Po' Monkey

I keep finding all these pictures from the summer that I never posted (and blog ideas that never made it up). Institute will do that to you, I guess. But now I have a relatively clear week, so I can get around to putting up all the pictures I've taken recently.

The first of these are pictures from my excursion to Po' Monkey during the FIRST weeks of Institute.

Po' Monkey, really Poor Monkey (gotta love that charming Southern slang), is a place unlike any other. Established in 1961, it is considered to be one of the last juke joints in the south.

We'd heard about it because it was one of those "places to see" while in the Delta. A last true remnant of juke joints? Yes please. A no-brainer.

Closing Ceremonies at Delta State

The Closing Ceremonies for Institute were awesome. Incredibly awesome.

All corps members were all supposed to sit with our school sites for the ceremony (since we'd spent so much time with them over the last five weeks), so Ruleville all got together before the ceremonies to prepare. And by prepare, I mean that we all dressed in black and covered ourselves with green and yellow streamers (the colors of Ruleville).

So. Much. Spirit.

Some of the people from my awesome CMA group.

We then all walked in together shouting "Ruleville Tigers" and holding up tiger paws. We're cool like that.

And we cheered...

"50% sweat,
50% skill,
100% reason to remember Ruleville.
10 % sleep,
90% gain,
100% reason to remember the name.
RULEVILLE!"

The ceremony itself was the best part though. It started with a choir from a local Kipp school (public charter school) singing a couple songs, and then overall Director of Institute gave a speech.

AND.... My kids and I got a huge shout-out during the Closing Ceremonies!!! The Director of Institute gave a shout-out to four different corps members about how they went above and beyond to work with their kids, and I was one of them. He talked to the entire audience about how I invested a few of my most difficult kids by having them paint a mural with me before class every morning (blog about the mural coming soon). What an awesome feeling, to be recognized for that hard work and to have my fellow corps members celebrate that with me.

AND... My friend Geales absolutely ROCKED her speech at the Closing Ceremonies. Listening to her stories during Institute, reading her blog, and watching her on stage tonight reminded me of the incredibly people I've had the good fortune to meet. Geales is one of the most selfless people I know, with a heart and soul of gold. I love her to death, and I'm so happy that she got the opportunity to speak in front of her peers. Gave me chills.

AND... BamaCorps was hard-core represented through-out the entire ceremony. A fellow BamaCorps member, Mickey, was another of the four CMs who got a shout-out during the Director of Institute's speech (so two out of four = not too shabby). And we were all over the place in the ending slideshow, which was a montage of a ton of pictures taken at all the different school sites this summer.

Overall, a pretty great evening to wrap up my summer experience at Institute.

Happy Belated Fourth of July!

In true Southern hospitality, Delta State and the community of Cleveland threw all of us at Teach For America -- corps members and staff -- an awesome Fourth of July celebration last weekend in the park, with a giant barbeque, massive fans to cool us from the scorching heat, drinks, and an awesome fireworks show.

There's nothing quite like fireworks.

On the way home from New Orleans, my friend Sean got all excited and bought a bunch of sparklers and things at a random giant fireworks tent. And being the generous, big-hearted person that he is, he brought them to the picnic for everyone to enjoy.

I'll repeat, there's nothing quite like fireworks. Especially sparklers.

Everyone loves them, and they would make even the saddest person happy.

Fizzing crackles of light are a sure-fire way to bring everyone together.

Thanks to the generosity of the community, it was a wonderful holiday.

Arrival at Institute

BamaCorps has made it to Delta State!

A few of us drove caravan-style from Alabama to Mississippi, stopping once at a little Texaco for Twizzlers and a stretch. Once at Institute, the well-oiled TFA check-in process had me in and out of check-in within thirty minutes, and a whole troop of boy scouts were assisting everyone in unpacking our cars and taking things up to our rooms. It was the easiest arrival to "camp" ever (because until we start teaching kids, it really does feel like camp for big kids).

After unpacking a bit, I wandered with a few over to the quad for a large barbeque TFA hosted for us. We decided to sit with new people, to get to know others besides the kids in our corps, so we sat with some Mississippi Delta corps members. We asked them the size of their region... they are HUGE! The official number in our booklet puts the corps at 520!!! Considering BamaCorps is a fifty-four man outfit (as are some of the other corps, including the Appalachian Corps and Indianapolis Corps), that's almost more than half the people here at Institute. 

Makes me glad, once again, that I was assigned to Alabama and not the Delta. Another one of the many things I'm glad I haven't gotten lately.

It remind me of that Garth Brooks song, "Unanswered Prayers."

"Sometime I thank God for unanswered prayers. / Remember when you're talking to the Man upstairs. / And just because he doesn't answer / doesn't mean he don't care. / Cuz some of God's greatest gifts / are unanswered prayers."

That's my life right now. Because despite the large gaping unknown of Institute in front of me, I have never been more content and full of purpose. This is where I'm supposed to be.

Tomorrow we split up and board the busses to head out to the school sites where we'll be teaching this summer. My school is pretty close (maybe a ten or twenty minute drive), which is lucky. Some people have an hour bus ride there and back, since everything is so spread out in the Delta.