FIeld Trip

On Friday the first through fifth grades went to the stock show in Denver for a field trip. I chaperoned with my first grade class. About half of the boys in the class were dressed in their best jeans, shirts, cowboy hats, and boots for the stock show. It was really adorable. We took busses there, which was an adventure in itself. My class had to split up on two busses, which meant that I was put in charge of ten first graders. Luckily my class is pretty well behaved, so it wasn't too hard except for trying to herd them all in one direction and not get them mixed up with other classes.
Once we got in, there was an arena where they were doing horse obstacle things where the horse has to go over a series of jumps. I have no idea what that is called (clearly). After that we walked all around through different buildings and saw a lot of animals including horses, cows, llamas, el pacas, pigs, sheep, chickens, ducks, etc etc. We saw sheep being sheered which was pretty interesting. We also saw llamas getting bathed and blow dried. The kids in my class loved it. I loved it as well but I was also pretty allergic to the whole event, so I was sneezing my way through all the indoor parts. There was also a petting zoo part where the kids got to walk through a hay filled section full of the above mentioned animals (minus the horses and cows).

I put a link to the pictures I took below. The ones of the kids are pretty cute : )

Today we had off of school for Martin Luther King day and went to a march in Denver (the second largest MLK day parade in the country/world). It was awesome. I will post pictures of that soon. Tomorrow it's back to school!

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2028091&l=33235&id=10300564

Ding, Round 2

I haven't written in a long time...because nothing has really happened. Until now. We started our second project, which is at a Denver elementary school. The school is in the bottom four schools in the district for literacy. They failed the literacy component of their last CSAP--Colorado standardized test, and if they don't raise their scores by the next time they take them, in March, the school will most likely be shut down. Our job is to work in different classrooms with students one on one helping them with their reading and writing.
The school is 95% Latino and has kindergarten through second grade classes that are entirely taught in Spanish. Above that, most classes are taught in English with assistance in Spanish. In the morning I am in a kindergarten class and in the afternoon I am in a first grade class. Both of my classes are completely taught in Spanish and all of the students are first language Spanish speakers. The kids are ADORABLE. It's kind of fun because they are learning to read and write in Spanish and are at a level right around where I am, maybe a little lower, in learning those things. When there is reading or writing time in a class I walk around and help whoever needs help, working one on one with spelling and punctuation. At the end of the day in my first grade class there is an English lesson, where the kids usually have to practice writing in English. Yesterday the teacher told the class they were all going to write something and they just sat there. Then she said "in English" and they all groaned. It was pretty cute.
Today was a half day for the kids because there was teacher training, but we came in the first half of they day and unpacked computers for a computer lab they are setting up in the library. We set up 24 new computers. The teachers and librarian were really happy that we did it because they haven't had computers in the school yet that work. We also get to go to recess with the kids, which is fun. Today I helped kids make a snowman and played four square for a while. It was pretty fun.

I think it's going to be a good project. We are running after school programs starting January 26th, which should also be fun. I will write more when something eventful happens, which it is bound to : )

Wrapping it up in Austin

We ended our work at the JFO in Austin. I don't think any of us were sad to see that office for the last time. Our supervisors gave us the entire weekend off, Saturday AND Sunday, which was amazing. On Saturday we played another Denver team in frisbee and won. Afterwards we went to the Cathedral of Junk in Austin, which is this huge structure a guy has made in his back yard out of random junk he collects. I will put a link up to pictures once I upload them. It was pretty incredible.
On Sunday the team went to San Antonion to see what we could see there. It is a pretty interesting (and very touristy) city. We saw the Alamo and walked along the man-made river where there are a lot of shops and restaurants. Sunday night we went out to the Spider House (where we go a couple times a week) and hung out with friends, including one of my friends from high school, Amihan, who is home in Austin on her Christmas break.
On Monday we had to go into work to pack up our desks and get out processed. Our supervisors gave us Christmas goody bags and were sad to see us go. Monday afternoon a few of us went downtown to explore and eat at this delicious restaurant called the Kerby Lane Cafe. Afterwards I came back and slept for an hour or two and then our entire team went out to dinner. At the end of every project we get money to go out to dinner as a team, so we got a free and delicious meal. We did Secret Santa gifts when we got back to the hotel. I had Dani and got her a little texas cook book and a texas cookie cutter, both of which I purchased at the Alamo gift shop. Joe had me and gave me an assortment of fruits and vegetables which I think he got at Walmart. It was pretty cute. After that we went back to Spider House with some friends who came up from Galveston on their way back to Denver.
Today (Tuesday) we volunteered with Habitat for Humanity doing demolition. We spent most of the day ripping sheet rock off the walls and ceiling and tearing out insulation. We found a couple geckos that were hibernating in the walls and were pretty sleepy looking. I put one of them in my sweatshirt pocket to warm him up because I felt bad for taking away his hibernating place. Once he was warm he got pretty active and started crawling around. My friend asked to hold him so I picked him up by his tail to give him to her. Apparently geckos have the ability to detach themselves from their tails, which is what this gecko did. I had both it's moving tail and moving body stuck to my pants which totally freaked me out. It was a pretty traumatizing experience.

