attack of the random of DOOM
I'm going to get a break soon. Really. For the past two weeks, with the exception of last Friday (not yesterday, but the week before), I've been working late every day.
Today I worked a Saturday.
According to Andrea I'm great with the middle schoolers. I'm considering helping them out more often as a possible team leader. That will depend on how things go after my 'break'.
What is this break? Next Friday is our team service day. Half my stress, angst, and extra work has been spent on trying to find volunteers, designing murals, visiting service sites and giving presentations, whether impromptu or organized, to people I see every day or to complete strangers, trying to get more people to come.
And this next week is going to be the week from hell. Starfish starts, I find out Monday if Young Writers starts the week after (which it will if we got the grant), and that means no prep time, which means staying late to prep, except that Jason works so we may very well be pulled into a hustle in the last day beforehand, though luckily some was done this past week. I want to say a lot, and I guess considering the time we had and the tasks at hand at the time, a lot was. Except none of the murals have been stenciled in on the wall yet.
Hocrap, I wonder how long THAT will take, especially considering one of them is 26 feet long.
Yes. Feet.
Service is going to consist of painting some classrooms and murals at Promiseland Ministries; working with the Arkansas Food Bank; and, if weather permits, repainting some bleachers, benches and playground equipment at Hindman Park. And oh boy does it need help. I wish there was some way we could just put a new one in there, but on the site visit I learned a lot about what it takes just to put in a playground, at least in an AR park.
Long lesson short: bureaucracy sucks and red tape keeps even the simplest, best and sometimes necessary things from happening.
Anyway, yeah, I think a lot of my stress may be alleviated with that done. I'll still have RAA (Read Across America), but that work, even if it's on the most horrific deadline ever and with, possibly, minimal help, will be fun, possibly even relaxing; I'm using paint and bedsheets to reproduce the world of Doctor Seuss, primarily from Oh The Places You'll Go, in a room in the library so 2nd and 3rd graders can 'step into' the story. I was kind of proud of the idea, honestly.
And I'm excited for how it will look. Flat bright colors...heee...I can't think of any reason it won't be awesome...
Oh, and one of the sheets will be the little boy from the book peering out from the top of a truffula tree after climbing up there. That's totally a tribute to Devin X3
I forgot what an awesome social activist Seuss was in his books. *read through Yertle the Turtle and was gaping and giggling by the end* And I mean, he was so brilliantly obvious about it. You would think any adult who picked up some books would know right away. More kids should be reading more Seuss so we at least instill it in someone.
I warned you this would be random.
So also biggest reason next weekend will be great:
I get to see my baby holy effing yes!
(and by my baby, I mean Rei.)
No, I lied, actually I was pregnant and me being in City Year was actually a euphemism, like staying on my aunt's farm for nine months, except you know I don't have an aunt with a farm so.
Haha. But seriously.
OMFG. REI. REIREIREIREIREI FOR FOUR DAYS AND FOUR NIGHTS. TuT
If I try to explain how happy I am over this I'm pretty sure I'll explode, so I'll move on and let the enormous text speak for itself. I can't jump up and down and scream and squeal like a madwoman via text very well.
Uhhhh....what else tf was I going to say...
I'm pretty sure Jason is reading this now. Hi Jason! *waves*
Thinking about what I have to do tomorrow...need to finish the Starfish handbook. It's going to be a friggin awesome handbook, people. I was going to be outsourcing it to Rei so I didn't go crazy, but part of it is that her schedule isn't going to allow for it to be done on Monday, or it might but it would be in the late morning or the afternoon and that's cutting it way too close, and besides I have the handbooks to look at, and know more of the brand management stuff, and all that.
But yeah, I'd be relaxing right now but I'm thinking of that. I guess my complete lack of real weekend will have more than earned me my Rei-time.
*hums 'Can't Take My Eyes Off Of You'*
I have had the worst random urges to draw PA!John (PA = Paranormal Activity and I can guarantee most of you had no idea John was part of that at ALL, but I swear I'm not making it up OR on drugs OR getting it from a weird dream -- and hee, isn't her name pretty? *TOTAL MUSHY DWEEB*), but iunno in what or doing what, etc., etc., and I think part of it is just that I've been looking at
lexi_nyanko
's recent pictochat updates on her LJ. Damn her and her magical artness.
A while ago, for an early xmas present, I bought each of my Littles a composition notebook and told them to decorate it and write in it however they wanted -- as a diary, with letters to me, stories, anything -- so that we could learn more about each other, and that I was the only person who would read it. I got to give them back to them this week full of responses to their writing, doodles, random letters, etc., and in Carolina's, because she likes to cook, I put a recipe for the chocolate chip cookies that, before break, accidentally turned out so well. She boasted that she was going to write back, and that it would be our recipe book now.
