I had a thought as I was driving home from the theatre today. I think I am going to start walking to the theatre and possibly home from as well. It's been two weeks and I feel comfortable with the area. I love walking, and it cuts down on environmental pollution; so, why not. Walking home will give me time to clear my head and just relax, not to mention that I will not end up a couch potato if I stay active.
No harm in that, right? Where's the irony? Well, no more than five minutes later, I walk into my house on Leverette. Anita and Mary are already home, and happen to be talking about an assault that happened yesterday or the day before. A sister (at least i think it was a sister) was assaulted getting into her car. The two men tried to shove her in the trunk, but she wouldn't fit because she kept a lot of junk in it. The men ended up breaking her nose and then driving off with her purse and car. Even more interesting is the fact that she never goes out after dark, so it had to have happened during the hours of daylight..
Old Tiger's Stadium is literally just down the street from me. Don't worry folks, I won't be walking anywhere anytime soon... much to my chagrin
31 August 2006
29 August 2006
Matrix Theatre= Heaven
As many of you know I am working part time at this little theatre in Detroit. Matrix Theatre truly is an amazing place. Shaun, the founder and executive director, wanted theatre to be accessible to everyone, and wanted there to be a place for the community to explore social concerns and the like through theatre. Quite an awesome concept if you ask me. My time here will be well spent and I am going to come out of the year with more experience than I had originally imagined.
After talking with Shaun about my interests, experience and future plans, we decided on projects for me have a great experience while still serving the community. Here is what we came up with:
-Costumes for "Boomtown 1925"
-Puppet Christmas Carol script work
-Mask-making after school program
-Stage Managing for "Jesus in da Hood"
-Something with Marsh Magic
-Creative Camp (an extension of marsh magic).
How cool is that?
For anyone wondering, Boomtown 1925 is a play that was written in one of the theatre workshops a couple years ago and this is the second or third time being performed here. It was written about and set in Detroit.
At times I feel a little guilty about loving my service so much, but at the same time I think it was me who said that I wanted to use my gifts to the best of my ability. I suppose it just fits.
As far as Mercy Education Project, I am working with the women's program, mostly one on one tutoring and helping out with the language/reading classes. Boy are they going to make good use of my English Degree. It was interesting reading through some of the test booklets and seeing what these women will be studying. I never realized just how much I take for granted in regards to my own language, and how hard it must be to learn if you did not grow up speaking it. Things like sentence structure, reading labels, telling time, punctuation, etc. are things I have never really though twice about knowing, yet these women struggle to learn them.
Working with these women is extremely humbling. It is amazing to hear their struggles and stories about how they finally decided that they wanted to go back to school. The work is not always easy... in fact it is never easy, but while I am helping them learn the basics of our wonderful language they are helping to teach me patience and appreciation.
After talking with Shaun about my interests, experience and future plans, we decided on projects for me have a great experience while still serving the community. Here is what we came up with:
-Costumes for "Boomtown 1925"
-Puppet Christmas Carol script work
-Mask-making after school program
-Stage Managing for "Jesus in da Hood"
-Something with Marsh Magic
-Creative Camp (an extension of marsh magic).
How cool is that?
For anyone wondering, Boomtown 1925 is a play that was written in one of the theatre workshops a couple years ago and this is the second or third time being performed here. It was written about and set in Detroit.
At times I feel a little guilty about loving my service so much, but at the same time I think it was me who said that I wanted to use my gifts to the best of my ability. I suppose it just fits.
As far as Mercy Education Project, I am working with the women's program, mostly one on one tutoring and helping out with the language/reading classes. Boy are they going to make good use of my English Degree. It was interesting reading through some of the test booklets and seeing what these women will be studying. I never realized just how much I take for granted in regards to my own language, and how hard it must be to learn if you did not grow up speaking it. Things like sentence structure, reading labels, telling time, punctuation, etc. are things I have never really though twice about knowing, yet these women struggle to learn them.
Working with these women is extremely humbling. It is amazing to hear their struggles and stories about how they finally decided that they wanted to go back to school. The work is not always easy... in fact it is never easy, but while I am helping them learn the basics of our wonderful language they are helping to teach me patience and appreciation.
