One of the reasons I have been mildly terrified about my boss’ hospitalization/on-going health problems keeping her from work was my genuine concern that if the s*** hit the fan and we had a true emergency, no one would really know what to do.
Lo and behold, we had an emergency today. A tenant, who was by all accounts a very nice man, was found dead in his apartment. Sadly, that isn’t really a new thing around here, but it was the first time we had to go at it without Irma.
I didn’t go upstairs to wait with the body—my coworker and leasing agent went. I stayed downstairs to mind the office and try to manage affairs for everyone else. It turned out to be a good thing I was there, because the daughter of the deceased came racing in. She asked for her dad by name, and I guess the look on my face told her that he was already gone.
She reacted the way you would expect; dropped her bag, tried to get away from me, hyperventilating, and saying, “No” over and over again. Before I could stop her she tried to get on the elevator to go to her father’s apartment, and actually took a swing at me when I tried to stop her (don’t worry, I ducked.). Security intervened then because EMS expressly forbade the family from entering the apartment. After she calmed down we managed to get her into the security office to sit down.
A detective briefly interviewed the daughter and the fiancée of the deceased. They wanted to go upstairs immediately to see the remains, but security took me aside and said that it would have been too traumatic for the family to see their loved one in that way. So I took them (after a LOT of talking) to a conference room in my office and got them settled with water and tissues.
After we got them settled, hours of agonizing waiting began. I escorted the daughter to the bathroom because she needed to vomit (which always seems to make people feel better when they’re upset), and came back and waited with them until the authorities released the body.
I would have liked to have consoled the family in shifts, since I didn’t feel adequately prepared to counsel anyone so soon after such a traumatic event. But a co-worker sort of put her foot in her mouth and offended the freshly-bereaved family, who politely (I confess, I would not have been so polite!) threw her out of the room. They asked me to stay—I guess I’d established some sort of trust with them. (Evidently, helping someone who tried to hit you when they need to vomit must make them think you’re trustworthy.)
Grief comes in waves—sometimes we sat in silence, sometimes the ladies would burst out laughing, but more often than not they broke into unadulterated weeping. Whenever one or both was lucid enough to want to talk to me, they’d soon phone a relative and the waves of sobs would come back.I’ve never lost a parent, but I’ve lost enough people before to know that all of this was natural, and I certainly remember how it feels. Nothing you feel seems rational, and for a moment you think you may be absolutely crazy for feeling the way you do.
For my part, I didn’t talk a whole lot unless I was spoken to or telling them what was happening at that moment (“The authorities have given permission for the funeral home to take him.” “The funeral director will be here within the hour.” “Would you like me to call a pastor?” That sort of thing.) When the funeral director had finally arranged the remains so that the family could see him, both women hugged me before they left to see him.
I suppose I could have gone upstairs with them, but I felt like it would have frightened the women too much if I hadn’t reacted well to the body. So the guards and the funeral director escorted them upstairs. By then, it was long into my lunch break, so I went for a walk by the river and got some food.
I have a feeling we’ll all be pretty useless for the rest of the day—this morning sapped our strength. At least it’s Friday, so we can blow off some steam after work! The whole morning was emotionally exhausting (God bless the priests, chaplains, and pastors who do this all the time!), so I’ll be glad to not have to come in tomorrow.
Showing posts with label social justice. Show all posts
Showing posts with label social justice. Show all posts
Friday, March 19, 2010
Monday, February 8, 2010
As easy as ABC... or is it?
I make a lot of cultural faux pas around here.
I manage to avoid big ones, like calling the cell phone of a deaf tenant or asking a wheelchair-bound tenant to "run" over here.
I made one just after Christmas when I asked a very cheerful and friendly caregiver how her Christmas was. She replied (gently) that she doesn't celebrate Christmas. (She wasn't offended and was certainly happy because she knew I meant well, but I forgot "Secular World 101: say "holidays" when talking to a stranger.)
The one I make most often, though, is asking a person to read or spell something.
For some reason, I continually forget that it is not a given that my tenants are literate. I just asked a tenant to read me his social security number over the phone to spare him a trip downstairs. He paused for a moment, then told me it was no big deal; he could just as easily bring me the card. It's not convenient for him; he's paralyzed.
Many people who want to make a call from my office phone will have the number written on a slip of paper, and before I can stop myself, I ask, "What's the number?" They just hand me the paper. I dial the number. My face always flushes; I should know better.
Sometimes someone will enter the office, freaking out about a bill that they've received (for example, from Comcast). They (or in most cases, a loved one or aide) have already paid the bill for the month and are about to have an apoplexy because they think they're being overcharged. Then I'll look at the bill they've brought me, and it's not a bill. It's an ad or promotion for the company.
It isn't their fault. No one took the time or energy to teach them when they were a child. Either there was no school to attend, or their parents hadn't learned, or they have a mental disability. None of that is the tenant's fault.
But what I can't get over is how easily this slips my mind. Is it that I just assume that everyone had the resources to learn to read? Or even if they did, that their teachers were patient and loving enough not to give up on them? And that's not even taking learning disablities into account. Given the age of so many of my clients, it is unsurprising that no one knew a whole lot about how to teach a child with a learning disability when my clients were young. Many of their teachers would have given up-- the child was impossible and nothing could be done.
Is this a fallacy of mine, that I would just assume that most of my clients can read? Is it naive? Does it demonstrate some fundamental lack of understanding of where my clients are coming from?
I learned to read when I was two or three years old. If memory serves correctly, it was a combination of the neon "Dodge" sign that spelled out its letters one-by-one, Sesame Street, and (most crucially) my parents reading to me. I've always thought it was cool, and lucky, that I picked it up early.
But it wasn't just that I had a knack for it; I have parents who know enough about kids, and certainly love us enough, to turn on Sesame Street.
And read to me at night.
And take me to the library and the school book fair.
And sign my summer reading chart each time I read for a twenty-minute period of time.
And let me call the library on Saturdays to listen to the children's book on tape.
And sing the letters "D-O-D-G-E... DODGE!!!" with us every damn time we stopped at the traffic light by the Dodge dealership.
They cared that they had literate children. It would seem only natural that a child who grew up in that environment would figure that everyone else's parents went to those lengths to teach their babies to read. So I don't think it's a bad thing that I came into this job practically forgetting that it is even possible to grow up in a first-world country without learning to read. Naive, yes, but not bad.
So when I think about how much potential has been lost along with the ability to read, I become overwhelmingly sad. I think about all of the books and stories that have changed my life, and how much joy they give me.
Forget that I just read Pride and Prejudice for the millionth time.
Forget the combined thousands of hours I've spent devouring and discussing books with friends, family members, and classmates.
Forget all the summers that I spent on Amelia Bedelia and The Baby Sitters' Club binges.
Forget that someone read me the The Chubby Little Tugboat, Emma's Pet, and Mouse House about a thousand times before I was five years old.
Forgetting all that, I can still hear the "Dodge" song in my head, sung as passionately by my parents as it was by the children in the car seats-- parents who loved their kids so much that they did everything they could to teach us to read.
