First, no matter what you do, you always have more stuff than you originally thought.  Every time I have moved, I had at least one in-depth discussion with my wife about a random item with a mysterious origin. I don’t know where this other stuff comes from. I think things that aren’t used regularly somehow asexually reproduce when you aren’t keeping a watchful eye. This could be while you sleep, when you are at work, or for those brief five minutes that it takes you to step outside to get the mail.  Bottom line: the multiplication of your personal belongings is unavoidable no matter what you do. Best to accept this fact now and bring extra boxes when it’s time to pack up and move out.

Second, always use your phone-a-friend lifeline. The more people you have helping you pack the boxes and load/unload the truck, the faster it goes. There is also the added bonus of getting to spend more time with your friends. Be sure to show your gratitude by providing plenty of food and drinks during the moving, and it never hurts to take them out to eat afterwards.  Bottom line: the better you treat them the first time, the more likely they are to help the second (or fifth) time as well.

Third, have lightweight furniture. This one should be self-explanatory. Visit www.ikea.com if you need help. 

I figured I’d wrap up this blog by recommending you check out some of these on-line sources for some wit and humor. www.dilbert.com - Updated daily, Scott Adams’ long-running strip helps put anything going on in your office in perspective. www.fourhourworkweek.com - From the author of the book that goes by the same name, The 4-Hour Workweek provides stories about ways that thinking outside the box can improve effectiveness. I’d advise reading about how to build an upside-down fire.

The arrival of 2009 has me excited and looking forward to all the possibilities a new year can bring. The past year has been quite eventful, and I am certain this year won’t disappoint.
 

Yesterday was Christmas. I wouldn’t have known it was Xmas unless I looked at a calendar or called home. On Christmas Eve I climbed into bed after a day of cutting down wood in the jungle for my house only to have my host family in the room above me turn on their tiny TV (the screen is probably 3 inches by 3 inches) and watch some Xmas movie in Spanish. I’m not sure what movie it was, but all the voice acting was dubbed in Spanish. Although the dialogue was in Spanish, all the Xmas songs were still in English. So here I am lying in bed in the middle of the Panamanian jungle, mildly depressed because I’m not with my family in the snowy climate I’m used to for Xmas eve being forced to listen to the song “White Christmas,” an expression that has absolutely no meaning to Panamanians. I sat there praying that it would start raining as hard as possible to drown out the noise of the TV…sadly, the rain waited till Xmas morning.

On Xmas morning I woke up at 530AM Panamanian time (530CST) to get dressed and prepared to go cut more wood for my house. Merry Christmas! This picture is of me on Xmas morning. I’m holding my wonderful snowman and getting ready to put on my mud-crusted dirty pants and rubber boots. I don’t really know why I have on two different colored socks; they were both clean and close that’s the best explanation I have. Depending on how smoothly the cutting went, we were slated to finish cutting the 2105 ft of wood necessary for constructing my house, but I’ll talk a little more about that in a second. All right, so I wake up to get ready to leave to work by 6 only to be greeted by rain. Panamanians aren’t ever on time in the absence of rain. When it rains, they are even less punctual. So I climbed back in bed to listen to the rain while I waited for my host father to wake up so I could find out when and if we were still going to cut wood. The rain slows down and he wakes up around 7. I climbed out of bed, made the daily trip to our composting latrine, put on the dirty sawdust-covered clothing I’ve been wearing for the past 3 days, took my drug cocktail (malaria pill, vitamins, anti-inflammatory I twisted my other ankle last Sun in a soccer game so now I have two bogus ankles), brushed my teeth, readied the gas and oil for the chainsaw, and headed to my neighbor’s house for breakfast. Anytime you have a workday in my community, the person who is getting help with work is expected to provide breakfast and lunch for all the workers. Most Panamanians run on rice, sugar, and green bananas; therefore, buying food for the day isn’t that big of a deal.

So we venture to my neighbor Cornelio’s house where his wife has prepared the food for us. Breakfast was a few fried eggs, rice, green bananas, and coffee flavored sugar water. Not the usually Xmas breakfast of biscuits and gravy that I know and love, but hey I did get two eggs. After breakfast we made the 30-minute hike to the huge tree we cut down 2 days prior. This tree was roughly 3.5 feet in diameter. I put my hat on top of my machete in front of the tree to trying and give a little scale.

Anyway, after our hike we started cutting down wood. We cut about 5 boards and then the chain on the saw broke. Luckily, we had an extra chain. So the guy cutting the wood, his name is Benicio, puts on the new blade and we get back to work for about another hour before the saw just stops working. Also, during the morning, we were periodically drenched with rain. Lunchtime was approaching, and Cornelio’s two sons had all ready been sent out to bring us our lunch, so we packed up our stuff and sat around waiting for them to show up with our lunch. The picture below was our lunch on one of the days we worked. It was boiled green bananas, rice, beans, and tuna served to us in big green leaves.

After lunch, we returned home to talk about working on Saturday to finish cutting the wood. I needed to go to Changuinola to get more money and food to finish working on the wood. So after hammering out the details of working this Saturday to finish, I backed up a bag and grabbed a bus to Changuinola to get supplies.

Not really your traditional North American Xmas. Although it was a new experience, it was definitely a Xmas experience I wouldn’t like to repeat. It was my first Christmas away from home and my family. Every year I know others go through Xmas without their family, but being my favorite holiday, being away from my family was rough. I was actually dreading calling home at first because I knew my mom was going to answer the phone with a “Merry Christmas.” When I did call, she did she did exactly that; it brought a tear to my eye. To all my family, I love and miss all of you! Thanks for being so supportive. I will be home for the holidays next year!

