Today, my main job was to figure out who amongst the Habitat for Humanity volunteers was a sexual predator. Apparently, Habitat International has a rule that a background check must be performed of all volunteers. If any are found to be sex offenders, they are not allowed to volunteer at Habitat for Humanity. Habitat Geauga had not been following this rule since... forever... and they figured it was time to get caught up. And what are high school interns for if not probing into the backgrounds of everyone there and discovering all the evil things they've done?
I was a bit uncomfortable doing my job since my views on the treatment of sex offenders conflicted with what I was doing. This was amplified in this situation since anyone who was a sex offender would not be able to volunteer at a non-profit organization, essentially punishing the homeless for their crimes. I had a paranoid fear that one of the most devoted volunteers would turn out to be a sex offender. Luckily for me, no one who volunteered at Habitat Geauga had a spotty criminal record, so I didn't have to make any deep moral choices.
Afterwards, I discovered that the tool box I had painted on Friday was not firmly attached to the newspaper it had been on top of when I painted it. The rest of my day was spent trying to remove the newspaper from the tool box, which I did not finish before I went home.
Tuesday, May 31, 2011
More Painting!
Ezgi and I finally muster enough courage to paint the top of the very high mural we are painting. We took turns holding the rusty old ladder for each other, while the other one painted the top of the wall. This task would have been to begin with but it was even more challenging in 95 degree heat. We were both dripping in sweat and paint. It was so hot that our painting trays melted in the sun. Ezgi ended up dropping a ton of paint in my hair, which was a disaster. Mainly I'm just hoping that we finish the wall tomorrow or else we are going to have to come back an finish another day. Unfortunately, Ezgi and I angered a hornet that had made its nest by our wall and it flew around, circling us. We were both very scared to paint the wall so we ended up working in the kitchen or about an hour until the hornet left. It was kind of scary though, we were both freaking out.
We did do yoga before we painted and my mom ended up joining the class, which was fun. Afterward she told me that she felt very relaxed and ready to tackle her day, which is why yoga is done. Donna, the teacher, told me that yoga is suppose to be done either at sunrise or at sunset. It should be done to start and end your day. This fact is because yoga brings peace to the body and mind and thus can set you up for a very good day or can help you end your day and prepare you for restful sleep.
We did do yoga before we painted and my mom ended up joining the class, which was fun. Afterward she told me that she felt very relaxed and ready to tackle her day, which is why yoga is done. Donna, the teacher, told me that yoga is suppose to be done either at sunrise or at sunset. It should be done to start and end your day. This fact is because yoga brings peace to the body and mind and thus can set you up for a very good day or can help you end your day and prepare you for restful sleep.
The Final Days at Karamu
Hello everyone I hope that the end of everyone's senior project is running smoothly!
As for me the last week and few days at Karamu have been kind of "blaaahhh" if that makes sense. I haven't really do many exciting things. Just really coming in and answering phones all day and occationally typing up something or making some flyers and brochures for upcoming programs and things of that nature. However, today and tomorrow we are going out on interviews at Collinwood High School as well as Ginn Academy. These are the interviews that I believe I talked about in my last post. They are for our Reality Theatre program in which we go out and do these interviews and then our resident playwright takes that information that the students gives and writes a play over the summer which will then be performed at those same schools in the fall. This year's theme of the play is all about being who you are and the places and people that affect who you are. I feel like it is going to be really interesting to hear what these teens are only a year or so younger than me talk about what makes them who they are and how their schools and teachers affect who they are. I'm interested to see if I would say some of the same things or not. These are public schools around the area and as we all know Hawken is private and in the middle of nowhere so I'm anxious to be able to make that comparison. I will be sure to let you all know how the interviews go and I'll probably even share with you a little bif of the comparisons that I found while sitting in a listening.
I will see you all Thursday at breakfast and then again Friday and then again for what is going to be one of the best days of our lives GRADUATION ON SUNDAY!
As for me the last week and few days at Karamu have been kind of "blaaahhh" if that makes sense. I haven't really do many exciting things. Just really coming in and answering phones all day and occationally typing up something or making some flyers and brochures for upcoming programs and things of that nature. However, today and tomorrow we are going out on interviews at Collinwood High School as well as Ginn Academy. These are the interviews that I believe I talked about in my last post. They are for our Reality Theatre program in which we go out and do these interviews and then our resident playwright takes that information that the students gives and writes a play over the summer which will then be performed at those same schools in the fall. This year's theme of the play is all about being who you are and the places and people that affect who you are. I feel like it is going to be really interesting to hear what these teens are only a year or so younger than me talk about what makes them who they are and how their schools and teachers affect who they are. I'm interested to see if I would say some of the same things or not. These are public schools around the area and as we all know Hawken is private and in the middle of nowhere so I'm anxious to be able to make that comparison. I will be sure to let you all know how the interviews go and I'll probably even share with you a little bif of the comparisons that I found while sitting in a listening.
