blog? where?

as my year with VISTA starts to wind down, I'm thinking more and more about what I've learned from this year. I view every experience as a learning lesson, and this was certainly no exception.

here's what I have so far:
1. I take things way too personally. This has become an issue, especially when it's work-related.
2. people still see me as being "just a kid." this really bothers me, especially when I'm less than two months away from turning 24.
3. All future homes must have a full-sized kitchen, or at least more than one countertop.
4. small children are vessels for diseases, especially the flu
5. Having a roommate is preferable to living solo.

Don't get me wrong, though...I had some great experiences, too! such as:
1. everyone should live alone at some point in their life. it's a great way to build character.
2. exercise is a fantastic form of stress relief.
3. if it's not worth fighting for, it's not worth having. That was my mantra when applying for grad school.
4. houseplants are a wonderful substitute for pets.
5. basil plants are especially handy, especially when you cook often.
6. lentils are a staple in any poor person's kitchen.

School's Out for Summer

This is my first day of working out of parents plus for the summer. Maple Tree is only open half-day for summer school, so I will only be there on a need-be basis.

My summer plans with the school are relatively light. I'll be writing several grants, working on my sustainability binder, and spending quality time with growing power.

For those of you who don't already know, I have my post-VISTA plans set. I'll be going to grad school at Montclair State University in New Jersey, where I'll be studying with the Masters in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages and students with disabilities program. I'm very excited about this.

What a Feeling

You know how in most towns/cities the tell-tale sign of warm weather is the appearance of ice cream trucks? Well, that's a little too conventional for those who live in Milwaukee. It's been beautiful weather these past few days, and we've had sunny days on and off for the past few weeks. I've observed the following to be signs of a day of beautiful weather:
1. The appearance of the satellite crepe stand on Brady Street
2. Bars and restaurants set up outdoor seating
3. An abundance of people running and riding their bikes around the east side/the lakefront
4. The appearance of summer season beers in liquor stores/grocery stores (my personal favorite is leinenkugel's summer shandy)

Apparently I'm not the only one enjoying this beautiful weather, as was made apparent by yesterday's events at Bradford Beach. For those of you unfamiliar with what happened, read it and weep:
http://www.todaystmj4.com/news/local/94714434.html

Spring Fever

It's officially spring in Wisconsin. It's been raining nonstop, my allergies are going crazy, and the kids at my site has lost their minds. I blame all the pollen in the air.

Spring also means that it's time for the garden kickoff party at Maple Tree. Growing Power has been here for the past few weeks getting the plots ready, and they've been happy to report that they've had a good amount of neighborhood kids volunteer to help out. We've set the date for the party for next saturday, and I've already made flyers to be sent out. We're having a meeting this afternoon to finalize our plans and plan future events at the garden for the summer, including a back-to-school bbq in August.

Planning events here has become difficult at this point in the school year. The HIP coordinator has been taking even more sick days than usual since she announced that she's pregnant. It's been at least two weeks since the last time I saw her. I'm unsure of whether or not this will affect the health fair she planned with school nurse for this month, but I'm not involved with the event so it is not an immediate concern of mine (remember how we're supposed to plan everything collaboratively? apparently this isnt a huge priority for her, since she planned the whole event without talking to anyone on the action team).

In trying to pick a date for the BBQ in August, several staff members realized that I'm not returning to Maple Tree next year (NOTE: this is something I never planned on doing. I always saw my time with VISTA as a one-year thing and never attempted to renew my contract). Some of the staff got it in their head somehow that I was going to renew my contract with VISTA, so they were surprised when I told them I was done after August 21st. The thing is, even if I were to renew my contract with VISTA, I could not work with Maple Tree. They had two previous VISTAs who left the school before the year was over for various reasons, but still finished their years of service with Americorps. Plus, I dont think Maple Tree has as great a need for a VISTA as other schools in Milwaukee for various reasons.

