ASB Reflections

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Day 1 (Looking at the glass half full)

Ah, what an eventful start to our ASB trip! Well, for me it started even earlier since I was out of bed at 8 am and had to catch my bus from Baltimore to New York. This was my first time travelling to New York on my own and as nerve wrecking of a task as that seems, I was excited.

Our group met up at the Main Concourse of the Penn Station as planned. After that long journey I just wanted to come to the hotel and unwind; little did i know that this was only half the travelling for today. It took us quite a while to first find the subway station and then the right platform. Going up and down flights of stairs with luggage made up for all the exercise I missed during the winter break.

However, even during these hard times the team stuck together and didn’t panic. Everyone was tired from the journey but all of us had come with a positive attitude that would not be shattered so easily. I feel like these dire moments actually made us more united, so not a bad way to start an ASB trip with the team!

After finally reaching the hotel, we decided to eat out for dinner since no one had the energy to prepare a meal. Dinner table conversations were uplifting and made us forget about the hardships we faced earlier. I’m excited for the rest of the trip and am confident that our unity will stand the challenges of the Big Apple!

-Tahaimage

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DAY 1

After an early morning of airport lines and traveling our team finally made it to Chicago! We are so excited to be here and to finally be putting all our semester long work into action. We spent the day planning the logistics for the week, not forgetting which night we are going to have Chicago deep dish pizza, of course. We also saved some time for some more learning. We watched a documentary on wards of the state that was very moving.

I believe our group is very prepared for our week of service, but I also know that there is a lot more to be learned. I hope we all keep open minds and try to absorb as much information as we can so we can further our own knowledge and make this truly an unforgettable experience.

I know this group has the right passion, heart, and work ethic to not only make a difference in Chicago, but to take what we learn and make a difference back home too, and that is what I hope we are able to accomplish.

-Lauren

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The historical context of Foxy Brown (1970s)

I compiled a short list of important events and movements, but hopefully we can talk more about the defining factors of the 1970s in class.

Fighting for Women’s Rights
During the 1970s, there were more feminist organizations such as consciousness-raising groups, rape crisis centers, and abortion clinics. In 1971, the Supreme Court case Reed v. Reed declared sex discrimination a violation of the 14th amendment. In 1973, Roe vs Wade legalized Abortion in the U.S. with a 7-2 decision.

The Antiwar Movement
When the United States invaded Cambodia in 1970, however, hundreds of thousands of protestors clogged city streets and shut down college campuses. On May 4, National Guardsmen shot four student demonstrators at an antiwar rally at Kent State University in Ohio. Ten days later, police officers killed two black student protestors at Mississippi’s Jackson State University.

The Watergate Scandal
In June 1972, police found five burglars from Nixon’s own Committee to Re-Elect the President in the office of the Democratic National Committee, located in the Watergate office building. Soon, they found that Nixon himself was involved in the crime: He had demanded that the Federal Bureau of Investigation stop investigating the break-in and told his aides to cover up the scandal.
In April 1974, a Congressional committee approved three articles of impeachment: obstruction of justice, misuse of federal agencies and defying the authority of Congress. Before Congress could impeach him, however, President Nixon announced that he would resign.
Counterculture
Counterculture youth rejected the cultural standards of their parents, especially with respect to racial segregation and widespread support for the Vietnam War. Young people turned instead to pop culture; they listened to Donna Summer and Marvin Gaye; and smoked even more pot than they had in the 1960s.In general, by the end of the decade, many young people simply did as they pleased: to wear what they wanted, to grow their hair long, to have sex, to do drugs.

http://www.history.com/topics/1970s

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The Rain Never Bothered Us Anyway

Every day I have peered into the art room, hoping for a glimpse of the masterpieces the girls and boys have created. Finally, I was in the right place at the right time, when the art teacher walked into the teachers lounge. When she offered the opportunity to look into her class, the art major in me had to stop myself from sprinting down the hall. I helped her remove the very abstract clay turtles from the kiln so that the third graders could paint them. To be honest, I think I was more excited than the students. Besides the fact art was being made, it was an opportunity to observe them in a different setting. I have played with these children for the past 4 days, and seen how effective Playworks is there. However it was nice to see how the skills they have developed outside translate to the classroom. Today we also helped to prepare a garden for the students to plant later on. The knowledge of all things that our Living Learning Partner, Tim, has came in handy when we casually built an irrigation system. It was tested when it rained soon after. Because of the rain, we played penguin tag in the first graders classrooms, which was adorable. When it was over, I tried to leave and I got swarmed by children and couldn’t move. Naturally the only thing to do in a situation like that is to turn onto an iceberg until Tim heroically used his magical polar bear abilities to save me. Before it rained, I ended with a soccer game of Volunteers vs. Students. We narrowly lost by one, which was impressive because there were 4 of us and 30 of them! Despite the rain, it was another great day of service and I am excited for tomorrow!

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4 on 3

We started our day at the school garden. We spent the morning weeding, cleaning and preparing the garden for the kids to plant in. As the gardening was going on Julia got on her knees proposed to Marissa and Marissa said yes and accepted the grass ring due to lack of better options. I spent the last 10 minutes of this period annoying Bowden just because. After lunch we had recess as usual and it went smoothly. I played penguin tag with first graders and still managed to get tagged two minutes into the game. Forth graders didn’t seem to be very excited about “fishy fishy cross my ocean” but we managed to get some people to play and follow the rules. The rain brought down my energy level but soon recess ended we moved on to making anti bullying posters. Kaitlin’s artistic talents made this process easy and everyone else pretty much traced. However, Dale was eager to take control of his own life so he made the poster without much help. I colored the letters… Our drive back to chestnut Ridge was brightened by Zack’s beautiful voice. After devouring chicken fried rice and pumpkin cheesecake we watched the Lafayette Basketball game. Good job. Nice try boys. We ended the night after reflection and a painful game of mafia.

