Jaunary thus far

January has been a strange month because I have been everywhere from home to midyear and then back to San Diego. Home was a little overwhelming, but still great. It was supposed to be my time to relax but it turns out that I did just the opposite. I wanted to get in seeing lots of people so I was always on the go and not at home nearly as much as I wanted to be. Not that it wasn't great to see people because it definitely was. It was awesome to be with my family again, especially my mom. I think the best part of being home though was finally being able to meet my god-daughter, Emma. She is the cutest little girl I have see and it was really hard to have to leave her and Colleen and Matty.




After her baptism with me and Eldon, her god parents.

Right from home we went to mid year retreat which was in Ocean City, on the shore in New Jersey. Alli and I were driving down in the volunteer cars, I had the Lawrence car and she had the Bronx car. We were supposed to leave Massachusetts by 9am so we could be at the retreat house by 4pm but due to a lovely snow storm we couldn't drive until it kind of stopped. So I left my house by noon and ended up in Jersey after picking a few others up along the way at 10pm. It was a very long ride but at least somewhat enjoyable. Mid year retreat was great. It was awesome to see everyone from all of the different sites and especially to spend 4 straight days with Alli. It was a nice way to ease back into the volunteer year after being home and gave us ways to really focus on what we are doing and how to continue to make the best of the rest of the year.


our car on the way down to midyear. almost there (only a few blocks away) after what felt like a million hours of driving.


during the community competition. our clue on the beach got blown away, but clearly we didn't care and decided to stop and take pictures instead!


Alli and I. We shared a room during midyear...felt just like when we lived together!


San Diego before our dinner out!


All of the domestic volunteers 2009-2010!

After midyear was straight back to San Diego. I am realizing that I do really love this place very much. In the beginning we missed fall a lot and thought the city was to cocky of itself. But now that we actually know our way around places and the fact that its sunny while its freezing at home, we are beginning to really enjoy it here. I love being able to wear shorts and dresses in January rather then bundling up in too many clothes. (although I hate that all of my dresses and such are summer clothes and they dont go with the season so I never know what I should wear here!)

The two weeks that I have been back at school have probably been two of the hardest weeks I've had here thus far. The first week consisted of getting the students back into the routine with me. Behaving, listening, ect. I forgot what it was like to be with children all day again and to just come home feeling exhausted. Running around after kids and yelling all day (mainly because we are outside and if I dont yell in general they can't hear me) is just plain old tiring. Meg and Sarah were here visiting me last weekend though. I loved being able to go out with them here, to show them where I live and where I work, having them meet my roommates and showing them lots of San Diego.


Meg, Sarah and I in Old Town.


out in PB (pacific beach) with melissa, also went to Merrimack and came down from LA.

This past week at school has been insanely difficult. San Diego has been having rain and storms all week which leads to having PE inside. I don't mind it too much because its a nice change from what we are usually doing, but the kids are crazy because of the weather and they can't get their energy out by running outside. Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday we did things in their classroom, watched a movie or played 4 corners, heads up 7 up and silent ball. Thursday we brought them into the parish hall to run around but they were insane. It was probably one of the most difficult days so far. At the end of 5th grade P.E. a boy punched a girl in his class. I didn't see it so it was really difficult. Probably one of the more challenging situations I have been in.

But the rain is now gone in San Diego so lets hope that this week is much better! Since I have now done 4 updates in the past month I think I am on a good streak and I'm going to try to keep it up!

Adios! (My roommates are trying to help me learn spanish)

St. Pats

Yesterday, I was sitting inside watching a movie with 4th grade (we had indoor P.E. because of all the rain) and I began to think about how much I actually love the place. I love that I know all 152 students names and that I actually have some sort of a relationship with each and everyone of them. I have five months left at the school and I am going to make the most of it. In the past five months I have seen the students grow and I can only imagine how much they will continue to affect me over the remaining time. I can already feel how difficult it is going to be to leave the place.

Although I am finally realizing how much I like the place, I still find my job extremly hard. There are some kids, mainly 8th graders, who can't act properly. They talk back, which I'm pretty sure they don't do to any other teacher. It's only January and I'm running out of ideas of things to do with the kids. Mike and I are talking a lot more about lessons and using things that the each of us have done a lot more. Hopefully we will keep that up and can come up with lots more ideas together. So if anybody reading this knows of any games that I may not know already...please feel free to send them my way. I am also hopfully ordering more equipment this week so that can probably give me more things to do with the kids. My greatest challenge is coming up with things for the 8th graders to do. The computers also still don't have internet, but I believe a parent may actually be helping me with that so hopefully that will not be an issue soon.