So now that I've got a happy stomach full of leftover indian food, it's time to get some work done! I'm also expecting a call from a prospective VISTA for next year.

happy earth day!

today is going to be a full-out earth day celebration for me!

at 1:30 this afternoon, I'm going to growing power for their open house with one of my supervisors from the corporation for national and community service/serve wisconsin in order to take a full look at their facility and hopefully talk to someone about hosting a potluck there for Americorps week. this will mean i have to miss my school's tornado drill, but i think i endured enough actual tornadoes while at earlham to get by without being here for the drill.

this evening is also maple tree's science fair/spring open house, which we're running in conjunction with a family gathering night. the HIP coordinator has planned arts and crafts activities, so the kids will paint flower pots. we've worked it out through the action team that parents will be given a form to fill out when they arrive that allows them to rate the displays by most creative, most informative, etc. when they go to the cafeteria to attend the family gathering night, i will be there to collect the forms as their ticket into the gathering night.

i am a little anxious about this, but for a good reason: the school principal will not be present at this event. this means that even though she supports the idea of collecting these forms before parents attend the gathering night, that doesnt mean things won't go according to plan.

stay tuned for more information on Americorps week, maybe some pictures at growing power (I'm not going on the tour, since I didnt bring sneakers and refuse to destroy my new loafers), and the results from the science fair!

looking ahead

it feels like spring has barely started, and already i need to start thinking about the summer.

tomorrow is the deadline to submit my summer plans for my year of service. i sent it to my site supervisor this morning, and pending her approval, it will be sent on to my DPI supervisors. no far-fetched, elaborate plans involved. the main points of my summer plans involve working with growing power through their community garden at maple tree, writing a grant to get a bookshelf for the school as a parent resource center, and working on my sustainability binder.

the main question is where will i be working?

maple tree is open for summer school, but it is a half-day program. it's my understanding that most of the action team will not be around for the summer, as well. given this information, i think it makes sense for me to operate out of the parents plus office. this doesn't mean i wont make regular appearances at the school...i just think i can get more work done at parents plus. furthermore, it's a much easier commute for me and i won't have to deal with mps internet blocking certain websites.

of course, i have other plans for the summer beyond work. i still have 9 sick days and will have 4 vacation days left as of May 17th, and i plan on using them all before my year of service ends. if i go to grad school in the fall, i may need a few of those days towards the end of the summer to return to new jersey to gather up some things to bring back to milwaukee with me (that is, if I end up at UWM. if I end up at Montclair State, I'll need a few days to pack up everything to move out). I'm also planning on finally going to chicago, so i'd like to make a trip out of that.

Spring has Sprung!

It's officially spring in wisconsin! The wind is going at full-force (making driving on the highway not a fun experience for me), there's thunderstorms being predicted every other day, and the temperature is jumping all over the place. needless to say, my allergies are going nuts.

It's also spring break at Maple Tree this week! it started last friday and will go through the rest of this week, which means I'll be at parents plus instead of school. This does have it's benefits, such as not having to wake up at 6 AM and drive 30+ minutes, being around adults all day, and being able to work off my laptop. oh, and i can listen to pandora radio and access facebook here. I do have to go in on wednesday to help the learning team update the site's school improvement plan, as well as pick up some things I left in my office.

My mom came to visit me this past weekend, which was a lot of fun!

Friday was spent getting facials, shopping on Brady Street (We bought gardening stuff for my herb garden, a super-cute jumper at yellow jacket, and baby gifts for two of my cousins) and eating dinner at Cempazuchi (SUCH GOOD FOOD!!!!! If you like spicy food, go there and get the chile relleno). After dinner we went to potawotami casino to see Louie Anderson perform and gamble a little bit. We only played slots, but my mom broke even and I lost $8, at which point I called it quits. We ran into Lizzy and her family at the lobby of the parking garage when we got back to the hotel.

We drove to Appleton on Saturday to meet with some family who live in the UP. I did the first leg of the drive, during which we had nothing but downpour. Naturally, the sky cleared up when my mom drove. Ate really good italian food for lunch, then did some shopping. I could sense my mom's aggravation after I tried on at least twenty bras at VS, so I made up for it by giving in to her pleas to let her clean my apartment. We went to target and bought a vacuum, floor lamp, and full-length mirror, then went back to my place and got to work cleaning. We didn't eat dinner until 9:00 at night. The food totally made up for it, though, since we went to Maharaja.

