Saying Goodbye to ELA

It was sad realizing that we were the last of 18 years of JVs living in our house, so I took some pictures to commemorate the occasion.  Looking back now, it looks a lot more rough than I ever thought it did.  The laundry picture reminds me of buildings in Belize City.  It was a wonderful experience to live there though and really live in conditions much unlike those I'm used to.  Dealing with the noise of constant parties and barking dogs, hearing the metro and buses whiz by our house, not knowing the language being spoken around me, and living in an area that's not super safe to walk around in after dark, was eye-opening and humbling.  I feel like I got a small taste of what my students face everyday and what is "normal" for them.  

{juicy oranges from Celia's tree}

{air drying laundry in our "backyard"}

 {my room}

{"view" from my window}

PLACE Welcome Orientation

Another catch-up post:

In April, I went to orientation for PLACE Corps.  I am very excited to start the program, but also really nervous.  There are 28 people in my cohort (C11) – 21 girls and 7 boys, which is actually a pretty good ratio compared to other cohorts.  I knew one of the other girls from an immersion group that came to DMS from Santa Clara University, but otherwise I knew no one.  I know quite a few of the graduates of the program and current members because of DMS connection.  It felt a little like high school again, since I went into St. T. knowing (or at least knowing of) a bunch of upperclassmen because of Annie, but not knowing a lot in my class other than those from Lourdes.  They had a packed schedule for us, including lunch with our principals, barbeque with people from all past and present cohorts, bowling with the current cohorts (I’m still awful), a formal dinner with our principals and the Dean of LMU, mass, staying with one of the communities, learning about the program, going through our massive binder (3 inches, and FULL) of information about our next two years, signing up for classes, meeting each other, and signing our life away for the next two years.  Literally.  We received our calendar for the summer and it is so full of social events, classes, observations, etc.  I’m excited, and after the orientation, I was roaring to just start then and there, but it’s starting to sink in that I am leaving JVC really soon.  

The people in the program were a fun mix of people from all over, a lot from California, but not all.  I’m the first person to ever do PLACE from SLU which is cool.  I’ll have to go back and talk it up.  We got to stay in the PLACE Corps communities for the weekend and I was placed at Maria Regina in Gardena, where Mr. DeJesus, the science and Spanish teacher for DMS lives.  All the communities are about 9 people and are in former convents.  The rooms are really small and the closets are itty bitty.  As Diana, the coordinator of PLACE put it, nuns only needed 2 pairs of shoes and 3 outfits, so that’s the closet space they received.  The common areas were really big though, with a massive kitchen, living room and dining room, plus, there is a chapel complete with confessionals in case I need one at the last second.  Too bad I don’t have a 1-800 number to have a priest for these emergencies as well.   

 

At the barbeque, I was completely ambushed by some FJVs who had done PLACE Corps and heard that I was a JV.  It was amazing realizing that I am becoming part of a network of such inspirational, dedicated, and enthusiastic people by doing JVC and now PLACE.  

My Cohort, C11, in our "professional best":

 

 {Maybe the fuchsia dress was a little bold, but it was in the 80s all week!  I might as well take advantage...}

New House!

Moving!

So, our coordinators decided we should move closer to Dolores Mission and Proyecto Pastoral and avoid rising rent costs, so they found a house two blocks from DMS.  Our house is part of a group of affordable housing units in an area that was projects about 5 years ago.  It is interesting to be a part of this community, an area in the heart of urban renewal.  Boyle Heights is directly across the LA River from downtown and Little Tokyo (we are 3 blocks from the bridge), making it the idea area for people looking for cheaper housing close to downtown and for trendy/edgier people to move into.

 I’ve had some very interesting conversations with one of our friends, Joel, who grew up going to Dolores Mission School and studied urban planning at USC and currently works with transportation and urban growth.  We’ve heard that there is a Starbucks that will be moving into the area and there is a newish pizza place called Purgatory Pizza which is also a hipster magnet.  In our immediate neighborhood, we were surprised to realize our neighbors are very diverse, despite the fact that Boyle Heights is 98-ish% Latino; there are whites, Latinos, Asian Americans, and blacks in our two block area.  I’m excited and nervous about seeing the changes in the area over the next two years.

I love being so close to school!  Some of my kids have games at the park next door so I can go and watch them (Colleen and I watched a baseball game after Confirmation Class last night and our kids were on the team that won 6-0!), walk to mass in the morning, walk to school in 5 minutes and be more in tune with the environment of my students.  I think the only drawback to the move is leaving our old neighborhood which was definitely more authentic feeling, but I'm sure we'll discover new things around our new house soon!

We are thinking about doing a MTV Cribs style tour of our casa for JVC's youtube channel.  That would be pretty sweet :)  But for now, here's a mini photo tour:

 

{outside}

 {blurry!  but one of my favorite parts - painted wooden cross and photo of Sr. Ita Ford}

 {living room}

{kitchen - with dishwasher!}

 {map of LA on all between kitchen and dining room.  I love the openness of the house}

{dining room with our sweet new (free!) yellow table and matching placemats}

 {going up the split stairs, window to street with our Heineken vases}

 {top of the stairs, from l-r, Paula's, mine, and Greg's rooms}

 {down hallway into bathroom - we have 3!  Colleen's room on the right}

 {my room!}

 {we have ginormous closets with huge mirrors (a little messy!)}

 {different angle}

{Another shot outside}

 It's weird knowing that I'm leaving in less than 30 days.  I can't figure out if I should unpack or not, so a lot of my stuff is just in boxes in my closet right now.  I love our new house!