Realizing how many people missed out on something like that makes my eyes well up with tears.
I manage to avoid big ones, like calling the cell phone of a deaf tenant or asking a wheelchair-bound tenant to "run" over here.
I made one just after Christmas when I asked a very cheerful and friendly caregiver how her Christmas was. She replied (gently) that she doesn't celebrate Christmas. (She wasn't offended and was certainly happy because she knew I meant well, but I forgot "Secular World 101: say "holidays" when talking to a stranger.)
The one I make most often, though, is asking a person to read or spell something.
For some reason, I continually forget that it is not a given that my tenants are literate. I just asked a tenant to read me his social security number over the phone to spare him a trip downstairs. He paused for a moment, then told me it was no big deal; he could just as easily bring me the card. It's not convenient for him; he's paralyzed.
Many people who want to make a call from my office phone will have the number written on a slip of paper, and before I can stop myself, I ask, "What's the number?" They just hand me the paper. I dial the number. My face always flushes; I should know better.
Sometimes someone will enter the office, freaking out about a bill that they've received (for example, from Comcast). They (or in most cases, a loved one or aide) have already paid the bill for the month and are about to have an apoplexy because they think they're being overcharged. Then I'll look at the bill they've brought me, and it's not a bill. It's an ad or promotion for the company.
It isn't their fault. No one took the time or energy to teach them when they were a child. Either there was no school to attend, or their parents hadn't learned, or they have a mental disability. None of that is the tenant's fault.
But what I can't get over is how easily this slips my mind. Is it that I just assume that everyone had the resources to learn to read? Or even if they did, that their teachers were patient and loving enough not to give up on them? And that's not even taking learning disablities into account. Given the age of so many of my clients, it is unsurprising that no one knew a whole lot about how to teach a child with a learning disability when my clients were young. Many of their teachers would have given up-- the child was impossible and nothing could be done.
Is this a fallacy of mine, that I would just assume that most of my clients can read? Is it naive? Does it demonstrate some fundamental lack of understanding of where my clients are coming from?
I learned to read when I was two or three years old. If memory serves correctly, it was a combination of the neon "Dodge" sign that spelled out its letters one-by-one, Sesame Street, and (most crucially) my parents reading to me. I've always thought it was cool, and lucky, that I picked it up early.
But it wasn't just that I had a knack for it; I have parents who know enough about kids, and certainly love us enough, to turn on Sesame Street.
And read to me at night.
And take me to the library and the school book fair.
And sign my summer reading chart each time I read for a twenty-minute period of time.
And let me call the library on Saturdays to listen to the children's book on tape.
And sing the letters "D-O-D-G-E... DODGE!!!" with us every damn time we stopped at the traffic light by the Dodge dealership.
They cared that they had literate children. It would seem only natural that a child who grew up in that environment would figure that everyone else's parents went to those lengths to teach their babies to read. So I don't think it's a bad thing that I came into this job practically forgetting that it is even possible to grow up in a first-world country without learning to read. Naive, yes, but not bad.
So when I think about how much potential has been lost along with the ability to read, I become overwhelmingly sad. I think about all of the books and stories that have changed my life, and how much joy they give me.
Forget that I just read Pride and Prejudice for the millionth time.
Forget the combined thousands of hours I've spent devouring and discussing books with friends, family members, and classmates.
Forget all the summers that I spent on Amelia Bedelia and The Baby Sitters' Club binges.
Forget that someone read me the The Chubby Little Tugboat, Emma's Pet, and Mouse House about a thousand times before I was five years old.
Forgetting all that, I can still hear the "Dodge" song in my head, sung as passionately by my parents as it was by the children in the car seats-- parents who loved their kids so much that they did everything they could to teach us to read.
Realizing how many people missed out on something like that makes my eyes well up with tears.
Thursday, December 3, 2009
Musing out loud
Since I’ve been battling some fairly negative feelings about work, I decided to take an inventory and look for things that affirm my vocation as a JV this year. What follows is what I focused on, and then what I took away from it.
Scenario:
About a week ago, one of our tenants was trying to cross the street in front of our building. It was dark and raining, so it was hard to see him, and a driver hit him. (Don’t worry—he’s OK. Busted knee. He should be fine in 6-8 weeks.)
But I didn’t know that he was OK when I got the radio call that a tenant had been struck by a car. So I grabbed his medical file and sprinted out of the building, pulling on my coat as I ran. (I think my speed rivaled my sixteen-year-old self during track season). He was conscious and talking, so Irma and I weren’t really needed, but we hung out anyway to keep him safe from traffic. After they loaded him into the ambulance, we went back to the office and business as usual.
The following day, one of the guards was teasing me for how fast I booked it out of the building to the accident (The guards tease me a lot. Third grade was over a long time ago, guys…). Before he could go on, a tenant punched him in the shoulder (softly) and said, “Shut up. She loves us, that’s all.”
Thoughts:
“We are not called to be successful; we are called to be faithful.” –Blessed Theresa of Calcutta
Social justice is intimately linked with the dignity of the human person. Where that dignity is not being affirmed, there is injustice. So at its base, my job is to affirm the dignity of our tenants.
And the thing I am coming to realize is that, while I spend most of time trying to affirm dignity in the most practical of ways, like organizing home health care, scheduling doctor’s appointments, and making sure everyone is well fed and taking their medicine, those tasks are not really my primary function.
To affirm the dignity of the poor and marginalized, we have to start by loving them. My primary function is to love the people here.
I didn’t realize it, because so many days I look at my work as a long list of tasks to accomplish. But checking off all the items on that list is not why the tenants are happy that we’re here.
They’re happy that we’re here for the simple fact that they feel loved because we are here.
Mother Theresa’s words remind me that some days will not be successful—patients don’t always comply with doctor’s orders, doctors’ offices don’t always complete the paperwork we need, and people that we try to help don’t always survive. But the point of our efforts isn’t that we succeed every time; it’s that we keep trying because we love the people we’re serving. The mere fact that we show up and keep going every day is more important than winning every battle that presents itself.
Scenario:
About a week ago, one of our tenants was trying to cross the street in front of our building. It was dark and raining, so it was hard to see him, and a driver hit him. (Don’t worry—he’s OK. Busted knee. He should be fine in 6-8 weeks.)
But I didn’t know that he was OK when I got the radio call that a tenant had been struck by a car. So I grabbed his medical file and sprinted out of the building, pulling on my coat as I ran. (I think my speed rivaled my sixteen-year-old self during track season). He was conscious and talking, so Irma and I weren’t really needed, but we hung out anyway to keep him safe from traffic. After they loaded him into the ambulance, we went back to the office and business as usual.
The following day, one of the guards was teasing me for how fast I booked it out of the building to the accident (The guards tease me a lot. Third grade was over a long time ago, guys…). Before he could go on, a tenant punched him in the shoulder (softly) and said, “Shut up. She loves us, that’s all.”
Thoughts:
“We are not called to be successful; we are called to be faithful.” –Blessed Theresa of Calcutta
Social justice is intimately linked with the dignity of the human person. Where that dignity is not being affirmed, there is injustice. So at its base, my job is to affirm the dignity of our tenants.