Sunday morning, we woke up to a broken toilet in our hotel room. When we told the front desk about it, they apologized and offered us a $40 gift certificate to buy breakfast at the hotel restaurant, which we gladly accepted. Went to the public museum and saw an IMAX movie called Under the Sea and the Dead Sea Scrolls exhibit. The movie was great...then again, I'm a fan of any movie where the last five minutes are just sea lions swimming around with Octopus' Garden playing in the background. The exhibit was amazing, too. They had a lot of information on the history of bible translation, which reminded me of my group project I did for translation class at earlham. It was already 1:45 when we left the exhibit, so I dropped off my mom at the airport right after.

tonight is kickball practice, which I'm super-pumped for! Let's go team awesome!

Growing Power

Yesterday afternoon I had a meeting at Growing Power. Maple Tree is home to one of their community gardens, so a meeting between stakeholders of the community around the school and employees of growing power was held at their farm yesterday afternoon. I meant to take pictures, but decided against it since we didn't have time to take the tour they had told us about in the email.

The best part of this meeting was, without a doubt, the part where I got to meet Will Allen. Will is the founder of Growing Power and has been featured on Oprah's talk show, as well as a guest of honor by Michelle Obama as part of her Let's Move campaign. One can only imagine the look on my face when I was sitting at a table in a greenhouse rocking my mom jeans talking to a pastor, a president of a neighborhood association, and a growing power employee and Will Allen just strides in and starts shaking hands with everyone. It was pretty surreal. I wanted to be a nerd and ask to have my picture taken with him, but decided against it for two reasons: 1) I looked like crap (I learned during my first visit to growing power that wearing nice clothes there is a bad idea, since you will leave smelling like fertilizer), and 2) my hair had become a giant poofball, compliments of the greenhouse we were meeting in.

I mentioned to the employee holding the meeting the theme of Americorps week for this year and asked if Will or somebody could do a guest speaking event at Maple Tree and she totally went for it! I asked how likely it is that Will could do it and it sounded like if there's no scheduling conflict that he's in. I'm SO excited about this!

I'm so excited!

BECAUSE I FINALLY HAVE A PARENT DOING SNACK!!!!!!!!!



::does happy dance::



i'm also enjoying having my entire office space to myself right now, since the speech pathologist is not in for some reason, and the social worker and diagnostics professional that I also share my office with do not come in on thursdays.



if only our VISTA webinars were scheduled on days like today instead of the days when students are in here misbehaving during their speech sessions...



today is our monthly action team meeting. this one will be interesting, because in addition to the regular attendees of these meetings, we will also have our cluster's sos social worker and the HIP coordinator's supervisor. I have been harassing the people at Growing Power in hopes of getting a representative here for today's meeting, though i feel like it won't happen. I'm planning on calling them again a little later today. I really want them to be here for the meeting, since the topic du jour is the science fair scheduled for april. we need to plan this now because spring break takes place from april 2nd through the 11th, and the science fair is scheduled for april 22nd. it's my hope that they will donate a door prize of materials for a family to grow their own plant.



also, I'd like to announce the start of my second blog! http://www.povertygourmet.blogspot.com this blog will explore how i maintain a healthy diet while purchasing food solely on foodstamps.

new blog?

recently I've found myself spending a lot of my down time reading various blogs with a similar theme: nutrition. more specifically, childhood nutrition. even more recently, a coworker sent a mass email with a link to an article about hipsters on foodstamps. all of this information has got me thinking about my own situation...

i feel no shame in telling people that i am currently receiving foodstamps. in fact, i consider it a benefit of serving Americorps, along with kickass health insurance and an education award to help pay for grad school next year. without foodstamps, it is likely that either a) my parents would have to help me with money, or b) i would starve. however, i would like to point out that i have made some major sacrifices since the days of my meal plan exemption at earlham, including putting an end to my all-organic diet and giving up juice, soda, and other overly-processed drinks in exchange for tap water (note: i do drink coffee and tea, but i only drink one cup of coffee and brew my own tea).

