(It’s Easter so I thought the title was fitting…with jesus rising from the dead and all and the fact I haven’t posted anything new in a while)
Ten days since my last poast. Dayum. *whip* I’m typing i’m typing!
Regarding colleges. I am still deciding. I am leaning towards George Washington University. They gave me the most scholarship and I’ve gotten the best vibe from them. My only concern is that many students say people who go there are either highly motivated on scholarship or are snotty rich kids.
I did not get into Harvard. I was thinking of framing my rejection letter, but to be honest, I don’t really care. Harvard wouldn’t have given me any money and I’m very happy with GW. I wish I got in though… just so the people who are like “you would never get in!” would faint.
My first week of internship/service was interesting. I actually have learned a lot already. I have to do a daily journal, so I will post that up here after this post. This is gonna be a long ass post.
I got in another semi-car accident… hit a guy in my driveway backing up and sheared off the right mirror when I was backing up out of the garage. Ugh… Don’t know how much that will cost.
Weekend… I wrote more in my China journal on friday.. up to 25 pages. I love the javahouse when a band is playing. I don’t now if I told you, but my goal is to fill the entire notebook (standard bound notebook) with stuff about the trip. Saturday, I did yard work, gym, went over a friend’s, watched marley and me… sad movie.
Marley and Me reminded me of my dog Yikes… When yikes died, I didn’t cry at all. I wasn’t sad at all. It was weird. there was no emotion. I think that’s because when Yikes was about 7 (she died round 11), I sat up all night for a week or so crying because I realized she would die soon. I think i got it out of my system and just kind of accepted it.
I did some china shopping yesterday. got food and books and pens and subway mmm. Blink by Malcolm Galdwell (always been fascinated with leadership), Genghis lords of the bow by Conn Iggulden (fitting cuz im going to china), The Witch of Portobello by Paulo Coelho (story about being true to ourselves and finding out who we are).
Dats it. Here’s my journal entry from the soup kitchen/90degreez.
Soup Kitchen
April 10, 2009
Morning:
I was a server. I felt bad for the dishwasher (he was that one guy I mentioned earlier), but I sure didn’t want to be in that kitchen again. The same people came in. Some people have recognized me and are amazed that I come there every day. Everyone says I am insane. I could only stay for an hour because my class was at 7:30.
Night:
I was a jack-of-all-trades tonight. I poured drinks, bussed, took some orders, and helped put away dishes. At first, I found myself hating some of the girls that were working there because they were very gabby. When I sat down for dinner and got to know some of them though, my view changed. They were seniors in college at Umass. One was studying communications, another financing, and another psychology. It felt good to be able to relate with them and talk to them as adults. It’s easier for me to talk with older people. I don’t know why. One woman was from Westford and I knew her daughter’s boyfriend.
What I got out of this night came from the volunteers, not the people we served. We got around to telling stories and the one woman from Westford told us some of the stories she observed or past volunteers told her. She said there was this one guy who always dressed his daughters in sports clothes. It was weird a first, but not when she found out later why. They live in a really run down two room house. They are near-poor, almost homeless, and always hungry. The father couldn’t control that no matter how long or hard he worked. The one thing he could control though was how his daughters looked in public. He bought the cheapest clothes (sports clothes) and made sure his daughters were always clean, presentable, and dressed every time they left the house. I think that man has an incredible amount of care and pride.
April 9, 2009
Morning:
Today was miserable. I was the only dish washer because everyone else didn’t want the job. Maybe I should start calling myself dirty hairy. At first, I liked the job because it kept me busy. Towards the end of the two hours though, I was getting very tired. My back hurt, I was all wet from the water, and just generally miserable that not many people were helping out and instead standing outside “waiting on tables.”
I bit the bullet though and kept on washing until everything was done. I got pretty efficient at it, but it was still a pain in the ass. I felt like such a piece of equipment, not a human being. I can’t believe some Spanish people do this every day for six hours just to feed themselves. I could barley stand 2 hours. I was ready to kill someone if they handed me another dish. I had to wash ALL the dishes. That’s like 50 or so coming in every so often. Had to separate the food, the utensils, the glasses, the plates (different sizes) and everything else and then put them in the washer. I had to put them all away too (usually there is someone to do that but people weren’t helping out). I ended up staying an extra 30 minutes just to get all the work done. Some people thanked me, but I felt really hollow coming out of the kitchen. I am not going to do that job again.
Also, now I have a reason to do well in school so I won’t EVER have to do a job like that. I would not be able to stand it. It kind of pisses me off that people think they are getting good with god when they are taking the easy jobs. But, the good thing is after doing that job, I have much more respect for the people that do it on a regular basis and will be much more considerate of the dish washers when I am waiting on tables. The people who do the grimy jobs no one else wants to do should be paid the most.
Night:
Nothing special. I did more serving work. There wasn’t that man people there. I’m told that most of the people come towards the end of the month because that’s when their food stamps run out.
