Now that I'm done with my Teach For America commitment, I've moved on to work in Washington, DC. I actually have a lot more to post about teaching, Mississippi, and leaving teaching, but that is not the point of this post. Stay tuned for that.

Last week I got all moved in to my new place on Capitol Hill. I came upon the place in a random kind of way. I emailed the entire DC Teach For America Corps in search of housing and got a response from a Jesse Rauch for a room for considerably less than most pay in the area. At first, the room wasn't open until August, but the girl formerly living in it moved out early and it opened up early. So, once I finished my LSAT, I got my things together and moved up here. I really like Capitol Hill thus far. The homes have a lot of character and the neighborhood is really nice.

But -- one of the things that I had to do in preparation for my departure from Mississippi was construct a loft bed. Many people out there apparently don't know what a loft bed is from some of the conversations I've had. A loft bed is basically a bed on really long legs, enabling one to free up the space under the bed for use. Since I am pretty satisfied with the results of the loft, I'm going to give a quick shout-out to OP Loftbed, the company I bought plans and some hardware from. If you are building a loft, they're definitely worth consideration.

But... why did you bother building such a bed, Ryan??? Well, the reason lies in the dimensions of my new room. See, I'm pretty much getting what I'm paying for in my cheap rent. My room is nine feet by seven feet. You might recognize those dimensions; they're the same as a jail cell. The above picture is of my room in Mississippi -- not DC. So yeah, my new room is tiny, but so is my rent. I made it work with a week worth of labor on the above loft bed.

As far as my job goes, I'm not going to really talk about work. I don't want to end up as one of the fired bloggers. Not that I would, since my job is great and I would have no reason to post anything on it. It's really just a professional line that I don't want to cross. Just know that I'm working in education policy toward the goal of closing the achievement gap.