let's start at the very beginning...

i decided to start this blog because while i've gone through many challenging experiences in my life, i don't remember the last time that each day felt like a year---how many different emotions i go through daily, how much is crammed into one day, and bluntly how exhausted i am at the end of it.   

after the second day of institute, i felt already a bit isolated from the immediate world(s) i've left to be here---from cornell, where all i would have to do is run down the street or across the hall to vent after an exhausting situation; from great neck, where i would have the yankees and my family and friends and lots of ice cream to distract from any stress.. but here, you're surrounded every day by people who feel the same stressors as you do, and while that's a beautiful thing for cohort bonding, it's also hard to describe to someone on the outside.

hence the blog. 

okay, some housekeeping: for anybody reading this who might not know, i'm enrolled in a program called dcteachingfellows. while this blog might highlight some frustrations with what we're learning from the program, it overall is a great organization that hooks up career changers (about 50%) and recent college grads (about 50%....percentages are based on my own probably-wrong approximations in an activity where said demographics had to stand up and wave to rest of group) with the washington dc public schools.  

we are there to work in high need schools in critical areas--i will be teaching special education in elementary school along with 20 others; scott, my partner, will be teaching math in a middle or high school, etc.  "high need" is defined by how many students are receiving free or reduced lunches, among other things.  maybe i'll write a post with dc's harrowing statistics about the achievement gap there, this research-corroborated gap which is the most frightening, unreal and unjust part of the united states in this day and age. really. 

when it comes down to it, we should not have jobs.  i wish dcteachingfellows did not exist.  i wish there wasn't a need for it. but the facts on the ground---what an education looks like for a child in anacostia (a poor area of dc) as opposed to a suburb---are terrifying. and, as all things terrifying, motivating as well..

more later.