Tuesday, April 8, 2008
Blog #7
Write a one-page reflection on what you did this week (4/9) at your internship. It needs to be creative and interesting for teachers and mentors to read. we do not want to know how long you sat at a desk or what you ate for lunch. (you should be able to write a one page reflection with out questions given how much you do this at CAT).
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Today was an interesting day at the office. It didn't start out as lively as usual. In fact, it was actually very quiet this morning. I had expected this though, because we had just lost a very important member of our church. Yesterday, Jack Butler, the former 5th grade Sunday school teacher and leader of many ministries at Bethel passed away after having a stroke, which caused him to fall and fracture his skull. As one would imagine, the work pace was slow today as we were getting many calls about his death.
I sat in my office today doing work, overhearing Sheila (our office manager) speak on the phone with people about him and planning his memorial service. This news, which I had received through email the night before came as such a shock to me -- to all of us. Jack had such a heart for God. He had the knowledge, wisdom, and patience that I had never seen in anyone before. He was very close to everyone in the office.
It hit me today, as I was editing some footage I had taken of him a few weeks ago for the Heritage Night project, that I am so lucky to have filmed an interview with him before he passed. I remembered my mentor Cindy's words right before I started filming: "Jack, this may be the last video you're in." She said this because his family was moving to their new house in Sacramento and shortly after, he would no longer be attending our church. No one knew, however, that he would pass away in such a short period of time after leaving.
I watched his interview over and over today -- even the parts that weren't included in the final video project. I was sad, of course because he had taught me so much when I was in his class 6 years ago, but I was glad at the same time that I was able to capture a very solid memory of him on camera. When I think about the power of film and my thesis for this WLE project, I cannot help but notice how wonderful an example this is of how Multimedia in a church can bring people together. With just a short clip of this video, people can be reminded of how good a person Jack was and the legacy he left behind.
I don't know what I will do with the rest of the footage, but perhaps we will play it at his memorial service. I am fortunate enough to have had the opportunity to catch a glimpse of his colorful life and unique personality in a video that I am sure the Bethel family will cherish for years to come.
Of course, there are other things I did today. Like usual, I produced CDs (complete with printed labels and such) for people who ordered them last Sunday, printed brochures, designed Keynote slides for sermons, designed bulletin inserts, formatted the sermon notes for the bulletin, and planned a video project for an upcoming lesson series. Yet none of these are nearly as important as what I described above. I learned a very valuable lesson today, and it was worth the very quiet, slightly awkward start at the beginning of the day. I am definitely inspired to keep pushing forth with film.
Today was a pretty mellow day at my internship. There were not as many things to do this week than other weeks prior to today. When I left my house this morning, I thought I was going to be early, but due to traffic in the underground, I was stuck in there for about 15 minutes. Luckily, I left early today and got to DonorsChoose.org's office right on time. I was not feeling that happy when I got to internship, but when I walked in through the door, there was a round of "hellos" and "good morning." Everyone was in such a happy mood today that changed my mood instantly and I was feeling pretty good and ready to work. Today was a little out of the ordinary. I did not start with the usual thank you packages. Instead I saw a pile of 200 gift certificates ready for me to package. I ended up finishing in an hour. Then I went on to making more press packages. I had to make another 50 press packages for the press conference in Portland. I was pretty surprised that Kris had to go to another press conference so fast. Last week was Contra Costa and now she has to head over to Portland. I didn't really like taking out all the old articles of DonorsChoose.org and sticking in new ones, but someone has to get the job done. It was a pretty boring activity to do, but not everything in a job is fun. After finishing creating the press packages, I had to count out 300 book marks and fliers. This was little interesting. I didn't know that DonorsChoose.org had book marks so I guess that was what was in the many boxes that came a week or two ago. As soon as I was done, Kelly had already left for lunch. She was off to meet with a friend to have lunch. I didn't know that you can schedule in lunches with friends on a work day, but I guess anything is possible. After lunch, I went back to doing thank you packages as usual. However, today we were out of folders so I was using some other sort of folder which was interesting. I wonder when Kelly will order more folders for me to use. If Kelly is reading this right now, make sure you order folders now unless you already did. This is just a reminder just in case you forgot. After finishing the thank you packages, I had time to work on my final project or blog. So today was a pretty interesting day especially when I heard Kris saying that DonorsChoose.org got another 50,000 dollar grant. Kris was so excited and happy. That was a cool thing to hear. It was just like the time when Becky got 25,000 from Intel.
Today started out as a not so good day. the teacher that was supposed to be here named teacher Helen was out sick so in the morning, i had to watch the children by myself and it was pretty challenging to watch oever 20 kids. but i tried it before so it was nothing new to me. there is always a schedule there for me to look at so every week when i get there so when i got there today, i saw that the theme of week was transportation and today, we were going to take a ride on a bus. when the lead teacher got here at around 9:30, she started circle time which was for the kids to check-in on who is here and who isn't and to also find out what day of the week it is, the month, and the weather, kind of like a daily routine happening. after circle time, the kids got to eat snacks and today was pancakes! yum. i took some to eat also but there was extra so i wasn't stealing any. after snack time, i took them outside for some outdoor play and i was in charge of the kids jumping on the trampoline and i can say that i was pretty scared because if the kids were to fall off or get hurt, i would be responsible for that so i was really careful, luckily no one got hurt.
