This big city is not for me!

I am sure I have mentioned this in a previous blog but I really am not a big fan of this big of a city. I havn't even seen half of it yet, and i know it is not for me! On Monday we moved into our unfurnised apartment in koreatown, so we have gotten out of the hollywood blvd traffic but it still takes a rediculous amount of time to travel a couple miles. Personally I am enjoying the apt more than the hotel. Even though we all are in one place, i have my little corner in a bedroom and it is nice. The cots we are sleeping on, arn't so nice, but i will get use to it. . . either that or i will end up in my sleeping bag on the floor. Tuesday our gas was supposed to be cut on so we could use the stove, and of course, it wasn't. Sooo all the food we bought monday to make meals for this week couldn't really be used. We had taco stuff around so bethany and I went to a neighbor (who didn't speak much english) and asked to heat up our refried beans. Luckily they did this for us, so we enjoyed some bean burritos that night. The last two nights we have just made do with what we have that doesn't need to be heated. Hopefully the gas will be on today so we can cook from now on!
This past weekend was definitly the most eventful since i've been here but for time sake, i'll just hit the highlight of the weekend. That was my trip to Catalina Island. My team leader, Kelly and I are the only ones that ended up going since it was cancelled for various reasons twice, and then we decided to go finally on Saturday afternoon through Sunday afternoon. We stayed with Green 3 at their campsite, and spent the day Saturday in the only town on the island, Avalon. It was nice to see people from another team, most of them were people I had spent time with during training. One of my good friends, Allie, from training was on that team, so it was great to see her! The island was beautiful, especially their campsite that overlooks the ocean, and you can see the lights of LA flickering in the distance. Since I have been here in California, I have felt like I am in my own little world sometimes, cut off from the rest of the world, while everything else is going on around me. It's a little frustrating at times. I felt the same feeling sitting there on their picnic table looking out over the water at LA. This time though i was enjoying the peacefulness and beauty around me. I will try to get some pictures up in a week or so.
I have been reading the book of Isaiah since I got here, and I am really enjoying it. I have tried to read it before, but this time it is different. Being completely out of my comfort zone here, I have found comfort and strength in The Word. When i think of hollywood I have always thought of fakeness, and people obsessed with worldly things. I have found a lot of that to be true. Celebreties become people's Idols, that they worship, and so much emphasis gets placed on all of these material things that do not last. I have found similiarities to my surroundings in Isaiah, like the cities of Egypt, Babylon, Cush, etc, who were focusing on material worldly things and idols. People who have forgotten, or do not accept God. Yet in Isaiah, God's promises of love, strength and salvation are clear. I am looking forward to reading the last half over the next few weeks!

Ok, i'll stop rambling now. =) 
well, my lunch time is about up. My team and I have realized that when the kids have lunch, is a good time for us to regroup and relax. So we have been taking advantage of that this past week.
Hopefully i'll be able to update again later this weekend when I have more time! Till then. . . holler! =)

Week 2. . . . crazy rollercoaster

So this has definitly been a weird week. I am currently sitting in Katherine's apartment waiting on her to get ready. This is the 2nd time this week i have seen her so that is one of the highlights of the week. We ate at a mexican place tonight taht is near her apt, and it was really good. It is now the 2nd best mexican i have ever eaten. La Cocina being first, of course. This definitly made up for the fact that i havn't had good mexican since my last day in Mebane.

This past week started off nice with me having about 4 hours of alone time when the rest of my team went to the beach. It was the first time i wasn't around everyone. I think i mentioned this in my last posting so i'll move on.

