Civic Engagement
I think I am among the few members of our team who can say, with confidence, that I truly enjoyed spending a whole weekend with 7th and 8th graders, despite the many complaints I also had. The curriculum we had to teach them as a preface to getting them ready for community service was noticeably boring, and certainly not something these kids (many of whom had come under the assumption that this would be more like summer camp than classroom time) were very interested in. Teaching them about the values of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution elicited quite a few yawns, making it hard to get them excited when we finally had the important task of brainstorming ideas for an actual community service project. HOWEVER, overall the kids had a blast, my Mossyrockers behaved swimmingly, and I got to hear all about the couples that had formed over that magical 72 hours. We played some great pick-up basketball (counselors vs. campers for like 2 hours), played volleyball, and had some fun dorm hang-out time.
The issue now becomes actually putting the planning of our decided-upon project (a Recycle-palooza) into practice. This event will be to promote education about recycling and sustainable living, and will also have a party aspect to it. The event still isn't as clear-cut as it needs to be, but I am one of the people in charge of getting donations. So far, all we've gathered is that we need to see if we can get Sun Chips donations, since their bags are biodegradable. Not a whole lot to work with there. We're also going to hand out special light bulbs and re-usable bags to people, probably also needing to be donated to us. Basically it seems that a lot of the grunt work is going to fall on our shoulders, as opposed to the kids', which I'm not thrilled about as I'm also trying to plan a couple of other big events.
Health Extravaganza at Mossyrock
We're finally beginning to plan our healthy food/living night at Mossyrock, which I'm excited about. It's going to be very Americorps-involved, and I think we're going to get a lot of donations from the community of equipment and things to use for games; the school has to donate all of the food. I'm hoping that this event goes really well, and that we get the junior high after school students really involved. I'm planning to single-handedly eliminate obesity from East Lewis County.
"You could be my man...You could be my Benja-man"
So Benjamin came to visit as part of his spring break, to soak up the wonders of Morton and my luxurious trailer. He also paid a visit to our after-school program, and as I'd suspected, Hannah took a liking to him. Though she wasn't too forward when he was present, once he left, she proceeded to make up songs about him (see quote above), role around on the ground and kiss wherever he'd stepped, and talk to him as if he were there. Kinda started to look a little bit crazy, but it was also pretty funny. And not at all surprising coming from her.
We also went to Portland, which was glorious. We spent a little time in Powell's (finally got to see the Rare Books room), walked around, I went to 80's dance night, and hung out with Lauren Haisley. On Saturday, we went to the Saturday market, where the weather was beautiful and the lines were long. After eating and walking around there, we found ourselves at Voodoo Donuts, the donut capital of the northwest, and waited in a ridiculously long line there. This was followed by a stint at a Chinatown coffee shop while we ate our donuts, then checked in at our hotel. The Silver Cloud Inn didn't have a lot going for it location-wise, but the room was super nice, with a great flat screen tv on which to watch the basketball tournament. I fell asleep, but ended up seeing the end of Northern Iowa beating Kansas which, especially after having been cut off from college bball for so long, was super exciting. The next morning we got the authentic Portland brunch experience, during which we waited outside for a really long time (Portland-ers are seriously crazy about their brunch), and then got served an excellent meal. Then it was time for Benj to get to the airport, and me to return to Trailertown.
Mean Girls
Some of my 7th graders are starting to get an edge to them that I really don't like. I've been witnessing all sorts of unnecessary drama, which would quickly resolve itself, for the entire year. However, now I'm starting to witness one superbitch (also very manipulative, acting nice one moment, and horrible the next) corrupting another girl who in the past has been my favorite. Now the latter girl mouths off at me and says horrible things to other girls, very obviously under the influence of her evil friend. I'm not sure if I can completely put a stop to this, seeing as how they are cousins and spend a lot of time together anyway, but I do plan on having a serious talk with my ex-favorite about how she's treating others, and throw in a threat to talk to her mom (that never fails to freak her out).
Life after Americorps
Finally, this week we had what ended up feeling like a pretty pointless retreat at Cispus, during which we stayed with another Americorps team and attended workshops and did some challenge course activities. Our team has recently become increasingly cynical about things, due mostly (I hope) to the need of a spring break. However, this team was kind of annoyingly the opposite. They were all super positive and excited and loving life and making Americorps jokes. They kinda reminded me of how I felt when I was around a lot of choir or IB people in high school--way too into what they're doing, and also super nerdy about it. They didn't seem like real people to me. While I appreciate their positivity, I like the realness of my own team, though after break I seriously hope they (we) improve the attitude a bit and reduce the cynicism. And each time we've been at Cispus, it's become more clear what a mediocre leader Rich is--he has a tendency to keep us completely uninformed, he is disorganized, and not at all assertive. I can handle this when we meet for a couple of hours a week, but not so much when I have to rely on his leadership for a whole weekend.
All that being said, I do plan on being refreshed and ready to make things happen after spring break, and other people had better be on board. I need to savor the last couple of months that I have with my kids (and Otis, who told me today he was going to miss me). In the meantime, Californiaaaa, Californiaaaa, here I cooooommmme!
