Recently I've had an overabundance of random connections in my life. Check out how freakish each, let alone all, of these random occurrences are.

High School Circle Meets College ... In London

About a year ago Lindsay was studying at London School of Economics. While there, she took her foreign service exam. The way I understand the story is that in the course of trying to find a particular place she needed to be, she ran into Sam Silverberg, a college friend and fellow University Democrat. In fact, she succeeded me as UDems Vice President. They started talking and figured out that I was their totally random connection. On an even more odd note, I ran into Sam last week at Union Station, where I was meeting Lindsay for lunch. Crazy.

A Sixth Grade Heartthrob

In the course of planning Delta to DC, I sent fundraising letters out to friends, Teach For America corps members, etc. When all fundraising was done, I organized a small meet-and-greet with donors and the kids in DC. My friend Alyssa from UVA was one of my very gracious donors, along with David, a TFA teacher in Greenville. Alyssa saw the E-vite that I sent out and shot me an email about this particular David. I told her that he was from Richmond, so she might know him. She immediately called me because it became clear to her that this was her date to a camp dance in sixth grade. Apparently the two had kept very sparse communication over the years.

College Circle Meets TFA Circle ... in Prague

A few weeks ago my housemate in Mississippi was traveling Europe and Kenya. Prague was one of his stops in Europe. He was out one night with people that he met and ran into my friend Matt Starr from UVA. After Andrew indicated that he was a teacher in Mississippi, Starr said, "Hey I know a teacher in Mississippi!"

A Throwback to T-Ball

I was in New York City this past weekend visiting Andrew, since he was back from his worldly travels. We met up with his long-time friend, Jeremy, and went out on the town on Sunday night. In the course of the usual get-to-know you conversation, Jeremy said that he went to college with someone from my hometown, Palm Desert. He went to school and now lives in New York City with Sean Oeding, a guy that I played T-ball with when I was in first and second grade.

WTF?

All these random connections got me thinking about the probability of them happening. When you think about these things in terms of the entire US population, they are pretty striking. But -- all of the connections are amongst college students of roughly the same year. If you think of the probability of this happening amongst a nationwide class of college students in, say, the top 100 colleges, it makes a bit more sense ... but it's still pretty weird. When Harry Met Sally doesn't seem too implausible in light of all this.

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Last year around this time I began organizing a field trip for my classroom to Washington, DC. After months of organizing and fundraising, my trip was coming together. I want to do this bit in many parts, six to be exact, because it's quite a tale. The story starts on the eve of departure, March 10, 2006. I have eight kids confirmed and ready to go, after once cancelled the day before due to her grandmother passing.

My entire budget for the trip was $6,000. That included transportation, lodging, and meals for 15 people for an entire week. I had to cut costs everywhere possible, and we therefore needed to take a train to Washington. Everything was set, but I hit a brick wall three weeks before the trip once I finally raised all the money I needed. Amtrak did not have any more tickets available from the Meridian, MS. As I later found out, one of the overwhelmingly white private schools in the area had purchased them up for their own excursion to DC. Damn white people! My only option was to rent cars and drive them from Greenville, MS to Atlanta and catch the train there. So, I booked two cars and went to pick them up the night before we were to depart for Atlanta.

I went to pick up the cars with Brianna, a dear friend and fellow Teach For America teacher. She for some reason volunteered to go on the trip with me. Once I got to the rental center I immediately ran into three problems that would stop the trip. First, this particular car rental company did not rent to persons under the age of 24. We were both 23 at the time. Second, we needed two credit cards from two different people to hold the cars because one person can't be responsible for multiple cars. The problem was that Brianna had her identity stolen not long before then and did not have a credit card. Lastly, I made both reservations under my name. The company therefore thought it was a mistake and cancelled one, leaving us only one car.

The credit problem was solved somewhat easily. Brianna's debit card sufficed for getting the car and I would pay the bill once we returned the thing. Not having the car there was another big problem. At first the lady behind the counter told us that we could drive clear across the state to Columbus and visit the agency there. After some going back and forth, her boss allowed us to take out one of the local cars. Finally, as we were doing all this, it came to the part where she needed our licenses and saw our ages. She looked at them and said she couldn't rent us the cars. I played the taking-the-kids-on-a-field-trip card and asked, "Do you think you might be able to read the date wrong? These kids are so excited to go to Washington..." She caved and we got the cars. I slipped her a ten on the way out. The name of the company will remain unsaid, so as to protect this particular employee.

On top of dealing with that during the afternoon, a cashier's check with all my petty cash got lost in the mail and I had to withdraw $1,100 of my own money. I felt bad for the woman at the bank. Most of the money was in $1 and $5 bills for meals and she had to count all of it.

The next morning we assembled at the school at 5:30 AM. People were of course late. Before leaving we prayed, led by the father of one of the students going on the trip. He is a reverend at one of the many local churches. Once we were sure that Jesus would be looking after us on our trip, Brianna, four parents, eight children, and I were off on our adventure.

