True to form, I have not written a blog post for well over a month now. I think that I might make one of my Lenten goals to write weekly? It might help increase the frequency of my insightful wisdom….
The last time that I decided to write a blog post was right before my family came out to LA to visit me, so that seems like a proper place to start this current post. It is hard to truly describe my experience out here without actually showing it to people. It is hard to explain people and places to my friends and family who have never seen more than the “Disneyland” side of Los Angeles. That is what made the short trip that my mom, dad, and sister made so special.
Every month or so we have an event at Verb called “Fiesta Friday”. It is pretty much a party with all of the faculty members after school to unwind at the end of a long week. It just so happens that my parents showed up on one of these special Fridays. They were immediately welcomed into our community here at Verb and what was supposed to be a quick introduction turned into a 1 ½ hour ordeal that nobody was in any rush to leave. My parents and sister were finally able to meet most of my coworkers and get a firsthand look at what my life has been for the past 6 months. In less than 2 hours I was able to show them more than I could have described in six months on the phone, it was great.
That night I was able to take them to my casa and, like most JVs, we all jumped at the opportunity for a free meal! I spent the rest of the weekend showing them the sights of LA. We had lunch at Homegirl café, drove through Rodeo drive, shopped in Santa Monica, and had lunch on the beach in Malibu. It really made me realize how blessed I am to have such a wonderful family and to have the opportunity to spend a year in such an exciting location (it is hard to beat 70 degrees and sunny in January too). Unfortunately they were only able to stay for a few days, but it was a welcomed experience. Everyone who can: come visit!
The week after my family left we had our mid-year JVC retreat (Re-O) up in Apotos, California. It is crazy to me that we are already halfway done with this experience; it feels like I boarded a plane for San Jose yesterday! That being said, it was such a welcomed experience being back together with all of the JVs again. It is so easy to get absorbed in the microcosm that is LA and Verb, so the reminder that there are so many people doing great works all over California and Arizona was a breath of fresh air. It is safe to say that many of the speakers and activities were a bit dull at times, but overall it was wonderful. I came away with two major themes from the retreat: I am surrounded by wonderful people in JVC (especially my casa) and none of us know what we want to do with our lives.
Throughout my life, and pretty much everyone else I knows life, there has always been the lingering thought in the back of my head thinking towards the future. When I was in Junior High I thought of high school, in high school college, in college JVC, in JVC grad school, etc, etc, etc… Why is this? Shouldn’t our real goals in life be to do the absolute best at what we are currently doing and not spend so much time thinking about our next move? This has been a struggle for me in JVC, remembering that I did not do JVC so I could prepare for law school but instead doing JVC because of the fact that I wanted to do JVC. This presence of mind is something that has grown stronger in me over the past several months and Re-O was another major snap back to the present. None of us truly know (even if we think we do) what our next step is going to be, so it is really in our best interest to just do our absolute best at what we are currently engaged in and the future will truly discover itself when the time is right.
Since I haven’t written in so long, my memory has been so flooded with activities that I am going to have to return to my old reliable format of bullet points…..
- John and I got a brand new (sort of) bathroom, I would highly recommend checking it out if you are in town
- We have had some great spirituality nights
- We made pizza with one of the JV houses for Valentine’s day
- Verb made the playoffs in soccer
- College acceptance letters for students have been rolling in, so great!
- We went to the beach
- I am trying to pick a law school…
- Our house is freezing
- Julie’s dad came and visited
- Went to a glee club performance by a historically black university (Morehouse college)
- Drove a couple of routes
- Filled up a lot of vans
- Kept realizing how awesome our faculty at Verb is
- Finished the CWSP section of the yearbook!
- Tried to change a flat tire of a school van during rush hour traffic: fail
- Have done yoga 4 times, VERY difficult
- Went to Omaha/Lincoln over Presidents day weekend: Awesome!
- Found out I am going to Mexico for a service trip in April
- Saw “Black Swan”- messed up
- Saw “The Room”- incredible
- Went “shopping” with John and Julie on Rodeo drive
- Climbed the Hollywood sign
- Went to the “Getty Villa”
- Caught up with some friends
- Missed you all
I am sorry I did not go into details on so many different things! Hopefully I will be able to fulfill my Lenten promise I just made and write more frequently. Until then wishing everone the best.
