First Week Back

The first week of service in 2010 started on Tuesday for most corps members at City Year New Hampshire. However, I had the chance to speak before the Exeter Rotary Club at their weekly meeting on Monday. Ted Wing, our recruitment director, gave a brief presentation on what City Year does. When he finished, I gave a testimonial – a short speech covering who I am, how I became involved with CYNH and what I do at Seabrook. Though we didn't recruit anyone to join City Year – I'm pretty sure the Rotary members didn't fit into the 17-24 year old age requirement – it was a great way to get our name out to the community.

Tuesday was my first official day back at City Year and I was excited. When I zipped up my red jacket that morning, I started smiling, thinking about how great is to be back, seeing all the corps members and getting back into Seabrook Middle School. Our team had a short meeting in the morning so we could go over some plans for the coming weeks as well as catch up for a bit. Most of the day, though, was spent working. Seeing my kids felt familiar and most of the day felt like any other day. I did get a few special treats though. Before break, the Student Leadership Club participated in Secret Santa. Though I was at NELA (New England Leadership Academy in Boston) the last week that the Seabrook team was in school, my name was still included. A student leader that I don't know very well gave me a box made out of popsicle sticks. Inside were some chocolates and a City Year magnet that she had made. It's a memento that I'll keep on the desk and look at every day before work to help motivate me. It's cool that many of these students appreciate what we do as City Year corps members. While I am pumped to be back, I wish that I had had a chance to reconnect with my teammates before getting to work. We had some time later in the week for that, but it made Tuesday feel like just another day instead of our first day back.

Wednesday was more exciting. I helped out much more in each of my classes, especially math. They are working on equations with variables and they're struggling a bit with the process. They can easily guess and check solutions, but they aren't using the step-by-step methods to find the answer. Diane, my fellow eighth grade corps member, and I were talking about ways to help reinforce the proper way to solve these problems. While the methods they're using now are working, they will run into trouble once they get into algebra. I'm glad that Diane and I are starting to brainstorm more ideas to help the eighth grade instead of working completely independently on the same problems.

On Thursdays, I help run the Destination Imagination team at Seabrook with another corps member. DI is an international program that teaches students to use their creativity in problem solving. Teams work for a few months improving their abilities in teamwork and creative thinking in preparation for a regional competition in early March. There is a main challenge that students work on during those months and present at the competition. We tried picking a challenge and brainstorming ideas this week, but it did not go well. Most weeks are stressful because many times students aren't present or have a lot of trouble staying on track. Often I end the day feeling defeated -- this week was no different.

However, on Friday, I met up with the DI team managers from our other schools (Manchester and Nashua). Talking with them helped me refocus on the direction our Seabrook DI team will take. I am not as concerned about having the students win -- though that would be outstanding -- but instead, I want them to become better teammates and workers. Winning this year's competition will only happen once. Developing the ability to work with people they don’t like or on a task that isn' easy will benefit these students much more for the rest of their lives.

The rest of Friday felt anti-climatic, I guess. I always start Fridays off with an exorbitant amount of energy but sometime during the day I become sullen and pensive. I think it' my body compensating for my extreme behavior during the first hour of the day. The last thing we did was work with our teams. I shared my notes from NELA (as well as some delicious Tastykakes) with my teammates. However, our team leader had gone home earlier in the day due to illness. Perhaps that is why I felt a little off when I left. Overall, though, I think this week was tiring because it' a return to reality. While this job is intense, I' preparing myself for the coming week. The hard part, getting back into the swing of City Year, is over. Now comes the fun!