It's been awhile...

I know I haven't updated in a while. So what have I been up to for the past six months? Well, I'm still living in Chicago. For almost nine months now...

Oddly enough, it still feels new to me, and strange when I talk about it to other people. I guess because I never expected to spend even a small part of my life in a city colder than NYC. But aside from the weather, Chicago is a pretty great city, with blue water, clean streets, affordable rent and space to move around on the streets (four things that I'll be honest and admit NYC does not have...) I'm stuck in that awkward time when I go to New York and the people I know in Chicago tell me to have a safe trip "home." And then I leave New York and my family and friends tell me the same exact thing. It's hard for me to consider Chicago "home," but that's probably because I know I won't be here forever. In fact, I probably won't be anywhere forever. (The travel bug is a sickness that never seems to go away...) And you know what? I'm alright with that...



I am still teaching ESL. Yes, I know, it's hard to believe that I have stuck with the same job for a year and a half now. Quite the accomplishment.

The past seven months I have spent teaching at Education First, an international language school in downtown Chicago. My classes consist of students from all over the world. I spend three hours a day with each class, teaching them English (sometimes teaching myself before class), and in exchange learning about the customs and traditions from all around the world. That's more time than I spend with my family, my friends, and even Dan, who I live with.

Yesterday, my students graduated.

My speech to my students went something like this, "I am going to make this short and sweet, because I am trying not to cry. This was my first group of students...(first teardrop begins formation), and I'm going (trying so hard to contain myself)...to miss (oh no, I can't stop it)...you all (full on tears)." Due to an inability to call each student up by their name I gestured for the entire class to come up to the front of the room to receive their certificates. I have to admit that this was my first time crying in front of a group of 100 or so people. Embarrassing? I'd say so.



It might be because it's that time of the month, or because in saying "goodbye" to this group of students, I was also saying "goodbye" to a part of myself. Over the last seven months I have seen these students grow from timid foreigners with only a beginner's knowledge of English, into confident English speakers that I now consider to be friends. At first, they could barely understand a word I said. But by the end, we had shared stories about our lives, our passions, and our opinions on almost every topic imaginable. They know almost everything about me, and I know a darn lot about them too.

Some of my students live up to their stereotypes (some of the South American students are affectionate, the Asian students are studious, and the Russian students seem a bit cold), but what is amazing is that fact that so many don't.

Tomorrow I start again with a new class. A new group of students, who I'm sure will be much different than the first...

26 days, 1200 miles, on a bicycle...

Sometimes out of the hardest challenges, come the greatest lessons learned.

As I sit at the airport writing this, I feel strange not having my bicycle alongside me. After 26 days and over 1200 miles of riding, my bicycle has become a home to me. The seat rubbing against my padded shorts, the noise of my un-oiled chains turning as I peddle, and the constant feeling of soreness in my legs, have all become familiar to me. My bicycle and I have developed a love/hate relationship, characteristic of two things that spend every waking moment together. I battled with the clip-ins at first, but I eventually developed a routine when it came to switching gears and manuvering through traffic. Biking quickly switched from being a casual hobby to my full time job, spending 7-8 hours a day leaning forward with arms outstretched and legs rotating almost unconsciously.

Before the trip I had never been to Canada nor the Pacific Northwest; now I can confidently say that I have.



When bicycle touring, life is fairly simple. I began to realize what things are truly important at the moment, typically being either food, water or finding a place to sleep. I learned that everything I need to survive can fit easily onto the back of a bicycle. I began to cherish the small things: moments of sunshine, clean clothes, dry towels, free food samples at the grocery store.



There were times that were rough; days filled with rain, falling over railroad tracks, moments when my entire body was cold and wet, never ending hills and even dog attacks (dogs leaped over streams and jumped through barbed wire fences to attack us). But, squeezed in between were some of the most memorable experiences I have ever had.

About half of our nights were spent camping, but the other half were spent staying at homes offered to us through couchsurfing.com and warmshowers.org (two of the best websites ever created). And those experiences truly defined our trip. To me, one of the best parts of traveling is your encounters with locals along the way.