Wednesday, March 2, 2011
Wednesday, January 19, 2011
My two homes
Soooooo as I begin to write this blog post, I am realizing that it has been almost two months since I did my last one..... I am now realizing how bad I am at this! I will be leaving out many details and stories, but I will try my absolute best to hit the highlights.
- We had an amazing Christmas party at our school( I have nothing to compare it to, but it was fun!)
- One of the JVs who had to go home at the beginning of the year came back to visit
- I found a Christmas tree hat in our closet, priceless
- All the faculty/staff played "family feud" together
- I helped one of our students write a college essay
- We made a sweet potato dish for our party, but bought the wrong kind of potatoes......
- It rained in LA for three straight weeks....
- Mel came to visit me!
- I took five Verb students to a Loyola Marymount basketball game
- Dan came to visit again
- We went to one of our support people's homes for a Christmas dinner
- I had very good conversations with Hubert and Kenny at the gas station
- We made a fancy Christmas dinner at our house: including ham, sweet potatoes, veggies, wine... it was wonderful!
- Realized again how lucky I am to be in my house with my roommates
- Spent four days in Tucson with the Michelle and the Souder family (they were wonderful hosts as always!)
- One of my best friends Adam got engaged!
- Adam asked my buddy Matt and I to be co-best men. Greatest combo ever.
- I made it back to Sioux Falls after a few delays
- I immediately was reminded of what cold weather feels like.....
- Spent a WONDERFUL Christmas with my family in Sioux Falls and Brandon
- Played a TON of Bananagrams (and scrabble)
- Spent four days in the Black Hills with my family (except Mel.....)
- Went skiing!
- Was reminded of how lucky I am for my family (and my dog Cooper, I guess....)
- Spent another night in Tucson (long story, but great!)
- Got back to LA, it was still raining.....
- Was pumped to see all of my roommates and everyone in LA
- Packers made the playoffs!
- Hit the ground running first day back at work by driving a route
- Had some classic convos with students
- Dave came to visit!
- Went to a Verbum Dei winter sports pep rally
- Hosted a Welcome Back get together at our house
- Filled up many, many vans
- Continued to work on Spanish
- Started p90x (it hurts.....)
- Went to Las Vegas with 15 JVs!
- Realized how great the group of people I get to serve with are
- Tried to get used to being called Mr. Petersen again
- Our enrollment is down to 245 kids (started the year with 266....)
- Chilled with the yearbook crew for over an hour yesterday after school
- Went to a co-workers birthday party
- Got stuck in traffic, many many times
- One of my kids got called a N**** on the job......
- Had dinner as a house with two FJVs: Rose and Marisol
- We got two new Jesuit Novices here, so I have been talking to them quite a bit
- John and I are getting a new bathroom. Much needed
- My parents and sister Erin are coming this weekend. PUMPED
This is nowhere near everything that happened over the past two months for me, but right now it is what sticks out....
There are two specific stories that I left out. They might not seem huge, but to me they were just that.
Last week I was filling up a van with gas when my friend Kenny came over to me. Kenny is one of two men that actually work for the 76 gas station in Watts. I say actually work because there are usually two or three people hanging around trying to pump gas for money that have no affiliation to the gas station other than they live in the neighborhood. Now, the other worker (Hubert) has been very outgoing and friendly form the beginning (love to talk professional football), but Kenny took a little while to warm up to. It is not that he is mean, he just has to build up a certain level of friendship/trust before he with initiate conversations. After four months of seeing him twice a week, I have earned that trust. The last time he came over to me to talk, we talked about skiing, so I figured this would be another lighthearted conversation but I was wrong. All he said to me was: "Hey now, I got a lesson that I figured I should share with you. There is a big difference in life between book smarts and street smarts. Book smarts will get you a degree and a job, but street smarts will keep you alive." For some reason, that two sentence comment just stuck with me. There are two different kinds of intelligence in life, and if you and don't have both it will be hard to make it. Kenny has lived in South Central Los Angeles his whole life. He has never received a college degree. Despite this, in many ways he is smarter than me. That goes for so many people that are looked down upon in life.
