A Whole Lot of Stuff Rolled into One Entry

So it's been way too long but that's because December was insanely busy...but I guess that's the case for everyone. I have so much to write about but it's late and I need to do some grad school research so I'm gonna try to be extremely brief to the point of possibly confusing people because of lack of detail...which I probably won't be successful at but oh well, here goes...

So December was fun (I took various pics but haven't had the chance to put them up yet). Our community went to NYC together to do Christmas-y type stuff and meet up with some alums, stole lunch trays from my ministry site to go sledding, had quite a few snow days (minus the not having to work part), exchanged amusing secret santa gifts, decorated our house complete with christmas tree and outdoor lights that we've been too lazy to take down so far, took a ridiculous christmas picture and sent christmas cards, attended a fancy high-class christmas party with lots of well-to-do folks (including the former mayor of syracuse and his wife whom we befriended for the night) at one of our benefactor's homes, drove through the lights on the lake display, played in the snow after drinking, and of course watched classic christmas movies. At work we threw 2 christmas parties, wrapped millions of gifts, attended another christmas party with kids, made tons of christmas art projects and every type of gingerbread cooking project you can think of, picked up and delivered many vans' worth of donated gifts to families, and had a christmas party during the nor'easter that closed down the rest of catholic charities (our head organization) except for our site (to which at least 15 kids showed up...surprise surprise), which all made for a very busy month (both at work and at home). (I'd say that was all pretty concise considering I just summarized a very busy month in a paragraph haha.)

I also found out in December that my supervisors decided to have us rotate groups starting in Jan, putting me with the 5 and 6 year olds, which I was originally unsure if I was happy about, but am now okay with. The negatives are that I already know my kids and not these others besides their names (and that even though they can be impossible I have a special place for them in my heart), that I can't do any complicated art projects or games with this younger group, and that the youngest group is hard to reason with when it comes to discipline because it's harder for them to associate actions with consequences. The positives are that I can do cheesy art projects/stories/games and I might finally not consistently get the responses of "this is stupid", "this is boring", or "i'm not doing that;" and that these kids are young enough that they might not have completely learned yet that it's cool to completely disregard everything adults tell you to do. Today was my first day with them and so far I'll say that I like them. I was shocked to find there are still kids at the CYO that actually do things the first time you ask them haha. I might like these little rascals after all... I was getting pretty burned out before Christmas and was pretty much just looking forward to going home because the kids would just misbehave all the time and I was quickly running out of ideas for controlling them and even reasons to care if they were under control anymore.

This meant that I thoroughly enjoyed my whole 2 weeks at home far away from the stress and frustrations of work, but also that I was not looking forward to coming back to work at all because I was away so long. Break was great...pretty much just relaxed and got to see my family and Mike alot and even a few friends from home and Fairfield. I got back to Syracuse on Friday and we had our re-orientation retreat from Saturday to Monday just outside Syracuse at the place we went for our first retreat. It was great being out in a beautiful landscape and being able to walk down to the Green Lakes which this time were surrounded by a snowy winter wonderland (I'll put up pics soon). Retreat was definitely a good way to get me a little more excited about work at least and to ease my way into being back here. (Friday night we also got to chill with Lara, one of the Costa Rica volunteers who is from Syracuse, and got to hear all about their time in C.R. so far, which was awesome!)

As I said, today was my first day back at work and the afternoon with the new group went pretty well overall. However, my night was a totally different story...probably my worst experience at work so far. It started with the teen girls walking into the CYO shouting and cursing at each other which quickly escalated into a physical fight during which I had to physically pull girls away from each other, continued with all of my teens doing every rude thing you can imagine (including listening to headphones, watching dvd players, playing connect 4, talking, laughing, walking around, turning their back, and leaving the building) while a 24 year old African refugee tried to talk to them about preparing for/going to college, and ended with a huge altercation outside the CYO between 2 girls and a guy that turned physical and was broken up multiple times and ended only when I actually followed through on my threat to call the police because I didn't know how else to stop them. By the time all of this ended, I was discouraged to say the least. I was upset by the girls fighting at the beginning because I've never had a fight between girls so far. I was upset by their behavior during the speaker because it proved to me that they really don't give a crap about anything and probably won't go far in life because of it (and because the level of their rudeness was downright apalling and embarassing). Also, it upset me because I don't think I can get much closer to their level than a 24 year old African refugee...and my supervisors expect me to bring in speakers about other topics that they are probably even less interested in and who are probably middle aged and white (stupid APPS grant...I really don't know how I'm ever going to find something that falls under that grant that they actually enjoy...). Finally, I was upset by the last fight because their anger and violence towards each other was shocking because it comes so easy to them...and I don't even know what started it! It made me cry. I just don't know what to do with them anymore...I thought I was doing enough by being there for them twice a week but I don't think it has any effect on most of them. They're still headed so far in the wrong direction that I think it's too late to change them. I need to do a whole lot of thinking about all of this. (On a positive note, I love living in community because I came home in a horrible mood and between Ashlee's prayer about hope and fun conversation with the rest of the housemates, I felt much better only an hour or 2 later.)

In other news, even though for the past few months I was pretty set on the fact that I would probably apply for grad school for elementary education for next year, over break I started to reconsider the idea of school social work/psychology and now I need to do my research to find out what those jobs actually entail because I think they are much more what I would like to do with my life (for many reasons I don't feel like discussing now b/c I've written too much tonight). Who knows though...I'll let you know what I decide when I actually start applying. Though this entry was relatively concise (for me and considering how much I had to say), it's gotten very long, but I hope you've made it this far. Thanks for reading and hopefully I'll update again on all this stuff again soon. Hope all is well with you!