Tuesday, June 13, 2006

In Houston the air doesn’t always work

Yesterday was our first day at our schools. Our bus left at a lovely 6:40 a.m. When you add in the need to shower, get downstairs to get breakfast and lunch and get to the bus, I was up at 5:40 a.m. This goes against my feelings on sleep. When we got to McReynolds, our school staff greeted us and showed us where to sign in and then took us to our CS Room (just to note, I think that I’m going to forever talk in acronyms because everything in my life has one. Even me. Corps Member — CM). A CS is a curriculum specialist, his name is Jake and he has a big room that is used for technology classes in the school year. Jake will apparently teach us how to be really awesome teachers. Our SD is a school director. Her name is Tiffany and she seems very cool, very bubbly. Our CMAs are corps member advisers. They guide us and run our smaller group sessions and observe us while we’re teaching. There are four CMAs and thus four CMA groups. The best thing about our first day at McReynolds was that the air conditioning wasn’t working. We sat in a sweltering room all day and listened to all the information they threw at us. Oh boy was it fun. I think I’m going to be very very tired this summer. And perhaps, very hot.

I think I have to take back the above statement and say the best part of the day was meeting Mr. H the summer school principal. I don’t know that I can really do this man justice when I describe him. He walked into our room and introduced himself and pretty much offended everyone when he suggested we were here to defer college loans (if I wanted to do that I’d be in grad school somewhere where it’s not 120 degrees with no air). Then I kid you not, he said “I’m going to take you in to meet the children. Don’t smile at them. They look for fear. They’ll eat you alive.” McExcellent. So then he actually did take us in to the cafeteria and had us line up against the wall to meet the kids. It was the most awkward experience I could imagine. Things are going to be interesting with Mr. H around.

On a note about McReynolds, the school is in a nicer neighborhood than I imagined. The school itself (besides simply the air conditioning) could use some work, but overall it seemed okay. The fence around the school has barbed wire on it, which I’m sure my parents will just love.

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