The Importance of the Written Archive

Perhaps I was a bit hasty in deeming my lost post my last blog. I can foresee at least a few more entries that pertain to the whole Mississippi thing and even beyond that when the gray area of my transition between Mississippi and Notre Dame fades, I will at some point create another blog I think. I’ve always wanted to be one of those people who relax by keeping a journal anyway, and the thought of stress relief combined with creating an open forum for sharing my thoughts in dialogue with others are two very appealing aspects of the blog I can’t ignore.

One of the more practical reasons that I’m continuing to write is that a certain Jake Roth, who delivered an absolutely beautiful farewell speech at our Teacher Corps banquet, has proposed that several of us Teacher Corps party people contribute to a text of our unique experiences. Molina is some ways is correct, that nothing happens unless it’s recorded and written down. In his own words, Jake wants Couzo, Robbie, Molina, and me to write a non-academic narrative over the summer that can be compiled with an introduction into something publishable, even if it never makes it beyond the Teacher Corps network. It’s an exciting proposal – worthy for its own sake besides the vanity involved in fancying myself a real writer and the challenge of actually trying to make some sense of this whole mess I got myself into in a well-written narrative. At this point, I need to keep posting even the most mundane of details so that I comb through this blog to recall my own source material; it is striking how much I’ve been through, how my thoughts have evolved, and how much of all that I’ve already forgotten. In short, it’s a perfect summer project in between attending class in the morning, working part-time at my old Phone Center job in the afternoon, and studying my Greek in the evening. I hope it works out, and I hope the others involved feel similarly engaged by the proposal.

So in other news, my field trip to Mobile, AL to see the Pompeii exhibit at the Gulf Coast Exploreum went splendidly. All my students have given me rave reviews, and it’s quite rewarding to say the least that it was such an enjoyable time after all I had to go through to make it happen (collecting money from 40 students, properly handling that money with the business office, fighting with the highly inefficient and bureaucratic transportation department, getting approval for other teacher chaperones to go, being in charge in general and making decisions about where to go and what to eat, etc.). In the end, though, it truly did all come to fruition, and it reminded me of why I wanted to put it all together in the first place, those unforgettable and soon-to-be-sorely-missed students.

Likewise, I’m beginning to reap the rewards of the Quiz Bowl trip already, even though we haven’t yet gone. It will be a similarly amazing time, I’m sure, spending a day downtown in Chicago and competing all weekend, and since I put out my rock-bottom plea about the funding issue, money has been pouring in from wealthy donors through the Parents for Public Schools network in Jackson to the KIPP school in the Arkansas Delta to as far away as Murrah alumni from the ‘60s now living in Texas. We now have more than enough money to go, I’m pleased as pie to be writing thank-you notes rather than making phone calls begging for money, and the story has gained momentum in the media. I’m currently trying to track down some students who may have a decent photo of our team because the major local papers in Oxford and Jackson are picking up our story and I just received an e-mail explaining that the story is being pitched nationally, whatever that means. I’m now quite humbled by the whole experience- do I really deserve that much attention? All I really wanted was enough money to take some good students to Chicago to try our best in an academic competition and see the city, but even if the attention is getting overblown, at least it is well-deserved for the students’ sake if not my own. This is a hectic month to be sure (I’m still juggling AP prep and homebound tutoring along with my move to Notre Dame that will occur exactly three days upon returning from the Chicago trip) but the results of everything I had planned for it are way above and beyond what I initially had imagined.