Summer's almost here!

Only 1.5 more weeks of school! Ahhh!

The last official day of school is May 26th, but I'll be done teaching by the 25th because the last day is just a half day with an Awards Assembly and Mass. The 8th graders graduated on Friday, so I have already taught them for the last time! Our last class involved finishing up their webpages and sharing them with their classmates.

I taught the Pre-K for the last time today! (They will be having their "Pool Day" next Monday). I love them so much, they are adorable!! I had them each show me their computer skills by logging in, opening up Internet Explorer, scrolling down, clicking on a link and maximizing the page. They did so well, I'm proud of them :) I almost started laughing out loud when one of the little boys started singing Bruno Mars' Lazy Song! He was like "I said it, I said cuz I can..." So cute!!

I have been loving teaching lately. This afternoon I was helping out in the 2nd grade room planning trips for their social studies projects. One of the groups was going to Rocky Point, two groups were planning on Disneyland, one going to Oakland (to see the Raiders! duh!) and one group was going to Vegas. It was so fun planning these imaginary trips with the kids on a giant map! Then, randomly, one of the little girls comes up to me with her hands in the shape of a gate and says "open the gate" So I opened it and then she was like "pick some flowers, how many flowers did you pick" and I said "5" and then she goes "You have 5 boyfriends and they are all jealous!" hahaha

So anyway, after school ends next week I'm not really sure what I'm doing. I have been looking for volunteer opportunities in the area. Originally I was going to be tutoring in the summer, but that kind of fell through. Now, it looks like I will be (hopefully) working part time at the Food Bank where Jeff works and part of the time someplace else (who knows!) I kind of want to construct my own schedule so that I don't have to work on Fridays (how sweet would that be?!) It's pretty exciting:)
Another thing about summer coming is the weather! It's starting to get HOT~ and without A/C (it broke!) it kind of sucked last week being in the 90's. Luckily this week is cooling off to the 80's, but soon enough it will be back up and into the 100's. Scary...

A fun thing I have been doing lately is starting to cook more Mexican style meals. Last week I made sweet potato, black bean and cheese enchiladas.
My first enchilada cooking experience and it tasted great! I even threw things into them that weren't in the recipe! (I added peppers, onions, cilantro and cheese, used corn tortillas instead of flour and fresh tomatoes instead of canned)
I'm making a sort of similar thing tonight: Black bean and corn quesadillas with guacamole! woo!

So, yeah. Life is good here in Tucson. I'm going to miss the kids when school is over! (well...most of them;)This is a prickly pear cactus (my favorite!) with flowers on it!

Silence

We just got back from our silent retreat yesterday. It was amazing.

It was 3 full days of silence. I have never experienced anything like that in my life!

Our house, the two Phoenix houses and the San Diego house all went to the Redemptorist Renewal Center, which is actually a really cool place! It's 20 minutes north of our house in the desert, with beautiful views of cacti and mountains...ok we see that all the time, but it was still pretty! There was a pool and we each got our own room (which is great when you're not talking!) and the meals were provided (they even had Pad Thai one night!).

I think the weirdest part for me was not looking at people in the eyes. We were supposed to look away, and even though I felt like smiling and looking at people that I knew, I had to just look down and walk away. But besides that, it was great. I actually learned a lot about my spirituality these last few days.

As I told my casamates and my spiritual director (Fumi, an FJV): over the last few years I have felt disconnected with the Catholic church. There is a lot that I don't believe in and things that I wish were part of the church. I want women to be able to be priests, I think gay people should be able to get married, and I am pro-choice. I also have a difficult time believing and agreeing with a lot that is in the Bible. I guess this all started in college, but it's been getting on my nerves lately and because I felt so disconnected from the church, I was feeling disconnected with God. But, then the silent retreat started and that all changed.

