Today is Halloween, and now that I have fully removed all of the makeup that went into my Jersey Shore costume I can tell everyone about one of the best weeks that I have had here so far!
Last Saturday one of the Jesuit parishes in LA (Dolores Mission) had a Mass to pray for immigration reform in the United States. Most of the people who are reading this blog don't live very close to the border, but this issue is HUGE. The current system has literally devastated the lives of millions of families only for the reason that they were not born in this country. The Mass was an attempt to show as many people as possible that change is needed. The head Jesuit from the California province lead the service, and there were representatives from almost every Jesuit organization that works in and around LA. The speaker of California's state assembly was also there with another member of the state senate. We heard testimony in both Spanish and English describing how the laws have affected individuals. One of the most vivid one was forced to raise 5 children on her own because the father had been deported back to their home country. How could a country as great as ours have laws that are so unjust? There are very strong arguments for "cracking down" on illegal immigrants in this country, but none of them in my opinion overrule the basic principle that all immigrants are humans. Ask yourself: "If i was living in extreme poverty in a country with unbelievable drug violence, would i try my best to get my family out of there?" I am pretty sure everyone would answer yes to that. Remember that the next time you thing about immigration reform.
After the Mass around 20 or so JVs stayed and played a game of kickball at the school right next to the parish. I really wish I could say that we won, but that would just be a lie..... After the game we just came home and chilled for the rest of the night.
The past week was homecoming week at Verb. The themes for the days (which I of course participated in were:
Monday: Verb wear day (forgot about this one.....)
Tuesday: Backwards day (yes i wore my pants and shirt backwards all day, not comfortable!)
Wednesday: Shorts and funky socks with shirt and tie (participated, hilarious)
Thursday: Hawaiian day (swimming suit and flip flops to work? Heck yes)
Friday: Blue and Gold or Halloween costume (Wore my OG jersey that my dad sent me. Tool, I know)
To go along with the themes, we also had events going almost everyday. Tuesday the faculty played a game of basketball against the students. When Brandi (the dean) asked me if I wanted to play, I just assumed that we would get killed. Eddie (the guy I replaced) and myself were literally the only ones in the email that were below the age of 30. However, we killed them! We had the help of two recent verb alumni, but even then i wasn't even close. The game started out 20 to nothing and it never really got much closer than that. Imagine a packed high school gym with 17 year old students going against 40 year old teachers. Possibly one of the most entertaining experiences I have had so far this year!
Wednesday morning I got to drive one of the routes because a driver was out. The students complained when I refused to take them through the McDonald's/Burger King drive through, but it was an awesome group/route. Culver City is beautiful, nothing close to Watts.... And one of the kids gave me a home made papusa when he got out of the car, delicious!
That afternoon the students played each other in a game of dodge ball, it was at that point I realized that the Junior class at Verb is much more athletically gifted than the Seniors. None of the three games were really very close. At the end of last week I had two projects that I was working on. The first and shortest one was to talk to my students who received "borderline" ratings on their evaluations. It is always helpful hearing the different sides of an evaluation and reminded me of how challenging what we are doing really is here. Asking 14 year old boys from low income families to be effective corporate workers? It is happening but it is not easy. The second project that I worked on was much longer and not nearly as exciting. I had to submit work permits for every student who works at Verb. Very necessary but very monotonous.
Also Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday over 200 potential new students who were 8th graders were visiting the school, so it was even more hectic!
Thursday and Friday brought something to my Verb experience that I had not experienced so far: Girls. On Thursday a school from Israel came to visit while they were in LA to see what an American high school is like. I am not sure if they realized how much different we are from a normal school, but none the less hormones were high when 20 foreign women stepped on campus. So entertaining to watch the guys fight for attention as they gave tours!
Friday afternoon we went to Verbs sister high school for a Pep rally/to hopefully intermingle the two schools. I drove the drum line there, so we were the first on campus. It was a very beautiful school in Inglewood called St. Marys Academy. They cheer lead for our sports teams, so there is quite a large connection between the two schools. Now, I have never claimed to be very good with girls. It took some time for me to work up enough confidence to talk to them consistently in my early Junior High/High School years. That being said, I hope that I was better than the majority of our kids! There was an almost instantaneous clustering of guys when they got off the bus. The faculty just sat there and observed/laughed, it was like scientists studying animal instincts.... I was the lone Verb faculty member who agreed to put my face in a hole cut out in a wooden plank and have students try to hit me in the face with a water balloon. Part of me was scarred when 3 football players lined up to take a shot at me. Luckily their aim was no good, and I was able to raise like twenty dollars for St. Marys!
After work on Friday we drove down to San Diego as a house for a JVC Halloween party. I had never been to the city before, and it is beautiful! All of the LA houses, plus the two in Phoenix, were in attendance and it was so much fun. We spent the day on Saturday just walking around on Coronado Island, such a gorgeous place that i will definitely go back to. We had dinner down town at some Mexican restaurant and John and I had a solid two hour conversation with a Marine who was just watching the Giants game because he had weekend leave. He was a really nice guy and it was just crazy to think how different my life would be right now if I hadn't left ROTC.....
As I said in the beginning our house dressed up as the cast from Jersey shore that night for the party. I had never really seen the show before, but we did a pretty good job. Our house is hosting our JVC program coordinator for the week, so that should be fun! Miss and love ALL of you! Until next time, Paz.
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