Goodbye my YMCA Children~*

As well as bidding adieu to my Conversation Partner, Inyoung, I had to also say goodbye to the children at the YMCA. The only thing is I didn't actually say goodbye... I had planned on going the Friday before Dead Week, however plans did not go my way and I couldn't go on Friday and serve my last day and say goodbye, but it's okay because I'll be coming back next Spring, or at least that is my plan. I probably won't go as often as I did this semester, maybe once a week or once every other week, depending on my schedule, but I love those children. Being with those kids makes me put everything into perspective and helps me reground myself. I joke around a lot and have developed a habit of calling myself a "fat old lady" but these children.. they will not accept that. Whenever I say "Don't hassle me, I'm just an old, fat lady." The children look at me like I'm stupid and start declaring that I am so wrong. "Nooooo," and "You're not fat!" "You're not old! Ms Beth is oooold." It is hilarious, and at the same time reassuring, because no one is without body issues, and these children are so honest in their opinions that there is no way you can doubt what they are saying and it makes me feel better about my body and everything.

Children are adorable and I can't understand people who mistreat such wonderful blessings. A few of the kids are little demons, but honestly I love them still. Even the soulless ginger one. I feel bad I could not say goodbye to them for the summer and fall, but I am at the same time curious if any of them will still be there when I return, and if any of them will remember me. While I doubt it, children are amazing little beings and are smarter than we give them credit for.  I can't wait to see them all again.

And with that, this is my final blog. Until we meet again, my friends.

Goodbye my Conversation Partner~*

Last week was my last time with my conversation partner, Inyoung. It has been a great semester with her and I am going to miss her. She left for Korea this past friday and she will be back this coming semester (her husband is getting his PhD here). She said she would like to meet up again when I get back from France, which I am kind of looking forward to. I have great conversations with her, and she makes me think a lot when we are talking. She always has questions to ask me. She asks things like "What do Americans think on Gay Marriage?" or "How do you celebrate Holidays?" Some are easy questions, but others are either very out in left field, things I don't normally think about or am not informed on.

 You see, my primary source of news and information is Comedy Central's "Daily Show with Jon Stewart" and "The Colbert Report." So a lot of the things she asks me are things that either Jon and Stephen do not talk about in their program or things that don't pertain to me just yet, like retirement or child care. So unfortunately for a lot of her questions I had to give her general answers or give her my opinion on what I thought the world thought, but I felt bad for being unable to say, "Most americans believe..." I feel like I left her with holes in her political knowledge, but I like to think I made up for it in college or practical and general knowledge!

I will miss her greatly though, and I hope the next time we meet I can see her little baby, well he won't be too little anymore, I suppose.

The Children Case Study.

The Title is a lie, I just liked the way it alliterated and it sounded smart.


Yesterday I went to the YMCA yet again, and it was a blast, again!
I love working with the children, and find their intelligence amazing sometimes.

Example number one, I have only been to this YMCA three times previous to this one, if my memory is correct, and while I was there for three hours, these children are bound to have lives full of interesting activities and tons of other people, yet a lot of the children remember who I am. When I went in friday one little girl looked up (there were only a handful of children at the time) and started screeching "POLLYPOLLYPOLLYPOLLY" as she ran over to tackle me. I was really surprised to be remembered by these 5 and 6 year olds, and to be remembered so fondly too. Other children, alerted by the first girl's cry, came over, and some of the children coming down the stairs gave me passing hugs as they went to put their stuff away. Honestly that is one of the reasons I really love children, because they are so open with their affection.

Example number two, one of the girls that came to me earlier came back after attendance.
"You know Japanese, right?"
I crouch down to her level, "Yeah, some, why?"
She then starts an adorable rendition of Heads, Shoulders, Knees and Toes in Japanese, messing up Knees and Toes. She then asks me what the face ones are and so I go through it, now to a group of about 7. After I finish they ask me what all the parts mean, so I go "Mei...that's eyes, Mimi, that's ears...Hana, that's nose...Kuchi, that's mouth..."
"My friend's name is Hannah!" One girl interrupts. I laughed. I don't think it means nose, though. I thought as I motioned the group back to their respective tables.