That rejuvenated feeling lasted all of a day or two max. The school we are working at is just frustrating sometimes. My class was insane on Tuesday, and we all feel like the discipline policy of the school is way too lenient so we are hesitant to help discipline. I definitly thought most of my kindergarten class should have been in time out and lost their "choice time" priveledges. Choice time is the time at the end of most days (like 30 min) that they get to go outside and play soccer or play w/ the building block things, or do art, painting, or what they call dramatic play, which is legos, dress up, etc. It's a cool concept, i guess. . .?? It's so hard for me to judge what they are learning because I am use to teaching in a high school classroom. Totally a different world. My students were better as the week went on. The frustration continued though with the whole question of what we are suppose to be doing after school. We were told we would be tutoring, but of course that hasn't started because apparently we need materials to tutor the kids with and they wern't prepared with that before we got here? We have been in their library a little bit a couple afternoons trying to straighten things up. Since they are a charter school, they do not have the funds yet for a librarian. All the books they have have been donated over the last 2 years or so by parents or other places. So they don't really have an organized library yet even though they have quite a few books. I think we are gonna do some more labeling and work in there next week, but hopefully the tutoring will start?

Wednesday was lovely Valentines Day. I got some cute valentines from my kids, but the highlight of the day was afterschool when we received our first Amerimail package. Amerimail is what we call the mail that is sent to us from base, so what you send there gets sent to us on our different projects about twice a week. We also can send mail to friends on other teams without having to pay postage through this mail system. Well, ours was sent to the wrong address originally so this was the first package we had received. Valentines Day was the perfect day to finally get this because i definitly felt the love when I got lots of mail! So i want to say thank you to everyone that is sending me mail. It was definitly the highlight of my week and pretty much the highlight since I have been here in L.A. So thanks ya'll!!! =)

Today I was supposed to go to Catalina Island for a couple days to see the team that is there, my friend Allie is on that team. Well we had some team drama this morning and because of that we were not able to go today. We also lost a team member today, which i have mixed feelings about. While this was a good opportunity for this guy to change his life around, he hasn't taken advantage of it, and it has caused some stress on my team. So Gold 1 is down to 8, but it is a good 8, so I am hopeful for things to get better.

We are moving to our unfurnished apartment on Monday so i am not quite sure what the internet situation is going to be there. I will try to update once more before we leave the hotel. (i always have something to say!)

pictures!!

here are a few pictures. . . and some more added to old ones, but i'll post both links!!

newer: http://uncg.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2062812&l=6e19d&id=25000446

older (but with new added)- http://uncg.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2059566&l=22fc0&id=25000446

I am doing well this week. Sunday afternoon my team wanted to go back to the beach, so i took advantage of having some alone time. It was amazing! I watched Duke lose (again) (ugh!!), played guitar for quite a while, and read for a while. I definitly feel somewhat rejuvinated after that. I'll have to do it again soon!

Happy Valentines Day! Love ya'll!!! =)

oops

so i realized after i posted last night that i forgot to tell ya'll about my dinner the other night. There is so much to say that i always forget things. This is just too cool, so i wanted to tell you before i forget again!
Friday night we had dinner with our actual sponsors for this project, which is a mom and dad of a kid at the school. We wern't told that they were famous before we got there, so we get to this house, and it is in the hills but it isn't super big, and it is a cozy house. They have a 7 yr old son, who is cute as well. Anyways, what made this night super cool was that this couple wrote the script for Disney's Tarzan, the first part of the Lion King (up until Mufasa died), the Hunchback of Notre Dame (disney's) and the Newsies!!! All of the above are great movies! They were cool, down to earth people, and we had a good time at dinner and hanging out with them.

So that's it. . . keep reading below for everything else!! Holler! =)

i shall never complain about traffic again.

I have officially decided that there can't be worse traffic than in L.A. I mentioned in my last posting about my battle with the traffic that caused me to miss the first half of the duke game. Today we traveled to Venice Beach to do our PT (workout) for the day and what not, and it took us almost an hour and a half and we did not travel more than 25 miles. Insaneness i tell you! We drove all the way down Santa Monica blvd, so we saw Bevely Hills, and Santa Monica before hitting the beach. That was semi cool. .. i guess. I have never been all that into hollywood or celebrity stuff, so the glam of LA doesn't really do much for me. It's cool to see the stars along Hollywood blvd, (and i live 2 blocks from that i might add. .. haha) and sunset blvd, and all the famous places, but i've seen them, now i am done.
The beach however, was nice, i could have sat out there all day. .. on a towel and read. That is until it got cloudy and chilly, and ya'll know i don't like anything related to coldness. Venice beach, other than the beach was not too impressive. I got a good cup of hot chocolate while I was there, so that, other than the beach was probably the highlight of the day. (oh, and we found a Whole Foods store nearby where we live so i can get bread that i can actually eat. Maybe i'll get over this sickness that has lingered for so long if i actually eat stuff i can!)

