I don't think I can be as detailed about this as I was about my day. I'm going to have to look at my calendar and see what I did.
What I did this week:
Monday and Tuesday were my first days back at school, but not even in an official paid capacity - I am an assistant coordinator for our school's Link Crew program. Link Crew is a national program designed by The Boomerang Project, in which incoming freshmen are "linked" in groups to an upperclassman Link Leader - it's kind of like a peer mentoring thing. The point is that if the freshmen all have SOMEONE who has been through what they're about to go through, they will be better able to adjust to life at the high school level. The BFD for Link Crew is Freshman Orientation, which has a component that is completely student-led - each Link Leader takes his/her group of freshmen to a classroom ALL BY THEMSELVES and leads them through various icebreakers and thoughtful activities, and there is definitely a set process and kind of a script for how these activities are presented.
Anyway, my job is to help train these kids. Yes, it takes a lot of work - you can't just stick 12 freshmen in a room with a junior or senior without any preparation. So we had two days of training, 8am-1pm, and it's all VERY high energy, high enthusiasm sort of stuff. We had about 90 Link Leaders signed up this year, so imagine trying to teach to a room full of 90 high school juniors and seniors all by yourself, and you're trying to teach THEM how to lead discussions with freshmen and deal with possible negative behavior and all that stuff. So I'm doing lots of LOUD talking (which I don't usually do - I'm a quiet person) and climbing on the table and "If you can hear me, clap once!" sort of things. It makes me sweaty and tired.
And then on Monday night I had practice, so I was totally wiped. BUT... not too wiped to stay up late watching Troll 2 with Jimmy. OH MY GOD. It is SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO bad, but SOOOOOOOOOOO awesome. It's badly acted, badly written, badly directed... I think it has the lowest rating on IMDB. But I totally loved it - it just totally won me over.
Tuesday, after Link training, I went mattress shopping, and ended up getting a Cal King Simmons Beautyrest. (Firm, please!) I've never had a bed that big, and I was excited to have space to stretch out instead of sleeping at the verrrry edge of the mattress. It arrived on Wednesday, and I was so excited to plop Jolie down on it and let her crawl around.
Wednesday's practice began with a photo shoot! Crasharella, one of our skaters, is a photographer, so she offered to take our official skater photos for the website. I was super psyched. Okay, I admit it, I'm vain - hello, I have a blog where I take pictures of myself in makeup? I was excited to have some official derby photos. I really wanted to have something to show for my skating efforts - we're not bouting yet or officially skating publicly (not counting the fact that we do in fact skate in public, at a public park), so having a professional photo taken as a derby girl was extra fun for me :) Crash posted them, like, immediately after practice, and Facebook was all abuzz afterwards as we checked out each other's photos.
Thursday, you've already heard about :)
Today was Freshman Orientation. I had to be on campus by 7am, and I did not have time to get breakfast, so I went most of the day without getting food. I'm just the assistant coordinator, so I don't lead the assembly - instead I'm in charge of taking care of the stragglers, the late-comers, making sure things run smoothly so Joanna can focus on leading the assembly and doing all the other big stuff. It was interesting to see the freshmen come through - a lot of them do NOT look like freshmen at all! I saw some really big guys come in! A lot of them looked like they DID NOT want to try anything or do anything silly or energetic, but I guess you can expect that from 14 year old boys. I was tasked with walking around campus to check on all the small student-led group activities, so more sweating. I think Orientation went pretty well, and I'm really going to miss the senior Link Leaders - they're all really good kids.
Afterwards, I came home, had lunch, took a short nap, and then watched the episode of True Blood that I'd missed earlier in the week. Then Jolie needed to be fed, and we played around for a while until I drove her to my parents' house to spend the night. I just spent an hour and a half at Borders trying to find a book I wanted to read (I'm in the mood for some intelligent, cute, romantic chick lit, but I just didn't have the patience for anything I found), so instead I bought the new Rolling Stone, the new Bust, and the new Giants magazine. I picked up some iced coffee and cinnamon buns, and here we are!