to this date, i only have one issue with foodstamps. i currently receive $200 a month in foodstamps, which is put directly on my QUEST card. this is the maximum amount that an applicant can receive. this means that the unemployed single mom with three kids is receiving the same amount as the college educated Americorps volunteer who receives a living allowance. granted, i do not receive other forms of government assistance, such as unemployment, subsidized housing, or energy assistance, but i doubt that it could total to my monthly living allowance, which is enough to cover the rent for my studio apartment, utilities, parking, cable, and internet. for a person living at the poverty level, i definitely get by.

ok, enough with my off-topic rant. back to the point of this post...

i am considering starting another blog that would focus less on my day-to-day VISTA life and more on how i maintain my vegetarian lifestyle and cook healthy meals for myself on the budget allotted by my foodstamps. i want to prove that there doesn't have to be a correlation between a tight budget and lack of nutrition. the blog will include photos, recipes, and my weekly shopping list (complete with how much my trips to the grocery store total out to).

so here is my question to you, blog followers (if there are any of you left): would you consider reading/following this blog? this would be a time-consuming project, so i want to make sure this effort doesn't go wasted! leave a comment with some feedback, please!

for the first time, things are still the same

(except I wish this wasn't true)

I've only had a handful of interactions between myself and the HIP coordinator since my last post. I've tried to be nice to her, but my actions have not been reciprocated on her end. I say good morning to her while passing her in the hallway, and she responds by shrugging her shoulders and sighing. no longer does she stop by my office to check in with me when she arrives at maple tree in the morning. the more I think about her actions, the harder it is for me not to feel like I'm back in high school.

yesterday was saint patrick's day. I opted not to wear green for two reasons: a) i thought it would be too cliche, and b) i don't own a lot of green clothes (not a good color for me). after a two hour staff meeting at maple tree, i went home and had two hours to get my eyebrows done, get dressed, and eat dinner before heading over to paddy's to celebrate with some friends. naturally, there was a 45 minute wait at supercuts to get my eyebrows done, which meant rushing through everything else. Got to paddy's 10 minutes late, but it wasn't the end of the world. that is, until lizzy arrived and was told that she wasn't allowed upstairs where the rest of the group was because they were at capacity. this was such b.s. regardless, i said goodbye to the group and went to a different bar with lizzy to hang out with steve, nicole, and some of their friends. we drank some beer and discussed our halloween costume plans (it's gonna be AWESOME) and our super-cool kickball team. went to bed a little on the late side, and was woken up at 12:30 in the morning by syd calling to tell me about the failure that is blue fish fencing. i'm amazed i'm awake right now.

today has been productive so far. I've written up some reminders for the parent who is volunteering for snack sales, which i'm going to stick in the cash box. I've also been fielding phone calls and emails for an event i'm going to tomorrow and trying to schedule a meeting with growing power about their community garden at our school. This has become a huge priority for me, because i just found out that the reason why growing power hasn't been in contact with me is because the representative i was working with no longer works there. this means i need to seriously make up for lost time with them.

This weekend is the camping trip planned by the HIP coordinator. I was planning on going to help supervise, but I'm no longer going. There's a summit for the Milwaukee Graduation Project tomorrow that VISTAs are required to attend. I've agreed to help out as a facilitator for a group discussion -I'm hoping it works out. I signed up a while ago to do a canvassing project on saturday, but I'm thinking I might bail out if the weather is anything like they've been predicting...

March Has Arrived as a Lion and Will Probably Leave the Same Way

Conflict has arisen between myself and Maple Tree's HIP coordinator. True, she has picked on me from early on, but I always considered it to be friendly, since she only did it occasionally and in a joking manner.

And then things started to escalate. The friendly jokes about my hair flipping turned into harsh criticism about how I carry myself and my lack of energy when I was sick. She started telling me and our coworkers that she has taken it upon myself to play the role of my mom since my parents live so far away from me. That bothered me. I have two parents, and they are more than enough. I have lived without them since my freshman year of college, and I can continue to do so without her help.

