New Title & HA Update

I changed the name of my blog today. Initially, I named this thing "Welcome to the Jungle" as a nod to the Guns N' Roses classic, which referenced one's initial introduction to a new, foreign world. There was absolutely no racial undertone intended on my part with this title, but after reflecting upon it, I could see how some people could interpret it that way. I decided to avoid the issue all together and just change the title.

The new title, "In The Blue Light District," is a reference to a system in Baltimore City that helps to track crime. In high crime areas, video cameras are put up on top of the street lights. Residents of these areas are made aware of these cameras with an accompanying blue light that flashes all day and night. Thus, in high crime areas at night, if you look up, you can see blue lights everywhere. If you want more information on this project, you can find it here: "Baltimore Blue."

Today was a good day, all things considered. Despite the fact that I had to miss about 2 hours of my placement and a half hour of my first class (Understand Special Education and Inclusion) due to getting the first part of a crown in one of my back teeth following a slightly questionable water tubing accident/arrangement on Memorial Day this past May (shout out to Peat Joe Wesolowski), I was able to get everything done that I needed and wanted to. I didn't teach today in class, but even when I am in a support role, I can tell I'm getting more comfortable around the kids and with my role in the class every day.

It was awesome to see some support from the people at Higher Achievement today. Higher Achievement, for those who don't know (everyone), is the company who runs some of the schools that some of us are working, including yours truly. The staff at HA expressed concern about how much work we have been putting in, and even said that they had plans to talk to some UTC people about our course load. Although it probably won't mean much of anything at all as far as that actual work load goes, it was still great to see them looking out for us. It was also really cool that one of our advisors told my co-teachers and I that she thought all of the UTC people at the school were doing incredibly well, and that the kids were receiving such "quality instruction" despite the fact that some of us had only been in front of a class for three days TOTAL prior to today.

Tonight is great because I have a lot of work, but, I can choose not to do any of it!! Tomorrow is the 4th of July so we don't have placement at HA or classes. In all honesty, I'm still probably going to do a lot of work tonight, but it's still incredible to have the option of not doing it.

Happy Amurica Day tomorrow, y'all.

BD