Today was an eventful day. It started off pretty poorly since I have decided to begin to eat healthier and missed my morning cup a' joe. :( Also I'm still sort of sick, although I'm feeling 20 times better than I have been. I've been tentatively diagnosed with asthma and am being treated for sinusitis, and might start treatment for another thing soon if I'm not feeling better in a week or so.
When I got to work it was all the regular stuff, getting forms ready for new and returning students, making sure everything is in place, calling parents, making copies, etc. etc. Then there was this parent that came in, a new parent that wanted to enroll her twins for next year. A black woman with long fingernails and tall hair that went through the process like everyone else. It's amazing how immediately and completely you judge people, how I can judge people without any thought to what your judgment might mean. She was unemployed, only worked a little last year, and had recently moved back in with her mother. Kids had a different last name, both with very "ethnic" sounding names. She was searching for a job, but no one was hiring.
She also had a master's degree in education.
Wooahh, hold on. A master's degree? This shocked me, mainly because I thought this secured a job for you. I guess in this economy that's not necessarily true. Also, in my mind her appearance and her degree did not match up. It will definitely make me think twice about the judgments I pass on people while working there.
A house sits right in front of the center, with porceleine deer and birdbaths, an old single story circa-late 70's home with the square windows and the older people with pickups that live there. Today it almost burned to the ground. During my lunch break I watched in horror while smoke billowed from the windows, as two older women emerged holding each other while the firetrucks and police cars burst onto the scene. Volunteer firefighters were some of the first to arrive, jumping out of trucks and hastily pulling fireproof suits over clothing. The two older women just sat there helplessly, and I felt guilty for watching as what I presumed to be other family members arrived, a younger man holding the two as they appeared to sob. I walked back to the teacher's lounge to finish my salad and self-made trail mix wishing that I didn't see what I saw.
Later in the day a mother came by to enroll her child, a precocious 3-year old who loved running and grabbing things that looked like they were interesting. With her was her older 5-year old cousin, who also enjoyed running but was a little more reserved in what he grabbed. I was babysitter for the 30 minutes it took to enroll the young girl. While the older boy was carefully doodling very rigid geometric shapes that were what he called either "prison" or "president"; I couldn't quite catch what he meant. The young girl hastily scribbled all over 5 or 6 sheets of paper, each time exclaiming LOOK! with a shriek whenever she finished her drawing. I chased them in high heels as they ran all around the center and in the playground outside. They were so interesting, the way the interacted with each other and differences in their personalitites.
Monday, June 8, 2009
Tuesday, June 2, 2009
back from many days of absence
I haven't been writing for a while, but a lot has gone on. Mostly my continuous decline in health. I just came back from getting a chest X-ray to try to determine what's going on with me. I now have a bag full of drugs at my disposal and don't really know what to think while I'm sitting here alone in the house again. This is something I did not anticipate when planning my summer.
Doesn't it always seem like these things happen when you don't want them to? God has to have some grand sense of humor. Well, at this point it could be anything from allergies to cancer. Meh. Being sick for so long is beginning to take a toll on me. I can't do as much as I want to and the things I do want to do I don't have the energy to do.
As far as the internship goes, I've done lots and lots of paperwork. Geez, I never knew how much time this stuff took up. I'm dealing with a lot of confidential info that if screwed up could really get Tammy in trouble, as well as doing minor things like folding pamphlets and making copies. Soon she's going to have us interviewing parents for the enrollment process.
Let me talk about an image that's stuck in my mind.
There was a parent who wanted to get an application but had difficulty in getting to the center. So, like we have to do sometimes we made it out to her. First we stopped by her job, and when we didn't find her there we went to her house. There were a couple lines of trailers next to the highway and we pulled up to her place right behind the school bus that was dropping off kids from the last day of school. There were several kids that went into the house when Tammy went out to talk to the parent, but there was one little boy who just stared at us in the Head Start van. He was a black boy, probably around 2 and walking outside barefoot and wearing only a diaper, just staring at us intently with his fingers in his mouth. He just stared, and i saw him there in the trailer park and I just stared back at him. He looked for probably about 30 seconds before climbing the stairs into his house and being let in by another young kid.
