Back From Camp!
Dear everyone,
Well, I'm back from Camp To Belong! It was a fun week, but boy, was I tired when I got back! Plus it is always EMOTIONALLY exhausting to have to watch all of the brothers and sisters saying goodbye to each other. A lot of them cry, even the kids that everyone thought were so tough! A lot of them don't want to get on the bust to go home. The saddest part is, many of them really don't have homes to GO to! All of the kids I talked to there had been in foster home after foster home after foster home. Many of the older kids (age 10 and older) were now in group homes. A few of them didn't even know where they were going after camp ended, because they had been told that they were going to move to a new home the day after camp, but they hadn't been told WHERE! That could really stress you out! Another really bad part is that even though they're supposed to have visitation rights with their siblings, some of them aren't allowed to see their siblings on a regular basis because one of the foster parents doesn't like the other sibling, or some issue like that. I hear really sad stories all week! It makes me want to do more to help kids in foster care... and it makes me REALLY worry about the foster care system in general! It seems like kids are being punished for not having parents available to care for them. Really we're not that far ahead of Dickinson times where "orphans" were treated so badly!
At any rate... I'm back now... and working forty hours this week at the nursing home. Then, next week, I start school, PLUS will be working at least 25 hours a week! I love my job, but the crappy part is that I work nine hours a day, and only get a thirty minute break. In that thirty minute break I have to also go to the kitchen to get my lunch (we get meals for $2.00 a day) and that takes up at least seven minutes, so by the time I get to the break room, I only have twenty minutes... just time to gobble down my lunch and maybe read for five minutes! Thirty minutes ISN'T a long enough break time for a nine hour day! When I worked in the schools, I only had a 6.5 hour day, and I got a forty-five minute break! (Thirty minutes unpaid, fifteen minutes paid!) I always thought you were supposed to get a half hour unpaid lunch PLUS at least one paid break! But I looked up the law online, and in Illinois the only law is that you have to have at least a twenty minute lunch break for every seven hours of work. Jeez! By the end of every day, I am COMPLETELY exhausted!
Its a fun job though! And its more self-guided than other jobs I've had recently. You can really use your creativity. And a buig part of the job is just hanging out and talking to people. usually I am on the Skilled Nursing side, which is a nursing home. (The other side is people who have their own apartments and can live independently, but just don't have the energy to be doing other things like driving, mowing their lawn, or whatever.) The people on Skilled Nursing are mostly just LONELY! There are two people I talk to every day, Ed and Marion. Marion is 100 years old! Another lady has Alzheimers and can't really talk, but she just loves it if you sit with her and hold her hand. There are a lot of Alzheimer people like that, who can't really talk coherently, but love it if you just sit with them and hold their hands and listen to whatever they're trying to say!
Uh... but... on the other hand... today an old guy named Jack asked me, "Can I tickle your cat?"
At first I thought he was talking about the actual cat, Tuskin, who lives in the nursing home. But then he pantomimed what he REALLY wanted! He said, "Please? Just one time?"
I told him, "No, and if you're not going to be appropriate, I'm not going to talk to you." (YOu can tell I'm used to being around KIDS with behavior problems, right?)
I guess I was lucky though... that old dude has quite a reputation. One of the girls who works in the dining room told me that the same man had asked her the same thing earlier that day, and had also said, "Do you f--k? Because I want to f--k you!"
Hmm, fascinating!
I reported it to my supervisor, as is policy. Everyone was like, "Oh my God, I'm so sorry that happened! That's so wrong!"
I wasn't that alarmed by it. I mean, when you've been groped by drunken homeless men in your past, then being propositioned by an elderly, wheelchair-bound man with Alzheimers isn't that big of a deal.
Okay, thats all I got to say now... I'll update more later! Man I'm SO tired... and I have to work over the weekend too! I'm gonna be dead by Monday!
With love, from Angel
Well, I'm back from Camp To Belong! It was a fun week, but boy, was I tired when I got back! Plus it is always EMOTIONALLY exhausting to have to watch all of the brothers and sisters saying goodbye to each other. A lot of them cry, even the kids that everyone thought were so tough! A lot of them don't want to get on the bust to go home. The saddest part is, many of them really don't have homes to GO to! All of the kids I talked to there had been in foster home after foster home after foster home. Many of the older kids (age 10 and older) were now in group homes. A few of them didn't even know where they were going after camp ended, because they had been told that they were going to move to a new home the day after camp, but they hadn't been told WHERE! That could really stress you out! Another really bad part is that even though they're supposed to have visitation rights with their siblings, some of them aren't allowed to see their siblings on a regular basis because one of the foster parents doesn't like the other sibling, or some issue like that. I hear really sad stories all week! It makes me want to do more to help kids in foster care... and it makes me REALLY worry about the foster care system in general! It seems like kids are being punished for not having parents available to care for them. Really we're not that far ahead of Dickinson times where "orphans" were treated so badly!
At any rate... I'm back now... and working forty hours this week at the nursing home. Then, next week, I start school, PLUS will be working at least 25 hours a week! I love my job, but the crappy part is that I work nine hours a day, and only get a thirty minute break. In that thirty minute break I have to also go to the kitchen to get my lunch (we get meals for $2.00 a day) and that takes up at least seven minutes, so by the time I get to the break room, I only have twenty minutes... just time to gobble down my lunch and maybe read for five minutes! Thirty minutes ISN'T a long enough break time for a nine hour day! When I worked in the schools, I only had a 6.5 hour day, and I got a forty-five minute break! (Thirty minutes unpaid, fifteen minutes paid!) I always thought you were supposed to get a half hour unpaid lunch PLUS at least one paid break! But I looked up the law online, and in Illinois the only law is that you have to have at least a twenty minute lunch break for every seven hours of work. Jeez! By the end of every day, I am COMPLETELY exhausted!
Its a fun job though! And its more self-guided than other jobs I've had recently. You can really use your creativity. And a buig part of the job is just hanging out and talking to people. usually I am on the Skilled Nursing side, which is a nursing home. (The other side is people who have their own apartments and can live independently, but just don't have the energy to be doing other things like driving, mowing their lawn, or whatever.) The people on Skilled Nursing are mostly just LONELY! There are two people I talk to every day, Ed and Marion. Marion is 100 years old! Another lady has Alzheimers and can't really talk, but she just loves it if you sit with her and hold her hand. There are a lot of Alzheimer people like that, who can't really talk coherently, but love it if you just sit with them and hold their hands and listen to whatever they're trying to say!
Uh... but... on the other hand... today an old guy named Jack asked me, "Can I tickle your cat?"
At first I thought he was talking about the actual cat, Tuskin, who lives in the nursing home. But then he pantomimed what he REALLY wanted! He said, "Please? Just one time?"
I told him, "No, and if you're not going to be appropriate, I'm not going to talk to you." (YOu can tell I'm used to being around KIDS with behavior problems, right?)
I guess I was lucky though... that old dude has quite a reputation. One of the girls who works in the dining room told me that the same man had asked her the same thing earlier that day, and had also said, "Do you f--k? Because I want to f--k you!"
Hmm, fascinating!
I reported it to my supervisor, as is policy. Everyone was like, "Oh my God, I'm so sorry that happened! That's so wrong!"
I wasn't that alarmed by it. I mean, when you've been groped by drunken homeless men in your past, then being propositioned by an elderly, wheelchair-bound man with Alzheimers isn't that big of a deal.
Okay, thats all I got to say now... I'll update more later! Man I'm SO tired... and I have to work over the weekend too! I'm gonna be dead by Monday!
With love, from Angel