I'm back. Again.

The bad blogger returns. I really don't want to go back and read my last few entries, which were written something like 84 years ago, but I know the gist of what I'd written said something along the lines of "I'm so sorry for my lengthy hiatus! I'll never ever ever do it again! Promise! Cross my heart and hope to die!" I think I also said that I had no intention of disappearing again. Well, that much is true. I didn't have any intention of disappearing again. However, I think we all know that life gets in the way. When I last blogged, my college graduation was rapidly approaching and I was gushing about that and my recent acceptance into Teach for America. I wanted to continue, and blog about the whole experience. At this point, I am seven months-ish into a nine months-ish school year, and it has been hellish. Because the internet is a permanent, public forum, I don't want to say anything that I might regret later, nor do I want to say anything that could be taken out of context.

Here is what I will tell you: I moved to Kansas City. It's ok. I miss Michigan. I work for the public school district. They are plagued by a multitude of problems. Most school districts (especially urban school districts in which Teach for America places corps members) are plagued by a multitude of problems. KCMSD closed half of their schools between this year and last. My school saw growth from about 500 students as a successful early college program to some 1800 students on our first day in August, as an early college program plus comprehensive high school plus a we-don't-know-where-to-put-you-so-we're-sending-you-here school. Since then, numbers are down and things here have gotten somewhat better. However, we had a catastrophic fire that destroyed one of our teacher workrooms and led to an early dismissal a few weeks back, and our third principal so far this academic year has just announced that he, too, will be quitting. He has been gracious enough to agree to stay until the end of the year, for which I am simultaneously grateful and disgusted.

Teaching is hard. I think the first year is hard anywhere, but it has been more difficult than I ever dreamt possible. The reality of the situation is this: Most of my kids are awesome. Really, honestly, truthfully. Some are not. That's hard. Most of the adults that are teachers, staff members, district staff members, and even parents are awesome and care more than anything about student achievement. Some do not. I think that this is probably the case in every school and school district in the country. Long story short, it's exhausting. In some ways, I understand that this is what I signed up for when I joined TFA, but at the same time I can't help but feel like this is NOT what I signed up for. It's probably some of both. I haven't blogged, haven't talked about what my life is like right now because I'm exhausted. Doing this all day is exhausting. Trying to remember the successes and awesome things that happen is hard when so many shitty things happen. Most of what I feel the need to vent about are the shitty things, but my blog has not been the appropriate forum for that. I don't want the world (or all two of you, who am I kidding?) to read my blog and draw terrible conclusions about Kansas City, the school district, my school, and my kids. That's not fair. There is still much good mixed in with the bad. I just don't feel right now that I can do justice to the good because some of the bad is so sensational, nor do I feel like I can sugarcoat everything and leave out the bad. So, for now, I am going to mostly refrain from talking about teaching.

Teaching is a huge time suck, obviously, so my free time is limited. In my limited free time, I am trying to plan my wedding (What's that? Oh, yep. I'm getting married. Go me.). Wedding planning is my saving grace right now. I love it. Truthfully, I am scheming about getting into the wedding-industry post-TFA. Getting paid to plan and style other people's weddings? Yes, please! We'll see. At any rate, I lurve wedding DIY. We're still a ways off, as we're doin' the damn thing in July and it's just now March, but I'm trying to plod along and not leave everything until June. We (and when I say "we" I mostly mean me but Charlie-Bear* did help whenever I asked, bless his heart) just finished our save the dates last night and sent them out into the world today, and I capital-L-O-V-E the way they turned out. If I don't get at least a few phone calls/texts/facebook messages about how much my recipients capital-L-O-V-E them, I might be pissed. But only a little, since I love them and that's all that matters, right? Right.

Anyway, folks, hope you're ready for a lot of wedding talk, because I like wedding talk, and it's my blog :)

*Charles would probably not be very happy if he knew what I was calling him on the internet.