SEMESTER ONE: FINISHED!

Just about exactly two hours ago I e-mailed my final paper for Risk & Resilience to my professor, and I just now printed off my final paper for Children & Adolescents that I will be dropping off at the School of Social Work tomorrow. This makes me officially finished with my first semester of graduate school!

Tomorrow, after going to turn in my paper, I will be spending the day doing absolutely NOTHING ... Well, I will be packing for vacation and doing some laundry. But other than that, I will be relaxing and thinking about all of the things that I don't have to be doing!! It feels good to know that I have an entire month now where I will have no school work to think about.

Thanks everyone for your love and support in this first challenging semester!! Can't wait to see most of you over this coming holiday season.

Done with class!

Today was my last class of the semester!!! I spent all day working on my final paper for my Children & Adolescents class, and am nearly finished. Then I just have to finish my paper for Risk & Resilience and I'll be all DONE!!

Last day

It's a week of lasts. Today was the last day of my favorite class, Adv. Practice with Children & Adolescents, taught by the incredible Anne Gearity. It truly was a sad morning, and I wish that the class could continue for another semester at least. I learned so much in that class, about child development, about children's mental health, about clinical social work... I will remember her class for the rest of my career I'm sure.

Tonight is my last tutoring session with D'Angelo until after the New Year. Tomorrow is my last day at Wellstone until after the New Year. I'll be going in on Tuesday for a meeting, but tomorrow will be my last real day for a while. The next day will be my last Saturday class (hopefully forever!), and my last time watching Paxton for a couple of weeks. Monday will be my last day of classes for the semester. The semester is really wrapping up, now if only my last two exams would write themselves!

Group presentation

Last night in my diversity class my group did our presentation. This is the presentation concerning our fictitious social service agency, where we had to do two "staff meetings" or in-services. I feel confident saying that we totally rocked it! Our instructor seemed very pleased and said that we did a very good job and were able to cover a lot of subtle things that he hadn't expected us to mention.

Now all I have left for that class is our group paper, due next Monday (my last day of class for the semester). I've been sort of designated as the "group leader" just because I've taken charge of a lot of things. Rather than assign me a part of the paper, I've instead been given the task of editing it and making sure all the citations are correct, etc. I'm a little concerned because it's going to be much longer than 20 pages and I'm going to have to edit it down. However, I'm not going to worry too much about length because he gave us a list of about 24 bullet points that he wanted covered in the paper. So the way I figure it, he's asking for it!

O Christmas Tree

When I got back from my Thanksgiving vacation, Mira and Mel surprised me with a Christmas tree! They had purchased it from the YMCA while I was gone. It's an adorable little tree that we have sitting on a table right by our front windows. Today I braved the Christmas shoppers at Target and got some decorations for it. We couldn't put anything breakable on it, or anything that looks like a cat toy. So I got white and silver bows and blue and silver glittery snowflakes. We already had white and blue lights on it, so we seem to have a white/silver/blue theme going on. It looks really pretty and adds a little bit of Christmas spirit to our house! It's bigger than it looks in the photo, it's probably about four feet tall and on the table it stands taller than me.

Update

Well, it's been quite a while since I've posted anything in here. It's been a combination of things -- busy with school and internship and also trying to figure out what exactly is appropriate for me to write about. I've struggled over how much I can share with you all on here, as the issue of confidentiality is always at the forefront of my mind. If I were working somewhere such as the county or a large non-profit, I could easily share stories about cases just by changing names and some details. However, since I work at a school where there are a limited number of kids that I am working with, I feel uncomfortable sharing stories. If someone from Wellstone happened to come across this blog, they could probably identify who I was talking about, even with names changed. So I've decided that I can share some more general information about what I do, including stories about positive interactions. But it wouldn't be ethical for me to divulge any sensitive information. That somewhat limits what I can share, but there are plenty of other things going on in my life that I can talk about. So I will try to update a bit more frequently :)

The first thing that I would like to tell you about is the results of the Washburn toy drive. A little bit ago I posted a letter from Mira that was asking for donations. Each year the Washburn Center for Children, where Mira works, sponsors a toy drive for the case management kids. This year, as anyone who read her plea knows, they had come up short in funding. They were only going to be able to purchase toys for about half of the kids, which left the case managers in the tough position of having to decide which of their clients should get toys. Since most of these families are low-income and really struggling, sometimes these toys are all that the children will be getting for the holidays. So Mira and all of the other case managers went out to try to collect donations. I just spoke with Mira today and learned that over the past couple of weeks they were able to raise over $3000 through both corporate and private donations. This was enough to cover not only all of the case management kids, but also EVERY single child that Washburn serves!! In such a challenging year for social services, this is truly a happy story that I am thrilled to be able to share.

In other news, I have one week left of classes and then it is finals week. I don't have any final exams, just a number of final papers due. I am all finished with my Program Evaluation final because my wonderful professor utilized an "installment plan", where we turned in drafts of the final paper over the semester. Therefore, I've been working on it all semester and revising after each draft was returned. Another final that is nearly complete is the one for my diversity class, which has been a semester-long headache. The final is a group presentation and 20-page paper involving the creation of a fictitious multicultural social service agency. Each group had to select a specific culture that we planned to develop services for. We first had to write a 12-page community mapping paper for that culture, which identified the various resources available to that culture, along with demographic information and cultural strengths, weaknesses and barriers to service. Then we had to prepare a 30 minute presentation which involves two simulations of a staff meeting where we are presenting information about culturally responsive service delivery for that culture, along with identifying a real-life community organization that we plan to collaborate with. The 20 page paper describes our made-up organization. My group chose to do the Somali culture, which most of you know is a huge population in the Twin Cities. I have learned a lot, but it's been a ton of work. Luckily we are nearly done. Our group presents on Monday and the final paper is due on the 14th. We have been utilizing the wonderful tool of Google Documents, which is basically like Microsoft Word except it is online and a group of people can have access to it. We can all go in on our own and add to the paper. It's worked out quite well.

My last two final papers are extremely similar. They both involve doing a client assessment and creating a case plan. One of them is a bit more involved, as it requires me to do a literature review on one of the client's issues, along with creating a genogram (sort of like a family tree) of the client and a whole bunch of other things. The other one is more like an actual assessment, where I go through the case history, presenting issues, overall functioning, etc. Then I have to do a DSM-IV diagnosis of the client and create a case plan. I've already gotten a good start on the more involved one. I still have to do the literature review, which means reading over a whole bunch of journal articles that I've collected. I plan to review the literature on how relational trauma affects a child's attachment. Relational trauma pretty much refers to some type of trauma in the child's important relationships. In the case of my client, the relational trauma involves parental neglect, substance abuse and mental illness. Typically relational trauma results in an insecure parent-child attachment, where the child is unable to learn important skills from the parent, such as self-regulation. They child also develops a poor inner-working model (IWM). We all develop an IWM throughout our life, that says what we think about ourselves and our relationships with other people. A child with a poor IWM might think of himself as being unlovable or not having value and probably doesn't trust other people or think that relationships will be positive.

This reminds me that I never wrote anything about attachment, which I said way back that I was going to do. Attachment theory is huge in children's mental health, and is something that I will probably refer to a lot. I'll make sure to get something written about it sometime soon.

In the meantime, I hope everyone is doing well and I'm looking forward to getting home again in just a couple of weeks!!

Graduation

It's crazy that I just started grad school and am already thinking about graduation, but that's how it is with this advanced standing program. We had a "Steps to Graduation" meeting on Thursday, and I got all of the info regarding the School of Social Work's (SSW) graduation ceremony. So here is the date and information:

SSW Graduation Ceremony

Saturday, May 15, 2010 4:00PM

Tedd Mann Concert Hall (2128 S. 4th St, Minneapolis)

So everyone is invited, although I certainly don't expect you all to attend! There's no limit on how many guests that we can have, and there are no tickets or anything. The ceremony is only for the SSW, so it is small and intimate and supposed to be very lovely. Whatever family that I have in attendance will get to come up to stage and "hood" me in the graduate hood. There is a reception afterwards at the Concert Hall.

