I'll try to be brief and give a few random things I wanted to talk about...
First, since I last wrote a few major events occurred:
1) I travelled to Wales & England in March to visit my sister who's studying abroad. I had an amazing time though it was somewhat surreal to go away during this year of "simple living." Wales was beautiful and London was interesting as well - see Facebook for pics. It feels like ages ago that I went there but feel free to ask if you'd like more details.
2) More importantly, I got into Southern CT University for the Masters in Social Work program to start in the fall. I'm extremely excited to start that b/c I really think this is the field I want to be in and the classes sound so interesting to me! I'll be living at home, which isn't super exciting, but I'll just keep telling myself I'm saving money and hopefully that'll make it okay... I'm also going to be insanely busy, especially compared to this year - I will be taking 5 classes, doing 18 hrs/week at my field work placement site, and hopefully finding at least 1 actual source of income (most likely the YMCA and/or tutoring kids from my elementary school and/or graduate assistantship position at Southern). It'll be difficult to adjust to at first I'm sure, but I'm also kind of excited to have such a full schedule to keep myself busy (and out of the house! haha). My friend Andrea from high school/elementary school also happens to be starting the same program with me so that'll be awesome to know someone in the program and have someone to hang out with and whatnot. Mike (my boyfriend) also got a new apartment in April only about 15 mins from my house so that'll be nice to be so close too (especially with my new busy schedule). All in all, I'm very excited about next year!
As far as life in Syracuse goes, I'd say late winter/early spring was a tough time around here probably b/c we were all just sick of winter and a little depressed by it as well. I'd definitely say everyone's mood seemed to brighten as the weather got gradually more and more beautiful. I love springtime and I think this spring was even better than others b/c this winter was so much longer/worse haha...so there's always a positive to the negative :)
At this point, community has been a little tense at times, but I think that's to be expected as we all now know where we'll be next year and it's hard to focus on our commitments here when we have so much to plan and be excited about for next year. We had a meeting to re-focus ourselves last night and I hope that things will be better now. This is also a difficult period at work b/c it's the point in the year where we've just fallen into the daily routine and it just seems like a chore most days to come up with yet another new art project, cooking project, reading activity, etc... As I may have mentioned at some other point in the year, even though I enjoy spending time with the kids, sometimes I find it difficult to note any real progress in the type of work I am doing. I think this is definitely a downside of my job. However, if I consider the relationships I have built with the kids, the greater ability I have to control a group of 12-14 wily 5 and 6 year olds (by myself most days now that our college volunteers have left), my comfort level with a bunch of inner-city, extremely loud, African refugee teens, and the lessons I have learned about inner-city kids/teens and refugee kids/teens, particularly from the northside of Syracuse, I definitely can see growth, especially within myself. So I guess that's the upside! Even though I still have 2.5 months left here, I have to say, even though I may not necessarily miss my job when I leave, I'll definitely miss my kids and teens! But anyways, my point in writing this was that I had a meeting with my boss about summer program last week and it has really lifted me up a bit at work b/c it has given me a new energy to begin plans for a whole new part of my job just when I was getting really sick of the same old routine and feeling like I had nothing meaningful to do during the days. I'm really excited for the change that July will bring at work, but I need to be careful not to wish May and June away!
I'll leave you with a story or two...
On Sunday, I finally had my first experience of spending time in one of the refugee family's homes. My housemate John was invited by a Bhutanese/Nepali couple he's worked with to lunch and tea at their home. He brought Matt and I along and we had an amazing time! I knew the kids in the family [families really, b/c their relatives kept coming down from the upstairs apartments] so that was nice to see them in their own homes with their families. They made us a very delicious meal that we thoroughly enjoyed and then we just spent time with them talking about their history in Bhutan & Nepal and all kinds of other questions they were more than willing to answer for us. I'd say a good time was definitely had by everyone involved.
However, after that, I went straight to the CYO to meet with a few of my Burundian teen boys to try to help them prepare for summer job interviews with CNY Works, an employment initiative that includes a summer youth employment program. Sadly, after waiting for an hour for them to show up, I gave up and went home, my good mood from the previous part of the day ruined. I took it as a pretty bad sign that they couldn't even meet me to go over things but yet they wanted the responsibility and privilege of a summer job. After thinking it over for awhile though, I just realized I need to remember to be patient. It seems that the message may have gotten mixed up and that's why they never showed. Either way, I need to remember that if I don't help them with these things, no one else might. This is the first time they've ever applied for jobs so I need to be understanding when they don't take it as seriously as I, a college-educated middle class American with 2 college-educated & full-time job-holding parents, would. In the end at least 3 of the 4 made it to the interviews and hopefully they went well enough that they'll be given some type of job. The thing is they don't need or want anything glamorous (most of them chose the cleaning/maintenance and food service options on the application). They just desperately need the experience and responsibility of having their own job - and seeing what it feels like to make some money of their own won't hurt either - hopefully that will motivate them to continue to work hard in the future. Their English isn't the greatest, but it's pretty decent, so I'm hoping they can get jobs, for their confidences' sake.
I gotta start updating more so you don't have to read a book every time I actually get around to it...I'll do by best, but no guarantees. Feel free to drop me a line if I haven't heard from you in awhile!
Random note of interest: Check out the Doodle 4 Google competition finalists at http://www.google.com/doodle4google/vote.html#tab4. Basically, kids of all ages from all over the U.S. drew their wish for the world and I found it pretty inspiring because all of them ages 5 to 18 had beautiful dreams for the world. It was great to see that even at age 5 there are kids who already understand what is really important in life. They reminded me why I love working with kids - because they're not afraid to say what all us "adults" are thinking but are too afraid to say because we fear our visions and dreams are impossible to achieve. They're only up until 5/18 I believe so check it out if you have time! Sometimes I wish all people could see life through the eyes of a child...I wonder what the world would be like...
