2 Years and Counting

This weekend, Celeste and I decided to throw caution to the wind, and with only a week and a half before school starts, we escaped to Charleston, SC to enjoy our anniversary weekend. Yes, we've been married for 2 years now, and we both agree that it's the best decision we've ever made. We're happier now than we've ever been, and we plan on saying that at the end of every year.

Way too much happened in Charleston to recap the entire trip, so I'll just say that we had a very enjoyable time, complete with beautiful sandy beaches, breathtaking architecture, fascinating history, and many happy reunions with converts and members from my mission (Sunday was the "mission" day, seeing as we weren't about to go shopping or swimming. So instead we just visited a handful of old friends). I've included some photos for y'all to enjoy:

So cute, right?

Orangeburg, SC, at the public garden of roses (Orangeburg was my last area).

Sarah Buggs, my most devoted convert. Sarah regularly attended the temple until her cancer returned. She is still as stalwart as ever, and has an unshakable testimony of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Charleston's skyline from our balcony. They call it "The Holy City".

A horse-drawn carriage in downtown.

The Angel Oak, estimated to be over 1,500 years old. I won a photo contest in 2007 thanks to this baby.

Another shot of the Angel Oak.

Celeste as her usual camera-hungry self, found here at Folly Beach. The water was so warm we dang near jumped in with our clothes on.

Still at Folly Beach.

The Morris Island Lighthouse, located at the mouth of the Charleston Harbor.

Us at Battery Park. We are literally the cutest couple ever...literally.

P.S. Celeste and I both start our New Teacher Orientation training tomorrow morning. The school year is nearly upon us! Crazy! We'll tell you all about it next week.

Check back Tuesday

Celeste and I are in the middle of a mini-vacation in Charleston, SC to celebrate our 2nd anniversary. We'll give you an update, complete with beautiful photos of us and Charleston, on Tuesday.

Y'all come back now!

Welcome to Oxford, NC

Memorial to Confederate Dead

Oxford, NC

We've done it. Not only have we survived this whole summer living out of a suitcase, but we now have a place to call home. Excited, perplexed, relieved... these are all emotions that we've been experiencing over the past few days as we've come to the realization that we are no longer vagrants.

A sneak peak at our humble abode

No, I'm not saying "wow," Jackson caught me yawning.

It's hard to believe that just over a week ago we were living in Chicago, and now we are residents of Oxford, a small town just outside of Henderson. We found a cute two bedroom apartment right across the road from the Revlon factory (that's right). After visiting several other homes and apartments for rent, we are very satisfied with our new place. It's not huge, but we've got an extra room for guests and a pool in the complex. We even have a bed for visitors. In fact, our spare bed is the only piece of furniture that is currently in our apt. All of our earthly possesions (aside from our suitcases) are en route to NC, so for the next few weeks we'll be sleeping, sitting, and generally hanging out on the bed. We eat standing up over the kitchen counter. But even with the obvious lack of furniture we feel very blessed to have found this place and moved in after only a few short days in North Carolina.

Aside from house hunting we've been spending the week preparing for teaching in the fall. Jackson is very satisfied with his teaching position. This week he met with his principal and learned that he will be taking on 8th grade social studies, and his curriculum covers US history from a NC perspective. He also hopes to take on some assistant coaching responsibilites and will be meeting with the athletic director of his school this week to see where he will be put to work. I have been going over what I'll be teaching in Earth Science this week, I'm excited to be teaching something that can be so hands on for the kids. I also look forward to teaching Spanish, but have yet to dig too deep into what I'll be required to do there.

Northern Vance High School, where I'll be teaching Earth Science and Spanish I.

Henderson Middle School, where Jackson will be teaching history.

We also went to our new branch this week. More news to come on that. Let's just say it's been an eye opening experience to see how things are done out here.

Quick example: On the ward bulletin, there was a small little paragraph talking about the one and only missionary from the branch who is currently in the MTC. The bulletin encouraged members to write to "the Mission Base in Provo, Utah" if they wanted to contact the Elder. Just cute, that's all. (I realize you have to be a Mormon to really get that joke, and so I apologize. I'll explain it to you sometime.)

Back in the Saddle

This precious headshot was taken of me in my classroom at John Hope High School. I don't know about you guys, but this looks like a picture perfect advertisement for Teach For America to me.