What I did this week:
Monday and Tuesday were my first days back at school, but not even in an official paid capacity - I am an assistant coordinator for our school's Link Crew program. Link Crew is a national program designed by The Boomerang Project, in which incoming freshmen are "linked" in groups to an upperclassman Link Leader - it's kind of like a peer mentoring thing. The point is that if the freshmen all have SOMEONE who has been through what they're about to go through, they will be better able to adjust to life at the high school level. The BFD for Link Crew is Freshman Orientation, which has a component that is completely student-led - each Link Leader takes his/her group of freshmen to a classroom ALL BY THEMSELVES and leads them through various icebreakers and thoughtful activities, and there is definitely a set process and kind of a script for how these activities are presented.
Anyway, my job is to help train these kids. Yes, it takes a lot of work - you can't just stick 12 freshmen in a room with a junior or senior without any preparation. So we had two days of training, 8am-1pm, and it's all VERY high energy, high enthusiasm sort of stuff. We had about 90 Link Leaders signed up this year, so imagine trying to teach to a room full of 90 high school juniors and seniors all by yourself, and you're trying to teach THEM how to lead discussions with freshmen and deal with possible negative behavior and all that stuff. So I'm doing lots of LOUD talking (which I don't usually do - I'm a quiet person) and climbing on the table and "If you can hear me, clap once!" sort of things. It makes me sweaty and tired.
And then on Monday night I had practice, so I was totally wiped. BUT... not too wiped to stay up late watching Troll 2 with Jimmy. OH MY GOD. It is SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO bad, but SOOOOOOOOOOO awesome. It's badly acted, badly written, badly directed... I think it has the lowest rating on IMDB. But I totally loved it - it just totally won me over.
Tuesday, after Link training, I went mattress shopping, and ended up getting a Cal King Simmons Beautyrest. (Firm, please!) I've never had a bed that big, and I was excited to have space to stretch out instead of sleeping at the verrrry edge of the mattress. It arrived on Wednesday, and I was so excited to plop Jolie down on it and let her crawl around.
Wednesday's practice began with a photo shoot! Crasharella, one of our skaters, is a photographer, so she offered to take our official skater photos for the website. I was super psyched. Okay, I admit it, I'm vain - hello, I have a blog where I take pictures of myself in makeup? I was excited to have some official derby photos. I really wanted to have something to show for my skating efforts - we're not bouting yet or officially skating publicly (not counting the fact that we do in fact skate in public, at a public park), so having a professional photo taken as a derby girl was extra fun for me :) Crash posted them, like, immediately after practice, and Facebook was all abuzz afterwards as we checked out each other's photos.
Thursday, you've already heard about :)
Today was Freshman Orientation. I had to be on campus by 7am, and I did not have time to get breakfast, so I went most of the day without getting food. I'm just the assistant coordinator, so I don't lead the assembly - instead I'm in charge of taking care of the stragglers, the late-comers, making sure things run smoothly so Joanna can focus on leading the assembly and doing all the other big stuff. It was interesting to see the freshmen come through - a lot of them do NOT look like freshmen at all! I saw some really big guys come in! A lot of them looked like they DID NOT want to try anything or do anything silly or energetic, but I guess you can expect that from 14 year old boys. I was tasked with walking around campus to check on all the small student-led group activities, so more sweating. I think Orientation went pretty well, and I'm really going to miss the senior Link Leaders - they're all really good kids.
Afterwards, I came home, had lunch, took a short nap, and then watched the episode of True Blood that I'd missed earlier in the week. Then Jolie needed to be fed, and we played around for a while until I drove her to my parents' house to spend the night. I just spent an hour and a half at Borders trying to find a book I wanted to read (I'm in the mood for some intelligent, cute, romantic chick lit, but I just didn't have the patience for anything I found), so instead I bought the new Rolling Stone, the new Bust, and the new Giants magazine. I picked up some iced coffee and cinnamon buns, and here we are!