This Blog Post…

I don’t cite other blogs very often on this blog (for fear that those of you follow only this one will realize there’s a bigger and better world of bloggers out there), but this time I just couldn’t resist.

This blogger was in one of my Discover DC groups (I want to say the first year, but let’s be honest, I’m getting old and I can’t really remember), and later transferred to Ohio State (I take no credit for that switch- I did everything I could to help him ‘Discover DC’).  Now he’s a first year Teach For America teacher in New Orleans, and blogging about his experiences there.

First of all, the blog name is the BEST ever.  My ‘Big Goal’ (or BG if you will) during my TFA summer institute was to learn to speak fluently the language of acronyms, something Teach For America is VERY fond of.  I got my CMA group involved, and by the end of the summer our agendas were only acronyms, and I could read several lines of only capitol letters with very few errors.  I’ve since lost the touch, but still enjoy trying   Hence why I enjoy the blog title ‘Relentless Pursuit of Acronyms’ as much as I do.

Okay, enough about how good the blog is, as I’m actually rating one particular post that I just discovered tonight.  It’s getting a huge 10 and a ‘must read’, so I’m reposting here (hope you don’t mind Matt )

Make sure to check out the original post here and leave nice comments

I Believe Dat

As I’m sure you all know, the long suffering New Orleans Saints beat the Indianapolis Colts 31-17 on Sunday to win the Super Bowl. Much ink has been spilled describing what this means to the city and for professional football. Many sportswriters much better than I have already covered that story, so I won’t waste your time with it. Instead, I’d like to offer up how the Black and Gold’s march to the Super Bowl has impacted me and my classroom.

Growing up near central Ohio, I had the misfortune of being a Bengals fan. From 1993 (when I was 6) to 2004, the Bengals failed to finish better than 8-8. I blew my meager allowance on a Peter Warrick jersey and Carl Pickens football cards. I lived too far away from Cincinnati to actually go to a game, but I dutifully watched as many as I could from TV. Times were tough now, but I knew eventually the Who Dey nation would have their day.

That day never really came though. In 2005, my senior year in high school, the Bengals finally broke through, winning the AFC North and booking a trip to the playoffs. On the 2nd play from scrimmage, star QB Carson Palmer took a shot to the knee, and never recovered. The team fell into a spiral of defeats, and more embarrassingly, increasingly serious criminal charges. By 2007, after more Bengals were appearing in the police blotter than the box scores, I decided I had enough. The Bengals jersey was folded up and placed in a dark corner of my apartment closet. I declared myself an NFL vagabond, searching for a new team.

I moved around the country a little bit, trying out the local team, but the Redskins and the Raiders didn’t really feel right. I didn’t have the right emotional attachment to the team. I took a few seasons off from serious NFL devotion, and decided if I couldn’t latch on to the team in my next city, me and pro football might be done. As luck would have it, TFA placed me in New Orleans, so I decided to pick up the Saints.

We love football in Ohio. High School’s of only a few hundred students often draw several thousand for Friday night games, and Ohio State packs in over 100,000 every home game. I’ve never really witness such passion for a pro team though. What New Orleans’ has for the Saints dwarfs whatever is going on in Buffalo, Cleveland, San Fransisco…everywhere except perhaps for Green Bay. it is impossible to not be swept up in it. By week 5, once a serious buzz was starting to gather around the team, I couldn’t help but let myself get swept up in Saints fever.

Me and my students have had a hard time getting on the same page. We don’t seem to have very much in common…in interests, life experiences, background, or even values. When I came here, I couldn’t tell a crayfish from a crocodile, and they couldn’t find Ohio on a map (some stubbornly still insist I’m from Hawaii). We had very different ideas about what we wanted to get out of school. We shared few common interests (I wanted to teach multiplication, they wanted to ask about my girlfriend. I wanted to teach them how to pass the LEAP, they wanted to show me the correct way to Moonwalk, etc). About the only common ground we were able to establish was a love of football, and by extension, the Saints.

We used the Saints in class as much as possible. There is a huge poster of Drew Brees in our makeshift gym. BLESS YOU BOYS, and headlines from every Saints victory adorn our cafeteria trailer. My students sometimes write WHO DAT instead of their name on assignments, and lately, have insisted that I call them by certain player’s names instead of their own (Reggie Bush sits next to Darren Sharper, who sits next to Pierre Thomas, who sits next to Nancy. She didn’t want to participate in the name changing). Like many other teachers in the 504, I tried to incorporate the Saints into as many lessons as possible. I think that is the only way my kids learned about averages.

