James Meredith, and Induction, and the Delta, Oh My!

I have officially survived the first few days of Induction, and I'm feeling more and more excited to get back in the classroom and start teaching and building community!  This past week has been a bit of a whirlwind, so let me quickly recap the amazing things that have happened at Induction so far.  To clarify what Induction is, it is basically the week before Institute (where we teach summer school) where the other Delta corps members and I learn about the Delta, the history of the area, and the communities we will be working in.  On the first day (June 5th) after moving in, we all gathered in the Balogna Performing Arts Center for the Induction/Welcome to the Delta kick off.  Here, we were able to get a glimpse into the role Teach for America plays in the community and the obstacles that students in the Delta face on a daily basis.  Aside from Teach for America alumni and staff, we also had the privilege of hearing from the Senator of Mississippi, a brilliant high school senior girl, and James Meredith.  I knew that James Meredith was important based on the roaring applause and standing ovation he got, but I was embarrassed to say that I didn't know who he was.  I realized that James Meredith was the first African American to attend the University of Mississippi.  Along with this, he was also very involved in the Civil Rights Movement in the Delta.  With this said, it was an extreme honor and privilege to hear him speak about the issues of education today.  It is sad to me to think that in our country the geographic region a child is born in to will determine the quality of education they receive.  It is one thing to hear about the civil rights movement and learn about in school, but to actually see people involved in the movement who are still alive today was a pretty amazing thing.

After the opening day we started Induction, which basically gives corps members the opportunity to learn about the region, movements taking place, how to build community, and diversity/identity.  The groups are all extremely interesting, but going from 5:45am to 8:00pm (this includes breakfast, lunch, and dinner) makes for a pretty busy day.  I basically get back to my dorm room and just want to be mellow and relax a bit.  The sessions today were especially interesting, the main reason being that I got to see inside my school!  Teach for America set up community panels, so they bussed us out to a few different schools and then we got to meet people from our community and ask them questions.  It was AMAZING!!!  I was excited about my school and all the work they are doing to give back to their community and help their students, and now that I have heard more great things, I am even more excited!  It is so great to hear about the school and county by someone who actually lives in the community and is an integral part of it.  So I am literally falling asleep as I type this, so sorry for the short post.  I'll write more tomorrow!   

Fear the Okra!

So Dad and I have basically just been exploring around for the last few days.  Delta State University is a really nice campus, kind of reminds me of Western Washington University (where I went) with all of the brick buildings.  Oh, and did I mention that the school mascot is the fighting okra?  In case you didn't know, okra is a vegetable, so it's fair to say that their mascot is pretty amazing.

Fear the Okra!!! Delta State University, Cleveland, MS.

As someone who loves random trivia, I thought now would be a good time to name some fun facts about Mississippi!  Enjoy!
 
State Bird:  Mockingbird
State Flower:  Magnolia
State Beverage:  Milk (I thought this was super random...lol)

The world's largest cactus plantation is in Edwards.

Elvis Presley was born in Tupelo, on January 8, 1935.

In 1963 the University of Mississippi Medical Center accomplished the world's first human lung transplant and, on January 23, 1964, Dr. James D. Hardy performed the world's first heart transplant surgery.

The first football player on a Wheaties box was Walter Payton of Columbia.

Rootbeer was invented in Biloxi in 1898 by Edward Adolf Barq, Sr.

All of these facts were retrieved from http://www.50states.com/facts/miss.htm.

M-I-S-S-I-S-S-I-P-P-I!!

I made it to the Mississippi Delta!  It took my Dad and I four days to get down here, with a bit of sight seeing along the way, and now we are basically just killing time and exploring around Cleveland until registration on June 5th.

Day 1 (May 29th):

My Dad's car all loaded up with my car on the dolly.

