weekend roundup

Friday starting off with a bang, getting a new phone for work (although its not a very good/cool one) and finally receiving my peanut butter tims. You don't need much of an imagination to realize how ill these babies are. 5 weeks of patience have finally paid off. That night i chilled at one of my city year buddie's pad in the outskirts of center city, just rapping about our favorite hip hop albums and how shitty our jobs are, but how awesome our schools and students are. Also felt kinda cool that i finally drove into the city while it was raining pretty tough, and made it without crashing, getting lost, or freaking out too much, not to mention nobody messed with my car. Score.

Saturday was pretty lazy, started reading the Green Lantern Blackest Night series, and have pretty already immersed myself. The next few days of train rides before I get my ipod back from Utah will probably be dedicated to those comics. The Iowa game was full of heartattacks and strokes, and eventually seizures (after we won with 2 seconds on the clock.) The madness of the game was soon followed by the madness of a party at our house for a friend heading to the Chi. Also awesome.

This morning included a hearty trip back to the midwest for some Cracker Barrel, followed by some casual football browsing, and then catching up on Flash Forward (awesome) and Its Always Sunny (hilarious) and attempting to watch The Wizard of Oz while playing Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon. (overrated) The night was capped with an excellent viewing of 28 Days Later and folding laundry in my tims while listening to the new Curren$y album and Freeway mixtape. Both are undeniably awesome.

Chalk this weekend up to a success, and its not even Halloween yet.

Hope this week goes fast.

p.o.s.v.o.t.d.#5

From his 2006 release Audition, "Half Cocked Concepts"

Calm Before The Storm

When I think of rappers on their grind right now, Freeway would have to be near the top of the list. He puts a new track out at least once a week, and just put this mixtape out in anticipation of his other mixtape coming out in November with the producer Jake One titled The Beat Made Me Do It. After that he's releasing another mixtape titled Freelapse that is supposed to be some kind of tribute or remix of Eminem's Relapse. Either way, his latest releases have continued to get better and better, including his guest spot on Brother Ali's album. Speaking of, Mattie and I are going to see him in November at the church. Our only hope is that Freeway makes an appearance due to their newfound alliance with each other, through Jake One, and Rhymesayers Ent. Either way, this tape is nice. Cop it here.

Freeway - Calm Before The Storm

p.o.s.v.o.t.d. #4

with the final video from the never better album, i bring you "goodbye".

goodbye.

p.o.s. v.o.t.d. #3

P.O.S. - Drumroll

Ill video. Iller flow. Illest lyrics.

we're all thirsty.

p.o.s. v.o.t.d.

Another video from the his most recent release, Never Better, P.O.S - "Optimist."

p.o.s. video of the d.a.y.

back on my underground tip, thanks to my best friend ac, i recidiscovered one of the most slept on rappers of all time, p.o.s. i bumped this album a little this summer on my way to soccer games, but forgot it existed when heavier hitters in the game were starting to drop albums. ac brought it back to the foreground where it belongs. i won't forget this ablum any time soon. anyways, a video a day from p.o.s. until i run out of his videos.

p.o.s. - purexed

let the beat build

outside of mr. carter, let the beat build is by far my favorite song tha carter III. weezy definitely killed it, and fabolous has a pretty damn good remix of it, but nothing will compare to these verses and video. i dont remember where i stumbled upon this video, it was awhile back, but im glad for some reason i remembered it. enjoy.

Nyle "Let The Beat Build" from Nyle on Vimeo.

Nike Boots

Today we had to share a song with our team that is either our all time favorite, or just a song that means something to them. I chose "standing on the edge of summer" by Thursday for several reasons personal to myself, but the reason for this post is actually because our team leader chose "nike boots" by Wale. She is actually from PG county and specifically went to Largo High School where Wale shouts out in several of his songs. Anyways as the song was playing, and the intricate rhymes spilled out of the speakers I realized that as an anthem for unification, for any passion, not just DMV for Wale, it is an absolutely incredible and inspiring theme song. One of the main reasons is because of the video. So without further adieu, view and be inspired. Flyer then the rest of them.

Wale - Nike Boots
by UniversalMusicGroup

we are family

I've seriously been slackin on the bloggin, but to be honest I couldn't really care less. My last few weeks have been a whirlwind really. Like previously stated, I have finally been placed in the schools, and even after 3 solid weeks have not not settled in in the least. I think that's kind of a good thing, because I still look forward to going, but its also pretty stressful. More importantly though, my brother was just married to his high school honey. I honestly couldn't imagine a more perfect couple, and not just in the mushy romantic way, but in all ways. They are somehow funnier when together, more passionate together, and just all around more awesome when together. This will be my first go at having a sister, but I can only imagine it will go swimmingly, considering the caliber of kick ass Taylor really is. All ass kissing aside, this weekend was fucking awesome. My brother got married, I saw family from Colorado and California that I haven't seen in years, I got to chill with friends that I haven't seen in double digit months, I got to shamelessly hit on my favorite Sarver sister well into Saturday night, and got to wear a tux and mustache, and dance my ass off to Sandstorm and Shake Ya Tailfeathers. Its funny, generally I would consider my ipod one of my most cherished possessions, but even after losing it Friday night in an intoxicated haze, I would absolutely consider this weekend a smashing success. I'll be posting pictures up on facebook soon enough. But for now let this one sum up the night.

