We need us some Mountain Men

One of my most favoritest people in the whole world, Kim Walters, was back in town for a few days and I got to spend a few glorious hours with her tonight. And of course we had to sing. Here's Kim's original and brilliant song, "Mountain Man."



Doesn't Kim's talent just blow your mind?! Well these two gals are on the search for some wood choppin', flapjack flippin', muscley mountain men! If you see any, let us know!

p.s. I found this amazing double rocking chair that's got my name on it. Now all I need is my mountain man and a nice porch and I'm set!!

At the End of the Day...

Today ended my first full week of working in my elementary school. And what a week!! Although it's been extremely exhausting and at times trying...

AT THE END OF THE DAY...

• an earthquake couldn't tear me away from that little 3rd grade class.
• even when a child sasses back to me and says, "talk to the hand," he'll be giving me a big hug before he leaves.
• waking up at 4:45 in the morning everyday is worth it to see their smiling faces.
• having my feet go numb on a daily basis won't kill me, it will only make me stronger.
• having a 3rd grader tell me that he's almost as tall as me brings a smile to my face.
• connecting with my kids on a personal level makes me the happiest person in the world.
• walking the preschoolers and pre-K kids to the bus reminds me that even though I'm not a mother yet, I have a school full of darlings to make my own.
• hearing a student sweetly raise his hand and say "Miss Woolley" makes my heart melt.

This school year is going to be amazingly difficult but extremely rewarding. Pray for me!

'Reppin the 20020

WE are the change we want to see in Southeast!

Our Mission at the Septima Clark Public Charter School, preschool to 8th grade boys master advanced academic skills and knowledge to compete, achieve, and contribute in academic institutions of distinction.

I love our school culture. I love that we have a great team building opportunity each morning in our huddle. I love that we give eachother energy fingers. I love that we bring it in and yell a cheer together. I love that we talked about why we are here. I love that our Septima Family is passionate about helping close the achievement gap. I love that I get to work with young boys from DC. I love that the boys are willing to exceed high expectations and are EXCELLENT!

Speaking of, here's a video I found on youtube of some scholars reciting our Declaration of Excellence.



And my biggest hope of all is that I'll come to love wearing khakis everyday. :) You know I will!

Jiminy Cricket, I'm so excited for Monday!

Change

Change means that what was before wasn't perfect. People want things to be better.

    ~ Esther Dyson

This summer has been a whirlwind of changes and just thinking about it I can't get this smile off my face. There's something special about discovering what your dreams are and then living them...and I'm livin' the dream!

This past month as I have immersed myself into a new learning experience I have seen incredible growth within myself. I have reflected on the person I have become over the past 10 years and realized that my life has started to come back to where I want it to be: HAPPY! Not that I've been depressed the past 10 years, but I've definitely had some changes to my personality and today I feel like I'm 20 again. I'm seeing hope in the future, happiness in what I'm doing to bring about real change in the lives of others...and as Katryna would put it, "I feel like I'm in a space" to accept who I am and what I need to do to bring about hope and change.

Today was our last day of "Summer Institute" at UTC. I would be lying if I said I'm not going to miss it. My summer experience has been absolutely a notch above awesome. From the friends I made, the children I worked with, to the enjoyment of the small things such as pink cake, playing ultimate frisbee, sitting outside and reading for fun on the lawn, having real and meaningful conversations with my cohort friends and much more, I'm going to miss it!

But, it's time for change and I'm just as excited about what the future holds! I'm going to be working with the Inclusion Specialist in an all-boys public charter school in the Anacostia region of DC. I'm extremely excited and somewhat nervous to meet her and the rest of my new colleagues tomorrow morning. But what I'm most excited for is Monday, August 22, 2011 when I get to see those strong, happy, unique boys that I will be working with. It's going to be hard, but I can do hard things!

The best way to see the future is to create it.

To infinity and beyond!!

Keithy

I'm still smiling from last night's Keith Urban concert. It was so much fun; he's quite amazing!

I truly would love to be this lady's friend. She's great at the harmonica and really friendly.

Verizon Center in DC

Alex, Becky and Kiley are super excited to see Keith

Jesse and I are about to blow eye sockets! We're so excited.

Jesse is giving himself Lasik surgery from the lasers(lights) that keep flashing directly in his eyes. This was probably one of the funniest things I have ever heard Mr. Robeson say.

Urbania Mania! I wish we could have seen the big screen better. The music was out of this world so I guess it didn't really matter that we couldn't see much.

Keithy fans: Alex, Jesse, Me, Becky and Kiley

Becky is walking on the wall. I don't feel like turning this picture to the correct position. It looks awesome is.

Keith and I are pretty much twins.

BANSHEES!!!

Ahhhh!

Tonight's frisbee game was amazing! First of all we had the dream team a.k.a. the Banshees, consisting of me, Miguel, Lindsay, Victoria and Brandon. We went undefeated all night and laughed our way through the whole thing...Mickey Mouse ('nuf said).

Here are a couple of pictures from our fun night.

The 7:30 Ultimate Crew - I love these guys!

Cute Brookie

Jermaine doing one of his tricks

My frisbee, Bell bag and our frisbee field

Brooke helping Jermaine stretch before the big game

Miguel can catch anything!

The sky was amazing tonight

More sky and more field

Chillin' outside the dorms after

I ate all 6,000 calories of it

Mary and I "played" raquetball! It was fun to get out some stress.

Robots and Celery

It's tragic!! Mr. Barnes it out all week, just when things were getting interesting. Last week we read "An Interview with a Robot." Half of the class read the part of the interviewer and the other half of the class read the part of the robot. Was I ever glad that Mr. Barnes was on the side of the robot. It sounded like this:



and he'd switch it up sometimes with this:



I couldn't stop laughing. It's definitely not the same without him and his Jamaican/Terminator/Eva & Wall-E accents.

Today I introduced frogs on a log to Emmanuel, who is from Africa. I first attempted to explain was celery is and proceeding to spell out the word c-e-l-e-r-y  for him. Then I put some peanut butter on the celery and added some raisins to look like this:

(Apparently most people call these ants on a log...ok, makes sense).

I'm not sure that Emmanuel particularly cared for them. However for me, it was a nice combination to go with my salad and cereal dinner. Oh, life in the cafeteria.

Speaking of, I really need to document how good their pizza is. It's incredible! I had two slices for lunch today. 

Hope you had a great Monday...(I did, after I got over myself for falling asleep in class today).

~Miss Woolley