Week 3: Events and Experiences Galore!

Week 2 of Mission Site

The kids came on Monday, 8/22 for the first week of school.  The first week was all half days (thank goodness!).  Annie (my co-resource teacher) and I had time to meet with Scott (the Title 1 teacher) to try to work out a schedule.  It seemed best to work around his schedule (which was pretty much set in stone) and go from there.

On Friday, I would be subbing my first class.  Dana, the third grade teacher was going to California for her mother’s birthday (I think it was 75, I know it was a big one), so I observed on Thursday and subbed on Friday.  The third graders were absolutely precious – well behaved, helped me when I asked what the procedure was or where Ms. Sullivan puts things, and had lots of interesting questions: why I wear ties, if it's fun to be a teacher, if I picked the purple marker to write on the whiteboard marker because it's my favorite color, if I was married, what the red mark on my face was (darned zit), if I had to shave, and where I went to college. They were truly adorable.  It was fun to get back into the classroom.

The Resource Room!

So many tapes, DVDs and books! 

There's Annie!

My very organized bookshelf (aka magazine rack, grr)

Community Nights

So my roommates, Stephanie and Becky and I decided on how we would split up community nights.  Each week, we have four community nights: Sundays – Stephanie cooks, I wash dishes, and Becky plans and leads prayer, Mondays – I cook (oh boy), Steph plans prayer, and Becky washes dishes, Tuesdays – I plan prayer, Becky cooks, and Steph washes dishes, Wednesdays – we drive to North Lawndale to share a meal, conversation, and prayer with four Dominican Sisters of Springfield.  Lisa, a former volunteer and our downstairs neighbor, joins us Mondays-Wednesdays.  Every other Monday, the Dominican priests (two currently, one has been on vacation and returns soon) join us for dinner and prayer.  This seems to work out really well.  We also just found out tonight that a seminarian, who is studying Canon law at a nearby college, will be temporarily moving in to our guest room until one of the rooms clears out downstairs.  It should be a new and exciting experience getting to know him!

Masses

So far I’ve been able to celebrate mass:

-At St. Pius – first Sunday in English (where Fr. Brendan put us on the spot in front of the congregation to introduce ourselves), second Sunday in Spanish (I understood about half of what was going on (tough for the readings and homily), and the third Sunday at the English mass with a priest from a nearby parish (LONG homily, but it was all about the hurricane out east so of course I was attentive).

-On the street – on Thursday 8/18, Fr. Brendan invited us to our first street mass.  They closed down a block and said mass out on the street –inviting all the neighbors to join.  It was in remembrance of a little girl who was the innocent victim of a drive by gang shooting.  It was great to hear mass in Spanish and English (sometimes translating, other times just saying it in either language) and to witness the blessing of houses and the homily on peace.

-On the beach – on Saturday, 8/27, St. Pius was joining two or three other parishes at the 31^st street beach (other parishes from all over Chicago were at other beaches – all praying for peace and an end to street violence).  It was also in Spanish (I learn more and more each time). 

Everyone has been so welcoming and hospitable!

Nights out on the Town

So besides our ventures out in Pilsen and exploring a little bit of downtown, I had realized we didn’t do much else yet. So here’s what I’ve done so far to get out of the apartment J

-Friday, 8/19 – Lisa and I went to the downtown area, north of the loop, to “What If: An International Art Gallery.”  It was a really great gallery – free drinks (wine, soda, beer, water) and food (pizza, cupcakes, crab cakes) and an awesome DJ.  It was centered around alternate universes – all answers to the question, “What if…”  Some of my favorites included “What if the gingerbread man was sill running?,” “What if the dinosaurs deserved it?,” “What if beer was never invented?,” “What if Abraham Lincoln was assassinated by a laser gun,” and “What if all birds had to migrate south for winter?”  I don’t think I’ve ever laughed so much at an art gallery.   Also the reception after was on the rooftop courtyard of the surrounding apartment complex.  Really nice night.  After that, we just walked around and happened upon a dueling piano bar called Heart and Soul.  We stayed for about two and a half hours, didn’t have to spend any money on our requested waters, and listened to the very talented musicians.  We realized by the number of bachelorette parties that upstairs was a male strip show on tour called “Thunder from Down Under – Straight from Australia” – hahaha.

