“Hope Finds its Fulfillment When Nurtured Through Faith and Shared With Love.” ~ Mollie Marti

Been a couple weeks since my last update.  After telling everyone to be careful not to get sick, I turned around and got sick.  Typical.  So I had a terrible cough and a fever and missed a day and a half of work before I got tired of lying around doing nothing.

Funny Stories

My first full day back to work, I didn't have much of a voice.  One of our more precocious 1st graders started chastising me for being there.

Some of our cuties (Troopers)

Her: Are you sick?  Why are you here?  You shouldn't be here!  Why are you here?
Me: I missed you guys.
Her: Awww, that's sweet!

Later that day, one of the 3rd graders came up to give me a cough drop.

Me: What's this for?
Her: My mom gives it to me when my throat hurts.
Me: Do you think my throat hurts?
Her: Yes.

I love these kids!



Coordinating

Extra math practice is always good.

I got to coordinate the program a couple days over the past couple weeks.  Last Thursday, Emily took the time off during the program to spend time with her parents, who were in town.  Well deserved, I must say. I also coordinated yesterday so that she could get extra work done and meet with a Board member.

Both days I coordinated, the kids who normally stay for the extra hour of homework at the end finished early!  Last week, the one remaining kid opted to study math flash cards with the rest of her time, rather than go home early.





Board Game Day!

The kids had this Monday off of school for Lincoln's Birthday (and they have next Monday off as well!), and then they had Tuesday off for one of California's infamous furlough days.  We normally close the program on the days that they don't have school, since they won't have homework those days, and that takes up a good chunk of their day with us.  But so many days off in such a short amount of time seemed excessive to us, so we opened the program on Tuesday anyway, and instead of homework time, the kids played board games!  It was great.  I got to play Yahtzee with a 3rd grader who had never played before.  She said that it was hard, but fun!

Battleship!

Figuring out how to play Takeoff

Takeoff-- I had this game as a kid!

Playing UNO

I swear we played it.  This picture is from the day before!

While setting up the games on Monday, I found Wizard's Chess!  I feel like I'm the only one nerdy enough around here to be excited by this.  But I'm posting the pictures anyway, dagnabit.

AND they played!

They played regular chess too, and other games not pictured here.  I regret (but only a little) that I was too busy playing games with the kids to take pictures of our K-3rd graders playing games too.  But they played Yahtzee, Junior Scrabble, Guess Who, Sequence, LIFE, and chess.

The great thing about board games is that they teach the kids all kids of things (math, colors, counting, probability, spelling, geography, strategy, following rules, budgeting, etc.), while the kids have fun.  And they really did seem to have fun.  I hope we can do it more often.

One More Training

I had to postpone a training because I was sick, so I ended up doing that one this week.  I trained an education consultant who is going to help us figure out how to improve the program to retain older students.  He had visited the building once before.  What he told his wife about it was that it reminded him of Hogwarts.  One more reason to get excited about finding Wizard's Chess!

Painted on the wall of the Cave.

Bible Study

I also managed to come down with a terrible migraine this week that hit really hard about halfway through the Bible Study on Tuesday, so I'm not sure what exactly was said, or how effective it was, but I do know it was about Hagar, and I'm posting my notes to the "Bible Study" page above.

So, moral of the story:  It's been a rough couple weeks, health-wise.  But I still love these kids.

"Be Joyful in Hope, Patient in Affliction, Faithful in Prayer." ~ Romans 12:12

Looking back on it, this week could be considered a rough week.  Only one of the days seemed rough at the time, but it felt like there were fewer wins overall this week than usual.

Tuesday, I stepped in as the Program Coordinator for about an hour.  I  also had one student in particular who was absolutely driving me crazy.  He argued with everything I said to him, and some things I didn't say to him.  Normally, when it's that constant, I would give the kids a warning, but he didn't even realize he was doing it!  And when I pointed out that he was arguing with me, his reaction was, "No, I'm not."  ARGH!!  He's not normally like that.  I'm chalking it up to him having a particularly chatty day and not carrying it around with me forever, but on that day, I was feeling like his special project.

Wednesday was better.  I was not as hesitant to give warnings and it turns out, they (meaning any and all the kids) only needed one.  Ok, so that was the problem (maybe).  I'll just have to remember that next time!  Sad that I had to give out warnings, but glad that it stopped at one.  Count as win.

On Thursday, I had one of our kids confided in me, through tears, that he basically blames himself for his mother's miscarriage when he was a baby, because if she wasn't carrying him, she wouldn't have fallen.  She never blamed him or told him it was his fault, and I told him that if she knew that he thought that, I bet she would be really sad.  I also shared with him about a loss in my family when I was very young that I often felt blamed for, and then he needed to learn a lot sooner than I did that it wasn't his fault, it couldn't have been, because he was a baby.  Then we had a group hug and he smiled again.  So that one I count as a win.

Thursday was also the day that the kid who drove me crazy on Tuesday apologized to me!  What?!

Friday was a busy day.  After leaving my morning job, I led a volunteer training for someone we may partner with to provide more volunteers during the homework/tutoring times.  He seemed really excited about it, and hopefully it will all work out very well!  We'll be getting volunteers from CalPoly, so that will really expand our volunteer base.

Friday was also the day of our first High School Girls Bible Study (we're working on a name).  At least it was supposed to be.  But despite the seeming excitement from each of the girls every time I reminded them earlier in the week, no one showed up.  They all had valid excuses (school events, family issues), but it was disappointing because I was probably a little too excited about it.  So maybe it's a good thing that it's getting postponed, so I don't overwhelm them.  And it did give me a chance to fall asleep early... after dogsitting.  Yeah, I'm that cool.  In my defense, it had been a looooooong couple of weeks.  Anyway, not getting discouraged.  Still trying for a meeting again next week (I think this will all work out better when we can have it on Tuesday nights and all of our girls can be there).  This thing WILL happen!



Gotta keep telling myself this...

Next week should be better.  These kids always surprise me.  And I start getting paid (at quarter time... which actually means I'll be cutting the hours I'm helping out back for while)!  This will almost double my current income (yes, quarter time at a nonprofit where I'm fundraising my own salary will almost double my income from a City government where I'm working half-time).  Sign of the times...

There's always a silver lining though, right?  That's why there's a saying.