I have personally set lots of goals for myself to keep me motivated thoughout the rest of my time at St. Pat's. I want to continue to be present at the school as much as I am. I do a lot there but I like that I can get so involved in the school. I want to work on my trust. In myself because I know that if I have set my mind on something I can do it and not feel as overwhelmed. In my community that they are there for a reason, to help me when I need it. And in God because I know that he would not give me anything that I would not be able to handle. I want to start to look on the possitive side rather then just the negative that occured that day. I want to live in the moment more. I always look foward to what is coming next whether is being something in particular or just the weekend, but by doing that I am not fully experiencing what is going on at the time. And finally I want to leave some kids of legacy at the school. Perhaps start a club or just do something in general to make me stand out. So with those, I hope that St. Pat's will help me to continue to grow.

Here are also some picture to finally give you a better idea of what exactly my job involves.


Our little tutoring corner in the computer room. We do one on one tutoring after school 4 days a week. I'm there everyday, Emily is with me on Monday's and Wednesday's and Anne is there on Tuesday's and Thursday's.


The computer room. There are 8 working computers. The colorfulness on the keyboards is the stickers I put on which they absolutly hate cause they can't see the keys.


The school parking lot, aka my classroom. You can see most of the school here too. Southern California schools don't really have hallways, all the doors are right into the parking lot which is where they have P.E. and recess.


The rest of the parking lot. It's hard to do things in here cause somebody always gets hurt. You can also see the church behind everything which is part of the school. The little building in the bottom right corner is the computer room from the outside.


The area where they eat lunch. There is only one class of each grade and 3 grades eat at a time. The door on the right behind the tables is the P.E. closet. The fact that it is so small shows you how little equipment I really do have.


Me leading the class in stretches. We start every class by having them line up on their poly spots and stretch and then running 2 or 3 laps around the yard (what they call the parking lot) and then we play whatever game we are doing.


Me with the kindergarten class. During the times where I don't have classes I go into different classrooms and help the teachers where needed. Tuesday morning's I'm with the kinders.

Long time no see!

So, I have realized since being here that having a blog is definitely not my forte, but it is something that I want to work on in the coming months. Since I haven't REALLY updated since October, I'm going to try to sum up the first half of my year. My last post is also the blog entry that I had to write for the program so that is there too. I will be doing multiple posts regarding the first half of the year, but this one is meant to sum up community life. Because it would be wayyy to long to write everything out, I am doing this one in a variety of pictures. I think they sum up better what the year has been as well.

Community life is what I have really loved the most about this year. In a matter of just 5 months my five roommates: Ali, Anne, Chris, Emily and Mike have already changed my life in a great way. They are what keeps me going each day and really make me realize how great this year is. They're the ones who cheer me up when I've had a bad day, make me laugh and smile, do random things with, and now even eat healthy and work out. We pray together on a regular basis which gives us the time to reflect on everything that we are doing and have meals together a few times a week. I love those moments because of the time that the 6 of us share. And because of those moments I have seen God in my community more then anybody else this year. I'm having a hard time realizing that this year is already half way over. It really feels like about a month ago that I was applying to the program and eventually graduating from college. All I can say is that I can't imagine myself anywhere else other then in San Diego, in this house and with these people this year and I am really looking foward to all that I have left. But anyways...onto what we have done thus far!



The year started out in August at orientation meeting all of the Augustinian Volunteers, but most importantly, my community.


We then took off from Orientation in Philadelphia to head to San Diego! Yes, we all fell asleep on the plane!


We met Deac, our site supervisor, a person who has helped us so much and has affected our lives in a great way since being here. He also taught us how to surf!


We've made multiple beach trips, many during the day where we layed in the sun and went swimming and many at night where we would just lay down and look at the stars for a while.


We celebrated Mike's 23rd birthday the mexican way on our 2nd floor deck!


We headed to the 5th grade teacher from St. Pats house to celebrate Oktoberfest!


We saw many, many animals at the San Diego Zoo! A great trip that everybody should do at somepoint.


Mom came to visit! It was great to be able to show her everything that I had been doing here thus far. She was able to see St. Pats where I work and spend 4 days meeting my roommates. It was definitely great to see her.


