First Day of Induction and Missing California

So, I'm going to be blunt about it--I miss California. I miss the weather.  I miss the prodigality. I miss my friends. I miss my family. I miss home. I miss you. 

Back to why I'm here...

So for today, we officially started Induction. I woke up at 7:45am, took a shower, and met up with the rest of the Corps (50 people) for breakfast. After bagels and milk, we were underway. We began going over the mission statement of Teach For America and discussed its core values. Most of the day was really dedicated to workshops and teacher empowerment sessions. The ultimate thing I took away from today is: Underperforming students continue to underperform because their environment holds low expectations for them. If you hold equally high expectations for your entire class, these students will excel just as successfully as any other top performing student. By the way, we had lunch at Marian University's dining hall and two minutes into the session, a discussion about the relative morality of Female Genital Mutilation ensued. It was pretty random and yes...I instigated it. Oh and let me tell you something--THEY DON'T COMPOST DISCARDED FOOD AT MARIAN UNIVERSITY! As a Berkeley alumnus and frequent Crossroads consumer, I was appalled. Get it together, Marian. Get it together.

After induction (which lasted from 9am-5pm), we all went back to our dorms and changed into our "bar clothes". All fifty of us went to the Old Spaghetti Factory for dinner in Downtown Indy and then went to a chain bar called "Howl At The Moon". Apparently they have a location in Hollywood. Anyhow, it was a pretty cool event because I got to meet a ton of people and there were two pianists taking music requests from the audience. I purchased my signature beverage--the Cadillac Margarita. Thanks for the introduction to that Mike Gevorgian.

So, I got back home about an hour ago. It's funny, I had trouble sleeping on the bunk bed last night because I kept on thinking I'd fall off the top bunk. But it dawned on me later on that I could just take the mattress off the bed frame and place it on the floor. Lo and behold, I'm sleeping on the floor tonight. I'm going to shoot for waking up at 6:15am tomorrow to go hit the gym. Tomorrow's another long day but then we get to go bowling at night. Let me just add that TFA covers EVERY cost. It's pretty sweet.

Alright my Loves, this concludes my blog entry for the day. I did interview at a school yesterday and the two principals seemed to really like me. I kept making them laugh and even through in a little self-aggrandizement. Gotta show my true colors, right?

With Unwavering Love,

Derik Ohanian