It’s also weird that my mind didn’t think about my life after college. I think in high school, you can only focus on the next step. I focused on college for so long that taking a step afterwards feels like walking off the edge of a cliff, like there is nothing concrete left.

Lastly, I realized, while finding these entries, that I will definitely have to post some of my more melodramatic writings in the future, one of which was written at 2AM on a Saturday night between these two entries and begins with me extensively quoting Green Day, as I felt it was all that could capture my angst. Awesome.

Today I was talking to my mom, and I jokingly suggested we take the Joe Biden train from Wilmington to DC on January 20th to go to Obama’s inauguration. I’ll be home by then, I thought. (Well, at my parent’s house…) What else will I have to do? Then I started thinking about that fact…

I’ll be home by then. I’ll be done with college. I’ll have already turned in my last assignment. Moved off campus. Attended my last college party.  I’ll have already traveled to and from Australia and experienced a once-in-a-lifetime trip with two of my best friends. Maybe I’ll have already held a koala or spotted a kangaroo. (God, I hope I get to hold a koala.) I’ll have already spent a week in LA, double checking my decision not to move there and pursue a job in television. I’ll already know if I’ve been accepted into Teach for America or if I’m going to be applying to grad school. I’ll probably know if I’m moving back to Boston in the spring or if I’ll be keeping my sister company in New York. I’ll have a much more clear picture of my life…well, my life for the next two years. 

I guess all this still seems so far away to me now, but thinking about that date – January 20 – really made me realize nothing is very far away. This semester is almost over. My life is about to be drastically different. At least Barack Obama knows how I feel.

This week has been hectic, to say the least. It’s also been a kind of “Hey, Amanda! Let’s quickly consider all of your options for the next year with handy specified days for each possible path.”

Let’s start with Wednesday: Wednesday I got up at 6:00AM, which is normally an hour which doesn’t exist in my life, to get myself prepared for my day long (Let me say that again…day long) interview for Teach for America. Now to give you some idea of the intensity of this process: for this interview, I had to collect official transcripts from my school, submit two recommendations, read five articles on education in low-income communities, and prepare a five minute sample teaching lesson. 

I was pretty calm about the interview, as I’d be happy and flattered to be accepted but if I’m not, I have other options (as evidenced below). This isn’t my only hope or anything. That said, the interview itself made me kind of nervous. You get there and there are eleven other impeccably dressed young people who all have resumes that include going to places like Yale or working on cancer research or doing extensive community service. Then you have to watch them all teach these inventive, thought out lessons, while you (read: me) thought that your lesson for high schoolers didn’t need worksheets or visual aids, which everyone else so happens to have. Then, you do this group exercise where you have to use your knowledge of the readings to think of a strategy for improving test scores at a fake middle school where you fake teach. THEN you have to write a reflection on the readings. THEN you have to take a multiple choice/essay “test” (they call it an “exercise”) with charts and data and reasoning….it’s tiring. After all that, you come back in the afternoon to have your hour long, one-on-one interview, which walks you through role play exercises and a bunch of those fun “what would you do in this situation” questions. Good times. Really.

Overall, I thought the day went well. They prefaced our morning with the note that we really weren’t competing with each other, as they judge everyone individually against their standards and choose from there. Because of that, the whole group was super supportive, especially through the sample teaching, which was nerve-racking for everyone. It was impressive how well we all worked together for having just met and kind of (but not really…) being in competition with each other. It made me feel like should I be accepted into the program,  I’d be surrounded by extremely smart but supportive people. 

Today, I went in to the Graduate Open House at Emerson, even though I visited this summer, as I thought it would be smart to get a real program overview from the faculty rather than just the students. We had a seminar about admission and financial aid, which given the whole our-economy-is-falling-apart thing was a little scary. The actual overview of the program turned into more of a discussion between the seven people who were there to look at the program, two current students, and the head of the program. I think what struck me the most was how the things many of the people there are feeling about their jobs and careers 2 to 10 years out of college are the exact same things I have begun to fear I’ll feel 2 to 10 years out of college, only I know about  them now. The whole disillusioned-with-the-industry, can’t-work-a-desk-job, wanting-to-give-back mentality is something everyone shared, and weirdly, something I already have. How am I disillsuioned with a world I have yet ot enter? I guess I’ve already seen it through my internships and jobs during college, but it’s hard to get people who’ve actually experienced it to believe that I have, too. Anyway, the whole thing made me feel like I’d found the right program for me, making me want to go there even more, which is both good and bad. I have a clear goal, which is good for me, but I fear a major meltdown should I not achieve that goal. 