April 8, 2009
Morning:
Today, I was assigned the task of “pouring coffee.” We were overstaffed and everyone was jumping in at every opportunity to get someone a bagel or a bowl of oatmeal or pour drinks. Of course, right after the head lady told me it was my job to pour coffee, she took over the responsibility of pouring coffee. You see, no one, even the “coordinators” likes to feel like they don’t have a job. If they feel useless, the will take over your job to make themselves feel better. I was getting everyone coffee and then I set the pitcher down for one second and she snatches it up. This taught me the important lesson that coordinators are people who should not have a job. It is their job to give everyone else a job and see that they perform it well. It is not their job to help out with the manual labor if it takes away another person’s job.
Since everyone was serving, I decided to help out in the kitchen. I cleaned dishes and re-stocked plates/silverware/bowls. I met a cool guy there and we talked about music, sports, colleges, and life. It was his first day. I felt much more useful putting the dishes away. The guy had an interesting way of saying it. “Everyone wants to feel like they’re doing gods work so they’re jumping at the opportunity to serve someone a bagel instead of doing the dirty work back here cleaning dishes.”
While in the back, the former dish washer (the guy who usually does the dishes every day) arrived with his arm in a cast. The coordinator warned us about him… she said he liked to tell people how to do their jobs. She couldn’t have been more right. The guy hung over us, telling us what we were doing wrong, how it should be done, then pushing us aside and doing it with his one good arm. This guy was a dishwasher Nazi. He didn’t care about helping people. He liked the power he had in the kitchen. It was his domain. Eventually, when the dishes started piling up because he wouldn’t let us proceed and had to keep telling us what we were doing wrong, the one guy came in and told him to leave.
Morning was rather depressing. I am starting to feel uncomfortable working alongside people much older than me. It makes me feel old and ugly. I also realized I want a good job that pays well so I never have to clean dishes for a living. The guy I was working with had testicular cancer and didn’t like his job very much. I never want to be extremely dissatisfied with my job. I am now more determined to find out what I like/want to do and succeed.
It’s rather sad that I am not really helping the problem of hunger. I am temporarily feeding the problem, but hunger will always exist until circumstances and money changes. I don’t like that idea. I think in the future, I won’t volunteer at a food kitchen. I will go to the source and try to improve people’s lifestyles so that they will have money to buy food instead of feeding then day after day and not improving the problem.
Night:
Nothing interesting happened. I helped out with serving again. I met a Hispanic guy who went to a high school in Lawrence. He was going to study electrical engineering. He was very shy at first (he was a big guy too), but when we started talking he loosened up and turned out to be a funny mellow type of person. He was amazed I was adopted and didn’t know anything about Spanish culture. I guess I have to learn more about that.
A lot of the older women were surprised I was doing this every day.
I had to stay extra long to help clean up because everyone else left.
April 7, 2009
Morning:
Almost slept through my alarm. This morning I felt very useful. It was busy so I took on the job of serving food (being a waiter essentially). I got people food as quickly as I can and did my best to remember orders. I joked with some of the people too. I like being a waiter. It’s very fulfilling to be able to feed the people directly. People treated me with respect and saw me as competent. I was very happy.
There was one incident where a kid went into the bathroom and I had to go fetch him out. The staff doesn’t like kids on their own in the bathroom because of possible sexual predators. He was hiding under the sink smiling at me. Normally, I would never think I was capable of dealing with a kid. I’ve never really dealt with kids before. I think it was that I was fulfilling a role though, like when a nurse has to treat a victim or a doctor has to operate. I got the kid out, and he went with me to his mother, holding my hand.
Being busy made the time pass so much faster.
Night:
I couldn’t go at night because I had a meeting for china.
April 6, 2009
Morning:
My first day! Got up at 4:50. It was horrible. I was so pissed dunkin donuts wasn’t open. I made myself a sausage sandwich and left. The sunrise as I drove towards Lawrence was beautiful. I got there around 6 and the lady explained what I would be doing.
When the people started filing in, I was a little nervous. I filled some cups of coffee and orange juice and took some people their food. I wasn’t all that active and sometimes was stuck standing there because I wasn’t sure if I should get someone food or not because someone else might be getting them something. Also, I didn’t know where all the food was.
Overall, I met some good people. I didn’t feel all that good about being competent at my job, but I knew it would improve. I was surprised it was all you can eat. How do they find money to finance that? It was good food too… bagels, sausage, cereal, eggs.
There was one guy there too who looked exactly like Morgan Freeman. It was weird.
Night:
We had so many volunteers. I didn’t have anything to do. Mostly, I just got drinks or stood with this one girl and chatted. Most of them were college students or high school students. It was a good meal. They served rice, peas, bread, meat, and cake/cookies for dessert. Again, I was surprised that it was all you can eat and that there was so much food. I even ate the food at the end because I didn’t have dinner and there were leftovers that otherwise would have been thrown out.
I didn’t feel that competent this night either. At least I met some good people. My back kills from standing so long. I’m also rather depressed that I am wasting so much gas going to Lawrence and back and school. I need to find a job to feel good about that though.
I did meet one cool woman. She was really interested in hearing about my adoption and how I know nothing about El Salvador or my real parents and where my name TK came from.
I’ll talk about 90degreez later.
Peace.
The Thought Hole 