Current Work

Teach for America

You guys are all probably wondering if I got accepted or not.  

Well, unfortunately, I DID NOT get in.  I'd like to say THANK YOU, though, to everyone that believed in me and encouraged me along the way.  I wasn't even going to apply because of how selective the program is.  But I'm glad I did.  Not only was it a great experience, but I got to the final interview stage, which not many people get to participate in.  

I'm not gonna lie...it is emotionally-draining and a little disappointing to have gone through three intense application stages since September only to get rejected a couple months later.  However, I am not ashamed or upset that I didn't get in.  Instead, I am a little hopeful for exploring all the other opportunities that I've had in mind for some time.  Here's the brutal rejection letter, in case you folks are curious:

Dear Monica,

Thank you very much for your interest in Teach For America and for the time and effort you invested in interviewing with us. I am very sorry to inform you that, after careful consideration of your candidacy, we are not able to extend you an offer to join the 2010 corps.

Your initiative in applying to Teach For America demonstrates your commitment to expanding opportunities for children and effecting social change, and we would like to offer all candidates a path to realizing these aims. This said, we know that Teach For America is not a fit for everyone. While acknowledging the limitations of any selection process, we have developed a set of admissions criteria over time that helps us identify those most likely to be successful in our particular program. We use the written application, transcripts, online recommendation forms, phone interview, and all parts of the interview day as lenses through which to view evidence related to these criteria.

We know that you have the potential to make a significant contribution to meeting our country's pressing social needs, and we encourage you to pursue other ways to make a difference. To assist you in your pursuit, we have posted on our website a list ofrecommended resources. If you also are interested in being contacted by other education and service-oriented organizations that may wish to recruit Teach For America applicants for similar opportunities, you can complete a short form here.

Although this e-mail may bring disappointment, I hope that your experience with Teach For America thus far has been positive. If you would like to share any anonymous feedback on our admissions process, we welcome your reflections and suggestions here.

Lastly, I am sorry that we are not able to provide individual feedback on admissions decisions, given that we do not have the resources to handle the volume of potential requests. We attempt to minimize the disappointment we know this can cause by being upfront about this policy in our application.

Again, thank you for the energy you invested in our admissions process. I wish you the best in your future endeavors.

Sincerely,

Joshua Griggs
Vice President, Admissions

Anyway, I am a little relieved that I didn't get in (if that makes any sense).  I didn't know if it was exactly what I wanted to do.  Some parts of TFA make sense to me, but there are also a lot of other pathways that I have been looking into.  The main issue that I had been grappling with was the paradox of TFA sending inexperienced or less-experienced teachers into low-income, high-need areas.  One of the main criticisms of the the education system is that children from high-income backgrounds are able to afford higher-quality education (better-educated, higher-quality teachers also happen to be at these schools) and that low-income areas have schools that lack resources (meaning they lack more experienced teachers).  While I am not trying to discredit TFA or say anything bad about it (I support the goals and corps members of the program whole-heartedly), I am meaning to reveal something about myself.  All things considered, I think that I would make a better teacher if I took the time to get more experience, perhaps go to graduate school, than if I had to receive training in a crash course 5 weeks before becoming a full-time teacher.  And I say this especially in the context of teaching in an area of low-income or high-risk. 

So, while I am a little bummed about getting rejected, I think it is going to work out for the best.  If offered the job I would have taken the challenged in a heart-beat, but now that I know it is not a possibility this year, I am going to explore all the other options I have to work toward my goals and strengthen my abilities to help others in need.  

And if you are reading this and happened to get into TFA, CONGRATULATIONS and good luck!  

Love,
Monica

Dream Journal

Due to the larger amount of dreams I've been remembering lately, I wanted to extend this blog to be somewhat of a dream journal as well.  I won't write anything complicated, just the last bit I remember before my alarm clock wakes me up.  I'll go ahead and write to someone that was in the dream.

Dear Jean,

I had a dream last night and you were in it. I was being chased by Bill Murray (he wanted to make out with me) and he was chasing me through this really big college-like building with lots of stairs (which conveniently turned into ramps when I approached them) and slippery floors. I was wearing socks and he wasn't, so I kept extending my lead by sliding everywhere. The final flight of stairs (ramp) that I went down had the exit at the bottom and I cruised through. Walking outside on cement ground for a change I saw you and a bunch of your friends playing marco polo on land. I also saw Amy and she was complaining about having guy problems. 

Bill Murray was nowhere in sight. 

Painting Lolita

Today went very well.  The three graduate students from Chapel Hill came today and played their part as jurors for the student exhibition.  They were some of the coolest people I've met in a while: Friendly, Talented, Beautiful, Enthusiastic, Artistic, and Lively.  I'm very glad that they responded to my email months ago (I didn't know the talent I had happened upon then).  They took their roles as jurors very seriously and meticulously and thoughtfully selected the art to appear in the show.  At the end they had eliminated more than half of the submissions and selected 1st, 2nd, 3rd place as well as three honorable mentions (I know who won what!).  First place is $50.00!  Now you wish you would have entered...

In other news, I'm a really bad painter, but I think this is coming along in its own special way:

this is larger than life, by the way

Don't you think it looks like my mom?  Anyone?

And, yes, there is a reason she is yellow.  We're working with different color schemes right now.  I'll post the finished product in a few weeks.