The breaking point occurred roughly two weeks ago. In anticipation of a Parents Plus workshop hosted by Maple Tree's Action Team, I contacted Trader Joe's for a donation. They donated $25 worth of snack food -popcorn, cookies, chips, and salsa. When I told her about the donation, I referred to the activity we were using it for as "the thing on March 9th," by which I meant the Parents Plus workshop. However, the HIP coordinator thought I was referring to the magic show that she had planned for later that night. When I told her that wasn't true, she picked a fight with me, accused me of refusing to work with her, then dismissed the argument when I proved that she had no reason to be upset with me. I sent an email to Yvette and told her to call a meeting for next week.

The meeting consisted of myself, Yvette, my site supervisor, the HIP coordinator, and her supervisor. The HIP coordinator decided that instead of using this meeting as a chance to resolve our conflicts so we can work together in an efficient manner, she would take this opportunity to act like she's hot shit and tell me how to do my job. In the process of doing so, she accused me of not attending/helping out during her events, that I don't know how to relate to the parents, and that I never asked for donations before she suggested it. When I called her out on all of these accusations and proved her wrong, she simply dismissed me and said that there was no reason get into details. Whenever someone criticized her activities, she got defensive and claimed that parents aren't coming just for the raffles and free food. She also wasted no time in bashing everything that was said by myself and my supervisors when they left.

I met with my with site supervisor yesterday afternoon to make sure we were on the same page about the meeting, and I'm happy to say that we are. She also mentioned that before she was offered position of HIP coordinator, this parent was only seen in the school for conferences. I reported all of this to my Parents Plus supervisor today, and I'm glad that we're on the same page, too. Furthermore, the three of us all agree that the best thing to do is just finish up the school year at Maple Tree, make sure the Action Team will continue next year, and have minimal contact with the HIP coordinator.

Between this meeting and two 12 hour days, I'm pretty exhausted. I foresee a weekend of sleep.

Remember that time I actually updated my blog?

Naturally, a lot has happened since my last post. there isn't enough time to go into detail, so i'm just going to do a fresh start.

today is our Read Across America celebration in conjunction with Dr. Seuss' birthday. Students and staff were invited to wear their pajamas to school, and parents were asked to join us for breakfast/lunch and to read to their child's class. I managed to get donations from panera for breakfast and lunch, as well as from bruegger's for breakfast.

I came in at 9:00 this morning because the sandwiches had to be made fresh this morning. Also factor in the fact that panera thought the event wasn't until April 2nd (that was a fun conversation). Have I heard any positive remarks in the hour I have been here? no. here is what I've heard so far:
"When are the students getting their posters back from the black history poster contest?"
"What do you want to do with all of this breakfast food from the breakfast that no parents came to?"
"There's no reason to serve a snack at your event if the HIP coordinator is serving dinner later that day."
"Is there snack today?"
"What's on these sandwiches?"

oh, did i mention the roach i found in my office?

I also got another chocolate stain on my americorps hoodie while drowning my sorrows in a chocolate croissant that I shouldn't have eaten, since I'm still recovering from yesterday's chocolate overload (dark chocolate from trader joe's followed by a boston cream donut during the Action Team meeting).

so I guess the point to all this rambling is that I'm not really feeling appreciated. maybe I'm feeling the six-month blues, but no matter what the reason is, I feel like I need nothing more than someone at this school to tell me that I'm doing a good job.

time to go return snack money to all the teachers!

The holidays have officially started

Yesterday was Maple Tree's breakfast with Santa family event. Putting the event together took a lot of last minute assembly. I went to the school on friday afternoon and left after 3 hours, and even then there was still a lot left to do. the HIP coordinator stayed at the school pretty late. I helped her as much as I could, but I had friends coming over for poker night. Poker night was also good. we actually played poker this time, which was interesting. more people came and it was a pretty different group from last time, so it was interesting.