The second story is an hour-long conversation that I had with one of our janitors: Gustavo. I have mentioned him many times before in this blog, but yesterday was one of the deepest conversation that I have had with him. "Gus" was born in Honduras and grew up nearly his entire life in that country. He came to the United States in the early 1990s to follow his father and pursue a better life. If I were to guess, I would say he is currently in his mid-40s. He is legally in our country on a work visa, but he has been on the waiting list for 12 years to become a citizen. That entire time he has been paying income taxes. He has spent over $10,000 on legal fees in an attempt to speed up the process, but all of that money was taken with nothing in return. He has been a janitor at Verb for over 15 years. He told me about how citizens have offered to marry him in order to make him a citizen, but he has turned them all down. "Marriage is only for love" is what he told me. He wants to retire in him home country, but he cannot go back yet because he does not have enough money. Despite all of his issues he told me two things: he believes that the United States has very good immigration laws and that he is happy. I told him that I was planning on going to law school and he was so excited for me. His exact words were: "I know you are going to be a great success." It was then I realized that he was the perfect example of selflessness.
The work I am doing here is not great. I try my best to be a great help, but it is the people around me who are great. It is the teachers who work 16 hour days sometimes. It is the janitors who are so grateful for a job that many of us would hate. It is the friend from Watts who pumps gas everyday. I am realizing more and more everyday that this is home to me. This is my family too. Not biologically, ethnically, or even geographically, something much more.
The past two months showed me that I have two homes, and I am so blessed for both.
Sunday, November 28, 2010
An Irish Butterfly in the Desert
I hope that everyone had a wonderful thanksgiving weekend. I am sad that I missed celebrating with my family this year, but I was able to instead spend it in the desert with a wonderful group of people, which I am so thankful for.
Last week we had school on Monday and Tuesday with a half day Wednesday. It was nice to have a short week of work and have an opportunity to relax. On Monday we had our faculty/staff thanksgiving party following classes. I sat at a table with six female faculty members and it may have been the most
entertaining table conversation I have been a part of in my time here. I sat next to Brandi, who is the dean of students at Verb, and she could make a Buckingham palace guard laugh. The entire conversation revolved around one of the faculty members who was going to be spending thanksgiving with her boyfriend's family for the first time and what she should/shouldn’t do. Have heard this conversation before, but it was almost always from a male perspective. Even though it was only an hour of my day, it just made me appreciate how wonderful the staff at the school really is and how lucky I am to be a part of this organization for an entire year!
Mashanda’s husband had surgery on Tuesday, so I took the early shift on Tuesday so that she could take him to the hospital. The best way to observe a class is by spending the mornings with them. Most of the guys are so used to a routine that the smallest change throws them off. Some of them just seemed shocked to see me in the morning shaking their hands as they walked in the door! It was as if they had never seen me before and was entertaining watching their reactions. The only problem with switching shifts was that I had two early days last week on back-to-back days. Needless to say working 7 to 6 can be rather tiring, so Wednesday afternoon couldn’t come soon enough. We picked up all the students from work at one Wednesday due to the holiday, so we were all able to get home by 3:15 or so to pack up the car for our drive to Phoenix. The traffic was better than I thought it was going to be, but it still took us over 8 hours to get to the JV houses. There are two houses there, and we were lucky enough to stay at the one house that had carpet (even though it was not very thick). We all went to bed pretty much right away when we got there.
It was quite odd waking up in Phoenix for thanksgiving. I am used to 20 degree weather, so when I walked outside and it was 60/sunny it really dawned on me that I am not going to be having a typical holiday season this year. The phoenix houses were wonderful hosts and pretty much did everything for us in terms of dinner preparation. All we had to do was pay 7 dollars and come ready to eat! Dinner was outside in the backyard, and it was just a great way for so many of us to still celebrate thanksgiving away from our families. That night we just hung out at their house after dinner and went to a dive bar that was four blocks away from their house.
Friday morning we decided to explore Phoenix a little bit and went hiking to a park called North Mountain. We managed to get 8 of us to go, which turned out to be a pretty good number. There are essentially 3 peaks at this park, and from the top of them you can see almost all of Phoenix. I have seen large cities before, but Phoenix is massive! In almost every direction I looked I couldn’t see the end of the city.
