"Because Love is an Act of Courage, Not of Fear, Love is a Commitment to Others. No Matter Where the Oppressed are Found, the Act of Love is Commitment to Their Cause-- the Cause of Liberation." ~Paulo Freire

Blue Screen of Death!

So, right after I saved my last blog entry, this happened...

I get a new (used) computer soon, thanks to University of La Verne and the anonymous donor who contributed the money toward technology!  Thanks, guys!  All the kids' computers are being installed and updated first, which is perfect, because it gives me time to prepare for the changeover.

Guest Presentation

One of our high school students came to us a few weeks ago and asked if she and her group would be able to give a presentation to our older students in the program, for a class.  Unfortunately, her family moved this past weekend, which was quite a shock to everyone, but she still coordinated her group coming over to give the presentation.  They educated our students on eating disorders, with some editing, in advance, from staff.  I caught the tail end of it and I was pretty impressed with their presenting abilities.  I could not have presented so well at their age.  Or even in college!

Girl Troubles
One of our more troublesome junior high students came in dramatically on Monday, with woes of rejection by not one, but two different girls that day.  One girl was just getting over a breakup with her boyfriend (so I told him he didn't want to be a rebound anyway) and the other just flat out rejected him, to which his response is, "So I hate her."  I explained to him that that's not the best reaction to rejection, so we're working on it.

On Tuesday, the drama was surrounding our 2nd and 3rd graders.  Apparently, one of the girls likes one of the boys, and she's not shy about it.  But the boy likes a different girl.  But that's not changing this girl's mind!  Oh no!  Well, I explained to the boy that him liking someone else doesn't stop her from liking him, and he didn't have to like her back, but he did have to be nice to her.

Art in Action
Monday's art project for our K-3rd graders was creating pinwheels.  I wasn't able to be present for that portion of their day, but one of them did leave one behind (by accident).

It lives in the Sign In Rm now.

Tuesday was a very windy day.  So as we were waiting for more kids to come, one of my girls decided to test the pinwheel!  It took awhile, but we finally got it to work at the same time that I was recording.  Enjoy!

I really hope that worked.

Some of our junior highers complained on Tuesday that the little kids get to do fun crafts, but they don't.  So I figured it was a good craft for the 4th-6th graders to do on Wednesday.  :-)

Group Pic
Tuesday, we also did group pictures!  One of our awesome volunteers brought in his fancy camera and took several pictures for us, to be used on different occasions.  Here's the one I took with my phone of our K-12th grade students in attendance that day.  His pictures will be better.

This is the good one from my phone.

...and then something happened.

Wear Pink Wednesday
I was told that since the 10 year anniversary of Mean Girls was happening on Wednesday, if I didn't wear pink that day, "You can't sit with us!"  So I remembered to wear pink and to tell my sister, who was volunteering that day.  I did have to give at least one reminder that we are not, in fact, mean girls.  But I think we may have an all girls "Mean Girls" viewing party at my house soon!

My House
Speaking of my house, I did more work this weekend.  I'm starting to think it will never end.  If that's the case, please no one tell me.

My plan was to finally clean out the last room in which everything was being thrown as I was unpacking.  It was originally a guest bedroom/library, but it's devolved into a closet very quickly.

I needed to get stuff with which to organize it all first!  So I spent more money than I wanted to at Big Lots and spent the rest of the day constructing furniture to have some place to store things.  (There was next to no storage available in my bathroom before.)

Storage in the bathroom!

...AND in the bedroom, because I wasn't sure how much space I had in the bathroom.

Long story short, my plan for THIS weekend is to clean out the last room in which everything was being thrown as I was unpacking. :-/

Too Hot to Garden
It was VERY hot this week, but worse than the heat (which Miss Barb was planning on working around by keeping everyone in the shade and bringing lemonade), was the air quality because of the Etiwanda fire.  It wasn't super close, we couldn't see plumes of smoke or anything, but the smell is everywhere and schools across several cities in between here and there didn't let kids out for recess because of it.

Luckily, Miss Barb is a master planner and her lesson for the day was easily moved inside.  The kids happily got to eat food from the garden in an air conditioned room (we only have two, so it was a treat!).

And it was delicious!

Let There Be Light
Someone wrote a book about us!

Ok, not really.  One of our former Summer Interns and current long-time volunteer wrote her senior thesis in part about her experiences with our kids and what she learned about the correlation between social justice and arts education while serving here (among other places).  She gave us a copy, which I haven't had a chance to read all of yet, but so far, I like what I have read!  She even dedicated it to "my students at Pomona Hope."

She took over Art with our 4th-6th graders earlier this semester to talk with them about their experiences and relating it to colored light filters which is used in stage lighting.  After that, and not for the sake of her thesis, she used art time to teach those same students how to write their names with flashlights and a long-exposure capable camera.  The results were pretty cool!

So, in honor of our wonderful volunteer and my former mentee, I'm breaking from my tradition of titling these posts with something to do about hope, and using her quote about love and commitment.  Because, really, without love, what is hope?  And as a self-proclaimed expert in other people's quotes, I'd have to say that this is a pretty good one.