Coming Soon

My hope is to transition to this blog by the middle of the summer.  Here you will find all the blog posts from my time in Ecuador and Los Angeles.

Next up will be adventures and reflections from Costa Rica, where I will be living and serving from August 2011 to July 2012. 

My hope is that one URL can provide you (and me!) access to all my past and future stories in one, easy to remember place.  As always, THANK YOU for following along!

Happy Easter!

I hope you had a wonderful Easter! 

After silent retreat, I had Thursday and Friday off since my kids were still on Spring Break. On Thursday night, I went to Holy Thursday services at a nearby parish that I hadn’t been to before. The service was really nice, with inspirational music and a former Jesuit pastor. 

Good Friday morning was perhaps the most aggravating morning of my 8 months in Los Angeles. (Very) Long story short, John and I had to reassemble our kitchen because the landlord put in a new floor while we were gone. Yes, a new floor is nice, but white tile gets DIRTY fast and SHATTERS everything. So far we’ve lost a salt shaker, 3 bowls, and a wine glass. Yes, we need to be more careful, but it’s frustrating! I miss the gross linoleum… Anyway, after that rather annoying morning, Julie and I went to a Good Friday service at the Our Lady of Angeles cathedral downtown. The service was nice, but felt kind of impersonal because it is just such a large space. 

On Sunday, we went to Gospel Mass at the church down the street! It was perhaps the BEST way to celebrate Easter I can imagine. The joyful music and the lively congregation were so inspirational, and celebrating Easter with about 20 JVs was just so cool. There’s no better way to say it – it was a really nice morning. Afterward, we had everyone (about 30 JVs!) over to Casa DK for brunch. Everyone brought food and John Don dominated in the kitchen. It was a lovely day . I realized this is my third consecutive Easter away from home, and as much as I miss celebrating with my family, I’ve had some really unique experiences. I was in Peru on Easter Sunday two years ago, and at BC with some wonderful friends last year.

 

 Along the side you'll see Casa DK with our guest of honor, Jacques, and LMU student and leader of the De Colores trip that we have all been on!  Below is some of the JV crew celebrated with us.

And finally, after we, the ladies of DK, gave up meat for Lent, we celebrated Easter with lots of Julie's favorite food: Bacon! In the back, John Don dominating the eggs. He was the all-star chef of the day!

This week we had low attendance at Urban Compass. There was stuff going on at the school and I think the kids needed to get back in the groove of things after their break. It was nice for me, though, because I was under the weather, so chasing after 15 munchkins instead of 40 was a relief! On Friday we said goodbye to the guys who volunteer from LMU with a little party.  I made them finals care packages and we said our goodbyes for the school year. They are a fantastic group and have really bonded with the kids over the course of the school year. Friday’s just won’t be the same without them! Tonight we “appreciated” some of our other volunteers with a dinner here at DK. We had four of our regular volunteers come over, and also two of the FJVs who lived in DK last year and work at verb. It was a really nice evening with lots of appreciation going on. Thanks to my roommates for their help in getting the casa ready for the party!

San Fran & Silence

...But first, an Easter Egg Hunt (from the Friday before Urban Compass’s spring break!) 

Look closely…the kids’ facial expressions are hilarious. Also in the picture are some of our volunteers from LMU.

Friday night after work we loaded up Barney and drove to San Jose, where we crashed with the lovely ladies of Casa Pedro in Santa Clara. On Saturday, we took off to explore San Francisco. We drove around and hit many of the hot spots, the funkiest of which were Haight-Ashbury & The Castro, and the yummiest of which was Ghirardelli Square. Here’s a pic of DK, San Fran style!

A fine looking bunch in front of the Golden Gate Bridge!

 

On Sunday, after a delicious breakfast with Andrew, our program coordinator, we hit the road for Applegate, CA…home of the Our Lady of the Oaks Jesuit Retreat Center. From Sunday through Wednesday we were on our Silent Retreat.  The retreat was awesome; there was a little bit of structure (meals, group prayer services), but was generally free time and peace and quiet. We were each matched with spiritual directors whom we met with each day. Mine was great – he offered some great suggestions on ways to pray and scripture passages to guide my reflection.

