Day 3/Day 4

On Wednesday I spent my day at the youth speaks office in the mission, and sat in on a workshop taught by Josh Merchant, whom won the annual youth speaks teen poetry slam a couple years ago. This workshop was titled "Queeriosity" and is focused on discussions about equal rights, and community's values. We spoke a lot about identities within a community, and if you necessarily need to believe everything a community represents in order to identify with it. I shared how I was raised Catholic, but I do not believe in the religion, but when people ask me I still say I'm Irish Catholic, because its my background. There were often times during the workshop when discussion would fall apart, and people would start writing random stuff in their journals, but Josh was really good at bringing  back everyone's attention, and then giving a writing prompt for people to explore. There were several freshmen and sophomores in the workshop, which definitely required Josh to give them more support while they are developing ideas, and encourage them to write about what they shared with the group. I left at about 6:10, and got home just in time for the Warriors game, so that is why I did not post this yesterday.

I am very happy to see the sun out of the window at 1 on a thursday. Today there are no workshops scheduled, but I am at the office doing some small organization jobs and working on my lesson plan proposal for Ms. Piersol. I have been to so many workshops, and so many of them have been successful, but there have also been many that didn't benefit many people in the room, so I have been analyzing closely what techniques and approaches are the most successful. I have put a lot of thought into how I will construct my workshops at San Francisco Day school using all of my prior experience with youth speaks, werd, and especially these great past three days. I am going to meet with Ms. Piersol at five tonight at a cafe in Bernal Heights, and I am going to present her my general lesson plan for the classes, and I will receive my schedule for teaching at San Francisco Day School. I am nervous, but very excited for these upcoming events, and I so grateful I get to put in this much time into what I love to do.