As I said there are 3 peaks at this park, as we neared the top of the third one there was a dog at the top barking at us. I couldn’t see the owner, but I figured that he/she was just sitting somewhere we couldn’t see. However, once we got to the top there was no one to be found, only this dog. At first I was worried it might attack one of us, but then I realized that her tail was in between her legs and she was shaking. She wasn’t mad she was scared. I went over and sat near her, and after a few minutes she slowly walked over to me and let me pet her. She had no tags and clearly had some sort of an eye infection, but besides that she seemed healthy. John and I immediately named her Mariposa, which means butterfly in Spanish, and decided that we needed to carry her down the mountain. Even though she wasn’t barking anymore, I did not know if she was going to let me pick her up. I slowly grabbed her and she let me pick her up with no sort of a struggle. For the next half hour John and I took turns carrying the dog (she peed on me twice…) and spotting each other since it was a pretty steep hike. One of the other guys called an animal shelter in the area and arranged for them to meet us at the bottom. Near the bottom we decided to set her down and see if she would follow us. She walked the rest of the way and even followed us when the path split up! At the bottom of the hill we ran into some park rangers who were going to watch over her until the shelter arrived. They said that stray dogs get released at the park all of the time, which is really too bad. We gave her some water and in any other situation but this one I would have a new dog at my house. Unfortunately that wasn’t an option, so we were forced to part ways there. I am not sure where she is now, but she made my weekend so much better!
My girl: Mariposa
That night we hung out that the other house again and managed to get to bed at a decent time. The three girls in our house and I woke up at 7 the next morning to drive back to LA. This time the drive took less than six hours without all of the traffic. You may wonder why we left so early? The reason was clear: IRISH! A JVC agency in Atlanta had tickets to the Notre Dame-USC game and donated them to JVC headquarters who passed them along to us because we are the closest house to USC. I have watched USC wipe Notre Dame clean for the passed 8 years, but I knew that this night was going to be different. So I proudly threw on a green shirt and joined in the tailgating! Carolyn and I won the house drawing for the tickets, so we found ourselves in row 93 of 93 when the game kicked off at 5. Luckily our seats were in the Notre Dame section, so my yelling was more than welcomed (I think….) by all of the fans around me. It started pouring around halftime, but that did nothing to dampen my spirits. After a long scoring drive with only 2 minutes to play, Notre Dame ended a near decade of agony with a 20-16 victory! It was a wonderful way to end my season of watching USC football.
I don’t have much of a voice today, but it was all worth it for a great weekend. I miss all of you and wish that I could have spent the holidays with my friends and family back home. I am sending lots of love from the West coast and I will see you all soon!
Sunday, November 21, 2010
Bullet Points
I know that 3 weeks is far too long between posts, so after several reminders to keep writing I decided to finally sit down and do another.
Quite a bit has happened since I last posted. I will try to sum up some of the main points before going further into a few of them:
· Went to another USC game with John
· Went back to Omaha for a long weekend!
· Hosted all of our corporate partners at Verb for an appreciation lunch
· Drove several of the van routes after drivers didn’t show up
· Our program coordinator stayed with us for a week and visited all of our jobs
· Had a house retreat
· Met with one of our Spanish teachers and got my first real lesson
· Started making the CWSP section in the yearbook
· Filled up a lot of vans with gas
· Was filled in on the path of the work study program at Verb
· Met more students!
· Had a few conversations with some homeless people
· Had a few awesome spirituality nights
· Started spiritual direction with a person who works at Loyola Marymount
· Went to a Mass at Loyola Marymount and heard a presentation about a wonderful study abroad program in El Salvador
· Got stuck in traffic
· Verb made the playoffs in football
· Verb made the playoffs in cross-country!!
· We lost 5 students from the school….
· Saw Harry potter
· Finally finished “3 Cups of Tea”, I would recommend it
· Realized how lucky I am to have such a great casa
· Realized how great the people I work with are
· A lot of other things that I can’t really remember…..
I spent last weekend in Omaha (and a wonderful 2 hours in Sioux City with my family). It was such a great opportunity to just go back and meet up with so many of my family members and friends who I am missing while here in LA. It was short, but amazing. I got to spend some good time with Michelle, Erin, my parents, grandparents, so many of my incredible friends, and the city that I grew to love in college. Not to mention I had the chance to experience 3 to 4 inches of snow on Friday night!
This past Tuesday and Wednesday I had the chance to help host an appreciation luncheon for all of our corporate partners at Verb. I was the contact for the luncheon; so for the past 4 weeks or so I have been compiling a seemingly endless excel spreadsheet with company/supervisor names. After making all of the lists, collecting student quotes, and setting up table tents it felt great to see the final result. Probably 75% of the partners came, and it was so cool seeing all of the support that the companies really have for their students/the school. Seeing our students interact with all of their supervisors gave me such a clear look at how great of a program this is.