Saturday morning, I woke up bright and early at 7, picked up Angela, and headed to Maple Tree. Things were chaotic when we got there and everyone was scrambling to do some last-minute assembly. despite the stress of this, the event turned out to be a huge success! we got a good crowd of families and teachers. I spent the entire time with Pastor Dee helping with the read-alouds and making sure the kids didnt destroy the K-4 classroom that we used.

saturday night was the feed milwaukee charity gala at the harley davidson museum. a bunch of VISTAs were there, and it was nice to see them all. i didnt stay too long, though, since the place was packed and lizzy wasnt feeling well. we ended up going to roman coin to play pool and hang out.

i have been chained to the oven all afternoon today. i finished making my holiday presents for everyone and am now waiting for my pumpkin gingerbread to finish baking for tomorrow's staff brunch. i have a lot of ingredients leftover from the gifts i made, so i'm not sure what i'm going to do with them.

the next couple of days will be interesting. tomorrow is the staff brunch at maple tree and also the day that growing power is coming to deliver 50 market baskets that they're donating to the school. tuesday is the last day of school before the break, which means the day of the holiday program.

rfffffffffeuilfnh.sd,fwel;jsdafed

the title of this post is me taking my frustration out on the keyboard of the computer i work on. healthy? no, but it's my best option without a fencing club to work with.

i just found out during last night's sgc meeting that the breakfast with santa event we planned as a fundraiser for maple tree's tot-lot is no longer a fundraiser, but a family event funded by coa. maple tree has a HIP coordinator who has to plan one family function a month. we wanted her to plan her's after the breakfast with santa event so we didn't run the risk of having too much going on in a short period of time. however, it was decided on tuesday by the HIP coordinator and the school principal that it would be easier for her to take over the event. because of this, it is no longer a fundraiser for the school's tot-lot, but a COA funded family event.

this frustrates me for two reasons: a) i was not told about this change until almost a week later, which means i have been giving people incorrect information all this time, and b) the work i put into this event will most likely be credited to the HIP coordinator. the energy i put into securing a guest to read books to the children that attend the event will go unnoticed, as will the time i put combing through google images looking for the perfect picture of a child sitting on santa's lap for the flyers. my name has been taken off the flyers and replaced with her's.

furthermore, i'm still expected to help out with the event. in fact, i'm still expected to have other VISTAs come help, too. i'm not sure if i'm ok with this. if this is a COA funded event, shouldn't the HIP coordinator take care of finding volunteers? don't get me wrong, i'm all for collaboration, but i wish that i had some say in this decision instead of finding out about it through some gossip in the teacher's lounge a week later.

/end rant.

there is also a snack order that had no room number on it, so it is sitting next to me until a teacher sends a student to me to complain. i'm hoping this happens soon, since there's yogurt and string cheese in the order. also, i may help myself to the cereal bar in the bag if no one claims it...

"this easily could have been condensed into an hour"

this week has been pretty exhausting for me. mps' action team trainings started on monday, which was the date that maple tree was scheduled for. the day was filled with confusion for many of us, and i left the training feeling a little frustrated. i didn't think maple tree's action team understood how we were supposed to write our action plan, yet i couldn't voice this concern to them because of other people are our table distracting the group. we did set a date for our next meeting, though, so i'm hoping to get it all straightened out during the meeting. i think it will help that the entire group will be present, too.

tuesday was pretty normal at maple tree, except i had to go back to marshall high school afterwards to do childcare for an evening action team training. we were told we would have 7 children to look after, so 3 VISTAs went to do childcare. only one child came. however, he turned out to be the cutest and politest child i have met in the longest time. my favorite moment was when i walked into the room after filling up my water bottle and he looked up at me and said, "what are you drinking," and when i told him water, he said, "can i please have some?" obviously, i couldn't say no.

wednesday was a nice change for me, because i didn't have a staff/learning team meeting after school, so i got to leave a little earlier than i normally do on wednesdays. i took this opportunity to go to the gym, since i didn't have the energy to go on tuesday. thursday was pretty normal, too-spent most of the day getting things in order for monday's sgc meeting in terms of writing up something for a parentlink and such.

yesterday turned out to be interesting. sarah and i decided to instate a biweekly poker night for VISTAs, and this week would be the first one. except i'm smart and forgot to do the facebook invites until thursday afternoon. despite this, three people came over-mark, lizzy, and mary. lizzy and mary brought six packs and left a bunch of beer in my fridge. mark had his first encounter with brie (he actually thought it was a slice of cake) and ate crazy amounts of the crackers i bought at trader joe's. we played several rounds of various card games, had lots of laughs, and ended up at nomad at midnight.

next week's looking busy, too-SGC meeting on monday, staff meeting on wednesday, ATP on thursday, and breakfast with santa at ICS on saturday! stay tuned!

