hello, north carolina. blah blah blah. my blawgs will be random from now until the end of this thing. a lot has happened and i have long hours, so by the time i get time to do this, i've forgotten more than half of what i wanted to mention. oh well...let's just start here...
well, training is finally over. it was a week long, and long hours on top of that (7.5a - 8.0p). it was not, however, not enjoyable. of course there were parts where i wanted to shoot myself in the neck, like child safety training and stuff like that, but all in all, not bad. by the by, i finally figured out what it is that i'm going to be doing. my official role is faculty advisor, and i work with a group of 16 kids on a particular strand of learning (there are 4 strands; mine is "creative construction") and we go through the program as if we were architects charged with building a museum. it's way detailed. we have to learn about scale, blueprints, floor plans, various building structures, the whole nine. meanwhile, ask me how much i know about architecture and designing buildings...
...i can't even put legos together...
the shock in all of this...the kids are as opposite from what i am used to than i could ever have imagined. compared to what i have to deal with at my school in dallas, these kids...i mean...there are no words i can think of to describe how much better they are here. my ears are inundated with constant "thank you"s and "i'm sorry"s and "excuse me, sir"s and lions and tigers and bears and hot damn. i was "warned" by a colleague who also works here that the kids were going to be like this. it's one thing to hear about it, but quite another to actually see it. damn these kids need to be in my classroom.
that's not to say they're not without their faults. by the way, today was the first day to see them. we've been preparing all week for their arrival. literally every minute of the day is planned out; there is no time to be piddlin' around. is it bad, then, that i've already got my group running on CP time??? anyhoo...this one girl (let's just call her cindy lou) is 10 years old, of the caucasian persuasion (which reminds me, i have become an overnite fan of "the boondocks"...more on that later), and knows how to not say the best thing. i was taking my group of kids, "scholars" as we call them, from the meeting place to our first team activity place. we're at wake forest university (shout out to the deacon devils out there) which is a nicely sized campus. it's hard to remember where everything is, especially if you have not had a lot of time to familiarize yourself with the campus layout. keeping that in mind, i got a little turned around finding greene hall.
forgive me for being human.
after the team time/leadership, we went to the auditorium, which was in another building, where we were going to see a magician (who was the most hilarious one to date). someone asked where we were going as we were walking. before i could even open my mouth, this heifer said, "i hope you don't get us lost...again." being a professional educator, i cut her an ugly stare, then laughed it off, saying that we were going the right way this time. in my head though...
so we're just outside the auditorium and my co-facilitator, james, was making small talk with a lot of the kids. we're all new to each other, we're looking for things about which to talk. this heifer, cindy lou, does it again:
james: ...and he's a great superhero.
heifer cindy lou: (as she's fiddling with some bracelet she made earlier) hey, do you have any duct tape?
james: (pulling out a water bottle with duct tape on it) actually, i do. what do you need it for?
heifer cindy lou: uh...your mouth.
pause. let's pretend for a second i'm james. here is what could potentially have happened:
me-james: what did you just say?
heifer cindy lou: i said, for your mouth.
me-james: let me stop you right there, you raggedy, no friend-having, face all pimply, anti-cute, annoying, disrespectful, stuck up...pity white girl. you don't disrespect me like that. you just met me 3 hours ago. now, i don't want this to get uglier than you have already made it...on second thought, yeah, c'mon, let's do this.
(i take my belt off, turn into pootie tang, and dive at her as the cartoon white fighting cloud appears)
but that did not happen...this did:
real james: oooh, good one! let's get ready to go inside, everybody.
there's a slight difference between the two scenes, huh? well, i probably would have done something similar to james, but in my head the first scene played out very clearly. meanwhile, i had a 12 hour day, and am getting ready for bed. i'll be posting some pictures from training and talking about some good times, like when asamoah's and my cinderella story in spades against jeremy and tikisha, who had that game won but lost horribly. the official score sheet? best believe i've got it.
peas out,
-w
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