I am having an amazing experience out here so far. I have met so many incredible people out here and was reminded this past weekend of how many loved ones I have at home too. I miss all of you, and I promise that my next post will be much closer than this one was to the last.
Sending lots of love!
Sunday, October 31, 2010
Spirit is in the Air!
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.
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.
Sunday, October 24, 2010
From Skid Row to a perfect weekend.
Hello everyone! It has been a pretty eventful week since the last time I posted anything.
I will start out with spirituality night that we had the week before this past one. It was Cara's turn and she decided to do an activity that dealt with Native American spirituality. There was a wheel that contained 4 different animals and personality traits that identify a person as one of the animals. We discovered that Carolyn and Cara were deers, John and I were eagles, and Julie was a Bison. It was a really cool activity and a good change of pace to normal spirituality night.
Thursday we all made a return to the Los Angeles artwalk that they have once a month. The city almost decided to scrap the event because of the cost but the vendors downtown were able to come together to raise the required funds to make the event possible. It is such a cool and eclectic way to spend an evening, even better it is free!
Friday was the finale celebration for Latino Heritage Month at Verb. Greater than 50% of our students are of Latino heritage, so it makes these type of events much more special than they ever were when I was in school. The celebration centered around a Mass which was performed by the pastor of Dolores Mission ( a very Latino Jesuit parish in East LA). During the Mass my boss Cristina( who is Mexican) called out all of the countries in Latin America and the students who were from these countries stood up when it was called. Te majority were from Mexico, but there was also a large contingent from alot of the Central American countries. It was so cool seeing how proud all the students were of their perspective country's. All of their families came to the US looking for a better life for their families and hopefully Verb is helping to provide that. Following the Mass there was a delicious lunch of homemade tamales, rice, and salsa provided by the parents of the Latino students. To make the lunch even better, we were serenaded by a live mariachi band. Overall it was such an awesome day at work.
That weekend was Verbum Dei's first ever "Urban Plunge" service weekend to downtown LA. Julie was one of the people that helped to plan it and since they needed a male chaperon, I decided to tag along. After school that Friday we loaded up the vans with 10 students and headed down to skid row. John works down on skid row, so I was excited to finally see/learn more about this area of the city. Skid row is essentially a section of blocks near downtown LA where a large number of the homeless population is concentrated. It is that largest concentration of homeless people west of the Mississippi.
When we arrived at skid row, one of the directors of one of the missions took us on a walking tour of the area. It was crazy to see how such an immense concentration of poverty and despair could occur so close to the large concentration of wealth that exists in the beautiful high rises of downtown LA. The majority of the kids had never been to this area. Even though they all come from lower level income families, I don't think they were used to the large concentration of problems that we encountered.
Following the tour we headed to Union Rescue Mission, which is one of the largest missions in the area, to serve a meal. I have served food at homeless shelters back home before, but never on such a large scale. For over two hours we found ourselves serving countless numbers of trays full of meatloaf and rice to people. The way the mission was set up felt as if it was a prison rather than a homeless shelter. Armed guards watched over every activity and people were ushered in and out of the massive cafeteria as quickly as possible. There were four waves of people: Families, women, handicapped men, and men. This mission is one of 2 downtown that accepts families, and that was the most disheartening to see. What kind of childhood is that, growing up in homeless shelters in down town LA? Following serving a meal we went to dinner as a group. One of the funnest parts of the trip is when we would drive the kids around in the van. Within a few second of getting into the car I would hear the request: "Bump it Mr Petersen"! This essentially means: turn the radio to something good and make it really loud. I cant honestly say that I ever thought I would be driving around downtown LA with a van full of high school students who were all rapping in the back. It is just great.
We spent the night at the St. Francis center, which is a mission located in between our house and downtown. There are no beds here, so the night was spent on a linoleum floor. That Saturday we woke up at 5 am, which is not easy for me and even harder for high school boys. From essentially 6am on we were working at the center. I found myself sorting cans of food, bagging potatoes (many rotten...), motivating students, and setting up tables for breakfast. When people began arriving for a free breakfast we took shifts eating with them. I was slightly hesitant when I sat down at my table, but soon enough those fears were alleviated. I found myself in discussion with 6 homeless men about topics such as: what is the best college major?, Do the Lakers suck, and Whether salt is good on everything?. It was incredible. Every time I meet a homeless person it seems that my previous perceptions are wrong. One of the men I ate with grew up in the Nickerson Gardens project that is adjacent to verb. He talked about his friends dying in the neighborhood because ambulances would not come in at night to help them. He actually made it out of the projects and started attending college in Compton wanting be a lawyer, unfortunately he never finished. After spending 11 years in Seattle he decided to come back to LA hoping to find a job down here because there was nothing in Seattle. He was just offered a position, pending a drug test and background check he will be hired. I am praying that everything turned out well for him.