I mean, I feel qualified to get a job in Film and TV (my current major), but my sister is having a really tough time finding a job in the field, and she actually wants it! I can’t imagine working that hard for jobs I don’t even think I’d enjoy….BUT, I’m not there yet. Not even close. First, I have to see what Teach for America says. Then, if that doesnt’ work, I have to get my application to Emerson in. If that doesn’t work, I’ll figure out something…I hope.

The other big news (I suppose) is that I’m attempting (emphasis on attempting) to participate in NaBloPoMo, which means I have to post every…single…day in November. Quite a change from my three posts in October. I’m trying to use this as a way to get blogging back in my routine, as it has clearly been pushed to the bottom of my priority list in favor of things like work, school, and sleeping. We’ll see how this works out. 

So, I didn’t get the job. My boss kind of non chalantly threw out the fact that they hired someone else while giving me my agenda for the day. I’m not upset about it. I just kind of expected more than, “Oh, did you heard we hired someone else?” I mean, it’s not like I’ve worked there for two years, or anything…oh, wait…

But, as I said, I’m not upset. In fact, today was excellent, as I got invited to have a phone interview for Teach for America! (Quick side note: I decided to apply for the first deadline, instead of the third, as I will now know if I am accepted in November as opposed to March, thus allowing me to bypass those pesky grad school applications if I accept a TFA position. Smart, right?) At this point, I’m feeling like I’d much rather move forward with the TFA thing, rather than working the same job I’ve been working for the past two years, just with slightly more responsibilities. Plus, now, I most likely get to chill in LA for a week when I get back from Australia, because HEY! I’ll have nothing else to do. Hello, future unemployment!

(Cut to January when upon arrival home from said week in LA, I’m crying about unemployment and boredom. I’ll be sure to link back to this post.)

Whatevs. Today, I’m feeling positive. I’m heading home tomorrow with my friend Lauren (ROAD TRIP!) to then head to NYC with my parents on Saturday to visit my sister and celebrate her birthday slash my parents’ anniversary, which just so happen to be one day apart. (Happy Anniversary Mom and Dad slash Happy [early] Birthday, Stephanie!)

Right now, I’m off to enjoy the second half of my wonderful TV night. (Yet another side note: The Office is officially back! That episode was comedic [and a little romantic] gold! Ryan coming back! Kelly fainting!A talking head from within a computer! “I don’t think I ever really processed 9/11.” Phyllis and Dwight! Poor Andy The rotting fruit! JIM AND PAM!!! Ok…I’m breathing again. Sadly, I doubt Grey’s will get me this excited, but you never know…)

In my ongoing quest to take on every possible application process and look into every possible career choice for my future (that starts ever so soon), I’ve started looking into applying to Teach for America. If you don’t know, TFA is a non-profit organization that recruits and trains recent college grads to commit to teaching for two years in urban and rural schools in low socio-economic areas in an attempt to close the achievement gap in America. I’ve heard about it a lot, obivously as I took Politics of Education this summer, and it’s always sounded intriguing, but it’s been sounding even more intriguing after my (disenchanting) stint in the LA entertainment biz. 

My other plans also include applying to grad school for theater education, so this would obviously be an interesting step in the right direction. I mean, how hard could getting high schoolers to love drama be after teaching inner city kids to love 9th grade English? That’s what I thought.

The upsides of doing this include having a guaranteed, decently paying job for two years. I would have an instant network of friends and collegues wherever they sent me. I’d have an amazing, life-changing experience (if everything touted on the TFA website and in the informational meeting I just attended is true), and would gain valuble experience that would be more than a little useful to WHATEVER I choose to do afterwards. They have an amazing alumni network and various partnerships with businesses and grad schools to take advantage of, as well. 