After 5 continuous weeks of teaching, planning, and a whole lotta getting knocked off the horse (but always re-mounting, of course), Celeste and I returned to the hot and sweaty South yesterday, bringing us one step closer to actually settling down and being teachers.

On our last night in Chicago, we made a trip to the former Sears Tower (now the Willis Tower) and checked off the final item from our "Chicago to-do list". While the wait was a little ridiculous (in the neighborhood of 2 hours), it was pretty sweet once we finally made it to the top. We got there at dusk, so we saw the city in the sun's fading light, but were also up there long enough to see Chicago glow with city lights. They also have this thing called "The Skydeck" up there, and it's actually a glass enclosure that juts out from the building about 4 feet. You can actually walk out onto the platform and look down 103 stories. I've heard they have something similar now at the Grand Canyon. In any event, that was a trip. You felt almost suicidal taking your first step onto the ledge, but you eventually warm up to the idea that only a few inches of glass is keeping you from a a blood-splattering death. It was pretty awesome. We planned to catch a movie or get drinks at a Jazz club afterwards, but we wimped out and went home instead. Two hours on your feet and several casual glances at death can be quite taxing.

The majority of our yesterday was spent in airports and airplanes, and when the dust settled we found ourselves back in North Carolina. We were picked up at the airport by a fellow Teach For America colleague, and brought to Peace College in downtown Raleigh. Here we'll spend the next week or so as we continue to receive training and generally prepare for the school year to begin.

Tomorrow we're test driving a car and are meeting with a Realtor about some houses in the Oxford, NC area, which is where we're planning to live. For those of you who haven't already heard, we finally got assigned/hired. I will be teaching middle school history/social studies at Henderson Middle School, and Celeste will be teaching science and Spanish at Northern Vance High School. So the housing search starts tomorrow, and we're hoping to have a place by the end of the week.

As Celeste and I began unpacking our stuff at Peace, we realized that we haven't slept in our own bed for nearly 4 months now. On top of that, we will have spent 6 weeks on college dorm mattresses after this week. To say that we are anxious/excited/desperate to settle into our own home is an repugnant understatement.

Above all this, however, you should know that we're doing amazing, and that this adventure we've embarked on has already provided us with many happy memories, learning experiences, and irreplaceable friends. Speaking of friends, we're actually due to play some Canasta tonight, so I better wrap this up. I know what you're thinking: Canasta is a game for retirement home residents and geriatric patients. Although this is true, we've determined that they're on to something, so don't knock it till you try it.

Peace College in Raleigh, NC (aka the 6th out of 7 places we will have called home over the last 4 months)

The Final Countdown

We went to a White Sox game Friday night with about 400 other Teach For America teachers. The theme was "mullet night" and they had a fireworks show set to '80's butt rock music after the game.

As July winds down and I give up hope on finding birthday presents in our mailbox or carefully hidden around our dorm room, Celeste and I have had to face the harsh reality that our time in Chicago is coming to a close. While our time here has been challenging, and we won't miss the distinct smell of urine at our local metro stop, Chicago has been very good to us, and will be hard to leave.

The next step for us is moving back to North Carolina. Teach For America has agreed to put us up at Peace College in Raleigh for the time being. See, we can't really look for a house or apartment to rent because we still don't know where we'll be teaching. We have a general idea, but no guarantees, and we've been advised to avoid signing a lease until we have a firm placement on account of our region being so rural and spread out - we don't want to be stuck with an hour-long commute every morning and evening, so instead we're stuck without housing for the time being.

Other than that, we're doing very well. Celeste does a good job of making sure I have enough candy in the room to keep me satisfied, and I do a good job of give her back/foot massages to keep her loose and relaxed. All in all, we keep each other very happy and are very much satisfied with this adventure we've embarked on together. We're excited to be able to devote our next two years to the service of others, and to help students who are in desperate need of direction, positive reinforcement, and support.

MOVIE RECOMMENDATIONS:

In our blog entries, we've mentioned "challenges" on a number of occasions. Just in case you want a glimpse of what our "challenges" look like, may I suggest you look into the following films:

-Lean on Me
-Stand and Deliver
-Freedom Writers

I'm sure there are others, and when we discover a good one, we'll be sure to pass it along. These all show the challenges that inner-city students face, which, by default, become the challenges of the teachers that teach them. Give them a watch, and feel free to add to the list!