Anyway, a quick summary of the housing project. I’m building my house in the center of town. We are cutting roughly 2105 feet of wood for the house. The house will be 16ft by 16ft with 2 rooms (8ftx8ft) and a porch(16ftx8ft). The kitchen will be on one end of the porch. We have cut down wood in 3 separate locations, all of which are between a 25-35 minute hike from building site. After we finish cutting the wood tomorrow, Saturday, I will begin playing a big work day of roughly 20-30 people to haul all the wood to the building site. It’ll be interesting to see how this unfolds. Some of the lumber locations are crazy difficult locations to hike to without having to carry a large quantity of lumber. Plus, there is no way to get a horse into these places to haul wood either. So it should be interesting. For more pictures of cutting down trees, check out my photos. I’m also going to try to load a video of one of the trees being chopped down. As of now, my house is slated to be finished by the end of Jan or beginning of Feb. My fingers are crossed.

En la lucha,

Brian “Koguira Noin”

I’m certain that at least a few readers of this post know where I’m coming from and where I’m going with this. If you are of that class of persons then what I write may bring a sense of nostalgia (either that or a purposeful avoidance of your memories). If you find yourself wondering what if any connection that name, that thing, and that theory have in common, please, allow me to explain.

Back in July I wrote a post about my “future” plans. At that time, I had just returned from a warm, clement-weathered vacation down South. It was nice. It was relaxing. Now, here in December, my future plans are now the past. Warm and sunny aren’t exactly in the 10-day.

I arrived to my parent’s home just today. For the last month my schedule has been crammed and cramped with a litany of readings and reviews. Since just before the Thanksgiving holiday, I found myself returning to material that I discussed just a few months before. Most –if not a sweeping majority – of the review material seemed frighteningly new, and it came from a range of sources. Most came from my closest and newest friends – my notes and my casebooks. I saw the comments and notations and the words looked like I had written them. Surely, I had read this stuff before.

After a near-month at reading and re-reading it turns out it wasn’t new material. Fortunately, I recalled the stuff as quickly as I had apparently forgotten about it. My truncated chicken scratch prevailed.

As a prize for my diligence I spent a total of thirteen and three-fourths of an hour typing my fingers off. What did I type about? Well, that name, that thing, and that theory appeared at least once each. Helen made her way through analogy in my Torts exam. I gave 12(b)(6) a home in my Civil Procedure exam. Promissory estoppel can be found in questions 2 and 3 of my Contracts exam. Let’s hope I added them at the appropriate times. I’ll found out in latter January.

I never had a problem with any exams administered to my while a student at WC. I grunted and moaned I’m sure, but in all honesty I never really had a fundamental distaste for them. Call it an albatross, if you want, or a mixed blessing to quasi-enjoy exams and essays. The past two weeks have made me appreciate them (now, that I never had). A Wabash guy might not be overzealous to cram out his C&T exam or write his butt off for a three-hour brain fest. However, the time spent on those exams is beginning to manifest into benefit. Coupled with the lengthy reading assignments, the exams of my undergraduate days have helped me better cope with law school. In fact, they seem to have ridden me of a ‘shock and awe’ that many of my classmates experienced. Strike one up for the liberal arts.

I had been told that one of the best ways to navigate law school is by keeping up. I was told to keep with the readings, the lectures, and the supplemental stuff. I did, and it was not overly overwhelming. I kept up at while at Wabash, and I feel that has really played a role in my enjoyment of these last few months. I’m enjoying the material (save a 12(b)(6) request and Atlantic Bell v. Twombly); I enjoy being a Bloomington resident; and I enjoy the company of my classmates. I’ve found a great cast of legal comrades who are as dorky and dynamic as I am, and I am fortunate to have my best friend in Bloomington. Yes, things have gone well this first semester (the spring semester starts off with grades; I’m not making any bets or projections).

I wouldn’t feel right ending this post without proffering up at least some advice. I don’t really care if you enjoy taking exams or if you dread them like having teeth pulled (there are kinky people in this world, so we’ll go with the normal view on having teeth pulled). I don’t really care if you gripe about studying for your comps. I took them. My friends took them. It happens when you’re Wabashian.

What I do care about is that you give them your best effort. If you plan, even remotely, to attend law school do your future self a favor and put in the time. Read. Analyze. Repeat. Keep up with the readings. I’m not saying that Wabash curricula are the emblazoned pass through law school. They aren’t. However, they help, and from my experience in a rather substantial way. The first semester of law school is an awesome experience. Allow yourself to enjoy it a little more by applying yourself as an undergraduate. Every little bit helps.

Okay, there’s my motivational. Now, time to go back to my van down by the river (there’s a generation determinant comment for ya).

Merry Christmas!

For the rest of Brian Crum's blog go to http://briancrumpanama.blogspot.com/

The morning after I returned home from watching the elections in David, my host dad woke me up to show me the 8 or so foot boa that had tried to eat one of our chickens. There are more pictures of it in my Flickr, check them out. So after we stood talking about it and poking it with a stick, we buried it in a hole. I tried to convince him that we should eat it because I needed and still need more protein in my diet, but he didn't think it was a good idea. Which brings me to another rather troubling area, my diet.

The people in my community eat what they have, which makes sense. So for the last few weeks I have been eating rice and green bananas. Occasionally I get some protein, but it is only when I bring home some type of protein rich food from the store. Even then, it is only a small amount. So I've adopted the hot sauce diet. I load down all the food with habanera pepper hot sauce hoping to add flavor to the food or eventually kill my taste buds so flavor won't even matter anymore.