  

One of the most creative suggestions he had for me was inspired by Saved by the Bell.  Remember how Zach used to do those “time outs” where everything would freeze and he’d talk to the camera (click here for a reminder)? Well my SD suggested using that approach with prayer. It works like this: imagine a situation that you find yourself in that drives you nuts. Play through it in your head, then freeze, right when you get the most aggravated. While everything and everyone else in the scene is frozen, imagine God walks in and you can talk to Him about it. (What the HECK is going on here, God? How should I react?)  Pray about it, then unfreeze and continue the scene.  Whatever comes in prayer might be helpful when the situation occurs in real life! This might sound bananas, but it’s kind of fun to try.

Overall, I really enjoyed the retreat.  It was really nice to have time to myself to read, pray, hike, and just chill, without feeling like I was missing out on stuff going on at work or with my community. I appreciated the calm and the alone time – neither of which I have a whole lot of in LA. The hardest part of being quiet was not being able to talk to people about how good the food was! The other hard part for me was going almost 3 days without really laughing.  I had to stifle some giggles as silly things or thoughts so as not to disrupt others’ silence!  Also,  the timing was great because I didn’t need to take off any work and didn’t have to rush back to the chaos of my kids today.  

Happy (early) Easter to you all!

Really Nice People

I’ve been really hard on Los Angeles as a city, and I would like to make an apology. Many times I’ve said that I couldn’t imagine living here post-JVC or that I don’t like the obsession with image and celebrities or that the air is gross and the transportation system stinks and there is too big of a gap between rich and poor.  Maybe these things are true, but I’ve realized that I like LA a lot more than I let on. Don’t worry, Mom and Dad, I probably won’t come back to live here, but I do want to share what I love about the city…besides the weather.

Exploring:

The list of neighborhoods yet to explore seems to be endless. From East LA to the Westside, from Downtown to Long Beach, and everywhere in between, there’s always another neighborhood we haven’t ventured into with local hotspots. I can’t even imagine the number of times we’ve said “Oh, we should come back here!” about a place or neighborhood because it was so cool. Barney, our beloved 4Runner, is perhaps the biggest blessing of all because he’s allowed us to get to all these cool places.  The people-watching, shopping, sight-seeing, and free/fun/outdoor things to do are endless!

Urban Planning:

Everyone complains about LA traffic. Everyone. However – and I’m no expert in this – I think the city of Los Angeles is a good example of Urban Planning. The streets are numbered sensibly, the freeways (as congested as they may be) are in the most convenient places, and the streets form a grid that makes navigation (generally) a breeze. With a decent sense of direction and acquaintance with the main veins of the city, it’s easy to take local roads to avoid traffic.  Things are where you need them to be – gas stations, Subway, malls, grocery stores, parks, post offices, etc.

But most importantly, People:

The people in MY LA are not the people you see on TV. They don’t live in Beverly Hills or even downtown. They live in South Central or work in Watts or are Jesuit Volunteers.  They work at the grocery store, library, post office, and craft store where I go every week.  They are NICE people, real people. They are hard workers and people who want to help others.  This morning I was at the Compton Food4Less that I frequent, where every single manager say hello, every cashier has been nothing but friendly, and people let me cut in line if I have fewer items than they do.  People are nice to me, and I’m the one who clearly doesn’t belong in their supermarket. I’m the tall really young white girl in the professional clothes buying granola bars and juice.  It doesn’t stop there – the woman at the library, the attendants at the post office, the managers at the other food store I go to, the cashier at Michaels, our neighbors. People are just plain nice. They aren’t caught up in Hollywood or their workout routines or the latest celeb sightings of the super hip cafes where you’re sure to see someone famous.  Sure, their hair might be streaked red to show their gang affiliation. But that doesn’t stop them from treating me – and the people in front of me and behind me in line – with dignity. 

I like LA. I might not want to live here forever, but that’s okay.  It is a wonderful place to do JVC and I am grateful to feel at home in the many parts of South Central that have shaped my time here.

Greetings! I want to share some links to the things I have been up to this week.