Fumi asked me the first day what I desired from the retreat. I decided that I wanted to be reconnected with God and I was going to do that through new types of prayer. Mass just hasn't been my thing lately. (Especially mass at Santa Cruz...very conservative). So, Fumi gave me lots of different types of prayers over the three days, I tried centering prayer, memory prayer, imagination prayer, conversation with God, and an art examen. Outside of spiritual direction I also did the labyrinth, a peace vigil, journaling, the guided hand meditation, and a collage. I found that I really like the centering prayer and the meditation. When I had tried meditation before, (high school?) I was in a very different place in my life. Now I think I'm really ready to try centering prayer for 20 minutes a day! (Wikipedia link if you're wondering what centering prayer is!)

Another thing that really helped me during the silent retreat was reading a book called "Losing Your Religion, Finding Your Faith." It was all about how we tie our religion and faith together when we are younger, but when we start to question our religion, we also question our faith. It was really cool and helpful. It used the metaphor of a road trip saying we are all on our spiritual journeys and we don't have to have it all figured out right now!

I wrote down some quotes from it into my journal:

"We sometimes think that because we cannot pray as we used to, we have lost our faith. But this is not so. It is only that God is challenging us to grow to a new and different level of prayerful intimacy."

"It would be terrible if we woke up one day, realized that all religious truth is simply read in the Bible, and then decided that there was nothing more to learn in the realm of spirituality...God wants us to discover all the different colors, experiences, and nuances along the road of faith."

"When we do not set aside a regular time to be attuned to God's voice in our lives, it is all too easy to become permanently distracted, spiritually asleep."

I think I had been feeling spiritually asleep until this silent retreat. Now, however, I have decided that prayer is an important part of my life. I want to not only do the centering prayer every day, but I will also be trying some new forms of prayer in the next few weeks. It feels really good to be a little more spiritually awake after that retreat!

I am a deer.

Ok not really, but I LOVE the forest! I'm back in Oregon for the week (Spring break!) and besides seeing people, my favorite part has been hiking and running in the forest!

So, I'll start a week ago: Thursday we had a half day at school because of Holy Thursday and no school on Good Friday. The kids got into their mixed grade groups for "Kids Helping Kids" and decorated reusable shopping bags for Earth Day. It was so cute! Here is a picture of Sahian from 1st grade, Mya from 5th grade (the one who plays 'Signs' with me) and Stephen from 2nd grade. They used stencils to put on the recycle sign, a butterfly, and a world. It was great!

Thursday night I flew to Portland (Erin took me to the airport right after her work:) and I got in really late. I went through LAX and my second flight was delayed after we got on the plane. I fell asleep and when I woke up, I didn't know if we had taken off yet or if we were still waiting! It was a small plane and it was dark outside so I had no idea. Weird feeling haha! Turns out we were in the air and I had slept thru the takeoff! So, I got to PDX after midnight and my parents picked me up (and gave me See's candies yum!!)

On Friday it was the real Earth Day. My parents have a new house they are renovating on Cornell Rd. (We call it the Cornell Place) and so we went from their Beaverton house over to the Cornell place for the weekend. One of the awesome things about their new house is it's right in the middle of the forest and it's sooo green. (Very weird after living in the desert for almost 9 months!) So, we decided to stop by Cafe Yumm (fave restaurant!) and then drive over to Cornell and take a hike through the forest. It was gorgeous! I forgot how much I love trees and flowers and the forest. It's so full of life! I took a couple pictures on our hike. We went on a path my dad created through the forest to get to the Wildwood trail. It was really fun because the path was really new. My dad said he was like a deer when he created the path and my mom said "yeah if deers carried saws!" (I guess he had to saw a couple branches and things to make the path) haha.

But, anyway--being in the forest felt so amazing. It felt like a breath of fresh air, like something I have been missing in my life down in Tucson. The desert is really pretty in its own way, but it also does feel really dead sometimes. Being in the forest made me feel closer to nature and it was the perfect place to be on Earth day!

The next day, my Dad and I decided to do a long run (about 13 miles) in the forest. I was really feeling great, running along on the forest trail with my iPod blasting Bust a Move (the Glee version) in my ears, when I tripped on a rock and fell down! I scraped up my legs and hip and got a huge bruise on my knee. I was bleeding and my dad gave me his handkerchief to wipe the dirt and blood off. We had only gone about 1.5 miles, and I decided to sit down and let the blood stop before continuing the run. The fall wasn't really that bad, but it definitely made me watch my step more in the forest! I took a picture of my Dad while I was sitting down on the trail waiting for the bleeding to stop! But besides the fall, that run was really awesome. We spent almost 3 hours out there (took longer cuz of the bleeding and stopping for mud).