We stayed with people from many different walks of life: fishermen who informed us about the wind speeds we'd encounter ahead, a nurse who worked purely to fund his windsurfing addiction, a tree cutter who started his own business in the heart of the California redwoods, a hippie who converted a schoolbus into a place for travelers to stay, a jobless, homeless engineer who gave up everything he had to hit the road, a physicist who supported himself and his family through solar energy and farming, a German couple who had toured ten countries and spent two hours helping us fix a broken spoke, a retired couple who decided to embark on a two year tandem bicycle ride, a park ranger whose cooking and drawing skills were unmatched, a yoga instructor, falconer, and horse back riding instructor who all followed their passions to end up where they are. The generousity of the people we met along the way is indescribable.

Along the way, I learned some things...

- The rumors are true; it rains a lot in the Pacific Northwest. But people are willing to accept it in exchange for the mountains and beautiful coastline.

- You say and do ridiculous things when your body is exhausted.



- Leaving food outside the tent while camping is not a good idea.

- Goats can get aggressive.

- Oatmeal can taste good when smothered in sugar.

- Sometimes the most terrible moments later make for the funniest.

- Changing a flat tire isn't too hard if you know what you're doing. Changing a spoke is.

- Getting stuck in an elevator is a lot less scary when the door is transparent, and also a lot more humorous.

- A lot can be learned about a person by entering into their home.



- Taking your helmet off when not riding might sound like the appropriate thing to do, but sometimes it's just more convenient to keep it on.

- Biking without sunscreen can cause really awkward tan lines.

Follow my bike trip!

www.bikeforchange.wordpress.com

Bike for Change

It all started as a spontaneous idea conceived over some hot chocolate.

I'm not quite sure who initially said it, but somehow both Vikki and I knew right away that it was something we needed to do.

"Let's plan a long distance bike trip."

A few weeks later Vikki called me up on the phone...

"Were you actually serious about planning a bike trip?" she asked.
"Yeah," I replied, "were you?"
"Of course," she immediately replied.
"Let's do it then."

And so the planning began.  How long should our bike trip be?  How many miles a day are we capable of riding?  What time of year should we go?  Should it be across the United States?  Through South America?  We shot around ideas for awhile, before deciding that our bike trip would be a one month journey from Vancouver to San Francisco in May, averaging about 50 miles a day.  This was back in January...

Now here we are, quickly approaching the beginning of our trip.  How have I been preparing you might ask?  Well, about that...it's quite cold in Chicago (and not to mention rainy recently), so my training has not been going as initially planned.  After being caught ten miles away in the pouring rain, I have given up on training for a bit, in the hopes that all my years of playing soccer have made my leg muscles strong enough to endure whatever might be thrown at them.  According to my grandfather (who bikes 30 miles a day), that won't cut it, but I guess it's too late now...

Our bike trip will be raising money for Support for International Change (SIC), a charity that Vikki volunteered with in Tanzania.  We have already raised almost $2500, which is much more than we initially planned!  (www.bikeforchange.wordpress.org).

We plan to camp the entire time.  Surprisingly, I have not been camping too many times.  In fact I can count on my two hands the number of times I have gone camping in my entire life.  I guess by June I will have added 40 to that number...Packing will be quite the challenge since everything I need must fit into two panniers that attach to the back of the bike.  Our only plan is to somehow make it from Vancouver, Canada to San Francisco in five weeks, without killing ourselves or one another.  Should be quite the adventure...

Oh, life.

Things in Chicago have been going well.  The weather is starting to warm up a bit and my days are spent traveling amongst four different high schools teaching.  Being at four different high schools has given me the opportunity to see the different ways schools are run, and evaluate the quality of the teachers.  Up until this point each high school has failed to impress, except one, Urban Prep.  Urban Prep is the only all-male, all-African American public college preparatory high school in the country.  As I rang the doorbell at the entrance on my first day, I was unsure what to expect.  The door slowly opened for me and I entered into a mass of young men with shaved heads dressed in blazers and ties.  The students stared at me, rushing forward to push aside any doors that might get in my way as I wandered through the halls searching for my classroom.  At Urban Prep, each grade level is divided into groups of twenty students known as "prides."  I was assigned to the prides named "Resilience" and "Solidarity."  I met with the college counselor who informed me that the students were referred to Mr. proceeded by their last name and I should be referred to in the same manner.  Interesting.  My experience since then has been nothing short of great.  The students raise their hands when I ask questions, they follow along in their books, they even thank me after class.  Such a difference.

