i love these kids :)
Friday, March 25, 2011
dear santa
so i know it is almost the end of march but today i got a copy of one of the kids letters to santa and i think everyone should read it!
i love these kids :)
i love these kids :)
Friday, March 18, 2011
when i grow up
let me begin with my apologies for the delay in updating my blog! like my last post said, i have been superrrr busy and have not really had the time and (quite honestly) the motivation to get a post together.
things the past few weeks have not really been anything too exciting. more kids are starting to come to the center which is always good. we are getting ready for some groups to come visit to see if they will renew our grants for next year. i began the girl group last week and it went really well! we talked about self esteem and self image and ways that the girls can take ownership and responsibility over these aspects of their lives. there are 14 of them so i was a little nervous about them taking over, but they were great! it seemed like they were interested in what was going on and what we were talking about so i think it is going to go really well.
weekends have been busy here too. last weekend we took a group of our kids to see a movie as a reward for our incentive program. nine kids at the movies = many bathroom trips, going to get popcorn, and missing a good portion of the movie. they had fun though and it was nice to be able to get them to do something that they might not otherwise get to do. yesterday desiree and i spent the day in milwaukee. we took an art class to make these very cool mosaic mirrors!
and went out to a cool restuarant and went to a second hand store and then to a bunch of other stores in a mall in milwaukee. overall it was a greatttt day!
in other news, recently i have been thinking a lot about what i want to do when my time volunteering is over. it seems like it is a far way off right now, but i know that the rest of this year and next year are going to fly by and its never to early to start thinking about whats next.
i know that i want to go to grad school to get my masters in public health. so i officially have signed up for the gre! i am going to try it out this august to see how it goes. they are revising the test so it will be good for me to have a chance to get familiar with it and give myself enough time to take it again in the fall if i need/want to. i have also started doing a littleeee research on some schools that might be contenders for my masters. and i am really working hard to focus my time for the rest of this year and next year on pursuing the avenue of public health and advocacy in my work at john xxiii.
i am completely convinced that going into public health (and more specifically into health care advocacy) is where my path is leading. for my summer job, i need a doctor to sign off on a paper confirming that i dont have any serious illnesses, allergies, etc, etc. seems pretty simple, right? wronggggggg! i have been trying to get in contact with someone from my insurance company for the past 2 weeks and have had zero results. and i have health insurance! and english is my first language! and i am a citizen of the united states! and it is quite possibly one of the most frustrating things i have had to do in a while.
then i think about the families that we work with there and the challenges that they must face when it comes to getting health care and seeing doctors and making sure that their kids get the medicine they may need. many of them don't have insurance, and don't speak very much english, and were not born in the united states. so i can only imagine how frustrating this process must be for them.
so thats what i want to be when i grow up. i want to spend my time making sure that EVERYONE gets what they need as far as health care goes. i used to want to be a doctor. but then i realized that doctors can only help the people who go see them and can only do what insurance companies allow them to do. and i dont want to spend my time being frustrated and dictated by what insurance agents tell me i can and can not do. we need good doctors, but thats not what i am supposed to do anymore. there is no doubt in my mind that this work will also be frustrating at times, but i think it will be worth it. why not fight for something that could potentially change? and although many would find this work to be thankless and discouraging and too much work for the results it may give, i dont mind at all :)
things the past few weeks have not really been anything too exciting. more kids are starting to come to the center which is always good. we are getting ready for some groups to come visit to see if they will renew our grants for next year. i began the girl group last week and it went really well! we talked about self esteem and self image and ways that the girls can take ownership and responsibility over these aspects of their lives. there are 14 of them so i was a little nervous about them taking over, but they were great! it seemed like they were interested in what was going on and what we were talking about so i think it is going to go really well.
weekends have been busy here too. last weekend we took a group of our kids to see a movie as a reward for our incentive program. nine kids at the movies = many bathroom trips, going to get popcorn, and missing a good portion of the movie. they had fun though and it was nice to be able to get them to do something that they might not otherwise get to do. yesterday desiree and i spent the day in milwaukee. we took an art class to make these very cool mosaic mirrors!
and went out to a cool restuarant and went to a second hand store and then to a bunch of other stores in a mall in milwaukee. overall it was a greatttt day!
in other news, recently i have been thinking a lot about what i want to do when my time volunteering is over. it seems like it is a far way off right now, but i know that the rest of this year and next year are going to fly by and its never to early to start thinking about whats next.
i know that i want to go to grad school to get my masters in public health. so i officially have signed up for the gre! i am going to try it out this august to see how it goes. they are revising the test so it will be good for me to have a chance to get familiar with it and give myself enough time to take it again in the fall if i need/want to. i have also started doing a littleeee research on some schools that might be contenders for my masters. and i am really working hard to focus my time for the rest of this year and next year on pursuing the avenue of public health and advocacy in my work at john xxiii.