I didn't stare at him with pity really, but intrigue. He made me smile a crooked smile filled with curiosity, one that wished his parents were out here but they probably thought he was inside already and I wish he was wearing shoes but he was just staring with his fingers in his mouth. I didn't really think about his life, I didn't really ponder anything of great substance, I just watched him climb the stairs in his diaper and enter into the trailer by the highway. Now I find myself having an inner one-way dialogue with the image of the diaper boy that goes something like this:
Diaper Boy, you seem like a strong kid. Something in you looks like a fighter. You're gonna need to be a fighter because your decisions unfortunately may have heavier consequences than most people because of your "disadvantages".
Disadvantage is a strong word. The word itself has the potential to snuff out dreams before they can begin. I don't think I like this word very much. No Diaper Boy, you can do whatever you want, but unfortunately a lot of how you perceive this word, this "disadvantage" has to do with your parents, your guardians, the ones you can't choose. I know you can do anything you want to do, anything you DREAM to do, but how will you know if no one tells you? If no one shows you that you are a person, and because of that heart and brain that reside somewhere inside that tiny frame of yours you matter, you deserve respect from everyone but most of all yourself? Because if you don't believe in yourself, how can you know that you don't have to grow up angry without a reason, oppressed without a knowledge of who is oppressing, and broken without a way to be repaired?
Diaper Boy, I can't save you. You don't need "saving." You need someone to show you that you matter. I really hope the people inside that house know that. I hope they show you, Diaper Boy. I really hope they do.
Doesn't it always seem like these things happen when you don't want them to? God has to have some grand sense of humor. Well, at this point it could be anything from allergies to cancer. Meh. Being sick for so long is beginning to take a toll on me. I can't do as much as I want to and the things I do want to do I don't have the energy to do.
As far as the internship goes, I've done lots and lots of paperwork. Geez, I never knew how much time this stuff took up. I'm dealing with a lot of confidential info that if screwed up could really get Tammy in trouble, as well as doing minor things like folding pamphlets and making copies. Soon she's going to have us interviewing parents for the enrollment process.
Let me talk about an image that's stuck in my mind.
There was a parent who wanted to get an application but had difficulty in getting to the center. So, like we have to do sometimes we made it out to her. First we stopped by her job, and when we didn't find her there we went to her house. There were a couple lines of trailers next to the highway and we pulled up to her place right behind the school bus that was dropping off kids from the last day of school. There were several kids that went into the house when Tammy went out to talk to the parent, but there was one little boy who just stared at us in the Head Start van. He was a black boy, probably around 2 and walking outside barefoot and wearing only a diaper, just staring at us intently with his fingers in his mouth. He just stared, and i saw him there in the trailer park and I just stared back at him. He looked for probably about 30 seconds before climbing the stairs into his house and being let in by another young kid.
I didn't stare at him with pity really, but intrigue. He made me smile a crooked smile filled with curiosity, one that wished his parents were out here but they probably thought he was inside already and I wish he was wearing shoes but he was just staring with his fingers in his mouth. I didn't really think about his life, I didn't really ponder anything of great substance, I just watched him climb the stairs in his diaper and enter into the trailer by the highway. Now I find myself having an inner one-way dialogue with the image of the diaper boy that goes something like this:
Diaper Boy, you seem like a strong kid. Something in you looks like a fighter. You're gonna need to be a fighter because your decisions unfortunately may have heavier consequences than most people because of your "disadvantages".
Disadvantage is a strong word. The word itself has the potential to snuff out dreams before they can begin. I don't think I like this word very much. No Diaper Boy, you can do whatever you want, but unfortunately a lot of how you perceive this word, this "disadvantage" has to do with your parents, your guardians, the ones you can't choose. I know you can do anything you want to do, anything you DREAM to do, but how will you know if no one tells you? If no one shows you that you are a person, and because of that heart and brain that reside somewhere inside that tiny frame of yours you matter, you deserve respect from everyone but most of all yourself? Because if you don't believe in yourself, how can you know that you don't have to grow up angry without a reason, oppressed without a knowledge of who is oppressing, and broken without a way to be repaired?
Diaper Boy, I can't save you. You don't need "saving." You need someone to show you that you matter. I really hope the people inside that house know that. I hope they show you, Diaper Boy. I really hope they do.
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