Tonight it's packing up and tomorrow we drive to Amarillo and then to Denver on Thursday. I can't believe this first round is actually over. We found out that our next project will be local. Only two teams from Americorps stay local. We will most likely be in either Denver or Boulder, but we could be anywhere in Colorado. I will write more when I find out what our actual project is.

surprise!

This past weekend a team from Galveston came up to visit us. One of my favorite friends in Americorps, Adrienne, is on that team, as well as a lot of other fun people. They stayed in our room Friday and Saturday nights, which made a total of about 8 people sleeping in the hotel room, which was snug. It was really amazing to see familiar faces, especially such fun ones. We took them out Friday night and on Saturday we all walked around down town and went to a cool cafe and the Austin Museum of Art. It was a really amazing surprise.
On Sunday four members of my team woke up at 7 to go volunteer in the woods for the day. The other 5 members of the team dropped out last minute, so it was a small (but mighty) part of Fire 6 that showed up to meet a man named George and help him clear trails. We spent 8 to 9 hours sawing down branches and clearing brush, which was exhausting but a refreshing change from office work. During the first hour though, I got a call from my dad saying that my great uncle Holmes died, which was unexpected by me. He was a really great guy and I can't thank him enough for providing me with my high school education which completely changed my life. Each project that we do has a final portfolio, including a dedication to someone, and my team is going to dedicate this project to my uncle.
Monday our team drove down to Galveston and saw some of the destruction affecting the people we are calling every day. It didn't feel that bad to be after having worked in New Orleans after Katrina....It seemed like a lot less houses were damaged. There were a lot of really bad looking buildings and houses though that were hit really hard. We left Austin around 7, got there at 11, then left Galveston around 4 and got back to Austin around 9. It was a long day, but it was cool to see what it was like down there as well as seeing more friends who are stationed down there.
Tuesday I had the day off and just relaxed, and then Wednesday until today I've been working. Work has pretty much been the same. We're working on getting the queue down, but the last 200 cases or so are all really difficult ones. The queue has been the same for the past week or so because we keep getting about 50 out a day, but then that same number is also coming in every day, so that is frustrating.

I am going to put links to some pictures I've taken over the past couple weeks here below.

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2026912&l=1537b&id=10300564

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2026935&l=438df&id=10300564

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2026957&l=59354&id=10300564

Thanksgiving in Texas in a hotel

So work has pretty much been the same...making phone calls and talking to people in really sad situations. One exciting thing though is that when we started work there were about 10,000 people in the queue in the computer who needed to be contacted and helped. When I left the day before Thanksgiving there were only about 600. So it feels like we've made a lot of progress.

For Thanksgiving the office gave us half of Wednesday through Sunday off. On Monday we're going to Galveston as a team to see the destruction first hand, and then another teammate and I have Tuesday off, so I have almost a full week off of work. Yesterday on Thanksgiving morning my team volunteered at "Operation Turkey" which is a group that delivers food and clothing to the local homeless. I mostly organized clothes and carried boxes to cars to be brought out to different people.

Afterwards my friend Ruthie and I went for a drive to get out of the hotel and we found this little park and went for a walk and talked about how we missed our families and being home for Thanksgiving. When we came back the girls in my room made mashed potatoes which was interesting with no peelers and only tiny pots. We ended up making four little pots and peeling all the potatoes with knives. It worked out though and the potatoes were delicious. We had Thanksgiving dinner in our team leader's room. Each room brought a dish. We had stuffing, chicken, mashed potatoes, yams and guacamole. I was more sad than I expected to be not being with family, but it was a cute attempt at Thanksgiving dinner in Texas in a hotel.

Workin for the man

So work has been exhausting with the long hours and emotionally trying phone calls. We have to tally every call we make as a call and then tally the number of people in each household, where we place them, etc. Today I added up my tallies from the past 5 days and I realized that in those 5 days I made 102 calls, affected 103 people in 43 families. I helped 2 families find apartments and signed 15 people up for mobile homes. That made me feel a little better about what I am doing.

I also had this crazy thing happen today where someone who was answering phones transferred a call to me that she said was mine. The woman on the phone was asking for Sarah, but after much confusion on my part, I realized it was another Sarah's case who was out of the office today. By the time I realized this though, it was too far into the conversation for me to admit to the woman that it wasn't my case and I had never heard of her before. Basically her issue was that the mobile unit she was getting was being sent to the wrong address. She said she was so frustrated because she was so close to getting a unit and this thing tripped up the whole process. I said I would work on it. She called me back a few times during the day with new information and I had to call her back a couple times. On the last call I had with her she stopped me as we were saying goodbye and said that she wanted to tell me that she really appreciated what I was doing for her. She said I was the first person she had talked to who had actually helped her and she really commended the work I was doing. That one little comment made the whole day of craziness worth it.

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=30884286&l=f19de&id=10300564

Here is a link to the pictures I have taken so far, including the drive down to Austin. Work is same old same old, 10 hours a day, 6 days a week, no windows, calling people who are living in their cars and who say they just have nowhere to go. I will write more when something exciting happens!