another weeks work

So updating about once a week seems to be going well. I have a lot more time on the weekends so I have the chance to be able to do things then. This past week of work has definitely been interesting to say the least. Definitely better then boring though.

Monday it typically the day that everybody hates, but it is my easiest day of the week. I suppose it is good because I am able to ease myself into the crazy days. I only have one PE class, the 6ths graders which are really great to me. I have 8th grade computers following that, but I've been having a lot of problems with the computers so I have yet to have them for that. Monday's are the days I also have english enrichment classes. The kids who are fluent in spanish bring some of their english work to me and we do that together. I find it to be pretty hard because I don't really get a specific idea of what to be doing with them. I'm sure i'll figure it out within the next couple weeks though

Tuesday's are long days. Anne and I are split up through the first four periods of school because there are computer and PE classes going on at the same time. The two of us finally sat down this week to figure out our schedule of how things will be working at the school. I start out with 6th grade computers, have a break and recess duty, then 5th grade PE followed by 4th grade PE. lunch time is afterwards and then Anne and I have the 7th graders and the 1st/2nd graders together. computers this week has beeen a chance for them to get work done due to the lack of computers. 5th, 4th and 7th grades we played big base kickball which is a more fun version of kickball. 1st and 2nd grade we decided that since it's such a big class on Tuesday's we are going to work on their motor skills and fridays when I have them alone we will play a game.

Wednesdays are a strange day. I really like the mornings because it starts with liturgy. It's great to see the kids in mass and really enjoy it. A different grade runs the mass each week and they put a new spin to it. It's definitely very cute. The afternoons get hard because I have the 7th graders which aren't too bad, followed by the 8th graders. We played volleyball in both classes and let me just tell you, setting up that net is the hardest thing ever, and we did it 3 days in a row. The 2nd group of 8th graders had computers and the comps wont be going till this week so they were all complaining. It's funny though how they are such a horrible class yet when they are seperated (like they are for computers. half have it mon. have wed.) they are so much better. It's just that they egg each other on and become very rude. Not only to me but their classmates as well.

Thursday and Friday I set up the volleyball net again. Played it with most of the classes by starting with skills and moving into a game eventually. Anne and I are together for all of Thurs so it makes it easier to control the classes. Fridays are supposed to be the "it's exciting because it's almost the weekend" day, but for me it's the most difficult day of the week. I have the 8th graders for PE in the morning and they are just ridiculous. They don't listen to me and don't treat me as their teacher. Probably since they can remember they've always had a new volunteer there each year for PE so all they know is the new person coming in. I'm just the new volunteer in their eyes. Kinder followed 8th grade and since it was friday they were just nuts. Its so hard to calm them down and they hate being in the sun for 45 minutes. 4th grade is later and they always give me a hard time and 1st/2nd is after them which is pretty much just like Kinder except there are triple the amount of kids. So needless to day, Friday's are hard...but i'm hoping that they will get easier with time.

So since the kids haven't really done any specific PE units with the combination of skills and games because they have different teachers every year, I'm going to try to make that happen for them this year. The pricipal of St. Pats is also the principal of Holy Family grammar school where Mike works as a PE teacher. The person that was in his position retired and left him all her old lesson plan books so I have one and i'm going to try to implement a lot of that on the same schedule to the kids out here. They are so used to playing so many different games all the time and it's so hard with them. I think they'll be slightly upset that they are going to be playing a game for about 2 weeks (like these coming weeks it's going to be soccer), but they'll get over it. I'm going to do about 2 days of skills and 2 days of playing the game. I think it will help the kids in the years to come with starting to get used to being on a schedule and it will help all volunteers to come in the future.

So this weekend our community had began its change for the week. Both Anne and Chris had close family members pass away within days of each other and are home for this coming week to be with their family. It's strange without them here with us and how things run with a smaller number of people. It's also weird to think that all of the other communities have four people all the time yet its small for us. As much as six people can be hard at times, I really like having a larger community. It's more ideas for prayers, meals and just plain old topics of conversation. I don't know who exactly reads this, but I just ask you to keep both of them and their families in your prayers.

The weekend started off a little busier, but ended very simple and relaxing which was quite needed. Friday we went to the kick off for the fall festival at St. Pats. A parent (we don't know which ones and nobody will tell us) donated the money for six carne asada meals for us to eat while we were there. We've been here for close to a month and it's unbeliveable to me how generous people are to us. I think it's something that will still amaze me until the day we leave and even after. I like being there for the kickoff a lot because I was able to be at my school with my community and really show them where i'm working and give them some faces to names that I mention. After we left the kickoff we headed over to Janettes house, a volunteer from last year in SD who is working at St. Pats parish and USD. It was a pretty fun night because there were different staff member from USD there along with us and the JV's as well. We went to our favorite place, Hamilton's with the JV's after which was pretty fun.

