CYSA Corps

This is an amazing group photo at our Basic Training Retreat (at TECABOCA). We're basically awesome, beautiful people. It's going to be a glorious year!!!

McAuliffe for Life!!!

So we’ve started serving in our schools this week. Well, learning and observing, but still interacting with the kids! They have a Mariachi band at this school and a journalism class. I’m most definitely doing to start a creative writing class… prolly focusing on poetry/song writing. The team seems to be settling into what we’ll be doing this year. We went there Wednesday and today. Kids remembered me from yesterday, which was awesome!! Yesterday we got acclimated to the school, learned about the FitnessGram we’ll be in charge of administering to all the students in the school, and played outside with the special ed class. Today we observed teachers that have good report with their students to get a perspective on how to create that with our tutees and mentees. We joined in on the PE class, which we’ll be doing a lot, especially before the FitnessGram. We stayed after today and went to an 8th grade girls’ Volleyball game (I thought of Sarah the whole time). They won! I’m taking it easy tonight cause the whole Corps is getting up bright an early to go to a Habitat for Humanity build tomorrow. I’m so excited for the weekend. I need to hang out with all my friends cause this week has kept us all busy and tired. I can’t believe we’ll actually be working so much. Roughly 55 hour weeks for the next ten months. And that doesn’t count the times we have blacked out days on the weekend. Apparently around MLK Jr Day we’ll be working everyday for two weeks straight… yikes. I can’t imagine people do that at jobs their not passionate about. This is amazing! If you haven’t gotten this already, I’m in love with City Year and San Antonio and McAuliffe Middle School and everything about this choice I made. The End.

Necessary Disclaimer

The contents of this website do not reflect in any way the positions of City Year or AmeriCorps. For official City Year policy see http://www.cityyear.org

Weekend of Butterflies

Apparently monarch butterflies come out in swarms this time of year. There have been hundreds of butterflies all over the place. Literally in flocks. It’s awesome. I met three girls who live next door to me while they were outside catching butterflies. They are adorable and so sweet. I was quite the social butterfly myself this weekend. On Friday night Kristen, Lauren, Jill, Sasha, Matt, Liz, Maria and I went the Shisha Café to smoke hookah. I had some Mint Lemonade (delicious, real, fresh mint crushed up right in the glass, it reminded me of childhood) and the smoke some honey-berry hookah. Era muy delicioso. Saturday I slept in until noon. It was glorious. Last night we went to a Silver Stars (WMBA) game. (They played the Sacramento Monarchs...) Solomiya had some free vouchers for us poor City Year folk. It was A LOT of fun. We thought about going out afterwards, but ended up hanging out at the girls’ apartment for a while, watching some more of The Office. This morning I motivated myself to go to First Presbyterian Church. I have to admit, I was nervous, but I wanted another social outlet besides just City Year. The church is beautiful and ENORMOUS!!! There were tons of people, but I managed to find some other people in their 20s to sit with and they invited me to lunch afterwards and to a movie tonight and to their bible study on Tuesday nights. So all in all I would say it was a successful venture.

That was my amazing weekend. It was suppose to storm because of Hurricane Ike, but the weather has been especially beautiful instead.

Action Generation Videos

THESE JUST IN. My 15 seconds of fame. A group of about 10 City Year corps members volunteered to be in these videos that were made to help promote San Antonio's day of service at the end September. So all the people you see are some of my fellow corps members! Check them out:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ELyuwHtvCEY

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ahz92bAtMHU

TECABOCA!!!

(TExas CAtholic BOys CAmp) This is where I have been for the last 3 days; in the beautiful hill country of Texas, spending time with the wonderful CYSA Corps. I’m with the McAuliffe Middle School team. I’m very excited about that fact. The school is 95% Hispanic and a large majority of the students belong to migrant families. The dropout rate is San Antonio is 49% so there is a large need. There is also a significant gang problem in the school. We’ll be helping out with a math tutoring program in the morning plus tutoring and mentoring our specific kids. We’ll also be providing after-school activities and clubs centered on athletics (and maybe a creative writing/book club). Everyone is so pumped up and enthused about their teams. Tomorrow we get to go into the community where our school is located and do some community asset mapping. Tomorrow night we’ve invited the whole corps to get together at Fatty’s Burgers and More for some fun karaoke. I can’t wait to have more about our school to write about tomorrow. It is suppose to have great facilities and be out in the middle of nowhere, but I have no other details as of yet. Life is good ; )

IS IT TRUE!?!?!

