I'm a Big Kid Now

For such an important month, I know I've been severely lacking in the posting area. Although, I must say, I've done a better job than some people (cough Liz cough). But, for all the insanity that has come with the second half of July, it seems like its all starting to sink in and make sense. Its like I'm starting to be able to see myself living here. As opposed to some idealistic figment of my overactive imagination.
Right now, I'm sitting on my bed in my apartment, having just gotten back from hanging out with one of my friends at her new place. I spent the last 2.5 days unpacking, assembling furniture and getting situated in my new apartment. I've still got a long ways to go in terms of turning this place from an open apartment into something that resembles and inhabitable home. We need living room furniture (a couch, coffee table, tv stand, tv and some things for the walls), my mom is buying me a kitchen table when she comes to visit in two weeks and I need to get a bookcase and a  few pictures to hang up. Hopefully, by mid-September, we'll be settled in and ready to go. At least, that my plan.
It's kind of frustrating, because I really just want the whole place to be set up and ready to go but I know it cant all be done in a day. I'm well aware off the phrase "Rome wasn't built in a day". I guess I just wish I had the money to get it all done now instead of having to wait a month to get it all situated. Plus, I found out yesterday that people in the Baltimore Corps are being paid $100/day during Round Zero (the training we complete in our region before school starts). Thats insane! It's like, a $1000. With that much money, my roommate and I could definitely finish off our apartment and have everything ready to go. I don't understand why we're not getting paid for Round Zero. There are fewer Charlotte members than there are in Baltimore. So if they're getting paid, why aren't we/ Although, maybe we are and we just don't know it yet. that would be so fantastic!!

Hey, I can dream. Can't I?

Carolina In My Mind

Right now, i'm sitting in my hotel room in Charlotte, trying to figure out how I got here. Figuratively, I mean. Teach for America is something I've talked about abstractly for so long that it's hard for me to realize that it's actually real. It was always something far off in the distance. When I talked about doing Teach for America it was "yea, this summer I have  to go to Charlotte and to Mississippi and then I move there". It was something that was happening later. But now its happening now and not at some later time. And in some ways I feel like the beginning of this, is also the official end of everything in my past. CUA, New Jersey, the person I used to be... its all behind me. I left it at home when I turned off of 5th Street yesterday and I left it in DC when I got on I-395 this morning.

I'm glad i got to spend last night in DC. A few people are still down there so I was able to crash with one of my friends and, even though his a.c. is broken and its 90 degrees (but I'm not complaining haha), we had a good time. Plus we were able to meet up with some other friends of ours. It was strange though be cause we went out and, instead of going to our usual bar and drinking excessively until last call, we went to a different bar, got a table and had 2 or 3 drinks each. We didn't stand around complaining about classes and talking with/about the other people from school. We talked about starting work, and the job market, and loans and car payments. Its amazing how much the last three weeks have started to change us. This morning I drove through CUA because it was on my way to the highway. And even though I was there three weeks ago, I could tell it was different. I came over the Taylor Street bridge and instantly looked up at my bedroom window in Opus. But the lot outside was filled with only a few cars and the street was empty. I drove through campus and no one was around. It wasn't the normal CUA. And it wasn't just the school. I drove up in a new car, filled with the things I needed to go start a new life in North Carolina. I felt like I was having dinner with an old best friend that I'd missed terribly, only to discover we no longer had anything in common. It solidified the reality that I'm no longer a college student. I think it was good that I got to take that drive.

So this morning I got breakfast with two friends and got on the road, with a coffee from the 7-11 by CUA and James Taylor's "Carolina In My Mind" playing on repeat. It took most of the day, but I got to Charlotte with relatively little trouble. I met two girls in the business center who were trying to print copies of their resume and they were both really nice. All three of of were saying the same things. We were convinced we'd show up and everyone would be high speed and that we'd have problems keeping up. Not that I don't think I'm smart. I know I am. But its just that sense of nervousness that you get when you start something so new and unfamiliar. It was reassuring to know that I wasn't the only person who felt that way. And it also reminded me that all of these people are going through the same thing as me. Three weeks ago they were having their own senior weeks and saying goodbye to friends. I think that somewhere in the back of my mind I had convinced myself that I was going to get here and everyone would be completely professional and mature and "adult" all the time and I'd be this strange person that wasn't quite ready for all the changes that were taking place. After talking with these girls though, it seems to me that they have the exact same outlook as me on this whole thing. I like that. Maybe I don't need to meet this with as many mixed emotions as I have been planning on. 