illies

yea so, i haven't given a flying 747 jumbo jet shit about baseball for the last like, 15 years of my life, but, considering that i live in a city that is very centered on their sports, i have decided to give the phillies a shot. i enjoyed the last 4 innings of tonights game where they clinched a spot in the NLCS and moved on to face the dodgers in a rematch of last year. i suppose they call this bandwagoning, but mostly i have no other baseball team i care about, so i might as well holla at the city that i live in, and that pays me. get it in phillies.

ah

That being said, griping aside, I absolutely love what I do. Today we made our first visit inside our school, to observe classes. While was forced to take a half day in order to head to the food stamps office, I showed up at about noon and was placed into a small room of slightly autistic children. The class itself had only four students, a teach for america teacher, and a few teachers aids here and there helping sporadically with any discipline or focus problems that generally arise with children with disabilities. I must say, that in the very very brief amount of time I spent in that classroom, I absolutely had a blast. Christian, a 5th grade boy afrcian american, is absolutely the least focused kid I've ever seen. Every few minutes he will break out in either a signature Michael Jackson squeal, dance move, or lyric. When asked what his favorite MJ song was, he responded, "I don't like Michael Jackson, I like the Jonas Brothers. I just like to dance." Alex, a 6th grade chubby asian boy has an absolute obsession with airplanes, and draws pictures of them on all his homework and any other media he can find. He draws everything from the cockpit, to the passenger area, to the plane itself. What's curious about these drawings is that he always has the plane's logo written in there somewhere. From United to Delta and anywhere inbetween. He hopes to be a pilot someday. Woody, birth name Lenwood, is a chubby african american 8th grader, who is preparing for high school. He is extremely proficient in math. I watched him finished 7 homework assignments in 20 minutes, that the rest of the boys didn't even finish by the time class had let out. He is also prone to long fits of belly laughs, that are usually spurred on by Christian doing something wrong, and the teachers aids getting mad at him. (For example he stole Alex's tape and tried to frame it on Ms. Munoz, the teach for america teacher) The fourth student Ricardo is also in 5th grade, and is a little bit more challenged then the other three. While he can clearly function well on his own, he does have troubles reading basic english and doing very simple math word problems. It is sometimes frustrating, sometimes saddening, but always inspiring to see these four students interact with their teachers and each other. It will be a sad day on thursday when I will have to say goodbye to that class and be placed into a full blown 25 - 30 student class.

ugh

Just found out that my new hours of work are from 8:00 am to 5:45 pm which being a slave to the transit system doesn't get me home any earlier then I normally would, but requires me to now get to the train by 6:30 to make it to school at 7:30, and sit around doing nothing for half an hour. Now don't get me wrong I love my job, and I am absolutely on board for everything that it includes, but from the time I first applied last Octoberish, to right now, current Octoberish, the hours that we are expected to work have been lengthened on 3 separate occasions. Add that to the fact that we have yet to receive our T-Mobile phones, have yet to receive our peanut butter Tims (the most important omission imo) have yet to receive our backpacks, hats and gloves, and have also had our stipend payment changed from weekly to bi-weekly. Now if that doesn't seem to be amateur, or extremely unorganized at the very least, then I don't know what is. It is becoming increasingly difficult and frustrating working for something that seemingly has little to no upside. I guess that's why they call it service. As has been the theme for the last few months, karma, you seriously fucking owe me.

lets go chiefs

I realized that the reason the chiefs are having another miserable season is mainly my fault. I have been blogging about anything and everything, especially the hawkeyes, but haven't said a word about my beloved nfl team. Here's to turning the season around right now, today. Sorry New York, the Chiefs super bowl run starts today.

hero

For the first part of our morning we were finally able to go check out the neighborhood and schools that we would be serving for the next 9 months of our lives. Mine is a K-8th grade middle school named Thomas Creighton Middle School. It's in the Northeast part of Philadelphia near the Olney part of town. When we first rolled up to the school I couldn't get over how massive and awesome it was. It was probably 4 or 5 stories high, but more importantly it looks exactly like a castle. While the first 2 stories' windows were barred shut so that no one could break in, the neighborhood itself was not that bad. It was mostly residential and consisted mainly of row homes, which is pretty typical of Philly. While it being a castle was pretty badass, the best part of the trip was when we walked by and recess was in session. As we walked by, a small group of probably 3rd graders or so noticed a couple of the red jackets our team leaders were wearing and shortly thereafter ensued a small child riot as one of the girls scream "Oh my god its City Year, I love ya'll!" When the rest of the crowd heard and realized what was going on they are rushed to the fence and commenced the greatest spectacle I have ever been a part of. I would probably equate it to what a sports team feels like when they come back to their respective city for the celebration. The kids were all shouting and waving and doing dances and jumping rope and whatever other skills they possessed to try and impress us. I have never felt so welcome, and so idolized in my whole life. And I haven't even gone inside the building yet. I can only hope the rest of the year goes this smooth.