you probably won't want to read all of this...

Since I last left you I think the itinerary goes:

Washington DC
Princeton, New Jersey
NYC
Nashville

I'm home now...and recovering by sleeping and catching up on "real world" things. New Jersey was good. I had good kids...for the most part. There were actually 2 outspoken scholars who hated each other that wasn't so great for the group dynamic...what made it hard for me was that I was not supported by my co-worker in any way, shape or form. Even worse news, they put me back with him when we go to Atlanta. I just sent my boss an e-mail begging and pleading to switch with someone else because I cannot handle another session working with him. And I can work with anyone...so it's bad (just so you know...we have a partner for each group of 24ish students...so you spend the whole conference with pretty much this person and your group of kids). So it was me dealing with all the discipline issues while trying to get everyone bonded in this group. It was hard work...but in the end they all got along...and I will take full credit for that.

Directly after NJ...I took a train (for the first time in the US) to New York to see my former conference roommate, Soo. I had an amazing time there catching up with her, eating amazing food, drinking lots (she forced me to!), and seeing the city. It was cold..so, so cold...and it snowed. We would look at the weather forecast and it would be 15 degrees...but feels like 8. Thanks for nothing global warming! But a big highlight was randomly getting tickets to The Daily Show. For those of you that don't know, I have had a older-man-crush on Jon Stewart for a very long time now. So to see him in person was AMAZING! He is obviously hilarious but also incredibly intelligent and so, so nice! He answered our questions before the show and thanked us for showing up. Soo wasn't a fan before but now she is!..and how could you not be...and he is like 10 times more attractive in person...just thought I would throw that in there. As soon as he divorces his wife...I'm there...

NYC to Nashville was possibly the most miserable travel experience EVER. It had snowed the day before...so the airports were still a mess, but the day I flew out it had warmed up enough to be pouring down rain. Imagine walking 7 blocks, with a rolling suitcase, your backpack, your flipcharts (in a poster mailing tube) and an umbrella in your hands, and the wind is blowing your umbrella inside out, and it's cold, and your wet, and the bus doesn't come, so you finally hail a gypsy cab not caring how much it costs, getting to the airport only to be delayed several hours, get on the wrong flight, get off said wrong flight, wait another 2 hours until your plane leaves, miss your connecting flight in Cincinnati, wait a couple more hours and finally get to Nashville about 10:00 PM. I was not a happy camper but in relatively good spirits. When it comes to airports and travel i just relinquish all control...so I really can't get angry...I was just tired.

Nashville kids...kind-of terrible. They just did not get a lot of the concepts that we teach. For example, we have a workshop on appreciating diversity and we talk about why it's not right to use the phrase "that's so gay" (if you don't understand why this is wrong...let me know...we can have a little chat...I'm good at it by now). I had about 4 kids that realized why it was wrong and the rest, no matter how we tried to explain it, just didn't get it...at all. It was frustrating and sad all at the same time. I can only hope that we reached more kids than I think we did...at least made some of them aware? I can only hope so. It was sad because one of my kids said her teachers at school used it all the time. Yeah, so sad. What happened to teachers being role models? Very interesting to say the least. S0 conference part of Nashville....rough...

Nashville in general...so, so great! I'm such a sucker for live music...and it's everywhere, and the talent in the city is so amazing...cause they're all trying to make it...and they're all really, really good. So it was pretty much amazing. BBQ and country music...I was a happy girl! I booked an extra day into my trip and I thought I would just hang out by myself but it turns out my co-worker Brian had done the same. So we went to The Country Music Hall of Fame and hung out on Broadway and 2nd Street taking in all the live music, debriefing our state experience thus far, and talking a lot about the Peace Corps (Brian trying to convince me to go...he just spent 2 years in Kenya). So things have been pretty great so far. I'm looking forward to resting a bit...and I hit the road again soon!