3 day retreat

If your wondering where I've been for the last 3 days, or probably not, I've been on a 3 day retreat with City Year to a retreat center in Malvern PA to do team building exercises and continue basic training for the job that starts the first few days of October. Overall it was about as corny as expected, with some fun stuff sprinkled in there ever so often. However I did meet and get to know a bunch of cool ass people, including the entire hallway of brothers from different colored mothers that I lived with for 3 nights. Connections were made and hopefully will be continued for the next 10 months, but I'm definitely happy to be home with puppy and extremely not black roommates that don't stay up until 2 in the morning being loud, and wake up at 6 continuing to be loud.

distant relatives

Wow, the tracklisting just came out for the Nas and Damien Marley joint coming out hopefully sometime soon this year. Take note of the K'naan double feature and also a Snoop appearance. This album is gonna take em to Africa.
01 Intro (Something New) (prod. Damian Marley)
02 As We Enter (prod. Damian Marley)
03 Revolutionary (prod. Damian Marley)
04 Count Your Blessings (prod. Damian & Stephen Marley)
05 Belief is Key (prod. Damian Marley)
06 Africa Must Wake Up f. K’naan (prod. Nas, Damian & Stephen Marley)
07 Black Horizon f. K’naan (prod. Damian Marley)
08 Only the Strong (prod. Damian & Stephen Marley)
09 Our Generation f. Joss Stone & Stevie Wonder (prod. Damian Marley)
10 Empowerment (prod. Stephen Marley)
11 AID (prod. K’naan & Nas)
12 Let’s End It (Poverty) f. K’naan (prod. 9th Wonder & Damian Marley)
13 The Earth f. Bob Marley (prod. Salaam Remix, Damian & Stephen Marley)
14 Black Man’s Paper f. Erykah Badu (prod. Afry) [UK Bonus]
15 Weed On f. Snoop Dogg (prod. Damian Marley) [iTunes Bonus]

Here's a little sumpin sumpin for your viewing pleasure.

dear iowa football

you did not score 8 touchdowns. please correct this next week.

love tyler

dear iowa football

I expect the amount of beers I drink tonight to be in direct correlation with how many touchdowns are scored tomorrow. Its been a long week so I'm thirsty.

(Yea I know I twittered this too. What can I say, sometimes I find myself clever. Suck it.)

Day 3

Basically just consisted of workshops and speakers all day. Extremely tedious and boring and mind numbing and necessary. (I suppose) Sorry for the lack of enthusiasm on this one. 10 hour days are hard enough, but when you gotta start your waking up process at 6 in the morning things start to get pretty difficult. Especially when I have probably seen 6 o clock in the morning times from staying up that late, then actually getting up that early. City year quote of the day...

"Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we've been waiting for. We are the change that we seek."

-Barack Obama

Truth.

QOTD

With all the excitement of starting a new job, I forgot to mention the best and simplest part of my day, that I actually look forward to every morning. Being a night person, it is of no surprise that waking up 3 hours earlier then my body would prefer has been a burden to say the least. But after changing my routine of cereal and cartoons to running with Winston and breakfast on the go, I can already start to feel my body get a little more settled into the early morning. That being said, the greatest part of this new routine, after all of the grumbling, is finally getting onto the train and, not being able to fall back asleep for fear of missing my stop, watching the city skyline slowly make its way into view after about 30 minutes of travel time. The city itself does not have an extremely impressive skyscraper arsenal compared to that of say, a New York or Chicago, but there is something very moving about seeing the city that I am about to serve, creep into view, and shine in the morning sun. But what's even more fantastic is finally crawling out of the underground train station, and first emerging into the already bustling and thriving center city streets. Even with the rampant trash and sewer smell, mixed with the exhaust of speeding cars, the fresh almost autumn air immediately fills your lungs, and the sun shines down on you, and lets you know that you're in the city. I can't help but have a big stupid grin on my face for the first block or two on my way to the office.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that I'm really starting to embrace Philly. And with that I leave you with the City Year quote of the day, that actually ties in very well with my current reading of Milan Kundera's The Unbearable Lightness of Being which I will absolutely be blogging about later...

"Life is not an easy matter... You cannot live through it without falling into frustration and cynicism unless you have before you a great idea which raises you above personal misery, above weakness, above all kinds of perfidy and baseness"

-Leon Trotsky

Day 2

Today was the second day of BT (basic training) which was basically one long day of workshops, ranging from the history of City Year and Americorps, to the rules and regulations of the mantel (batman joke about the uniform). I must say the workshops themselves can be interesting at times, but sitting in a hot room with 60-230 other young adults ready to serve can be trying. I am already a very restless person by nature, so having me sit in a sweltering room, in uncomfortable chairs, surrounded by a horde of other uncomfortable, and quite tired individuals is a drain. I understand that its absolutely necessary to be as trained as possible, especially when the lives of our future are at stake, but its hard not to be more then a little frustrated in such a boring setting.

On a positive note, I have started to hit it off with more then a couple of my team mates (naturally, since I'm one of 3 males in the group) and have already been invited to enjoy some beverages for the weekend. I really hope I stay in touch with some of these people once we get our placements and are more then likely split up. Its only the second day of knowing these people, but there is something extremely compelling about knowing that all of us are in the same boat, both literally, and ideologically.

I've somewhat realized that with the strenuous new hours of BT I will not be blogging/facebooking/twittering even a fraction as much as I normally do on a given day, but there is something a little bit liberating in knowing that I can't look or think about a computer screen until I get home and have thoroughly taken care of myself and the dog first. Assuming my days stay eventful, I will hopefully at least have one entry per day.

Can you tell I'm a little excited about starting work?

Give a year. Change the world.

Today was the first day of training to become a better human being, and help others do the same. Half the day was spent getting to know our new team members for the next month, followed by some intense clean up efforts of a kids playground on the west side of Philly. I wanted to break into the fresh prince of bel-air theme song, but figured there were probably hundreds before me that have done the same thing, so I quietly kept it to myself. The playground itself didn't stand a snowballs chance in hell against 200 some odd workers, spirited workers at that. It took just under 3 hours to completely clear out a playground and football/baseball field, two basketball courts and an open lot of a forest of weeds, broken glass and various contraband. It really is quite remarkable how much a huge difference a group of people can make in such a short amount of time. I can only hope for the same results for the youth of Philadelphia, and America for that matter. It took literally one day for me to be fully in line with the ideologies of City Year, and can only hope everyone else subscribes to the same thing. Unfortunately it will be another month before I can put this positive energy to use in the classrooms and lives of children. But I know it will be worth it.
On a different note, I had the song Empire State of Mind from The Blueprint III on repeat today, both riding the train to work, on the walk to the City Year office, and again on the train back and the walk home. Its looking to become the anthem for anything positive in life, especially changing others. Alicia Keys should be deified or at the very least made a saint for the hook on this one. So without further adieu.
Jay-Z ft Alicia Keys "Empire State of Mind" The Blueprint III

Big day

Tomorrow i finally start working. Looks like a simple painting project to start things out. But either way it'll be nice to get off my ass and do something that matters in the community. Serving coffee and blowing up christmas trees just wasn't enough. Look out Philly, I'm about to change you.

Blueprint 3

After some recent Jay Z doubting, and almos tmaybe bashing, but certainly doubting, The Blueprint III leaked onto the internets and shut my big mouth up for awhile. Not gonna support downloading illegally or anything, but cop that as soon as possible. I can't say if its as good as Black Album or not yet, but I would say its bordering classic status even after first listen. And to coin and trademark a new phrase to be used often, please, bump liberally.