As most of you know, I live in a rural parish in Louisiana called Pointe Coupee. As you may also know, there has been serious flooding all up and down the Mississippi River, and the crest is slowly rolling toward us. At the moment, the eyes of the state are on this parish due to the existence of two important flood control components: the Old River Control Structure and the Morganza Spillway. If everything goes according to plan, there will be significant flooding just to the West and East of us, but we will be spared, as will Baton Rouge and New Orleans. The levees have to hold, and the control structure has to hold. Keep us in your thoughts and prayers, as we hang tight and wait.

Here are some interesting links:

About the opening of the Morganza Spillway -
http://www.nola.com/weather/index.ssf/2011/05/morganza_spillway_might_be_ope.html

From a neighboring parish expected to flood significantly -
http://www.houmatoday.com/article/20110508/OPINION01/110509612

I did not realize how long it had been since I last wrote, until I signed in now to write a new post. I was considering today how very different this MLK Day is from last year. How vividly I remember getting ready for last year, then narrating the tour of downtown Harrisburg to my assigned service group. I remember crossing the semi-frozen Susquehanna and getting out at the Civil War Museum, overlooking Harrisburg, to read the moving "I Have a Dream" speech to the other members of the van. I remember sitting in Sci-Tech Academy listening to an African American teacher discuss teaching African American poetry to his students and thinking about the educational needs in America, hardly considering that in less than a year I myself might have my own class of students. I remember going with my group to Paxton Home, where I would then choose to spend the rest of the semester volunteering, to help up fix up a halfway home for them.

Today I will not take a tour of Pointe Coupee or read aloud Reverend King's "I Have a Dream" speech. Today I will not get my hands dirty painting walls in King's honor or tour schools that appear to be one more  step along the long path to meeting King's dream. No, today I will simply lesson plan and hope, in doing so, I too am honoring King with the dreams I hold for my students.

It's taken me a while to start writing about teaching, because it's taken me a while to even begin to process the world I have immersed myself in. Truthfully, it's extraordinarily rough. One of Sharona's friends made some comment about what I am doing now being really "cool." Actually, I can positively say that "cool" is the one word I would not use to describe what I am doing. I would not want to be anywhere else (at least I recognize this sentiment right now), but it's not cool. Young boys trying to be big, bad boys telling me to get out of their face as their morning greeting is not cool. Young boys about to lose it and already swinging their fists back to hit me is not cool. Young boys going up to young girls to molest them is not cool. Young boys who are *sooo* sweet but have not learned to what to do with their anger (and, truthfully, they have a lot to be legitimately angry about) is not cool. Young girls more concerned with flirting with the boy next to them than the opportunities that an education will provide is not cool. Young girls trying to impress the boy next to them by showing blatant disrespect is not cool. Being legally unable to discuss sex with my young girls or young boys is not cool.

What's frustrating is that I know so many of you will read the list I just wrote and still you will romanticize it. It's not romantic, and it's not cool. There are some very sweet "teacher" moments, but a lot of what I do feels more like surviving. I love my students, and I want the absolute best for them, and I think about them non-stop. But I haven't always figured out how to provide an excellent education. The only thing I know is that I won't give up. Maybe if there are just enough of us in their lives acting as these cheerleaders, they'll make it alright. Yet, sometimes, I'm terrified. I can't let my kids know it, but I don't always feel like I'm in control of my classroom at all. When a young boy throws a table across the room, I feel positively out of control. Yet, each day I find it less likely that yesterday's misbehavior will repeat itself. Maybe that's really what classroom management looks like--just learning to lessen yesterday's problems until there have been enough "yesterdays" to actually push learning ahead.

So tomorrow begins another week, and I hope and pray it's better than this last week. I need and appreciate all of your prayers. I am doing the positively most difficult thing I have ever done in my life. I just want my kids to learn.

I live on a lake on the sweetest and most welcoming small town on this side of the Mississippi (I now live on the Western half). I have a magnificent view of the sunset over the lake from every back window in our house. My mom is coming tonight. Life is good.

Right now I cannot express how happy I am to be sitting in the Hilton in Baton Rouge (thank you, Hilton, for sponsoring TFA corps members in SLA). The humidity feels wonderful! Even sweeter is the fact that when I stepped out of airport I did not feel an oven opening onto my face or a blow dryer sucking all the moisture off my skin.

Instead, I am sitting silently and alone in my hotel room in Baton Rouge. I cannot imagine doing anything more wonderful. I cannot help savor these moments of quiet before the rush, and the rush is definitely coming. Tomorrow I sign the lease for Meg and my lake cottage. On Monday we complete all the necessary paperwork and fingerprinting. On Tuesday I begin Pointe Coupee training. On Wednesday I return to TFA training in Baton Rouge, which also goes into Thursday. Thursday night we have our welcome dinner back in Pointe Coupee. The rush continues right up until August 3, when I officially begin my adventure as a 4th-6th grade special education teacher.

I have so much to learn still, but everyday I learn more. Moreover, everyday I begin to grasp how much this job is and will transform my life. I can only hope I'm ready.

First week of training in Phoenix will be done tomorrow, and I am utterly exhausted. I thought I would have written multiple times by now, but when even a good night's rest continues to elude me, this blog slips to the background. I will simply say that it appears I will be teaching elementary special education in Pointe Coupee, Louisiana, but I am still not yet hired. For the summer training, I am teaching Kindergarten. Anyway, I have ten minutes before dinner, so I need to go.