Busy Times at Parents Plus

So I really do have an excuse for the lack of updates this time: I got very sick after I returned from the conference in Green Lake, and my workload multiplied by a million as soon as I had enough energy to do work. luckily, things have slowed down enough that i can give a decent update now.

unfortunately for anyone reading this, there is not a whole lot of exciting news to report. i'm going to report everything that passed in november on a weekly basis.
Nov. 2nd-Nov. 8th: We had our monthly SGC meeting on November 2nd. attendance was nowhere near as impressive as the previous month's meeting, which proves that parentlinks are not the best way to relay information. I'm going to stick to flyers and phone calls from now on. We discussed details on a breakfast with santa fundraiser that we're planning to help rebuild the tot-lot. The next day, i went to west allis to see a fellow VISTA's Action Team training for his school. things got a little crazy during my commute to his site, because when I called to tell him that traffic on I-94 was terrible and that I would be 15 minutes late, his response was to ask me if I could babysit during the meeting. the girl who was supposed to provide childcare still hadn't shown up and he couldn't get in touch with her. i told him i would, but naturally the girl showed up just as i got to the school. november 4th was the neighborhood meeting from hell. i'll leave it at that.

Nov. 9th- Nov. 15th: i went to a dpi regional meeting in johnson creek with other VISTAs and their supervisors on nov. 10th. it was nice to see everyone again and have a chance to have some large group conversations, though i did get a little embarassed when my supervisor told everyone that my ATP would be having their first meeting that thursday. i wanted to tell everyone that it was more of a Q&A session for people who are interested than anything else, but i decided to keep my mouth shut. i think this worked in my favor. this brings us to thursday, the date of the ATP meeting. I walked into the conference room with an expectation that more parents than teachers would be present. however, i was shocked to realize that the only parent who showed up was the school's HIP coordinator (who is super-awesome). I was happy with the overall turnout, though, and think we have a strong group.

Nov. 16th-Nov. 22nd.: went to an atp facilitator training from mps on monday, during which i was told that VISTAs are expected to solicit donations from businesses as incentives for parents to come to the trainings, as well as take care of childcare for the evening sessions. it took a lot of self-control not to rip my hair out over this. we also went over the powerpoint and agenda for the meetings, which just confused me. i was on information overload and felt like i was going to throw up from the stress. i was feeling tense, especially because of the busy couple of days i had ahead of me. a poverty simulation organized by another VISTA was scheduled for the next day. however, after battling traffic on I-94 and getting very lost, the event was canceled because there were not enough facilitators or participants for an effective simulation. I was disappointed to hear this, but at least it gave me some time to sit in my apartment and have some well-deserved me time. i really needed this to get through wednesday's two-hour staff meeting at maple tree. i need to start bringing seat cushions to those, because those chairs are so ridiculously uncomfortable. Seeing Sarah W. on Saturday night was also nice. we talked about how VISTAs seem to have no social lives, so we created a biweekly VISTA poker group. i'm excited to see if this works out.

so now we've made it to this week!

yesterday i spoke to a pastor of a nearby church about participating in our breakfast with santa fundraiser, and he told me that his church may be able to make a monetary contribution to the fundraiser in addition to donating his time, which im really happy about. yesterday was also the rsvp deadline for the one-day action team trainings, so i spent most of my day frantically calling parents and community members about whether or not they could come. two parents are going to the alternate evening sessions for parents and community members, and a representative from growing power will be at the meeting with the maple tree staff, which i'm super-excited about!

so, there it is...you're all caught up with my life!