Am I home? I made the comment when someone asked me if I was going home for Thanksgiving or Christmas that San Antonio was my home. At the time, that was more of a desperate attempt to make myself believe it; hoping that at some distant time in the future it would actually come true. It’s kind of hard to believe that time is already here. Exactly 3 weeks after I first set foot on the soil of San Antonio. I think it’s the fact that my mom and Lexie left, so I don’t have the anticipation of anyone coming to visit (at least in the immediate future). Also the fact that we’re in training and so now my anticipation is completely focused on what I’ll be doing here and the people I’ll be spending the next 10 months with. I realized last night when Lauren and Liz were talking about being homesick that I’m not. It’s because I’m home. I can do this. I can go to a completely new place with completely new people and survive. No, thrive. I know there will be ups and downs. And don’t get me wrong, there are lots of people back in Georgia that I miss a lot a lot. But it’s not a hopeless longing like I thought it would be. It feels natural. I still talk to them, I still love them, they’ll still be a major part of my life, and I’ll see them soon. Until then, I’m content to be home. I don’t feel like I’m waiting for my life to begin anymore. I’m living. Passionately. And it feels amazing.

Ladies and Gents, training has begun!

Alright, it’s been a while. My mom and my sister, Lexie, came to visit so I’ve been busy soaking up as much time as possible with them. They arrived last Thursday and just left a little while ago. It was great having them here. It was great for my mom to get to see where I was and meet the people I’ll be hanging out with this year so she doesn’t worry as much. And it was just great to show off my sister to all my new friends. She’s awesome and I’m going to miss her so so so so much! AHH! Here are some of the things we did during their stay. Lexie and I went out with Robert, Matt, Jill, Lauren, Lizbeth and Sasha to smoke hookah at Shisha. Lizbeth tried to get the server’s number for me (he was very attractive, nice legs) but also married… oh well. We had the above mentioned girls over for some Taboo fun. On Labor Day Jill, Lauren, Sasha and I escaped the city for some hiking at Guadalupe Park. It was a little pricy, but we got to swim (in our undies… :-O) and relax on the shore “skipping” rocks, to no avail. They came over again last night for some Root Beer/Orange Soda Floats and some Tinto (Lauren's treat from Spain, it's red wine and lemon/orange Fanta).

Tuesday was our first day of training aka painting/cleaning up “J” St Park. It was a great way to bond and get to know some of the other core members. But today was our first official day of training and man o man, am I pumped. I just can’t wait to see what this year has to offer and to take advantage of as many of those opportunities as I can. Grant (one of the 6 amazing Team Leaders) and I were asked to come to a meeting on Friday with a representative from the Senator’s office. City Year is trying to actually meet with the senator so this meeting is to promote that idea and to tell them what City Year is all about so we can just have their overall support in the future. (Sorry, that’s vague… more details to come when I figure them out) Anyways, they want me to share why I chose City Year San Antonio. It made me feel special ^__^ The way they presented all this information to us today was great. The team leaders were so energetic and I was never bored, not once! And we were there from 9-5!! That’s pretty impressive. The idea of doing City Year a second year (hopefully as a team leader) has definitely popped into my brain… it’s too early to make any of those types of decisions, but I could see it happening. I’m even excited about the reading “homework” we have to do tonight.

Here’s another update! We’re going to have another roommate. Her name is Lilly (sweet, I know) she’s doing CYSA and she’s actually from San Antonio. She’s so nice and cool and has a dog named Wavy Gravy. She’ll be moving in Friday and we’ll be sharing my room. I’m so stoked to have another girl in the apartment I can barely stand it. Living with guys is great, more drama free, but the idea of Lilly living here just makes the apartment feel complete. Plus, Wavy Gravy is an energetic Aussie/Cattle Dog mix so hopefully she’ll keep Koda busy so Falkor stops getting picked on so much.

Overall, I’m ridiculously excited about this year. It's still been a lot of getting to know the people we'll be working alongside, but the kids I'll be working with have also been on my mind a lot lately. I can't wait to meet them and to build relationships. To help them learn and most definitely learn from them as well. I can’t wait to find out what team I’m on and to learn more about EVERYTHING! We’re going to this artsie/musicy/awesome festival thingy this Friday called First Friday. It’s suppose to be pretty rad. Until then it’s more training and bonding. I’ll write again soon. Promise.

Peace.