Anyways, onto more about the school I am working at since I have been pretty vague until now. Unfortunatly Americorps is all about last minute and flexibility, so a lot of what I will be telling you, until I get into my projects will be vague. . .i promise i am not holding out on you, i really don't know stuff! Even now, i am still not totally sure everything we will be doing while we are here.

Let me give you some details about Larchmont Charter School where we are at. This school was created i think 3 years ago by some parents who wanted an alternative to the public schools their kids were in. A charter school is still considered a public school, and has a lottery system to get in, so it's not like a private school that costs money. They just don't have to follow all of the strict testing guidelines that public school systems have to, but they do have to answer to the school systems in other ways. This school's curriculum, is a Constructivist model, which kinda means that the students learn by doing things and they build on what they already know. Its definitly more student lead than teachers standing in front of a classroom teaching like we all are use to in our elementary schools. This is the 2nd year the school has been at it's current location. It is renting space from Hollygrove which use to be an orphange for kids. It is famous for Marilyn Monroe living there as an orphan kid! (i didn't even know she was an orphan). The orphanage then turned into a place for troubled kids to come live for a treatment program for couple years, ages of 6-14, and then was shut down a couple years ago. There are small cottages, which use to be dormatories for the kids that are now the classrooms, plenty of outisde space for the kids to run around and play on as well.
This whole constructivist idea is very interesting to me, since I do have the education background from good ol' UNCG. My team and I already have some issues/more like questions about some things there. Not that they are bad by any means. It is just that the kids get a lot of time for enrichment/playtime. There is also more time than i remember built in for playing outside, which in some ways is good. I can't really think of one overweight kid in that school. Granted this is health concious country, unlike the south (by the way i definitly miss some of those foods that don't exist out here). . but these kids are always on the move. Each of us, on my team, were placed in a classroom (they only have K-3, and 1st and 2nd grade is together mixed in classes). Jason and I were in a 1-2 combined class when we were in Durham, so that concept isn't familiar to me.
Being in a kindergarten class has definitly made me 100% sure I want to work with youth after this. I like the little kids, they are cute but it's not what I want to teach. I think this next week I will be tutoring a little more one on one, or small groups since there are some kids that need more of the one on one attention that they are not receiving. I almost feel like with this constructivist model they don't spend enough time on some concepts that they should. It's more like the kids should pick it up on their own? I know I am not really explaining this correctly, so if you want more info, just google it. haha. I know they don't really teach reading by teaching phonics, the way a lot of us probably learned. They also do "brave spelling" which means we can't really correct a lot of their spelling. They also discipline strangely, it's way too nice if you ask me! My class is actually a little crazy sometimes so i feel like i do a lot of crowd control right now.

I think we are going to tutor afterschool as well this next week. One afternoon last week we did afterschool with the hollygrove people. They have a group of about 12 kids (some from Larchmont but others from other elementary schools nearby) that come for an anger/therapy program daily afterschool. They have a homework time, and then they playoutside (we played scocer) and then they talk about how their day was, and what not. It was an interesting experience. These kids have a lot problems with anger or depression. Some of it is a result of abuse at home, or other times not having the necessities such as food at home either.
It was fun hanging out with the kids. Many of them remember the group of Americorps people from last year so we are superstars this year. Kids always want me to play tag with them or whatever other game they make up.

