Sunday, May 31, 2009

ready to roll..

i know that it is likely that people are uninterested in what i have to say until the actual teaching part of this journey begins, however i feel compelled to write something if for no other reason than i almost always have something i can ramble on about (note the subtitle of the blog)

i'm currently in auburn, and as each day passes i become more and more ready to get started with all of this. i have done all the talking i can possibly do about my new opportunity with teach for america. i am ready to actually do something. thursday is the big day, i travel to mississippi to meet with different principals and interview in order to be placed in a school district. i won't find out about my exact placement until sometime at institute, which is causing me a little bit of nervousness.

as i previously stated, i'm just ready to do this thing. in reading the assigned work, reflecting on these readings in writing form, talking to people about tfa, reading about the delta, etc, i just get more and more excited and more and more nervous at the same time. the continued theme of all of this seems to be: "this is an great opportunity that will make you a much better person, but its going to suck majorly at times." this opinion(which seems to be widely held by most involved in the program) for obvious reasons is the subject of much concerned excitement at this point.

i am tempted to go on a long rant about these books i've been reading lately. i've been doing a lot of reading about postmoderism, deconstruction, philosphy, and religion (most of it is written on a very simplistic level though, don't worry i'm not as smart i want to sound) anyway, the ideas i have gardered from these books are not developed well enough to try to rant about them even in my ranting zone over here in blog world. i also don't want to make myself an oppurtune target for the criticism that would surely befall my leftist, liberal, watered-down, heretical beliefs. however, if anybody is interesed in reading up on this stuff here's what i've been reading. brian mclaren (a new kind of chrisitian, the story we find ourselves in, everything must change) jack caputo (what would jesus deconstruct) and robin meyers (saving jesus from the church) oh yeah and i'm also working on the appeal by john grishman but he hasn't mentioned postmodern philosphy yet. but if anybody is interested in talking about any of this good stuff, let me know. (unelss you want to tell me that all of the books i just listed were written by pagan racketeers that are sending me down a path to hell.) at least let me get my beliefs about what they are saying in order before you condemn me with them. ok that's enough... oh i just got my address for houston so if you want to send me some mail for some reason.....

Levi Rogers/Corps Member
c/o Teach For America
University of Houston
Moody Towers
4401 Wheeler Street
Houston, TX 77004

Saturday, May 23, 2009

take two...

ahh, so lots of you are thinking, "first off, i wasn't planning on reading this anyway, why are you making another one of these?" well, for a couple of reasons, one is that i had some technical difficulties with the other blog and second, i can do cool stuff on this one that the other wouldn't let me. so tough, this is the actual blog though.

so i went back and read my first post and i don't know who put me up on my high horse over there, but i sure sound like i'm trying to be awful "look how social justicey i am over here," and that is worthless. so, to sum up from my last blog post: i just graduated from auburn and now i am moving to the mississippi delta to teach high school math. why am i doing this? because it sounds pretty cool to me. i get to teach for the next two years in a place that sounds like it needs some people who are excited about teaching some kids. i think the last post came from my ivory tower because i was so tired of getting those "what on earth are you thinking?" looks from people. but i am learning to live with that. what i am doing is not for everybody, but i am becoming convinced that it is where i should be for the next two years. while all the quotes i threw out last time in my first blog post (the first post is on my facebook page if you haven't read it) are no less true or no less pertinent to my reasoning for doing this, i need not be so arrogant as to say that my efforts will have an effect on these "systemic injustices." i can only humbly try, which is what i'm doing.

so there's the scoop on what i am doing for the next two years and why. i will attempt to update this as often as possible with what is going on. for those of you who know me, i tend to rant beyond belief so if you are looking for conciseity, might want to venture on over to another blog. but in an effort to shut up before i talk for an hour, i will end this. for those curious, i head to mississippi june 4th. that is when it all begins, from then til now i'm in savannah and auburn, reading the 1230492309 pages they assigned us and studying for this test i have to take so that i can teach. that's all. sorry about all the blog confusion. peace.