And the thing I am coming to realize is that, while I spend most of time trying to affirm dignity in the most practical of ways, like organizing home health care, scheduling doctor’s appointments, and making sure everyone is well fed and taking their medicine, those tasks are not really my primary function.
To affirm the dignity of the poor and marginalized, we have to start by loving them. My primary function is to love the people here.
I didn’t realize it, because so many days I look at my work as a long list of tasks to accomplish. But checking off all the items on that list is not why the tenants are happy that we’re here.
They’re happy that we’re here for the simple fact that they feel loved because we are here.
Mother Theresa’s words remind me that some days will not be successful—patients don’t always comply with doctor’s orders, doctors’ offices don’t always complete the paperwork we need, and people that we try to help don’t always survive. But the point of our efforts isn’t that we succeed every time; it’s that we keep trying because we love the people we’re serving. The mere fact that we show up and keep going every day is more important than winning every battle that presents itself.
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
On-the-job frustration
OK, I will admit it—there are days when my job makes me crazy.
I realize this is merely an initiation into working life in general, but when it’s still a fresh, new feeling you can’t help but vent a little.
I feel badly even mentioning it because, in the immortal words of Drew Carey, “Oh, you hate your job? There’s a group for that. It’s called ‘Everyone’ and they meet at the bar.”
And before you get concerned, no, I do not hate my job. It’s just like any other job with high and low points. Sometimes you just have to vent about your low points.
I feel that this scenario sums up my feelings the best:
My good friend’s aunt wrote a book some years ago called “Six Years of Grace.” It’s about her (the author’s) experience living as her ailing mother’s caregiver during the final six years of her mother’s life. As any person who has ever been involved with caring for elderly people will corroborate, she describes in a couple of scenes how she (naturally enough) sometimes became frustrated with attending to her mother.
At one point, the author hears her mother ring a bell for help with something, and the author walks into the room and, somewhat exasperatedly asks, “What do you want now?”
But before she can even chastise herself for being short with her, her mother smiles and tells her, “Oh, sweetheart. You sound like a new mother.”
While I work primarily with elderly and disabled adults (who are among our society’s most vulnerable), it feels as though I am the new mother of a lot of small children and babies. [Except they don’t smell nearly as nice. ;)]
Let me be clear—children are precious. They are warm, adorably squirmy, sweet-smelling bundles of joy, life and unlimited potential.
But they also have a LOT of needs. And they cry when those needs aren’t met. Even once they’re toddlers (Lord help us, they have the capacity to complain at that point), they will cry, kick, stomp and throw tantrums if something that they believe to be a need (wanting a toy, a cookie, not to go to bed or clean up a mess) is not being fulfilled. And that can wear on the people who are there to serve their legitimate needs.
This is how I feel at times when serving our tenants. Very often someone will come into my office demanding attention now, damn it—which is off-putting to begin with. And so commences a meeting in which the tenant complains about having to pay a bill, follow a rule, or a problem with another tenant.
My office is here for the expressed purpose of advocating for the tenants, so it is understandable that they would come here for someone to back them up in whatever they happen to be feeling. But sometimes, after so many complaints, “repeat offenders” (the same people complaining about the same things at least once, if not several times a day), and a whole host of needy people looking to us to drop everything and hold their hand through something that they are clearly able to do for themselves, you get just a wee bit… annoyed.
Even as I write this, I am reminded of how working with the elderly is so necessary in our culture nowadays. We need people to do jobs like this because it affirms the dignity of the elderly and the physically and/or mentally handicapped. This helps me be well-rounded in my pro-lifeness. We need more people caring for the elderly. Even so, it has its challenges (namely, the ones I have described).
I do not dislike my job. I do not dislike the people that I serve. I do not wish to work with a different population or demographic. But I do get frustrated and, admittedly, annoyed sometimes. That is a natural part of any ministry.
So I suppose I just needed to put these thoughts into words. Giving voice to what I am feeling helps me handle it. We just had a spirituality night last night, and we actually focused on anger (don’t get concerned—we’re not having problems. It was more like preventative maintenance). I can no more tell my occasional anger and frustration to go away than I can tell a stomachache to go away. I need to express it and care for it.
I realize this is merely an initiation into working life in general, but when it’s still a fresh, new feeling you can’t help but vent a little.
I feel badly even mentioning it because, in the immortal words of Drew Carey, “Oh, you hate your job? There’s a group for that. It’s called ‘Everyone’ and they meet at the bar.”
And before you get concerned, no, I do not hate my job. It’s just like any other job with high and low points. Sometimes you just have to vent about your low points.
I feel that this scenario sums up my feelings the best:
My good friend’s aunt wrote a book some years ago called “Six Years of Grace.” It’s about her (the author’s) experience living as her ailing mother’s caregiver during the final six years of her mother’s life. As any person who has ever been involved with caring for elderly people will corroborate, she describes in a couple of scenes how she (naturally enough) sometimes became frustrated with attending to her mother.
At one point, the author hears her mother ring a bell for help with something, and the author walks into the room and, somewhat exasperatedly asks, “What do you want now?”
But before she can even chastise herself for being short with her, her mother smiles and tells her, “Oh, sweetheart. You sound like a new mother.”
While I work primarily with elderly and disabled adults (who are among our society’s most vulnerable), it feels as though I am the new mother of a lot of small children and babies. [Except they don’t smell nearly as nice. ;)]
Let me be clear—children are precious. They are warm, adorably squirmy, sweet-smelling bundles of joy, life and unlimited potential.
But they also have a LOT of needs. And they cry when those needs aren’t met. Even once they’re toddlers (Lord help us, they have the capacity to complain at that point), they will cry, kick, stomp and throw tantrums if something that they believe to be a need (wanting a toy, a cookie, not to go to bed or clean up a mess) is not being fulfilled. And that can wear on the people who are there to serve their legitimate needs.
This is how I feel at times when serving our tenants. Very often someone will come into my office demanding attention now, damn it—which is off-putting to begin with. And so commences a meeting in which the tenant complains about having to pay a bill, follow a rule, or a problem with another tenant.
My office is here for the expressed purpose of advocating for the tenants, so it is understandable that they would come here for someone to back them up in whatever they happen to be feeling. But sometimes, after so many complaints, “repeat offenders” (the same people complaining about the same things at least once, if not several times a day), and a whole host of needy people looking to us to drop everything and hold their hand through something that they are clearly able to do for themselves, you get just a wee bit… annoyed.
Even as I write this, I am reminded of how working with the elderly is so necessary in our culture nowadays. We need people to do jobs like this because it affirms the dignity of the elderly and the physically and/or mentally handicapped. This helps me be well-rounded in my pro-lifeness. We need more people caring for the elderly. Even so, it has its challenges (namely, the ones I have described).
I do not dislike my job. I do not dislike the people that I serve. I do not wish to work with a different population or demographic. But I do get frustrated and, admittedly, annoyed sometimes. That is a natural part of any ministry.
