They Were Right

People were right when they said that things would pick up once the students arrived. After spending more weeks wishing that something - anything - that a) I could start now and b) would take more than 4 hours to complete would come across my desk, our halls were filled with lost first-years and my desk was filled with tangible, long-term projects. It was a fantastic day.

A highlight was talking with Danielle, my lovely office-mate, about how students assume that we know absolutely everything just because we work there. Example? I had a student ask if I knew a certain professor (I didn't) then follow that up with a query about whether one lab was cancelled or all labs were cancelled because "I don't know if I'm missing class right now." And I'm supposed to know that how exactly? As she was texting and talking to a friend while sitting in the hallway unmoving, I figured she wasn't all too concerned about her potential absence. The hallway I work on is designated for language classes, which makes for fun trips to the water fountain to stay hydrated.

Most of my day's highlights, surprisingly for such a full work day, had little to do with general office happenings. (Speaking of fun office happenings, though, our new Center for Faith and Public Life Assistant Director officially accepted her job today! Now my supervisor can breathe many deep sighs of relief.)

Highlight #1: A phone conversation from one of the disaster coordinators I worked with last summer in Nashville, whom I hadn't talked to in over a year, during which I was able to help re-establish a potential disaster-response partnership with NCCC.

Highlight #2: Tutoring a couple of fellow VISTAs in GRE math - we worked on Pythagorean triples and 'special' right triangles. One brought me dark chocolate as a gift; they told me that what I'll be most tired of by the end of our tutoring sessions is them telling me that I should be a math teacher instead of going into administration. I was happy because they understood more after the two hours than before and some problems had become less scary.

Highlight #3: Putting a trip to NYC with my mom on my calendar for Explorers' Day weekend. My mother, good food, and Broadway? Winning combination.

Highlight #4: A sincere email from a friend.

Highlight #5: Discovering that my rugby team plays at Yale - only 45 minutes from me - in less than a month. I haven't seen them play since graduation! So excited.

Highlight #6: Another phone conversation about disaster, this time in which Melissa set me up to connect students at Fairfield with an NCCC team doing disaster-response volunteer coordination in Connecticut. She got back to me faster than the Red Cross, whom the team will be working for under a FEMA deployment. Friends are awesome.

So today was a day full of connections, reconnections, and math learning fun time. Total win.

As for tomorrow, Danielle and I will be training nine students in the Service-Learning Associates program. The students will each support a faculty member in a service-learning class with logistics, communication, coordination, etc. And I get to meet another Community Partner! Things are indeed picking up : )