Reassurance at its Finest

i feel very happy with how this week has gone.

betsy, penny, and patrice came to maple tree on tuesday for a site visit and meeting with myself and my two site supervisors. i was a little anxious at first for several reasons. first, they were coming to maple tree after visiting another school, and i wasn't sure how i would compare. would they share my disappointment in the lack of feedback from parent and staff surveys that i distributed? would they share my enthusiasm for my ideas?

i was so relieved to hear the kind words that maple tree's principal shared with the group. i was also told that given my circumstances, i've made a good amount of progress and should keep going in this direction. i was also reminded not to compare myself to other VISTAs and/or sites. it was exactly the encouragement i needed to press on with my ATP.

maple tree's principal sent me an email right before dismissal on tuesday to ask me if i could attend a meeting about school attendance for her the next morning, which i agreed to do. the meeting was pretty informative, though definitely pertained more to high schools and other large schools in the district. patrice happened to be at the meeting, too, which was kind of funny. i was given a date for ATP training for our cluster, which i was glad to have information on. we're scheduled for November 30th. i am pushing for the group to meet once beforehand, though, so we can have a solid group that fully understands the goals of the action team and what their role(s) will be.

after the meeting, i drove over to maple tree for a surprise good-bye party for two staff members that are transferring to different schools in the district. i made a couscous salad the night before and was looking forward to seeing how people liked it. of course, only three people tried it! i'm planning to bring the leftovers to parents plus tomorrow, especially because cara said she would try some. i also met with the principal to discuss updating my VAD (VISTA activity description) for the school. we agreed that all that we needed to change were a couple of minor things.

today was the Americorps Opening Ceremony in Green Lake. though it was optional for the Parents Plus VISTAs, i decided to go because my school was closed for conventions. i met some great people doing some wonderful projects in Wisconsin, which made me proud to be a member of the Americorps community. the drive to and from Green Lake was great, too: me, cara, mark, and lizzy...

i finally got a new camera, so i'm going to post some pictures of things soon!

I'm Not Going to Make Excuses...

but i do apologize for the lack of updates.

in my defense, i've been a busy bee with several things. two weeks ago, i had after school events at vincent high school and maple tree on tuesday, wednesday, and thursday. my quarterly report was also due that week, so i was scrambling to compile information from the (lack of) surveys returned to be me by staff and parents.

that week wasn't all bad, though. kelly came here for mid-semester break. she came up on thursday night and left sunday afternoon. during her time here we ate a lot of yummy food, went to the milwaukee art museum, saw where the wild things are, went shopping, ate dinner at safehouse, and went to panera twice. i had a lot of first-time experiences during her visit, actually. on her first night here we went to an indian restaurant right around the corner from me that i never tried before (turned out to be great, and they deliver!). friday was the first time i've gone to the milwaukee art museum, too. we also went to the movies at fox bay cinema grill, which i've never been to before, either. it's a really cool theater, since they serve real food during the movie (sandwiches, pizza, etc). the first thing i said when we walked inside the lobby was an exclamation at the fact that they have a full bar in the lobby. we went to baker's square after the movie, which was not such a great experience. on saturday night we went to safehouse for dinner, which was quite an experience. we had to dance an irish jig to get inside, which we were applauded for. 'nuff said.

so now all the work i did last week and everything coming up this week seems mundane in comparison to the craziness of that week.

i was feeling a little sick this weekend, though. the sore throat came and went in no time, so i'm just feeling congestion right now. of course, i still went to the ingrid michaelson concert. i did leave after ten or so songs, but it was already 10:15, and I'm usually in bed by 10. it was a great concert, so i'm glad i went.

i'm really excited about going to green lake on thursday. it'll be a great way to reconnect with non-dpi vistas in the area.

Thinking, Waiting, Wishing

i'm starting to think i should pay more attention to the news.

last night was the fall open house for prospective students of vincent high school. i went to distribute information from parents plus. earlier that day, i learned that five students had been arrested during a fight in the school's cafeteria the day before, which may be the reason why only sixteen families showed up.

what i did not find out until this morning was that an additional six students had been arrested the day of the open house, as well as the fact that a student had been tasered during the fight in the cafeteria. two assistant educators had been attacked during the events that led to the arrests, too.

i don't know if i would have gone to the open house if i knew about this.

as easy as it will be for the media to point fingers at the families of these students, i cant help but wonder how involved their teachers are in their lives. it's easy for students to feel like their teachers don't care, especially in a school as large as vincent. teachers tend to only have an individual relationship with the students that excel in class or fall behind. what happens to the average students? they slip through the cracks...