and then there were eight.

You probably don't believe me when I say that we lost another team mate.  Rachel quit on Friday and I'm not joking.  This actually happened.  I couldn't believe it either when I heard, but it's actually true. After literally the longest week of the  year, which entailed lots of one on one meetings with people retelling what happened at the dance, crying almost every day, hearing rumors about our team from other corps members, and just a lot of reflection about our year, Rachel was accused of smoking at the dance.  I didn't see her leave to go smoke, but another corps member did, and I trust that other corps member more than Rachel.  It is unbelievable.

Before Rachel left, we all saw her one last time.  This was before I knew she had actually smoked and so we were still on pretty good terms.  When I went out to dinner with her, though, she was so negative about City Year and Erica that it completely turned me off.  She was so rude and arrogant, saying things like "I haven't learned anything" and "It's so easy to quit. You just have to sign some papers." that I was completely done after that. The next morning, I found out that she actually did smoke and it just finalized the whole thing. While it sucks to now be done two corps members, I would rather be short two corps members than have two who can't understand the impact we have on these students. 

I'm sure right now you don't think very highly of my team, and I honestly don't blame you, but you should know a few things about what my team has done.  This week, we had our SWAG (Students Working to Achieve Greatness) week, where we hosted events on Cyberbullying, MYOB (Mind Your Own Business), and Stereotypes for our middle schoolers.  It was a great success and I really think the students learned a lot.  This year, we have focused on over 50 students and tracked the time we spent with them working on ELA and Math.  The majority of our focus list students have gone from failing to passing and some of our students have even made honor roll.   All of our lower school ELA kids have improved their reading fluency and a lot of them are on track to be reading at grade level by the end of the year.

So, I know that you are probably judging my team and wondering how many other people were smoking at that dance, but I can reassure you that the four others who were at that dance were completely sober.  We are all angry at Rachel and Arthur and would never put ourselves in such a situation. I don't smoke and even if I did, I most DEFINITELY wouldn't do it at school.  Again, the number of laws they broke is unbelievable.

I have to say, thank goodness for the staff at NHCS.  The staff at City Year really gave us a hard time about not saying anything, but the staff at NHCS handled it beautifully.  They said they were disappointed in us, but that everyone makes mistakes and it was time to move on.  Hearing that Monday morning was like hearing that we'd won a million dollars.

It's been extremely emotionally draining on my team.  At one point, I was worried that we might not make it.  Like I said, everyone was crying and upset the whole week.  Being at school completely changed that.  Having the students around does wonders (most of the time) for your mood.  While it sucks to lose two corps members, it's like starting over with a whole new team, which is weird, but kind of fun.  We know that we have to do this to prove ourselves and I think the eight of us who are left are prepared and ready to fight.

I hope that you don't think less of my team as a whole because of the actions of these two people.  The rest of my team is fully dedicated to our students and would never do anything like this.  I hope that this is the last post about all of this drama and that we can completely move past this.  As much as it has sucked, it was almost like we needed this as motivation for the next three and a half months because that's all that's left and we're going to give 110%!

“Sometimes, struggles are exactly what we need in our life. If we were to go through our life without any obstacles, we would be crippled. We would not be as strong as what we could have been. Give every opportunity a chance, leave no room for regrets.”