I just thought I'd throw the date out there for anyone that has an interest in making a trip to the Cities. I wish that I could offer a place to stay for everyone, but obviously space is extremely limited at my apartment so you'd be on your own in terms of accommodations.

The funny thing is that, although I will be walking in the ceremony, I won't actually be finished with school until the end of the July because I'm taking three summer classes. So my degree won't be posted until August. They allow that because most advanced standing students have to take summer classes to get all of their credits in, and it wouldn't really be fair to not let us participate in the ceremony just because we have to complete more credits than the full program students.

Again, I know that my parents will hopefully be coming and that is more than enough to make me happy, so please don't feel any obligation to attend just because I'm posting about this. I just wanted to make the information available!

A tough day

Today was a bit of a tough day at Wellstone. Fridays are usually easy. I get there around 8:30, help greet buses until a little after 9:00, visit in one of the kindergarten rooms until 9:20, then sit in on one of the classroom's morning meetings until 10:00. I have supervision from 10-11:00 and then 6th grade girls group from 11:20 until 12:00. After that I go home. Pretty low-key day.

This morning I went to one of the 1st grade dual immersion classrooms for morning meeting. There is one student in there that is one our caseload. I'll refer to him as Ian. Ian is an adorable little African American boy, one of only three African American kids in that dual immersion class. The rest are all native Spanish speakers. He has ADHD and was having a rough time at the beginning of the year, but has recently been doing so well that they decided that he really didn't qualify for Special Ed services anymore. We still planned to keep a close eye on him just to make sure that it was the right decision. So I went in there to see how he was doing. Everything seemed to be going fine, until about 5 minutes to 10. The class was going around in a circle and sharing, and he was getting more and more upset that he wasn't getting "called on", even though I explained to him that the teacher was going around in the circle and his turn would come eventually. He ended up diving under the table and when it was his turn, his teacher said that if he didn't come out she was going to skip past him. He shouted out his answer, but she wouldn't accept it until he came out from under the table. This upset him even more and he started knocking over chairs and crying, shouting "I hate this school!" At this point the teacher more or less blamed me for this meltdown, saying that she thought the attention was setting him off and that he normally didn't do that.

Luckily he actually willingly left the room with me. I just said, "Wow sweetie, you are just having such a tough time aren't you? Let's go somewhere where you can calm your body down." I put my arm around him and I could tell that he just really needed that. So we went to my office around the corner and did some sensory activities that are designed to help him regulate his body and emotions. Then we did a little conferencing around what had happened in the room and talked about what he needed from his teacher when he was starting to feel that icky feeling in his body that made him have such a hard time. We talked about making a "volcano" card that he can show to his teacher to let her know that he needs a break. So that's something I'll need to meet with his teacher about. We also talked about knocking over chairs is not an okay way to make himself feel better. So at this point I was about 35 minutes late for supervision. Luckily I have a walkie-talkie that most of the support staff have, and so I radioed up to Julianne to let her know that I was dealing with a situation. When I walked him back to class, they were just coming back from having school photos done so his teacher asked me to walk him to get his picture taken. When all was said and done, it was nearly 11:00 so we only ended up having about 20 minutes for supervision.

[Supervision, just as a side note, is when Julianne and I can process what's happened during the week and I can ask questions about practice techniques or theory or anything. She usually asks guided questions also to get my thinking. We typically have supervision for an hour each week. ]

Just as we were getting ready to get our 6th grade girls, Julianne got a call from the Focus room (which is the behavior room) asking for her to come check in on a student. So she said that she would do that while I took the girls down to get their lunch, and she'd meet us back up at the office. 6th grade girls group consists of 5 girls that are all pretty low functioning in terms of cognitive ability and also social maturity. They're all funny and sweet girls, but they can be a handful. We have group during lunch time, so they bring lunch up to the SW office, eat and then we do a lesson, usually around a social skill or something to that effect. Lately we've been doing Yoga Calm, which is meant to help them build self-awareness, confidence and self-regulation strategies. Anyway, Julianne actually never came back for group because she got held-up in the Focus room. So I was left with group all by myself, and it did not go well. I'd led another group by myself once, but it was only two girls. The girls today were super energized, and it didn't help that we hadn't had group for three weeks because there wasn't school the past two Fridays. It was impossible to get them to do anything. They were so excited about Halloween, and just wanted to talk and talk. So I sort of felt like a failure, but I knew that they were just having a challenging day. That happens in group sometimes, even when Julianne is running it. I made sure to "name it" at the end of group though. I said, "So group was kind of hard today. I understand that everyone has a lot of energy because lots of classes are having parties today and everyone's excited. Also we haven't had group in a while, so we're kind of getting familiar with it again. So today was a tough day, but that's okay. Next week will be better." It was important for me to let them know that it was hard for me too, so that they knew that (1) My expectations were higher (so they don't start to think that group will always be so unproductive and not want to come any more) and (2) I recognized where they were at and understood.

I ended up leaving almost 30 minutes late because Julianne still wasn't back and there was a 5th grade student that wanted to work on a math test in her office. I wanted to provide that student with the quiet space, so I just waited in there with her until Julianne got back. Then I went home and worked for about six hours straight on a midterm paper that is due tomorrow morning.

So there's a little peek into my life! I realized that I don't write enough about my day-to-day, to answer some of those questions like "What exactly is school social work all about?" So there's some of what I do. It's pretty hectic and you really need to be flexible and able to deal with ever-changing schedules. Things come up, there are always students in crisis ... You have to learn to prioritize and improvise. Usually it's not so bad that I miss supervision and then Julianne misses group, but I have to be ready for those things. So there you have it! (And that's just a half day...)

Message from Mira

Hey everyone,

As most of you know, I was hired as a Children's Mental Health Case Manager at Washburn Center for Children three months ago and absolutely love it (check out a link about the work that we do: http://washburn.org/about/video.html). Washburn has been named by NAMI (National Alliance on Mental Illness) as their Provider of the Year 2009 (check out the attached Washburn Newsletter for more info on this, Washburn and the Holiday Toy Drive)

Yes, it is that time of year again, when the staff here at Washburn Center for Children are looking for individuals to help with our Holiday Toy Drive. Many of the families that we work with do not have any extra money to purchase holiday gifts for their children. Currently we have about 350 kids that need gifts, and only 161 sponsors for those children. So if we do not get more sponsors or money we are going to have to figure out a way to decide which kids get gifts and which do not. I know that it’s not a great time to ask, but I’m hoping that some of you would be willing to either sponsor a child or donate money for a gift. We are asking that people spend about $20 per child.

If you are able to help out, you can:

• Buy gift cards (and mail to me (see below), I'll go buy toys with my team for our kiddos)
• Mail a check to Washburn (c/o me and I'll go buy toys with my team)
• Go through Washburn's Development Team. One plus of going through the Development Team is that your donation would be tax deductible! Either way, makes sure to let it known that you are donating money to the Case Management Holiday Toy Drive and let me know that you are doing so.
• Sponsor a child or family. Please give me your contact information and you will be mailed gift tags and information about the child you will be sponsoring so you can buy a gift for him or her.

The deadline on this is tight- we would like to know in the next two weeks how many kids are going to be able to receive gifts.

Thanks so much for putting up with this mass email and I totally understand if this is something that is just not an option for you this year. If you know of anyone else (parents, grandparents, siblings, friends, companies...) who might be interested in helping out, please let them know about this opportunity as well.

Thanks!

Mira

If you wish to write a check, please mail it to me at:

Mira Swanson

Case Management

Washburn Center for Children

2430 Nicollet Ave S

Minneapolis, MN 55404

Feeling some anxiety...

So I'm feeling a little bit of anxiety about my internship at the moment. Everything is still going really well, and my supervisor is still awesome. The thing is, there have been several people in the MSW program who have lost their field placements because of budget cuts, etc. at their agencies. So all of the field instructors were asked to consider taking on another intern. Julianne and I discussed it and decided that we would be open to the possibility of taking someone on if we really felt as though they would be a good fit. This was a few weeks ago, and we never heard anything back, so we figured nothing was going to happen.