It was so adorable.
(What you have to understand is that she and Brittney are much quieter than Deanna and Kiah, who sometimes monopolize conversations, not in a selfish way, but just because they're more talkative and know each other better. On top of that, Carolina was a latecomer to my little brood, and I wondered for a little while if she liked me at all. So I was ecstatic.)
And then they spent the first ten minutes of our hour together reading through the stuff I wrote and pointing it out to each other -- I was like "Guys! Guys! T^T I'm actually here now, you can look at those at home!" We made paper balloons this time, and Deanna and Kiah played with my hair... I'm bringing some actual rubber-band-y things so they can do whatever they want with it next time. They have fun and it gives me a chance to talk to Brittney and Carolina.
I've since discovered that I kind of like the way my hair looks in a high ponytail.
Before I leave I am working at least one evening in Obama's office dammit. And who got the last couple of caucuses? Who? Who? Huh?
THAT'S RIGHT B----ES! OBAMA DID!
There's this scholarship that popped up on Fastweb called Blogging for Change, and I'm seriously considering trying it after I'm out of City Year, as a way to use some of my biding-time filling out transfer apps and working on the nonprofit (Young Writers) with some people and on some writing, to maybe get a scholarship. $1000 is a pretty darn decent chunk of money.
I'm going to the oriental grocery tomorrow with Suni and stocking up on Bachelor rice and getting some fresh veggies and tofu. I've relearned that having a variety of "easy" food does nothing when you never have the energy to make it or the desire to eat it. What I need to do is keep some essentials that I can make work in a number of meal situations and moods -- eggs, potatoes, onions, tofu, seasonal fresh vegetables, rice -- so that I'm actually *happy* with what I'm eating, and not just eating out of pure necessity and hating every other bite.
And I want to indulge in something to drink other than water but the Tropicana Squeeze stuff I like is kind of expensive. And so is a lot of juice. I bought some V8Fusion, but the flavor I bought *really* sucks, and I'm choking it down because I don't want to waste it, it's good for me, and it's not water, but it kind of tastes like someone threw orangeade and carrot juice in the same bottle and shook it up.
Mmmm. Yummy.
We've started using a template for lesson plans and, as much as I dreaded it and hated the idea and swore it would stifle all my creativity, it really doesn't. It's basically a bunch of prompts. It kind of helps, actually.
I had the most random craving for a good lemonade right now.
Why do they call it -ade anyway? I really, really want an etymology dictionary. Maybe it can be a City Year graduation present. (Actually, the best City Year graduation present would be to find out that Mrs. Gravino likes my Young Writers idea, the school district likes the idea, and the Student-Learning Grant Fellowship likes the idea. You know. So I can circumvent this whole board of directors b.s. until I can get the idea public so that people come to me instead of me going to them.)
I'mma put up a picture of myself and my Littles in a private journal so it isn't violating their privacy or what we should and shouldn't be putting up.
Anyway. I think I'm out of random. Hm...yep. Random picture time, yay!
Jason and I on MLK day. The portrait of MLK seen here was later defaced and painted over. But the rest of the mural is still there, and I feel like it's the most important part. People asked if I wasn't upset because I'd done the portrait myself, but really, that wasn't the part that mattered anyway -- it was the words and the fact that all these Young Heroes came out to do it.
I'm trying to find any photos of the entire thing, but it was too big. I thought I sent some to myself but I can only find the first piece...hmm...will have to resend them to self is all.
One of the murals going up at Promiseland Ministries.
A wallet I bought myself from the Dollar Tree a couple of months ago. Come on. Really. And it looks like it's meant as a purse for an 8-year-old. And I took it out with me to a catfish place and put my wallet and phone in it like other women do with, you know, real clutches. I am effeminate in a total different manner thanks.
Recent art I've been doing. Check out my deviantart for better-sized looks, 'cause I'm not sure how to resize it here without it looking blurry or pixelized.
Also, been fiddling with what might be a pretty decent writing project. Can't decide yet. Hm...
OH OH OH. And they changed our tutoring schedules. Now I'm in mostly kindergarten (X3) but I don't get any class time...more incentive to get my degree I suppose, so I can have a classroom of my own. I still love all my kids. Oh, and Cory, the one who threw pencils at my face and overturned chairs early in the year? Now that Ms. Baker's class, his biggest problem is crying when she gets on him about something. He's actually very quiet and sweet.
She's a little harsh. We'll just say that sometimes there are some teachers that show us who we want to be, and some who show us what we don't want to be. I'm not saying that she's bad, just that I don't ever want to be as harsh as she is. (She yells. A lot.) But that's as far as we're going into that :D;;
Aaaah but the kindergarteners are so cute....and I've somehow managed to start an impromptu two-person fifth grade book discussion club. Huh.
