After Exactly 36 hours in Portland spent frantically cramming most of my belongings into my tiny car, I set off on my epically short road trip to Houston.
As you can see, I took a detour to Spokane to pick up Wyeth. We spent an eventful evening at Priest Lake where we thought someone was going around and looting cabins. Then on Tuesday morning, we left early and headed east. Our GPS got confused and took us to Bozeman (not our original plan) but that was great since Wyeth has a lot of family out there. We decided to stop by and say hello to his grandparents. Wyeth was trying to figure out just how he would get over to see them before the heads to Sweden, so this was a great opportunity. Turns out his cousins were in town for dinner, so we decided to join them for some authentic Chinese cuisine. Wyeth's cousin, Chris, brought his girlfriend to Montana. She is from China and cooked an amazing spread. Seeing this opportunity for Wyeth, I insisted we spend the evening there with his family instead of forging on down the road.
The next day we drove through Montana, Colorado, New Mexico and hit Texas. Along the way we saw lots of farms, some hilarious signs (strong winds exist, avoid windshield damage), the most spectacular lightning storm, and some abandoned missions. We heard some TRUE country music (one sang about how he hopes someone will take care of his dog, Jake, should he die before he wakes). We saw such beautiful parts of the country! We stopped just west of Amarillo and caught up on some sleep; around 1000 miles in one day makes anyone tired!
On Thursday, we drove right on through Texas! I saw it change from desert to whatever it is called here in Houston. There were oil drills and wind generators in the same fields! I wish I could have gotten a picture of that! Speaking of oil, gas is super cheap down here. I think that's because the oil is drilled right in the back yard. We arrived in Houston around 10:00 pm and were again exhausted! Sadly, I had to take Wyeth to the airport early the next morning. Hopefully he can come visit again before he heads across the pond!
So on to that expensive part... When i had to furnish Big Love (the name of my college house), it was pretty easy since there were six of us to contribute things. But this time it is just me and Jessica, my roommate. So we are purchasing things on the cheap and acquiring what we can. Today she bought a couch and chair for $499.99 from Cort Furniture. I'm waiting to do my room until AFTER I get my first paycheck! Hah!
Well, an impressive thunder storm is right on top of us, pouring down rain, thunder and lightning. It's really beautiful but is delaying our couch and chair from being delivered!
On Monday, it's back to teaching stuff for me. We start what is called Round Zero on Monday, which is just the term for the time between Institute and the first day of teaching. We will be working on learning our curriculum and making unit plans and assessments. I'm not really sure how that will work out since I still don't have a placement. It's been a little frustrating since my last two interviews never took place. By no fault of TFA, the principals both left before I got to the interviews, making them impossible to hold. I just hope I get a placement soon. I brought all of my teaching books and can't wait to use them again!
