| Now it's really No. 6 |
| 02/21/02: Woo. This week has been a busy one. We finally found out the location of our projects. My team will be staying here at Perry Point, excitement capital of the world. We will be working in an elementary school in East Baltimore, tutoring kids in pre-K to 2nd grade, in literacy. I really wanted to go on spike this round, and see some new places, but I'm excited for this. I think it will be great. I'm looking forward to Monday, our first day. So we've been here a month, we're all settled and we're in a groove. We know what's going on and we're (relatively) comfortable. And this weekend two-thirds of our unit leaves for spike projects. One of my roommates is going to Long Island, and the other is going to Alabama. I'm going to be in our house, all alone, for two whole months. Oh my goodness. I'm sad, it's fun at our house. Sometimes it's quiet, but usually people are around chatting and having a good time, enjoying our clever interior design. (Maybe I'll share our secret later on. But for now you'll just have to wonder.) And my roommates are great, I like them a lot. I am going to miss them! They're gonna send me postcards of the great time they're having, and I'll be stuck here. In Perry Point. Woo. Tomorrow is the official ceremony that inducts us as Americorps Members. Today we had a local project at a state park in Delaware. We painted buildings all day long. My hands are stained brown from the oil paint we used. The coveralls that I wore to paint had handprints on the chest and ass. Hee. The sun came out and warmed us. It warmed us a little too much, but I suppose that's much preferable to being chilled. Yes, indeed. Let's see. Went to the bar last night, a good number of us NCCC folks were there. It's nice to see familiar faces together in different places. My god that was corny and didn't even make sense. I apologize. |
| 02/26/02: On Sunday, the rest of the Fire Unit left on spike. My roommates both left really early, I got up to say goodbye. It was so weird to think of not having them around for two months. While everyone was here, I always looked forward to seeing who else was home, getting a bite to eat, sharing stories of our day, and sitting around gossiping and bitching about CTI or annoying people or manwhores or what have you. And now they're gone, and it's incredibly depressing to come home to an empty, silent and dark house. There's no one to talk to. It's so lonely! Even more so than before. Boo hoo. The good thing is that the team is wanting to do stuff together. Last night some people got together to watch Moulin Rouge. Tonight, in like five minutes, the three of us that live on the same street are going to have dinner together. It kind of sucks that we haven't had the intense bonding that first-round spike would bring, but it seems like we're trying to do what we can. This week our project finally commenced. Yesterday we had an orientation/tour of the school, after arriving an hour late, anyway. The principal, Mrs Green, is so fabulous. She's really excited about quality education and not letting anyone slip through the cracks. It's so inspirational. Today we actually got to go into the classrooms. It was a really interesting day! I'm in second grade with Ms. Streat's class. There's about twelve students, I think. (No class has more than 18 kids. Isn't that amazing?) It seems to be a semi-rowdy bunch. There are more boys than girls in the class and they get loud and disruptive. But overall, the kids seem pretty cool. Some of them took to me right away and wanted to hold my hand. At first, some of the boys told me I had a big nose like Pinocchio. But things definitely got better after thatI was able to start right away working in small grouips. I helped out with reading and then math. There's some really smart kids in there, but there are also some who are at a completely different level. I tried to bring them out and help them answer the questions themselves, but it took so long and the rest of the class was moving on. All of us NCCC folks are on for lunch duty every day, which is also interesting. The entire second grade eats lunch together, and we're supposed to keep an eye out, make sure everyone is behaving, and help collect the trash. I talked to a bunch of the kids, they were curious about me and the rest of us. Well, crap, I have to go now. I've got laundry that needs to go to the dryer, and that dinner's gonna start. So I'll continue this later and hopefully will have more details and interesting stories. |
| 03/12/02: Well, sorry that it's been awhile. We've just been working with the kids in school. It's the third week at Harford Heights, and the honeymoon period is definitely wearing off. My class is pretty cool. There are 11 boys and four girls. The girls always behave and the boys always get in trouble and get lots of negative attention. But most of them are really smart. They read quite well and some of them are great writers. They do lots of reading and writing, and math, and science. I help out with random stuff, small group tutoring, some individual attention, too. This week I gave the spelling test and read a story during Read Aloud time. They have Resource once a day, I've gone to art, music, PE and library with them and I have a blast. I love playing. In art last week, we made pipe cleaner animals and people, it was great. I love playing, sometimes I wish I was still in elementary school. Last weekend some of my teammates and I spent the weekend in Baltimore. It was a fun time. We went to Fells Point to all the clubs and bars. On Friday night two of us visited eight bars over the course of the evening! We finally got to dance, and I was thrilled. On Sunday we went to the Walters Art Museum, with an Impressionist exhibit, and some great Greek, Roman and Egyptian stuff. I felt very cultured. Except spoiled, too, because I kept expecting the museum displays to be bigger and have more stuff. I suppose I've been to the Louvre too many times. :) I think that's about all that's going on. I am always really tired, because getting up at 6.15 just is not cool with my body. I would need to be in bed by 8pm to get enough sleep every night, and yeah right. We are really busy, somehow. I swear we don't do that much, but I feel like I have no time for anything. I don't even have time to read and relax. But at least I'm not bored. |
| 03/15/02: Woo, it's Friday! I am thrilled. Today was a great day. I went with a teammate to a doctor's appointment. (We can't take the van out on our own.) So that took up most of the day, I only got back to school for the last hour and a half. When the kids came in from music, they were all excited to see me. I was happy to see them too. I missed them. They are so cute! The weather was WARM today. Warm! Like summer almost! It was beautiful. The van ride home was even fun, with the windows down and music blaring. Party in the government van, baby. We were so psyched about the weather that some of us played ultimate frisbee after getting home. In other words, we did voluntary PT. Rather incredible, I must say. It was fun. So warm and lovely. It was 71 degrees at 6pm today. And now it's the weekend! How cool is that? I can't wait to relax. There's an ISP tomorrow morning that I'm going to, and while I won't get to wake up at noon, it is an hour later than we meet during the week. So it is kind of sleeping in. And it should be nice to do some physical labor. This project is all mental, so I'm looking forward to something different. Had the house inspection tonight, and I was completely ill-prepared. My room failed, so I need to have it ready for random re-inspection sometime this weekend. Not like this is a surprise to anyone who knows me, but can I just say that I don't really care about cleaning? Especially having to do it every week. Argh. What doesn't kill us makes us stronger, right? |