Induction: Bulleted and Survived

My training to be a teacher started on Friday, June 22. Tomorrow marks one week at Loyola Marymount University, where myself and 209 other LA corps members have participated in induction. I have not yet entered a classroom so my story has not yet begun. Mostly though, because I didn't start this blog earlier, I'm too overwhelmed to recap the most crazy week of my life. I resort to bullet points (because obviously, I have not had enough bullet-pointed powerpoint presentations in the last week... seriously, omg!):

• I interviewed with four people from Miguel Contreras High School, a school located right in the middle of downtown LA. I had my most conservative navy blue skirt suit on, my humidified hair struggled to remain cooperative in a half-ponytail (honestly, being too close to the Pacific Ocean means constant bad hair days), and I was wearing pantie-hose. Enough said. Pantie-hose means business. As soon as they told me about the school, I wanted the job. At this school, the teachers work collaboratively with one goal: get the students to college. All teachers are required to mentor 25 students and engage them in an after-school program. (I really hope to start a creative-writing workshop! or a financial literacy class!) I spent 45 minutes convincing them that I was passionate and young and that, despite my inexperience, my "Miss Goswamy stare" would be the secret weapon of classroom management. They took a risk and hired me. Afterwards, telling my parents and family, they finally revealed that they were praying that I didn't get a South-Central placement. Apparently my aunt was having nightmares about my living in Watts.
  
• I've teared up three times already this week. I thought my college graduation would be the end of my overly-emotional episodes, but I seem to be prone to crying when I am severely lacking sleep and when people use Big Ideas - like being a change agent and social justice. The latest example being tonight. Steve Zimmer (a '91 LA corps member) talked about his fifteen years working at Marshall High School. He's been to 15 of his students' high school graduations . . . and 21 of his students' funerals. He hopes that one day, he'll have gone to more graduations than funerals.
• I am having trouble finding "me" time. The whole balancing life and teaching seems too impossible right now. And I haven't even started Institute (the five weeks of hell that start on Sunday). My one solution that I don't think is sustainable or healthy is coffee. Coffee gets me through the teaching part and leaves me less crabby during the life part.
• I think I need a whole post on this subject, but because I'm tired and borderline crabby right now, I don't think I can fully summarize my love-hate relationship with Los Angeles. It's no Bay Area to be sure, but it has charms and sometimes it's beauty overwhelms me. Like when walking back from our evening sessions and the tall, skinny palm trees stand against the pink sky. And the pink slowly fades to purple and then midnight with the city lights dancing. Mostly though... Los Angeles scares me. Part of the goal of induction is to meet my fellow corps members and to meet this city that I'll be living in for the next two years or more. So far, I cannot call it "my city." Soon, perhaps.
  

Oh, and because I do not want to marginalize this to a bullet point... I think I'm going to be a good teacher. I've been inspired by every conversation I've had and every content session I've been to - okay, except maybe the bureaucratic teaching training session - and I think that if I haven't been disappointed yet (despite lack of sleep!), I'm going to make it. And with that, goodnight.