Life has been a little slow lately. I've done a substantial amount of reading. I find I've started to miss home a bit. Every now and then I spend too much time reclining in a hammock, thinking about what I'd be doing if I were in the US. I just finished Atlas Shrugged. It's a great book, but a little too long. The weather has been relatively nice, not too much rain. I have another soccer game this coming Sunday.

Wednesday, the 11th of Nov., the community gave me a new name. My new name is Koguira Noin. The village had a big meeting where they talked about and eventually voted on what my new Ngabe-Bugle name would be. I was named after one of the founders of Rio Oeste Arriba. He may have also been a "botanico" or the equivalent of a witch doctor. The botanicos here know all the herbal remedies for different ailments. Some of the remedies work well, others not so well. One botanico said he could cure AIDS..... I slowly walked the other direction....

Anyway, I have to go buy groceries get some food and get home for soccer practice.

Aqui en la lucha

Koguira

(NOTE-If you would like to keep up with Brian's weekly blog and pictures you may go to http://briancrumpanama.blogspot.com/)

Cheers, Homer

Homer's blog may be viewed on the internet with the Mozzilla browser.  It will not open in internet explorer.

Shortly after graduation, I packed up my belongings and drove to my new residence in Fairfax, VA, west of Washington DC. So I began my internship on Monday, May 19th. I was placed in the accounts payable department where I had my own little cubicle containing residual office paraphernalia from the past employee. The internship was incredibly helpful because it made me realize that I never want to work in accounting.

As an uneventful summer came to a close, I finally received my official invitation to serve in the Peace Corps in Panama. I decided to accept the invitation to serve as a volunteer after a bit of hesitation. My initial correspondence with the Washington DC Peace Corps office left a bit of a bad taste in my mouth. They appeared to be very disorganized. Panama was my first choice of the Central American countries. After accepting my invitation to work as a Community Economic Development Consultant.

Sorry for the delay in updating my blog, but the last 10 weeks of training have been ridiculously packed full of training events. Anyway, I have finally arrived to the community I will be living in for 2 years. The name of my community is Rio Oeste Arriba in the Province of Bocas Del Toro (very close to Costa Rica). My community is very close to a city called Almirante. Almirante used to be the headquarters for the Chiquita banana company. Now the town is rundown and trashy. 

Now let me go back to the beginning of the Peace Corps experience.  I left for Miami on August 11th from Indianapolis with a suitcase and a big backpack. I arrived in Miami, FL for staging or orientation. At staging, I met the other 34 people I would be training with as part of the 62nd Peace Corps group in Panama. The 35 of us were split into two groups, Community Economic Development (CED) and Environmental Health (EH). After a few boring days in Miami dealing with logistics, signing papers, and policies. We left for Panama on August 13th.

Upon arrival to Panama, my group went to Ciudad del Saber (city of knowledge). This place is similar to a college campus with dorms and offices. It also contains the Peace Corps office. We stayed in Ciudad del Saber until Sunday August 17th. Our time there was packed full of meetings to go over more orientation, set up our bank accounts, receive vaccinations, etc. On Sunday August 17th, we departed for a community called Santa Clara de Arraijan, a little southwest of Panama City. I would be training and living with a host family for the next 9 weeks in this community.

Training consisted of four hours of language training and four hours of technical training Monday-Friday. Occasionally during the week, often on Fridays, we would go to a conference center in a near by city called Chorrera. Conferences consisted of more Peace Corps policy, safety, and medical issues. We trained in our sectors; therefore, I, being part of CED, trained with all the CED individuals. Training as a whole was beneficial for the most part. I needed more language training then tech. So often during tech training, I would take an additional hour or two of language instead of tech. Tech training consisted of learning different tools for presenting information to our future communities. As a CED volunteer, our goals are to work with Cooperatives in Panama, help them strengthen business practices, and cultivate leaders. Also during training, I spent a great portion of my time traveling around the western part of Panama. During the second week of training, I went to visit a volunteer in La Comarca Ngabe-Bugle in the city of Soloy. Soloy is a huge indigenous town next to the Soloy River. This was an interesting experience because the Ngabe (the indigenous people that live there) don’t really like to talk. So they just stared at me as I walked around checking out the town with the volunteer I was visiting. After 4 days in Soloy, I returned to Santa Clara to continue training. During training, our language skills and adaptability to the culture are always being monitored. This is done so that my boss, Associate Peace Corps Director (APCD) Zach can place me in a community that I can easily live in for 2 years.

So week 4 finally arrives and I was placed in a community called Rio Oeste Arriba in Bocas Del Toro. I would be heading to Bocas del Toro with 6 other volunteers from my group, 4 CED and 2 EH. The following two weeks after site announcement, I went to Valled Del Risco in Bocas Del Toro for a week of studying the culture of Bocas with my fellow volunteers. The week following culture week was technical week. My technical week was in Santa Clara de Rio Serrano, practically in Costa Rica. This Santa Clara was located in the mountains and had an awesome climate. It was the first time I didn’t sweat while sitting in one place and eating my meals.

The following weeks, 5 and 6, I had another week in Santa Clara de Arraijan full of training. During week 8, I was finally able to visit my community of Rio Oeste Arriba. After site visit, we had two more weeks of training. I recently swore in as a Peace Corps Volunteer at the American Ambassador’s house on Oct 22nd. Following swear-in, my group hung out at the beach for a few days to celebrate. Now we are all in our sites where we will remain to integrate for the first 3 months.