But perhaps not as entertaining as the classes at my other high schools.  Three days a week, I take over the English class of a teacher at one of my high schools (I will leave out names).  These days are the highlight of her week as she doesn't have to do anything.  At the beginning of class she walks around the room checking homework as the students on the opposite side of the room scramble to circle any answer choice.  She then congratulates the class for doing their homework and takes a seat by her laptop while I take the lead.  Occasionally she interrupts me to take attendance in the midst of my lesson or ask me a question about something I clarified for the students a minute or two earlier.  Yesterday she decided to actually pay attention to my lesson and whisper the answers to the students as I asked them questions.  "What is X multiplied by another X?"  "Two X" she whispered to her students, as I explained that the answer was "X squared."  "What is the square root of 4?" I asked as we simplified a problem.  "16" she whispered, as some of the more intelligent students giggled and correctly answered "two."  Now I understand why some of the students are still unable to read.

Things I have learned:

It doesn't take much to become a teacher nowadays.  It's sad thinking of all the qualified teachers who can't find jobs, because of the unqualified teachers taking up space.

I have learned how to play spades and bridge and consequently have developed a card game addiction: to the point where i have dreams about playing different hands.

I learned that leaving your bike locked in the same spot for a couple of days is not a good idea.  But that a decent bike can be purchased off Craigslist for really cheap.

I have learned that racquetball can make an arm sore for days.  And two person knock-out can be a solid workout. 

I have learned that certain roads in Chicago should never be biked on.

I have learned that I fall somewhere directly between a 53 and 55 inch bike frame.

Proctoring...gone wrong.

Last week I proctored my first practice ACT exam at a high school on the south side (I have now become an expert on the various neighborhoods of southern Chicago).  Throughout the duration of the ACT course, the students are encouraged to take practice ACT exams on Saturday mornings, under real-life circumstances, in preparation for the real ACT in April.  I was given the what some may term as simple task of proctoring the exam; a task that I assumed would consist of me sitting at a desk towards the front of the room, keeping time while leisurely reading a book.

Boy, was I was wrong.

A handful of students took it upon themselves to devote the four hour testing period to catch up on weeks of sleep, while others decided to whip out their combs and nail files.

Most students selectively chose their favorite section and decided to throw small pieces of paper around during the rest of the test.  When a small piece of paper fight led to a dictionary being chucked across the room I realized that I had to take control.  So, I walked towards the back of the room and I did something that I have seldom done before; I raised my voice.  And I broke out the sarcasm.

"Seriously, do I need to actually separate you two?  Some students in the room actually want to go to college and don't need to be disrupted."

Surprisingly, it seemed to work and the students stopped throwing things at one another.

As I walked back towards the front of the classroom I heard one of the female students voices, "What the hell are you staring at?"

Luckily I had been facing the opposite direction so I knew she wasn't talking to me (those who know me know that I sometimes have a staring problem).

"I ain't staring at you, you b*tch," the girl to her left replied.
"You didn't just call me that.  You wh*re," she retorted.
"It's better to be a wh*re than a b*tch," the other student shot right back.
"Ohh," the class echoed in unison.

I marched towards the girls and took my place directly in between them.

"How about we argue about this after the test?" I suggested, slightly fearful that a fist fight was going to break out any moment.  "I am going to stand here for the rest of the test," I stated as I took my place.

A moment later I hear loud tapping, as I glance over and see a student forcefully tapping away on her cell phone.  I figured this was better than a dictionary being tossed, or a fist fight, so I pretended not to notice.

"Excuse me," a student in the back row called for my attention.
"Yes?"
She's distracting me," he stated.
"You don't seem to have opened your test booklet yet and we're on Section 3, so please tell me what she is distracting you from," I replied.

The boy quieted down and returned to gesturing with the girl outside the window.

I sure showed them.

Frost bitten.

So, this week I taught another day at Gage Prep, which went surprisingly well, based off how my first day went. Since I still don’t know most of the students’ names, I decided to pick out students at random and ask them to read. About halfway through the lesson one of the teachers in the room walked to the front and handed me a piece of paper which read, “Do NOT call on: the girl in the blue sweater to your left, the three boys and one girl in the back right corner.” This caught me a bit off guard, wondering exactly what might have happened if I had indeed called on them. After class the teacher informed me that those students had never learned to read. There I was trying to teach these students all about how to analyze science passages and understand charts and graphs, only to find out that some of the students didn’t even know how to read.

