The honeymoon is over.

Not with DC itself. No, I love this place.

When I first entered into my school situation, I thought that the situation could not get any better. I was in a trance; surrounded by a wonderful mentor, teachers to help aplenty, and students who seemed to think I was pretty cool (they still do by the way). Sure, I knew that inner city school life would be difficult, but compared to what I imagined, this place has been heaven. In my naive eyes, the school was a place aimed to give every student the chance to succeed. The unity of the administration was impeccable, the standards explained, skills taught and implemented, and the students actively engaged in learning.

Oh how naive I was...

Not that the school does not contain any semblance of these things, its just that this week has uncovered some hidden truths. I have just realized that every situation has its downfalls. People are human and they have weaknesses. Teachers are not perfect nor is the administration. The procedures and the focus of Bell Multicultural is not the best way of doing things; it's just the way they choose to do things.

Needless to say the honeymoon is over. The reality of the imperfections contained in my school have been manifested. The situation is still great; I am still learning a ton. But the facade has been uncovered.

Let real teaching life begin.

In my own personal dictionary "crimesters" is a legit word.

Today while teaching AP History, I was lecturing about urbanization during the early 20th century. As I approached the topic of crime, I couldn't find the word for people who do crimes. So as I tried to spit out that word I came up with a new one...

"Crimesters."

I looked around at my students who wore blank faces and froze. "Wait...that's not right."

Immediately a boy named Corey looked at me with exasperation and said, "you mean criminals?"

I pointed to him with agreement, "yah, that's the one." I started to laugh and the students laughed too.

As a teacher, you just gotta be willing to laugh at your mistakes or your own stupidity; either one.

Thanks Corey. Next time I will leave out "crimesters" from my own personal dictionary.

ObamaNation: Who knew that making history is so freezing...and exhausting.

What a whirlwind Monday and Tuesday! I felt like a zombie. It was absolutely insane with the inauguration. The streets were packed, the metro was packed and the national mall (or the grassy area between the monuments; I thought it was an actual mall) was filled to capacity. See below:

We braved the crowds and walked for about a total of 6 miles to see the inauguration. We were originally going to watch it like those folks did but we found out that the Utah Senators were holding a nice reception for all Utah citizens in the Senate building. So instead of standing outside for 4 hours in the close to zero degree weather we sat inside with hot chocolate and cookie in hand while viewing foxnews report the inauguration. That was much more pleasant. Mmm...cookies.

To bide our time before the inauguration started we played inauguration bingo. Yes, we are such Mormons. We used pretzels as markers. Go us. I am not in the picture but Meggie, Megan and Amber are.

The streets were filled with so much OBAMA. People here revere him as a savior, saint, hero, and movie star; not just the president. Here are some examples of Obama paraphernalia that I've seen since I've been here.

Obama is on a van. Meggie and Wendy pictured.

Obama is on a teddy bear


There are many more but the website won't let me post more pictures. LAME.

Anyway, bottom line is that there were beanies, ties, necklaces, paintings, pens, calendars, suckers, posters, t-shirts, ear mufflers, pins, and Obama cut outs adorning the streets of Washington DC.

This place is really Obama Nation. People love him here.

And I spent all day in the cold to be a part of history. It was exhausting.

George Washington wore dentures...who knew?

So this weekend was a mixture of randomness! I experienced the sites, the culture and the social aspects that DC has to offer. I love this place!

The sites...

We went to Mt. Vernon (the home of George Washington) as a group. I had been there a long time ago but appreciated it much more this time. They just built this awesome museum about George Washington that is very interactive and fascinating (and for me to say that is incredible because I am not one for museums). I found out that George Washington wore dentures, he owned more than 300 slaves at his death, he and Martha had no children of their own, and that he was the one that started the Seven Years War (otherwise known as the French and Indian War). I loved it. However, it was bitter cold; close to zero degrees. FYI, get used to me wearing my puffy black jacket in all of these pictures. :(

Carolyn, Colleen, Amber, Kristen, Wendy and I...


Here's me with the sheep. Baaaa...


The culture...

So we went to this famous chili place called Ben's Chili Bowl on Saturday night. Supposedly Bill Clinton always ate there as well as Bill Cosby and most recently Obama. I was one of a ten white people in the whole place. It was packed with people and took us an hour to get food. Everyone was wearing Obama shirts, beenies, etc...Excitement was in the air. I really felt like I was in a completely different culture. It seriously was a party ( Michael Jackson was playing in the background)!

This video doesn't do it justice, but you may get the idea.




The social...

All of us are doing a pretty good job of making friends. With seven other girls being social, I instantly make friends with their newfound friends...it's great! So with a few of our Barlow Center friends we hit up a free concert Friday night at The Kennedy Center and saw a folk band perform.