 

We Moved!

Pictures to come soon (once I clean up my room), but holy cow!  Our house is gorgeous!  And two blocks from school!  And I'm starting a compost pile! And a garden!  YAY!

New Address (until June 11th):

152 S. Utah Street
Los Angeles, CA 90033

Some Easter Brunch pictures until the moving pics are up:

All LA JVs + a few other random JVs in town

 

Jacques, me, Paula, Colleen 

Busy, busy, busy

Some updates:

1. This weekend I’ll be going on the Confirmation Retreat.  One of Paula’s responsibilities is planning the Confirmation program for DM, so I was able to get a position as one of the teachers which has been a wonderful learning experience, both as a teacher and as a Catholic.  We will be going to Big Bear Lake, up in the mountains until Sunday which will also allow us to escape the heat wave (see point 2).

2. Heat Wave!!  I have gotten to be here for at least two record breaking days, first in the fall when we were at 113? and now yesterday was in the mid 90s, breaking records from 1966.  Yikes!  It was super hot.  I could even see the heat waves coming off of the playground during recess.  But of course, parents didn’t check the weather, so I had kids in PE with sweatpants and sweatshirts.  Like the name implies, they were quite sweaty. 

3. Amazingly, I don’t think I’ve ranted on my blog before about students’ lunches.  They are disgusting and killing the environment.

Most of the kids are on free or reduced lunches through the state of California, so usually only one or two kids bring their lunches from every class.  With all the good press that school lunch programs are receiving (going organic, having their own gardens, no pop, salad bars, even “family style” meals, etc.), you’d think that they would be doing well in every school, but I think those must be only charter and suburban schools.  Our kids for lunch today had the choice of:

• Sugary juices and pink, white, or chocolate milk in plastic bags (and no one uses a straw, so they bite a hole in the side and suck on the baggie)
• Main dish:
• Hot dogs wrapped in breading in a plastic wrapper
• “Uncrustables” Peanut butter and banana goo sandwich (it looked sick and every kid that tried it threw it away) – in plastic wrappers
• Salads (only 4 per grade level) with iceberg lettuce, carrot shreds, chicken, cheese and croutons in a plastic tray wrapped in plastic
• Sandwiches (only 4 per grade level) with bun, meat, and cheese in a plastic tray wrapped in plastic
• Grilled cheese sandwiches in a plastic wrapper
• 5 carrots in individual bags with ranch dressing in tiny packets
• “steamed veggies” – carrots, broccoli, and cauliflower in individual cardboard trays covered in plastic – I like vegetables and I like microwave frozen veggies, but these looked and smelled horrible
• Garlic bread in an aluminum lined paper bag
• Applesauce in a plastic tray wrapped in plastic
• 2 Animal graham crackers in plastic wrapper
• Ketchup in packets
• Food is all served on styroform trays that get thrown away
• Silverware (sporks) come individually wrapped with a napkin and a straw – which no one uses

So if I am counting correctly, every student had at least 6 plastic wrappers, one tray, and silverware thrown away.  Multiplied by 230 students, that’s 1380 plastic wrappers thrown away just at lunch on the average day. 

And really, how many students do you think pick up carrots, veggies, white milk, or salads?  Not many.  And if they do pick up the veggies, they promptly douse them with ranch dressing.  I love how our government is instilling wonderful eating habits in our children.  Doesn’t everyone know that the groups on the food pyramid are bread, dairy, oils, sugars?  Obviously.  I’m not suggesting that they make all kids vegan or something, but it’s just very frustrating to read in the paper about schools that have students composting and growing food that they eat in the cafeteria.  Or schools where the kids actually cook some of their own meals.  Or schools in which they have salad bars and make your own food so that kids can choose the veggies and proteins they eat.  And can have as much fresh fruit  as they would like.  Like here, and here, and here.  Instead, children whose food options are already limited on the outside by lack of grocery stores and quality of the stores that do exist as well as financial difficulties, are further limited by the segregation of the quality of lunch and breakfast programs in their schools.  Let’s guarantee earlier deaths for the environment and our kids at the same time.  Sounds like a plan to me.

It sometime makes me wish I would have stayed in nutrition and become a school dietician.  Maybe later.

4. The government in LA does know how to do its parks though.  The one next to the school has been getting new sod for the past two weeks (it’s going to inevitably be torn apart by soccer cleats in less than 2 months) and has been watering the grass like crazy.  Smart thing to do at 1pm when we are experiencing record highs, right?  The water will all soak in so well and minimize waste.  And while they are making sure the parks are looking nice (2 other parks in East LA that I ran past today were being re-sodded and re-watered as well) let’s cut LAUSD budgets even more.  Sounds perfect to me.  If the kids are going to be dropping out of school earlier, they need a pristine grassy park to lie around in all day.  I’m not bitter.  Especially since my class was kicked out of the park yesterday when we were playing soccer (with permission) on the “old” grass.