I apologize for any spelling or grammar mistakes; I’m trying to write as much as I can while I’m sweating my face off in this Internet café. Anyway, my host dad is waiting so I have to go. I’ll try and update this blog roughly every week or 2 from now on, now that I can have my own schedule.

Pictures: #1- Host family, who live in a community called Santa Clara De Arraijan.  From L to R – Jovana, Stefanie, Arsedilia (host mom), and Grace.
#2- During my volunteer visit to the town of Soloy in La Comarca Ngabe-Bugle, I went to the Soloy River.
#3- Soccer field in Valle Del Risco of Bocas Del Toro.  I lived here during week #5 – Culture Week – of training.  This was the first time I was immersed in the culture of Bocas Del Toro, and I severely twisted my ankle on the field that week.  For a while, it was the size of a grapefruit.

My particular rotation in Rehab will be to develop and grow an outpatient rehab program from the ground-up between now and the middle of November. (Just to clear things up, rehab is our name for physical therapy, occupational therapy, and speech therapy for our patients.)  In this project I will gain an understanding of the caregiver and patient interaction, the rehab operations, build and develop a working operations program, and manage a section of a department during growth and development.

Along with my operations rotation, I am also completing my Lean Six Sigma Green Belt training.  The project I am doing for my training is in operations as well, and I will be working to optimize space utilization in our Oncology Clinic through changing floor plans, altering schedules, and working with doctors and nurses to develop patient flow plans.  I am really excited about this project because of the level of exposure I will gain from its successful completion and implementation in our hospitals across the enterprise.

(This is a picture of my Management Fellows class taken atop the steps that Sylvester Stallone ran up in “Rocky” in downtown Philadelphia, PA)

So after rambling on about work and the nerdy excitement that I am getting from it, I think I should inject some more exciting things or at least some more about my nonexistent personal life.

Since I have been traveling every week I have not had time to go out in Chicago and see my friends that live here or even meet new friends.  I am currently relying on the people who I am meeting on airplanes to fulfill the role of new people and social entertainment.  My longest lasting airplane connection has been with a woman, about my age, that I met a few weeks ago flying to Philly who has just moved to Chicago.  Unfortunately I haven’t been able to really grow the new friendship because of travel.  It seems pretty sad but my coworkers are doing a good job at stimulating my social life and they have turned into good friends.

Other than the above developments in my life, there hasn’t been a lot that has happened.  I have recently noticed that my life is not in order because I have not had time to get my bank accounts settled, find or purchase various insurance policies, or even clean my apartment appropriately.  But as many people say, “Welcome to the real world!”

I will be updating you all in another month.

The last time I wrote was back in mid-July before I had started working and after I had helped build a house in Montana.  Now, it is the beginning of August and I have been working for a month with Cancer Treatment Centers of America (CTCA).  Even though I have been working this long, I haven’t really started a project nor done much of any work.  We, the Management Fellows, have been in a month long orientation learning the ins-and-outs of the enterprise and how the hospitals function.

Before I dive into what is going on at work, I should update everyone on my personal and social activities or lack thereof.

When I wrote in June I was confident I had found an apartment with a great price and in a good location.  But, as the move-in date of July 1 quickly approached I became less confident.  On the 28^th of June I received a call from my future landlord that I wasn’t able to move because the previous tenants had not yet moved out, and they where not going to be leaving until the end of July.  So as any new college grad would do when they are getting ready to move to a new city to start a new life, I decided I would pack the essentials (my suits, shirts, a few casual clothes, and other necessities) into my car and head to the Chicago area a day before work started and basically live out of my car.  This turned out to be quite an adventure.

For the past month I have been sleeping in hotels and on friends’ couches until I can move into the apartment on the 2^nd of August, which happens to be today.  This actually worked out pretty well and I have been able to save a little money to avoid borrowing to get started on the right foot.  Many of you probably wonder how I have time to write this on moving day, well I am currently on a 4-hour flight returning to Chicago-O’Hare at 7:00pm tonight.  Upon my return I will be calling my landlord to meet at the apartment for the keys and move into my apartment without furniture.  Because of this, I will be sleeping in my own place in a sleeping bag for the next week until I can return to my parents to actually move all of my stuff.  After returning with my furniture from my parents, I am planning on dropping it in my apartment and head to Philadelphia for the next 3 months for work.

Other than the hick-ups with my apartment, I really haven’t had anytime to start a social life in the Chicago area or have much of a personal life.  My current personal life has consisted of work events and co-workers, but I’m not complaining too much.

4 August 2008--Continuation…..

So far I have spent 2 nights in my new apartment and things are going well.  I haven’t had time to really check the building out because I am now sitting in an airport with a delayed flight.  If you don’t like airports or airplanes don’t take a job with a large travel aspect!

Currently, I am having fun jetting around learning about the different parts of the organization.  I have also had the opportunity to meet many key people in the organization.  Other than this I have not been able to accomplish much at work besides meeting many people and learning vital information for the growth and success of our company.  I do not have much else to write on but hopefully I will be able to add more detail and specifics later this month when I have a little more time.

I’ll be writing again soon.  Hopefully I will be able to include more detail and some exciting new adventures besides airplanes and airports!

I am teaching English 1 to a class of mostly ninth graders with several tenth graders and one eleventh grader going into her senior year. This summer school program is the first of its kind in the Agua Fria School District because all of the area high schools are sending their summer school students to one place: Desert Edge High School.