JVs: The Other Volunteers
Last week we finally made contact with the Jesuit volunteers in the area. There are 8 of them. Wow, I wish I lived in that house. I have nothing against my roommates, believe me I love them. It's just that my house has a bit of a calm that I am not used to. Whether at home, the dorm, or my apartment, there was always something going on in my living space and so I am still adjusting to having a fairly quiet house. I will get used to it soon enough and quite possibly miss it when I am gone (not likely, but you never know). In any case, it is nice to have finally met more people near our age and with a lot of energy.
As I said, there are 8 of them. 5 girls (Logan, Elizabeth, Meg, Shannon and Sheila) and 3 guys (Tim, Paul, and Josh). I work with Shannon over at MEP and Anita works with Tim at OLG. Collectively they are so much fun to be around and individually interesting each in their own respect.
The first night we really met them as a whole was at Anita's OLG Picnic. The picnic itself was fun and eventful in the sense that we met alot of interesting people; most of them were spouses of Anita and Tim's coworkers. Much to my shagrin, I discovered that there is something in raw vegetables that I am allergic to, quite possibly a pesticide or chemical used on them. All I can say about this is that Maura is NOT happy about this new found allergy. Anyways, after the picnic, the JV's made a stop at our place. From there we walked to a bar that is down the street and around the corner, where one of Anita's coworkers was working that night. Of course, since we are living on a stipend, we only had 1-2 drinks.... not that I wanted any more than that, I am just saying. That night's little adventure was a great way to get to know the group, and we all had a lot of fun.
Monday night I went out with them again to a Martini Bar where Martinis are half price on Monday. Fair enough. I had a long day, wanted to go play and so I did. It was pouring by the time we got there, so one drink was good enough to warm us all up as we sat and chilled. Appearently the JV group carried on this tradition from last year's group. I can honestly say that I enjoy that tradition. We had fun, bonded and life is good.
I look forward to more adventures with these crazy JV kids...
As I said, there are 8 of them. 5 girls (Logan, Elizabeth, Meg, Shannon and Sheila) and 3 guys (Tim, Paul, and Josh). I work with Shannon over at MEP and Anita works with Tim at OLG. Collectively they are so much fun to be around and individually interesting each in their own respect.
The first night we really met them as a whole was at Anita's OLG Picnic. The picnic itself was fun and eventful in the sense that we met alot of interesting people; most of them were spouses of Anita and Tim's coworkers. Much to my shagrin, I discovered that there is something in raw vegetables that I am allergic to, quite possibly a pesticide or chemical used on them. All I can say about this is that Maura is NOT happy about this new found allergy. Anyways, after the picnic, the JV's made a stop at our place. From there we walked to a bar that is down the street and around the corner, where one of Anita's coworkers was working that night. Of course, since we are living on a stipend, we only had 1-2 drinks.... not that I wanted any more than that, I am just saying. That night's little adventure was a great way to get to know the group, and we all had a lot of fun.
Monday night I went out with them again to a Martini Bar where Martinis are half price on Monday. Fair enough. I had a long day, wanted to go play and so I did. It was pouring by the time we got there, so one drink was good enough to warm us all up as we sat and chilled. Appearently the JV group carried on this tradition from last year's group. I can honestly say that I enjoy that tradition. We had fun, bonded and life is good.
I look forward to more adventures with these crazy JV kids...
25 August 2006
A Tiger Tail
I am a baseball fan.
And what do baseball fans like to do?
Go to games. So, even though I am predominantly a Boston fan and the Detroit Tigers have never been one of my teams, as I sat in the stands on Tuesday night past I found myself rooting whole heartedly for the Tigers. What can I say really? I get into the game, and might I say that it is much too difficult to get into the game if you couldn't care less about either team. The game was fun, energetic in the stands but a little lackluster on the field. From my point of view, the fielders bailed Rogers out of quite a few sticky situations. Sadly the pitcher who went to ODU in Norfolk and now Pitches for the Tigers did not play in Tuesday's game. It was something about him playing the night before and needing rest. Bah to rest... For anyone who could not guess, I was joking with that last comment. In any case i wanted to see him play because Tom, my older brother was raving about him. He is apparently a brilliant pitcher and now I need to catch a game on TV if I want to see him play. All I can say is that if the Tigers get to the play offs and beyond, Detroit is going to go nuts. I can't wait!
