see you in september...

I'm having a hard time understanding that September is really here already, but there's nothing you can do to stop time from continuing to plug along. I know that I've been able to visit with many of you - but I figured I could do some sort of post here to give you an update on my summer since my last post. I had planned on posting in a more frequent fashion, but as work consumed my existence this summer - this is the way that I'm going to have update on what was a 'ado about Mitzi' in the past 3 months.

I'll start from the very beginning...

My 5th nephew came into the world on May 29 - luckily, I was able to see him the day he was born - just as I was able to do with his 2 older sisters...before I had to head back to Chicago to gear up for institute.

with Peter just a few hours after he was born

The excitement prior to moving into institute was that I purchase my first pair of TOMS (well, actually I purchased 2 pairs). I knew that I would be walking (and running) across campus during institute - in some cases carrying boxes...so I wanted something that was light-weight and as convenient as a pair of flip-flops and TOMS were the answer - and they do good things too. Overall, I have been very happy with my TOMS and would recommend them to anyone looking for a close-toe flip-flop alternative.

June 8th - I moved into my apartment on the campus of the Illinois of Institute Technology. For some reason, I never took a picture of my apartment - but it would be my home for the next 7.5 weeks. June 8-June 14 is "Week -1" in TFA-institute-speak. Basically a TFA institute runs for 5 weeks - so the weeks prior to corps members arriving for training are called "Week -1 and Week 0". Only myself, the full-time team I work with throughout the year, and the leadership team of the summer staff we hired, trained, and would be managing moved lived on campus Week -1, then the rest of the summer staff moved in at the beginning of Week 0, and as you can assume Week 1 is when corps members move in for their 5 weeks of training.

I'm having a hard time trying to explain exactly all that happens before corps members arrive in those few short days - but the only thing that I can think of it as is what a campaign's advance team does before the candidate they are working for arrives. Only in TFA's case, we were planning for about 615 corps members to arrive while maintaining the support for the 150 staff members who just arrived in a new city for the summer. Needless to say - I was working about 120 hours/week the first 2 weeks on campus to set up this small city for our staff and corps members to function in.

One of our larger tasks was our supply delivery - since the Chicago institute was brand new - that means we didn't have anything...so in 2 semi-trucks were 700 boxes that we unloaded, sorted, and organized - at the end of institute we would collect everything, pack it up, and store it for next summer. This is a picture of the 180 crates we stacked and lined in one hallway.

Checking in with Taylor (school operations manager coordinator) during Week -1

I set up this "Reimbursement Station" for my staff to work at if they wanted to be reimbursed for their travel to institute. It was a HUGE success!!

My operations coordinators and I are working to sort the materials that were used to train our staff during Week 0.

Our staff...well most of it - and their ID pictures!

June 21 - The inaugural Chicago institute starts. 14 days after I moved to IIT - corps members arrived and institute life truly began. One of the staff members and I would joke about how each day was really about 4 days when you think about everything that would go on even before you had breakfast. Here's a day in the life of my life this summer for example:

"Day 1"
4:30am - Alarm clock goes off
4:39am - Snooze alarm goes off
4:48am - Snooz alarm goes off again and I finally get up
5:00am - Leave my apartment and head over to the main campus building for lunch pick-up
5:10am - Make sure all the operations staff are there for lunch pick-up, take my position to make sure corps members and staff are following the flow of traffic to get their lunch and head to breakfast
5:15am - Corps members and instructional staff start arriving to pick-up their lunch. The only words that I say for about the next two hours are "Good morning!","Have a great day at school!", "No, you can only have 1 drink with your lunch." "Please, go up these stairs so that we can keep traffic moving." "No, please go this way instead." "I understand that way looks quicker, but we are trying to move 700 people through this line right now, please go this way instead."
7:00am - Head out to the busline and check on the staff there, greet the bus drivers, and make sure the buses leave on time.
7:30am - Get breakfast with bus duty and lunch pick-up staff

Checking in on bus duty - you can see one of the 20+ buses on the left-hand side of the picture

"Day 2"
8:00am - Catch-up on any e-mails that came in over night
9:00am - Meet with staff to make sure they know what needs to happen that day
9:30am - Meet with Director of Institute Operations to plan meeting with operations director meeting.
10am - Operations Director meeting
11:15am - Check-in phone call with my school operations manager coordinator
12:00pm - Lunch
1:00pm - Shower

"Day 3"
2:00pm - Prepare for meeting with school directors, meet with operations coordinators
3:00pm - Individual meetings with operations directors about institute close-out
4:00pm - Greet corps members with the rest of the operations staff when they arrive back at campus.
4:30pm - Check-in with school operations manager coordinator
5:00pm - Dinner

"Day 4"
6:00pm - School Operations Manager meeting
7:00pm - School Director meeting
8:00pm - Check-in with operations across campus
9:00pm - Check e-mail from the afternoon and respond to staff needs
10:00pm - Check on copy center and resouce center
11:00pm - Final e-mail check
11:30pm - Bed

Granted, this was typical day - but throw in a case of the swine flu, departing corps members, a car accident, an unhappy staff member, a frustrated corps member, a 45 minute wait at the copy center, and my personal favorite - bacon on the vegetarian sandwiches - the day becomes much more than 'typical'.

But I survived...and so did our staff...and most importantly, so did our corps members - who are now beginning their first year of teaching in either Chicago, Milwaukee, Kansas City, South Dakota, Boston, Charlotte, or Eastern North Carolina.

So for about 7.5 weeks - institute was life. We did have fun though and TFA always knows how to celebrate. I made some great friends who I hope will return next summer! Also, probably the best part is that as a full-time institute staff member, I am required to take 3 weeks of comp time following institute...and tack on a week of vacation I've acculmulated - you get 4 weeks of work-free life. Now that my final days of vacation are approaching - I'm anxious about heading back to Chicago to beginning planning the 2010 Chicago institute...but also renewed and ready to do things even better this year.

The operations team!

The four operations coordinators I managed - they are completing college this year and all 4 plan to apply for the corps.

Taylor and I - the school operations power force!! We exceeded our goals for school operations - which is exactly why I decided to join full-time institute staff!

The operations team enjoyed the open-bar Happy Hour w/ Karaoke one Friday afternoon!!

The full-time Chicago institute management team - our last night in Chicago after 7.5 weeks together!