Why I Do It
How many jobs can you serve/work over 40 hours in 4 days and still have a smile on your face (not for the upcoming weekend, but because doing your job makes you happy)? After a long day yesterday, I was amazed that despite working 4 straight days of 9 hours or more, I still was biking home with a smile on my face and excited about going to school on Friday as well as taking kids ice skating on Saturday.
So here' s the story of why yesterday, despite being exhausted and being away from my house for 14 hours I still ended the day primed for the next day. My day at school wasn't perfect by any means. I had to sit down with one of the students I work with to discuss his suspension. I've been working really hard with him on becoming a more responsible student, getting work turned in on time and paying attention in class. Lately, he's also been acting out and he got caught skipping, hence the suspension. It's never easy to sit down and have these sort of talks because I have to walk a fine line between lecturing and giving advice. On top of that, another one of my kids, who is very moody, was in one of his not so pleasent moods yesterday when I was working with him. I could've easily let these incidents get me down. Instead I went down to a gym class where some of my other students were. I was just going to watch, but instead got included in a game of basketball with some of the girls. I was only a designated passer, but either way it was a blast to play with them, and they were very excited to have me down there. That was just the start of things. After school, I went to watch the boys basketball team play, and despite losing, this was my first time seeing them in action, and they are fun to watch. (I would love to see the St. Matt's boys play them, because I think it would be a very exciting game and probably closely played. I think St. Matt's would win, but it would be a barn burner.) From the game I had to go straight over to the office for the the final part of training to be able to facilitate wall climbs.
I was and I wasn't looking forward to it. On the one hand I was very tired and would've loved to have gone home to go to sleep. On the other hand, every wall climb I've worked so far has been full of energy. We had a group of 5-6 members all working towards certification. Because of our need to support each other to make it through our first wall climb that we were in charge of, before any kids arrived there was already a positive atmosphere in the room. Then the kids arrived, a group of 7-9 year old Cub Scouts. They were a little wild, but that's to be expected when you have young boys getting ready to climb a wall. There were few kids who were differently nervous about climbing a wall, but with encouragement from their peers and reinforcement from us as members, they all tried to climb one of the walls. One of the kids I was working with, Marty, an 8-year old who said his "r's" like "w's", told me he was scared of heights, but he "weally wanted to climb the wall." When he came over to me, I could tell he was nervous, so I tried to loosen him up by asking him how high he thought he could go. Of course he said up to the letter "R" on the wall that has "STREAM" spelled out. Just a quick FYI, of the 4 walls, this is at least the second toughest maybe even the toughest. After the little talk we pounded fists, and he was ready to go. He struggled a little at first, but with encouragement from his friends, his parents and myself he made his way up to the R. When he got down he was grinning from ear-to-ear. He ended up climbing 2 more times and even made it to the top of one of the walls. He was so proud of himself afterwards and asked if he could come back some other time. I told him he'd have to talk to his Den leader. When we got back in the group to discuss everyone's favorite part, Marty grinned and said, "Having other people encouwage you." After that, it was hard not to go home with a smile on my face. Despite being physically wiped from an already long week, I had the greatest feeling in the world.
As I was riding home I was thinking about my day, and decided that yesterday was a perfect example of why I decided to take this position. You all may be getting tired to my references to basketball, but that's kind of what I compare this position to for myself. Both basketball and my service with AmeriCorps are things that I love so much that I'm willing to sacrafice being tired, but I still have that passion to wake-up the next day to go out for some more. It's days like yesterday that I'm willing to give my Saturday away to take two of the girls I work with ice skating. It's days like yesterday that I live for, and I thank God for giving me such an awesome opportunity.
As you can see things continue to go very well for me here. I hope everyone enjoys their weekend.
So here' s the story of why yesterday, despite being exhausted and being away from my house for 14 hours I still ended the day primed for the next day. My day at school wasn't perfect by any means. I had to sit down with one of the students I work with to discuss his suspension. I've been working really hard with him on becoming a more responsible student, getting work turned in on time and paying attention in class. Lately, he's also been acting out and he got caught skipping, hence the suspension. It's never easy to sit down and have these sort of talks because I have to walk a fine line between lecturing and giving advice. On top of that, another one of my kids, who is very moody, was in one of his not so pleasent moods yesterday when I was working with him. I could've easily let these incidents get me down. Instead I went down to a gym class where some of my other students were. I was just going to watch, but instead got included in a game of basketball with some of the girls. I was only a designated passer, but either way it was a blast to play with them, and they were very excited to have me down there. That was just the start of things. After school, I went to watch the boys basketball team play, and despite losing, this was my first time seeing them in action, and they are fun to watch. (I would love to see the St. Matt's boys play them, because I think it would be a very exciting game and probably closely played. I think St. Matt's would win, but it would be a barn burner.) From the game I had to go straight over to the office for the the final part of training to be able to facilitate wall climbs.
I was and I wasn't looking forward to it. On the one hand I was very tired and would've loved to have gone home to go to sleep. On the other hand, every wall climb I've worked so far has been full of energy. We had a group of 5-6 members all working towards certification. Because of our need to support each other to make it through our first wall climb that we were in charge of, before any kids arrived there was already a positive atmosphere in the room. Then the kids arrived, a group of 7-9 year old Cub Scouts. They were a little wild, but that's to be expected when you have young boys getting ready to climb a wall. There were few kids who were differently nervous about climbing a wall, but with encouragement from their peers and reinforcement from us as members, they all tried to climb one of the walls. One of the kids I was working with, Marty, an 8-year old who said his "r's" like "w's", told me he was scared of heights, but he "weally wanted to climb the wall." When he came over to me, I could tell he was nervous, so I tried to loosen him up by asking him how high he thought he could go. Of course he said up to the letter "R" on the wall that has "STREAM" spelled out. Just a quick FYI, of the 4 walls, this is at least the second toughest maybe even the toughest. After the little talk we pounded fists, and he was ready to go. He struggled a little at first, but with encouragement from his friends, his parents and myself he made his way up to the R. When he got down he was grinning from ear-to-ear. He ended up climbing 2 more times and even made it to the top of one of the walls. He was so proud of himself afterwards and asked if he could come back some other time. I told him he'd have to talk to his Den leader. When we got back in the group to discuss everyone's favorite part, Marty grinned and said, "Having other people encouwage you." After that, it was hard not to go home with a smile on my face. Despite being physically wiped from an already long week, I had the greatest feeling in the world.
As I was riding home I was thinking about my day, and decided that yesterday was a perfect example of why I decided to take this position. You all may be getting tired to my references to basketball, but that's kind of what I compare this position to for myself. Both basketball and my service with AmeriCorps are things that I love so much that I'm willing to sacrafice being tired, but I still have that passion to wake-up the next day to go out for some more. It's days like yesterday that I'm willing to give my Saturday away to take two of the girls I work with ice skating. It's days like yesterday that I live for, and I thank God for giving me such an awesome opportunity.
As you can see things continue to go very well for me here. I hope everyone enjoys their weekend.
posted by Tim Weiss at 9:12 AM
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