I had some idea of what I was getting into when I signed up for TFA. Everyone throughout the whole process was very up front with the amount of dedication and hard work it was going to be. In the first week of institute alone (that’s five days) we drove over 1350 miles, corps members and staff, from ASU to Desert Edge High School and back. In addition to the pre-Institute readings and reflections, which took the average person I’ve spoken to close to 48 hours to complete (in addition to finals, senior theses, graduation, etc.) so that we can be more prepared to enter our classrooms in the fall, the first week of Institute was filled with many, many seminars on teacher-craft. To prepare us to enter our summer school classrooms, we had over 2,160 minutes of various sessions on topics ranging from creating effective lesson plans, to class room procedures, to classroom management, to literacy, and beyond.

That first week was very much like one of the toughest weeks I’ve experienced at Wabash, but there was something different about it. Whereas at Wabash I could stand to make mistakes because I had the safety net of being able to work out any academic issues with my professors; out here, under the sweltering heat in the Valley of the Sun, we are playing for keeps and my mistakes as a teacher could have long lasting effects.

The students coming to summer school at DE (as we call it) did not pass their courses during the regular academic school year and have this opportunity to reclaim the credit, and if they do not they will be held back. So walking into the first week of instruction the stakes were extremely high because we novice teachers had sixteen instructional days to put our students on track for tenth grade English.

Our first day of classes was administering out summer school diagnostic, which would help us determine which objectives that our students would need the most practice with so that they can move on. Even though there wasn’t any actual instruction going on that day, I was still nervous to be there, with those kids’ futures in my hands. We teach in a collaborative group of three TFA teachers. Each of use gets one 48 minute period. One shot for each of us to accomplish our individual objectives. 16 days to teach 52 learning objectives.

Looking at my class for the first time right before I was to hand them their diagnostic which would control the flow of their summer school, I realized the breadth of the responsibilities that I took upon myself. I realized that even with all of the high quality training that I had received in my week of training at institute I had so much more to learn. I realized that if I messed this summer up and didn’t uphold Wabash’s mission statement, I would not only be failing myself but my actions (or inactions) would cause my students to fail and I would be contributing to the vicious cycle of disappointment that keeps our students in the achievement gap. For the first time in a very, very long time I was scared. Now as I sit in Phoenix’s Sky Harbor Airport waiting for my flight back to Indianapolis to teach at Arsenal Tech after five weeks of the most intense training I have ever done, I still am scared but I have since learned to utilize it to fuel my desire to help my students in every way that I can.

It was so strange to be in front of the classroom. As they were silently taking their reading objectives diagnostic, I thought about my high school days and laughed to myself. I thought about all of the shenanigans that I had pulled off (and gotten away with…), the ones my older brother, the master of mischief, did when he was in high school, and the looks I received as I handed them a test on the first day of school and laughed even more. They had no clue what was in store for them. I had so much fun in the first week of class taking cell phones away. DE has a rule that no electronics may be used while inside the school buildings. Naturally every student came in with a cell phone, iPod, etc. and always had to be on it. The students, in general, loved to text message.

They are so adept that they don’t even need to see the keypad. I have seen them text through their pant pockets, through backpacks, and behind folders to name three from a nearly endless list. I knew that my kids were very smart when I saw the infinite variations that they were able to come up with when we began to crack down on electronic use. There was one incidence in particular that even I didn’t suspect initially. Tony, of whom I will speak later, had rolled the cuff of his jeans up enough to conceal his phone and when we were completing our daily assessment (more to tell me whether or not I have been teaching the material effectively), he would reach down to “fix” his cuff and send/receive a text. It was that moment specifically that showed me that here was kid who could think out of the box. It also showed my class that even from across the room I can and will catch anything and everything.

While teachers aren’t supposed to have favorites, I am human and I definitely had several, but to talk about all of them would require a separate blog in and of itself so I will limit myself to two: Queeshar and Tony.

Queeshar is a big guy. Looking at him the first day I found him kind of intimidating, he had a hard look on his face and probably played left tackle for his high school; based on that first perception I had made a note in my mind to begin to think about ways I could diffuse poor behavior from him. My interactions with him both inside and outside of the classroom, beginning that day, proved me wrong, much to my relief and delight. Queeshar is very soft spoken and very respectful. He has a bit of a speech impediment and also has issues with word fluency. As a result he needed more time to access the text in order to apply what we had been learning in class. He is so smart and readily and easily grasped the concepts of what we learned in class but it was a struggle for him to express himself on paper. I had the class write in a journal most days and one of the entries was “Why are you here this summer?” Queeshar wrote that he was here because he didn’t turn in homework. After getting to know him better, he didn’t turn in homework because he was a little self-conscious of his abilities. I applied all of the myriad reading strategies I learned in my Literary Specialist sessions and sent him a constant positive message that I believed in him, that I knew he understood the material, and that I didn’t care about spelling, I didn’t care about all of the minutiae of grammar (at that point). I believed that he could achieve and our belief in him directly translated to his investment in the class.

Two weeks ago when one of my collaborative partners was checking the class for understanding her material, she called on Queeshar and he answered incorrectly. He was so mad at himself for not recalling the correct answer that he cussed at himself under his breath. Last week when we were reviewing for our final, every time I walked by him he pulled me aside to check his answers and every time he had a correct answer I would see his face brighten up. You could see the pride he had in his work beam from him. When he walked into the room to take his final exam his fear was palpable. When the exam began and he realized that he knew everything on that test I saw the more relaxed, more confident Queeshar that had grown in these past few weeks. I graded his test and by the time I had reached the final page I had huge tears of pride welling in my eyes. After all of the hard work that he had put into this class, after the hours of after school help, after the phone calls on the weekend to make sure he understood his homework, he had scored the third highest grade in the class. He said that his dream is to go to law school and his efforts this summer showed me that his belief in himself tells him that he can and will be there.