Following breakfast we cleared everything out and set up a food market in the entrance of this building. We each had a food item that we were in charge of and were told how much we were able to distribute to the families coming through. I was in charge of the apples stand. My Spanish is not great since I have never actually taken a class (have been regretting that decision for awhile), which was not great for me because the majority of the families that came through spoke only this language. I spent about 2 hours saying roughly three or four words: manzanas?, cuantos?, mas?, and de nada. I am now committing myself to learning the language, I was everyone to hold me accountable for that statement! The experience as a whole was incredible and heartbreaking. Putting apples into a grocery sack being held by a 5 year old girl was both rewarding and of course made me ask the ever important question: why?. Why does she have to do something I never had to do, it never will make sense.
After we left St. Francis center at 2 we went to lunch and everyone began hitting a wall. Luckily the students (and myself!) we able to rebound for a few hours once we arrived at the downtown women's shelter that we were going to be volunteering at from 4 until 6. Little did I know, our service would be making "hygiene" kits that were going to be distributed to needy women. Seeing 5 high school boys handling (and asking questions..) tampons was quite entertaining. They were actually much more mature about it than I was expecting and we made enough kits to last the shelter several weeks. It was behind the scenes work but very rewarding as always. Thinking about how needed such commonplace items like shampoo and tampons are really puts things in perspective.
The women's shelter essentially ended our weekend of service. The rest of the night was spent reflecting, eating, and playing games. The nest morning we went to Mass at Dolores mission and I realized what it felt like for teachers when students would fall asleep in church. I only had to wake up one kid, so it was better than it could have been. Overall, it was one of my favorite weekends that I have had at verb so far. It was fun getting to connect with the students and having an opportunity to directly serve members of the LA community.
This past week at work consisted primarily of us trying to collect mid-quarter evaluations from all 66 corporate partners that we have. For some odd reason many supervisors just wont complete the evaluations. It doesn't really make sense considering it is literally a 2 minute survey monkey evaluation, but it is something that we just had to deal with. By the time the week was over we had collected all but one, so that is pretty much the best that we could do. Tuesday I got to drive one of the routes again because a driver could not make it. I only got lost twice, so I guess I did alright....
There was a ceremony that week in which the honor roll was announced. The school set a recent record for the largest percentage of students above a 3.0 (roughly 30 some percent). It is clear to see that Verb is on the upswing, and it is really exciting to be there while it is happening.
Thursday was a day that I had been waiting for all semester: the Souders came! It was exciting to get to show them where I work on Thursday and have Michelle and everyone get a little glimpse of what my life looks like out here. My roommates and I made dinner and a birthday cake for Michelle and had dinner over here. It was just great having her meet such important people to me and show her where I live. I took off work on Friday and we were able able to go to Santa Monica pier and Hollywood. Such a fun/chill day!
That night on Friday Carolyn's boss had her 30th birthday party at a bar in Venice, so we decided to go as a house. There were a lot of Verb people there and it was fun just hanging out in a setting that is outside school. Saturday I was back with the Souders at the most magical place on earth: Disneyland! It was an amazing day with amazing people. It was hard saying goodbye that night, but such a good experience seeing her and her family even if it was only just for a few days.
I am always here for more visitors if anyone finds some free time. I miss everyone and would love to hear how yours lives are, update me por favor!
I will start out with spirituality night that we had the week before this past one. It was Cara's turn and she decided to do an activity that dealt with Native American spirituality. There was a wheel that contained 4 different animals and personality traits that identify a person as one of the animals. We discovered that Carolyn and Cara were deers, John and I were eagles, and Julie was a Bison. It was a really cool activity and a good change of pace to normal spirituality night.
Thursday we all made a return to the Los Angeles artwalk that they have once a month. The city almost decided to scrap the event because of the cost but the vendors downtown were able to come together to raise the required funds to make the event possible. It is such a cool and eclectic way to spend an evening, even better it is free!
