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!
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
Saturday, June 27, 2009
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:
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!
Sunday, June 21, 2009
a garden in the making
As many of you know, I've been working on getting a flower garden started up in front of our house. It's been quite the long process, and still it's not finished. But I thought I'd share how it was going.
We have a raised yard, with a wall around it. Our idea was to start a garden along the edge of the wall, at the front of the yard. Little did we know how much work it would be! Upon inspecting the soil, we discovered that it didn't exactly seem nutrient-rich. So after discussion with staff at the wonderful Mother Earth Gardens in South Minneapolis and Linda (Master Gardener!), it was determined that we would need to amend the soil. Amending the soil, for those who don't know, involves digging up a good portion of the existing soil and then mixing it with some type of organic matter, such as compost. Compost is, in fact, what I chose to use. I picked up several bags of it at the Menards garden center for less than $2/bag and was ready to go!
Once I actually started digging the soil up, I realized how much work this was going to be. It turns out that our yard is full of rocks! Every two inches, it seemed that I was hitting a rock that I had to dig up. This drastically increased the work time unfortunately. It took about three hours to get the little 2x2 area on the one side of our yard completed. Then this past Thursday I spent about two hours just digging up the grass on the other side of the yard. Yesterday I spent another three hours digging up that soil and mixing it with the compost. I finished half of it, and we are now out of compost. So next weekend, hopefully, I'll be tackling the other half.
Somehow this has become my project, in the sense that I'm the one doing all of the manual labor. However, Mira is helping me with the fun part -- picking the flowers to put in. Yesterday morning we went to the St. Paul Farmers Market and bought plants for the completed half. We bought three beautiful Lily plants. They are Angelique Oriental Lilies, a dwarf variety that only grows to about 18" in height. I absolutely love lilies, so that was my must-have. Mira picked out Astras, also known as Balloon Flowers. We transplanted those into the garden today, and next week we're going to get some annuals to put in as well. I also headed back over to Menards and picked up some mulch to put down after we have all the flowers in. It's looking great! On the little side I decided to seed and see what happens. I put in Zinnias and Painted Daisies. The daisies are perennials, but they won't bloom until their second season, so we'll have to wait that out.
I wish that I had a picture of all the rocks that I dug out, as it is quite impressive. But Mira and I had to put them all in the backyard in a large barrel because the front was looking very disorderly and we're having people over tomorrow night. But the plus side to all the rocks is that I will be washing all the dirt off of them and using them as a nice border to the garden. Although even after that I'll have enough left over to build a wall or something!
Below is a picture of our work-in-progress. I'll do some photo updates over the next couple weeks so you can see our progress.
We have a raised yard, with a wall around it. Our idea was to start a garden along the edge of the wall, at the front of the yard. Little did we know how much work it would be! Upon inspecting the soil, we discovered that it didn't exactly seem nutrient-rich. So after discussion with staff at the wonderful Mother Earth Gardens in South Minneapolis and Linda (Master Gardener!), it was determined that we would need to amend the soil. Amending the soil, for those who don't know, involves digging up a good portion of the existing soil and then mixing it with some type of organic matter, such as compost. Compost is, in fact, what I chose to use. I picked up several bags of it at the Menards garden center for less than $2/bag and was ready to go!
Once I actually started digging the soil up, I realized how much work this was going to be. It turns out that our yard is full of rocks! Every two inches, it seemed that I was hitting a rock that I had to dig up. This drastically increased the work time unfortunately. It took about three hours to get the little 2x2 area on the one side of our yard completed. Then this past Thursday I spent about two hours just digging up the grass on the other side of the yard. Yesterday I spent another three hours digging up that soil and mixing it with the compost. I finished half of it, and we are now out of compost. So next weekend, hopefully, I'll be tackling the other half.
Somehow this has become my project, in the sense that I'm the one doing all of the manual labor. However, Mira is helping me with the fun part -- picking the flowers to put in. Yesterday morning we went to the St. Paul Farmers Market and bought plants for the completed half. We bought three beautiful Lily plants. They are Angelique Oriental Lilies, a dwarf variety that only grows to about 18" in height. I absolutely love lilies, so that was my must-have. Mira picked out Astras, also known as Balloon Flowers. We transplanted those into the garden today, and next week we're going to get some annuals to put in as well. I also headed back over to Menards and picked up some mulch to put down after we have all the flowers in. It's looking great! On the little side I decided to seed and see what happens. I put in Zinnias and Painted Daisies. The daisies are perennials, but they won't bloom until their second season, so we'll have to wait that out.
I wish that I had a picture of all the rocks that I dug out, as it is quite impressive. But Mira and I had to put them all in the backyard in a large barrel because the front was looking very disorderly and we're having people over tomorrow night. But the plus side to all the rocks is that I will be washing all the dirt off of them and using them as a nice border to the garden. Although even after that I'll have enough left over to build a wall or something!
Below is a picture of our work-in-progress. I'll do some photo updates over the next couple weeks so you can see our progress.
Thursday, June 11, 2009
saying goodbye
Tuesday was our last day of school. It's hard to believe that an entire school year has passed. It's even more amazing to think about everything that has transpired in those nine months. At the beginning of the year I really didn't think that I would make it through. The memory of breaking down in my kitchen after a difficult day of work is still vivid in my mind. But I'm not a quitter, and I knew that I would see it through to the end. I'm so glad that I did. Even though there were very bad moments (being punched by our student with severe emotional behavioral problems comes to mind), there were also so many very good moments. Even though we don't admit to having favorites, obviously teachers do, so there are some kids that I will remember more than others and some that I would like to forget. Regardless, I'm sure that I will always remember all 24 kids that came through my classroom this year. It was so satisfying to see how much they grew and learned over the year, and it was gratifying to know that I played such a significant role in their lives. I know that I was instrumental in the running of that classroom, and I am so proud of myself for all that I accomplished. I think that I will be able to take away so much of that experience and apply it to my internship next year, when I am on the other side of things.