Emily, Anne and I left Hamilton's earlier then the rest because we wanted to go to bed since we either had to work or were going surfing very early in the morning. After a few hours of sleeping though, we each were individually woken up in the middle of the night by Mike who decided to stand at the end of the bed singing to each of us while playing anne's guitar. Apparently I freaked out when I woke up, but now looking back it was halarious. Surfing came very early in the moring, just Emily and I went. Ali and Mike were tired from staying out late and Chris and Anne had flights early in the morning to head home. Deac had a boogie board for me that I was so excited about and we didn't stay for long, but he took the two of us to an adorable coffee shop on the way home which looking out on the water and was adorable.

In the afternoon, Ali and I spent the day at the mall. I needed a new pair of sneakers for both work and running and I wanted a watch to keep track of the time much easier throught the day at school. I also went into eagle and got depressed about the fact that I don't have a discount anymore. On the way out Ali and I couldn't find where we parked our car. Eventually we found it, but it's hard when we don't even know the lisence plate or what our car even looks like! We picked up Mike and Emily and then got some frozen yogurt of course. We are addicted here in SD to it. They are seriously everywhere and the places are amazing. It's really all I spend my stipend on. At night Ali had some of her friends from Nova over which was fun.

Today was a relaxing day here...we slept in a bit and then me ali and emily drove to mission bay park to go for a walk/run. I have officially started my training for a 5K on Thanksgiving. The program I'm using is a 9 week program which works out perfect because it's about 9 weeks away. I know it's going to be hard because I'm not a big runner, but I hoping that I can really get into it out here. I also am definitely starting the zumba class out here on Tuesdays. I cant wait to finally dance again :)

So I think thats about all for the week. It's going to be very strange out here without Anne and Chris...especially when I'm by myself on Tuedays and Thursday when Anne is usually with me at work. Hopefully I can begin to find my footing more with work this week. If you want to talk at all, either give me a call and I will pick up if I can. Or send me an email, kaitlyn.kupski@gmail.com, I love getting email from friends and family!

this is our new auggie, ms. kupski

So as my first week of work has closed off I decided it would be time for a new entry. Last week was overall pretty boring here since I was the only one who hadn't started their job yet. While they were all at work I did things around here for the community. I still made sure I woke up early and drove people to work each day. During the day I would clean here, do finance stuff, go grocery shopping, created our prayer wall and other things of that nature and then pick them up from work. We didn't do too much in the evening during the week mostly just hung out together here at the house. Went to the San Diego DMV on Wednesday to get my california lisence, passed the driving text, thank god. The priests from Chicago were out here for something on Wednesday as well and Mike new Fr. Tom well from St. Rita, his high school, and they took us out for some very good mexican food!

Friday we rented some movies and watched those at night because we were going surfing again in the morning. I, unfortunately did not go because waking up at 5:30am was wayyy to difficult for me. When they got back from surfing we just relaxed around the house for the rest of the afternoon while Anne and Chris were at the orphanage in TJ, they work on Saturday's. Later that night we went out to a bar that is in walking distance from the house which was def fun...I can see us heading there a lot this year. Sunday night we were sick of just sitting at the house so we decided to take a spur of the moment trip to the beach. It was actually definitely my high point of the week. We all just layed in a circle on the blanket looking up at the stars just talking.

Monday was finally my last day of not working! Ali, Emily and Mike had the day off as well because it was labor day, but Chris and Anne still had to head to the orphanage due to the fact that it is in Mexico and they do not celebrate the day. On our day off we decided to sleep late and then head to get sushi for lunch. It was my first time trying it and it was actually very good! We found a place that was not only amazing but gave us soup, salad, rice, chicken teriyaki, egg rolls, shrimp and veggie tempura, and dumplings for only 11 dollars! It was a great last day before working.

So Tuesday began my first day working at St. Patrick's elementary school! I will be assuming the roles of Phys Ed teacher for grades K-8 and Computer teacher for grades 6-8. Tuesday was an easy day because they had a half day of school so Anne (she is with me at St. Pat's on Tuesday's and Thursday's) and I met with the principal, got schedules, met the teachers, and looked over paperwork that we had to have signed. The kids left school and then we met with the junior high teachers (6th, 7th and 8th grade) and they gave us a lot of helpful hints of how to deal with the kids that age and who is really going to give us a hard time.

Wednesday was their first full day of school and my first day by myself as well. (side note: our creepy astro van hit 99,999 miles on 09/09/09!...so weird!) That morning starting off the morning assembly the principal Dan O'Neal started with "does anybody know who this is?" and all the kids responded with either, our new P.E. teacher or the new auggie. It's so strange how they are so used to having somebody there every year and getting a new P.E. teacher each year. As much as it may be difficult for them because they have to get used to new games or new teaching styles each year I think it's good to see somebody at this age doing a volunteer program such as this. I wasn't having my life scan done until the following morning so I couldn't be alone with the kids until that was done. I spent most of my day reading a P.E. lesson book and reading things about the school and what my real job is.