5. On a happier note, I’m getting super excited about PLACE and I can’t wait to begin – which makes it extra hard to stay focused on JVC.

6. We will be moving on May 1^st to another house.  It’s 2 blocks from school which is extremely exciting and weird at the same time (students as our next door neighbors?).  We’ll have a nice yard (garden!!), and I will be able to walk in 5 minutes to school. And we will be about a 10 minute walk from downtown (Hello Yogurtland!)

7. Some pictures from this past weekend with mom, dad, Pete, Joe and Carola:

 Street lights at LACMA

 on the beach

 sunset on Manhattan Beach

 Pete being a goofball during our bike ride down the coast

 Raarrrr!  Dinos at the Natural History Museum

 Yogurtland = Yum

    Up the hill on Angel's Flight

And a couple funny statements:

 - Student: “Coach Katie, he’s not letting his light shine.”  Me: “What?  How do you know that?”        Student: “Because he doesn’t want to play Frisbee with me.”

 - Me: “So is Juan your only sibling?”  Student: “No, I’ve got an older sister, but she’s really old; a younger brother who doesn’t live with us; and a baby brother, but I don’t know if he is a boy or girl.”  Hmmm…. That could be a problem.

Giving

"Everything we give to the Lord, He gives back one hundred fold."

These words of Fr. Pat Crowley during mass on Friday that were extra meaningful to me this week.  I came into JVC hoping that I would find some clarity of future occupations and discover if teaching is really for me and I have been so blessed this year.  I have a placement that I love going to every morning and I love my students and the faculty at Dolores Mission.  Southern California's weather is absolutely amazing and I am in LOVE with Los Angeles.  "Giving" this year as a volunteer has been one of the most rewarding experiences of my life and I am so blessed to have so many people supporting me.

Back to Fr. Pat though. There was no school on Friday because we had a faculty retreat at school.  Being able to have religious experiences with my co-workers is extremely meaningful to me because I really feel that sharing something as intimate and important as our spirituality is key to the DMS staff's cohesiveness and the warm environment of the school.  We started with a "Whole Life Check-in" in which we reflected on the Mental, Physical, Spiritual, and Social Dimensions of our lives and then shared with the rest of the staff how we were doing in the various categories.  Then Ms. Moreno, our principal led us in some reflexology practices like fingerholds (kind of like these).  Fr. Pat celebrated mass with us in Dolores Mission Church with only the staff.  It was an amazing experience since there were less than 15 people in the church and we all were gathered around the altar, making me feel like we were part of the early Church, celebrating in small, initmate celebrations of the Eucharist with close friends and believers.

After mass, Fr. Pat performed a Healing of Memories with us.  I had never heard of this type of healing, but it was very moving and freeing.  On his blog, Healing Light, he has a post that outlines the healing.  From some further research, I learned that this type of Healing began in South Africa as a way to "remain attentive to how our divided past can impact us both individually and as communities and a nation.  [They] believe that when personal stories are heard and acknowledged, individuals feel healed and empowered.  Through deep listening and meaningful sharing, human relationships can be transformed and restored."

Pretty powerful statement.  Sounds like a way that our world could become a much more peaceful place - if we could all just stop and listen to others and try to understand what it is like to walk a mile in their shoes.

[Following this, I decided to add intentionally praying for someone each day to my Lenten journey this year.  Hopefully this will be a way for me to better empathize and have more patience with others, understanding that everyone brings something unique to the table and that everyone has a history.  For example, finding out that a couple students at DMS recently were homeless - no wonder they were behaving differently during recess.]

And now the personal meaning of Fr. Pat's quote at the top of the post:  I was accepted into PLACE Corps for next year!  [Briefly, the Partners in Los Angeles Catholic Education is a teaching service corps with three pillars of community, spirituality and professional development.  I'll be living in an intentional community, teaching in an under-resourced Catholic school in LA and working toward my masters in Child and Adolescent Literacy.]  On June 22nd, I'll be moving onto Loyola Marymount University's campus to begin my summer courses and then at the end of the summer, I'll move into my new intentional community where I will live for the next two years.
Yay!  Thank you for all your support this year!  

And some pictures:

Stolen from Lauren - me, Jen, and Lauren at our Mardi Gras party!

 Jen, Lauren, Shrek, and me - nbd

 Casa Valentine

 in San Fran before Re-O with Colleen and Paula

Dinner with the JVs and the Jesuits - Fr. G, Fr. Scott, Fr. Tre, Fr. Mark - they're pretty awesome

Snapshots of My January

Leaving Tucson airport after a fabulous New Years with my two best friends.

 Hiking solo in Runyon Canyon in LA - amazing view of LA

 more views - the ocean is on the right

 new posters for PE!  I went to a huge school supply store and laminated :)

 Blooms outside the church in the middle of winter!

 January flowers outside the school

 

5th Graders Jump Roping routines for PE unit

Sunset over the city while I walk to the Starbucks in Little Tokyo