Late last week, I gave my email address and screenname to my students, so that they could keep in touch with me. Also, this was a crafty way to prevent the routine printer excuses. Somehow, whenever a big typed project is due, half of the students' printers don't work or are out of ink. Yeah, I don't think so. Thus I told them: no excuses, just email it to me and I will print it for you. Ta-da!

Three students actually did that. No students tried to tell me about broken printers. Hurrah!

A few of my students immediately began IMing me, just saying hi or asking what the homework was. It's really cute and kinda fun. Not sure yet if it will lead to a better rapport with them, but we'll see.

On Sunday afternoon, I drove to Brooklyn (see post below with CHOCOLATE!) for a game of ultimate frisbee with a new friend. It was great! I got to dress in my workout clothes (old yoga pants and two AmeriCorps-era t-shirts) and then go run around after a frisbee. It was a relief to find out that even though it had been at least a year if not two, my skills were not too rusty. I was never great at throwing or catching, but I've always been decent. For this game, I successfully caught two goals!

Sadly, even during the game I could feel my out-of-shapeness haunting me. My foot was tight, twinging with plantar fascittis. I was out of breath. My legs were a bit shaky.

I so enjoyed playing a game, meeting a few friendly people, AND feeling like a hip New Yorker.

On Monday, sad to say, my entire body was sore: legs, arms and even my entire midsection. Must have been a fantastic workout...and I must be fantastically out of shape at this point!

Now, on to politics and current events:
--I got a forwarded email from my old teamleader (which looks to be from the CEO of NCNS), which has a message about how the new proposed budget will work for the Corporation for National and Community Service. The request is only enough to cover the CLOSING OF ALL NCCC CAMPUSES. I can't tell you how shocked and utterly heartbroken I was/am about this, and I know that others must be too. I can only hope that in Congress, someone lobbies to keep more AmeriCorps positions!

I don't even want to think about this country without NCCC. I just looked at the site, and a full thirty percent of this year's resources are focused on hurricane relief projects. See? It's an incredible program that gives back to the entire American community.

Gotta go to my next class. Much more later about this and the after school 37.5 fiasco mess.

The after school 37 minutes is a complete mess at my school.