Tony walked into the classroom that first day with the swagger of a “cholo”. “Cholo” is Spanish slang for “gang banger” and his actions in the first week of class told me that I needed to relate to him quickly on a personal level or we would lose him. I asked them to journal about a person whom they admire the most and after reading those entries, he officially moved into top position in my internal “favorites” rankings. He grew up in the Boyle Heights area of Los Angeles. This area is one of the rougher Latino areas that are dominated by drugs and violence. His mother, the person whom he admires the most, didn't want that life for her children, so she packed up everything they owned and moved her family to the West Valley of the Phoenix area so that her children would be safe and would have better opportunities to them. I started to journal back to him in the comments I make on their entries. I told him that I grew up near El Soreno (another of such areas) which was less than 10 minutes from where he lived. I talked to him about my experience and what I have done and initially I thought he brushed it off. Sure his behavior in class had drastically improved and his assessment average was growing daily, but he still seemed disaffected in class. I asked them write about a problem their community faced and what they could do to solve it. Tony wrote about the drugs, the violence, and the death that he experienced living on Soto Street and said that his dream is to go back to LA and become a policeman or firefighter to work with the community and make that change.

On the last day of school, we had an activity where we all wrote our names at the top of a piece of paper and it was passed around the room in a circle for everyone to write an affirmation to one another. When I read Tony’s I realized just how close we were to losing him that first week of class. He said that he didn’t understand the material and therefore just didn’t care about class. After talking with him at the beginning of week two he began to work hard to understand the material; after that, there was little I could do to keep him from shouting out correct answers all day long. He wrote that he knows he can accomplish anything because I came from a similar neighborhood and there I was: proof that it can be done. He wrote “Thanks for everything you taught me and especially knowing that we both came from the same place. You helped me see that we could do it straight out of the ghetto and I am going to try hard and remember you when I become a firefighter. Thanks a lot. PS Thanks for helping me do my best and for pushing me to do it. Much love.”

When I look back on the past five weeks of my life, I see myself as a stranger to the person I once was. These five weeks of training, these four weeks of teaching have taught me so much and have forced me to grow in ways I could never have guessed. I have slept much less in these weeks than I ever have at Wabash. I’ve been frustrated more times than I count. I’ve been cranky every day when I would have to wake up at 5AM (I’m already turning into my dad…). And I’ve never been happier and more satisfied in my life. In 16 days I was able to alter the life paths of at least my nine students this summer. Last summer out of 320 students attempting to recover their credits, 108 succeeded. This summer, because of our collective efforts, 535 credits were recovered. If we can push our students to achieve that much in 16 instructional days, I can’t fathom what our impact will be at the end of the coming school year after 180 days.

It is difficult for me to explain how proud I am of my students and my fellow corps members. Through and through, they all have shown what living out our mission statement can do. We, in teaching our children to think critically, have had to think more critically than before; in teaching our students to act responsibly, we modeled behavior and explained what “acting responsibly” means in various contexts; through our teaching we showed everyone, students, faculty, and fellow corps members how one leads effectively; through our commitment to teach our nation’s future, through our firm belief that one day all children in this nation will have the opportunity to attain an excellent education, we live humanely.

In the days, months, and years to come I know that I will face problems and situations that will push me, pull me, drag me, and test me in ways that I cannot imagine and when that does happen I will remember that Queeshar, Tony, the rest of my kids this summer, and the countless other children who deserve to have that excellent education are why I Teach for America.

As for what I have been doing aside from reading campus news, I have been following the advice given to me by many a-knowledgeable post-graduate graduates: taking it easy. And so I have. For several weeks I was in Southwest Florida. Lately, I’ve been helping with things at my parent’s house, and spend most of my time reading greens on the golf course and reading Bernard Shaw on the back patio. I’ve managed to find a sweet balance between utter laziness and striving diligence.

In planning for the fall, I have been making arrangements for my apartment and getting furniture for it, filing FAFSA paperwork, and prepping for the onslaught of the lifestyle of a first-year law student. About two hours ago I visited a local shop, and I found a couch for my apartment.  It’s big and comfortable, and I can just imagine dozing off in it after a healthy Torts refresher.  A couch is pretty much the last big-ticket furniture item on my list, so it feels nice to have that out of the way. All that’s left is some appliances and small fixtures.

Today and this past week I ventured online and completed my remaining FAFSA obligations.  I filled out my eMPN (electronic Master Promissory Note) for IU.  I didn’t have loans while at Wabash, so this was new territory for me.  Fortunately, IU-B law school has a director of financial aid, and he really helped me through the process. The Department of Education didn’t do a bad job either of clearly and effectively laying things out.  Strike one up for them for a change.

While I’m extending my stay in “studenthood,” part of being a new graduate is the realization that from high above the Ivory Tower comes nosediving down, in Quimby cartoonish fashion, the fact that life has yet again shifted course. Law school is a fairly big adjustment.  Practicing attorneys and current law school professors have recommended several texts to help prep me for the “new mindset.”  I received an email from Greg Castanias out in D.C., and he recommended Ideals, Beliefs, Attitudes, and the Law by Guido Calabresi.  I’m going to hit up online stores for that in the next few weeks, anything to help with the transition.

 I may be new to this whole graduate thing, but I feel as prepared for law school as one can at this point.  Four years at Wabash equal a lifetime’s worth of knowledge and aptitude.  I’m excited both for law school and the chance to put my four-years to good use.

