The Official End of my Summer

Livetweeting the So You Think You Can Dance (SYTYCD) finale marks the official end of my summer internship with the Dancers Vs Cancer campaign. Though I'll be continuing to work with them, I thought this would be a good time to sum up some of the amazing progress that I have made this summer.

The database I created currently has over 5,000 listings from 20 states and the District of Columbia. That's right, I spent my summer doing "grunt work." What's more important is that I'm PROUD of that grunt work. How many others can say that they worked on a project that had as much of a lasting impact as that?

I got to be really cool all summer as I livetweeted SYTYCD every week. By the end of the summer, tweets I wrote had been favorited (and even retweeted) by choreographers Mandy Moore, Warren Carlyle, Pharside & Phoenix, contestants Serge & Carly, allstars Will Wingfield, Anya Garnis and Amy Yakima, and a dozen of their siblings, teachers, and companies. One week, we were even mentioned by the official SYTYCD twitter account!

The most fun part of my summer work, however, was all the secret projects I got to be in on. The Dancers Vs Cancer National Dance Day video was featured on the highlights reel on SYTYCD, which even I didn't get to know in advance (I may have spazzed out a bit)! As Misty Copeland and Under Armour launched the "I Will What I Want" campaign, advocates prepared to be featured on "Dance Moms" (which I also got to livetweet). The social media campaign that we ran leading up to it included retweets by Tara Lipinski and Misty Copeland, and during the episode we were mentioned by Holly, one of the Dance Moms!

What does this all mean? It means that I spent my summer helping a larger effort to get the campaign noticed. Everyone who favorited or retweeted us, if only for a second, saw our name. They saw the iDance4aCURE handle. They saw the icon of one of our warriors.

For a moment, they got to see all the amazing work that I got to be a part of. 

First Day Jitters?

Something tells me that after 16 years of education, I'm not supposed to have first day jitters. I'm probably supposed to dread the first day of school, and in some ways, I do. When I start to think about the amount of work I'll have this year for my classes, I balk. I haven't even looked at the graduate school applications I'm supposed to fill out this fall. The start of the school year means that I have to face those things, despite the fact that I don't want to.

At the same time, though, the first day of school is still a little exciting. I can't wait to step into my classrooms, meet my professors, and start to learn. I want to know who else will be in my classes this semester. I'm excited about the material my courses will cover this fall, because being a senior in college means that I'm taking courses I really want to be in.

Maybe this is why I want to teach so badly. Because I know how it feels to be excited for the first day of school, despite dreading the start of classes. Because I know that the two emotions go hand in hand, and that that's probably a good thing. Because I want to harness that excitement for the whole year.

Happy First Day of Classes!