Ducks Fly Together

I am proud to say that I survived my first week of institute! My days go from about 5:40 a.m. - 11 p.m. (if I'm lucky), so needless to say, I am exhausted. 

I have been at school attending workshops from 7:30 a.m. - 4:30 p.m., and then the rest of the day is spent lesson planning or working in groups on our assigned "homework."

***Dallas-Forth Worth region's mascot is a duck - hence, the title :)

Here is some of my week, in photos:

First day of institute! I was ready to go at 6:45 a.m., with my lunch box in hand. Looking ROUGH!

We take a bus every morning to get to our school - I am at Sylvan Rodriguez Elementary.

 

The library at Rodriguez. There are about 40 TFA 2012 corp members at my site as well.

I found out I was placed in a group led by a corp member adviser (CMA). Here's my CMA, & the note he wrote to me!

 

A note I got from a student at Rodriguez :)

Houston at 4:30 p.m. I sat on the back of the bus this day, and everyone was asleep back there except me, haha.

The entrance to Rice. Seeing this sign reminds me that my day is halfway over...

On the first day institute, the Dallas-Fort Worth, Rio Grande Valley, San Antonio, and Eastern North Carolina regions were welcomed to Rice at an opening ceremony. Naturally, we had to show DFW pride, so my region made a cheer to shout out.

DFW about to practice the cheer.

Mariachis greeted us at the ceremony.

Young mariachis!

Program for opening ceremony

Getting to work when the sun is rising!

My lunch box! Lunchtime is my fav.

 I start teaching my summer school class on Monday, so my group and I made a few signs to tape up around our classroom :)

Classroom signs

Our CMA has "office hours" after we finish at the school, where he helps us write lesson plans & such. Our nights are pretty late, considering how early we have to wake up...

Midnight work session

My favorite "monument" at Rice.

I am back in DFW for the weekend for a friend's wedding - shout out to JB & Taylor, CONGRATS!!! Truth be told, I am glad to have a slight break from training. I slept about 11 hours last night, and already feel re-energized and ready to go...oh, and the pizooki helped, too!