Friday was the finale celebration for Latino Heritage Month at Verb. Greater than 50% of our students are of Latino heritage, so it makes these type of events much more special than they ever were when I was in school. The celebration centered around a Mass which was performed by the pastor of Dolores Mission ( a very Latino Jesuit parish in East LA). During the Mass my boss Cristina( who is Mexican) called out all of the countries in Latin America and the students who were from these countries stood up when it was called. Te majority were from Mexico, but there was also a large contingent from alot of the Central American countries. It was so cool seeing how proud all the students were of their perspective country's. All of their families came to the US looking for a better life for their families and hopefully Verb is helping to provide that. Following the Mass there was a delicious lunch of homemade tamales, rice, and salsa provided by the parents of the Latino students. To make the lunch even better, we were serenaded by a live mariachi band. Overall it was such an awesome day at work.
That weekend was Verbum Dei's first ever "Urban Plunge" service weekend to downtown LA. Julie was one of the people that helped to plan it and since they needed a male chaperon, I decided to tag along. After school that Friday we loaded up the vans with 10 students and headed down to skid row. John works down on skid row, so I was excited to finally see/learn more about this area of the city. Skid row is essentially a section of blocks near downtown LA where a large number of the homeless population is concentrated. It is that largest concentration of homeless people west of the Mississippi.
When we arrived at skid row, one of the directors of one of the missions took us on a walking tour of the area. It was crazy to see how such an immense concentration of poverty and despair could occur so close to the large concentration of wealth that exists in the beautiful high rises of downtown LA. The majority of the kids had never been to this area. Even though they all come from lower level income families, I don't think they were used to the large concentration of problems that we encountered.
Following the tour we headed to Union Rescue Mission, which is one of the largest missions in the area, to serve a meal. I have served food at homeless shelters back home before, but never on such a large scale. For over two hours we found ourselves serving countless numbers of trays full of meatloaf and rice to people. The way the mission was set up felt as if it was a prison rather than a homeless shelter. Armed guards watched over every activity and people were ushered in and out of the massive cafeteria as quickly as possible. There were four waves of people: Families, women, handicapped men, and men. This mission is one of 2 downtown that accepts families, and that was the most disheartening to see. What kind of childhood is that, growing up in homeless shelters in down town LA? Following serving a meal we went to dinner as a group. One of the funnest parts of the trip is when we would drive the kids around in the van. Within a few second of getting into the car I would hear the request: "Bump it Mr Petersen"! This essentially means: turn the radio to something good and make it really loud. I cant honestly say that I ever thought I would be driving around downtown LA with a van full of high school students who were all rapping in the back. It is just great.
We spent the night at the St. Francis center, which is a mission located in between our house and downtown. There are no beds here, so the night was spent on a linoleum floor. That Saturday we woke up at 5 am, which is not easy for me and even harder for high school boys. From essentially 6am on we were working at the center. I found myself sorting cans of food, bagging potatoes (many rotten...), motivating students, and setting up tables for breakfast. When people began arriving for a free breakfast we took shifts eating with them. I was slightly hesitant when I sat down at my table, but soon enough those fears were alleviated. I found myself in discussion with 6 homeless men about topics such as: what is the best college major?, Do the Lakers suck, and Whether salt is good on everything?. It was incredible. Every time I meet a homeless person it seems that my previous perceptions are wrong. One of the men I ate with grew up in the Nickerson Gardens project that is adjacent to verb. He talked about his friends dying in the neighborhood because ambulances would not come in at night to help them. He actually made it out of the projects and started attending college in Compton wanting be a lawyer, unfortunately he never finished. After spending 11 years in Seattle he decided to come back to LA hoping to find a job down here because there was nothing in Seattle. He was just offered a position, pending a drug test and background check he will be hired. I am praying that everything turned out well for him.
Following breakfast we cleared everything out and set up a food market in the entrance of this building. We each had a food item that we were in charge of and were told how much we were able to distribute to the families coming through. I was in charge of the apples stand. My Spanish is not great since I have never actually taken a class (have been regretting that decision for awhile), which was not great for me because the majority of the families that came through spoke only this language. I spent about 2 hours saying roughly three or four words: manzanas?, cuantos?, mas?, and de nada. I am now committing myself to learning the language, I was everyone to hold me accountable for that statement! The experience as a whole was incredible and heartbreaking. Putting apples into a grocery sack being held by a 5 year old girl was both rewarding and of course made me ask the ever important question: why?. Why does she have to do something I never had to do, it never will make sense.
