Of new beginnings in the big AZ.

Whew. What an intense week. It's funny, this is only Induction, the part that's supposed to be easy on you and fun. It was really, really fun, but it's a long day. 8 hours of sessions yesterday, which involved listening to lectures and talking about the mission of Teach for America, the specifics of the achievement gap, and TFA's diversity policy. Then we headed to a Diamondbacks game, where we had suite seats. Both the owner and the president of the team came up to talk to us, basically just thanking us for what we would be doing for Phoenix and welcoming us to the city. It was really cool, actually.

Today I met my administrators, the people who I'll be working for. I'll be answering to Southwest Human Development (SWHD), who runs the Head Start (HS) program for AZ, but I'll be working under a really great principal who is a TFA alumni. Apparently my future school, Excelencia, has a large concentration of TFA teachers, and has consequently been performing well. The SWHD people were great..I'll have a teaching assistant who speaks only Spanish to the children, a mental health advisor to get kids help if they have emotional problems, and a family services person who actually meets extensively with the families to get a sense of the home life. HS is very much about educating and caring for the whole child and the whole family, which is exciting.

The people here are pretty darn cool. I'm signing a lease tomorrow with this girl Lindsey, who is also doing Early Childhood Education. These are the apartments we'll staying in: Camden Copper Square. The other night I had a few drinks in the hotel bar and then went back to someone's room to play Kings. :) During Waterfall, someone said something hilarious, and I ended up spewing beer out my nose. It was really just ridiculous, a little embarrassing, but mostly awesome. And of course all of this occurred in a snazzy professional skirt. CLASSY!

Tonight I went to an alumna's house for dinner, which was great. There were only 6 corps members there, which was such a relief after being in a group of 150 at all other times. The alumna was great, she's now running her own charter school. Their neighbor came by, who is an assistant coach for the Phoenix Suns and used to play on the Cavs! We were talking about the playoffs, and how I was a Cavs fan, and he said nothing. It was only later that we asked him about it, that he fessed up to having played for the Cavs in 1991! Crazy. I was also told that I'll never move back to Ohio after living here. Curious.

So, to sum up: The people here are awesome. I like the organization more and more as I familiarize myself with it. And it is kind of hard work already. I'm so incredibly excited though. :)