So I suppose I just needed to put these thoughts into words. Giving voice to what I am feeling helps me handle it. We just had a spirituality night last night, and we actually focused on anger (don’t get concerned—we’re not having problems. It was more like preventative maintenance). I can no more tell my occasional anger and frustration to go away than I can tell a stomachache to go away. I need to express it and care for it.
Wednesday, October 7, 2009
When your best isn't enough
It’s been a while since I posted anything—probably because of my birthday, a JV retreat, and getting my usual early autumn cold/cough/upper respiratory tract infection. Where in the world did I last leave off?
I’ll blog about my birthday and the retreat in a separate post. I needed to tell this story, if only to demonstrate that horrible things like this happen, even in a country a developed as the US.
There was an incident at work over a week ago now that put life in Camden into rather harsh perspective. Someone impaled his leg on the fence around our property, and it fell to our security staff and the social services office to help him until EMS got there. I was going to write a post about it the following day, because I thought it illustrated how absurd and random life around here can be in an episodic, but harmless manner. But before I finished writing the post, one of the guards came and told me that the man we had helped had died in the hospital.
This is what I wrote before I found out what happened to him at the hospital:
The next day, the guard who had been on point during the situation came in and told me and Maria, the other case manager who had been there, that he had died in the hospital. The man was strung out on cocaine. When a person has cocaine in their system, the shock of a paper cut would be enough to make your heart stop. An iron rod through his leg can certainly do it, too.
It made me much more upset than I thought it would. To begin with, it’s always a shock when someone you tried to help doesn’t make it, especially when the injury didn’t appear to be life-threatening. Secondly, the way the paramedics treated him was appalling. I was shocked at the time at how callous they were at the time; I was furious about it when I found out he had died. These were the final few hours of the man’s life, and the people who were supposed to care for him treated him like dirt. My only (limited) consolation was that some people, like the tenants who got him off of the fence, the security guards, and our staff treated him with the dignity he deserved at the moment, which turned out to be one of his last.
Anyway, I was pretty upset about the whole situation. It was my turn to cook dinner that night, and my lovely roomies took over for me because I kept crying into the tomato soup. They finished up and let me go to my room to cry, calm down, and pray. The whole thing made me so sad. Who prays for people like that when they die? Did they find any family to bury him? Was there a priest or chaplain on hand in case he needed or wanted to talk?
I called my family and a few friends to try and order my thoughts and feelings before writing this down for the blogging world. Pray for Camden, if you need an extra intention. It’s a broken, sad place a lot of the time.
I’ll blog about my birthday and the retreat in a separate post. I needed to tell this story, if only to demonstrate that horrible things like this happen, even in a country a developed as the US.
There was an incident at work over a week ago now that put life in Camden into rather harsh perspective. Someone impaled his leg on the fence around our property, and it fell to our security staff and the social services office to help him until EMS got there. I was going to write a post about it the following day, because I thought it illustrated how absurd and random life around here can be in an episodic, but harmless manner. But before I finished writing the post, one of the guards came and told me that the man we had helped had died in the hospital.
This is what I wrote before I found out what happened to him at the hospital:
Mental image of the day: as I was leaving work yesterday I got a radio call that someone had “hurt himself on the fence around the building.” The fence is iron, and the points of it come up to about my eye-level in little spikes that look like arrows. I couldn’t imagine how someone would get hurt on it, unless he tried to jump over and fell on the spikes. Sure enough…
The guy was running full speed, jumped up on a fire hydrant in one stride and tried to launch himself over the fence (which, if he had made it all the way over, would have been damn impressive). But he didn’t make it, so he impaled his leg on a spike of the fence and hung there by the hole in his calf. Some of the tenants lifted him down while one of them ran for help. By the time I got there, he was on the ground. The only reason *I* didn’t faint at the sight of it was that I was trying to keep *him* from fainting at the sight of it. Which seemed to work, until the paramedics got there and made him stand up and try to walk. The poor guy went out like a light.
If you can’t tell, I thought he was going to be fine. Injured, yes, but ultimately fine. The guards and I did our best—holding his head in my lap, trying to keep him conscious, elevating the leg, getting him to talk, etc—and he seemed OK. Looking back, there were little things—his lips were turning white, his stomach kept twitching (he wasn’t wearing a shirt), and he told me he was dizzy. I tried to coach him to breathe so that he wouldn’t faint, which was really all that kept me from retching at the sight of the wound.
The next day, the guard who had been on point during the situation came in and told me and Maria, the other case manager who had been there, that he had died in the hospital. The man was strung out on cocaine. When a person has cocaine in their system, the shock of a paper cut would be enough to make your heart stop. An iron rod through his leg can certainly do it, too.
It made me much more upset than I thought it would. To begin with, it’s always a shock when someone you tried to help doesn’t make it, especially when the injury didn’t appear to be life-threatening. Secondly, the way the paramedics treated him was appalling. I was shocked at the time at how callous they were at the time; I was furious about it when I found out he had died. These were the final few hours of the man’s life, and the people who were supposed to care for him treated him like dirt. My only (limited) consolation was that some people, like the tenants who got him off of the fence, the security guards, and our staff treated him with the dignity he deserved at the moment, which turned out to be one of his last.
Anyway, I was pretty upset about the whole situation. It was my turn to cook dinner that night, and my lovely roomies took over for me because I kept crying into the tomato soup. They finished up and let me go to my room to cry, calm down, and pray. The whole thing made me so sad. Who prays for people like that when they die? Did they find any family to bury him? Was there a priest or chaplain on hand in case he needed or wanted to talk?
I called my family and a few friends to try and order my thoughts and feelings before writing this down for the blogging world. Pray for Camden, if you need an extra intention. It’s a broken, sad place a lot of the time.
Monday, September 21, 2009
Ennui and emergencies
I had started a post last Friday to let everyone know that I was settling into work to the point where everything felt like a routine. It was so calm at some points that one could even have said that a few of my days were boring. I actually looked up the word “ennui” one day, just to see how aptly it fit the string of quiet days.
But before I had finished a paragraph of that post on Friday, the day became a piping hot bowl of insanity. Before my morning coffee was even cooled down enough to sip without burning my tongue, security radioed that we had a situation in the back parking lot. I went outside with the social services and management teams to have a look. A guard had found a girl, perhaps twenty years old, unconscious and slumped over in the driver’s seat of a car that was still running. There was a hypodermic needle in her hand.
I won’t lie—I thought she was dead. Her skin was so pale it was gray, and her lips and hands were turning purple. Before I noticed that her chest was rising and falling slightly, my first thought was shock at how calmly I was processing my first dead body. At least, one that wasn’t already inside a coffin.
One of the hardest parts of this job for me is that we cannot, legally, touch a person who needs medical attention. (For example, if a frail tenant falls down, I can’t help her up. I have to wait with her until a guard or EMT comes around.) So we stood and watched, unable to help the girl, until EMS arrived. Those guys are really good at what they do—before her coworkers pulled up in an ambulance, the first EMT who arrived stuck something up the girl’s nose, pulled it out through her mouth, and the girl finally stirred and woke up. She was stoned out of her mind, but at least able to walk to the ambulance that drove her away.