Well, after work today I saw that Julianne had forwarded me an e-mail from a girl in the program who was wanting more information about Wellstone and possibly wanting to set up an interview. So it looks like we might be interviewing someone after all. The truth is, I have extremely mixed feelings about Julianne taking on another intern. I really like having a supervisor all to myself, and I worry that with another intern there we will be compared to one another. This is especially hard when you have people coming in with such different levels of experience. Looking at her resume, I saw that she was a psych major in undergrad and seems to have a lot of experience already in clinical type work, which is where I don't have a lot of experience. That's also the area that I feel most insecure about, and I worry that if we take on another intern who is very strong in that area, I am going to feel even less confident. I've spoken with other people in the program who are at agencies with more than one intern, and it seems like that is a common problem for them. My other fear is, what if we take someone on and I end up not liking her? I know that this is obviously something that happens in the real world, and I need to be prepared for it. However, this is my internship, and I feel like I deserve to have it be the kind of experience that I want. I'm certainly paying enough for it!

Anyway, feel free to tell me if I'm being ridiculous. I know that I should just relax and have faith that it will all work out. But you all know me, I have a tendency to worry! I'll keep you updated.

FFOTD: Mirror Neurons

Okay, this fact is really cool! So mirror neurons are cells that fire in our brains when we see actions and when we repeat that action. In a NY Times article ("Cells That Read Minds" -- January 10,2006), UCLA neuroscientist Dr. Marco Iacoboni tell us, "When you see me perform an action -- such a picking up a baseball -- you automatically simulate the action in your brain ... You understand my action because you have in your brain a template for that action based on your own movements." Basically, when we watch things happen, our brain is imitating those same things.

These mirror neurons are also directly related to empathy, or understanding the feelings and expressions of others. Dr. Iacoboni continues to explain, "And if you see me choke up, in emotional distress from striking out at home plate, mirror neurons in your brain simulate my distress. You automatically have empathy for me. You know how I feel because you literally feel what I am feeling." When you see someone being physically hurt and feel as though you can sense their pain, it is because you really do feel their pain -- at least in your brain. Those who rank high on scales measuring empathy have "particularly active mirror neuron systems", the NY Times article explains.

This research on mirror neurons could have implications for little understood conditions such as Autism. As the article states, "While many people with autism can identify an emotional expression, like sadness, on another person's face, or imitate sad looks with their own faces, they do not feel the same emotional significance of the imitated emotion. From observing other people, they do not know what it feels like to be sad, angry, disgusted or surprised." Some researchers have been led to believe that broken mirror neurons could play a part in Autism Spectrum Disorders.

Mirror neurons are also important when it comes to our understanding of violence and aggression. While it has been found that mirror neurons work best in real life, a study in the January 2006 issue of Media Psychology "found that when children watched violent television programs, mirror neurons, as well as several brain regions involved in aggression were activated, increasing the probability that the children would behave violently." This could help to explain why those who witness a lot of violence are more likely to become violent. Many people worry that watching violence will desensitive us to violence and make us think that it's okay. It turns out that it could be more complex than just psychology. It could be that those violent behaviors are actually becoming imprinted in our brains and becoming part of our neurobiology.

It just goes to show how fascinating and truly complex the human brain is. And now when I get teased for being "overly sensitive" when it comes to movies, etc. I can just respond, "I can't help it! I have highly active mirror neurons!"

Here is a YouTube video that I found discussing the connection between empathy and mirror neurons:

E-mail Notifications

I was just talking to Grandma and commenting that I wished there were a way to have automatic e-mail notifications sent out every time I updated my blog. I know it's easy to go to the site and do a quick check to see if it's updated, but it still might be a nice option. When I first made the blog, there wasn't this e-mail notification option. However, Blogger has recently adopted that feature! So, if you want me to put you on the e-mail notification list, let me know. Either comment on this entry or send me an e-mail.

FFOTD: A Hormone For Caring

Today's fun fact is a mixed bag. On one hand it's extremely interesting, on the other hand it's implications are a bit depressing. It has to do with the hormone oxytocin. Oxytocin helps mammals to bond. Women produce a heightened level of oxytocin during childbirth and then pass it on to their infants during breast-feeding, which helps them to bond and attach.

Now research has found that people with higher levels of oxytocin tend to be more trusting! Alongside this finding is the research done at UW by Seth Pollak on Russian and Romanian infants adopted by Wisconsin families. These infants, adopted from orphanages where they lacked sufficient emotional care, were found to produce oxytocin differently -- even a number of years after their adoption. According to an article in the New York Times ("Exploring a Hormone for Caring", November 22, 2005), a typical child will have a rise in their oxytocin level after 30 minutes of interaction with their mothers. This rise in oxytocin did not occur in the previously neglected children. As the article states, "Dr. Pollak believes that oxytocin acts through the brain's reward system and gives infants a positive feeling about social interactions. The finding that the adopted children in the study apparently get less of an oxytocin reward could explain why some children from Eastern Europe, as they grow older, have difficulty forming social relationships."

One thing that we do know from child development and neurobiology is that children are very resilient and new neural connections can form and adjust depending on their environment. The article notes that it could be that these children's biological systems will eventually adjust. Regardless, the best intervention continues to be "adoption into loving families." In the future, these findings on oxytocin may help us discover more effective interventions for previously neglected children.

What this news on oxytocin also tells us is how important attachment and bonding are. I will hopefully talk more about attachment in another entry, because it's pretty much at the foundation of child development. However, for now I just want to point out that besides making people more trusting, higher oxytocin levels also make humans more resistant to stress and social phobias. This means that children with secure attachment figures are going to be better equipped to engage in trusting, healthy relationships. They are also going to be better able to deal with the world and manage stress and anxiety. Here is scientific proof that children need to be loved and cared for.

Overcoming Assumptions

One of the things that I love about the Twin Cities is how culturally diverse it is. And not only are the Cities culturally diverse, they also lack the extreme racial segregation of some of their neighbor cities in the Midwest. In fact, the U.S. Census Bureau published a report on racial segregation a few years back and six out of the top ten most segregated cities in the U.S. were right here in the Midwest. Minneapolis-St. Paul didn't make that list, but Milwaukee landed itself in the number one spot (for those interested, the others were Detroit, Cleveland, St. Louis, Newark, Cincinnati, Buffalo, NYC, Chicago and Philadelphia). So for me, living in a neighborhood where I can see a young black man walking down the street without automatically wondering, "What is he doing here?", is a breath of fresh air.

Yet, living and working in a multicultural environment also means that sometimes I'm confronted with things that I don't understand, or things that make me feel uncomfortable. I'm grateful for that, because those experiences help me to become more self-aware. Through confronting our feelings about certain issues, we are able to examine them, understand them and hopefully move on. One of the things that I've had to come to terms with over the past year is my feelings in regards to the veiling of women. Minneapolis-St. Paul, as many of you know, has an extremely large Muslim population, mostly due to the large number of Somali immigrants. In fact, Minnesota has the largest Somali population in the United States. Many of the Somali women living in the Twin Cities follow the practice of wearing the "hijab" -- the traditional head covering. For a long time, I held the sentiment that women who wore head coverings were oppressed and must not be very intelligent. Because from my ethnocentric point of view, a liberated and intelligent woman would never choose to cover herself like that. Then I moved here. There were four or five Muslim women that I served with in AmeriCorps, all of them wearing some form of a headscarf. As I got to know these women, I had to set aside my assumptions because I realized that they were extremely smart, funny and strong individuals. Almost all of them were college educated, most spoke at least three different languages ...

