I Love Feeling Squishy!

So, to make this blog a little less time-intensive to me and to keep the posts shorter, I'm just going to ask myself the same questions everyday to guide my reflection. Ready? GO.

1. What were my expectations for the day?
2. What are the high points of the day?
3. What are the low points of the day?
4. What is one experience that caused me to grow today?
5. What am I excited about for tomorrow?

1. As far as expectations go, mine were pretty high for BTA. I had heard from an awesome woman I know who serves in San Jose, CA (Alex Rouse) how awesome City Year is and how much I'm going to love it, so there wasn't much call for low expectations to begin with. But after I completed the Summer Learning (a series of articles pertinent to serving high-need schools), I knew that City Year fits perfectly with what is important to me and what I want to do with my life. Did the day live up to my expectations? Read on, friend.

2. High points were definitely interacting with my Crazy Team, The Traveler ("Woo! I'll take you there!"). They broke us into these Crazy Teams because we're not assigned to a school yet and therefore don't have School Teams. So it's basically just an awesome group of awesome people. One of our sessions was learning team-building games that we'll play with our students throughout the year. By far, my favorite was Baby I Love You. So you're in a circle, and one by one a person turns to their left and says the words, "Baby, I love you. Won't you please smile for me?" They can say it in any voice with any motions that they want. The person they say it to is NOT allowed to smile or laugh. Needless to say, it was hilarious and I lost every time. No contest. Some people were stone cold champs at it though! I'm super excited to play with students, because we all know that teenagers need to let go of their I'm-too-cool-for-this-nonsense factor every once in a while. :) Speaking of that, one of the pieces of City Year culture is the idea of "feeling squishy." Basically, our goal is to do something outside our comfort zone every day--make ourselves feel squishy. I wish I could have majored in Feeling Squishy in college, because it makes everything so much better when everyone is outside their comfort zone! There were a TON of pieces of CY culture that we were introduced to today, and it was really awesome that we really do keep these values that are written down front and center. It was obvious that everyone who was a part of the staff really takes this job seriously, but they don't take themselves too seriously. Ideal.

3. Didn't have too many low points whatsoever today, except listening to some of my fellow first years laugh at/complain about/belittle some of the culture pieces. Understandably, some of us were uncomfortable with being bubbly and clapping and stuff like that. It's really not too big of a low point though, because it was the first day of the year and I'm sure those people will be the ones leading group songs later on. :)

4. An experience that caused me to grow today was our interaction with the City Year Values. For your reference, here are the 10 values that City Year holds most dear:

1. Service to a Cause Greater Than Self We dedicate ourselves to addressing shared civic challenges through unified action.
2. Students First, Collaboration Always
   The success of the young people we serve is our preeminent goal, best achieved by working in partnership with others who are dedicated to the same cause.
3. Belief in the Power of Young People
   We are committed to harnessing one of the most powerful forces for positive change at work in the world today.
4. Social Justice For All We dedicate ourselves to building a more just, equal, fair, and compassionate world.
5. Level Five Leadership
   We aspire to develop a culture of Level Five leadership across the organization, fostering a blend of great humility with intense professional will.
6. Empathy
   We strive to constantly walk in the moccasins of others.
7. Inclusivity
   We embrace differences as strengths that magnify our capacity to achieve shared goals.
8. Ubuntu
   I am a person through other people; my humanity is tied to yours.
9. Teamwork We strive to work powerfully together in a unified effort to achieve our goals.
10. Excellence We hold ourselves to the highest standards as we strive to execute our mission and steward our resources.

At the beginning of the day, the leaders asked us to identify the value that resonates most strongly with us. A lot of them resonate with me, but I chose "service to a cause greater than self" on the fly. When we got there, we were asked the question, "Why did you choose this value?" and I thought about it a little bit, and realized something about myself: the future doesn't scare me, what scares me is that some day I might be totally okay with living a self-contained life. One where I make money for myself and my family, go to work, come home, and that's it. I am in NO WAY saying that people who live for their families are not excellent, successful people. Only that I see myself living more of an unconventional life. I don't know what that life will look like yet; that's part of the growth. See where I'm going with this? There is a reason that this value is #1, because it really underlines everything that City Year does. We're always worried about the cause first, ourselves second. Hooray for servant leadership!

5. Tomorrow I am excited to get to know people better! Today was breaking the ice; now I want to get down to work on building these lifelong friendships that I know are about to happen!