We departed last Tuesday at 5:30am, our coffee thermoses and travel mugs full, and started off across Washington state.  On our way through Washington we saw the wind mills in Ellensburg, the Iron Horse statues  across the Columbia River, and stopped at a rest stop just past Sprague Lake before continuing on towards Idaho.  We drove straight across Idaho and crossed the Montana border at 1:30pm.  Montana was chilly and bumpy, and there was even snow on some of the mountains.  At 2:00pm we stopped at the 50,000 Silver Dollar Bar and Casino.  My Dad says that he stopped off at 50,000 Silver Dollar Bar 40 years ago when he was still in the service.  So crazy!  The bar basically has one of the largest collections of silver dollar coins, and the coins are all mounted on the walls and under glass in the bar.  At 2:45pm we grabbed coffees at a cute little espresso stand in St. Regis, where we realized we had just crossed over into Mountain Time (this meant it was now 3:45pm).  After making a gas stop at 5:00pm, we then stopped off for dinner at the 4 B's Restaurant in Dear Lodge.  The coffee was fresh and hot, the burgers were delicious, and our waitress was very friendly.  At 7:10pm we crossed the Continental Divide, at a height of 6,393ft!  As we continued to drive through the mountains, we drove through a bit of a thunderstorm, and saw some pretty crazy lightning.  At 11:30pm, we pulled off at a rest area just past Big Timber to catch a few winks before heading out the next morning.

Iron Horse Statues after crossing the Columbia River.

Wind Mills in Ellensburg.

  Day 2 (May 30th):

Statute at Little Bighorn National Monument.
Near Crow Agency in Montana.

At 5:05am we started the next leg of our journey towards Billings, Montana.  After grabbing breakfast in Absarokee and fueling up, we stopped at the Little Bighorn National Monument at 8:15am.  This monument is the battlefield where Custer's Last Stand happened.  It was interesting to read about the history of the area and see some of the actual artifacts from the time period.  We spent a little more time driving across Montana, and Dad and I both decided that it takes FOREVER to get across Montana.  It's huge!  At 10:45am we stopped off in Sheridan, WY where we saw that the weather in the south was getting pretty crazy (thunderstorms and tornado warnings! Eeek!). We stopped off in a few places in Wyoming including Casper, Douglas, Sinclair, and finally Cheyenne where we stayed at the Rhodes Inn for the night.  I was excited to finally take a shower!  

Custer's Last Stand at the Little Bighorn National Monument.

Day 3 (May 31st):

Fields of wheat as far as the eye can see in Nebraska off
Highway 83.

6:00am we grabbed continental breakfast and hit the road.  At 11:00am we stopped in North Platte, Nebraska for lunch, and then at 6:00pm we encountered some issues with the transmission in the truck.  For some reason it wouldn't  go into high gear, so Dad spent about 45min. trying to get things figured out.  Oh, I forgot to mention that we also entered a new time zone in Nebraska.  We still don't know how we fixed it, but it started working and we headed into Salina, Kansas for dinner.  Dad was determined to make it through Oklahoma City before stopping for the night, so it wasn't until 1:30am that we stopped near Okemah, Oklahoma at a rest stop for the night.  

Sunrise at 6:30 near gas station near outside of Okemah, OK.
Check out how much cheaper the gas is.

Day 4 (June 1st):
We woke up at 6:00am and headed towards Ft. Smith, Arkansas.  We grabbed coffee and breakfast and rolled through Vian, Oklahoma at 8:00.  At 9:00am we made it to Fayetville, Akansas where we stopped at The Welcome Center.  The lady there was super friendly and she gave us a map of Mississippi and showed us how to get to Cleveland and Lambert.  At 3:00 we drove across the muddy Mississippi past ClarksdaleMississippi, and reached our final destination of Cleveland, Mississippi at 3:45!   

Crossing the bridge from Arkansas into Mississippi
over the Mississippi River!

The Mississippi River is HUGE!

All of the crops in the Delta are extremely healthy and big.
We drove by corn that was 8ft tall and already tasseling.
The Delta is green and beautiful.