Now at Wellstone, I am having a similar experience. When I attended the very first staff meeting I was shocked to meet two staff members (AmeriCorps volunteers in fact) who were wearing the full veil. One of them has a space for her eyes, but the other has a veil covering her entire face. I had never seen this in person before. I had thought that you had to go to Afghanistan to see something like that. My next assumption was, "Oh, well they must be recent immigrants." Then I spoke with one of them and discovered that she had no accent, implying that she obviously has lived here for most of her, if not her entire, life. So suddenly I find myself going through the same thing over again. I had made my peace with the hijab, but now suddenly here's this burqa. Is there really a difference? Theoretically I don't think so. In terms of interaction, I am having to work on my feelings of discomfort that arise when I am speaking with someone with a veil completely covering her face. In our culture we are so used to looking people in the eyes when we speak with them. You don't realize how important this is until you are speaking with someone and you can't actually see their face. It feels very strange. But I'm working on it.

The best thing, I think, is to be aware of our feelings. In our efforts to be "politically correct" and "culturally competent", so often we want to pretend and tell ourselves that we aren't uncomfortable. But there is no shame in admitting discomfort or confusion. I'm not saying that it's necessary to go up to someone and tell them that they make you uncomfortable. I'm simply saying that it's good to process our feelings about things, or talk to a friend about it. Mira and I were just talking tonight about the veil issue, which is what prompted me to write this blog entry. Once we process our feelings we can begin to make an actual effort to overcome those feelings. If we're never really honest though, we'll never be able to get past it.

What's the point of cultural competence -- of understanding and accepting practices that are different than our own? Some people get confused and think that it means we have to agree with everything. I don't have to agree with the practice of wearing the hijab to be respectful and accepting of the women who wear it. I don't agree with the theology behind separating men and women, and I'm sure that I never will. However, I was raised in a progressive, fairly secular manner. It's not fair for me to judge other people based on my own cultural values. It's not right for me to view those women as oppressed. It's all about looking at the world and other people from a strengths perspective, rather than a deficits perspective. When we accept others' differences, we are able to see their strengths. When we focus on the differences, we get stuck there and we end up judging. And when we judge people we miss out on important opportunities to learn, to understand, to form friendships and to love.

Article worth reading:

Twin Cities: Vibrant with Diversity

Fun Fact of the Day

I'm learning so much these days, and I've decided that I'd like to share some of these learnings with all of you. So from time to time you can expect these "Fun Fact of the Day" (FFOTD) posts. Since social work involves a lot of trauma and psychopathology and other sadness, these "fun" facts might not really be that fun. For that I apologize. But hopefully they'll always be interesting!

My first FFOTD involves the effects that trauma has on the body's stress response system. Normally when we undergo a great deal of stress or anxiety, our body's stress response system releases hormones (such as adrenaline, cortisol, etc.) that create a number of physiological changes. This is typically known as the "fight or flight" response, in which the body prepares itself for action. One of these changes is an increase in heart rate. Now the interesting fact has to do with a study done on a group of Branch Davidian children -- survivors of the infamous incident that occurred in Waco, Texas. It was discovered that the group average for resting heart rate was 134. An adult's resting heart rate can be expected to be between 60-80 (even lower for those who are very physically active). In children it is higher, but a group average could be expected to fall between 80 and 90. Again, the group average for the traumatized children was 134. Think about how "at rest" you would feel if your heart rate was 50 beats per minute higher than normal.

Here's the "take away" message from this fun fact: Children under chronic stress have a good reason to act agitated or aggressive. Their bodies are in constant states of arousal, which makes it difficult for them to behave in manners that we would consider "appropriate." Many times children living in poverty or in violent communities or other stressful situations can be aggressive, poorly behaved, etc. Is it really any surprise? They are in a constant state of "fight or flight". But what is our natural reaction to their behavior? Punishment and words such as "You know better than that!" Really, they don't know better. They're doing the best that they can to survive. I'm not saying that the solution is to allow poor behavior to continue, but we can't just punish it and expect it to go away. What needs to happen is that traumatized children have to be taught different strategies. For example, a clinical social worker who is working with a traumatized kiddo who hits when another child gets into their personal space might say, "It seems like you were trying to tell Susie that she was getting too close to you. That was a good try, but that doesn't work. It doesn't work because it's not okay to hit other people. Let's think of some different ways that you could have communicated that to Susie." Now this isn't going to automatically fix things. It takes training and practice. The child literally needs to learn new responses, responses that don't come naturally to him.

I wanted to start out by sharing this particular subject because it relates really well to some of the work that I will be doing this year. A lot of the kids I will be working with at Wellstone have poor emotional regulation and get very easily aroused. One of our jobs is to work with those students to teach them strategies for regulating themselves and for being successful in the school environment. At different points in time I'll try to write some entries with case examples, so you can understand some of what I'm doing. But first I wanted to give you all some rationale for our intervention methods. So I hope you enjoyed the first ever FFOTD! I'll try to throw in some less depressing ones from time to time as well :)

Camp Fire USA

If you haven't read my past three posts ("I'm back!", "School days" and "Wellstone") then head on down and read those first!

So since most of you knew about my job interview and prospective position as a youth club leader with Camp Fire USA, I thought I better address that. The interview went really great, and I think that they really wanted me as a leader. However, the trouble was finding sites for me that would fit with my schedule (which was admittedly limited). So I am not going to be working with Camp Fire. However, after having started school and my internship, I think it's probably a good thing that I didn't get the position because I just don't know how I would have managed it. I am having a hard enough time now.

Once I realized how crazy my schedule is already, I went and looked over my budget and finances. My financial aid, alongside the extra money I bring in each month from tutoring and baby-sitting, is definitely going to be enough to cover me for the semester. I'm going to have to stick to my budget, but I should be just fine. So right now I'm going to focus on school and my field work. I still have my Saturday night baby-sitting job with Paxton. Last week I started up my tutoring job again, which is just an hour every Thursday. That's with a now 6th grade boy named D'Angelo, for those who aren't already familiar with that position.

Next semester I might look to pick up another few hours of work somewhere, but for now I think I have enough on my plate already.

Wellstone

If you haven't read my previous two posts ("I'm back!" and "School days"), scroll on down and read those first!

As everyone knows by now, my field placement for the year is at Wellstone Elementary School in downtown St. Paul. I'm working with the school social worker, Julianne. I started on August 31st, with the first staff meeting and then had my first official day as an intern on Wednesday, September 9th. As the year proceeds, I'll speak more on my official duties. For now I'll just go over the basics.

First of all, Wellstone is a K-6 magnet school. The magnet is "basic skills", so the focus is on math and reading proficiency. There are about 650 students. About 40% are African American and African (mostly Somali), 40% Latino, 15% Asian and 5% Caucasian and other. One of the reasons we have so many Latino students is that we have dual immersion classrooms at every grade level, where the primary instruction is in Spanish. Another important thing to note is that about 90% of our students are in the free and reduced lunch program. So the poverty level is pretty high among the student population. We have a high number of kids in Special Ed and with IEPs (Individualized Education Program). The kids that we work with are ones with social work services on their IEPs.

Some of the things that I will be doing this year are working with groups. So far Julianne and I have had our first 5th grade boys group and 6th grade girls group. I'll also be helping with the dog therapy program (more on that another time). I'll be learning how to do IEPs, functional-behavioral assessments, etc. I'm also going to get a handful of students that I'll eventually be doing individual work with. For now I'm working with Julianne, learning how she does things and learning about the students and the school. I have my own office space as of last week, so I've been working on getting my materials together and getting settled in. I'm there two and a half days a week: all day Monday and Wednesday and Friday in the morning.

I think it should be an amazing learning experience!

School days

If you haven't read my previous post (I'm Back!), scroll down and read that first!

Yes, my classes have begun! September 8th was the official first day of class. I started up on the 10th, with a full day of class. I have two classes every Thursday: (1) Advanced Practice with Children & Adolescents for three hours in the morning and (2) Program Evaluation for two hours in the afternoon. Every other Thursday I have a forty-five minute field seminar between the two.