The day went back to normal, and that familiar, sometimes suffocating ennui began to creep in again until I was handed a big pile of paperwork. (I’m told it’s practice for the winter months, when I will have a LOT of paperwork to do, pretty much all day long, to help the tenants with energy bills.)
The day plodded along, with Pandora and the occasional office gossip to keep me from going crazy from boredom. But around four o’clock, the second wave of madness hit. We got a call that a tenant was having trouble breathing, and an ambulance was en route. That’s nothing out of the ordinary around here, so when the plant manager radioed for a social services escort to the tenant’s room I just grabbed the file and ran upstairs (the rest of the SS team was handling another situation.)
But when we got there, the routine call seemed a lot less routine. The tenant in question has asthma, so I think I just expected to witness an asthma attack. It turned out she was in anaphylactic shock—she had a food allergy that none of us knew about. (Which made me feel dumb; I was flipping through her file specifically to find out if she had any allergies. The line read, “Allergies: None.” Go figure.) She was refusing her oxygen mask and gasping out the words me muero (Spanish for I’m dying) over and over again. Right after EMS walked in, she stopped breathing, fell unconscious, and flopped backward onto her bed. For the second time in one day, I thought the poor woman was dead.
This resuscitation was a lot more violent than the one I’d witnessed in the morning. The paramedics shoved a tube up her nose because her throat was clenched and our guards had to hold her down on her bed when she began to fight (tubes in your nose really hurt, and she was really out of it for lack of oxygen anyway). They had to move her to a gurney using the comforter on her bed, and I was terrified that they would drop her. She was still gasping and flailing around when they took her away.
The most interesting realization for me as I witnessed both of these events (and that’s about all I do during them: I witness. I'm professional moral support) was that, while I could certainly feel my body reacting to the situation—tense shoulders, a furrowed brow, and an eventual headache—I did not get emotional or upset. I think that’s part of learning to do the emergency part of this job. But it certainly is different from the way I thought I’d handle emergencies. As recently as senior year of college, high-stress situations made me cry. The difference now is that even after everything was resolved, I don’t get upset. I went home, lifted weights until my arms shook, did yoga, and the workout made me sleep for thirteen hours the following night. But I never became emotional. I think it would be too exhausting.
But before I had finished a paragraph of that post on Friday, the day became a piping hot bowl of insanity. Before my morning coffee was even cooled down enough to sip without burning my tongue, security radioed that we had a situation in the back parking lot. I went outside with the social services and management teams to have a look. A guard had found a girl, perhaps twenty years old, unconscious and slumped over in the driver’s seat of a car that was still running. There was a hypodermic needle in her hand.
I won’t lie—I thought she was dead. Her skin was so pale it was gray, and her lips and hands were turning purple. Before I noticed that her chest was rising and falling slightly, my first thought was shock at how calmly I was processing my first dead body. At least, one that wasn’t already inside a coffin.
One of the hardest parts of this job for me is that we cannot, legally, touch a person who needs medical attention. (For example, if a frail tenant falls down, I can’t help her up. I have to wait with her until a guard or EMT comes around.) So we stood and watched, unable to help the girl, until EMS arrived. Those guys are really good at what they do—before her coworkers pulled up in an ambulance, the first EMT who arrived stuck something up the girl’s nose, pulled it out through her mouth, and the girl finally stirred and woke up. She was stoned out of her mind, but at least able to walk to the ambulance that drove her away.
The day went back to normal, and that familiar, sometimes suffocating ennui began to creep in again until I was handed a big pile of paperwork. (I’m told it’s practice for the winter months, when I will have a LOT of paperwork to do, pretty much all day long, to help the tenants with energy bills.)
The day plodded along, with Pandora and the occasional office gossip to keep me from going crazy from boredom. But around four o’clock, the second wave of madness hit. We got a call that a tenant was having trouble breathing, and an ambulance was en route. That’s nothing out of the ordinary around here, so when the plant manager radioed for a social services escort to the tenant’s room I just grabbed the file and ran upstairs (the rest of the SS team was handling another situation.)
But when we got there, the routine call seemed a lot less routine. The tenant in question has asthma, so I think I just expected to witness an asthma attack. It turned out she was in anaphylactic shock—she had a food allergy that none of us knew about. (Which made me feel dumb; I was flipping through her file specifically to find out if she had any allergies. The line read, “Allergies: None.” Go figure.) She was refusing her oxygen mask and gasping out the words me muero (Spanish for I’m dying) over and over again. Right after EMS walked in, she stopped breathing, fell unconscious, and flopped backward onto her bed. For the second time in one day, I thought the poor woman was dead.
This resuscitation was a lot more violent than the one I’d witnessed in the morning. The paramedics shoved a tube up her nose because her throat was clenched and our guards had to hold her down on her bed when she began to fight (tubes in your nose really hurt, and she was really out of it for lack of oxygen anyway). They had to move her to a gurney using the comforter on her bed, and I was terrified that they would drop her. She was still gasping and flailing around when they took her away.
The most interesting realization for me as I witnessed both of these events (and that’s about all I do during them: I witness. I'm professional moral support) was that, while I could certainly feel my body reacting to the situation—tense shoulders, a furrowed brow, and an eventual headache—I did not get emotional or upset. I think that’s part of learning to do the emergency part of this job. But it certainly is different from the way I thought I’d handle emergencies. As recently as senior year of college, high-stress situations made me cry. The difference now is that even after everything was resolved, I don’t get upset. I went home, lifted weights until my arms shook, did yoga, and the workout made me sleep for thirteen hours the following night. But I never became emotional. I think it would be too exhausting.
Friday, September 4, 2009
A day in the life...
To give you, my loyal readers (all 2.7 of you), an idea of what a day in the life of a JV is like, here is a typical synopsis of my day.
Every other day, I get up around 6:30 to go for a run with Amber and Jenna, my roommates. On the days that I don’t run, I wake up around 7:30 (don’t worry—I lift weights after work on those days). We get moving around 6:45, and typically get back between 7:15 and 7:30. The three of us share a bathroom, so we have to get back in time to get cleaned up before work.
We normally eat breakfast on a rotating basis in the kitchen. I put on coffee and get to work on eating because I only have to walk two blocks to get to work. We see very little of each other in the mornings because there are six of us going in five different directions (Jenna and Mark work at the same school, so they have to leave together). I make it out the door by 8:50 every morning and walk to work.
Once I get to my office, I read the reports that our security guards write up from the day before. They typically deal with 911 calls (as this is a building for elderly and disabled people, many of them are frail or in poor health. Since we have over three hundred tenants, the odds are pretty high that someone’s going the hospital), harassment issues, fires, noise complaints, and illegal guests. Then, when it’s warranted, my office (usually me) writes cease notices (As in, “We demand that you cease this behavior, or your lease will be terminated.”). I only recently learned to write them, but I’ll be doing that on a daily basis this year.