I didn’t put in the 43 years of suffering that the locals did…but I hope the church of the Saints takes converts, because I burst into euphoria like everybody else after Porter returned that interception.

There have been some wonderful, exciting experiences since I moved to New Orleans…but if I am being totally honest, most of it has awfully rough. I was unemployed for a month and a half, my classroom has mostly been a mess, my car has flooded, and I’ve been terribly lonely. There has only been one thing that has consistently been good since I moved here…The Saints. I knew that no matter how bad I was professionally beat down during the week, and no matter how sad I got on the weekends, I could count on Sunday afternoon to pick me back up. I know thousands of people in New Orleans felt the same way.

Thank heavens for the the Saints, for giving me something to hang on to and believe in, when everything else seemed to fall apart. That season is why I follow sports, and I hope that everybody who passionately follows one can enjoy a season like it. Everybody should get a chance to sprint outside like I did Sunday, embracing random strangers on Magazine Street and screaming WHO DAT at the top of my lungs. Everybody should get to see a victory parade.When the winds blew and the rains fell, Believing In Dat helped keep me and my students going.

Believe Dat. Its whats its all about.

SUPERBOWL!

On the way home from the airport we stopped by Trader Joe’s to pick up some last minute Superbowl snack foods before everyone came over.  That’s when I saw this…

TRADER JOE’S ‘ASK ME’ SIGNS: 10!

What a good idea! Recently I’ve noticed in stores everywhere that it’s near impossible to find someone to help you out.  I’ve found myself actually googling on my phone ‘where do I find wheat germ?’ rather than try and find someone to help me out.  It’s just not worth it.

That’s why this is so brilliant.  Even though I only saw one of them wandering around, you knew exactly where she was, and it seemed she was eager to help.  Unlike recent experiences I’ve had at the grocery store… ‘Muesli?  Don’t know what that is.  Good luck.’  Really?  That’s it?  Good luck?  Oh boy.

From there we decided to grab lunch on the way home.

SWEET TOMATOES:

Had never heard of this place before, but the idea of a soup/salad buffet sounded brilliant.  Lots and LOTS of salad toppings, about 8 soup choices (including shrimp bisque and an incredible cauliflower soup!), several pasta dishes, AND dessert for only $8.95.  Not bad!

-1: No hummus for the salad.

-1: My inability to control portions, inevitably overflowing my plate and spilling all over the table.

-1: That horribly full feeling I left with.

FROZEN YOGURT DESSERT: 9

Didn’t really need it (-1), but when I saw they had rainbow sprinkles I had to get something to put them on (it turns out eating sprinkles with a spoon leads to a rather weird film all over the inside of your mouth).  Added a couple scoops of oreo and was good to go!

Despite the face, Scott wasn’t as big a fan of the ice cream as I was.  That just meant I got to eat the sprinkles off his

Finally it was time for the big game

The party was at Scott’s in Wake Forest, and about 15-20 people came out which was awesome.  And really good people which made it even more awesome

Homemade pizzas, LOTs of snack foods, and a pretty good game.

MY AWARD-WINNING GUACAMOLE: 10

It’s official, my guac has now won an award   What was Bill thinking challenging me?  Jay’s lucky he bowed out at the last minute.

I give Claud credit for the pretty decorating

GAME MVP DECISION: 1

I guess the quarterback was good and all, but seriously, I think the game should have gone to the kicker.  3 over 40 yards, and then several touchdown kicks (yes, I know my lingo is spot on), I’m convinced they wouldn’t have won without him.  He kept ‘em in the first half.  Way too cliche to just give it to the quarterback.  WAY too cliche.

All in all a pretty fabulous night

State Football and Karaoke

OPENING OF NC STATE’S FOOTBALL SEASON: 6

School spirit is one of my favorite things.  The hardest part of my undergrad experience was going somewhere with little school spirit, and no football team.  I’ll admit I fell victim at times, and found it difficult to rally around any of our teams while there (except for the basketball team these past couple years, that is).  So, it almost goes without saying that I am ecstatic to be attending grad school at a school with tons of school spirit, in an area of the country with more school spirit than I’ve ever seen.  With the official start of our football season yesterday, I’m ready to go.  I spent the afternoon on campus reading up on the team, and the season, getting prepared for the 7:00 game.