Children & Adolescents is taught by the wonderful Anne Gearity, who is a clinical social worker in independent practice. She also is a consultant for the day treatment program at the Washburn Center for Children (where Mira works). I had heard wonderful things about her from Mira, who took her class last year. So far she seems like an excellent instructor, with a lot to teach. This class basically focuses on child and adolescent development and how to work effectively with that population based on principles of development.

Program Evaluation is taught by David Hollister, who is a very nice man, very well-versed in the area of evaluation. This course focuses on teaching us how to create and complete an evaluation for a program within an agency or organization to see whether or not it is effective.

I also have class on Saturday morning for three hours. That class is called Resilience and Risk and is taught by Jane Gilgun. Resilience and Risk is focused on child psychopathology. It looks at what are the risk factors in childhood and adolescence, and also what are the protective factors. In other words, how can we work with children to overcome their risks and pathologies?

My last class is Monday nights for two hours. Advanced Practice with Diverse Populations is taught by Oliver Williams. He has both an M.S.W and a Master's in Public Health (M.P.H.) and is the director for the Institute on Domestic Violence in the African American Community. This class is fairly self-explanatory. I am hopeful about this class. In our first session, the instructor noted that he was tired of focusing on the philosophical aspects of diversity and cultural competence and that it was time to move on to the practical. So we are supposedly going to focus on application of principles of diversity.

So far things are going pretty well. The reading has been pretty manageable, and overall very interesting. I just completed my first paper, a cultural competency self-assessment and agency assessment for my Diversity class. Overall, I'm really happy with how the program is going, and am already learning a lot!

I'm back!

Sorry for the serious lack of blogging over the past couple of weeks. So much happened at once and I got overwhelmed by the idea of having to write it all. Then, as often happens in life, things continued to happen, thereby creating even more things that I wanted to write about. But if I don't start now, it's never going to happen. So to make things seem more manageable for myself, I'm going to break this up into several smaller posts centered around common themes. That way it can be more organized and easy to follow as well. So look for the following posts, coming very soon (possibly by the time you've read this!):

School days
Wellstone
Camp Fire USA

As well as anything else I might think of along the way.

Thanks everyone for your love and support :)

A Week at Camp Sunrise -- Part Two

I realized that it was high time I finish up my Camp Sunrise adventure so that I can move on to writing about other things! So here is the re-telling of the rest of the week at camp.

When I left off we had just begun our second day of the canoe trip, after a restless night of sleep thanks to the rabid raccoons outside our tents. The second day of the trip was the big one. We needed to cover about 20 miles to get to our second camp site. Luckily the trip would be broken up by an hour stop near Highway 70, where there is a visitor's center.

The first half of the day was not fun! The river was so shallow and rocky that it seemed as though we were pushing ourselves over rocks the entire way. On top of that I was dying for some water. Although we had two large water jugs, Alex and Donnie had forgotten to bring our water bottles. So we didn't have anything to drink while canoeing, which was bothering me quite a bit. As luck would have it, C Crew ended up catching up with us and I was able to borrow a water bottle from their counselor Leah. Once hydrated, things went much better. We arrived at Highway 70 right around lunch time and Alex used the phone at the visitor's center to call Camp and ask them to deliver our water bottles and bread (to replace what the raccoon had eaten). While we waited for our delivery we enjoyed a lunch of PB&J. Then we had an educational session provided by one of the park rangers. She had given Alex the option of having the session be on either crawfish or wolves. Alex chose wolves, which I told him was not a good idea. Knowing our girls and their tendency towards hysteria regarding any kind of wild animals, I didn't think that teaching them all about the wolves that lived around the St. Croix was the best idea.

Sure enough, the poor park ranger had to answer a multitude of questions from worried girls asking about wolves. She had passed around a map showing where the wolves were most highly concentrated. We were smack dab in the middle of the area known as "Wolf Woods", which didn't worry me too much (wolves tend to stay away from humans), but had the girls all in a tizzy. By the end of the educational session, Alex was agreeing with me that he should have chosen crawfish.

The rest of the day's canoeing went by relatively quickly. The waters beyond Highway 70 were much deeper and less rocky, making it a much smoother journey. Our camp site, County O Landing, was really nice. Rather than a toilet seat out in the middle of the woods, there were actual walled-in latrines that didn't smell! The girls were excited about that. What was not exciting was that Alex and Donnie had forgotten to pack the can opener. This wouldn't have been a problem if we weren't planning on eating mostly canned goods that evening. Not willing to be so easily discouraged, Alex decided to use a trusty butter knife to open the cans. This resulted in much hilarity as I used a box to shield myself from the potential spray of tomato sauce as Alex stabbed at the can. Wendy gave it a try as well, but when the knife landed about two inches from where she had intended, we decided she probably wasn't the best one for the job.

Dinner lasted late into the night since it had already gotten dark once we began. It was quite a challenge cooking with flashlights over two little gas-powered stoves. Especially since every time we made something someone had to go down to the river and wash off the pot so we could make something else. If only we'd had four times more cookware. Anyway, one thing that we decided to make was grilled cheese. It took forever to make fourteen grilled cheese sandwiches, since we could only make one at a time. Cameron and I got a bit of a system going though, where she would grill the sandwich, I would hold the flashlight in the crook of my neck and quickly butter the pan between each sandwich.

The best part about the night? No raccoons! The next morning we were all allowed to sleep in since we only had about two miles to cover and didn't have to be back to camp until 2:00. The last two miles I departed from my two-day canoeing partner Alex and hopped aboard a canoe with Lamia. It was finally my turn to steer, which I was pretty nervous about. Luckily we weren't going through any rapids and there weren't really any rocks. I successfully steered us for about a mile until the river got so shallow that for the first time in the entire trip I had to get out and pull the boat. We ended up outside the boat for pretty much the last stretch, which wasn't too enjoyable. But right before we had to get out and pull, we had one of the big highlights of the trip. We saw a bear crossing the river with her cub! It was from quite a distance, but it was still very cool. The girls were extremely excited (thank god it was far away or they would have been frantic). Finally we arrived back at camp and had plenty of time for rest and relaxation. Overall, the trip was an incredible experience. Besides the bear we also saw bald eagles, hawks, deer and even a muskrat swimming down the river! I would love to be able to do a trip like that again.

Thursday was our service project day. The service project, as I mentioned in part one, is a way for campers to give back to camp and earn service hours. Our project would be completed in the afternoon, but first we had to engage in some team-building activities. The team-building consisted mainly of various games that required communication and cooperation. I'll give an example. One game that we played was called "The Beautiful St. Croix." We were given three or four "bases" (from baseball) that represented lily pads. We had to get our entire team from one side of the "river" to the other by stepping on the lily pads, but if no one was standing on a lily pad, it would "sink". Various crew members were also stricken with certain maladies, such as blindness and loss of limbs. Before we began our activities, I was nervous about how our girls would do. Although we all got along great and had been having lots of fun together, I wasn't sure how well we would all work as a team. The girls were awesome. Afterward, Alex confided in me that it was the best team-building experience that he'd had all summer.

I wish I could say the same about the service project. It's not that the girls didn't do a good job, it was just that we got the short end of the stick when it came to projects. Our service project consisted of going out into the forest to collect firewood. The summer before a number of trees had been cut down and then cut into smaller logs. Our job was to go and collect those logs, haul them in wheelbarrows to a truck, drive them back to camp, stack them and repeat. It was hard manual labor and the girls weren't very enthusiastic about it. I wasn't entirely thrilled about it either, but I tried to stay upbeat for my crew. One of my favorite parts of the service project was when I was busy hauling heavy logs and Izzy says to me, "I feel like you're really strong Amy. Do you lift weights or something?" I laughed, but secretly it felt really good to be looked up to as a strong woman :)

After the service project something sad happened: we lost one of our crew members. There had been drama going on for a while between some of our girls and some of the girls in C Crew (most of which, in my opinion, was instigated by the C Crew girls). Anyway, there had also been a lot of problems going on with Nikki's sister, who was in B Crew. A bunch of girls were called in to talk with the Camp Director, accusations were made and in the end Nikki's sister ended up either being sent home or deciding to leave (I'm still fuzzy on exactly what happened.) Nikki made the decision to leave with her sister. Our girls were understandably upset about the whole situation and Izzy was ready to go and have a major confrontation with a couple of the C Crew girls. Luckily we were able to talk her down, but it put a bit of a damper on our last night.