On Sunday it was Easter and we went to our church, Mission of the Atonement, which I really love going to. It's a Lutheran and Catholic church in Beaverton that is progressive and social justice-minded. The Lutheran paster, Paster Laurie, had asked me to speak about JVC and my experiences so far this year. I was stressing a little bit because I'm not a good public speaker. But I wrote down mostly what I was going to say and I ended up explaining the organization a little bit, but mostly about the 4 values and how living them has changed my life. Many people thanked me afterward and I think it went pretty well! I got a laugh from the congregation when I told the story about a little 3rd grade boy. I had told the class that they could ask Google a question and you would find the answer. So he Googled to find out if Michael Jackson was really dead. He posted on his blog "I found out that Michael Jackson is not really dead." haha

After church, we went back to the Beaverton house and I made a pesto pasta dish with red peppers, tomatoes, tofu and raw cheese to bring over to my Aunt Elaine and Uncle Don's house. They were having chicken, so she had asked me to bring something vegetarian. It was the first casserole-type thing I've ever made and it turned out great! I didn't even have a recipe, I just made it up! :) It ended up being a hit at dinner as well, even my cousin who doesn't like tofu had some!

My cousin's youngest daughter, Morgan, is in kindergarten and is really adorable! She apparently wanted to invite me to her birthday party this year in January, and her mom had to tell her I don't live here anymore! aww!! When we were at my Aunt Elaine's house, Morgan asked her dad if she could hold my hand. So cute! We were playing around with my phone and I took a couple pictures with my "Cam Wow" app! hahaha! And then when we got back home I took a few pictures with my mom also!


So, it was a great weekend! a lot more things happened after that, but I am tired of typing now and I'll give the highlights:
--getting a pedicure with my mom (and they offered us beer!)
--hanging out with my friends (Liz, Chrystea, and Bethany!)
--having LOTS of awesome Asian food (including my fave! Thai E-San #69)
--watching The King's Speech in my parents' new built in home theater
--meeting with the directors of my mom's new documentary film
--spending time with my parents!

It's been an amazing week and I'm getting very excited to move back to the Pacific NW!

Also--I'm going to the Blazer game tonight! (They're in the playoffs and they have to win tonight to keep going....GO BLAZERS! RIP CITY!!)

I fly back to Tucson tomorrow afternoon. It's been a great vacation, but I'm also ready to go back to my second home:)

"Yo Yo Chips!" AKA: Why I love my job

Lately I have really been enjoying my work!

I've gotten to know the kids better now (finally learned all 200 of their names! Yeah it took me all year, but whatever haha) On Wednesday I was on my after school duty watching the kids leave, which is usually pretty boring besides the occasional "Bye Miss Devlin!" but this day, my "sister" (Angelica in the 4th grade) was out there with a couple of her 4th grade friends. They asked me if I wanted to play "Signs" which I had never heard of. Basically you make up a gesture and say something with it. Angelica did "Yo yo chips!" and moved her hands by her shoulders. I ended up going "Whaa??" and moving my hands up. Once everyone has a "sign" then we go around and say ours then someone else's, trying to mess them up. It's kind of confusing to explain, but it was really fun! I'm supposed to be on duty from 3:15-3:30, but I ended up staying out there playing until almost 3:50 with Angelica and then with Mya, one of my favorite 5th graders (who I used to tutor in Math)

Then on Thursday, Mya asked me if I wanted to play Signs again, and I told her "yes! after school" I ended up playing it both Thursday and Friday with a variety of the kids including Angelica and Selina from 4th, Liliana from 2nd grade, Angel from 1st, Mya, Andrew and Elissa from 5th. They are so cute! On Friday after our staff meeting, there was a 3rd grader, Joanna, who had been stuck at school for 2 hours and her parents were still not there (later found out her mom's car broke down). So, even though I wanted to go home, I decided to play I Spy and 20 questions with her. I ended staying with her for half an hour, and it was really fun!