Oh and let me clear something up. Anytime that I mention to someone, be it friends who know what I am doing here or volunteers from other organizations, something is always said about the fact that we have cable at my house. Apparently having cable is not constituted as living simply, nor is having dial up Internet. My response to that is: so what? The thing with the cable is that 3 years ago the Bishop heard that the Mercy volunteers did not have Cable and since you can get maybe one channel with out cable (and not a very good one at that), and he wanted the volunteers to be able to keep up with whats going on in the world (since the news papers here suck) he decided to buy cable for us. Okay so maybe I choose to use it to watch Project Runway once a week, or an occasional Daily Show with John Stewart... the point is that I am keeping up with some part of the world or some facet of culture. And who knows... If Anita finds that she is totally out of the loop with the girls she is working with, then maybe we will have to educate ourselves in the wonders of hip-hop and pop culture. If it comes down to that, I certainly consider that work as part of my ministry... because certainly little miss white girl from the suburbs of Virginia knows nothing about hip-hop and rap which happens to be a rather large part of today's kids culture.
As for the dial-up Internet, if you have never actually been exposed to dial-up then you might consider it a commodity. In fact, it is not in any way a commodity... except maybe that it costs a bit more than cable Internet, and it allows you to be connected to the outside world. It is slow, time consuming, and honestly it makes me not want to go anywhere within a 30 foot radius of the computer at our house, which is why we have Internet at work. Not only these, but you can't talk on the phone at the same time as being on the Internet. This means that if anyone wants to try to call us at home, which happens on occasion, no one can get through. So despite the fact that we have Internet, I try desperately not to have to use it when I am at home.
I, instead, spend much of my free time drawing, writing, reading, working on puzzles (my MVC group has an unusual attachment to puzzles... maybe I will explain in my next blog), and other various activities of simple living. And, let me just say that I feel I do a much better job at living the "simple life" than does Paris Hilton or Nicole Richie.
And what do baseball fans like to do?
Go to games. So, even though I am predominantly a Boston fan and the Detroit Tigers have never been one of my teams, as I sat in the stands on Tuesday night past I found myself rooting whole heartedly for the Tigers. What can I say really? I get into the game, and might I say that it is much too difficult to get into the game if you couldn't care less about either team. The game was fun, energetic in the stands but a little lackluster on the field. From my point of view, the fielders bailed Rogers out of quite a few sticky situations. Sadly the pitcher who went to ODU in Norfolk and now Pitches for the Tigers did not play in Tuesday's game. It was something about him playing the night before and needing rest. Bah to rest... For anyone who could not guess, I was joking with that last comment. In any case i wanted to see him play because Tom, my older brother was raving about him. He is apparently a brilliant pitcher and now I need to catch a game on TV if I want to see him play. All I can say is that if the Tigers get to the play offs and beyond, Detroit is going to go nuts. I can't wait!
Oh and let me clear something up. Anytime that I mention to someone, be it friends who know what I am doing here or volunteers from other organizations, something is always said about the fact that we have cable at my house. Apparently having cable is not constituted as living simply, nor is having dial up Internet. My response to that is: so what? The thing with the cable is that 3 years ago the Bishop heard that the Mercy volunteers did not have Cable and since you can get maybe one channel with out cable (and not a very good one at that), and he wanted the volunteers to be able to keep up with whats going on in the world (since the news papers here suck) he decided to buy cable for us. Okay so maybe I choose to use it to watch Project Runway once a week, or an occasional Daily Show with John Stewart... the point is that I am keeping up with some part of the world or some facet of culture. And who knows... If Anita finds that she is totally out of the loop with the girls she is working with, then maybe we will have to educate ourselves in the wonders of hip-hop and pop culture. If it comes down to that, I certainly consider that work as part of my ministry... because certainly little miss white girl from the suburbs of Virginia knows nothing about hip-hop and rap which happens to be a rather large part of today's kids culture.
As for the dial-up Internet, if you have never actually been exposed to dial-up then you might consider it a commodity. In fact, it is not in any way a commodity... except maybe that it costs a bit more than cable Internet, and it allows you to be connected to the outside world. It is slow, time consuming, and honestly it makes me not want to go anywhere within a 30 foot radius of the computer at our house, which is why we have Internet at work. Not only these, but you can't talk on the phone at the same time as being on the Internet. This means that if anyone wants to try to call us at home, which happens on occasion, no one can get through. So despite the fact that we have Internet, I try desperately not to have to use it when I am at home.