I rate our first game a 6.  Above a five because I’m thrilled to have a team, we lost 34-0 to South Carolina last year so it was a definite improvement, and because in general I love college football and am thrilled it’s begun.  Despite our loss, the game still brought me joy.  -4 because of how we played.  Hopefully we’ll learn from the mistakes and step it up before the real Carolina game

THURSDAY KARAOKE: 8.5

Paul and I have been talking about Thursday night karaoke at Bub’s for quite some time.  After the stop in DC, I became increasingly motivated to find out what it was all about.  So this week we finally headed over there, along with some fabulous others.  Laura, clearly, Ali, Nadija (?), Steve, Matt, Paul and I.  And by the end of the night we successfully got every one of them up on stage.

Laura looking a bit nervous before we went in...

Matt started out with “Santa Monica” by Everclear.  When it comes to rating karaoke, I have two key categories, none of which has to do with actual voice.  In fact, I’m almost tempted to take points off if you’re one of those people who can actually sing and decides to use karaoke as a place to show that off.  Open Mic my friends, not karaoke.  The categories are as follows:

• Song Choice-  this one’s key, as an important part of karaoke is engaging the crowd.  Can’t do that if no one knows what you’re singing.  Plus, you need something upbeat, fast and loud.  No soft, quiet, slow, romantic music please.
• Performance- the more you embrace the song the better.  VJ’s ‘Ice, Ice Baby’ was a GREAT example of this.  He owned Vanilla Ice from start to finish.  That’s the way to do it.

Overall I’d say we did pretty well in both these categories (minus Matt- who ever heard of ’1 Million Dollars’?).  -1 for the lack of a crowd.  Hard to get started when there were not many people there, and it never got too busy.  However, that did leave me with plenty of room to dance

Matt rocking some Everclear

Total Eclipse time!

Finally got Steve up on stage. Pretty sure I earned 25 bucks for this.

Everyone's ratings post-karaoke

Will I be returning?  You better believe it.

First Day of My New Life

This might take some getting used to.  And a lot of discipline.

I’m beginning to realize my ‘new life’ is going to have a lot of freedom.  As of right now I’m taking 3 classes during the Fall semester (recommended by my advisor and putting me at ‘full time’), one of which is online.  The other two are at night, from 4:10-6:55 on Wednesdays and Thursdays.  That leaves a LOT of ‘free’ time.  Right now without any work it probably feels like more time than it will later when I have a lot to work on.  But either way, if I don’t have a solid action plan, it would be easy to nap/relax/facebook/blog the day away.  So I’m currently working on my new organization system to figure out the best way to keep myself motivated and on task.

I also started looking for part-time jobs, right now specifically baby-sitting/tutoring/personal chaffeur.  It seems to me the ideal job is one that allows me a certain amount of potential flexibility depending on the work load during different weeks.  So I’ve left some messages and posted on Craigslist and we’ll see what comes of that.

Some ratings from my new life:

NAVIGATING A SUPER LARGE STATE SCHOOL: 2

I just don’t like it.  I feel like every time I go somewhere I struggle to find parking, get inside and then wait in line just to find out I forgot to bring something or need to visit some other building first.  I thought it was bad at AU, but it turns out that’s nothing.  At least there you can walk between all the buildings!  My new plan = drive in to campus with my bike, park and then travel by two wheels the rest of the day.  You can lock it up anywhere, get around quicker than walking, and get a work out all at the same time.  Going to try it out tomorrow.  I’ll keep you posted.

MY EXCITEMENT ABOUT GOING TO A SCHOOL WITH SCHOOL SPIRIT AND A FOOTBALL TEAM: 10

I CAN’T WAIT FOR FALL!!!  Who’s down for tailgating and football?!?

RETURN TO THE TOBACCO TRAIL: 7

So after taking care of some minor housekeeping, I got bored of being inside and decided to take my bike out to the Tobacco trail.  It felt great to be outside, and when you’re on a bike it adds a breeze that makes 93 a bit more bearable.  It was still a bit hot, however, so I’ll have to take some points off for that.  My bike has also been acting up again, so couldn’t shift to any of the higher gears.  -1 for that.

ALMOST FALLING OFF MY BIKE AT A CROSSWALK BECAUSE I FORGOT TO TAKE MY FEET OUT: 2.

No injuries left it just being a little scary and probably entertaining for those watching.  One of these days I’m actually gonna wipe out.

Totally pumped to return to Tuesday night climbing tonight at Vertical Edge!