Children are amazing, and while they can be annoying, I can't wait to have my own...when the time is right.

Who actually reads titles anyway?

The last time I met with my conversation partner, Inyoung, we  had a ball. We went from talking about her baby who has turned 4 months old to her parents in Korea and about Humans vs Zombies and my school life. Her baby has started to become more subdued and quiet and she has been able to get a little more sleep, however she is still very tired and can't wait to visit Korea in May so her mother can watch the baby for a night while she gets a good nights sleep. I feel bad for her, but she loves her child and is doing her best for him! And her husband is studying for his PhD, so she can't really bother him...

But she's been getting out and chatting with friends. For their baby's 100th day they took him up to Chicago to get the traditional rice cakes and some other Korean food. He was decent in the card ride there, which is always a blessing!  Hearing about her raise her child only serves to remind me that I will not sleep with a man until I'm ready to commit to raising another little being and I have a place for that little person to stay, comfortable and happy!

She is very proud of her baby, though -as any mother would be. She's shown me so many videos of the little baby. The funniest thing I've seen in a while was her little child dressed in a suit with a little bow tie and all! It was adorable, but I couldn't help feeling bad for the baby. Men complain all the time about wearing suits...imagine being a baby!

But I really like chatting with Inyoung, I will be sad when we must part...which I think is this week! Oh no, how time flies! :(

A Barefoot Boy with Shoes on Stood Sitting in the Grass

This week I met again with my conversation partner, Inyoung, and she gave me the rice cake she had promised. It has five colored layers and is called "rainbow cake" in korean. I haven't tried it yet but I'm worried if I'll like it or not. ...I should probably eat it before I go to see her tomorrow so I can tell her if I liked it or not.

This past week I participated in the campus wide game of tag, Humans v.s. Zombies.  Now it's just tag during the day, but at 8 pm the missions start and you run around with objectives.  I am a part of R.A.V.E., which is a walking rave party, and it is a whole bunch of fun, and each night has a theme, and Saturday's theme was 'Whatever' so I decided I would make a shirt that said, "Life" on the front and "Bitch, I'm Fabulous" on the back and carrying around lemonade and dixie cups so I could be "Life giving you lemons, but I was considerate and made it lemonade for you."

Now, the bus I take to the YMCA I volunteer at on Fridays goes to the south side Walmart so I decided after volunteering on Friday I would ride down to Walmart and get my supplies, but as I was waiting for the Walmart bound bus, the Downtown bound bus came by (the one I take home), and after 45 minutes or so of waiting for the next bus (I had no idea of the actual time because my phone had died while working), I gave up waiting.  Taking my shoes off (because they weren't comfortable for long walks) I started walking in the general direction of Purdue, past neighborhoods and busy streets, occasionally asking which direction Purdue was in and taking a few wrong turns (I may or may not have walked 20 minutes in the wrong direction...) I eventually made it to the river and was able to catch the Trolley. By now my feet were dying, I had just walked an hour and most of it barefoot, and it was 8:05, I was late for the mission! I made it to the mission and found RAVE around 9p, and I had a blast that night, but my goodness! So much walking! I was able to wake up early the next morning to go to Walmart, at least.

That walk didn't really help either, after the day of volunteering I had... I was there for 3 hours, mostly doing nothing, maybe chatting with a kid or two here or there, but it took a lot of energy. There was a little girl who, starting at 5p, began to cry because her father wasn't there yet and so I spent the next 40 minutes trying to distract her and making up (really bad) stories. Never. again.  No matter how much I love children, I can't do that again, I think. It was next to impossible to make her smile...

But next week will be better.

No walking.

Spiders are Cute, What's Wrong with the World?

Last Monday I met with my Korean conversation partner, Inyoung, and we had a fun hour talking. She is a very interesting individual and our conversations vary from stances on gay marriage to her three month old son.  Speaking of her son, it was his 100th day yesterday!  In Korea 100 days is a big thing. Inyoung told me the tradition stems from long ago when it wasn't expected for babies to live very long, so 100 days was a good sign. They have a tradition of making rice cakes, I believe it was, and sharing it with 100 people as good luck. Inyoung promised to give me a bit of rice cake tomorrow when we meet, I'm kind of excited.

