Chicago!!!!

I feel right at home along the lake front path on Lake Michigan. It is one of those places for me that grounds me, reminds me how small I am but also how I fit into this wild, dangerous and adventurous city. Part of me feels like this is home. That always bugged my Michigan family. However, they can't get mad at me for saying that, both sets of grandparents started in Chicago. I ran about 8-9 miles this weekend along that familiar path, where you cross the North Beach bridge, run alongside the massive, thundering waves of Lake Michigan and pass tourists at Navy Pier.

My Polish side - you know it, started in the northwest part of Chicago. My English/Scottish (?) side started out in White Sox territory. My family heritage, I should be a White Sox fan. Sorry, but I am not. Tigers all the way :)

My bestest friends in the whole world still ride the El, enjoy Michelin-star restaurants, battle the wind and find fashionable treasures in Wicker Park, Bucktown and Lakeview. They started their adult lives in this fabulous city and I miss them so much. Why does my semi-hippie, meandering spirit travel away from family and friends? How is it that one type of happiness weighs more on my well-being than the happiness I experience when I am with them?

How do I mix my need for adventure, athletic pursuit and mountain madness with my friends' sensibility at living in the same city, to be each others family? Will it come together? How do I satisfy my need to have these girls in my life but live my life in Denver, Colorado?

We all have those friends - friends for life, regardless of zip code, background, lifestyle. Some stick with their high school friends from childhood, some find friendship and family in their churches. I found mine in Chicago, a big city where I found myself. These friends were there for that journey and I can't wait to share the next 50 years with them.

Luckily, here in Denver I have started to build new friendships, foster new family feelings at holidays and discover more about myself with these new friends. And I am truly thankful for my Denver friends, they are becoming so important to me.

My last-minute plans to head to Chicago, spend a long weekend battling the cold and rain of Chicago winter and consuming so much great food (shout out to The Purple Pig and its fantastic sous chef, Amanda Ray)

But all that grey weather made me realize... I prefer living in Colorado and visiting Chicago

Sometimes someone else says it .....

I love Teach for America. I am a junkie. I think the organization has had tremendous influence within our communities and even if you don't like that teachers get 6 weeks of training and are thrown to the wolves..err..12 year olds..so soon, people are talking more and more about the cracks in the system, the lack of funding for schools and our future leaders, the disparity between rich and poor. TFA expedited the conversations, politics and reform. This weekend, Washington DC will host TFA's 20th anniversary summit. 20,000 some alum and who knows how many corps members. DC is going to have the brightest minds in our country for 2.5 days. I wish I could go, surround myself with the driven, Type A people that work to get students from 1st grade level to 6th grade level, that inspire a love of math in our students, that get undocumented students to college... I am in awe of the power we have to change.

This article is another look at how TFA has influenced our society - and digs into the science behind who we are as TFA teachers and alum.

http://educationnext.org/creating-a-corps-of-change-agents/