Since February my life has been an absolute whirlwind, colorful experiences and impassioned moments hurtling by me in a maelstrom of wonderment, fatigue, and enjoyment.
The St. Bernard Project, for which the corps members of my team served as site supervisors leading eek-long visiting groups of volunteers in reconstructing the insides of water-damaged houses post-Katrina, was an incredible growing and bonding experience for us. We gained motivation for our service, grew in maturity and patience, better aligned ourselves as a team, and had a lot of fun despite gross and...crowded conditions living at Camp Hope (a former middle school that houses up to 1,000 volunteers and looks/smells it.)
In addition to the great work, though, we got the chance to experience New Orleans and Mardi Gras culture; and I was visited by a crew including my parents, bro & sis-in-law, and Nancy during the process. The parades, the blues and Zydeco music, the laid-back and incredibly unique Creole/Cajun vibe...it was difficult to leave.
On our drive back to Sacramento we made some great stops, including downtown, the river walk, and the Alamo in San Antonio; the fun town of Flagstaff, AZ; the Grand Canyon; and Las Vegas (where I had planned the budget well enough to buy the team a $350 buffet dinner at the Bellagio hotel. Highlight: Alaskan king crab.)
Following our return to campus was a transition week of team reflection, government debriefing, and reorienting ourselves to campus for our coming project in Sacramento. Then began our Spring Break, a four-day weekend where eight of us team leaders drove down to the Long Beach port to ship out on a three-night cruise to Baja.
Jokingly themed 'Weird and Dangerous' from the 1st chapter title of a book left in one of our cabins, it was a wild, fun, and underslept time. Greg, one of the TLs, has his birthday on that Saturday we were onshore in Ensenada, Mexico. Although it wasn't quite beach weather, we sat outside and enjoyed many a Sol, giant margarita, and a tequila shot, continuing later that evening with the tequila I'd snock onboard in a Monster energy drink container. The following day at sea included a strawberry daquiri served in a coconut, while in an on-deck hot tub; 'small golf'; yet another delicious 3-appetizer 2-entree 2-dessert meal; and the third night running of karaoke, Oldies Dance Party band, and late-nite music and grindin' in the club. The only drawbacks to an amazing time were some subsequent tense moments with Beccy and a multi-day hangover.
Our current project tutoring, working in small groups, and running after-school activities at Larchmont Elementary School in Sacramento is wonderful but tiring in a way entirely different from our other projects. I work mostly with a rowdy fifth-grade class whose first-year teacher is constantly at battle with to behave. I also work with a sixth-grade teacher who after retirement from a landscaping career got his teaching certification only to return and win 'teacher of the year' at the school four times in his nine years of teaching. Finally, I work in a third-grade classroom whose teacher looks to be early thirties but who has a kid a year older than me.
The kids are brash, wonderful, bratty, exhausting, playful, funny, and vivacious. A girl in one class is so crazy that she's almost completely isolated from everyone, yet I can see into her strange world, and we walk at the back of the line to lunch, talking in what isn't quite gibberish. Another boy seems to have an undiagnosed dyslexia, yet after intense tutoring gets his best score ever on a spelling test. Yet another girl is quiet and can hardly throw the ball past the center line playing dodgeball, yet smiles and asks for my help in applying Band-Aid and cleaning up the wound she suffers in the heat of the game. Tiring, yes; but fulfilling.
Coming this week, though, is STAR testing, California's iteration of standardized testing for the 3rd through 6th grade students at the school. We'll be proctoring the exams this week and next, and hopefully kickball, dodgeball, and such after school will be some stress relief for the kids. It's an intense time, of an intense project, and I really like it.
I don't think I'll find myself at the head of a classroom in the future, though; there's a bit too much drama and a bit too little separation of professional and personal life in public school education, for me. On that note, I went to Monterey to visit the graduate school I've been admitted to, a Master of Arts in International Policy Studies two-year program with a heavy focus on real-life skills development in addition to academic knowledge-building and networking. I think it'll be the perfect preparation for a State Department career, or for working in international nonprofit management. Right now I'm admitted for Fall '09 in Monterey, but I'm going to try to get into American University in DC, or some other program rated more highly than Monterey and in a better location--Monterey being small, arrogant, and touristy (though with great weather.)
If I get in for the spring '10 semester, who knows what I'll do after AmeriCorps. I did just complete my backpack/sleeping bag/sleeping pad/tent set...
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