Friday I played guitar with the music teacher for the Friday Morning sing. THe kids know some silly kid songs that have basic G,C,D,A chords, so i just followed what his fingers did and it was easy. The teacher I work with asked if i could listen to other songs and figure out how to play it, so maybe i'll get to play some more there. I have been playing some here at the hotel, when I get a chance. It has been nice to go out on the balcony and play for a while, and worship. I don't really belt the singing, since ya'll know how i sing, but you know. . my usual joyful noise for the Lord. =)

My team is alright, better than I had thought i guess. Today at the beach I found myself thinking how much fun it would be to be there with other people, but i decided to not think about that, and make the best of the situation there. We all get along good for the most part. I have kinda taken on the "mother" roll, waking people up in the morning, carrying the hotel room key, etc. It's kinda funny to me, but i know that I will not be late in the mornings, and that I will be able to get in the room, so it works for me. I don't mind being the mom! I don't really feel like i am babysitting, with the exception of 1 girl that is 18 and a little odd. Hopefully that part will get a little better.
I have a 4 day week this week, since the kids have this Friday and next Monday off of school. SOme of us might be going to Catlina Island or San Diego to visit other teams during the weekend. Either way, I will be able to see one of my friends so I am lookinmg forward to that. Allie said that Catalina Island is beautiful so i am going for that this weekend. Although, the San Diego Zoo would be super cool. So you'll just have to wait and see if what I end up doing. . .
Love ya'll!
ps: pics coming soon!

Ms Daigle is back!

Dispite the loss, I am proud of how my boys played. The last few losses have been pitiful, but not last night. They played well, most of the time, and for a bunch of freshman/underclassmen. So congrats to all you tarheels! See you in March! (since these are the only 2 games i WILL watch) Actually i only got to see the last half of the game because we were stuck in Los Angeles traffic for 45 minutes, only having to travel 2.5 miles. Plus i had a really bad ear ache so i was super grumpy and frustrated!

I don't have a lot of time tonight to write, i'm using my team leader's laptop, and there's no telling how long i'll have a connection. I jsut wanted to let ya'll know that I am doing well here in LA. I was able to see Katherine on my first night here, so that was nice. We began our project this week and it has been alright. We are at a charter school nearby, helping out in the classrooms. I am in a kindergarten classroom, which is totally different than my high school classroom. Sure my high schoolers acted like kindergarteners but it has been a long while since I have been in an elementary school. I feel like I have been doing crowd control most of the time. They are cute so it hasn't been too bad. We are trying to find more things to do around the school, so we feel like we are actually doing something other than taking up space in the classrooms. I am bringing my guitar tomorrow morning for their friday morning sing, but i don't really know what they do. The music teacher told me to come early and bring my guitar?? haha so we'll see! I have played a little on the balcony since i've been here, so i am glad i brought it. It's been a nice way to relax when i get a little homesick.

I gotta run now, but I will try to update again soon, now that I have figured out how to get some wireless from some rich person who lives in a house nearby that doesn't know how to secure their internet! =)
I miss you all, thanks for the comments/facebook posts/etc. (even if it is ragging on duke losing!) Love ya'll!!

Hollywood here i come!

Monday I leave for LA, and i'm not even packed yet! I have to pack even less than i packed to come here! At least I have a lot less to choose from this time! We are leaving early monday morning and following another team that has a project on Catalina Island. We are sharing a cargo van with them, so we can take a little more stuff. Which means I can take my guitar, and this i am excited about!
Thursday was our final day of training, and Friday was induction day. We had another baseline test for PT (physical training) friday morning. That is what we did way back when i first got here and had to do a mile and a half run, and max sit ups and push ups in 2 min each. I improved my sit ups and push ups. Once again, rocking the sit ups. . .with 95 in 2 minutes. I'm a beast. .. ok not really. The running part was not as much fun. My asthma choose not to cooperate, but i got through it. Everyone here has been sick, living together and doing everything together is not the most conducive environment when someone gets sick. So most of us had worse times on this baseline.
We had our induction ceremony friday morning as well. After that we had a long reflection activity and then they had a cookout for us. Part of the reflection activity was a massive hug chain. We were standing side by side all the way around the room, so one person hugged the person beside them, then that same person hugged the next person. The first person that was hugged then followed person A. I hope this makes sense, because it was one of the coolest things i've done. I hugged over 100 people in about 5 minutes. I love to hug, so i had a lot of fun with this activity.
The cookout was really nice since it was the first food in 3 weeks that we didn't have to cook for ourselves. Later friday evening we had a talent show, which was hillarious. One team did a modern civil war reinactment. . . one of the craziest things i've seen. Another group did the dance to Joyful Joyful from Sister Act II. That was amazing.

