And then there were two...

Ok so I am officially a horrible blogger. I think my last post was sometime in my 2nd week here, and unbelievably, I am now about to enter my 9th and final week here in the Delta. I am completely confounded that this summer is wrapping up. It is especially surreal because everyone except for Kimi and has left, so I am in limbo. Part of me in is reflection mode thinking about the whole summer and preparing to leave, but I still have a week left with my students.
Last night was our awards ceremony at the Freedom Project. We presented certificates of completion, class awards and LEAD awards (one each for Love, Education, Action and Discipline).
In addition to giving out the awards, we were lucky enough to meet one of the founders who came for the awards night, Shawn Raymond, we gave staff remarks about the summer and the students surprised us with their own homemade awards for the staff. (I got most talented!).
We also wanted to give the students something to remember the summer by, so we made a mix CD with a song dedicated to each individual. The gift we are most excited about though is we are giving each student a book. The past few days have been hectic and choosing the right book for each student was a large part of that, but we are really excited because we got to pick a book that we felt really spoke to each individual student.
I'm not even going to try and make this a final wrap-up, reflection post, because A) I'm not leaving yet, I still have the Civil War trip next week and B) I won't be good at it.
I will say that so far, this summer has been one of the most intense, immersive and absolutely unforgettable experiences of my life.

Sorry it's been so long

I was just searching the web trying to find the schedule for the Mound Bayou Founder's Days blues festival which is tomorrow (no luck, all I found was a number with the name Mamie Tate) and I happened upon the blog from the Robertsons who were here last summer. It was great to read what they had to say, but it also reminded me how horrible I have been about keeping a blog, so I thought I would at least try to give some sort of update since I haven't posted since the beginning of my second week here.
This summer has been a blur, and I can't believe that I only have 3 weeks left. It seems like I just walked into the Freedom Project yesterday, but it's been 5 crazy, lesson planning, mistake making but mostly amazing weeks. We are done with the 5 weeks of Freedom School in Sunflower and this Monday we are taking the students to Ole Miss for the week of "college life" there.
In defense of my horrible blogging skills, I have to say that these weeks have been incredibly work intensive. Coming into this I knew that teaching would be hard work, so I wasn't surprised, but it has been hard trying to balance work, with some sort of free time and making sure that I get to spend time with all the great scholars who are here.
These past weeks have been incredible. I am so happy that I ended up at Sunflower. I was extremely nervous about teaching when I first decided I would come here, and I wasn't sure it woudl be something that I enjoyed, but it has been the perfect placement for me. The mission of the Project and the teaching have been a great fit. I think that I have really discovered a new part of myself. There have certainly been challenges, and there are so many things that I wish I had done differently in terms of lesson plans and teachign methods, but I also feel like my students and I made great progress over these 5 weeks and I'm very excited to go on these next trips with them.
My students have absolutely been the highlight of my time here. I have never met and more hilarious, bright, energetic, amusing and exhuberant group of people. They keep me on my toes, make me think about things differently and fill a room with laughter.
This summer has been marked by an incredible amount of laughter. Whether it's at school with the students, or Erin Kimi and I rolling on the floor about something that happened, I can't remember when I laughed as much and as often as I have this summer.

Now I have to research the history of hip hop for the elective Kimi and I are teaching at Ole Miss, but I just wanted to do a quick little post.