The social services office concerns itself mostly with getting tenants to and from the doctor, getting their prescriptions filled and delivered to them, helping pay the bills (it’s their money—we just fill out the forms. Many of the tenants never learned to read, so we do a lot of that stuff for them), and making sure that everyone is generally healthy, well-fed taking their medicine, etc. It’s sort of like being a professional mom. :)
We also handle a lot of emergencies in conjunction with the security officers and medical personnel. Since I’ve been in this office, there have been three emergencies situations that I’ve been part of. One turned out to be a false alarm, but we couldn’t find a tenant and had to go into his apartment—in case he had died. Evidently, that happens a lot around here. But he wasn’t there, dead or alive, so it turned out to be a mere blip on the radar. I won’t lie, though—my heart was pounding pretty hard when we first walked in that door. The other two involved getting a lady to go to the hospital because she was quite ill but refusing treatment; the other involved protecting one of my coworkers from someone who was threatening her. I can’t really tell any more about those situations, for obvious reasons.
But, though exciting (if not fun) little crises like that pop up on a regular basis, it’s pretty standard office work.
I walk home at 5pm and meet up with the other Camden JVs, my housemates. We make a point to eat dinner together every night, which is really wonderful for all of us. We take turns cooking, though for a while we just let Mark, the only man in the house, do it because he’s a REALLY talented cook. After dinner there’s usually tea, and often a game or discussion. We like each other a lot, so this is quite a balm for our weary minds after a day of work..
Then we get up and do it all over again in the morning. :)
This has been A Day in the Life of a Camden JV… tune in next time!
Every other day, I get up around 6:30 to go for a run with Amber and Jenna, my roommates. On the days that I don’t run, I wake up around 7:30 (don’t worry—I lift weights after work on those days). We get moving around 6:45, and typically get back between 7:15 and 7:30. The three of us share a bathroom, so we have to get back in time to get cleaned up before work.
We normally eat breakfast on a rotating basis in the kitchen. I put on coffee and get to work on eating because I only have to walk two blocks to get to work. We see very little of each other in the mornings because there are six of us going in five different directions (Jenna and Mark work at the same school, so they have to leave together). I make it out the door by 8:50 every morning and walk to work.
Once I get to my office, I read the reports that our security guards write up from the day before. They typically deal with 911 calls (as this is a building for elderly and disabled people, many of them are frail or in poor health. Since we have over three hundred tenants, the odds are pretty high that someone’s going the hospital), harassment issues, fires, noise complaints, and illegal guests. Then, when it’s warranted, my office (usually me) writes cease notices (As in, “We demand that you cease this behavior, or your lease will be terminated.”). I only recently learned to write them, but I’ll be doing that on a daily basis this year.
The social services office concerns itself mostly with getting tenants to and from the doctor, getting their prescriptions filled and delivered to them, helping pay the bills (it’s their money—we just fill out the forms. Many of the tenants never learned to read, so we do a lot of that stuff for them), and making sure that everyone is generally healthy, well-fed taking their medicine, etc. It’s sort of like being a professional mom. :)
We also handle a lot of emergencies in conjunction with the security officers and medical personnel. Since I’ve been in this office, there have been three emergencies situations that I’ve been part of. One turned out to be a false alarm, but we couldn’t find a tenant and had to go into his apartment—in case he had died. Evidently, that happens a lot around here. But he wasn’t there, dead or alive, so it turned out to be a mere blip on the radar. I won’t lie, though—my heart was pounding pretty hard when we first walked in that door. The other two involved getting a lady to go to the hospital because she was quite ill but refusing treatment; the other involved protecting one of my coworkers from someone who was threatening her. I can’t really tell any more about those situations, for obvious reasons.
But, though exciting (if not fun) little crises like that pop up on a regular basis, it’s pretty standard office work.
I walk home at 5pm and meet up with the other Camden JVs, my housemates. We make a point to eat dinner together every night, which is really wonderful for all of us. We take turns cooking, though for a while we just let Mark, the only man in the house, do it because he’s a REALLY talented cook. After dinner there’s usually tea, and often a game or discussion. We like each other a lot, so this is quite a balm for our weary minds after a day of work..
Then we get up and do it all over again in the morning. :)
This has been A Day in the Life of a Camden JV… tune in next time!
Tuesday, September 1, 2009
Itemized lessons
After a whole week of work and community living, I feel I much present some of the things I’ve learned so far as a JV. In the spirit of JVC, I shall categorize them by the four values of JVC.
Community
Sriracha tastes good on everything. Everything.
Boys don’t like to hear about the gynecologist or the mechanics of natural family planning, but the ones who pretend it doesn’t bother them are really sweet.
Dance parties: very good.
The day revolves around family dinners.
Social Justice
The system is flawed! Burn down city hall! Storm the capital! March for systematic, structural change! (Please note the incredibly facetious tone of my writing…)
On a more serious note: Social justice is difficult. Read the Oscar Romero prayer about it—it consoles me. I have said from the beginning of this process that social justice begins and ends with the dignity of the human person. Where that dignity is not being affirmed, there is injustice. The issue is that a person’s pride is deeply entwined in their dignity, and it is easily wounded when they are in a vulnerable position. So they don’t always want help, or at least, not the help that we can provide them. My job is to find a subtle way to affirm dignity without wounding pride.
Simple Living
Despite the fact that it would save money, mouse traps are not reusable.
Investing in plastic containers to keep ants out of the food is a good idea.
Gym membership be damned—all you need are motivated roommates, running shoes, one absurdly long bridge, and a weight bench in the basement to stay in shape.
Ants will survive a fall into the honey jar. They try and swim their sticky way home. It’s funny to watch.
Spirituality
It’s OK to disagree, as long as everyone is respectful. (Which everyone here is.)
It will get you through everything from uncomfortable meetings with tenants to, to homesickness, to the latter part of a three-mile run.
More to come later. I promise my updates will be more regular in the future!
Community
Sriracha tastes good on everything. Everything.
Boys don’t like to hear about the gynecologist or the mechanics of natural family planning, but the ones who pretend it doesn’t bother them are really sweet.
Dance parties: very good.
The day revolves around family dinners.
Social Justice
The system is flawed! Burn down city hall! Storm the capital! March for systematic, structural change! (Please note the incredibly facetious tone of my writing…)
On a more serious note: Social justice is difficult. Read the Oscar Romero prayer about it—it consoles me. I have said from the beginning of this process that social justice begins and ends with the dignity of the human person. Where that dignity is not being affirmed, there is injustice. The issue is that a person’s pride is deeply entwined in their dignity, and it is easily wounded when they are in a vulnerable position. So they don’t always want help, or at least, not the help that we can provide them. My job is to find a subtle way to affirm dignity without wounding pride.
Simple Living
Despite the fact that it would save money, mouse traps are not reusable.
Investing in plastic containers to keep ants out of the food is a good idea.
Gym membership be damned—all you need are motivated roommates, running shoes, one absurdly long bridge, and a weight bench in the basement to stay in shape.
Ants will survive a fall into the honey jar. They try and swim their sticky way home. It’s funny to watch.
Spirituality
It’s OK to disagree, as long as everyone is respectful. (Which everyone here is.)
