Hello! It's been a while since I've posted. A quick recap of the month of January. After returning from an all too short vacation, our team reconvened on January 4th to start the year off strong. Many of the troubling issues that we faced in December - low morale, lack of focus, and frequent absences - have been improved upon significantly. I must thank my team for their renewed effort to be positive and idealistic as we continue our service at PS 112/206 through June - only 128 days to go!

I remember loving this job. When I started the summer with the Senior Corps training, I was constantly inspired by this incredibly capable group. There's not a member of the Senior Corps that I don't respect and care deeply about. They are truly the cream of the crop. However, as I've been working in our school for the past two months, I've felt the energy and enthusiasm I started this year with slip away.

The root of my sadness comes from the seemingly constant internal struggles of my team. There seems to be no middle ground in terms of mentality - it's either positive or negative, optimistic or cynical. My own fault in this is that I allow the bad attitudes of the few to affect my mood and my interactions with the team as a whole.

It's not every day I have to fight children tooth and nail to convince them to stay in a program that, to be honest, I don't think they should be in.

To preface, we have certain rules and expectations that we establish with our afterschool students prior to the program beginning. Some of the most important rules are no fighting, no disrespect, and participation. One of our students has, at least once a week, broken one or more of these rules. The very first week, he hit someone... and I let it go. We had a serious conversation, I reached out to his parents, and we moved on. When it happened again, I had a sterner conversation and yet again reached out unsuccessfully to his parents, but once again we moved on. Again and again, this pattern repeated - until today.

 Here's a couple of photos from our awesome movie night last month! Many thanks to Fine Fare and the PTA of PS 206/112!

 In a week or so, I'm going home to NC for the holidays. I've never been more excited for a break than I am now. My girlfriend is coming down, my best friends will be home, and I'll have ten days of limited responsibility. I can't wait!

This past Saturday, December 5th, marked one of our first major events of the year: E.A.S.T. Harlem, a Financial Planning and Career Festival. The highlights of the event included panel discussions and workshops with local organization, a day of fun kid's programming, and the opportunity for the Harlem community to learn about the important resources available for them to take advantage of. A month and a half of preperation went into the event, and from an on-the-floor perspective it went off quite well.

Except for the weather. 30 degrees and snow mixed with rain, all day long.

One should always remember the ramifications of their word.

This has been the thought taking up most of my spare mental powers today. For me, taking on a commitment is a rather huge responsibility. It says that I hold myself accountable to my honor. If I accept a job, I in turn accept all that comes with that job, the good with the bad. I also acknowledge that yes, sometimes there will be incredibly rough days. There will be moments where the prospect of letting that obligation go will seem to be a very tempting idea.

Something has to anchor you for this temptation to pass. From the beginning of this year, we have been repeatedly reminded that this service is less about us and more about the people we work with. To put that into personal perspective, that means that my time here is not about my 70 hour work weeks and the skills I pick up from them, but about how in those 70 hours I impact the lives of over 300 students at my two schools.

One of the unforseen consequences of coming home for the holidays is the harsh reality that on Monday morning I have to fly back to NY and jump back in the trenches. Before leaving to begin City Year all the way back in July, I was looking forward to moving to NY with a passion. Over the course of a year I had been planning for this move, dreaming and stressing and waiting for it. I built up in my imagination the ideal city that none, even the Big Apple, could live up to.

 To preface this post, let me say that last week two of the ten team members at PS 206/112 left our organization. Though their reasons for leaving were personal and outside of City Year, it has made me think about the program we are running and the toll it takes on the individual. I'll share with you a little of this by focusing on myself.

This program is not for everyone. That is made clear to us from the very beginning, actually, to prepare us and also to bolster us - I believe that I am not alone in wanting to do things even more when I believe that those things are difficult and not always achievable. However, it was not until I gained the perspective of the day to day work of City Year that I understood how real the difficulty of retention could be.

 So not every endeavor gets off to the best start. While City Year service at PS 206/112 has, generally speaking, been excellent. The kids are excited, the school is excited, and the team? Oh yeah, we're excited. 

But, not every day is smooth sailing. We're in our second year at our school and I'm a first-year Team Leader, so implementing our service and achieving some consistency has been a long process. Our After School program, usually the favorite part of my day, was a real struggle today. 

However, the bad days make you appreciate the good and tomorrow is only a few hours away... so I have to go to bed now to wake up for it.