Also, this past Friday was my first day working at the YMCA in Lafayette. I had a blast working with the kids, even if it was only for two hours. They attached to me pretty quickly, there were three of them that literally attached themselves to me. "I'm walking with you," Reese said to me as they lined up. Little Nora just loves hugging everybody and seems to have it out for Reese. Friday I didn't do much because this coming week will be their spring break and they don't have much homework (which will be my primary job, homework help) but I still helped out. In the hallway from the Gym one little girl stopped and pointed into thin air, "There's a spider," she said, her voice shaking, her body stiff. The other three councillors, college students like myself, were also freaked out, trying to coax the girl to walk around the spider. "I can get rid of it if you like," I offer.
"If that's what you want...."
I grabbed the spider's web about a foot above the spider and turned around, "Does that door behind me open?" A councillor opened the door and I was able to let Mr. Spider go free.  I came back in and the councillor that hadn't held the door for me was so...excited.
 "I can't believe you did that! That was amazing, it was so scary, OMG!"
Well.... I thought he was kind of cute.

Spring Break Soliloquy

I am so exhausted. I’ve just spent the past four days volunteering at the YMCA in my hometown for at least four hours a day. It was such a wonderful place, and I’m thinking of working there over the summer, but I never knew how tiring it could be! 

I started work on Tuesday afternoon and the very first exciting task I was set to doing was coin counting. Now, I know what you may be thinking, such a glamourous job, how did you handle it? I have no idea. I zoned out or something because I was suddenly at the end of my pot of gold and in need of another task. 

This is how it went for my four days of service, I would come in at 1 pm and Miss Mona, my supervisor, would be running around looking for any odd jobs I could do. The three main things I was doing was counting coins, scanning people in and sorting papers. I felt kind of useless when I was at the front desk scanning people in because I couldn’t do anything else; if someone came in with a question about memberships I would have to direct them to Cody, the person who works the front desk at 1pm, and he was always doing three things at once so I felt very useless. However, Miss Mona slipped me a job application for the summer so I can learn how to be of help and have a pretty entertaining job, because I would not be counting coins and searching for records. 

This week was nothing like I had imagined it. I suppose I figured  everywhere had an idea of what volunteer’s could do and always had things that needed to be done.  YMCA North was nothing like that! The YMCA back at Purdue has it all set out, what they would need volunteers to do, and actually at YMCA Lafayette I am working with children in after school care, so this is different from what I expected again. Hopefully soon I can regain my energy I’ve depleted this week. 

What Joys

Last week was an exciting week for service, everything finally started clicking in place. 

For my work with the International Center here on campus I was given a conversation partner and we meet every week now for an hour to simply talk.  My partner is a young Korean woman who hasn’t had the need to speak english for a long time so she feels the need to get help to pick it back up.  She is the sweetest person and very quick and intelligent! If it wasn’t for her occasional pausing or forgetting of a word, one wouldn’t think she hadn’t spoken english for about five years.  I’m really excited to meet with her again and learn more about Korea and, well, everything!
My other place of service is the YMCA. Being a freshman I am without a car, so I am left to rely on the bus service to take me where I need to go. That being said, anyone can attest to the somewhat unreliability and confusion the buses can generate.  It was last Wednesday when I was waiting for 4B, my boots sinking into the mud as rain drizzled down. It was a lovely 30 minute wait. When the bus finally rolled around I had just finished singing Breaking Benjamin’s “Rain” for the twentieth time to myself. From there I went downtown and caught the 6B which was there, waiting for me (thank goodness) ---and then I got lost.  

The feeling of “I know what I’m doing and where I’m going” being shattered when you realize you have no idea where you are is not an unknown experience to me, but couple that with a bus that goes in and out of sketchy areas does not instill a feeling of confidence. By the time the bus was turning around to continue back the way it came, I was frantic, wondering where I had gone wrong.  Stops flew by and signs and streets as I peers through a small sliver of window without banners or fog covering it, and by some miracle I was able to glimpse a sign, “YMCA.”  I just barely made the stop.  It turns out what the Citybus site says as to where the bus stop is is kind of a little different from what the automated voice and banner say.  