The Daily Grind

There have been some requests for a detailed schedule of what Jack and I do on a day to day basis. Okay, there has been one request, but the rest of you have the priveledge of being enlightened anyway.

5:30 am - wake up

6:15 am - leave our sweet dorm room for lunch pick up and breakfast.

That's right, we have a sack lunch pickup. We usually get to choose from 3 mediocre sandwiches/wraps, a fruit, water bottlle, desert, sometimes a salad (that goes bad before lunchtime) and if it's a special occasion, a bag of chips.

6:30 am - breakfast

6:40 am - Jackson has to head out to his bus that leaves at 6:50 am

7:10 am - Celeste's bus departs

7:45 am - 4:15 am we are at school.

During our time at school we teach, or prepare for our lesson (which is about 50 mins long) and the rest of our time is spent in class. We don't have a lunch break, but we each lunch during a class or while working on something. Each class lasts about 90 mins and let me tell you that by about 2:00 pm, it gets hard to stay alert and invested.

5:00ish pm - Arrive back at the dorm room where we are united after a long day.

5:30 pm - We usually head over to the cafeteria for dinner about now, but not always.

6:00 pm - Back to the room to work on our lesson plans.

We usualy have a goal to be done with our work by 9:00 pm. Sometimes we can get it done sooner, sometimes it's later. The earliest I've been done with my work is 6:15 pm, and the latest that we've been done is about 10:40 pm.

10:30 pm - This is always our goal for bedtime. Usually we have time to watch an episode together before hitting the sack. It's always nice to unwind.

As you can see, our daily routine is hardly worth blogging about. That is why we usually highlight our weekend activities for ya'll to enjoy. This weekend was so much fun. We got to see a lot more of the city, and Chicago really goes out of the way to have her residents enjoy the summertime.

On Friday night we went to the Art museum, walked through Millenium park and enjoyed dinner on Navy Pier.

Chicago from Navy Pier

Saturday we had lunch on the 95th floor of the Hancock Building and ate while enjoying a very scenic view.

The view from our table in the Hancock Building

After lunch we went to a Cub's game as my birthday gift to Jackson. It was amazing to see Wrigleyville during a sold out game.

The Cubs won 5 - 2 against the Cardinals

Happy Birthday Jackson!

Making Jackson's Birthday cake (aka cinnamon rolls).

As a birthday present to my wonderful husband, I am in charge of the blog update this week. I'm so glad that his birthday fell on a weekend, because we've had a SOLID birthday weekend. (I hope that Jackson agrees with that!)

On Saturday we were able to sleep in for the first time since we've joined TFA, which was a gift all in itself. After spending a morning lesson planning, we embarked on a journey into the city. We ran a few errands and then headed back to the Taste of Chicago festival for another free concert. And as though they knew it was Jackson's birthday, Guster put on a great show. For those of you who don't know Guster is one of Jackson's favorite bands. The show was very entertaining, but it was RAINING during the whole show. It was kind of funny, it was drizzling throughout the afternoon, but as soon as the show started it started POURING and didn't let up until the set was almost finished. We left wet and happy. For his birthday dinner we went out for authentic Chicago style Pizza. Very cool.

Guster in the rain.

As week 2 of our time in Chicago concludes, so does our first week as student teachers. That's right, we've been planning and teaching this week! It is nice to apply what we learn right away. We are learning a lot, but every day we are so overloaded with information that we can only skim off pieces of it to apply the next day.

I am teaching the 2nd grade, so it's easy to make the kids love me, but it's also easy to make them cry. I've learned that kids lose interest quickly, get annoyed with everything, but are sweet when they want to be. After my first day a little girl pulled me aside and asked, "will you come back tomorrow? You're fun!" Cute.

Jackson is enjoying teaching world studies. This week was the last week of the semester for his kids, so he gets to start with a classroom of new kids tomorrow. He's already seen the achievement gap in action as one of his students was 18 and cannot read. But he's recieved praises from his faculty advisor and is ready to take on the kids that he'll have for the rest of his time in Chicago.

Thanks for all of your love and support while we're out here. While it may be difficult to get a hold of us during the week, if you need anything feel free to email us and we'll get back with you as soon as we can.

Much love to all of our family and friends,

Celeste and Jackson

Chicago from a distance.