We stopped for lunch at a Wendy's and I was super stressed. I wanted to get to Atlanta before 3:00 so that I could get the cars in on time to the company's branch near the train station. At the rate we were going, we wouldn't make it. The kids were having fun, though.

In an attempt to make the 3:00 deadline I kicked up the speed a bit on the highway and the most predictable thing happened! I got pulled over by an Alabama highway patrol car. I was very embarrassed to have gotten pulled over in front of my kids. I could only imagine the jokes, janking, and cutting that was going on in Brianna's car. The highway patrolman, a middle aged black man, asked me why I was going so fast and I again played the taking-the-kids-on-a-field-trip card. He took one look at the kids I was taking on the trip and at the caravan of cars behind me and let me off with a warning. It turned out that I was completely wrong about the girls in the car behind me. They were all praying for me while the highway patrolman was talking to me. As one of my students would shout after getting a good grade on a test, "Thank you, Jesus!"

At this point it was beyond clear that I wasn't going to make it to Atlanta in time. I'd just have to take the cars to the airport clear across town and get a taxi back, which we did for the nominal fee of $45.

The kids had a great time at the train station. They entertained themselves pretty well, which worked out after the train was 3 hours late. The train station was a good socializing experience for them. They asked lots of questions like, "What is Wa-cho-via?" They also stared at the cars on the highway below for a long time. Many hadn't seen a scene like it in real life before.

Perhaps one of the most awesome things that happened on the trip was a totally impromptu lesson in multiculturalism. A couple kids started talking to the above man and at first I was in don't-talk-to-strangers mode. But I watched for a minute and it turned out that the man was a doctor from Argentina in Atlanta for a conference. The kids were so interested in the guy. They asked him all kinds of questions about being a doctor, Argentina, his family, etc. They kept asking despite difficulty in communication. The man barely spoke English and the Delta dialect made it even harder for him to comprehend what they were saying. As the exchange was taking place, the most awesome thing happened, for a teacher, anyway. They asked Miguel (Mr. Michael to them) if there were any black people in Argentina. Miguel mulled it over for a minute and said that there weren't many, but that they had mestizos. Immediately my kids eyes lit up and they yelled in unison, "Mestizos!" We had studied mestizos in class a few weeks prior. It was so awesome that they made the real-world connection and so vindicating for me because social studies was then a valid use of time at school.

The train finally came. Once everybody was settled in, Brianna and I went up to the food car. In the food car we ran into students and staff from the white school that bought up all the tickets that I was supposed to get. I was too tired to begrudge them, so I took some Tylenol PM and fell asleep.

Tomorrow: Children on the Metro, Arlington National Cemetery, and Union Station. Stay tuned!

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I meant to start this little mini-series a while back on my blog, but as mentioned here, I haven't been able to lately. What I want to put together is a collection of the places in and around the Mississippi Delta that one could check out if visiting or living there, like me.

The first place I want to showcase is officially a little bit outside of the Delta -- but by only a number of street blocks. That place is the National Civil Rights Museum (NCRM) in Memphis, TN.

The NCRM is built into the Lorraine Motel, the motel where Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated. The hotel is preserved as it was on the day of the assassination and the NCRM is built into the side and back of the Lorraine Motel's facade.

All the rest of the pictures in this post are not mine, since the museum did not allow photography. Sadly, there was not a ton to take pictures of. The museum was very text heavy. They offered an audio presentation via headphones for a couple dollars, but the four of us that went elected to read the exhibits.

After the first few halls of material, the reading just got to be a bit much. But, I don't really know how the museum could better convey the significance of a legal ruling that isn't on the level of Plessy v. Ferguson or Brown v. Board. Maybe I should have gotten the audio presentation.

That isn't to say that there wasn't some cool aspects to the museum. In one part, there is a bus identical to the bus where Rosa Parks made her famous protest. You actually get to walk through the bus, which was interesting. There is also a good depiction of student sit-ins.

The most interesting part of the museum is the end of the Lorraine Motel portion, where you get to see the inside of rooms 306 and 307 recreated nearly as they were on the day of King's assassination. It's pretty eerie and sad.

On the other side of the street is the expansion to the NCRM, which opened in 2002. It is built into the building where James Earl Ray assassinated King. The central question of that portion of the museum is: What happened since King's assassination? It starts out showing what happened to James Earl Ray and then goes on to civil rights since 1968. It also goes on to profile leaders in the continuing Civil Rights Movement. I unfortunately didn't have a lot of time to explore this portion of the museum because I had to get back go Greenville.

On a side note, I found this picture while doing some research for this post. This is from a few weeks ago when Bush and Japanese President Koizumi visited Memphis (mostly to see Graceland). Just to note: Bush is not one of the civil rights leaders featured at the museum's second portion. It should go without saying, but I for some reason feel like I need to make that clear.

For sake of completeness I'm mentioning this. The Smithsonian American History Museum has a great Civil Rights Exhibit. I would tell you to go see it, but today is sadly the last day of its run.

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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.

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