community

ok first off i need to say something extremely important. it has come to my attention that most of the people reading my intensely important blog are doing so only via facebook. if you read the previous sentence and said to yourself something like "yes, that is true of me" you are missing out on something very incredible. the facebook updates are tied to my actual blog (http://thatdelta.blogspot.com/). you all must go there and look at it so the 45 minutes to an hour that i spend formatting the wonderful thing are not done in vain. ok, that is all on that subject.

things are still going well here in helena. my house actually looks like people live in it, which is strange. much props to my home decorators erin and cindy rogers for the wonderful job they did arranging my room and making it look like a grown person's. mom and i had several disagreements about things such as "throw pillows" which i saw as having no place in my new room while she adamantly disagreed. we compromised on one extra pillow. my house is pretty legit though. you should all come vist and check it out some friday in the fall when you come to watch the central cougars dominate the opposition while coach rogers excitedly fires up the team from the sidelines.

a quick story and then i shall be on my way. so we have these neighbors who are older and british and awesome. one of the first days we were here maureen (the wife) brought us some chicken salad and bagel chips. i found this to be quite a nice gesture so i, on a whim, invited them over for dinner on saturday night. i then returned to my kitchen and found that i had
a. nothing to cook b. nothing to cook with c. no idea how to cook. i quickly found a recipe out of the "hungry girl" cookbook my mother had so graciously bequeathed unto me and ran to wal-mart. i found myself buying things like can openers, measuring cups, etc. since we had none of these simple appliances. i then returned to the house to discover the george forman on which i was plannning on cooking dinner was smaller than i remembered and held but one piece of chicken at a time. the neighbors arrived around 6:30 (the time i told them dinner should be ready) and dinner was served promptly at 7:15 (the vegetables were also still cooking at that time). nonetheless, they seemed to enjoy the night. the food was edible and i now have lots of random spices in the cupboard. i plan on making the same chicken recipe about five more times so that none of it goes to waste. after the food we played some cards and neville (the husband) dominated us all in a game of presidents.

oh yeah as far as school goes... i've just been doing lots of planning for algebra 1 even though i'm still not 100% sure that i will be teaching that subject. i really do hope so, but i should find out later this week. the lineman are off this week for practice because the skill positions are still working 7 on 7 drills. we start practice in full pads at the beginning of august, and i am ready for that. one of my lineman is rated as one of the top ten in the state; that is pretty exciting.

the sense of community here is incredible. everyone has been so receptive and tfa seems to have a high reputation around helena. i've got a lot of "you guys do so much good work here." but also a lot of "well good luck with that" yesterday even a "do you have a concealed weapon permit?" but nonetheless, the way people have reached out and greated us has been inspiring and overwhelming. the sense of community i can already feel is why i wanted to teach in a rural area. people seem to find such wonder in the small beauties of life in rural communities. even though i know life will get extremely crazy once school gets started, i hope that i will continue to be able to reflect on the goodness of community. so many things have fallen into place so far that i can't help but believe this is exactly where i need to be. its now just up to me to do what i came here to do, invest in some kids lives. ok, that's enough for now. i'm out. peace.