During the day

At dusk

Courtyard reception

One of the many bars set up 

When in doubt, dance with the runaway Gingerbread man 

-Saturday, 8/20  - Becky, Stephanie and her boyfriend Michael, Morgan (who lives in Chicago at the House of Connections, serving at Sarah’s Inn with Stephanie), and I went out to the bars in Lincoln park. Our favorite was Barleycorn’s.  We had a blast!

-Sunday, 8/21 – Lisa and I went to Navy Pier to view the Air and Water show – though I think we missed the better acts.

One of the planes (tiny I know)

Good old Marilyn Monroe

Beach near Navy Pier

Marilyn again

Magic show at Navy Pier

I see London, I see France...

Atrium at Navy Pier

Navy Pier beautifulness

-Wednesday, 8/24, we had about 20 people over (downstairs by the DVUSA Offices) to have some beer and pizza, meet and greet with former volunteers, sisters who shared community with us, and other supporters of the program, and most importantly, to fold the DVUSA newsletters.  We had lots of fun and the current volunteers sang the Magnificat in three-part harmony, which the whole crew really enjoyed!

-Saturday, 8/27 – after the beach mass for peace, my roommates and I walked from 31^st street along lake Michigan all the way north for about 3.5 miles!  We ended up in Millennium park, then took a bus up to Oak Street Beach, but it was colder then, so we decided to head back to Pilsen for a great Mexican lunch at Nueva Leon.  That night, we went back to Millennium Park for the Celebration of Dance concert in the park.  It was free, and we bought some wine to have out on the lawn.  Prestigious companies, such as the NYC Ballet, The Martha Graham Dance Company, and the Geoffrey Ballet performed really beautiful pieces.  They said that all were invited to a wrap party at the Intercontinental Hotel, so we headed up there, just to find out it was like $55 bucks a head, so we opted out, but the hotel was gorgeous.  We walked around the downtown area at night, which was absolutely amazing.

Sunrise

Some of the mass-goers

View along the walk

The Field Museum

The (something with a P.) Center in Millennium Park

View of the city from the lawn

Our view of the dance performances

The side screen showing the dancers 

At night 

Beautiful shot at night

The kayakers

The Chicago Tribune 

My new city!

The Start of Week 3 at St. Pius

I’ve gotten to visit the 7^th grade class and 5^th grade class for their first technology specials.  I prepared a little slideshow presentation on various topics we could cover throughout the year.  I then had them take a survey, asking if they had access to computer/internet at home and which of the topics I talked about that they would like to learn more about this year.  It was great to see their excitement about the topics.  The topics ranged from the Microsoft Office, Google Apps, and Facebook, to blogging, Twitter, Wikis, and Skype, just to name a few.

I’ve also been helping out at EE (Early Education, aka Pre-K) every morning (since the teacher and aide have a whopping 21 kids in the class!  One little boy, Angel, was so scared of fire drills.  On the first day he cried because he didn’t want to go to school because of the fire drills.  This morning, we were going to have one, so Ms. Humphrey asked if I would stay so I could help him through it.  After a lot of practicing, letting him know it’s only practice and that there would be no real danger, and holding his hand the whole time, we got through it together. 

In the next blog or two I will discuss my plans for the Day of Peace, this weekend's Kermes festival, Professional Development, the Chicago Fringe Festival and I will share my Personal Mission Statement. 

Thanks for reading my long winded blog!