Before my graduation from Wabash, my aunt and uncle offered me the opportunity to come to Australia and work as an assistant vintner and server in the winery’s restaurant for a few months.  I gladly accepted their generous offer.  So, I decided to trade my Northern Hemisphere summer for the Southern Hemisphere winter.

Graduation was May 11^th and I didn’t leave for Australia until May 28^th.  So I had a few weeks in Indianapolis before I went Down Under.  I spent the majority of time getting together what I needed for my trip, working at Easley Winery, and trying to see as many of my friends as I could before I left.  With some of them moving away for jobs or grad school, when I get back, they won’t be there. 

The first day in Australia was an awful day to say the least.  Not only had I been traveling for around 25 hours on 3 different planes (including 13 hours from Los Angeles to Brisbane), I arrived in Brisbane at about 6:20am.  Because I was told the best way to fight jetlag is to punish myself and sleep when it’s dark outside, I ended up staying awake for 44 hours by the time night came.  It may have been a horrible experience, but going to bed when the sun goes down cured my jetlag and it wasn’t a problem after that. 

My scariest experience so far may seem benign to many: driving.  The Australians follow the British lead and drive on the left side (and many would say the wrong side) of the road.  The steering wheel, the turn signal, and the windshield wipers are also flipped.  So the thought of keeping up with highway traffic while I am used to driving on the opposite side of the car was daunting. 

Interestingly enough, I was actually able to practice driving without getting behind the wheel.  I learned the basics of Australian driving while walking around the mall.  I observed that most people will walk how they are used to driving and was able to practice entering and exiting streets by walking into and out of stores.  But in case that didn’t prepare me for driving completely, I was hoping and praying that no one would get behind me the first day I drove to the winery.  Luckily, no cars appeared in my rearview mirror and I reached the winery unscathed.  However, I did continually turn on my windshield wipers when I tried to put on my turn signal.  I haven’t done that for a while, though.

The leisure highlight of my trip so far was an off roading trip into the mountains with Jake Koeneman ’06.   He recently moved to Brisbane for his job and it was great to catch up with him, especially across the Pacific Ocean.  We pushed his offroad 4x4 to the max on some of the trails and found some amazing views along the way.  We could even see Brisbane, about 40km away, from some of the outlooks.  To provide an example, the picture here was taken from the road to the winery. 

One of the biggest projects going on at the winery currently is transplanting a section of vines to another area to make way for a amphitheater where we plan on having concerts and other events for guests.  It was a lot more work than it seemed.  Before we could move the vines, a dripping system needed to be installed into the new section to allow the vines a constant source of water.  Also each of the 400 some vines needed new holes dug.  On top of that, the winery only has 4 winery workers, Thomas, the winemaker, Noel, Thomas’ father-in-law who only works part time, Daryle, a 59 year-old local bloke, and me. 

Unfortunately, we had to prepare for the move without Thomas as he, his wife Kate, my aunt and uncle, were all touring the wine areas of Washington State and California, to get ideas for our winery for 2 weeks.  But when they got back, we hit the ground running.  However, once we began, it seemed like the job would never be done.  We only had four people to do the entire job as Thomas convinced Kate to help.  Lunch provided a ray of hope, however, as a backpacking couple from Sheffield, England showed up.  Thomas had called a national harvest hotline Australia put in place for backpackers looking for short term employment.  With their help the transplant was completed as the winter sun was brushing the horizon. 

One of the most interesting experiences I’ve had working in the restaurant is how many people will ask about my accent.  Coming from Midwestern America, I was unaware that I had an accent.  Once I tell them I’m American, a question about American politics or a joke pointed in my direction quickly follows.  It is actually relatively easy to follow American politics as it seems that a section of Australian news programming is dedicated to what is going on with what the Australians view as the circus going on in Washington DC.  I have yet to be harassed for being an American but there have been a few situations where being Canadian would have been beneficial.

The next few weeks will be pretty busy for me as my mom and sister will be accompanying to World Youth Day in Sydney.  The Catholic youth-focused event will mark the Pope’s first visit to Australia.  We will also be pruning the remaining 13 acres of vines and getting each row ready for the bud-burst coming in September.  I will report on those events as they come.

As a brief overview, the weeks between graduation and my anticipated start date at an office job were filled with a lot of activities. Immediately following my last final, I headed towards Tennessee to move my grandparents back to my hometown of Bluffton, Indiana. The trip had the typical hiccups resulting in a broken down semi, renting of two U-Haul trucks, trailer and a car hauler, and me arriving home two days behind schedule. In addition to helping move my grandparents, I helped move a fraternity brother’s stuff from Crawfordsville to Chicago–fortunately, this trip had no mishaps and was quite uneventful.

I also kept busy assisting my wife with the planning for our wedding, which successfully took place on June 7^th in Panama City Beach, FL. My important tasks included stamping RSVP cards and sticking address labels on envelopes. In between all these other tasks, I decided to take advantage of my situation and do something I will likely never have the opportunity to do again–farm.

Every May, my dad takes about a week and a half off of work to help a family friend get corn planted in time so it will be ready for harvesting in the fall. They needed extra help this year, and I enjoyed having the chance to work outdoors for a few weeks. To begin, a farmer’s day is much longer than a typical day. I found it odd that I would be out at the field by 8 in the morning and would be over 3 hours late. I am not sure how this happens, but it has something to do with taking advantage of every single bit of daylight you can by foregoing as much sleep as you can.

During my month of farming, I learned that this lifestyle can be dull at times, but somehow can keep me captivated and unaware that I had been driving a tractor for 12 hours. Things break and you have to fix them. Machinery gets clogged and you have to dig out whatever is stopping them from working. And the rain comes… And it goes. I greatly enjoyed the time I spent in the tractor cab working the ground, waiting to get married, and start my new job.