I, instead, spend much of my free time drawing, writing, reading, working on puzzles (my MVC group has an unusual attachment to puzzles... maybe I will explain in my next blog), and other various activities of simple living. And, let me just say that I feel I do a much better job at living the "simple life" than does Paris Hilton or Nicole Richie.
24 August 2006
Introductions to the Motor City
Life here in the Motor City has been quite nice thus far. Though I have only been here a week, I already feel at home. This just goes to show that home is truly where the heart is, and not merely where you have lived your life. I am living in a quaint 19th century row house in Corktown. Corktown is the oldest still existing neighborhood and if you can not tell from the name, it was originally an Irish community. Already we have met a majority of our neighbors; they are extremely friendly and welcoming even though we are strangers to their community.
As I said, our house is cute and looks like a house you would see in movies as a host for Victorian house parties. I am obsessed with our stairs. The front ones are nice, but the ones i am absolutely in love with are the back set taking you upstairs from the kitchen. You see, back when it was first built, those stairs would take you up to the servant's quarters. Now they just lead up to my room, the former servant's quarters. Currently my room is lovely, not too big and not too small. I have long flowing curtains that seem to give my room a very whimsical feel. But do you expect any less from me? The other 2 bedrooms upstairs are larger than mine, but I think mine has character. The forth room is what we are currently using as a community/ computer/ spirituality/ study room. In the even that my room is unbearably cold in the winter, the front room will become mine. Personally I think it is too big, but on the plus side it has a gorgeous bay window. Hopefully it doesn't come down to me switching rooms.
My roommates are interesting in their own respect. Three of us live together in our wonderful, quirky, corktown house. Anita is my age, also a recent college graduate who aspires to go to Medical School Next year. She is already spending a lot of time working on applications and essays. In the area, Anita has an aunt who meddles professionally and so Anita is still trying to explain 1. our mission here in Detroit for the year, and 2. that she doesn't want to go to Wayne State for Medical School. Makes life interesting I suppose. For the year, Anita will be working at an all Girl Middle school where she will be in charge of the library and supervising the tutoring and after school programs. One day a week she will teach dance to the girls. Anita and I get along quite well, and since our other roommate goes to bed at 8pm every night we have had A LOT of bonding time. I have carried on my roommates' and my tradition of watching Project Runway and crocheting/ knitting with Anita. After only two episodes, she is already hooked onto the show. If i have any say in it, the whole world will know about Project Runway. In turn she has introduced me to John Stewart's Nightly Report and we both agree that it is absolutely brilliant. So, if we both happen to still be up at 11pm we watch John together.
Mary is our other roommate. She is an older woman from Maine and is quite a character if you ask me. I do mean character in a good way. Mary is outspoken and will always say what is on her mind, whether she needs to or not. I think that is a great characteristic to have, though I myself do not possess that quality. As I said, she goes to bed at 8pm, which leaves little bonding time by the time she gets home from work. Fortunately for me, I work with her Wednesday - Friday mornings at Mercy Education Project where we will be helping to tutor women who are trying to achieve their GEDs. The other part of her day is spent working at the Bishop's Peace and Justice office with a Spastic Nun, Sister Rita Mary. Despite her hyper activeness, we love Sister Rita Mary. She is and has been absolutely wonderful to us. The interesting thing about Mary is that she has absolutely no sense of direction and has gotten lost twice on her way home from the Bishop's office. One night she didn't have her cell phone with her, so we had no idea where she was. The second time it happened, she called me and I ended up sprawled across our living room floor on top of a map trying to figure out where she was and how to get her home. Fortunately for her I have a great sense of direction, so when I am in the car we don't get lost.
As for me, we all know that I too have my quirks and so I won't go into detail. I can say though that I have become the one in the house to 1. remember every one's schedules before they remember their own, 2. remember to write a birthday card for everyone from orientation, 3. wake up first and go to sleep last. I know... no one guessed that any of those roles would be taken by me. On the plus side though, I have learned to navigate the city pretty well already; so at least i am good for something. My ministry while here is working at MEP (which i already explained) and working at Matrix Theatre Company. I absolutely love Matrix. It is an awesome theatre whose mission is to make theatre more accessible to the lower classes. What a concept, I love it. They work primarily with puppets, and my current project until things really pick back up again is to work on a script for a puppet version of "A Christmas Carol." I am such a nerd, I know, but its dickens and i get to write a script to puppetify it. Did i mention that i LOVE Dickens? Clearly not as much as Shakespeare, but I still love him and my all time favorite book is Tale of Two Cities. Yeah, again I am a nerd. Other than this project, I will be doing a little bit of everything around there, so i am incredibly excited.