Thursday I began teaching at Bogan High School, a high school about twenty blocks south of Gage Prep. The former teacher had quit after just two sessions there, so I was a bit hesitant to begin. After making my way through the metal detector I found my way to the classroom. This was an after-school class, so it contained about fifteen students that had chosen to sign up for the class and seemed to be more encouraged to learn. About ten minutes into class a fight broke out in the hallway just outside my door and I became silent. “Am I supposed to go out there and handle this?” I asked my students. “No, you better stay inside,” Darius answered, “We don’t want you to get hurt.”

Thursday night I met up for drinks with Juan, a Mexican man I found on Craigslist who was looking to learn English. I am trying to learn Spanish, so I figured a language exchange with him would be ideal. It turned out Juan wasn’t as young as I anticipated, but our exchange went well and we decided to continue teaching one another once a week.




I am going to preface the remainder of this post by describing the current weather here in Chicago. The weather these past few days has averaged at a solid 10 degrees, with the wind chill making it feel like 1 degree. Despite wearing a bottom layer of spandex everywhere I go, I am constantly going numb in my toes, fingers and even my mouth. When a man asked me a question at the bus stop, it took all the energy I had to part my lips and respond. So, returning home on Thursday night to find that the heat in our apartment had broken wasn’t the best of surprises. As I sit here and write this, I am bundled up in layers upon layers with my winter coat, hat, scarf and gloves to top it off. I feel like I put a spell on myself from complaining so much about the cold. Let’s just say, I will never complain again…

Chi-town

So, I have officially moved to Chicago, Chi-town, the "Windy City," whatever you want to call it. And I can confirm that it does in fact live up to it's cold, windy reputation. I guess the residents here put up with the cold months of winter, for all that Chicago offers in the spring and summer.



My first two weeks have been spent applying for jobs, meeting all of Dan's friends, accepting the fact that I don't have any of my own, decorating the apartment with free things from alleyways and cheap things from Craigslist and surviving the un-shoveled streets while managing to avoid frost bitten toes. All in all, a success.

I am here until May when I depart with my friend Vikki on a one-month long bike trip. My goal until then is to use Craigslist to create a tutoring empire and work as many part-time jobs as possible, so that I don't feel guilty about leaving in a few months time.

Getting my first part-time job here seemed a bit too easy. By day two, I was at my first day of training to become a tutor for Revolution Prep, a company offering ACT and SAT test preparation classes all throughout the country. I had informed the coordinator while interviewing that I had never taken the ACT, since on the east coast the SAT is much more common. She eased my nerves and convinced me that even without taking the test, I would be able to teach a test prep class.

She assigned me to Gage Park High School, a high school on the south side of Chicago, where they were offering an ACT prep class for free, to underprivileged students who otherwise would have been unable to afford it.

I accepted.

I arrived to Gage Park High School for my first day of class a bit early, unsure of what to expect. As I placed my bag onto the moving scanning machine and walked through the metal detector, it hit me...I was in the ghetto.

I found my way to my classroom and introduced myself to the teacher who would be monitoring the class while I taught. I wrote my name on the board and took my place at the podium to wait for the students to arrive. Slowly, the students began to pile in. With iPods in their ears, cell phones in their hands and pants sweeping the floor, about forty students took their seats.

Here goes nothing.

Teacher: "Everyone sit down. This is Miss Gantenhammer, she is going to be taking over the class on Mondays and Wednesdays from now through April."

Students: "Woah, that's a long name."

Me: "You can call me Miss G."

Teacher: "No you can't, you can call her Miss Gantenhammer, because that is her name and you are old enough to say it."

Not off to a great start.

The remainder of the class time was spent introducing the students to the ACT, and explaining the importance of the exam if they plan to attend college. Most of my comments were met with blank stares, as the students threw things at one another and left the room to get water and returned with chips. Once in a while their teacher would cut me off to discipline the students.

Teacher: "Jamal, can you repeat what I just said?"

Jamal: "Hell yeah I can. Can you repeat what I just said?"

Teacher: "It's important for you all to go to college."

Student: "Damn right, I gotta support my child."

On Wednesday, we start Science review. It's going to be an interesting three months...