intro into hollenbeck.

This last Wednesday was our first official day of school. So I was out of the door of Woodcraft before the sun was up. As much as it sucked waking up that early, it was kind of fun being up before the rest of the world. At 7AM, we were circled up at Hollenbeck getting our daily schedules for the rest of the year. At 7:15, we were lined up on the sidewalk hootin' and hollerin' at students and parents getting them AMPED for the first day of school. Oh, and then Mayor Villaraigosa showed up, so that was normal. Apparently Antonio loves City Year so he and his cohort just stared and smiled as we danced and yelled at kids who kept their heads down and quickened their pace when they walked past us. Meanwhile, it's 97 degrees at 7:30 in the morning and my boots are on fire (figuratively and almost literally). So I'm sweating everywhere, but attempting to look really good because Mr. Mayor has brought two of his photographers along who are snappin' away. I know the students were supposed to be my number one priority in that moment, but let's be real....these pictures might be in City Hall or something and I am not about to have a dumb look on my face for all of Los Angeles to gawk at forever. I'm just trying to rep City Year to the best of my ability. So after a few awkward minutes of having a constant smile on my face, fake laughing and being stared at by a group of people, I felt it was only necessary to get the mayor involved in morning greeting. So I told my teammate Pernell to call in the mayor to our chant. Seeing the mayor bust a respectable dance move in a professional manner was a pretty good start to the day.

After morning greeting, we were told to mingle with students before class. And in case you were curious...yes, simply walking up to too-cool-for-school middle schoolers and introducing yourself and asking questions IS as awkward as it sounds. Thankfully the bell rang, and since my first period is a planning period, I didn't have to get to class. So my team manager Tara and I went around campus and hung up posters. I walked in the library and was suddenly approached by a parent who proceeded to ask me a question in really fast Spanish. Cue the deer in the headlights expression. I panicked, obviously, but managed to pull a "Mande?" out of my butt and ended up getting a pretty decent idea of what he was asking when he repeated himself. After letting out an awkward, nervous chuckle I used my sub-par knowledge of the Spanish language to tell him to take a seat if his kid's name wasn't on the class roster. This mild crisis put my "brushing up on Spanish skills" to the top of my to-do list. Si se puede! Shout out to Disney Channel's original movie "Gotta Kick It Up" for teaching me that inspiring phrase.

On to the next and most exciting part about my service: MY STUDENTS! They are AWESOME and I'm obsessed with them....in a non-creepy way. I met them in 2nd period English and within a couple minutes already felt I had made a connection with one of the girls. She laughed at my joke so obviously she's cool. This year, it'll be the same group of students plus or minus a couple students for 2nd period English, 4th period History and 6th period math. After two days, I've already pinpointed students who love to talk and students who like to keep to themselves. There's also going to be another adult in the classroom which I just found out. Her name is Ms. Gomez and she is there to work primarily with one of my students who has bipolar disorder. However, she will be doing a lot of whole class support because she doesn't want everyone to know she is there only for that one student. He's been made fun of in the past, and she wants to avoid that at all costs. He's had a few outbursts in class before, and if he doesn't take his medications at home it's a "bad day" as Ms. Gomez said. That said, he's a really great kid and I like him a lot.

Ms. Delgado let me read the students' "About Me" questionnaires so I could start to get to know them. I read some hilarious and some really touching things. One student wants to be a dance teacher when he grows up so he can teach kids how to shuffle. LOLLL. Best. A lot of the kids answered this question with things like nurse, teacher or soldier because they really want to help people. One of the other questions asked was "If you could meet anyone from the past who would it be and why?" Many students named family members they've never met before or ones the lost that they would like to see again. My absolute favorite answer though was, "I would like to meet Martin Luther King, Jr. so I could talk to him about his dream." I have a bunch of students with big hearts and I'm really excited to get to know them.

I'll end this post with my favorite story of the week. In history on Thursday, Ms. Delgado wanted to have some fun playing "Would You Rather?". Her question was "Would you rather drink a cup of someone else's sweat or eat five of their boogers?" Now, assuming these are five normal-sized, non-bloody boogers compared to a grotesque cup of salty sweat from someone else's body, I decided to go with the boogers because I figured you could just clump them all up and generate enough spit to swallow the clump the way you would a pill. So while the students were busy writing their answers, I was walking around the room glancing at their answers and saw that most of them said they'd drink the sweat. Two of my students called me over and said, "Miss Nicole! Which would you choose?" So I told these kids who had already written that they'd drink the sweat that I would eat the boogers. After explaining my reasoning and listening to them gag at the idea of eating boogers, I continued on my way to the back of the classroom. When I came full circle and passed these students again, I noticed that both of them had crossed out "I would drink the sweat" and changed it to "I would eat the boogers." As dumb as this might sound, that moment gave me a lot of perspective as to how much of an influence I have on my students. It totally put me in check and made me realize how much they do look up to me and will look up to me throughout the year. I love this new role I have as a mentor and I love my students so much.

Last week was a slow and easy intro to Hollenbeck with the minimum day schedule. This week will be my first full normal week. I just got off the plane from a wonderfully busy two days in Kansas where I got to visit David at his new home at KU. I went to one of the best football games I've ever seen where the Jayhawks won it on a 4th down touchdown pass with 14 seconds left in the game. I also went to one of the worst football games I've ever seen where the Bills just massacred the Chiefs 41-7. It sucked, but I'm always happy to see my baby Eric Berry in action and my boy Tamba Hali deliver on defense. A great weekend with the family, but I'm ready to get back to work! As always, props for reading this super long post. Thanks :)