Day 240

Today was probably the most rewarding day of my 13-year teaching career thus far. A former student of mine, Nicole Vargas, dropped by to chat with my students about hard work (and what I was like during my first year of teaching) and observe some classes at my school. What made this day especially cool was that Ms. Vargas is now in her third year of teaching in East Harlem. My favorite quote of the day came when Nicole was explaining that I actually wasn't a content teacher of hers. I worked with her as one of her yearbook advisors. "Mr. Vasquez may not have taught me math, but he taught me life lessons." As you can imagine, it was hard to contain my emotions!

Today's bow - the wonderful striped number that I placed on a Nirve bike - came by way of Xoelle.com.