Awesome Hot Dogs! Only $2.99!

Excited doesn’t cover it.
I am pretty much in complete and total disbelief about how well everything is turning out. I don’t want to jinx myself, the way things turned out is just awesome. Not red and yellow socks awesome, but truly, breath-takingly, I-am-totally-excited-and-this-really-rules awesome.

I believe this picture of Oreo captures it best.

Awesome hot dog!

Notice how he is so excited that his ears are back *and* his tail is wagging so quickly that it’s blurry…haha. Oreo has the best attitude ever. Every day when I come home, he’s all excited.

Seriously.

I have so many blessings I can count!

1) While my current school may be closing and this is truly sad for the girls, I found a new job! I am going to be working in a similar situation with at risk kids aged 7 to 17! It is still not going to be easy to say goodbye to the girls next Friday, but at least I know I am going to be able to use my skills to work with some different students instead of having to go back to waitressing by necessity.

2) My mommie got me a new phone *AND* it’s green and sparkly! I was using this old one because my good phone got stolen in April.

3) I got an 1160 on the GRE! USF said that I needed at least 1000 to get admitted to the graduate program I want to do and I got 1160! I got 640 on the quantitative and 520 on the verbal. I think if I took it again, I could study more and really blow the verbal away.


4) I wrote about Tupac on the analytical writing portion of the GRE and I am very confident I blew that section out of the water. That’s right, I said I wrote about Tupac Shakur on the GRE. I signed a bunch of stuff saying I would not reveal the questions so I can’t tell you *how* I wrote about him, but none the less, I kept it straight gangsta on the GRE.

5) I got a $500 scholarship for this semester to start working toward my Master’s Degree in Special Education at USF on August 25!

6) I can walk to work and to the gym each day so I won’t need to use gas unless I’m going to USF!

7) My Dad and I understand each other a lot more now than we used to and, as a result, we get along much better. He also offered to help me subsidize graduate school if I score well!

8) Despite the fact that I am far away, a lot of my family is still very supportive of me.

9) Last, but definitely not least, Adam. Adam has stuck with me through thick and thin. He has stood by me through all the crazy ups and downs over the last 2 years while going through problems of his own.

I do, however, miss Ohio. I hope I can go visit sometime soon! I miss my family, naturally, but I’d like to shout out to my Ohio friends Brian W., Brijette N., Dawn M., Heidi G., Janice D., Neil E., & Trevor E.!

Today

“You know today, I just woke up and I said, you know, instead of waitin’ on a good day, waitin’ around, through ups and downs, waitin on something to happen, I just say, ‘I’m gonna have a good day …”

- Nappy Roots from the song “Good Day”

I am definitely have a good day today because I signed into the <a href=”http://www.fldoe.org/”>Florida Department of Education</a> website to discover that they finally got to my Professional Certificate application and according to that, I have my Professional Certificate now!  Hopefully this means the paper one will be coming in the mail soon!

We haven’t really had many responses at all to our news efforts, but I’m not giving up on the school yet!  Keep hoping!

If you or anyone you know has space they have trouble renting in Bradenton, FL and they would be willing to make a deal with our school, please call (941) 567-1022!

“If you don’t have a dream, how’re you going to make a dream come true?”

-Dizee Rascal

Let’s Hope…

Today the news crew from Tampa Bay’s 10 came to do a story on our school and how we need $60,000 or we have to close.

Here’s the link to the story.

I’ve been watching Kathy Griffin recently and I saw her talking about starting a small school like Oprah did. I keep wishing that there were a way I could get in contact with her to tell her about our problem. I really feel like she would help us if there were a way to contact her. Her website makes it seem like they get so many emails that they couldn’t possibly read all of them let alone answer all of them.

We only have until August 15 to make this happen and I’m not someone who just gives up… especially on a cause like this one.

If you have any ideas, let me know!

Embrace Change

“All men dream, but not equally.

Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds,

wake in the day to find that it was vanity:

but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men,

for they may act on their dreams with open eyes, to make them possible.”

- T. E. Lawrence

The above quotation inspires me quite a bit. I do dream that the SONG Program can continue to exist. Ways to make this possible consume my consciousness to the point where I forget what time it is. I keep imagining these girls going back to public school and being put in a class with 20 other kids and a teacher. This is of course not to say that the teachers they would get would not be capable and intelligent, just that they would also be responsible for 20+ other children and that there would be no where near as much one-on-one assistance and no regular personal and family therapy.

I mean, sure, I am worried about my job, but honestly, the much bigger concern is the children. It may take me one day, one week, or one year to get a teaching job, but eventually, I’ll get one. These children get one childhood. One chance to ramp it up, develop good habits, and get the skills they need to pass school and not drop out. I hope something good happens…

Save Our Next Generation

As many of you know, I teach at a small school that services 8 to 12 year old girls year round. Here is our mission:

“PACE provides girls and young women an opportunity for a better future through education, counseling, training, and advocacy.”

We were told in a staff meeting Thursday that if we don’t raise $60,000 for the coming year’s rent/operating costs by August 15, we have to close. This means that the girls we service have to go back to public school for the first day of school on August 18.
This means larger class sizes, less one-on-one attention, very little counseling if any, and they have to adjust to a whole new environment again.

Many of these girls have needs like behavior problems that are not adequately addressed by public school. At PACE’s SONG Program, we provide the support these girls need to get them back to the point where they can succeed in public school and not drop out because they are behind.

Believe me, I know people don’t have a lot of money to spare in today’s economy but even if you have even $5 or $10 to spare, this will help. Thank you so much for your help!! (We’re non-profit – It’s a tax write-off!)

Please contact our school at:

PACE Center for Girls, SONG Program
2620 Manatee Ave W, Suite E
Bradenton, FL 34205
(941) 567-1022

I’ve attached a link to an article the Bradenton Herald did about our school today!

Thank you so much!

I am on the far left in green (of course) with the other staff members and some of our girls.

Bradenton Herald Article