Colleen, me, and Sean on our way to The Kennedy Center.



Then we went out to eat at this French/organic cafe place. Their Belgian hot chocolate is delicious.

This is Andrew and I pouring the chocolate into our bowl of hot milk. Fancy!

As we came back from the restaurant we noticed a fire alarm going off in the Barlow Center.

Here is the firetruck in front of the Barlow Center.

So we waited outside in zero degree weather for about twenty minutes all huddled together to keep warm while the firemen took care of things...no fire. The good news is that we got to take a picture with the firemen! You're all jealous, I know.

Here's a million randoms with the firemen. The firemen were not too excited to take pictures with us.

The evening ended with a movie and a 2am bedtime. Exhaustion.

What can I say? The adventures never cease here! I love it!

An afternoon with Jansen and Suz

One of the best things about being in DC is that I am finding all of these people from my past who live here! Exhibit A...Sarah Johnson. The bottom line about Sarah is that she is incredibly, hilariously, and deliciously AWESOME. We met up yesterday and decided to go to the Jefferson Memorial. Oh what adventures we had...

At first we were boring and we had some randoms take a picture of us.
















Then we got less creative and Sarah took a few pictures of me. I love the tree branch falling, so artistic.















Life got a little interesting when I decided to get really excited to see good ole' Jeff and I slipped on the steps. Note that the sign does say, "Slippery when wet."

(In reality I thought the sign was funny so I decided to get down on the cold, stony steps and look retarded...just so ya'll could get a laugh). You're welcome.















We knew we had to do the duty of any patriotic American and take a picture with one of the Founding Father's, Thomas Jefferson.




















Well we got kinda restless and so we decided to skip along the Jefferson Memorial grounds. What patriot wouldn't do that???















My turn...dodging the security guards whenever they weren't looking.















Then Sarah decided do be a little sassy and spicy and sexy and do a pose for her soon-to-be facebook profile picture.




















However, she was embarrassed by how true that picture is to her passionate personality and so we calmed it down a little and went for "damsel in distress" rather than the "come on baby, you know you want me" pose.




















And then I decided to go for a mysterious and sensual pose. I don't think I stand a chance against Sarah.




















Our adventure then ended at Starbucks where we drank luke-warm peppermint hot chocolate and a mediocre slice of chocolate chip banana bread. Stay tuned for more...

And now for what you've all been waiting for...PICTURES!!! (don't get too excited, there's still so many I have not taken!)

These are my lovely roommates, most of them at least. From left to write...Wendy, Marisha, Meggie (yes, it's Meggie not Maggie), Carolyn, Kristen, and Amber.


Here we are again in front of the White House


All of us are adoring Abe


Me and Abraham=BFF


All of us put our feet onto the Washington Monument. Maybe not the best thing to do, but different!


An artistic picture of me at the Washington Monument. My next facebook profile pic?


Ta da! Kristen and I in front of the Washington Monument


Andrea, myself and Ginette. I set these girls up to be roomies! What a matchmaker I am! Oh this is us at an Organic based restaurant in Georgetown before we went to see the National Symphony perform at The Kennedy Center. I look really young in this picture.


Some of our newfound friends we made on Friday night. These guys are from the Barlow Center (Washington Seminar students). The guy with the "black eye" just had blue eyeshadow on, fyi. Don't know why he has makeup on, but funny things happen here.

I love being called, "that white girl"

I am going to give you the boring information first because I think everyone is dying to know. Ok, if you're not dying to know you've all asked me these questions a million times. I did not have the answers before but now I do. Hooray!!

So I found out my placement for teaching in DC! I am teaching at Columbia Heights Educational Campus in the city. The campus combines middle school and high school. It's a fairly new school, only 3 years old. Although the school is public, students still have to apply. Most students are accepted when they apply. The aim of the school is to motivate students who don't usually succeed in school. So they don't accept students based on academics; the application process is more to motivate students who are dedicated to learning. The students wear uniforms too. The school is made up of about 50% Hispanics, 30% black, and 20% other minorities. About 96% of the students are on free/reduced lunch. And about 50% of the student body are English Language Learners. Go ESL! The ESL teacher is so excited that we're here! There are about 2 white students in the whole school. The teachers are of a diverse makeup as well. There is an equal balance of black, white, Hispanic, Arab, Asian and Pacific Islander teachers. Staff meetings (the one that I've been to) is not dull. We did skits in staff meeting! Who performs skits unless you're 15 and in mutual! Freak!

As for my teaching assignment I am with Ms. Brooke Buerkle who teaches World History in the 9th grade. She graduated from George Washington University and received her masters at Harvard. She is feisty, small, and ambitious. What a fireball! She is only in her 2nd year of teaching but she is the department chair of social studies. Last year as her first year she won the DC Teacher of the Year Award for 1st year teachers. She is well prepared and calm. I am team teaching with one of my fellow BYU students teachers, Colleen Johnson. She is a Social Studies major so with her knowledge of geography and economics I think we'll make a great team. She's really nice and easy-going. I think it will work out well.

