Sorry about the fact that I haven’t updated the blog much lately! I’ve been travelling a lot – from Blacksburg to Charlotte, North Carolina – for the Democratic Nat’l Convention. Blog post to come soon about that. I’ve also been fully drowning in college football, as the Hokies escaped with wins over both Georgia Tech and Austin Peay in the past two weeks. Very glad to say we are now 2-0! Otherwise, I’ve had a lot of quality time with friends and family celebrating my birthday and just enjoying life without much time in front of the computer.
I’ve added a link to my November TED talk to the left sidebar of the website, at the request of several people who keep up with the blog, so enjoy some of the new information over there!
I’m going to spend the rest of the week recovering from a cold, working on the website, updating several posts (hopefully!), and catching up on some reading for classes. Hope you all enjoy! :)
Mr., what happened to your legs? Are they real? Why are you in a wheelchair?
Will you always be that way? When did you get sick? Does your mom help you?
YES, I know what a spinal cord is! How old are you? Why are the inside of your hands white and not black?
Every single year, I’m not only excited for the first week of classes for myself, but I’m also excited that I’ll get the opportunity to spend 2 hours each week, helping first graders read, learn, write, and grow as people. I love educating them about everything. Especially my disability.
The questions listed up top are the ones that I get every single day. Today, I explained to them how I’m in the 17th grade. That it’s possible, and sometimes common, to work and go to school at the same place – even though it’s a school, and you’re not a teacher.
I love these kids. Immediately. Learning their names. Learning their tendencies. Teaching them about everything. For most people, going throughout this transition and new acclimation with 40 new kids every year would be daunting. I look forward to.
I’ll never forget, over summer, when I was grocery shopping with some coups at Target, and I ran into a young one I had volunteered for and taught the year before. She came up to me, and said, “Hi, Mr. Graves. I just wanted to let you know that I saw you from over there, and I wanted to thank you for helping my reading get better.”
What else do you need to make it worth it? Nothing. Little moments like that remind me I might wake up earlier than I really want to, but I know these little kids are going to appreciate it.
The teachers appreciate my time, outwardly, also. Last year, Montgomery County Public Schools had to find a way to save money – and one of the ways they were going o try and do so was to consolidate schools – to shut down one and send those kids to a new school, elsewhere in the town. They thought it was a great idea – but the community didn’t. Even some on the school board realized how much stress this would cause students, their families, and quite frankly people like me who love to be able to volunteer there.
Long story short, every single time I see the teachers I can tell that they really appreciate everything that I do for them. They are fantastic people. This is a fantastic community. And from the first graders I work with starting today, to the now-sixth graders that I began with, as a freshmen – I love growing up with these kids. They are some of the best, most brilliant, bright, shining minds that I get to interact with on a weekly basis.
Harding Avenue Elementary, HAE, is one of my favorite places in Blacksburg.
After I left Harding, I went home to get some work done for classes, and then came to work a little bit at the Event Planning Office, in Squires – one of my other favorite things to do during the year.
In case you didn’t know, my birthday is tomorrow. And they surprised me with some cupcakes and a fantastic card. :)
I have a much longer blog formulating, recapping my entire first week of graduate school – which was my greatest first week of school ever, but this day was also just so lovely and fantastic that I had to share with you all. :)
If I’m being completely honest, I vividly remember spending these days last year being so excited that my birthday was in a few days, my closest friends would be all either coming into town, or already here, to celebrate my ability to consume alcohol legally.
This just goes to show that there really is such a transition that I’ve made over the past year or so. Especially in the past four months.
I’m not sad, just for the sake of being sad. I’ve been able to successfully live my life this past year in helping others. Hell, my parents are coming into town and they asked what I wanted to do on my birthday – I realized that my only real desire was that I wanted to take THEM to the Homeplace to experience it!
I’m more sad in the sense that there will be much less company around. My birthday festivities last year were fantastic – so many people in town, as I mentioned, similar to my commencement festivities – so many people here in honor of such a milestone, an accomplishment.
But I think it’s part of growing up – accepting the fact that birthday’s really just aren’t as exciting, as important, and as ‘ohhhhh it’s my birthday.’ I figure this birthday will be just like several after it, sort of quiet and low key.
First of all, I’m spending some time getting ready for my TED talk, and watching a TED talk that has been assigned as class reading for the second time in my academic career. Impressive credentials I’d say, especially since both courses are completely different from each other – one being a higher education course and the other being african american literature.
I love this video, and I did the first time that I was assigned it in a course about African American literature with Fred D’Aguiar about 2 years ago. This year, Claire Robbins assigned it in our Student Development Theory course. Enjoy, and let me know what you get out of it. To me, the most direct and significant take away is the following –
“When we reject the single story, when we realize that there is never a single story about any place, we regain a kind of paradise.”
It’s a universally applicable ideal that transcends disciplines in my opinion. It doesn’t even need to be academic – if we used this perspective in all of our everyday lives, we’d be so much better off.
For anyone not familiar, a Power Hour this is a drinking game where you drink a shot of beer each minute that passes through the video.
First of all – standard disclaimer – please only consume alcohol in a safe environment, and if you are og legal age in the respective country in which you are reading.
If you have completed both of those, please go ahead and love this video. It’s a compilation of Virginia Tech football video highlights. I don’t even like beer, but this is most likely getting practiced this weekend, seeing as it is my 22nd birthday.
Second, I’m loving this song right now – continuing my trend of posting Maroon 5 on the blog. They’re, by far, my favorite Pandora station currently, and one of my favorite bands, generally. My favoritism may change though, because I just added 5 hours worth of Jack Johnson music to my iTunes.
I feel like, without fail, the first day of school always brings wet, foggy, and cool weather. I was really hoping to spend some time by the pool after work today, so I really hope this changes!
Plus, I have at tour at 2:30! This does NOT fit into those plans…