Nevertheless, I was able to run into the Y and fill out a volunteer application and, because of some delays and people-talking-to I was able to accidentally meet with the volunteer supervisor, get her email so I can ask her any questions I need to for the research paper and work out what I need for my volunteering. 

When I had left the Y the sky had cleared, the sun was shining, and I was going to be late for my next appointment. 

What joys. 

A Wild Hunger Appears! What Will You Do?

When I was in high school, we had an annual food drive.  I’m not sure when it started, but I do know I started participating my sophomore year.  As I mentioned in my previous post, I’ve always liked video games (maybe not enough to remember Gandolf and Ganandorf are separate people but I still like games).  Video games make you challenge yourself to beat your previous score, to do better than average, to excel and kill the bad guy.  This is the kind of mindset I had when I went into this competition -Do the absolute best you can and nothing else will be tolerated.  It was during Thanksgiving   break when the food drive was taking place.  As a child I was a Girl Scout, so my first thought on how to accomplish my goal was to run door to door and ask for canned goods.  And I did just that.  As soon as I got back from school I changed into warmer clothes, grabbed the little red wagon shoved in the back of the garage that hadn’t been used since I was 8 and went door to door with a smile on my face, asking for canned goods for my school’s food drive.  Some people gave me nothing or didn’t answer, but more often than naught my neighbors were very accommodating.  One old man even let me raid his pantry for anything he couldn’t eat because of his restricted diet.  I lived in Ohio, so the weather was very much like here with wind and rain and cold.  It was always cold, and there was little sun, but I didn’t give up, my gamer mentality wouldn’t let me just walk away from the challenge.  

The first day I amassed about 60 cans and thought that was amazing!  I was overjoyed. For the next five or six days after school hours and during my Thanksgiving break I ran around my entire neighborhood asking for canned goods.  By the time it came to turn my cans in I had gathered more than 300 non perishable foods and cans from my neighborhood, and everyone was amazed at what I had done.  And every year after that I continued to run around during Thanksgiving, asking for canned goods, trying to do better than the last day, better than the last year.  And each year I did do better, Junior year by 50 more cans, and my Senior year I gathers more than 400.  My neighbors began to expect me and my friends would be amazed every year, and the service director extremely pleased.  I know I didn’t kill the big boss World Hunger, but I did managed to do some damage to the area boss Local Hunger.  I also think I gained +2 agility, after all that running around with a wagon full of cans in tow. 

"Hello World"

Hello World.  

That’s the first program you ever run when you’re learning a new software.  That’s something I learned in my high school programming class last year.  That’s not the only thing I learned.  I went to a private Catholic high school that focused a lot on doing service for others.  They actually made it mandatory for sophomores to complete 20 hours of service in order to continue onto the next year.  Now I know that doesn’t sound like a lot, but for a 15 year old who loves nothing more than video games, reading and running around in the worlds she builds inside her head, that was terrible.  20 hours of not saving the princess and defeating the evil Gandolf?  Who would save Zelda?! 

Nevertheless, I had to do something for 20 hours.  So I chose a assisted living home.  It wasn’t because I wanted to help the aged and hoped some kind lass would do the same for me in my old age, no...  

I wanted to get over my fear of old people. 

And it sort of worked.  I went about eight times to the assisted living home over a period of about six weeks.  My work was mostly keeping the elderly occupied and happy, I was not allowed to do anything medical or physical (like help them to the bathroom).  My first day in I listened to a lady tell me her life story, repeating parts of it multiple times, and had an old man yell at me because I was in his line of sight.  I honestly don’t remember his actual complaint, but that was the first time an old person had raised their voice at me.  I thought by the time you were that old your lungs were too thin and weak to be able to yell like that.  But by the end of that first day, after my first few hours were finished, I was still scared of the elderly.  It’s like a fear of spiders, it doesn’t just...go away.  By the time Chinese New Year rolled around, though, four weeks later, I was pretty comfortable in my duties and in the presence of these wise crones.  I never returned after my 20 hours were finished though.  I may not be necessarily afraid of seniors anymore, but that doesn’t mean I like them enough to be around them for countless hours each week.  Still, that was my first real experience at service.  I like to think of that as my “Hello World.”