Unlike the typical fairy tale, my wedding did not end with “And they lived happily ever after…” As I said before, I was getting married on Saturday, June 7^th in PCB.  My job was expected to start on June 16^th. Doing the math, my wife and I decided to move into an apartment before we got married in order to get everything settled, enjoy a week-long honeymoon, and then return the Saturday before, ready to start work. The Monday before we got married, we moved into an apartment.  Everything went great–we even went out to dinner to celebrate.

On Wednesday, I was packing for Florida and the honeymoon when I received what I would think is one of the worst calls a soon-to-be husband can receive: the company I was working for wasn’t going to honor my start date. Even worse, they could not give me a definite start date in the future. Here I was: a fresh graduate, about to get married, and no job.

The week before my wedding was very stressful. Not because of the wedding, but because I was in a frantic dash trying to get my resume to as many people as I could before I went away to the Smoky Mountains–far removed from any form of communication. Fortunately I contacted the Career Services department within minutes of receiving that unfortunate phone call. They were a tremendous help to me and offered up plenty of job opportunities that I had a shot at getting.

When I originally agreed to blog for The Graduate, I figured I would be providing funny anecdotes of being a newlywed and sharing stories about office life. I guess for now, my first entry will end with advice about how to handle being fired, laid off, or whatever else you want to call it.

My best piece of advice–be professional. On a couple of different occasions, representatives of my former employer contacting me about severance stuff have commented on my level of professionalism. Besides the big boost to the self-esteem, these compliments also mean that if I choose to attempt to again work for that company, I have not burned any bridges that would prevent me from doing so.

One might ask how you “be professional.” For a Wabash gentleman, this is easy and should come naturally. You are courteous. You don’t argue. You don’t yell at people–especially the ones bearing the bad news since they likely had nothing to do with the decision. You especially don’t “dirty rush” the company when you are talking to other employers. All these things seem like common sense when you read them now, but I can tell you it takes a conscious effort to prevent your emotions from getting the best of you.

As I am writing this, I am preparing for interviews with a couple of strong leads. I hope my next entry will consist of what I originally thought my blogs would be about.

My summer started with an apartment search in the Chicago land area where I will be working for Cancer Treatment Centers of America (CTCA) starting in July.  Thinking that I was searching for a place within a moderate time frame for landlords, I started my search about 45 days before I wanted to move and I looked at places in the city and the suburbs (where I will be working).  Unfortunately the trip just became an expensive search for food because all of the property management companies and private landlords do not post listings more than 30 days in advance.

In late May I returned to the scene better prepared and more stressed than the previous trip.  I spent one frantic day looking at place after place of overpriced dingy, poorly managed, and small apartments until I found the small one bedroom, two miles from work, and more importantly in my price range.

After seeing this place I worked frantically with the nervous-private landlord to close the deal before I left for Montana two days later.  Even though I had all of my references together and sent to the landlord that night I was still skeptical of whether I would get the apartment.  Before I heard much from the landlord, I was on a plane to Montana where I would not have email contact or cell phone reception for the first two weeks of June.  Luckily, the landlord flaked-out before she went on a two week vacation at the same time I was in Montana.  For two crucial weeks the apartment leasing process was put on hold with me getting more nervous by the day.  The Montana trip gave me a chance to forget about the apartment search and clear my head of the mess that was my post graduate life.

The reason I was in Montana for two weeks was to help build a straw bale house on the Northern Cheyenne reservation with The Red Feather Development Group.  This opportunity was presented and sponsored by HonorRoll Online (www.honorrollonline.com) (if you don’t know what this is talk to Betsy or Scott).  HonorRoll paid for my airfare, participation fees, and setup my travel arrangements for the two weeks.  I wanted to go on this trip to see part of the country I had not traveled and to give a helping hand to those in need.

Red Feather Development Group (www.redfeather.org) is an organization that builds sustainable homes for Native Americans, mainly on the Northern Cheyenne and Hopi Reservations.  The building materials are funded by the eventual home owner and the home is constructed by volunteers directed by Red Feather staff members.  Currently Red Feather is building two homes a year, one on the Northern Cheyenne and one on the Hopi Reservation.

Over my two week exposure to Red Feather I made a bunch of new friends, learned a lot about Native American culture and ways of life, and connected with people from all over the U.S. with similar interests and passions for helping people.  During my stay we experienced some of the worst weather that Red Feather had seen during a build and the project was set back by 5 days. 

Even though the weather was bad for the two weeks, volunteer spirit remained high and the days we could build we worked from dawn until dusk to try to catch up with the delays.  Though we weren’t able to make up for time lost, we still had fun, accomplished a lot, and left our two weeks of volunteering with a house standing with a roof.  The project will take another two weeks to complete all of the finishing work with new appliances donated from an assortment of large corporations and a beautiful timber framed porch provided by the local Amish community.

Returning from the Montana reality set in and the calendar started moving closer to a move-in date.  Thankfully my future landlord, the nervous lady who flaked-out on me, returned my barrage of phone calls and emails to inform me that I would be able to rent the condo from her.  My life then settled back into a lull of Midwestern gardening and preparation for the move to my new place.

I’m now excited to get started working mainly because I am broke with student loans getting ready to start repayment and to have something to do besides being my parents’ gardener.  If all goes as planned I will be writing a blog every month or so as I get settled in a new career and a new life.  To try and make the blog interesting I will do my best at describing every bloody detail of the life changing experiences and mistakes I am bound to encounter as I move and travel for the next year.