Obama and unions and dripping wet kids

The last two days have been pretty low-key—yesterday we heard the president of the NYC teachers’ union speak, which was interesting, but other than that and a few small meetings (yesterday was the last day of “induction”), it’s been pretty free. I’ve mainly been reading—most folks have gone out and partied yesterday and today (with probably more to come tomorrow), but since most of that has been pretty alcohol-related, I don’t feel like I’ve missed much that I wouldn’t skip out on anyway.

Today was a day off, basically—there were a lot of activities organized in the city that corps members could go to in order to get a taste of the city and get to know each other (including an Ozomatli concert that sounded pretty spiffy), but as boring as it sounds, I just felt like sitting around and reading. Well, I was also feeling a bit stressed to finish my TFA prep readings and responses (as I’ve heard we’ll be expected to turn them in Sunday or Monday) and finish my final report to Care For Life on everything I did there (which I’ve been owing them for a bit), so it was business as well as pleasure that was pushing me to stay home, but for whatever reasons, I stayed home, and really enjoyed it.

I started reading Barack Obama’s Dreams from My Father a few days ago (in the spare time that you always manage to find when you’re stressed and need it), and read a good fifty pages of it today (to the chagrin of my Teach For America readings). I literally had trouble putting it down tonight—I’m still in the section dealing with his early childhood, and alongside his discussions of race and racial origins, Obama captures in such sensitive detail all the moral dilemmas and questions faced by American children who are partly raised abroad and find their instilled American values ringing hollow or seeming surreally unrealistic in third world settings where power alone is the deciding factor in everything. In his discussions of race, too, despite the fact that his experience is such a radical departure from mine, he writes in a way that shows a desire and ability to understand where all of the people in his life are coming from, and that makes you feel like he could understand your past, too. I think that is what I love most about this man, and what I think most sets him apart as a man who could bring honor and understanding to the presidency—his empathy, his sympathy, his ability to place himself in others’ shoes. In Christian terms, his charity. Who could not be excited about the possibility of true understanding and charity entering into politics, especially at a presidential level?

One completely unrelated moment today was too hilarious to leave out—I heard a story that made me so, so excited to be working with elementary school children who still are young enough to have such potential for delicious ridiculousness. My suitemate was telling me about a friend of his who was teaching as a corps member in the Bronx, and who took her elementary school class on a field trip to the Bronx Zoo. In the stress of keeping all the kids together, she had lost track of one kid for several hours, who only showed up at the bus right when it was time to leave, inexplicably soaking wet. The bus was late and she had no time for questions, so she just herded him on to the bus with the rest of them and forgot about the whole thing until later that night. She then got a call from an aggravated principal, who had apparently gotten a call from an aggravated mother, who was wondering why, upon opening her son’s backpack after school that day, a dripping wet penguin had jumped out.

I love kids. I hope this fella’s in my class.