It will get you through everything from uncomfortable meetings with tenants to, to homesickness, to the latter part of a three-mile run.
More to come later. I promise my updates will be more regular in the future!
Saturday, August 22, 2009
I'm here: A Camden update
Hey, everyone!
As you may or may not have surmised from my long (or so it feels) absence from the Internet, I a) have been very busy since I left the Wednesday, and b) have been without Internet that entire time. Look for updates here and there, but don’t be surprised if it takes me a day of two to respond if you email or Facebook me; I’ll only have access to the web at work.
So, we (the Camden JVs) have arrived! The reception in the community so far has been very positive, and very overwhelming. Former Jesuit Volunteers (hereafter referred to as FJVs) came to visit us within hours of our arrival, most (thankfully) bearing food or beverages for us. I don’t think we’ve touched any of the food we picked up at the grocery store yet, and this is our fifth day here!
But before I get too far into our time in Camden, I should start with the journey out of Seattle to Baltimore.
My last few days out west were full of that “warm sadness without loss.” I hugged goodbye most of the people that I meant to see before taking off, especially at the lovely shindig my family threw for me before going. Thanks to all the Bellingham people who make the drive to Everett to see me off! Love you!
I visited some good friends before going, too. When I walked away from a few homes that held the people I love, it felt like my heart was ripping through the muscles of my back. But even in those moments, I feel absolutely certain that this (Camden, and more broadly, JVC) is exactly where I am supposed to be.
I flew out of Seattle around midnight on Wednesday night/ Thursday morning. Since it was a red-eye flight and I was flying toward the sunrise, I basically skipped Wednesday night. So it felt like Wednesday and Thursday were all one, long day. At the airport in Baltimore, I managed to grab a latte and some breakfast before taking a cat nap by the baggage claim. Eventually I found my community hanging out near where the bus was supposed to pick us up, and after the standard confusion of moving sixty people to one location on a bus, we got on a charter bus and drove to Blue Ridge Summit in Pennsylvania.
Blue Ridge is simply gorgeous. It’s owned by the Jesuits in the area, and frequently is used for retreats like the one we were on. We had a lot of talks, small groups and presentations on the core JVC values: community, spirituality, simple living, and social justice. We had Mass three times: once to kick off the retreat, one for the feast of the Assumption, and one we call the missioning liturgy, when we are all blessed and sent forth to our cities. At that Mass we each received our Jerusalem cross, which is a traditional symbol of missionaries. It’s one large cross, representing Jerusalem, and four little ones around it, representing the four corners of the earth. In JVC, the four crosses stand for the four values.
We got to Camden without incident and found our little house, which is downright luxurious by JVC standards. Carpeting, two stories plus a basement, laundry machines, a dishwasher, 2.5 baths, 4 bedrooms. The dining room table is a big, beautiful, sturdy thing that just screams for people to sit around it and be a community every night. We are VERY well taken care of around here.
The only drag, and certainly what will become the cross that I bear in terms of staying connected with my family and friends, is that we have very limited access to the Internet. I do have a computer at work, but I can't use Facebook or anything like that there. This is all part of learning to live simply, which is one of the main reasons I became a JV; I wanted to purify my faith and life by rooting it in the Gospel, and part of that is giving up worldly goods. Having such a great house makes that a little more difficult, but we're at least going to try going without internet. I don't know if it will last; we plan to revisit the issue in about a month and make a decision as a community. Until then, my apologies if I'm slow to get back to you!
We visited each other's placements the last two days (after a lovely tour d'Camden led by Nick, an FJV, and my amazing cousin), and I have to say that I think we were all placed really well. I like my supervisor, Irma. She's a cool lady, and I look forward to working with her.
Also (I don't have photos of it yet, but believe me), I got a pleasent surprise: I get my own office!!! I am officially a grown up, with a job and an office! Granted, my computer there leaves something to be desired, but I'll take what I can get.
Last night marked our first trip to Philadelphia, so we hopped a PATCO subway to the big(ger) city. We had a great time with some Philly FJVs at a bar called Noche, and then headed back to the Philly JV house. It was a good time. Those of us who headed back last night got caught in a truly diluvian rainstorm last night. I actually took out my contact lenses and carried them in my hand because the rain kept washing them out! Some of my clothes (the ones that can't be dried in the drier) are STILL not dry yet! It was quite the adventure.
I'll write more later about our neighborhood and work-- I start at my job on Monday.
If you want to reach me, PLEASE email me instead of using Facebook (call me for the address; I don't want to put in on a public blog.). It will be easier for me to respond to you. Or you can send me snail mail (like my lovely friend Sara did-- I got a letter this morning!)-- call, text, or email for the address. :)
Take care, everyone!
Molly
As you may or may not have surmised from my long (or so it feels) absence from the Internet, I a) have been very busy since I left the Wednesday, and b) have been without Internet that entire time. Look for updates here and there, but don’t be surprised if it takes me a day of two to respond if you email or Facebook me; I’ll only have access to the web at work.
So, we (the Camden JVs) have arrived! The reception in the community so far has been very positive, and very overwhelming. Former Jesuit Volunteers (hereafter referred to as FJVs) came to visit us within hours of our arrival, most (thankfully) bearing food or beverages for us. I don’t think we’ve touched any of the food we picked up at the grocery store yet, and this is our fifth day here!
But before I get too far into our time in Camden, I should start with the journey out of Seattle to Baltimore.
"The moment or hour of leave-taking is one of the pleasantest times in human
experience, for it has in it a warm sadness without loss. People who don't
ordinarily like you very well are overcome with affection at leave-taking... It
would be good to live in a perpetual state of leave-taking, never to go nor to
stay, but to remain suspended in that golden emotion of love and longing; to be
missed without being gone; to be loved without satiety. How beautiful one is and
how desirable; for in a few moments one will have ceased to exist."
- from the book "Sea of Cortez" by John Steinbeck and E. F. Ricketts
My last few days out west were full of that “warm sadness without loss.” I hugged goodbye most of the people that I meant to see before taking off, especially at the lovely shindig my family threw for me before going. Thanks to all the Bellingham people who make the drive to Everett to see me off! Love you!
I visited some good friends before going, too. When I walked away from a few homes that held the people I love, it felt like my heart was ripping through the muscles of my back. But even in those moments, I feel absolutely certain that this (Camden, and more broadly, JVC) is exactly where I am supposed to be.
I flew out of Seattle around midnight on Wednesday night/ Thursday morning. Since it was a red-eye flight and I was flying toward the sunrise, I basically skipped Wednesday night. So it felt like Wednesday and Thursday were all one, long day. At the airport in Baltimore, I managed to grab a latte and some breakfast before taking a cat nap by the baggage claim. Eventually I found my community hanging out near where the bus was supposed to pick us up, and after the standard confusion of moving sixty people to one location on a bus, we got on a charter bus and drove to Blue Ridge Summit in Pennsylvania.