Rei in six daaaaaays...
Today I worked a Saturday.
According to Andrea I'm great with the middle schoolers. I'm considering helping them out more often as a possible team leader. That will depend on how things go after my 'break'.
What is this break? Next Friday is our team service day. Half my stress, angst, and extra work has been spent on trying to find volunteers, designing murals, visiting service sites and giving presentations, whether impromptu or organized, to people I see every day or to complete strangers, trying to get more people to come.
And this next week is going to be the week from hell. Starfish starts, I find out Monday if Young Writers starts the week after (which it will if we got the grant), and that means no prep time, which means staying late to prep, except that Jason works so we may very well be pulled into a hustle in the last day beforehand, though luckily some was done this past week. I want to say a lot, and I guess considering the time we had and the tasks at hand at the time, a lot was. Except none of the murals have been stenciled in on the wall yet.
Hocrap, I wonder how long THAT will take, especially considering one of them is 26 feet long.
Yes. Feet.
Service is going to consist of painting some classrooms and murals at Promiseland Ministries; working with the Arkansas Food Bank; and, if weather permits, repainting some bleachers, benches and playground equipment at Hindman Park. And oh boy does it need help. I wish there was some way we could just put a new one in there, but on the site visit I learned a lot about what it takes just to put in a playground, at least in an AR park.
Long lesson short: bureaucracy sucks and red tape keeps even the simplest, best and sometimes necessary things from happening.
Anyway, yeah, I think a lot of my stress may be alleviated with that done. I'll still have RAA (Read Across America), but that work, even if it's on the most horrific deadline ever and with, possibly, minimal help, will be fun, possibly even relaxing; I'm using paint and bedsheets to reproduce the world of Doctor Seuss, primarily from Oh The Places You'll Go, in a room in the library so 2nd and 3rd graders can 'step into' the story. I was kind of proud of the idea, honestly.
And I'm excited for how it will look. Flat bright colors...heee...I can't think of any reason it won't be awesome...
Oh, and one of the sheets will be the little boy from the book peering out from the top of a truffula tree after climbing up there. That's totally a tribute to Devin X3
I forgot what an awesome social activist Seuss was in his books. *read through Yertle the Turtle and was gaping and giggling by the end* And I mean, he was so brilliantly obvious about it. You would think any adult who picked up some books would know right away. More kids should be reading more Seuss so we at least instill it in someone.
I warned you this would be random.
So also biggest reason next weekend will be great:
I get to see my baby holy effing yes!
(and by my baby, I mean Rei.)
No, I lied, actually I was pregnant and me being in City Year was actually a euphemism, like staying on my aunt's farm for nine months, except you know I don't have an aunt with a farm so.
Haha. But seriously.
OMFG. REI. REIREIREIREIREI FOR FOUR DAYS AND FOUR NIGHTS. TuT
If I try to explain how happy I am over this I'm pretty sure I'll explode, so I'll move on and let the enormous text speak for itself. I can't jump up and down and scream and squeal like a madwoman via text very well.
Uhhhh....what else tf was I going to say...
I'm pretty sure Jason is reading this now. Hi Jason! *waves*
Thinking about what I have to do tomorrow...need to finish the Starfish handbook. It's going to be a friggin awesome handbook, people. I was going to be outsourcing it to Rei so I didn't go crazy, but part of it is that her schedule isn't going to allow for it to be done on Monday, or it might but it would be in the late morning or the afternoon and that's cutting it way too close, and besides I have the handbooks to look at, and know more of the brand management stuff, and all that.
But yeah, I'd be relaxing right now but I'm thinking of that. I guess my complete lack of real weekend will have more than earned me my Rei-time.
*hums 'Can't Take My Eyes Off Of You'*
I have had the worst random urges to draw PA!John (PA = Paranormal Activity and I can guarantee most of you had no idea John was part of that at ALL, but I swear I'm not making it up OR on drugs OR getting it from a weird dream -- and hee, isn't her name pretty? *TOTAL MUSHY DWEEB*), but iunno in what or doing what, etc., etc., and I think part of it is just that I've been looking at
lexi_nyanko
's recent pictochat updates on her LJ. Damn her and her magical artness.
A while ago, for an early xmas present, I bought each of my Littles a composition notebook and told them to decorate it and write in it however they wanted -- as a diary, with letters to me, stories, anything -- so that we could learn more about each other, and that I was the only person who would read it. I got to give them back to them this week full of responses to their writing, doodles, random letters, etc., and in Carolina's, because she likes to cook, I put a recipe for the chocolate chip cookies that, before break, accidentally turned out so well. She boasted that she was going to write back, and that it would be our recipe book now.
It was so adorable.