Our spirits were a bit heightened by skit night though! Skit night is always the last night of camp. After a delicious dinner of BBQ chicken, we got into our crews and planned out our skit. We decided to do a skit parodying Lamia and Izzy's ridiculous habit of thinking that everyone we saw was some kind of celebrity. This came to us when the two girls started listing off various people at camp and who they looked like. Apparently I look like "the girl from Drag Me To Hell" (I don't), and some other guy looks like Chris Brown and another looks like some person's sister ... it went on and on. So Alex dressed up as the Mr. Boston character from the beach and Wendy and Donnie dressed up like Jackie Chan and Chris Tucker (that was inspired by our limited costuming choices). The skit involved us standing around on "the beach" while the girls pointed out various people and swore on their lives that they were celebrities. Alex, Wendy and Donnie made their entrances and then the girls chose random people from the audience as well.

After skit night we had the closing ceremony, where we sat around the fire and everyone went around and said something about the week. Mostly it involved thanking other people for making it a good week. It was sweet, but it lasted forever. The really memorable part of the night happened after we had taken the girls to their tents for bedtime. The night before the girls had finished up all of their junk food (they're allowed to bring their own food to camp, but during the day it has to be kept locked in the staff office to keep critters from coming into the tents), and were complaining that they couldn't sleep without food. So Alex and I went back to the kitchen and prepared them PB&J sandwiches for a little midnight treat. We went over to their tents and they were really quite touched. Alex headed over to Wendy & Cameron's tent to deliver their sandwich. Meanwhile, Sonna, Lamia and Izzy invited me to sit down and chat with them. So I hunkered down on their floor and we just talked. After talking about random subjects, I asked them how they felt about the week overall. Lamia shocked me when she said that she actually really enjoyed herself and wanted to return the next year. Ismahan voiced her agreement and Sonna said that she would even like to be a vet. It really touched me that these girls that had been so resistant at the beginning of the week now wanted to return.

On our last morning together before loading onto the buses I read them a little something that I had written the night before after returning to my tent. I remarked on individual qualities that I admired in each of the girls and then I told them how proud I was of all that they had accomplished over the week. "I know that each of you has the ability to accomplish anything that you set your mind to," I told them, my voice a little shaky. I thanked them for giving me the best week of my summer, saying that I would never forget them. With tears in their eyes, they enveloped me in a big hug. Here were these girls, all from backgrounds different from my own and even from each other, that had come together for this week and left changed in ways that they couldn't have imagined. It was a beautiful thing.

A Week at Camp Sunrise -- Part One

I'll admit, I was nervous about going to work for a week as a volunteer counselor at Camp Sunrise (4/11 entry). Most of my interactions with teenagers ended when I exited my own teenager years. And I knew that despite all of my experience working with urban youth of color, nothing could prepare me for spending a week with a group of teenager girls, mostly from the inner cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul. I knew that I would be one of the few white people there (and I was right, there were five of us at camp -- 2 head counselors, 2 volunteer counselors and 1 junior counselor). At this point I'm perfectly comfortable being the only white person in a room, as has frequently been the case over the past year, but I was worried that the girls wouldn't feel as comfortable with me or feel like they couldn't relate to me as well since I come from such a different background. On top of all that, despite my love of nature and the outdoors, I'm not exactly experienced in camping or canoeing. Would I really be able to help lead a group of girls in a 32 mile canoe trip down the St. Croix river? Yes, I was nervous.

To save you any suspense, I'll start out by saying that I ended up having one of the most memorable and enjoyable weeks of my life. I bonded with the six delightful girls that I was working with, and I proudly made it through my 3 day canoe trip. Now on to the fun retelling of the week's events...

Mira dropped me off on Saturday at the YouthCARE office in Minneapolis. I had decided to take the bus up to camp with the rest of the girls. The ride up was very quiet. I think many of the girls were nervous about the upcoming week. Many had come up with another friend, with whom they chatted quietly. Others kept plugged into their iPods, as we made the 60 mile journey north. As we pulled off the highway, into Rush City, I could hear the girls murmuring about the rustic setting. We turned onto a path that led us into the woods and finally out into a large field where a group of adults were playing volleyball. When they saw us pull up, they started jumping around, shouting and waving and greeting the apprehensive campers. I was almost immediately greeted by Alex, who was to be the head counselor that I would be working with throughout the week. We chatted and he brought me over to the storage shed to get a sleeping bag and we went over to my tent. Campers are housed in platform tents, sleeping on (very uncomfortable) cots. Staff stay in the tents as well, but since they're up for the whole summer they get beds. Volunteer counselors are stuck with cots.

After an introductory meeting with all the campers and staff at the fire pit, we had lunch in the main lodge and then met up again around the fire pit (the main meeting place throughout the week) to be divided into crews. Every week the campers are divided up into crews of 6-8 campers, a head counselor, a counselor-in-training (CIT) and sometimes a volunteer counselor. Weeks alternate with male/female campers except for the last week of the summer which is co-ed. I was there for a girls week. There were 5 crews during my week. A Crew, B Crew and C Crew were all regular campers, a mix of returning and first-timers. Then there was a Vet Crew. The Vet Crew was made up of returning campers that wanted an extra challenge and that were interested in heading up the ladder towards becoming counselors. They were at camp for 2 weeks and had already been there for a week when we arrived. The final crew was a JC (junior counselor) crew.

While I'm talking about JCs and CITs and Vets, I should take a moment to explain what is known as the Camp Sunrise "leadership ladder." Camp Sunrise has been designed to be a camper-run camp. In fact both the Camp Director and Assisant Director were former campers themselves. At the bottom of the ladder is the camper. The next step up is to be a Vet, which involves greater challenges such as a more intensive canoe trip, a night solo (in which the campers are dropped off alone at night with only a whistle, matches and a compass and have to make their way back), and more. After Vet comes JC and then CIT and then Head Counselor. And possibly even Camp Director! Some of the other unique things about Camp Sunrise is that the camp is entirely free for campers. This is made possible through generous charitable donations from foundations, corporations and individuals. Another neat thing is that Camp has a partnership with the Minneapolis Employment Training Program (STEP-UP) and St. Paul Youth Job Corps. Through this partnership, supervisors allow their teen employees to attend camp for a week and still earn work hours (meaning they get paid for attending camp!). For those teens who aren't in the employment program, they can earn alost 30 hours of community service during their week. It's a pretty awesome arrangement.

Back to the crews, Alex and I were on A Crew, along with a CIT, Donnie. We ended up with only 6 girls in our crew, which was a perfect number. We also had an extremely diverse crew. Alex, Donnie and I were latino, white and black respectively. We had two black girls, Nikki and Sonna (So-nay); two Somali girls, Ismahan and Lamia (La-ME-ah); one Hmong girl, Wendy and one Native girl, Cameron. [Side note: I have also learned in recent weeks that "Native" is the new way to refer to American Indian individuals, it's what all the kids are saying these days.] I'll admit that I was a little concerned with our crew at first. A few of the girls seemed like they really didn't want to be there, and were more concerned with their hair and makeup than anything. They were also very disturbed by the fact that much of the camp was built by campers. One of the components of the week is doing a work service project, which involves giving back to camp in some way. As a result, many of the camp facilities were created by campers. The shed, the fire pit, the outhouses, the tables... all built by campers. I think it's really neat, but the girls weren't quite on the same page as me. Thus I learned an important urban teenspeak vocabulary word: "bootleg". "Bootleg", in this sense, refers to something that is bad quality or "sucks". Here's an example sentence courtesy of Urban Dictionary: "Yo, that drum set is bootleg man." A synonym for "bootleg" is "janky." Another interesting slang word that I picked up on over the week is "straight". If you say, "I'm straight", this does not mean that you're saying that you're heterosexual. It means that you're okay or alright. For example: "Hey man, you cool?" Answer: "Yeah, I'm straight."