Then today, Monday, I went outside for the morning announcements and Selina came up to me and gave me a really good hug. It was so unexpected and adorable. After she left to get in line, Joanna came up and gave me a hug, telling me her mom eventually picked her up. I'm not sure if there is a better way to start off the week than hugs from kids. So awesome. Love it.

Besides becoming friends with the kids, I have also really started to like teaching. I'm teaching Excel to the 5th and 6th graders and they are actually absorbing the knowledge and liking it! And I taught the 4th graders Powerpoint! They were presenting their Powerpoints to the class last Tuesday and I was so proud of them:) Also, on Friday, I got to team-teach with Mrs. Molina a math lesson to a mix of grades that was really fun. Our school has decided to do something we call STAR Fridays where we put the kids into classes by math level instead of grade and we work on what they need the most help with. It was great!

Now thinking about teaching in the future excites me. Like thinking about setting up my own classroom, creating rewards for the kids, grading papers, having my own discipline system, planning my own lessons (non-computer ones), etc. I've been thinking about teaching grades 3-5 or maybe middle school. I do really love the little ones also, but they can be difficult and when they are a bit older there is so much more opportunity to teach them some really cool subjects!

So: My plan at the moment is to do JVC for one more year in Spokane, take the rest of the year off (travel? work? volunteer?) until June 2013, when I will start grad school in Education at either University of Portland or Lewis and Clark. Then, I'll look for a job at a school.

I have been thinking a lot also about my other passion: film. I really like making films and am glad that I majored in it at Santa Clara. I still think I'd like to work with films as well, but the day-to-day of being an editor would require me to sit alone in an editing booth for many hours on end and I just don't think that's what I was meant to do. I think film may end up being a hobby or side project at this point. I'm thinking of bringing my camera to Tucson to make a short film (or two) before I'm done here. But besides that I don't have grand plans for film in my future. I'm much more excited about teaching at this point in my life.

But, who knows what the future holds. Maybe I'll change my mind ANOTHER time! It happens a lot....

"A JV going to Vegas? That's like an oxymoron"

--my co-worker (haha)

So, I went to Vegas and Mexico the last two weekends. I know, not very JV of me! The Vegas trip was to visit with my brother, my friend Chrystea, and my friend, Pear, who lives in Vegas. The trip ended up costing me a lot more money than I had anticipated (ohhh I have to pay for food AND gas?), but it was still really fun! It was great to see Pear again (my Thai sister!) and we had some amazing Thai food with her!

In Vegas, we spent two nights out. The first night was at a club called Tao. It was a Saturday night in Vegas during spring break season, so it was pretty crraazzzayy. Our names were on the list and we still had to wait like an hour to get into the club. At least we were comped thanks to Sean's friend who is a club promoter. The club was HUGE! (Biggest club I've ever seen, about 4 or 5 floors, big pool area, etc) And the drinks were overpriced of course (like $14 each!)

The second day we hung out in the pool before going out to a club called Pure. Chrystea's friend Sammi was also visiting from LA. That club was a lot less crazy cuz it was Sunday! We didn't have to wait:) But Sean had to leave before night time, which was sad! I only got to see Seany for one day :/ I hope I get to visit LA soon and see him!!

After Vegas, Chrystea made the 7 hr drive down to Tucson with me and spent a few days here. I got to show her around, take her to Casa Mariposa, and to our new favorite spot-Gate's Pass! There was such a pretty sunset the night we went!!watching the sunset

And then this last weekend we went to Puerto Penasco (Rocky Point), which is the closest beach to Tucson. It's about a 4 hr drive and we went just the four of us casa-mates! It was a great relaxing time to read on the beach, lay in the sun, and swim in the ocean. We ended up using community money to pay for the cute little casita we stayed in, which was good because I used my whole stipend in Vegas!
Us at the beach:
From these trips I have concluded: Vegas is pricey and I love the beach. Ok, I already knew both of those things, but whatever;)

Decisions, Decisions

So, I just realized I never blogged about my decision for next year. After Re-O in January, I decided to apply to a second year of JVC, but this time in the Northwest (closer to home! yay!) The first half of my JVC year, it never occurred to me that I would even want to do a second year. But, after reflections at Re-O I decided to apply.