I will see you all Thursday at breakfast and then again Friday and then again for what is going to be one of the best days of our lives GRADUATION ON SUNDAY!
Monday, May 30, 2011
Helping around the office
This Friday, Cheryl was busy doing work that she felt it was best if she did herself. As a result, I ended up helping people other than Cheryl for the most of the day. The only job I did for Cheryl was to paint one of the toolboxes that I had helped make early in my senior project. Though Dan wasn't asked by anyone to do so, he volunteered to help me with the painting. This was fortunate, since, unlike me, Dan actually had experience painting (certain events made me question whether or not Cheryl had an idea of how to go about painting, either; some people in the ReStore seemed to be confused by the direction she gave me).
After that job was done, I was given work by Meredith Ashkettle, the Restore manager. The first thing she had me do was alphabetize the receipts for donations that had been filled out. This job didn't take very long since since Meredith didn't give me that many sheets.
The next thing I had to do was make the receipt forms. Have you ever seen one of those sheets that has an identical sheet behind it that gets written on when you write on the front sheet? That's what I was making. Essentially, all I had to do was glue the front sheet to the back sheet. This job got boring incredibly fast, especially since I was doing it alone. However, once I was done, so was the day, and I headed home.
After that job was done, I was given work by Meredith Ashkettle, the Restore manager. The first thing she had me do was alphabetize the receipts for donations that had been filled out. This job didn't take very long since since Meredith didn't give me that many sheets.
The next thing I had to do was make the receipt forms. Have you ever seen one of those sheets that has an identical sheet behind it that gets written on when you write on the front sheet? That's what I was making. Essentially, all I had to do was glue the front sheet to the back sheet. This job got boring incredibly fast, especially since I was doing it alone. However, once I was done, so was the day, and I headed home.
Sunday, May 29, 2011
Robert's Senior Project- 12
My final post. I will just leave off by saying my project has been very valuable. It has taught me a lot about historical research and the Civil War. Its important to understand all of the documents out there that have not yet been discovered. There must be tons of stories and quotes in them that are one of a kind. If no one every sees these stories they will be lost to history. That is why I believe historical preservation is very important. We can learn so much from documents from the past. They are out there, we just have to look for them.
Robert's Senior Project- 11
So now I am working on my final set of documents, the collection of diary entries from throughout the Civil War. They are: the 1863, 1864, and 1865 diaries of John Watkins, and the 1864 diary of Michael Houck. Michael Houck is the relative of my sponsor, Chris Whipple. These entries are short, just a few sentences every day about what happened that day, but they are still useful because they are a day by day account of the 19th OVA in the Civil War. There is not much new information to be found in these documents, so what I am doing is comparing what is said in the entries to the 1878 book by Tracie. These are two different accounts of what happened, one written on the day and the other written years later, so it is understandable that there are some discrepancies. So for there is nothing major, only that Tracie appears to have gotten some dates mixed up, but it is still good to know if there are any differences. Unfortunately, due to time, it looks like I won't be able to get through everything, but I will do what I can.
Friday, May 27, 2011
Even More of the Same
Thursday came and went just like how I thought it would. After beginning to work on the third collection of works on Wednesday, Thursday was solely dedicated to finishing this task. So this day went on without much change from the last. Step one: flip current piece. Step two: record the data onto the papers provided. Step three: take some pictures of the piece for the online database. All of these steps made up my day. The only thing I guess that I can add to this topic is more on how it is to do this all day. I covered this before, but there may be some things that I could have left out, so bare with me. At first, the cataloging is occupying enough. Just keeping myself busy with what needs to be done. But after a while, it gets pretty draining. I can assume that this is because having such a large amount of things to get through is a pretty far away goal when chiseling away at the load one at a time. You know that you can’t stop the slowing down, but you won’t be able to do anything else unless you continue right on track. I’m sorry if I said any of this stuff in a previous post, but when doing this kind of a task for the entire week, you can’t really come up with anything else to say that hasn’t already been said.
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