Settling in

So I finally feel like I've settled into the school year. I've gotten into routine with my classes, I've gotten used to living with roommates again, etc.

On the TKD front, we're been making lots of progress. There was a lot of stuff that needed to get done. Since we lost our old homeschool, we basically had to sit down and make up our own system for the time being until we find someone else. That means we had to come up with ranks (how many and what belt system to use), come up with the requirements to promote to each rank, come up with the rules for sparring in class, etc.

On another note, my school is doing The Coming Out Monologues again this year. This year, I'll be helping out with organizing it. It won't be put on until next semester, but we'll be working on reading through story submissions this semester. The guy who currently runs it is graduating at the end of the semester, so I'm helping out as much as I can. It's my job to make sure that the show doesn't fall through after he leaves. This means that I'll be in charge during auditions, rehearsals, and getting things reading on the actual night. I'm glad the current guy will still be around for all the space reservations and such. I'd hate to have to decide when the rehearsals and the actual show should be all by myself.

Well, that's about it.
Later

My students

At TKD practice this week, our students have been going through pre-testing. Every once in a while, we hold a promotion test where students can earn their next belt rank. At this test, the head of our TKD home school (the TKD program offered at my college is a branch of this man's program) comes down to run everyone's test. Before any of our students can actually test though, my co-instructor and I have to approve them by making sure they know all of the material by having them run through it. That's what pre-testing is. Testing always makes me think back on how far each of my students have come. They really have no idea how proud I am of them. You see all kinds of kids come into TKD. The ones who I'm most proud of are the ones who find some way of bettering themselves through the program. I see angry people come in and watch them slowly learn how to control their tempers. I watch shy kids slowly become more confident and come out of their boxes.

One student, I'll call her Lisa, started coming to class when her friend dragged her along. She used to be extremely depended on her friends for motivation. Now, she's become very strong, independent, confident and no longer needs anyone as a crutch; she now comes to class on her own, even though her friend is now studying abroad and doesn't come to class with her anymore.

I think the student who I'm most proud of is that guy that I'll call Tommy. TKD is something that just does not come natural to Tommy. When he came in, he was single-handedly the most awkward student I've ever seen. However, his mentality in class is the best I've ever seen. He's kind and respectful to everyone in class, he listens to advice, he's willing to try new things all the time, and he's not afraid to give everything his all. He perseveres more than anyone I've seen. He still struggles whenever he has new techniques to learn, but he's one of the better students when it comes to the techniques that he's already learned.

I probably sound like a broken record at this point, but I felt the need to express how much I care about these kids. (I call them kids, but really they're all around my age)

Attempt # 3

As the title says, this is my 3rd attempt at starting a blog.

First time: revealed too much info about myself and deleted the post.

Second time: Made shortly after deleting my first attempt. I made a few posts, but it seemed like no one read it, so i deleted it (i also didn't like how whiney my posts were). My apologies to steevo. i checked my email a week or so after i deleted my posts. apparently, he had been reading them and left a comment. I also apologize to anyone else who may had been reading them.

anyway, attempt #3:

Hey there. call me Robbie. That's not my real name, but i feel more comfortable using pseudonyms. Anyway, a little bit of info on myself. I'm a 19 year old college sophomore. I'm currently a Tae Kwon Do instructor at my school. I'm also openly gay. I came out in high school and had an extremely positive response, but I'll talk about that later.

If anyone reading this takes Tae Kwon Do, I earned my black belt in ITF prior to coming to college, however the curriculum taught at my school is WTF, so i've learned that material as well. For those of you who have no idea what I'm talking about, don't worry. I'll explain in a future post.

anyway, that's all I have to say for now.

later