Week 2 – Road Trip/Communities/1st Week on the Job

Road Trip

So, after leaving Orientation, one of my new roommates, Stephanie, and I started our road trip to Chicago, IL from Ossining, NY.  We left around 11am.  We did really well with sharing the driving.  It was really great because when we weren’t talking about our lives and our passions, we were singing and harmonizing.  It was so much fun and the time flew by.  Besides a few stops for food (Dairy Queen for the first time!) and gas, we were right on track.  Before we knew it, we were in Akron, Ohio to visit the motherhouse of the Dominican Sisters of Peace.

This motherhouse was AMAZINGLY beautiful.  An old mansion, the courtyard was beautiful and the chapel was gorgeous!  One of the highlights for me was a kind of family tree of the different congregations of Dominican sisters across the US.  It shows which communities came from others and how they spread.   It really put a lot of things I had heard about the congregations into perspective.

The chart I described above

The chapel

The courtyard

The lobby

After our visit in Akron, we had our last stretch our new home in Chicago.

I think I can speak for the three of us when I say that we were so excited to see our apartment.  It is on the second floor of our building, but it is wonderful.  It is a four-bedroom apartment with a kitchen, bathroom, living room, dining room, and a prayer space.  It has a washer and dryer in the basement and wi-fi.  It definitely had us kind of questioning that simple living aspect of this year (just kidding, we now know that simple living is a lifestyle choice, not just material belongings).  While our director, Michael, may have gotten the wrong impression when we listed all the cleaning that had to be done and the things that were missing here and there, we were definitely very happy with our new home.

Prayer space 

My room

The middle floor is ours!

Communities

I learned about a new buzzword throughout this process – “intentional” communities.  I had never thought about this concept before.  Intentionally living in a community is much different than finding two roommates on Craigslist.  There are definitely challenges and strong points  of living in an intentional community.  It is great that we are all going through similar experiences (volunteering for a year) and have similar interests (spiritual growth in the lens of mission work).  Luckily, I love my roommates and we always seem to be on the same wavelength.  If anyone is familiar with the Myers-Briggs Inventory (we learned or reviewed it at the Orientation), we are all “J”s.  If not, J is for Judging – “you prefer a more structured and decided lifestyle” - although we have come to realize we are all different levels of Js.  Stephanie, myself, and Becky are in order, high to low Js.  It makes living with each other quite easy. 

We are also in community with the Dominican priests who live on the third floor of our building (meeting every other Monday to share a meal and prayer time), some Dominican sisters from Springhill, and I would like to add our neighborhood, Pilsen, as we are living in this community as well.

So far, we’ve had community nights with the sisters twice, which have been absolutely wonderful.  I am trying new foods and enjoying sharing time with them.  Tomorrow (Monday, 8/22) we are having our first community night with the priests, which should be interesting.

Lastly, I have been so excited to explore my local community of Pilsen.  Pilsen is one of the neighborhoods in Chicago, IL.  It is comprised of many Mexicans and Mexican Americans.  It deals with issues of immigration, gentrification, gangs and violence, but it is also a vibrant community of culture, art, religion, and beauty.  Murals sprawl across the sides of buildings, the elevated train (“L”) has a number of stops, and the Mexican-American Art Museum is a few blocks away.  I love seeing the Mexican bakeries and restaurants mixed into the more American places of business with a backdrop of Polish-inspired architecture in the local churches.  I am excited to explore Pilsen, Chicago in general, and the surrounding areas over the next year.

Pilsen mural

Mural depicting progression

St. Procopius Church

First week at Mission Site

As I have mentioned before, I will be volunteering at St. Pius V School for the next year.  I will be a co-resource room teacher, working with students who are struggling, as well as students who are excelling and need to be challenged.  My fellow co-resource room teacher, Annie, has been a part of the St. Pius community as a DePaul intern for the past few years.  She is going to be very helpful as a resource since she knows the students already.  I am excited to work with her.  We spent the first week (without students) setting up our classroom (which has been functioning as a closet for the past year), attending a seminar (it was about RTI – Response to Intervention and its place in Catholic educations and aligning it with Catholic Social Teaching), and attending staff/faculty meetings.