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Happy hump day! It’t the third day of our service and I am still keeping the energy going!
The special project of the day is to create a walking path at the school’s bus stop site for children and staffs to exercise. In the morning session, our team divided into different specialty groups which includes measuring the path’s length, creating footprint stencils, and marking the pathways with chalks. After recess sessions, we continued the project by coating the footprint trace with yellow paints. During recess, I already saw kids walking around the unfinished path, and nothing could compare to the satisfaction that the kids’ smiles can give me.
It stroke me today that it had been an amazing learning experience working with this diverse team. As Mary pointed out during reflection, we have people who are good at maths and calculations, people who excels on the recess soccer fields, and people that are artistically talented. ASB has drawn people from different fields together to tackle the same goal; we divide and conquer!

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North Carolina just got……..colder

Hump Day!! Another interesting day of ASB! While working with the kids today, I had a couple of unique expierences.  Between trying to stay warm (so much colder today), playing flag tag with a 4:1 ratio, and a particular awkward encounter. An encounter where I needed to reconsider my efforts.

As as recess began for the third time of the day, Fatima and I began to jump rope with a group of kids. As I attempted and failed to jump rope, one of the kids didn’t talk much. I introduced myself and thier was no response. The kid’s shirt was in all spainish and as a grip up we were told a language barrier would be present, so, I assumed this student did not speak English. Attempting to get past the language barrier, I decided to speak Spainish. After about 2 sentences of “Spainish”, the student politely told me they could speak English. So the student was just quiet and I assumed wrong…..that’s not akward……

All in all, I overcame the little akward occurrence and it was a good day. After this incident, I had a good conversation with the student; however, I’m sure I learned more than her. I learned more about her and a very simple thing: Don’t judge a book by it’s cover.

 

 

 

 

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Zach and Bo: Recess Celebrities

Today was a super eventful day here in North Carolina. It was our second day of service, and I had a great time. We started off organizing the physical education closet in the morning. At first it seemed like an overwhelming and impossible task, but we worked well as a team and finished the job in two hours. It looks awesome now and it’ll be a lot easier to find supplies. The cleaning of the supply closet was followed by 3 and a half hours of recess. I didn’t realize how tiring it would be but it was really fun. I played soccer and flag tag with the students. Zach and Bo are like celebrities here and are constantly being pulled to play different games. The students still only refer to Zach as “Zach Efron,” and I can think of at least 5 girls that have a crush on Bo. Their egoes are getting out of control (totally kidding). We participated in a co-ed volleyball practice after recess. The positivity and support of the students towards one another was awesome! Every time someone made a mistake (including me because I messed up SO much) the students would tell me that it was a nice try. It’s inspiring to see this level of maturity at such a young age. After practice, we came back to our camp and ate dinner and then Luis taught us how to dance! I didn’t realize it was possible to have as much rhythm as he does. I was definitely impressed. That’s it for today, but I’m really excited for tomorrow!

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Taking it in, recovery

After a week of exams, interesting sleep cycles, and a plethora of exciment, we finally set out to North Carolina!!!

Our first day, started with some rain, some people that couldn’t get their bags to the meeting place because they overpacked (Dale!), and some dunking donuts.

Over the trip we ran into some complications, some of us forgot the color of lemons, some learned how to pump gas, and others thought that going against the Wall of Flame was a good idea.

When we got into Virginia, (which felt like Maryland btw) we stopped for food at California Tortilla. Best Mexican Food In The Nation (according to Marissa). We walked in and discovered their Wall of Fame, or should I say Wall of Flame. A collection of the tastiest, hottest, and craziest sauces in the world.

I was feeling adventurous and along with Kaitlin took on the challenge to find the hottest sause of ’em all. We started with a tasty lime Chalula. This wasn’t hot enough, and so we moved to Original Death Sauce (with chipotle) and a flaming smiling skull. We were ready for it, this was it, we poured some into our burritos, and after a toss took our first bite. This “Death Sauce” seemed so primising, I picked it up with the promise of a chanllenge, but I got nothing, it was mildly hotter than average hot sauce, but it certainly did not live up to its name.

Feeling accomplished at mocking Death, I walked back to the Wall of Flame looking for the next one. After thoughtfyl searching I came across Endorphin Rush. A name that was there to attract me, I’m sure. When I tried it, I felt a flame light up, the burrito suddenly had taking a spirit of its own and it was alive protesting to not be eaten, it was an intense fight. It was like biting into a fresh, ripe, habanero. All was white, white pain, I felt it in the back of my thoat, it was the sneaky kind, it goes by unnoticed, until it’s too late, until you have committed to swallowing the bite, and then the real punch takes you by surprise on its way down.

Let’s just say that 7 hours later I was still recovering.

Right now we’re on the hunt for the next Endorphin Rush.

 

 

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The chirping of Bo’s Cousins

Imagine being on spring break and waking up as if you have an 8 am but with the excitement of a 9 year old just before recess which is exactly what we all were. The first day volunteering at the school and we were all pumped with energy. Honestly speaking, I did not expect myself to become as tired as I did but I guess after four hours of playing with little kids, one would kind of want to just nap, even on a blacktop. Thankfully, by 7 pm, I had eaten and showered(SUCH AN AMAZING FEELING). But the night was far from over. We headed out deeper into the forest to a bonfire area to the sound of chirping crickets and beetles(whatever sound they make but Bo recognized them as his cousins).From roasting S’mores to mad lib horror stories to light writing, it was definitely a night to remember. Although, I was so tired by the time we came back to the cabin that i fell asleep on the couch(just an average day for me though).