(What you have to understand is that she and Brittney are much quieter than Deanna and Kiah, who sometimes monopolize conversations, not in a selfish way, but just because they're more talkative and know each other better. On top of that, Carolina was a latecomer to my little brood, and I wondered for a little while if she liked me at all. So I was ecstatic.)
And then they spent the first ten minutes of our hour together reading through the stuff I wrote and pointing it out to each other -- I was like "Guys! Guys! T^T I'm actually here now, you can look at those at home!" We made paper balloons this time, and Deanna and Kiah played with my hair... I'm bringing some actual rubber-band-y things so they can do whatever they want with it next time. They have fun and it gives me a chance to talk to Brittney and Carolina.
I've since discovered that I kind of like the way my hair looks in a high ponytail.
Before I leave I am working at least one evening in Obama's office dammit. And who got the last couple of caucuses? Who? Who? Huh?
THAT'S RIGHT B----ES! OBAMA DID!
There's this scholarship that popped up on Fastweb called Blogging for Change, and I'm seriously considering trying it after I'm out of City Year, as a way to use some of my biding-time filling out transfer apps and working on the nonprofit (Young Writers) with some people and on some writing, to maybe get a scholarship. $1000 is a pretty darn decent chunk of money.
I'm going to the oriental grocery tomorrow with Suni and stocking up on Bachelor rice and getting some fresh veggies and tofu. I've relearned that having a variety of "easy" food does nothing when you never have the energy to make it or the desire to eat it. What I need to do is keep some essentials that I can make work in a number of meal situations and moods -- eggs, potatoes, onions, tofu, seasonal fresh vegetables, rice -- so that I'm actually *happy* with what I'm eating, and not just eating out of pure necessity and hating every other bite.
And I want to indulge in something to drink other than water but the Tropicana Squeeze stuff I like is kind of expensive. And so is a lot of juice. I bought some V8Fusion, but the flavor I bought *really* sucks, and I'm choking it down because I don't want to waste it, it's good for me, and it's not water, but it kind of tastes like someone threw orangeade and carrot juice in the same bottle and shook it up.
Mmmm. Yummy.
We've started using a template for lesson plans and, as much as I dreaded it and hated the idea and swore it would stifle all my creativity, it really doesn't. It's basically a bunch of prompts. It kind of helps, actually.
I had the most random craving for a good lemonade right now.
Why do they call it -ade anyway? I really, really want an etymology dictionary. Maybe it can be a City Year graduation present. (Actually, the best City Year graduation present would be to find out that Mrs. Gravino likes my Young Writers idea, the school district likes the idea, and the Student-Learning Grant Fellowship likes the idea. You know. So I can circumvent this whole board of directors b.s. until I can get the idea public so that people come to me instead of me going to them.)
I'mma put up a picture of myself and my Littles in a private journal so it isn't violating their privacy or what we should and shouldn't be putting up.
Anyway. I think I'm out of random. Hm...yep. Random picture time, yay!
Jason and I on MLK day. The portrait of MLK seen here was later defaced and painted over. But the rest of the mural is still there, and I feel like it's the most important part. People asked if I wasn't upset because I'd done the portrait myself, but really, that wasn't the part that mattered anyway -- it was the words and the fact that all these Young Heroes came out to do it.
I'm trying to find any photos of the entire thing, but it was too big. I thought I sent some to myself but I can only find the first piece...hmm...will have to resend them to self is all.
One of the murals going up at Promiseland Ministries.
A wallet I bought myself from the Dollar Tree a couple of months ago. Come on. Really. And it looks like it's meant as a purse for an 8-year-old. And I took it out with me to a catfish place and put my wallet and phone in it like other women do with, you know, real clutches. I am effeminate in a total different manner thanks.
Recent art I've been doing. Check out my deviantart for better-sized looks, 'cause I'm not sure how to resize it here without it looking blurry or pixelized.
Also, been fiddling with what might be a pretty decent writing project. Can't decide yet. Hm...
OH OH OH. And they changed our tutoring schedules. Now I'm in mostly kindergarten (X3) but I don't get any class time...more incentive to get my degree I suppose, so I can have a classroom of my own. I still love all my kids. Oh, and Cory, the one who threw pencils at my face and overturned chairs early in the year? Now that Ms. Baker's class, his biggest problem is crying when she gets on him about something. He's actually very quiet and sweet.
She's a little harsh. We'll just say that sometimes there are some teachers that show us who we want to be, and some who show us what we don't want to be. I'm not saying that she's bad, just that I don't ever want to be as harsh as she is. (She yells. A lot.) But that's as far as we're going into that :D;;
Aaaah but the kindergarteners are so cute....and I've somehow managed to start an impromptu two-person fifth grade book discussion club. Huh.
Rei in six daaaaaays...