Blue Ridge is simply gorgeous. It’s owned by the Jesuits in the area, and frequently is used for retreats like the one we were on. We had a lot of talks, small groups and presentations on the core JVC values: community, spirituality, simple living, and social justice. We had Mass three times: once to kick off the retreat, one for the feast of the Assumption, and one we call the missioning liturgy, when we are all blessed and sent forth to our cities. At that Mass we each received our Jerusalem cross, which is a traditional symbol of missionaries. It’s one large cross, representing Jerusalem, and four little ones around it, representing the four corners of the earth. In JVC, the four crosses stand for the four values.
We got to Camden without incident and found our little house, which is downright luxurious by JVC standards. Carpeting, two stories plus a basement, laundry machines, a dishwasher, 2.5 baths, 4 bedrooms. The dining room table is a big, beautiful, sturdy thing that just screams for people to sit around it and be a community every night. We are VERY well taken care of around here.
The only drag, and certainly what will become the cross that I bear in terms of staying connected with my family and friends, is that we have very limited access to the Internet. I do have a computer at work, but I can't use Facebook or anything like that there. This is all part of learning to live simply, which is one of the main reasons I became a JV; I wanted to purify my faith and life by rooting it in the Gospel, and part of that is giving up worldly goods. Having such a great house makes that a little more difficult, but we're at least going to try going without internet. I don't know if it will last; we plan to revisit the issue in about a month and make a decision as a community. Until then, my apologies if I'm slow to get back to you!
We visited each other's placements the last two days (after a lovely tour d'Camden led by Nick, an FJV, and my amazing cousin), and I have to say that I think we were all placed really well. I like my supervisor, Irma. She's a cool lady, and I look forward to working with her.
Also (I don't have photos of it yet, but believe me), I got a pleasent surprise: I get my own office!!! I am officially a grown up, with a job and an office! Granted, my computer there leaves something to be desired, but I'll take what I can get.
Last night marked our first trip to Philadelphia, so we hopped a PATCO subway to the big(ger) city. We had a great time with some Philly FJVs at a bar called Noche, and then headed back to the Philly JV house. It was a good time. Those of us who headed back last night got caught in a truly diluvian rainstorm last night. I actually took out my contact lenses and carried them in my hand because the rain kept washing them out! Some of my clothes (the ones that can't be dried in the drier) are STILL not dry yet! It was quite the adventure.
I'll write more later about our neighborhood and work-- I start at my job on Monday.
If you want to reach me, PLEASE email me instead of using Facebook (call me for the address; I don't want to put in on a public blog.). It will be easier for me to respond to you. Or you can send me snail mail (like my lovely friend Sara did-- I got a letter this morning!)-- call, text, or email for the address. :)
Take care, everyone!
Molly
Friday, September 5, 2008
Can I Live?
HUGE props to Nick Cannon for this personal testimony-- this video and song are beautiful.
Sunday, March 23, 2008
Happy Easter!
The Vigil Mass was great, as was the whole of Triduum. We're all quite worn out, what with finals and three majors Masses under our belts, but giddy with joy that it all went well.
Now, take us to Mexico!
Now, take us to Mexico!
Friday, March 14, 2008
Checklist
Meet with advisor to discuss finer points of thesis- check.
Submit thesis.
Present music seminar class with a crash course in Indian music theory & sitar music- check.
Paper on the evolution of the zither via acculturation along the Silk Road... erm, due Tuesday...
Submit two final papers for 16th and 17th century fantasy class- check.
Music for Mass Sunday, Thursday and Friday- half-check (it's not Sunday, Thursday or Friday yet).
Packing for Mexico-- must find work gloves and sunscreen!!! Lots and lots of sunscreen!
But... I'm done with classes for the quarter! Boo-yah!
Submit thesis.
Present music seminar class with a crash course in Indian music theory & sitar music- check.
Paper on the evolution of the zither via acculturation along the Silk Road... erm, due Tuesday...
Submit two final papers for 16th and 17th century fantasy class- check.
Music for Mass Sunday, Thursday and Friday- half-check (it's not Sunday, Thursday or Friday yet).
Packing for Mexico-- must find work gloves and sunscreen!!! Lots and lots of sunscreen!
But... I'm done with classes for the quarter! Boo-yah!
Saturday, June 30, 2007
Holler! They published it!
The Western Front published my "stop objectifying my peers" letter!
I didn't know it was out there until a friend of mine mentioned it on Facebook (how lame does that sound? He's far away, if that makes it less dorky). Anyhoo, click here if you want to see it. Huge props to Erin and Tuan- they led TOB this year. A lot of what went into the letter was inspired by what they taught us.
Yesterday was a little long. Up at five, out the door at six, role call at 6:30, on the job until 4:30 (we just couldn't stretch it to five, although I waited around for Joe's crew for a while longer), and babysitting from 5 until 11:30. Long day, but a good day.
I hadn't seen Scott and Jen's kids since Christmas (well, technically I saw them all last weekend at Mass, but you don't run around and play Peter Pan at Mass. At least, not at any that I've been to). They're getting really big! Bryan's going to be really tall, and Emilie is surprising me- she has shot up, too. I thik they're both taking after Scott, who's a pretty tall guy. Kayleigh (whose looks exactly like her mother, and therefore will probably be quite petite) is two. She was born right after I graduated from high school, and consequently I don't know her as well as Bryan and Emilie (I've known them for 8 and 6 years, respectively).
BUT, when, I walked in yesterday, Kayleigh ran forward, wrapped her arms around my legs and yelled, "Molly!" Emilie was hiding around the corner, giggling. Methinks they worked on that one, since the last time I saw them, Kayleigh didn't know my name.
We played Marco Polo, Peter Pan, and watched Finding Nemo (not necessarily in that order). Oh, to be six years old again.
I didn't know it was out there until a friend of mine mentioned it on Facebook (how lame does that sound? He's far away, if that makes it less dorky). Anyhoo, click here if you want to see it. Huge props to Erin and Tuan- they led TOB this year. A lot of what went into the letter was inspired by what they taught us.
Yesterday was a little long. Up at five, out the door at six, role call at 6:30, on the job until 4:30 (we just couldn't stretch it to five, although I waited around for Joe's crew for a while longer), and babysitting from 5 until 11:30. Long day, but a good day.
I hadn't seen Scott and Jen's kids since Christmas (well, technically I saw them all last weekend at Mass, but you don't run around and play Peter Pan at Mass. At least, not at any that I've been to). They're getting really big! Bryan's going to be really tall, and Emilie is surprising me- she has shot up, too. I thik they're both taking after Scott, who's a pretty tall guy. Kayleigh (whose looks exactly like her mother, and therefore will probably be quite petite) is two. She was born right after I graduated from high school, and consequently I don't know her as well as Bryan and Emilie (I've known them for 8 and 6 years, respectively).
BUT, when, I walked in yesterday, Kayleigh ran forward, wrapped her arms around my legs and yelled, "Molly!" Emilie was hiding around the corner, giggling. Methinks they worked on that one, since the last time I saw them, Kayleigh didn't know my name.
We played Marco Polo, Peter Pan, and watched Finding Nemo (not necessarily in that order). Oh, to be six years old again.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)