Jazz Fest!

<--shamarr allen.
Jazz fest this past weekend was awesome. Saturday was rainy, overwhelming, and slightly miserable. i left grumpy, cold, wet, and disheartened. i'd tried to see the whole festival in the hour that i was there before my shift, and obviously that didn't happen. and my shift was spent standing in the rain helping people get in and out of the musicians shuttle for which i was the assistant. no, i have no idea who i met.
But day 2 was a thousand times better. we got there first thing, so we got to see about 3 acts before our shift started. and the rain didn't come until about 10 minutes before our shifts, so i did get wet, but then i was under a tent selling tshirts and able to dry off. AND, i got to see 1. a great zydeco group. name? no idea. 2. asheson, a group from cuba, so awesome. 3. SHAMARR ALLEN. i'm going to be this guy's number one pr and advertiser from here on out, beware. but he's amazing. trust you will be hearing this name more as time passes.

And next weekend, we're working saturday, and we're working the early shift, from 11-3. which means we'll get off in time to see the roots! and the evening shows include: diana krall! and jimmy buffet! i don't know how i'll decide! well, i'll probably go to diana krall. but so cool! and a lot of us want to stay for sunday, and more than a couple people are willing to pay to get in sunday so we can see the final day, it should be pretty amazing.

oh, school's ok.. kind of meh. i won't go into it.

but we did PT on the beach this morning, which was awesome. it was amanda (the other one)'s birthday today, so it was a day for her. she led pt, which was great, we played games the whole time. and tonight we went to the casinos, where i won a dollar at the penny slots. and we played arcade games and got ice cream. all in all, i think it was a great birthday. i hope she thinks so too.
and the cake didn't get to happen tonight, so it'll happen tomorrow. which really just means her birthday gets to last just a little while longer.

(if you can't tell, i'm much happier here, despite my indifference to the project)

playing hooky

I'm working at a school now, as i've said. and this is a wonderful school, the teachers are great, the students are great. the district is struggling, but this place is strong. they've done things like get a program called Accelerated Reader that all the kids participate in. it encourages them to read, and allows them to read at their specific level and improve at their own pace.
They applied for, and got, a grant to buy promethean boards for every classroom. These are sort of a cross between a projection screen and a white board. if you write on it, it saves the notes on the computer. the students can work together and use it themselves. fantastic machines.

so what am i doing here?

the classroom i'm supposed to be in right now, the students love me, but the teacher obviously sees my presence as a burden. so i didn't go today. i spoke to the principal who's going to try to find a better place for me, and i'm going to talk to the teacher later, but it seems like i serve as nothing more than a distraction for the students. particularly the one student who i'm supposed to be helping. she won't let me look at her math homework, but she will show me all the toys she has in her desk to keep her distracted.

this isnt' to say that i'm not being utilized at other times of the day, there's just a few periods where i think, what am i doing here?

a new phase, a new place, a new leaf

Within days of arriving in St. Bernard, Louisiana, I was depressed and felt trapped. I wanted to leave. I started smoking again. My team leader took to his bed and didn't surface again til we left the parish. There was tension between everyone on the team, showing that clearly everyone had trouble living in that environment. I determined as the feelings of being trapped and the tension pulsing through my team became overwhelming. So i made a plan, i gave myself an out. I went so far as to actually commit to going back to camp. But i wanted to give this phase a chance. I waited to tell anyone i was leaving.
On the plane from New Orleans to Sacramento, I told my friend, teammate, and confidant that i was planning on quitting to go back to camp for the summer. By that time, i'd justified it to myself in so many ways, i was sure there was no talking me out of it. But then again, i suppose up to that point, no one had tried. Kdogg was the first person who, when i said i was quitting, was like, 'no! you can't do that? and so late? don't leave the team! don't you want to finish?' Up to that point, the only person telling me that was me. I spent so much time thinking and weighing my options and ignoring everything negative about camp just to convince myself i really was making the right decision. I spent 2 months thinking, not talking, not connecting, just getting deeper and deeper into my head.
One day in sacramento reminded me why i was in americorps and what i liked about the program, all of which i'd all but forgotten.
Spring break was a break i desperately needed. The last weekend when kateri came down from albany and we had a dinner party with 3 of my favorite ladies, it was just perfect. The perfect weekend. I stopped thinking, worrying, just lived and enjoyed. I didn't want it to end, didn't really want to go back to americorps. But i was refreshed, i survived the bullshit of transition, and now i'm in mississippi.
My impressions and preconceived notions about mississippi all come from those depressing novels about the south, where women are oppressed, where the gay girl figures out she's gay then runs away. families are abusive, everyone's poor, the education system is horrible, and it's all ugly.
First off, the gulf coast is not ugly. It's actually beautiful. Sure, the beaches are man made, and the main source of income for the community is casinos, but it's a pretty place. It's still true that mississippi has some of the worst schools in the country, but somehow, i'm working at one of the best schools in the state. (we'll leave the rant about that for another night.)
Today, we went to Bay St. Louis, a very artsy community about half an hour away. There's another arts community on the other side of biloxi called Ocean Springs that i'm going to make sure i check out while i'm down here. I've already gotten in touch with the biloxi community theatre, and i'm going to go on wednesday to meet with and talk to them. with any luck, i'll get to even do some lights stuff with them. i miss it, a lot.

So, things are looking up. Kdogg and i have already started and made a plan for our team position. last phase we wanted to do more, and she tried, but i was no help. i checked out for the phase, figuring i'd be leaving anyway, so what did it matter? but i'm back. I don't know how i'm going to do working in this school. The first day was flustering, but i'm trying very hard to mentally prepare myself so tomorrow doesn't feel so crazy. hopefully i didn't lose my schedule...

Just a few pictures from Lousiana

Gas lamps. On during the day. Why? i dont' know. but i guess they're pretty cool...

Kristin drove all the way from St. Louis to visit! We had an awesome time. This is from when we went to the zoo for soul fest

At the st bernard irish italian islenos st patricks day parade. they throw produce (hence the reason i'm holding a lemon)

We went on a swamp tour. this is a little gator. we gave the gators marshmallows. it helps them remember not to eat people.