Anyway, our first day was pretty much just getting acquainted with camp and getting set for the rest of the week. B Crew was planning to leave for their canoe trip the next day, Sunday, and A and C Crew would be leaving on Monday. Alex, Donnie and I wanted to do our service project on Sunday to get it over with and save our Eco-Adventure for the last day, meaning we'd get to spend our last day going to a State Park and sitting by the beach. Unfortunately we got stuck doing our Eco-Adventure on Sunday instead. There are a variety of places that you can choose to go for the Eco-Adventure. We settled on Interstate Park with a stop first at the Franconia Sculpture Park. Sunday morning we all hopped into a van and made the trip. The Sculpture Park is a really neat place. It's about 20 acres, with a rotating collection of contemporary sculptures, many made right there from recycled materials. The girls really liked it. Interstate Park is by Taylors Falls, Minnesota and half of the park is on the Wisconsin side and the other half on the Minnesota side. The park is very interesting -- it's full of all these potholes that were created by glacial deposits way back when. After we hiked around the park a bit, we drove over to a beach on the Wisconsin side where we had lunch. We were there most of the afternoon. The girls were definitely still getting comfortable, but we all got to know each other a little better. Ismahan and Lamia had their first of several hilarious "celebrity sightings" when they became determined that a man down the beach from us was this guy named Mr. Boston from a reality show called I Love New York. Despite the rest of us trying to take reason into them, they would not waver from their certainty that it was Mr. Boston. "Girl, I swear on my life!" became a Lamia and Ismahan catch-phrase for the rest of the week.

What did our nights at Camp Sunrise consist of? Well, dinner was at 5:30 every night, after which we usually had free time until 7:30. At 7:30 there would be an evening activity. Some of the various evening activities were night volleyball, a group tag game called "wolf pack", a cultural night activity where we created our own "crew culture" and more. There was always a snack at 9:30 and then another small activity. Bedtime was at 10:30. Our second night we were busy packing our food up for the canoe trip. We had meal plans set out for each day and we had to gather the supplies from the kitchen and storage and pack it all up into boxes and then into our Duluth packs (see photo taken from Internet). Everything, besides our water and the stuff in the cooler, was packed into these Duluth packs, which are large green canvas packs that strap closed. You fit a liner inside the pack and then everything stays water-proofed. They are called Duluth packs because they're made in Duluth, Minnesota.

Monday morning we woke up bright and early, had breakfast and began to load everything up into the van that would take us to the St. Croix St. Park entrance, our take-off spot. We arrived at the State Park a little before 10:00. We got our canoes loaded up and we were ready to take off! Since there were 9 of us, we took 4 canoes. We had two people to a canoe plus one "duffer" (a person that sits in the center of the canoe and doesn't paddle). Since a number of the girls wanted to be the duffer, we rotated. As it turned out, we had exactly four people who knew how to steer: Alex, Donnie, Cameron and Wendy. Each of them took a canoe. I ended up canoeing with Alex for the first two days, which worked out well because we ended up getting along really well and having a lot in common. We were able to chat for the entire trip. The first day we stopped for lunch around 12:30 and from the map at the landing Alex determined that we had gone about a mile and a half. We were supposed to be canoeing 9 miles that first day, so I was pretty concerned to learn that it had taken us so long to go such a short distance. Especially since the second day we were going to be going 20 miles. But we all ate our sandwiches and tried to stay in good spirits. Around 2:00 we passed another landing and were able to read the mile marking, which showed us that we had gone 8 miles already. It was then that Alex realized he had been reading the map at the first landing wrong, and at lunchtime we had actually already gone 4 miles. We were almost to our first camp site! I felt as though the next day was going to be much more manageable.

Our first campsite was on a beach on a litte island. Since we got in so early, we set up camp and then had fun swimming in the river. I couldn't believe it when Alex told me that out of all the crews that he's taken this summer, we were the first that actually went swimming. We had a great time enjoying the water. The girls even brought out their shampoo and body wash and cleaned themselves up (of course!) It was so funny to me how much they cared about maintaining their appearance while at camp. At first I thought that maybe it was a teenage thing, but then I remembered that when I was in high school and doing my Guatemala trip and my Appalachia Service Project, I barely looked in a mirror for the entire two weeks. Same for the other girls that I was with. It always felt liberating to not care what we looked like. So I don't know, maybe it's a generational thing or an urban girl thing. Many of the girls at camp were like that, with their make-up on and their hair done and their fashionable outfits. It was very interesting.

Our first night we enjoyed a dinner of "hobos." For this we took Kung-Fu noodles (which are like Ramen), water, potatoes, green peppers, onions and ground beef and wrapped it up in tin foil then cooked it over the fire. It was delicious, especially with a little Sriracha sauce added. These Kung-Fu noodles were very popular at camp and were served every day with breakfast. At first it felt weird eating noodles with my breakfast, but I came to enjoy it. After dinner we had s'mores and told scary stories around the fire. Alex told a bunch of made-up stories that centered around different sites along the St. Croix. The girls got so scared. Finally it was time to retreat to our tents. Us three counselors had our own tents and the girls were divided into two bigger tents. Alex and I both set our tents up on the beach, as did Wendy and Cameron. Donnie and the other four girls were up a little hill, right in front of a wooded area. The other girls, Nikki, Sonna, Lamia and Ismahan were really freaked out about raccoons. Alex had told us that raccoons frequently came out at night at this particular camp site. We hadn't seen any yet, however, and so we weren't too concerned. The food was secured by placed the picnic table on top of it, along with the very heavy water containers. It would be hard for any creature to get at it. We could all rest easy.

Sometime in the middle of the night I was awoken by a terrifying sound. It was a horrible growling noise, that sounded like a very scary creature. I froze up in my tent, petrified, thinking that we were being surrounded by wolves or a bear. I tried to be logical and tell myself that it was probably just a raccoon, but I had never in my life known that raccoons could make such a terrifying sound! This noise was literally right outside of my tent, and I was too scared to call to anyone else. I didn't want to alert this creature to my presence in case it tried to attack my tent. When I finally rolled over and nothing happened, I relaxed a little. Later I heard the characteristic raccoon purring noise, followed by more growling, a screech and the sound of something jumping into the water. The growling continued until it got light outside, around 5:30, at which point I hear Wendy shouting from the other side of the beach, "ALEX! ALEX! A RACCOON ATTACKED OUR FOOD!!" Alex shouts back, "Is it still out there?" Wendy: "I DON'T KNOW! I'M TOO SCARED TO GO OUT! DID YOU HEAR IT GROWLING? I WAS SO SCARED MAN, I THOUGHT WE WERE BEING ATTACKED BY BEARS!" Alex and I both responded that we had heard the raccoon as well. Wendy and Cameron got out of the tent to discover that the angry raccoon had managed to get in through the side of one of the Duluth packs, tear a hole through the liner, rip into a box and eat two loaves of our bread. The funniest part of all this is that the other girls, who had been so scared of the raccoons, hadn't even heard them.

UP NEXT: Days 2 and 3 of the canoe trip and the final day at Camp Sunrise.

Garden: Finished!

I spent a large portion of my Friday off working in the garden. I finally got up the energy to tackle the other half of the garden. After a couple hours, I was finished amending the soil. It was certainly interesting what I dug out of the ground while digging up the soil. Approximately six beer cans (various brands including Schlitz, Colt 45 and Budweiser), a can of strawberry flavored Shasta soft drink (which is a brand that I've never heard of), a liquor bottle, a knit hat, several styrofoam cups, a few plastic bags... It was ridiculous. I don't understand what all the junk was doing in there, but I suspect it had been down there for quite some time...