Oh, and if I didn't mention before, our house in Corktown is right down the street from old Tigers Stadium. Very nice location.
As I said, our house is cute and looks like a house you would see in movies as a host for Victorian house parties. I am obsessed with our stairs. The front ones are nice, but the ones i am absolutely in love with are the back set taking you upstairs from the kitchen. You see, back when it was first built, those stairs would take you up to the servant's quarters. Now they just lead up to my room, the former servant's quarters. Currently my room is lovely, not too big and not too small. I have long flowing curtains that seem to give my room a very whimsical feel. But do you expect any less from me? The other 2 bedrooms upstairs are larger than mine, but I think mine has character. The forth room is what we are currently using as a community/ computer/ spirituality/ study room. In the even that my room is unbearably cold in the winter, the front room will become mine. Personally I think it is too big, but on the plus side it has a gorgeous bay window. Hopefully it doesn't come down to me switching rooms.
My roommates are interesting in their own respect. Three of us live together in our wonderful, quirky, corktown house. Anita is my age, also a recent college graduate who aspires to go to Medical School Next year. She is already spending a lot of time working on applications and essays. In the area, Anita has an aunt who meddles professionally and so Anita is still trying to explain 1. our mission here in Detroit for the year, and 2. that she doesn't want to go to Wayne State for Medical School. Makes life interesting I suppose. For the year, Anita will be working at an all Girl Middle school where she will be in charge of the library and supervising the tutoring and after school programs. One day a week she will teach dance to the girls. Anita and I get along quite well, and since our other roommate goes to bed at 8pm every night we have had A LOT of bonding time. I have carried on my roommates' and my tradition of watching Project Runway and crocheting/ knitting with Anita. After only two episodes, she is already hooked onto the show. If i have any say in it, the whole world will know about Project Runway. In turn she has introduced me to John Stewart's Nightly Report and we both agree that it is absolutely brilliant. So, if we both happen to still be up at 11pm we watch John together.
Mary is our other roommate. She is an older woman from Maine and is quite a character if you ask me. I do mean character in a good way. Mary is outspoken and will always say what is on her mind, whether she needs to or not. I think that is a great characteristic to have, though I myself do not possess that quality. As I said, she goes to bed at 8pm, which leaves little bonding time by the time she gets home from work. Fortunately for me, I work with her Wednesday - Friday mornings at Mercy Education Project where we will be helping to tutor women who are trying to achieve their GEDs. The other part of her day is spent working at the Bishop's Peace and Justice office with a Spastic Nun, Sister Rita Mary. Despite her hyper activeness, we love Sister Rita Mary. She is and has been absolutely wonderful to us. The interesting thing about Mary is that she has absolutely no sense of direction and has gotten lost twice on her way home from the Bishop's office. One night she didn't have her cell phone with her, so we had no idea where she was. The second time it happened, she called me and I ended up sprawled across our living room floor on top of a map trying to figure out where she was and how to get her home. Fortunately for her I have a great sense of direction, so when I am in the car we don't get lost.
As for me, we all know that I too have my quirks and so I won't go into detail. I can say though that I have become the one in the house to 1. remember every one's schedules before they remember their own, 2. remember to write a birthday card for everyone from orientation, 3. wake up first and go to sleep last. I know... no one guessed that any of those roles would be taken by me. On the plus side though, I have learned to navigate the city pretty well already; so at least i am good for something. My ministry while here is working at MEP (which i already explained) and working at Matrix Theatre Company. I absolutely love Matrix. It is an awesome theatre whose mission is to make theatre more accessible to the lower classes. What a concept, I love it. They work primarily with puppets, and my current project until things really pick back up again is to work on a script for a puppet version of "A Christmas Carol." I am such a nerd, I know, but its dickens and i get to write a script to puppetify it. Did i mention that i LOVE Dickens? Clearly not as much as Shakespeare, but I still love him and my all time favorite book is Tale of Two Cities. Yeah, again I am a nerd. Other than this project, I will be doing a little bit of everything around there, so i am incredibly excited.
Oh, and if I didn't mention before, our house in Corktown is right down the street from old Tigers Stadium. Very nice location.
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