For community night, we went to a small theater in downtown Culver City to see Of God's and Men, a French film about Trapist monks in an Algerian village under threat by Muslim extremists. The film was awesome, and highlighted a beautiful relationship and sense of understanding between the Catholic monks and the Muslim villagers. I highly recommend it!

Yesterday, Emily (of casa JD) and I went to a conference titled  Urban Creative Solutions: From LA to the Bay at Otis College. The symposium was put together by the Integrated Learning department at Otis, an art and design school on the west side.  The Integrated Learning has worked closely with Homeboy Industries and is connected with people and organizations in San Francisco who work for violence prevention. Theresa we invited to speak about Urban Compass and the prevention side of gang violence and involvement for our students. It was a really cool day!



Finally, some pictures from Wednesday night, when Casa Ita Ford got revenge on the other houses in LA for the stealthy removal of their bulletin boards last month...

Casa DK, toilet papered. What you can't see: the various creepy pieces of artwork and halloween costume props scattered all over the lawn. Note the pyramid of chili beans in front of the gate...

They forked "ITA" in the grass.

The best part? Now I can add, "My house has been TP'd by a Jesuit" to the list of fun facts about myself acquired in the past calendar year.  The list of interesting facts is short, but the other really good one is "I have been to Lil John's birthday party." YEAH!

Grand Canyon

Here are a few pictures from this past weekend at the Grand Canyon! We camped for two nights on the south rim and had a great time.

We drove about 8 hours each way in Good Ol' Barney.
Barney now has over 213,000 miles on him!

Cara and John were the other Casa DK reps.
Julie and Zach were on De Colores, the trip to Tijuana with LMU.

On Saturday we hiked for a bit. This is the view from the "Oooh Aaah"
point (so labeled on the trail map!)

The whole JV crew, minute John and Chris who were busy
hiking to the bottom and back. No big deal, just 13 miles.

Oh, so grand!

Sunset over the Southwest rim on Saturday.

Quick Update

Just a quick update on a few things in the last week and a half...

Last week at work was pretty rough with the kids. I don't know if it was the stage of the moon, something in the water, the rain, or just that it's been a long time since a break, but they were CRAZY.  Many of my first graders straight up refused to do homework. They ran around the room like it was a McDonald's Play Place. They were loud and distrespectful and fed off each others' energy and my frustration. By Thursday, I'd had enough. I demanded silence during homework time, and armed myself with the list of parents' phone numbers and my cell phone. After three strikes, I would call home and they would be picked up pronto. Fortunately I didn't have to call anyone (phew!) and I think they got my point. This week has been a little calmer but wow, they were crazy. I went home so frustrated every day!  And being mean to them and forcing silence when Urban Compass is supposed to be fun did not make me feel good at all. 

Fortunately we had some fun community activities to break up the frustration. We went to a hilarious comedy show based on the awkwardness of 7th grade. It was a musical, and it was painfully funny and true.  I had flashbacks to Rosa and all the drama that comes with being 11. The portrayal of the teachers was hilarious and certainly made me laugh, considering I see myself being a middle school teacher some day...  I find much more humor in seventh grade struggles than first grade craziness, that's for sure! 

The weekend was super chill. For two Fridays in a row, a bunch of us have hit up Yougurtland, a frozen yougurt chain where you build your own and pay by the price. They have awesome flavors & toppings, ands very JV-bugdet friendly :)  On Saturday, Julie and I took a trip to explore some new neighborhoods - Echo Park, Silver Lake, and Angeleno Heights. After a driving tour, we went to some really cool thrift shops and got lunch. It was a great roommie day-date!

This week, I've been realizing how attached some of my students are to me, and I to them. The student with serious ADHD who I've mentioned before is starting to respond to me pretty well, but takes a LOT of my time, attention, and energy. I feel bad when he takes me away from other kids, but it's rewarding to see him doing well with me.  A couple of the older girls that I usually hang out with during play time asked me to bring in my iPod so we've been jamming to some favorite tunes. Though I'm NOT a singer, I keep them entertained with silly impressions of Lady Gaga and Beyonce.  Sometimes they take videos on my phone...which I promptly delete!

That's all for now...off to the Grand Canyon in the morning!