Monday, our second to last day of school, we had a field trip to the Minnesota Zoo. It was a dreary day, with a misty rain coming and going throughout, but it was also nice because Mira came along as a chaperone. It was so much fun to give her a tour of Museum Magnet and introduce her to the people that I've been working with this year and all of the kids that she's heard so much about. I wish that I could have done that for all of you. But I do have lots of pictures that I took over the last two days, which I can't wait to share. I'm not going to post them on here, because I think it would be inappropriate to post pictures of them on the Internet for all to see, without their parents' permission. Granted, I'm sure that there are not massive numbers of strangers perusing my blog, but you never know. So I'm going to create a private album, and I'll e-mail an invitation to everyone who I know reads this. If you don't receive an invite and want one, let me know!
So what's next for me, now that my time with the kindergartners has ended? Summer school begins on June 22nd and at my own request, Principal Brookins has placed me with the 3rd and 4th graders. It should be an interesting change. That lasts for three weeks, and then things are still a little up in the air. I'm looking forward to a fun and laid-back summer. It will probably be the last one for a while!
Thanks to everyone for all the love and support that you've given me during this challenging and rewarding experience. I couldn't have made it through this past year without all of you.
Monday, our second to last day of school, we had a field trip to the Minnesota Zoo. It was a dreary day, with a misty rain coming and going throughout, but it was also nice because Mira came along as a chaperone. It was so much fun to give her a tour of Museum Magnet and introduce her to the people that I've been working with this year and all of the kids that she's heard so much about. I wish that I could have done that for all of you. But I do have lots of pictures that I took over the last two days, which I can't wait to share. I'm not going to post them on here, because I think it would be inappropriate to post pictures of them on the Internet for all to see, without their parents' permission. Granted, I'm sure that there are not massive numbers of strangers perusing my blog, but you never know. So I'm going to create a private album, and I'll e-mail an invitation to everyone who I know reads this. If you don't receive an invite and want one, let me know!
So what's next for me, now that my time with the kindergartners has ended? Summer school begins on June 22nd and at my own request, Principal Brookins has placed me with the 3rd and 4th graders. It should be an interesting change. That lasts for three weeks, and then things are still a little up in the air. I'm looking forward to a fun and laid-back summer. It will probably be the last one for a while!
Thanks to everyone for all the love and support that you've given me during this challenging and rewarding experience. I couldn't have made it through this past year without all of you.
Friday, June 5, 2009
girls in animation
Not too much to report in my life at the moment. With the end of the school year imminent, work has been laid back. We have a field trip to the Minnesota Zoo on Monday and then our last day is Tuesday. Tomorrow I have an all-day training and orientation for Camp Sunrise. My friend Ellie's birthday is also this weekend, and it should be a lengthy and fun affair. Tonight we're meeting for drinks and tomorrow night she's having a party. Sunday is Grand Old Day, which is a one day festival on Grand Ave, a street that's about five blocks south of us. It's a big event which apparently includes lots of drinking and music. The drinking in the middle of the day isn't exactly my scene (big shocker I'm sure), but we'll see how it goes. We're having people over to the apartment beforehand.
Anyway, with the lack of exciting news I thought I would share an article that I just came across today on NPR's website, written by Linda Holmes. I think that some of you might enjoy reading what she has to say. Holmes has written a letter to Pixar, the Animation Studio that has partnered with Disney on such classics as Finding Nemo, Toy Story, The Incredibles, WALL-E, and most recently Up. In the letter, entitled "Dear Pixar, From All The Girls With Band-Aids On Their Knees", Holmes asks Pixar why they can't make a film centered around a girl ... more specifically, a movie centered around a girl who isn't a princess. It's a wonderful letter, although I can also agree with some of the comments that suggest Holmes is being too generous with Pixar, and that we shouldn't have to plead for a leading lady. At the same time, I admire her tone. She doesn't come across sounding like the stereotypical "angry feminist" that is so easy for people to just tune out. Here's hoping that someone from Pixar was listening.
Here's the link:
http://www.npr.org/blogs/monkeysee/2009/06/dear_pixar_from_all_the_girls.html
Anyway, with the lack of exciting news I thought I would share an article that I just came across today on NPR's website, written by Linda Holmes. I think that some of you might enjoy reading what she has to say. Holmes has written a letter to Pixar, the Animation Studio that has partnered with Disney on such classics as Finding Nemo, Toy Story, The Incredibles, WALL-E, and most recently Up. In the letter, entitled "Dear Pixar, From All The Girls With Band-Aids On Their Knees", Holmes asks Pixar why they can't make a film centered around a girl ... more specifically, a movie centered around a girl who isn't a princess. It's a wonderful letter, although I can also agree with some of the comments that suggest Holmes is being too generous with Pixar, and that we shouldn't have to plead for a leading lady. At the same time, I admire her tone. She doesn't come across sounding like the stereotypical "angry feminist" that is so easy for people to just tune out. Here's hoping that someone from Pixar was listening.
Here's the link:
http://www.npr.org/blogs/monkeysee/2009/06/dear_pixar_from_all_the_girls.html
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