The various downsides include, IT’S SO HARD (this sounds stupid, but really…it’s a freakin’ hard job.) I can only imagine how draining and difficult this job can be. I mean, I got stressed teaching drama at camp to middle-class Jewish kids. This would be a thousand times harder. Plus, there is the whole moving wherever they tell you to move thing (although, they tell you before you have to make a decision AND you get to rank where you’d want to be placed and they have a 98% rate of sending people to an area they requested.) I know I would be a good teacher under normal teacher circumstances, but I honestly fear I would buckle under this stress. I mean, this semester already gave me a cold. But I know, I KNOW, that at the end of this experience, I would feel amazing. I truly want a job where I am doing something and accomplishing something (see my rant about why I disliked one of my internships in LA). To be able to make even the tiniest impact on these kids lives would be unbelievably fulfilling. 

Lastly, isn’t this the time to do something big? Something crazy? Something you can’t do during any other time in your life? As much as I want to go to grad school for Theater Ed, I don’t know if I can jump right back into school, and there is no job that seems appealing to me right now. I’ve looked. I can’t stick myself in an office again, I just can’t. This would be an amazing experience. A hard experience, but an experience none the less. 

My basic plan for all of these things is to apply for many things and see what sticks. TFA has a deadline in January, which is also when the deadlines for grad school are, so January will be the “I’m unemplyed and applying to EVERYTHING” month. Fun times are clearly in my future. 

So have any of you ever thought of applying to TFA? Know anyone who has?

It’s extremely hard to come up with blog ideas when all I do is work and sit around eating and watching the Olympics. Especially since I actively avoid talking about work, because, you know, the horror stories abound. I will make a small exception now, as something vaguely important could possibly be happening soon, and as I have nothing else to blog about, it seems like a good idea. 

Basically, I’ve been a work-study student at the same place for two years. From what I can tell, I do a pretty good job. In fact, my boss’s last day was today, and when I said good-bye to her (prepare from some self-congratulatory posting…) she said they were so lucky to have found me to work there and offered any help she could give me in the future, as she is moving to New York, somewhere I could possibly end up. Basically, I’ve been working as her assistant when I’m there, so we’ve gotten pretty close. And I’ve loved working there, hence my unhappiness at the possibility of my work-study being taken away (an issue which is not entirely resolved yet, but which my boss has told me not to worry about. She says they definitely want me around for the fall and will figure out a way to keep me there.)

Moving on, my boss’s biggest suggestion leaving the job was to create a full time assistant position for her position, as she shared an assistant with the rest of management, while using me when she could. The company took her advice and created a full-time assistant position. The job description is basically a slightly more in-depth description of MY job,  just full time. My boss encouraged me to apply. She even read my cover letter for me. So I applied. And I got an interview. For a full-time job…that would start next month. Um…ridiculous much? 

This is so good and so bad in a number of ways. First for the so good: if I got it, I would have a full time job! Paying a lot more money than I’m making now! And I could stay in Boston! At a job I already know how to do and actually enjoy! Hooray!

The so bad? I would have a full time job. And class (sure, I am only taking three classes, and they include acting and photography, but still, they are classes…with grades…) And Bay State, the campus TV show I work on. And my sorority, which to be honest, I would probably completely blow off if I got this job. What I’m saying is, I would be exhausted. All. The. Time. It would be a lot to handle, and I really don’t want to have a complete breakdown my last semester of college. 

The double bad countering the so bad, however, would be if they hired someone else, because, honestly? They say I would still work there, but there would be almost nothing for me to do. I’ve been filling this assistant type position all summer, and there are days when I’ve had one project and then done homework for three hours. To add a full time assistant to the mix would make the lowly work-study student obsolete. I guess it wouldn’t be so bad to have a job where I had little to do and still got paid, but with the added responsibility I’ve gained this summer, it would suck to give it up to someone completely new, while I’ve been there for two years. 

I’m trying not to think about any of this too much, as I have no control over what will ultimately happen, and really, if I got offered the job, I wouldn’t even think about not taking it, so why dwell on the negative now like I’m weighing the options? It’s pointless. I’ll take the job if I get it, and I’ll deal with it if I don’t. I really just wanted something to blog about…