I love being able to come home from work and just spend time with my community. When we got out on Wednesday we hung around the house for a bit and then Ali, Emily and myself decided about 25 minutes before sunset that we wanted to head to the beach to see the sunset. We saw some of it, but it was great. I love the beach at anytime of night. We then proceeded to get amazing frozen yogurt at a place we found on Coronado that has a great deal. The funny thing about California is that you see frozen yogurt places everywhere, but you don't ever see ice cream places.

Thursday consisted of planning and reading again with Anne in the morning followed by finally getting our life scans done. We then spent time with the 3rd graders playing games that they liked and then later the same with the 5th graders. The third graders are still at the adorable age...probably the last grade that is really just all around cute. They loved the game sharks and minnows and then a game they called night at the museum where you have night guards and everybody else is statues, and the statues move when the night guards have their back to you and if they catch you moving you're out. They love it. The 5th graders are pretty good too...they also loved sharks and minnows but they can't play it for as long. There are so many of them though...26, which is one of my biggest classes.

The evening also consisted of going back to school for "back to school night" where the parents have the ability to meet and talk to all of the teachers. We pretty much sat through parents talking about different fundraising things for the upcoming year and then Anne and I and the other teachers (there is only one for each grade) had to introduce ourselves to all of the parents. As much as it was boring and almost unnecessary for us to be there cause the parents don't really care about talking to the P.E. and computer teachers that have been there for only 3 days, it was good to really see the sense of community at the school and how a catholic elementary school really runs because it is so much different then a public school. The sense of community with the teachers is also amazing and I can't believe how much they have already welcomed us into the school within a matter of a few days. They offer to help us in any way that they can, give us tons of words of advice and even just have fun conversations about who we are, what we're doing this year, their lives and even what we're doing this weekend. They've told us about great places to get things that we need and have even offered to let us use bikes they have on coronado beach! Speaking of coronado, we went back YET AGAIN Thursday night for prayer on the beach...I love looking at the stars.

Friday was crazy, it was my first day by myself and my first day having to have the kids and have lessons. Of course the first class I had was the 8th graders (28 of them!) and they are definitely going to be my big challenge this year. They hated participating in all the stretches, they cheated out on running the small 2 laps around the yard and they argued with every call I made in kickball (if they didn't complain about playing the game in general in the first place). The teachers and previous volunteers told me that this grade would be really hard to deal with and I have seen in the first day that that is beyond true. I have them 4 times a week, twice for P.E. and twice for computers, so I will have to see how this week goes.

The rest of my first full day wasn't too bad. The Kindergarteners were adorable. They loved everything including the stretches and the games. 4th grade was harder because they are definitely not as young as the the 3rd graders so the games I planned didn't exactly work. The 1st and 2nd graders are together because there are only 6 kids in grade 2 and they were cute just like K. So I made it out alive after my first week of classes. I am realizing that this year is going to be a lot harder then I thought it would be. I am going to be there for about 45 horus a week, plus the time I spend outside of work planning all of my lessons. I still haven't found anything really good to use to begin planning lessons so I'm going to try to do research on that this week. It will be difficult because the kids get bored soon after games and you never know if they will even like the game or not so you have to have a couple different back ups.

The weekend was great but also seemed wayyy too short! Friday was a very chill night where we all fell asleep before 11pm...yes we are lame! We are learning that we need to take naps when we get home on Friday from work because the work day just drains us (or at least me). Saturday was for sleeping late, watching life time movies, beach during the day and frozen yogurt once again! When I was swimming I saw dolphins in the water! AMAZING! We decided that since mike's 23rd bday was on Tuesday we would celebrate this weekend due to insanely conflicting work schedules during the week. Ali made him a cake that was the ocean with a surf board that was bitten by a shark (he is deathly afraid of sharks!) and it was amazing. We hung out on the deck upstairs and were going to go out, but never even made but had tons of fun!

Today was zoo day! We met the CFO of the San Diego Zoo and she gave us free tickets so we did that. It was absolutly amazing! We definitely took advantage of our tickets and our time there and hit just about everything in the zoo. I want 2 pet mandrills (girl and a boy), an otter, and a mom and son gorilla to adopt. That would be fab!

So tomorrow starts the 2nd week of school, my first week really teaching. I'm nervous to see how it will go and how kids will act. I'm trying to be more strict with them in the beginning and let them know the rules and hopefully they will behave in class. Tomorrow I just have 6th grade P.E. and an 8th grade computer class but have a few different engligh enrichment classes during the day to teach as well to the kids are fluent in spanish that come to St. Pats from TJ. Hopefully I can find something to get a good set of units going and a schedule for the year. As of now I'm just going week by week and i'm praying this one goes well! I just realized how long this was! I'm going to try to update more so the entries aren't as long. have a great week everyone!