Today was Museum Day in Sacramento, which is one of the coolest ideas. All the museums (including the zoo!) were free today! I did another Independent Service Project, with some others here where we rode on the big charter busses that took different routes shuttling people around. Heather and I were on the Old Sacramento route, so we just told the people who got on and off what museums were there and how to reach other places. It was actually kinda fun. This afternoon some of us went to the Sacramento Zoo. It was about 1/4 the size of the NC zoo, and i'm glad it was free today. They didn't even have Elephants! The girafes were pretty cool though. Being out and about in the big city, just like when we were in San Francisco, reminded me again how I am definitly not at home anymore. Seeing all of the homeless people begging on the street, and also the people here with me that are so focused on the worldly things that never fill them up, makes my heart ache. I have been so blessed to have gotten Heather as a roommate here and found some awesome friends. These past few weeks have been great, and i'm definitly not looking forward to being away from everyone and with the 8 other people on my team all day every day. It's definitly going to be a lot harder.

Tomorrow a few of us are going to try a methodist church nearby, and hopefully it will be a much better experience than the last two we have gone to! I think i'm gonna get some Carl's Jrs on the way as well. . .which apparently is the same as Hardees, but it's what its called on the west coast. It looks the exact same with the star and colors, but it's called something different. Looking forward to a gravy biscut, hopefully it'll taste the same as well. No Bojangles, but it'll do.
I am not sure how much internet/computer access i'll have once i leave here. The computer labs have been down here off and on, but it's better than nothing. I'll do my best while i'm down there to get on and update ya'll some but feel free to call me (i'll try to do MUCH better about calling ya'll back) and or talk to mom and dad to find out what all i'm doing. I am praying for all of you, wherever you are. (Mebane, Hickory, Gboro, Scottland, Peru, etc).

I can not end this blog w/o mentioning ACC bball. I actually was able to catch the final 2 min and OT of the Duke/VA game and was extremely saddened by the outcome. However, today my spirits were lifted while eating at Applebees and watching sportscenter and seeing the highlights of the UNC/State game. . . it's only fair that if my boys receive an L, so does UNC! It makes me feel a lot better! I am going to do everything in my power to find a place/way to watch the game wednesday . . . So all that's left to say is . . . .

GO DUKE!! =)

Spike, and San Franscico

I would like to start out with some exciting news, that I am sure those of you who aren't cut off from the world know, today I learned that the final Harry Potter book comes out July 21st! I was surprised to find so many Harry Potter fans here, so quite a few of us were super excited at that announcement this morning! Moving on . . .

As usual, a lot has gone on since my last posting. I have been meaning to update this but computers are in high demand here, and there's usually lots going on, so we usually hop on and off pretty quickly so others can use it as well. Today however, i have pretty much all day free. My team had to give our project briefing to the staff people here this morning, to show that we have done some research on our project and know a little about the area and what we will be doing. Of course my teacher/perfectionist presentation mode kicked in and my non serious ADD team and i clashed a little. My team leader is just like me, so she had my back and it all worked out, and went well this morning.

So what is this first project you might be asking? Well, my team is going to west Hollywood for 5 weeks to work in a school. We will be at a newly opened charter school (this is its 2nd year of existence), and we will be tutoring, mentoring, working in the library, and other jobs to help them continue getting started. An Americorps NCCC team from this campus went down there for 2 months early last spring, so the people there are looking forward to having another team (us) back again! We will be staying in a hotel (2-3 rooms) for the first 2 weeks, then in an unfurnished apartment for the final 3 weeks. We are taking cots down there, so it won't be the floor. This housing is actually quite nice compared to some other situations i'll be in, or so i've been told. I'm looking forward to getting down there, and getting started on the project. I've missed being in a classroom since last spring, even though it was older kids, they acted like these K-3rd graders sometimes!

