Faith, Hope, and Love

Back in April, I had to miss two weeks of school to go to Nigeria and celebrate my dad's 70th birthday. Because it was National Poetry Month, one of the lessons was a throwback to a project we did during my student teaching days. First, the students read Maya Angelou's poem "Life Doesn't Frighten Me," and then write their own version of it. When we did this with the 4th graders, we had them "publish" their poems and created a class book with all of them in it. While I didn't have the time or resources to do the same thing with my 8th graders, a few of them gave me permission to share their poems here. Enjoy! Original poem by Maya Angelou:  Student Poems: Life Doesn't Frighten Me by Yancy D. Ghosts creeping on the walls Strange things at the mall Life doesn't frighten me at all. Sharks circling around Bad songs in soundcloud Life doesn't frighten me at all. A stylist cutting all my nails A barber cutting off my hai...

When I started teaching in the Fall of 2011, I didn't think I'd still be teaching seven years later. Being a teacher was a job I fell into, and while the choice wasn't made haphazardly, if I am being honest, it was made mostly out of desperation. I started this blog in 2010 after I was fired from my job as an editorial assistant at CURE magazine (I still feel it was somewhat a wrongful termination and that my inexperience was taken advantage of, but not the point of this post). I was lost, I was disillusioned, I felt like a failure and was positive I'd never be able to lift my head up again and take pride in the work I did. I spent the next year applying for jobs and getting very little responses of any kind. I wasn't qualified to receive unemployment, someone called Immigration on me (joke's on them, I'm a citizen), I took a myriad of tests to figure out what color my parachute was  or whatever, I applied to a bunch of MFA programs . I volunteered w...

May is National Asian-American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month and Mental Health Awareness Month, so I choose to read books that featured Asian characters and/or dealt with mental illnesses in some way. There were a few books that didn't fit into this reading theme (I'm not great at sticking to strict reading plans, plus when a library hold comes in, you gotta read what you gotta read before due dates and stuff), but here's what my reading looked like in May! 1. We Were Liars by E. Lockhart.  This was a quick, short read. And the ending ultimately threw me. It's about a rich family who spends every summer on their private island. Until one summer, something happens. The second half of the book follows the main character trying to heal from the trauma of whatever happened, as well as try to figure out what  happened.  She's an unreliable narrator, and so the ending definitely was unexpected and the twist kind of crushed me.  2. Afterward  by ...

A few years ago, I began to get the itch. It was time to move on from teaching.  And so I began to think about what I would do next, what dreams would I chase... and this year, I decided to go after one of my very first dreams--reading books for a living. I turned in my resignation in March and my last day as a full-time teacher will be June 1st! One of the first steps I took to pursue finding a job in book publishing was to apply to some publishing courses. I had to write a person statement explaining my love for books, my interest in working in the publishing industry and what I hoped to do in my career. It could be no more than two pages. Double-spaced.  Here's what I ended up with... In early elementary school, I was one of the few black children in my class. But even though we were the same race, my Nigerian-ness made me “other,” and I was often teased for “talking white” and called an Oreo. When I was seven, my family moved to Nigeria. While there were other...

Very delayed on this post, I know! But here's what I've read for the last three months + how I'm doing on the MMD Reading Challenge! Books Read February 2018: Because February is Black History Month, my goal was to read only black authors. This was a really enjoyable month, and I finally got to read books that have been on my TBR list for years (like Alice Walker's The Color Purple ). One Crazy Summer by Rita Williams-Garcia The Color Purple by Alice Walker All American Boys by Jason Reynolds and Brendan Kiely Little Leaders: Bold Women in Black History by Vashti Harrison How to Fix a Broken Record by Amena Brown P.S. Be Eleven by Rita Williams-Garcia American Street by Ibi Zoboi Not Without Laughter by Langston Hughes Gone Crazy in Alabama by Rita Williams-Garcia If I had to pick a favorite... do I have to? They were all so good! For so many different reasons! If I had to pick a least favorite... maybe American Street, but mostly becau...

January marks the start of a new year and is all about follow-through on resolutions, so it only felt right that most of the books I read were either new releases or books that have been on my TBR for way to long! Here's what I've been reading lately... 1. Denton Little's Deathdate : This is a book I bought in the Spring of 2017, and it had been sitting on one of my side tables for months. So, on January 1st, I was resolved to get through that stack before the end of the month. I have not  be successful in getting through all the books (especially because a few more keep getting added), but Denton Little got me started! I thought this book was funny and super engaging. Imagine if we lived in a word where we knew the day we would die from the day we were born. That's the world Denton Little lives in. This books takes us through the 48 hours before he is supposed to die. I won't say much more, except that secrets are revealed and surprises abound. And... ...

A new year means a new reading challenge! And the blog behind one of my favorite podcasts, What Should I Read Next? , has the perfect list to tackle. It's short and simple. Twelve categories (so you could say one per month), with good variety (to ensure you push yourself in your reading habits). I first heard of the Modern Mrs. Darcy Reading Challenge back in 2016 from my dear friend and fellow reader, Erica. However, I didn't actually complete the challenge until last year (and MMD had TWO lists , so I felt pretty accomplished to finish both). Because of the 2017 MMD Reading Challenge, I ... Finally  Little Women (it was a book that was more than 600 pages). While I have seem the movies plenty of times, and have read the sequel Little Men  more than I can count, I realized that I never actually finished Little Women  after I once tried to read it when I was around 8 years old. I only got through Book 1 and never came back to it. Well, finally did in 2017! Got...