St. Pius V School (across the street from where I live - tough commute!)

I am also being deemed the technology guru (alongside the school’s marketing guy, Kurt).  In the first week alone, I have set up two new computers, fixed internet problems on three computers, and done some updates.  I am excited to learn more about Promethean boards (interactive white boards).  I will probably also be teaching a computer class throughout the week to different classes so teachers have more collaborative time. 

Overall, I am so thrilled to be where I am and I am so hopeful for the wonderful journey that will surely lie ahead.

Week 1: Orientation/Training and Brian and Chrissy's Wedding

Training/Orientation

Training and orientation was awesome! We were generously hosted by the Maryknoll sisters in Ossining, NY.  We did some really fun icebreakers to get to know each of the DVs (Dominican Volunteers) this year.  Just to highlight two of those:

1) We stood in a circle and went around.  As we did so, we said our name, where we were from and where we were going, and then we did a movement that would be associated with our names.  So we had a lot of fun doing jazz hands (I wonder who’s motion that was), making muscles with Mike, hopping with Julia, curtseying with Morgan, and doing an elderly person gesture (hands on back and pretending to have a cane) with Margaret (our young at heart volunteer).  We would then do every preceeding person’s gesture while saying their names.  It really helped me since I am awful with names. 

2) We were asked to think of the floor as a map of the US and then stand where we thought our “hometown” was (people had many different interpretations of what they considered home).  Then, we had to say something about our hometown that very few people might know.  That was great! Then we moved to where we would be doing service, then we changed it to a world map and said if we could do service anywhere in the world, where would it be.  I chose Central and South America so I could work with Latinos and think about immigration reform (something I have recently been very interested in thanks to my friendships with Ricky from Argentina and Henry from Ecuador).  Working at an international English school also helped!

I am so used to doing and running icebreakers that I thought those were clever and original ones I had never seen before.

Also at Orientation, everyone learned about Dominican spirituality, Catholic social teaching, the history of Maryknoll, Maryknoll Lay Missioners, living in community, conflict resolution, simple living, and so much more! 

Just being at Maryknoll and eating meals with the sisters was so inspiring.  Many of them had done “service” abroad.  I put service in quotations because you would ask a sister where they had done service and they would say well I was in Peru for 35 years or I was in Bolivia for 15 years and then Guatamala for 20 years.  I don’t call that service, I call that living in another country and living out your calling.  Holy cow! 

Maryknoll Seminary

While in NY, we also got to visit the Dominican sisters of Blauvelt (where I felt right at home, having been there so many times for preaching conferences, to preach, or just to hang out and party), the Dominican sisters of Sparkill (oddly enough didn’t feel as at home, even though it was right next to my college, but I did get to speak to one of my favorite professors, Sr. Joan Beairsto, who taught me reading and writing curriculum classes), and New York City (where I felt once again like a tour guide, which was so fun)!

I could share every intimate detail, but all I will say is that my fellow volunteers are AMAZING and that prayer was beautiful and we learned SO much! (And had a little fun!)

The Ha Game - the first person says "Ha," the second says "Ha ha," then down the line and everyone laughs.
This was new to me...

Wedding

Thanks be to God, DV was really nice about letting me miss about two days of Orientation to go to my brother’s wedding (obviously a significant event).  Brian and Chrissy’s wedding was so beautiful.  I loved being one of the groomsmen.  I loved seeing family.  I loved the mass, and the reception, and the ridiculousness of the dance floor.  I would go on and on, but this is already WAY too long.

The Groom and his men - we clean up nice!

The first dance - well rehearsed and performed!

Precious mother son dance

Me looking fresh!

Next blog:

• Road Trip
• Move In
• Communities
• First week at Mission Site