The real decision came when I was accepted and had to choose whether to do the job or move back to Portland. Both options sounded awesome. If I did another year of JVC I would be able to live in community again, in a new city and live the four values for an additional year. But if I moved to Portland I could hang out with family and live with my sister when she gets back from Guatemala. I could still volunteer in the area and work on my mom's documentary while applying for grad school. And my budget wouldn't be quite as tight as it is now. After stressing about it for a few days, making pros and cons lists and imagining myself in both positions, I decided to accept the JVC NW job.

So! this is what my life will look like starting in August--I will be moving to Spokane, Washington (I've never been there!) My job will be at a women and children's shelter called St. Margaret's ( Website ) It looks really cool. I'm not entirely sure what my job will be there. In my interview the JV that has the job now said that I will be working with the women in a clothing closet to help them learn about business. I don't really know anything about business, so it sounds like I'm as qualified for that job as I was for the one I'm doing now ;) She also said I will be working late one night a week having dinner and hanging out with the residents. Apparently this time is well liked by the JV's because it's more informal and everyone is back from school and work. I also may be doing some other tasks around the shelter but not sure what those are yet. She mentioned something about me making my own schedule which I would like a lot!!!!

But--back to my life here. My job is going well and of course my community is amazing. All this thinking about next year has kind of distracted me from what's going on here. I want to make sure I make the best of the next 4 months before I have to leave. I actually am leaving for a big chunk of April though, which I have been feeling kind of bad about. This weekend I'm going to go to Vegas and meet up with Sean and Chrystea, which will be exciting, but I'm also missing Jen's birthday weekend. Then, I'm going to Portland from April 21st (Thurs) to the 29th (Fri) and miss Easter here as well. I think both trips will be really fun, but I hate leaving Tucson and missing out on stuff. Basically I want to be in two places at once, and since I don't have Hermione's necklace that's not possible.

Speaking of reading young adult books, I have read all three of the Hunger Games books recently, and if you haven't read them yet---well just do it. They are awesome and addicting and yeah....I read them all in about a week's time. And my whole house has read them now too. They really are that good.

Training for my First Marathon

So.....training for a marathon is HARD!!
I know this probably sounds like an obvious statement, but I just had to say it. I'm training for my first marathon, so it's definitely a new experience.

Here's a little story about how I got here:
Growing up, my mom was always a super runner, doing marathons and being awesome. I never thought I could possibly ever run a marathon. When I was little, I HATED running. Absolutely hated it. When they made us do the mile run in 4th grade I wanted to skip PE. Don't even get me started on the 12 minute run! But I still looked up to my mom for running so many cool races.

When I was in high school, I injured my knee playing basketball and had to get 2 different knee surgeries for my meniscus, which the doctor told me looked like "swiss cheese." And he also asked me if I was really 17, not much older because of what the MRI of my knee looked like. I assured him that was my age, and was very worried I would not be able to play basketball or run again! (A little dramatic, but I didn't know!)

In college, I started to run for exercise and it became fun. I enjoyed going on runs and listening to music on my iPod. I played ultimate frisbee and we had to keep in shape, so I ran at practice and on the weekends. Sophomore year, my mom and sister (who became an amazing runner as well) convinced me to do a half marathon. I trained for this mostly by doing 5 mile runs. I did run one 7 mile run, but that was on accident because I got lost!

I went through college thinking that doing more than 13.1 miles would kill my knees and I would never be able to do it. Then, this year I ran my second half marathon in Tucson with my housemate Jen. After that, she convinced me to run a marathon with her in San Diego in June. She has since decided to do the half, but I'm sticking to running the full. I have decided it's one of my life goals to finally run a full marathon.

So, that's where I am today. I still have never run more than 13.1 miles, but on my training schedule my long run is 13 this week! And soon it will be 15...and eventually in June I will be running a full 26.2 miles! It's a very scary thought and I have decided that if I need to walk for part of it that's ok. I just really want to cross that finish line. And my mom has decided to run it with me, so we'll be crossing that finish line together.