The whole school is focused on the same teaching strategies. They teach their students across all content areas the same metacognitive skills that enhance their abilities to acquire content knowledge. It seriously blows my mind how united this faculty is. Sure, it's an imperfect school but each department strives to teach the same methods so students are prepared to meet the expectations required of them. This will be a challenge but I am excited for it. I think I will learn so much from this experience.

...And now for a light-hearted story...or two

Today I observed a U.S. history class. The students did presentations on the Civil Rights Movement. Wow, it's so interesting hearing Civil Rights presentations from black students and not whites. Anyway, at the end of class the African American teacher, Mr. Crosby, had us introduce ourselves and we told the students some things about us. He replied, "Well, this way kids, when you see these white ladies you don't wonder who that white girl is. Now you know that they're bonafide teachers so you better learn their names. I don't want you to be calling them, 'that white girl.'" I was flattered that not only was he so insistent that the kids learned our names but that I was referred to as "that white girl."

Okay, story number 2.

I talked to a senior boy, Jaren, in the World History 2 class (he's black). The subject of Barrack Obama came up. He says, "Shoot, my friends voted for Obama because he's black, I voted Obama because of what he believes in. I like his policies." We continued to talk about Obama in more depth. Jaren is smart, ambitious, and down-to-earth. I love these inner-city kids already.

I will be happy to be called "that white girl" anytime.

I WILL POST PICTURES SOON! PLEASE BE PATIENT!

Toto, we are not in Provo anymore

I have only been in DC for two days but there are definitely some noticeable differences between my life a month ago and my life now.

Here is why DC is not like Provo:

1. I live in a penthouse in Arlington VA.
2. There is a ton of diversity. Can I just say that I love black people and I've realized how much I miss them?!
3. I take the metro or the bus to get places.
4. The idea of hanging out with people involves a future inauguration party and a concert at the Kennedy Center.
5. Obama is the biggest man to hit this place since...? I don't think there's even a comparison.
6. Men are gentleman here! Not trying to shaft the BYU gents, but these non-mormon guys know how to treat the ladies!\
7. We got asked to go to a bar with some guys for drinks. Usually that would be the equivalent of getting ice cream at the Creamery on Ninth.
8. They don't sell 1% milk (well in the two places I've gone so far). That is a sin to me. Therefore I guess I will get used to skim milk!
9. When people speak I have a hard time understanding them. Not because they don't pronouce their "t's" but because I mistook a lady asking me what color are my eyes to how many "i's" are there in Califormia. Okay, maybe not a huge difference, but I seriously have to listen closely to what people say to me.
10. It's not snowing! Whohoo!
11. The "Y" gets mistaken for Yale and not BYU.
12. The guys in our FHE group are not going into business, dentistry, or medical school. These men are dentists, are accountants and are doctors. Let me find a piece of that.

No, Toto, we are definitely not in Provo.

P.S. Pictures will come as soon as we get our internet to function!

Yes, Cameron, change does foster growth

In the summer of 2005, I was getting ready to embark upon two great adventures: London study abroad in the fall and my mission in the winter. Being a soon-to-be 21 year old, I was freaked out of my mind that I was leaving Provo and subsequently all of my friends. One day I talked with my friend, Cameron, about my fears for the future. I was afraid of all the changes and especially the unknown. Nonchalantly Cameron said, "Susie, change fosters growth." It is a statement that has stuck with me since. I don't talk to Cameron anymore but I will always be grateful for those profound three words.

Ever since that time, I have reminded myself that change fosters growth. I told myself that as I flew to London. I came home from that experience so grateful that I went. I made wonderful friends and gained a greater perspective of the world. Then I went on my mission. Changes were always inevitable as I ended up serving with twelve different companions in four different areas. Each transfer I chanted, "change fosters growth." And it did...every time! I grew so much from my mission and it will always be one of the best decisions I've ever made.

This past semester was again a change. I moved wards and apartments and I lived with completely random roommates. I loved everything about last semester. It was one of the best at BYU. Not so much for the social life, the ward, or the classes but I grew as an individual; I redeemed my independence and learned some very valuable lessons.

This brings us to today. I leave for D.C. in 24 hours. I can honestly say that I am not scared. I am excited for this experience and feel extreme peace about going. I know that this is somewhere that I am supposed to go; even if it's only for a semester. Yes, I will miss my roommates and my many friends in Provo. I will definitely miss my family in Utah. However, if I confront a moment of fear all I need to do is to remember what Cameron said, "change fosters growth."

Yes, Cameron, it does and it will.