Love,

Monica

P.S. Two days!

Leaf Pile

The kids that I babysit every Thursday are wonderful.  They are 3, 5 and 10 and the four of us can get into a lot of trouble.  Today, they really wanted to play outside.  They are fortunate enough to live in a beautiful farm house on a lovely property with many, many trees.  This means that their yard and drive way and roof are all covered in leaves.  I casually suggested to them this evening that we build a leaf pile, thinking that it would burn off some of their energy.  The rest is history, however.  They built a great big leaf pile, one that was probably bigger than any one I ever built growing up.  For a couple of hours we took turns jumping into the pile, re-building it and burying each person under the leaves (we even buried Lulu, the pug-beagle mix, while she would sit still).  I think it is safe to say that we all had to take time to retrieve one or two leaves out of our shirts or even our pants after the fun.  

They were so cute and driven while building the pile that I wanted to take a picture of it.  Unfortunately I only had my cell phone and it was very dark at the time (if you look closely you can see the contour of the leaf pile, but it does a great job of disappearing into the leaves in the background).   

Self-Torture

Well, last night I had a big long dream all about how my hair grew sooo fast that it was past my chin.  Everyone, including myself, was really freaked out at how fast my hair was growing.  It was like it was ALIVE!

I woke up this morning and when I looked in the mirror I remembered my dream.  Then I remembered how I thought it was real and became sad.

Since then I've checked some emails and sent many out.  I don't know what I was thinking, though, because a "series of events" has caused me to take on another long session of babysitting in addition to the babysitting I'm already doing (I'm poor and I feel guilty when I say no to mothers that aren't mine).  This means that I am now working Thursday (today, ugh), Friday, Saturday and Sunday right up until I have to meet with the jurors for the art show.

What's worse is that the same "series of events" has disrupted my attendance to the matinee showing of Kiss Me, Kate on Sunday.  I basically live my life here at Elon from one musical to the next and have not missed one (NOT ONE!) since I was a freshman.  I also hate missing any musical or play that my dear friend, Topher, is in.  There is nothing more enjoyable or relaxing to me than meshing myself into an audience to watch a bunch of beautiful people sing in beautiful costumes on a stage.  Maybe I can get someone to video tape it with their cell phone.  

Anyway, enough complaining inter-web-style.  I'm going to think about taking a shower.

Love,

Moncia (the most frequent typo I experience)

P.S.  This is what I watch when I'm feeling down:

Franklin-stein Street

This past weekend, David, Stephanie and I went to Chapel Hill to visit Elisabeth (from camp!).  We did lots of walking back and forth between cars (because of strict parking rules), hung out at her characteristically-high-ceilinged dorm room, played bananagrams and had dinner at a conveyer belt sushi place all before changing into our costumes.  Elisabeth was a Jedi Knight (probably a young obi one), Stephanie was a sultry devil and David was one of those endangered, yet plump bumblebees.  As his girlfriend, I played his flower counterpart by wearing a flower-printed dress and stapling flowers that I cut out of an old Georgia O'Keeffe calendar to a green cardigan.  All of this was topped off with a flower smack dab in the middle of my head:  

Then we walked Franklin Street...

What I DID NOT know was that Franklin Street is basically a giant party in the road.  Plus lots of drunken girls in small animal costumes and boys wearing anything from pizza boxes to Elvis garb.  

I'm exaggerating, of course, but maybe only a little.  Here are some of the highlights from the night:

Fun for all the ages!

Everyone wants in on the picture!

I am proud to say that I got the cone reference.

These are my friends!

This guy was cool.  He asked me where I was from because he said it was what he asked when people said to him, "Can I take your picture?"

I saw the balloon kid at the very beginning but he got away before I could take a picture.  Luckily, I was OBSESSED with finding him and snapped a shot of him on his way out.

Believe it or not, he was not the only peacock on Franklin Street that night.  And I thought it a pretty original costume.

This guy had a dance-off with himself.

Swim team? or Triathletes stuck in the swimming portion of a triathlon?

Octo-mom!  And Franklin Street isn't just for college kids anymore...

"Oh my gawd!  A Big reference?  It isn't every day that you get a Big reference!!" --really drunk guy who saw the Tom Hanks classic 

First costume I saw that night, and the reason I love group costumes

Oh, and this is what I meant by pizza box earlier.

After all of this craziness and more, we went back to Elisabeth's friend's apartment and watched creative people build halloween cakes for $10,000 in prize money.  We would have gone home after that, but with the extra hour from daylight savings, we decided to watch Corpse's Bride, a movie witch (haha) Stephanie had yet to see and ended up sleeping through.

Now, life is moving very quickly.  I'm busy working, of course, on my thesis and am trying to keep myself out of trouble (and by that, I mean keeping myself from adopting furry little animals).  My dad came to visit yesterday, installing a nice little blinker for night-driving safety along with much-needed new brake pads.  I've got babysitting this Friday for six hours and will be helping out with some kiln firings on Saturday with the other claydogs.  I've also got to greet the jurors that I selected for the Juried Student Exhibition this Sunday .  With all of that on my plate, I can say for certain that I am looking forward to a relaxing matinee showing of Kiss Me, Kate at Elon on Sunday.

Love,

Monica