My team with Charles in Charge (our van) in Nottingham during team bonding time.


Sometimes City Year is very bipolar. This has been one of those times...

I'll travel back in time a bit, since it's been so long. Last week (the week of Thanksgiving) was a weird week, because we didn't have after school programs at all. So we had lots of planning time, and on Tuesday after our hunger workshop in the morning, we got to have tons of team time. We dropped Will off at the airport so he could go home to Virginia, and then the rest of the team had lunch together at a Greek restaurant in Manchester. We had mounds of food--french fries, pizza, baklava, Vault soda. It was amazing. Haroula was able to walk to her parents' house from the restaurant, so she went home, but Sara, Matt, Timona, Kristine, Stephen and I went to Sara's mom's house for team time. We got to play with the dog and watched A Night At the Roxbury. Yes, I logged 'member development' hours for watching a Will Ferrell movie.

I spent Thanksgiving with Dave at his aunt and uncle's house in Boston. Then I spent the weekend in Belfast with the cousins. An overall stellar tofurkey day break.

Monday, only four out of eight of us on my team came to work, and Sara had to stay at the office to do officey things most of the day. We were a small but mighty triumverate. NONE of my kids showed up for DI, so we wound up leaving school super early. We had Charles in Charge (yes, we named our van) in our break with us, to make us feel like a bigger team. I dropped off my team, and Sara drove me back here to York so that I didn't have to wait around at the office for three hours. We almost had to drive to Manchester to pick up Will, who was stranded at the airport, but luckily he hitched a ride back with another team. Tuesday we were back at almost full strength for a superbly boring seminar on purposefully misbehaving children. My team still managed to find joy in the story about the revenge-seeking child who made alien noises in the back of the classroom. This sounded remarkably like a team leader we once knew.... Wednesday, Sara and I finally finished our Clinton Innovation Award proposal. We're asking for $1360 to travel to eight CY sites to introduce the Destination ImagiNation program to the rest of the network. If you really feel like reading all the detail of the proposal, let me know and I'll send it to you. Somehow we were able to finish the proposal, giggle profusely, and eat an entire one-pound bag of baby carrots in the process. I think the proposal is really well put together. We should have a good shot at funding. I also found out that I'm on the New Hampshire Destination ImagiNation podcast! I sound very sleepy (and I was) but my teammate and partner in crime, Will, sounds very articulate. You can listen to it here: New Hampshire DI Podcast! under "Podcasts" there should be one that has "City Year" in the title.

Thursday was one of my worst days of City Year yet. When we got to school, we were all in EC and she announced to the team that she was quitting. We have a really excellent team, and we are a remarkably functional unit. For one person to leave would completely change the dynamic. We were all completely at a loss for what to do, and the teammate refused to go anywhere to talk about it. Pretty much the whole team sat around in the EC all day being unhappy. I went to a couple things but my kids were taking a test, so I figured I was better off moping around in our space than in the classroom. She has since decided to stay, which makes it even worse that she put us through a very dramatic day on Thursday.

Yesterday we had a team feedback session in the afternoon, which mostly restored my confidence in the team. It was pairs feedback, which was good because most of the conversations I had with my teammates were conversations we could have had any day of the week. It at least made me feel very good about the connections I've made with my teammates, and meant that I was left out of whatever issues my teammates were having with each other.

I'm applying for the New England Leadership Academy, a three day workshop for corps members from Rhode Island, Boston, and New Hampshire. Only five of us get to go from New Hampshire, so keep your fingers crossed for me :)

Today I'm off to go shopping for Dave's birthday with a couple friends from the corps. I'm very happy to be getting out of the house and having some down time.....