Saturday at the Farmers' Market I picked up several plants. Mostly herbs this time (rosemary, lavender, lemon verbena, oregano, parsley and mint) and then some Dianthus. Today, Sunday, I put everything in the ground. I think it looks really wonderful. I'm pleased with how it all turned out. It was well worth all of the time and energy. Our potted plants are also doing fantastic. We have lots of little tomatoes on our tomato plants, the bean plants are growing like crazy and our basil is doing fantastic. It feels great to be able to grow so many things on our own!

A Twin Cities Independence Day

I decided to spend my 4th of July here in Minnesota this year. It's my first summer living here, so I thought it would be nice to stick around and celebrate the 4th here. Ironically though, I ended up spending most of the day in Wisconsin. In the morning Mira and I hit up the St. Paul Farmers' Market, as we do most Saturday mornings. It is nothing like the Dane Co. one that I had become so accustomed to, but it is certainly sufficient. I bought delicious strawberries and a whole bunch of plants for the second half of the garden (see next post).

After our venture to the market, Mira and I headed to downtown Minneapolis to the Sculpture Garden. The Sculpture Garden, best known for its giant cherry in the spoon, is part of the Walker Art Center. This year, among other festivities, there was going to be a free concert in the garden. The musician performing was an artist by the name of Haley Bonar, a popular local musician in the indie-rock scene. It was beautiful out, and so much fun to sit back and enjoy a free concert in the park. There were lots of families there, with little kids running about and enjoying the day.

From there we headed straight down I-94 towards Wisconsin. We were off to our friend Ellie's cabin, which is near Hudson, right on the St. Croix. Every year her family has a big July 4th celebration with lots of family and friends, and we were invited. Apparently once-upon-a-time, Ellie's great-grandfather owned all of the land along the cove and when he passed he gave a portion of the land to each of his children. So now, besides two properties that were later sold off, all of the cabins down the river belong to Ellie's relatives, although some are fairly far removed by now.

The further east that we went, the more cloudy the sky became. As soon as we pulled up to the cabin, it began to rain. It continued to rain for quite some time in a heavy downpour. Once it finally stopped a whole bunch of us headed out onto the boat. It was me, Mira, Ellie, Ellie's brother Andrew and several of his friends, including a couple of his friend's wives. After a while on the boat, the clouds started to clear and the sun came out. By about 5:30 it was absolutely beautiful. It was a fun evening, going out on the water, sitting on the beach, eating, setting off fireworks and roasting marshmallows by the bonfire. Although I missed the Tosa parade and fireworks at Hart Park, it was overall a very enjoyable July 4th!

summer update

I realized that I haven't written yet about what I've been up to this summer since the school year ended. Well, summer school started last Monday. The Friday before we had our summer school set-up and staff meeting. Tyrone, our principal, told me that on Monday they were going to have me working in the office, "at least for the morning." To which I said, "Oh, what will I be doing?" He told me that I'd be answering phones, dealing with parents, etc. Turned out that I would pretty much be in charge of the office. This left me a bit disconcerted, as I didn't have any clue what types of questions I would need to be answering or how to work in the office really!

Well Monday came along and I ended up being in the office all day, and I think I did an excellent job. The phone was ringing off the hook and parents were coming in constantly, but luckily most of the questions had to do with buses. Many of the families hadn't received their bus information in the mail yet, so they didn't know what bus they were on or what time it came in the morning. I basically had a huge master bus list with all the kids and their bus numbers, stops and pick-up times. Then I had the list of buses, with all the stops listed. A lot of times all I had to do was look up the child and give the information. But sometimes they needed to change the bus stop because their child was getting picked up at a different address from their home address. In this case I would have to figure out what was the nearest stop, out of a list of about 75 different stops! I never got yelled at, but I did have one parent get sort of exasperated with me saying, "Can't you just look and see if there's a stop there!" To which I calmly explained that I had a list of approximately 100 different stops, and didn't just automatically know which one was closest to her house, especially since I don't have a map of St. Paul etched in my head (okay, I didn't use those exact words, but I wanted to!)

I guess I did such a great job, they decided to keep me in the office the next day as well. There were still a lot of calls coming in about buses, as well as new kids registering. The third day they decided to put me in the classroom finally, but this was short-lived when they realized that there were problems with not having someone in the office full-time. Basically our staff consists of the teachers, the Principal and our site coordinator, Andrea, who is normally a 4th grade teacher at Benjamin E. Mays Magnet School (in the same complex as Museum). Andrea and Tyrone are in and out of the office during the day, but they don't have an actual secretary (or "clerk") this summer because of budget constraints. So basically I have taken over that duty. Now that things have died down, I'm not really doing much of anything. I answer the phone, which doesn't ring too often, take care of attendance, call teachers if a student needs to be pulled, etc. I also supervise lunch and take the 3rd grade class outside afterwards. That's about it! It's a pretty laid back schedule, although I wish I could do more moving around during the day. I don't think I could ever have a permanent desk job.

In addition to summer school, I'm starting work twice a week at Neighborhood House in West St. Paul. Neighborhood House is at the Paul and Sheila Wellstone Center, and provides all kinds of services to residents of the community. We have two AmeriCorps members placed in the Youth Center. I had sent out a e-mail to my Corps at the beginning of summer stating that I was looking for some extra hours, and one of our Neighborhood House members, Abdi, responded. I got in touch with his supervisor and he got me set-up to work here from 3:30-8:30 on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Today I am pretty much suerpvising the computer lab. Kids of all ages come here during the day for games, arts and crafts, computers, etc. We'll see if they have me doing something different on Thursday!

So that is my summer so far. This is a short week, since everyone has off on July 3rd for Indpendence Day. I'm going to be staying in St. Paul and enjoying my first 4th of July in the Cities. Not sure what I'll be doing yet, but hopefully it will be a fun holiday!

Shanti the Lion

So as you all know, Mira and I are the co-owners of two cats, Lexie and Shanti. Shanti is a long haired feline, so the summer is a tough time for all involved. Not only does he shed like crazy, leaving big balls of black hair all over the place, he also gets terribly uncomfortable. Once the heatwave began, he spent most of his time hiding under the couch. Mira and I had long joked about getting him a lion cut, but just recently we started to seriously consider it. We spoke with the owner of a little local pet shop/grooming facility a few blocks away, on Grand Ave. and she talked us through the process and explained how much it costs ($75) and how often it needs to be done (in our case, once a year, since we'd let it grow out for winter). Now, some of you might be wondering what exactly is a "lion cut." It's a haircut typically given to long-haired cats, where all the fur is shaved off, leaving only the hair around the head, the feet and the tip of the tail, giving the cat a "mane". It looks pretty funny and adorable. To make a long story short, we decided to go ahead and do it.

Shanti had his appointment on Friday while I was at work, so Mira took him. We were worried that he wouldn't sit through this procedure without being sedated, but apparently it went alright. It took two people, but he got through it. We also worried that he would be traumatized. I read lots of people online talking about their cats being "embarrassed" and "upset" and "traumatized" following a lion-cut. Personally I think those people were just projecting their own feelings. I mean come on. Shanti was his usual loving, adorable self immediately after. He seemed a little uncomfortable the first night, because he was getting used to the feeling of not having tons of hair anymore. Often when he'd go to sit down, he'd jump back up in surprise. The only other problem, which we had already foreseen, was that Lexie got a little freaked out upon seeing him. She seems to have gotten over it already.

How does he look? Adorable! I couldn't stop laughing when I first saw him, but he really does look cute. And he feels like velvet. They didn't actually shave all his hair off, they left the soft undercoat. So in the end, we are very happy with the decision that we made, and he seems to be quite happy as well!

Here are some photos provided for your enjoyment:

Garden Update

New garden picture! I added mulch and a stone border to the finished side of the garden, as well as another Balloon flower and Marigolds. It's looking pretty good. Now I just have to do the other side... Hopefully it won't look too weird having two totally different things happening on either side. I might use some stones to make a division between the two, making it look sort of like two separate beds. On the other side I want to put in some flowers but also some herbs I think. We shall see!