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.