Welcome

It's 9:38 pm as I sit down to write this. My day began at 5am when the alarm on my wrist watch went off. I made a half-hearted attempt at doing some yoga in at attempt to awaken the spirit, especially since the rest of me was still fast asleep. I was pleased to see it was already beginning to get light out – I was afraid it would be dark in the mornings. By seven, we were on a humid, sticky, cramped, overcrowded yellow school bus on our way to Marîn Middle School, a short drive north of Temple.

I feel silly saying things like, "today was long" and "boy, I'm tired." No kidding. Everyone is tired. I do, however, have some frustrations over the focus of our day. Despite doing hour upon hour of pre-reading for the Institute, we spent much of today going over things at a very cursory level, essentially reviewing things we already read. We leapt from one two-minute activity to the next, each instructor modeling a thousand different ways of doing things. It was just too much; and, we never examined anything in any kind of meaningful depth. It's just day one and there is a staggering amount of information we have to cover, so I'm trying to be patient.

After dinner, we went to the Welcoming Ceremonies. There were several speakers, most of whom were fairly engaging and inspiring. Wendy Kopp, the founder and president of Teach For America, spoke for about 30 minutes. She's not the most exciting public speaker, but her message is clear and no on can argue with the quality of the organization she created. It's really quite amazing.

I'm hoping to get a good night's rest tonight and correct a few of today's mistakes: I'll sleep in a little longer than 5 am; I bought snacks to get me through the thin parts of the day (especially considering the small size of our boxed lunches). I've tried, without much luck, to get into the rec facility. They supposedly have a "martial arts room," which could be just about anything. I walked in what appeared to be the front doors tonight only for the security guy to inform me I was using the wrong door. But I can't seem to find any other entrance to the facility. I'm boggled. But I need to get some exercise soon or I'm going to go start raving mad. Well, madder.

Part of me wants to go right to bed and get some rest; the other part wants to hang out with new friends, explore the area, be social. The whole weat side of me says it would be wise to catch up on sleep and get off to a healthy start. The frosted side says, "hey, you only live once."