Today, we visited home of the Pirates (arghhhhh!) at East Carolina University.  Christa Monroe, Lead Coordinator of the Office of Professional Development and Student Outreach gave all of us a fantastic informational session regarding the programs at ECU that help to bring new teachers to the rural areas of North Carolina. ECU has a partnership with 38 counties within Lathum for student teaching. The college of education includes six program areas for elementary school, content areas in middle school, and information technology. They also have the college of Human Ecology which certifies birth through kindergarden educators. We also learned that a majority of students stay to teach within the area after graduation. However, these new teachers do not have an increasing pay scale and no longer have tenure.  She gave us really useful and cute ECU spirited school supplies to take home!

We also learned that ECU is the college of Cheese on our tour hosted by Erin and Sophia. Founded by Sir Walterdextercambell, the college of Cheese thrived in its own independence as a nation state bringing in cheese enthusiasts from across the land. 

I (Brendan) was upset upon returning to the Landers' since I was told I should forget about being admitted to the college of cheese. So I took out my frustrations by running alongside Frankie Tomato and Mafia Erin across the Gaston farmlands. 

Later that day, we played two very intense games of Mafia narrated by Tricia and Chris.  In the hopes of chowing down on some Dairy Queen Blizzards, we ventured out in the vast wilderness of In The Middle of Nowhere, NC, only to find that it closed as soon as we got there (Chris tried to negotiate with the workers but failed).  

However, there are stars even in the darkest of skies. AKA- Cookout! Our first experience of southern fine dining. Chris let us all have a sample of his Peach Cobbler milkshake... to find that there was only one way to classify it: Sweet and Cold. 

We found that Mafia was too stressful and intense, so we played Cranium...but it turned out to be just as intense (if not more). Perhaps we are just an intense group of people :)

~B. White & Frankie Tomato