The Queen City

My parents and I are in Charlotte over break to scope out the city and check out where things are. We got here this afternoon and, let me say, I LOVE this city!!!! It's beautiful and cool and clean and affordable and not too big. Even the poor, more decrepit areas that we drove through (when my dad got lost) were not that bad. That's not to say that we saw the worst parts of town, but its definitely a good indication or life down here.
My dad decided to tell me today that he has a friend he used to work with who moved down here a year ago. She and her husband lease a townhouse with three bedrooms and 2.5 baths in a really nice area of town that they only pay $1000/month for. At the end of June they're buying a house and moving there and said I could take over their lease if I get a roommate and want to have it. Its a very Pentagon City-ish area about a 10 minute drive from the heart of the city. So, this could make my life infinitely less stressful.
We're spending the day around the city tomorrow and taking some "relocation tour" for people who are looking to move to Charlotte. I think it sounds like a bit of a scamy way to re-market a city tour, but whatever. It'll make my mom happy. At least we'll get to see the different neighborhoods.
Overall I think I'm really going to like living here. It seems like such a great city.

It Starts With a Choice

A week ago, I was offered a position in Teach for America's 2010 Charlotte Corps to teach high school English in an under performing school. The realization that I  had been accepted to the program, after so much planning and hoping, was exhilarating. There was so much to process! From the fact that I will be moving to a city that I have never visited, to the striking reality that graduation is in just over three months--it has been exciting and overwhelming at the same time.
I am the first of my friends to have a definite job lined up for after graduation. While reading in the news the other day that 10% of Americans are currently unemployed, it was comforting to know that I will not be moving home after graduation, to live in my bedroom and work part-time at my uncle's liquor store (although I'm sure I could make manager by 30). At  the same time, however, the idea of the real world is more than a little terrifying. Before being accepted into Teach for America, I could sit around with friends and talk about how we were going to move to Europe and live in the streets of Paris for a year, or go on a cross-country road trip and survive on what little savings we have. Now, I'm faced with the prospect of moving to a city I have never seen, where I don't know anyone. I have to get an apartment, buy a new car, furnish said apartment and acclimate myself to a completely new life, all while starting a brand new job in a career I have not necessarily trained for.
The feeling I have is similar to the one I felt in the spring of my senior year of high school. As the universal deadline of May 1 approached, I found myself increasingly uneasy about selecting the college I would spend the next four years at. At the last moment I made my decision--The Catholic University of America in Washington, DC. I would be a politics major and I had dreams of one day being a member of the White House Press Corps (I was a little naive and idealistic). In August my parents dropped me off and I was left in a new city to embark on an experience that, no matter where I went, was bound to change me. Four years later I'm not where I envisioned myself being. I switched my major to history in my sophomore year and picked up a double minor in politics and media. There have been countless times where I have questioned whether or not this school was the right choice for me and, on more than one occasion, I have thought about what it would have been like if I had chosen another university. But I've made some of the best friends I could have hoped for, I've had fun and I think I'm a better person now than I was when I arrived as a nervous, shy, 18 year old on that blazingly hot day in late August 2006. And if those three things are true, than I have to believe that I have made the right choices and that they have delivered me to this point for a reason. This is the thought that comforts me. In the end, as nervous as I am about moving to a new city and starting a new life, I know that I wouldn't be able to make this decision if I hadn't made the correct choices earlier. I've always been able to choose what was best for me, and I believe this is the best thing now.
Last year, several of my friends studied abroad throughout Europe. While they were gone, they kept blogs that helped everyone back here at CUA stay in touch with them and follow what they were doing in their respective countries. I was inspired by this and have decided that over the next two years, while doing Teach for America, I am going to keep a blog. Next year, my friends will be scattered around the country (from Boston to DC, Texas to California and abroad). As much as I would like to talk to them all on a daily basis, like I do now, I know that won't always be possible. This blog, then, will let me keep them up to date with what I'm doing in Charlotte. To anyone else who happens to find this on the internet, I hope they find it useful in understanding Teach for America, how it functions and how it has an impact on not only the students, but also the teachers.