after outdoor playtime, we headed off to the busstop. but when we got there, teacher Will(my mentor) told everyone that we couldn't get on the bus because of the money that they would have to pay to get on the bus because they ran out of bus passes and they would have to use over $20 to get everyone on the bus just to take 1 stop. all of the kids were pretty disappointed but they soon learned that as a surprise, they were going to get to go to the playground about 2 blocks away. one thing that i can say about kids is that they walk really slow. it takes them about 5-10 mintues to walk 1 block and by the time they got there, there was only about 20 minutes to play even thought they were supposed to have 30 minutes. 1 thing i learned from watching the kids play is that they never get tired. they just keep playing and playing and playing. after the playground, it was time to go back to the chibi-chan building to have lunch and everyone was whining about how starving they were. after lunch, it was the usual nap time and from that point on, its pretty mellow because i would just help them go to sleep and once they all sleep, i can finally relax and have a little break.
sorry KC i was unable to attend my Internship because i had to get my braces taken off. However, there was a day when i came to my internship and it was optional so that can be the hours that i wasnt able to work on April 9th.
today my normal schedule was unexpectedly changed. I was working in my designated room(childrwen ages 11 months- 1year and 4 months)when at 8:30 the food for our workplace came in 2 hours earlier than usual, this was shocking for me because this is the first time that this has ever happened. I figured the food would be getting in people's way and it would be rude to leave it there until its original time, so I took it upon myslef to go but the food in their cabnets and bring them to their designated class rooms. Putting the food away wasn't a bother or a difficult task for me to do it was just the fact that it arrived at a different time. For the first time today I got to water the plants and green areas of Children's Village, the sun was not on myside. The task wasn't hard to do, but the fact that the sun was beeming on me directly no matter which plants I was watering made this job tiring when it should've been a breeze. Also a lot of kids were willing to help me work of course they got to have more fun with the water than i did, but even though i felt tired due to the sun the kids brought my energy right back! Overall today was a good working day, I say this because I didn't have to much on my plate but at the same time i had a perfect amount of work. Even though my work didn't take me 2 minutes to do,the way it was spaced out made it last through the day*THIS IS THE PERFECT TYPE OF SCEHDULE FOR ME* The only I'm going to concentrate on now is preparing my project artifacts while keeping my work A+ material.
This week it was the same old same old. It's not going to be anything interesting for you to read. I say this because I didn't do anything new. This week I did filing, filing, and filing. I also did a lot of walking around. When I'm at my WLE it feels like the time goes by so fast. Even faster than a school day. It's quit surprising. This week I filed the bench warrants in the conference room. It took a long time because there were a lot. There was nothing really interesting. The only interesting thing that I think I can recall was sitting in a court room listening to a case. The case was an interesting one. I was kind of disappointed because I came kind of late, almost at the end. I didn’t really know what the case was about. The thing that upset me was that the prosecutor was being a but-hole and so in humane. She had no mercy towards the criminals. I wouldn't be able to do her job because I feel like I’m so sympathetic and I don’t think I would be able to be bold enough. I believe in second chances and if it was up to me those people would have been set free. I think I’m kind of bias though because the criminals were African-American and that's why I really wanted them out. I'm tired of seeing the black population locked up. It makes me so mad. It makes me feel like that our black population is just wasting there whole life off of careless mistakes. That's probably one reason why I choose the WLE project that I choose. This court sit in was like the highlight of the day overall. Other than that there was nothing else interesting except for lunch which is always fun because I get to communicate with the other intern and she usually always either have deep or funny stories to tell.
Im back KC! As i you said, i remember a lot that happened last week. It was a really busy day. It started off really smooth, but i ended up being reall tired. The group that i always work with; The Lemurs, went across the street to the big park. We set up arts and crafts for the group to create something special. In the morning, i prepared for the big day at the park. That included, getting all the materials for the children to use, and worstly, pushing the heavy cart all the way to the park. It was nice for the people of San Francisco to see what the kids do. It was also benificial to me becuase i was able to meet more of the parents.
That day was really rough because the kids were not behaving. One of the kids; Ryan, amazed me because she wasnt listening and threw a temper tantrume. She was hitting the teachers, screaming, and causing a big scene. The teachers were getting irritated, including myself. However, what made it hard was the fact that Ryan was not the only one that wasnt listening or cooperating. I learned that not every day will be fun, but every day is a learning experience. Even if the kids are not always in a good mood, i still love them. I realize that they are kids, and even though they can turn on you(one minute, hey really want to be nice to you, and the next, they are not in a good mood), you still have to have to be aware that kids sometimes dont know that they change. Sometimes they dont realizze how they act, and for that you really cant be too mad at them. It will be really sad to leave here, and i have been thinking about being involved with C5, if they will have me. One of the teachers let me know about the Learning Night that was happening the next day(that thursday). Because i really love working with the kids, and love to see their growth, i wanted to go to the event to suport the kids. I was happy that ii went because i got closer with the parents, teachers, and even some of the kids. They were really happy to see me unexpectedly.
I went home really tired, but i enjoyed last week. I feel like the kids are getting closer to me every wednesday, and i dont want to loose the relationship that i built with each individual, whether good or bad. So, in that case i am going to end this.
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