I was called to the hospital at 2:20am last night. I have to say that was perhaps the worst time to get a phone call. I went to bed at midnight so by the time I received the phone call I was in the middle of my REM sleep mode and completely disoriented. I ended up being at the hospital until about 5:15 and it took me an hour to fall back asleep when I got home. I slept for a good part of the day today until the lack of groceries beckoned me to Meijer. Even though I wasted most of today, I feel remarkably relaxed for a lady who had her sleep pattern severly disrupted.

4 weeks from tomorrow, folks. 4 freaking weeks. God I hope my passport arrives in time so we can go on our honeymoon to Mexico. I am going to be so dissapointed if the passport doesn't arrive.

I'm surprised about how anxious I am feeling about our first dance at the wedding (coming up in less than 5 weeks, folks). It is more difficult that I expected to choose a song. When Todd and I try to practice dancing around our apartment it ends up being an awkward few minutes. I usually end up leading (by accident) and we only shuffle around in a circle, making me feel like I'm barefoot in the Power Middle School gym for a school dance.

In a perfect world, Todd and I planned to take some dance lessons. But now it's too late so shuffling around awkwardly will have to do.

Now if only Todd could find a sense of rhythm...

I would like to unveil my new blog for all of you who are interested in continuing to read about my journey to St. Louis and my experiences teaching. As I am sure that you know, I am going to need to maintain confidentiality so I will not be discussing as many personal stories in my teacher blog. I am not planning to leave any trail from my teacher blog to my Cincinnati blog, so do not make any reference to it in any comments you may leave. Also, any comment left that includes my name will have to be deleted.

Here it is:
www.showmeteachmeblogme.wordpress.com
(Get it? Missouri is the SHOW ME state! Thanks Todd!)

I'll continue on the Cincinnati blog until I move but come mid-summer I plan to transition to the new blog completely and retire "Don't Trash the Nati."

Wow! I just had a really super exciting weekend in St. Louis.

I left to go to St. Louis on Thursday and had two fairly uneventful flights. There was a very exciting moment when I was walking through the terminal in Chicago O'Hare airport and I saw Alec freaking Baldwin walking toward me. I contemplated saying saying something to him but I had about 4 really not cool things pop into my head such as "Hey, you're Alec Baldwin" or "I see you on TV" and none of them seemed appropriate so I just did a double take and kept on walking. It was pretty awesome anyway. Then, the next day we all hear the Alec Baldwin story in the news about the awful voice mail message he left for his 11 year old daughter. I think that makes my sighting even cooler, since Alec is a timely hollywood villian.

I arrived in St. Louis, checked into my hotel room (Hilton in downtown St. Louis...awesome!!!) and started to meet the other Teach For America people. At first it was a bit awkward but it ended up that everybody was excited to be there, eager to meet people and really really friendly. I honestly like everybody. These are my kinds of people! Everybody is smart, funny, nice, and generally not annoying. That might not seem like a compliment, but it is!

On Friday morning I woke up extra super early (5:40am!) because we had to go to local schools for interviews and observations. I saw three schools, the first one was nice, and we observed some TFA teachers (who were fantastic and inspiring). TFA is no longer placing there because of some (huge) problems with the administration there and I am quite relieved. The second school was my favorite. It was a public school with a really supportive principal who seemed to have the same ideology that I have about being a teacher. He is hoping to somehow figure out a way to get rid of his current staff and fill his school with TFA teachers. I would like to work with him regardless but he may not have any openings...or he might have a whole school. It's all up in the air. The final interview was for a charter school, well, three to be exact, and they are all brand spankin new so they will be needing a ton of teachers. I felt my interview went well, and I thought the principal was good, however, I am still not entirely sold on the idea of charter schools.

Later on friday we went on a tour of different St. Louis neighborhoods (for housing purposes) and then went to dinner at a TFA corps members house for a big meet 'n greet shin dig. While we were meeting in the lobby of our hotel for our rides to the events we saw none other than Evander Holyfield walk in and sit down on the couch right next to us. (!!!) By the way, his ear looks fantastic. A couple corps members went and said hello but I decided to hang back since I don't particularly care about meeting Mr. Holyfield or not.

Later that evening a group of us all met in the lobby and went out to a "dueling piano bar" aka "my own personal hell." It was only about 8 blocks from the hotel so we decided to walk. We got a block away from the hotel and we heard three loud popping noises. Somebody said, "Do you think that was fireworks or a gun?" Being young, naieve and optimistic somebody joked that it was probably an explosion of safety. We get to the end of the block, our group is being led by three guys, who look down the street and start screaming, "those were gunshots, everybody get back!" We all start running and have no idea what to do. I don't know why, but people were very adamant about going to the dueling piano bar and so we hopped in the cabs, which drove us past the scene of the incident where we see about 20 police cars and tons of police, all with thier guns drawn, some with assault rifles. It's really scary and strange. I mean, we all heard that St. Louis was ranked the most dangerous city in America but we all took that with a grain of salt. In case you are as curious as I was - here is a link to the news story about the incident...which occurred only 2 blocks from where we were walking. Eeek! I manage to live in OTR for 2 years and never see anything scary only to come to St. Louis for a weekend and encounter THIS!?

Help me! I need you to help me come up with one word to describe me. It's work related so no smart mouth responses.

Hello friends,

I'm not sure who is reading this but I wanted to post a friendly reminder to reserve your hotel room for the wedding if you have not already done so. Our room block is up today so anybody who is interested in in making sure they have a lovely hotel room - conveniently located within walking distance of the reception - should call the Inn on Ferry Street (313-871-6000) like now. (Because I know how much you all like to drink!) If you are getting this message late, there might still be rooms available but I cannot guarantee them anymore.

In order to reserve your room they will NOT charge your credit card, but they will ask for a credit card number.

For the second time in a few months I have been approached with the question: "Have you lost weight?" No, I have not. In fact, in the last 6 months I have actually gained weight. Then when I tell them no they insist that I look like i have. What the HELL does that mean? You were a total lard-ass before but you're looking not-so-fat.

This is just a sore point with me. Please, don't ever mention weight around me. It annoys me.