After we left St. Francis center at 2 we went to lunch and everyone began hitting a wall. Luckily the students (and myself!) we able to rebound for a few hours once we arrived at the downtown women's shelter that we were going to be volunteering at from 4 until 6. Little did I know, our service would be making "hygiene" kits that were going to be distributed to needy women. Seeing 5 high school boys handling (and asking questions..) tampons was quite entertaining. They were actually much more mature about it than I was expecting and we made enough kits to last the shelter several weeks. It was behind the scenes work but very rewarding as always. Thinking about how needed such commonplace items like shampoo and tampons are really puts things in perspective.
The women's shelter essentially ended our weekend of service. The rest of the night was spent reflecting, eating, and playing games. The nest morning we went to Mass at Dolores mission and I realized what it felt like for teachers when students would fall asleep in church. I only had to wake up one kid, so it was better than it could have been. Overall, it was one of my favorite weekends that I have had at verb so far. It was fun getting to connect with the students and having an opportunity to directly serve members of the LA community.
This past week at work consisted primarily of us trying to collect mid-quarter evaluations from all 66 corporate partners that we have. For some odd reason many supervisors just wont complete the evaluations. It doesn't really make sense considering it is literally a 2 minute survey monkey evaluation, but it is something that we just had to deal with. By the time the week was over we had collected all but one, so that is pretty much the best that we could do. Tuesday I got to drive one of the routes again because a driver could not make it. I only got lost twice, so I guess I did alright....
There was a ceremony that week in which the honor roll was announced. The school set a recent record for the largest percentage of students above a 3.0 (roughly 30 some percent). It is clear to see that Verb is on the upswing, and it is really exciting to be there while it is happening.
Thursday was a day that I had been waiting for all semester: the Souders came! It was exciting to get to show them where I work on Thursday and have Michelle and everyone get a little glimpse of what my life looks like out here. My roommates and I made dinner and a birthday cake for Michelle and had dinner over here. It was just great having her meet such important people to me and show her where I live. I took off work on Friday and we were able able to go to Santa Monica pier and Hollywood. Such a fun/chill day!
That night on Friday Carolyn's boss had her 30th birthday party at a bar in Venice, so we decided to go as a house. There were a lot of Verb people there and it was fun just hanging out in a setting that is outside school. Saturday I was back with the Souders at the most magical place on earth: Disneyland! It was an amazing day with amazing people. It was hard saying goodbye that night, but such a good experience seeing her and her family even if it was only just for a few days.
I am always here for more visitors if anyone finds some free time. I miss everyone and would love to hear how yours lives are, update me por favor!
Tuesday, October 12, 2010
And two and a half weeks later.....
So, I decided to take a couple weeks to focus on a few other things (primarily one giant test), but I will try to highlight a few major points that have happened since September 24th.
I.....
I.....
- Went to Long Beach with my roommates
- Went to an AMAZING Spanish rock concert (Elefante, check them out) at the house of Blues
- Took 6 full practice LSATs
- Walked around downtown Disney
- Ran a sprint/hills workout with the cross-country team (almost died)
- Went to an awesome fundraiser for Urban Compass (Carolyn's placement) at Lucky Strike bowling alley
- The Packers lost twice
- The Twins got swept by the Yankees
- Went to an great cocktail party hosted by the Chairman of Urban Compass' board
- Chaperoned an all day/overnight Freshman retreat
- Met an amazing nun
- Had support people over for dinner, they are still amazing
- Continued to learn students names
- My roommate Dan came down to visit
- We had an entire week where all we ate as a house was rice and beans (we could have used some bean-o)
- My job continues to ebb and flow, sometimes I am swamped and sometimes there is nothing
- It rained in LA, at least twice!
- Filled up the vans, always a pleasure
- I took the LSAT.......
I know that I missed a few things, but that is what I could remember off the top of my head. Needless to say I have been pretty busy/preoccupied these past few weeks. Luckily I was able to have a few fun/refreshing events to give me some sanity in between studying!
Work has been good and our community has been even better. I don't know if I have ever been surrounded by so many people committed to so many good causes. Everyone here seems to care more about others then they care about themselves. I am just excited now that I can fully commit myself to my job and community and not have to worry about admissions tests....
I promise that I will keep blogging consistently now, it helps me remember everything that I am doing too! I miss all of my friends, family, michelle, and everyone from back home. We have plenty of couches if anyone wants to come and visit, the weather is always warm!
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