My team is still growing on me, a little each day. Some days are good, others are frustrating, but i guess that's how it goes spending so much time with the same people for so long. Most of my friends are also in similar situations, where they are not really close to anyone on their teams. I think we are going to try to send something back and forth between all of us, since we can send mail between Americorps teams for free. My roommate is staying here in Sacramento, along with 3 other teams, so she'll get to stay in our nice cozy dorm room.

Last weekend we (9 of us) took a short road trip to San Francisco. We rented 2 cars, and hit the road saturday morning. We arrived, and found our 1 & 1/2 star motel that we found on the Internet for a decent rate. It was still too early to check in, so we parked our cars and set off walking. We did some of the touristy things such as Fishermans Warf, and the Ghiradeli square. We did a TON of walking, and decided that we should have been exempt from PT (physical training) one day this week because of all the walking/hills we did over the weekend. Anyways, we made it back to the motel before dinner, and were pleasantly surprised at the quality of our rooms, and we were conveniently next door to each other. We rested our feet for a bit then made our way to Chinatown for dinner. After dinner we continued to venture around downtown, walking till our feet wanted to fall off, then walking some more. I decided that some of those hills needed ropes built in, so you can help pull yourself up them.

Sunday morning we got up and went to Golden Gate Park and walked around a little, then we went to the beach. It was a pretty ordinary beach visit, you know, walking around, throwing a frisbee around a little, till we spotted this big thing floating in the water not too far down the beach. We made our way over to it, and Kevin decided to investigate further. Apparently it was a huge slab of concrete with styrofoam on top. He decided it would make a nice surfboard, and Kathy Ellen soon followed. The frisbee got lost in the waves a couple times, and myself and Sean sacrificed ourselves to save the frisbee in the water. Needless to say the 4 of us had pretty wet pants by the time we were done. Kathy Ellen had her video camera going most of the weekend, so we have tons of funny footage from the beach and the whole weekend.

After we changed our pants we drove up to the Golden Gate Bridge. It was a nice day, so the view was beautiful. We pulled off on the side of the road and found a path to walk down to get a good picture of the bridge. Before we went over the bridge though we went back down Lombard st and at some lunch/breakfast for some of us at IHOP. Apparently IHOP has all you can eat pancakes right now, so we took on the challenge of eating as many as possible. Myself and allie did not help, i did the video taping, but 7 of them at 46 pancakes! It was rather impressive. Personally, I was sad to realize they don't have grits out here. They are missing out big time.

Wrapping up our exciting weekend, we went across the bridge and up to the John Muir National Redwood park. It was so beautiful. I've never seen trees as tall as these were. The drive up to the park and back down was amazingly beautiful as well. I've been on mountain roads in NC, but the road was insanely curvy and i've never seen so many mountains with so few trees. We had a pretty crazy weekend so I enjoyed sitting back and admiring God's beautiful creations for a little while.

This past weekend was the first time I felt like I was really away from home. Being on the base here all the time, we havn't been able to see a whole lot of Sacramento, and this became familiar really fast. We pretty much spend all our time in 2 buildings, and an occasional third one. I am sure that next week when we leave for our spikes (our projects away from Sacramento), the homesickness will kick in. I have found a great group of friends that has made this transition so much easier, but of course none of them will be with me in LA. Lately when i've gotten frustrated with my team, and certain aspects of Americorps (flexibility is key. . . but it's taken to the extreme here) I just remind myself why I am here. I am glad that the trainings are done, some of them have been mind-numbingly boring.

Just as an FYI I will not be able to get packages while I am gone. Mail is fine, they'll send that on twice a week, but they won't fedex stuff to me, so i'll get it when I get back. I will have an address there, that you can send stuff, bigger than letters/etc, i'll let you know what that is when i learn what it is.

That's about it for now. I'm not quite sure how often i'll be able to get online when I leave here. I will try to keep ya'll updated as much as possible. I love reading the comments ya'll leave, so thanks to those of you that have left comments! I hope those of you in NC are enjoying the snowy/icy weather. Enjoy your time off work and school!

Here are some pictures from the San Fran trip. Enjoy!!
http://uncg.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2061208&l=48a32&id=25000446