i am completely convinced that going into public health (and more specifically into health care advocacy) is where my path is leading. for my summer job, i need a doctor to sign off on a paper confirming that i dont have any serious illnesses, allergies, etc, etc. seems pretty simple, right? wronggggggg! i have been trying to get in contact with someone from my insurance company for the past 2 weeks and have had zero results. and i have health insurance! and english is my first language! and i am a citizen of the united states! and it is quite possibly one of the most frustrating things i have had to do in a while.
then i think about the families that we work with there and the challenges that they must face when it comes to getting health care and seeing doctors and making sure that their kids get the medicine they may need. many of them don't have insurance, and don't speak very much english, and were not born in the united states. so i can only imagine how frustrating this process must be for them.
so thats what i want to be when i grow up. i want to spend my time making sure that EVERYONE gets what they need as far as health care goes. i used to want to be a doctor. but then i realized that doctors can only help the people who go see them and can only do what insurance companies allow them to do. and i dont want to spend my time being frustrated and dictated by what insurance agents tell me i can and can not do. we need good doctors, but thats not what i am supposed to do anymore. there is no doubt in my mind that this work will also be frustrating at times, but i think it will be worth it. why not fight for something that could potentially change? and although many would find this work to be thankless and discouraging and too much work for the results it may give, i dont mind at all :)
Tuesday, March 1, 2011
busy as a bee
life has been moving at 100 mph lately! i have lots of different projects going on and am super busy but i am still loving it. better busy than bored. plus it keeps me out of trouble :)
since i have decided that i would like to return to racine and john xxiii next year, i have been focusing on trying to get something going with health care resources for our families. the racine community has a TON of free clinics and places that do health care consulting for low income families already which is really great! i want to get all this information together and visit the clinics and see if we can work on building a relationship with these places so that our families can take advantage of the services that they offer. i am excited about it and hope that it will end up being successful.
i am also going to be starting a group at one of the schools here for 8th grade girls about decision making and other issues for them to consider as they begin to think about transitioning into high school. i think this is going to be a really great way for me to test out the whole public health thing to see if it is really something that i would like to pursue in the future. i am excited to get started with it but i have to make up my own plan for it so that has been taking some. i think i have some good ideas and hopefully the girls will like them too. i have about 2 weeks before it starts so there is still some time to get everything together.
last weekend some volunteers from chicago came to visit for the annual "mardi crawl" celebration in racine. it was a really fun weekend and it was nice to have some visitors! this weekend all the volunteers in the midwest are having a retreat right outside of st. louis. we are going to spend the weekend together thinking about where we are headed and taking some time to reflect and relax. it will be nice to have a little change of scenery and the midwest has a good group of volunteers so it should be a good time.
other than that, things are pretty standard. the weather is starting to get nicer so our attendance is back up at the center, which is great but it wears me out sometimes! i think the kids are getting spring fever (as am i!) and sometimes i feel like they just suck the energy out of me. but i dont mind because they are funny and i have no other complaints :)
thats it for now i suppose. life is good!
since i have decided that i would like to return to racine and john xxiii next year, i have been focusing on trying to get something going with health care resources for our families. the racine community has a TON of free clinics and places that do health care consulting for low income families already which is really great! i want to get all this information together and visit the clinics and see if we can work on building a relationship with these places so that our families can take advantage of the services that they offer. i am excited about it and hope that it will end up being successful.
i am also going to be starting a group at one of the schools here for 8th grade girls about decision making and other issues for them to consider as they begin to think about transitioning into high school. i think this is going to be a really great way for me to test out the whole public health thing to see if it is really something that i would like to pursue in the future. i am excited to get started with it but i have to make up my own plan for it so that has been taking some. i think i have some good ideas and hopefully the girls will like them too. i have about 2 weeks before it starts so there is still some time to get everything together.
last weekend some volunteers from chicago came to visit for the annual "mardi crawl" celebration in racine. it was a really fun weekend and it was nice to have some visitors! this weekend all the volunteers in the midwest are having a retreat right outside of st. louis. we are going to spend the weekend together thinking about where we are headed and taking some time to reflect and relax. it will be nice to have a little change of scenery and the midwest has a good group of volunteers so it should be a good time.
other than that, things are pretty standard. the weather is starting to get nicer so our attendance is back up at the center, which is great but it wears me out sometimes! i think the kids are getting spring fever (as am i!) and sometimes i feel like they just suck the energy out of me. but i dont mind because they are funny and i have no other complaints :)
thats it for now i suppose. life is good!
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