We tried doing some dance and gymnastics moves in our front yard (its great living in San Diego where it is always warm).


We went to Julian, California. It is a little over an hour away from San Diego and at a higher altitude. We expected it to actually feel like fall because of that and we were excited because we missed the season a lot, but alas it was not cooler at all. In the 90 degree weather we still had a nice mini road trip, did some hiking, bought an apple pie, got cider and went pumpkin picking.


We have fallen in love with Hercules. Ali has friends that are Navy nurses out here and one of them has Hercules so we watch him sometimes while she is doing crazy shifts. Hes probably one of the greatest dogs ever.


We had a party at the house and finally decided to utilize our backyard. Turns out we actually have friends here in San Diego other then us and the Roderick's!


Ali and I went to LA for the weekend and stayed with her friend that is volunteering there for the year. We saw the chinese theatre, the hollywood sign and lots of other fun touristy things.


We hiked Lake Poway to Mt. Woodson. One of the favorite things we've done all together...and it was great exercise, over 8 miles!




We went to the Classy Awards! Hogar Infantil la Gloria, the orphanage that Anne and Chris work at and our friend Dan is the director of in Tijuana, Mexico was up for Charity of the Year and Won! It was so much fun to be able to get dressed up and get excited for something great for the orfa.


On my week of for thanksgiving, Emily, Anne and myself went bike riding around Coronado. You can only kind of see how great this island is in the picture.








One of the best days ever, we celebrated Thanksgiving together! The day started off with the girls doing a 5K for St. Vincent de Paul Village where Ali and Chris work...my first 5K! We came back and started to get things ready and then went outside to play a game of football since it was 80 here. The evening then followed with an awesome dinner and desserts and a great night together. The 6 of us plus Dan and Mike Roderick and Chris' brother that was here, all had an awesome time staying in and having fun. It will definitely be one of my most cherished memories of this year.


We have seen all sorts of beautiful sunsets. My favorite place to see them is at Sunset Cliffs in Ocean Beach. Right on the water and the view is perfect.


We've spent time at the orphanage in Tijuana all together. It's a place that has stolen my heart. Even not knowing any spanish I have fallen in love with all of the amazing children there. I am now motivated to learn spanish and I can't wait for all of the times that I can head there the rest of this year.


We have found our new favorite bar, Bar Pink. It's been a great change from our usual down the street bar, Hamilton's.


We went out for a nice dinner together before leaving for Christmas at Coronado brewing company. After we got frozen yogurt and walked to Hotel Del to see the Christmas tree, then came home and exchanged secret santa gifts and spent the rest of the evening together.

And that is Augustinian Volunteers San Diego 2009-2010 first half of the year in a nutshell!

blog

Each year as a volunteer we are required to post one blog entry to the volunteers website. Mine was due a few weeks ago so I'm posting it here as well. I chose to write about the topic focusing on my challenges at my worksite. Now I kind of wish I decided to write about community instead because since the end of November and into December I feel they are the ones who have really had an impact on my year for the best. But...here it is!


"But I'm Allergic to Football!"

A few weeks ago I just couldn't take it anymore. Every one of the 8th graders was being so horrible that I took away their next P.E. class and gave them a writing assignment instead. They ran around when I asked them to stand still. They got sick of the game they begged me to play and decided to sit down mid class. They then continued to argue with me when I told them they needed to stand up. Where have I gone wrong? I work as hard as I possibly can to give them a great class. I thought I could be the cool young teacher that everybody loved. I could play fun games, teach kids a lot about computers, learn about sports myself and perhaps even work on my farmers tan a bit. Turns out, the only thing which was true about that thought was my ability to work up a good farmers tan.

I spend my time yelling at the students to not run around while we're stretching, to actually run when they are doing laps, to stop talking so I can pick the teams and explain the game being played, and asking them to just TRY to play the game that day. Sometimes I have great days while other day's kids get mad at calls made and tell me that they hate me and want a new coach. The only way I really think you could understand what a day is like is by reading some of the apology letters they h ad to write the day they didn't ahve P.E. I found that these are the only things that really show how students act. Some just made me laugh while others show how the students actually behave.

"Dear Ms. Kupski, I'm sorry for not being respectful, talking back to you and not following your directions. I'm sorry for listening to music really loud with bad language. I'm sorry for not staying on my poly spot and messing aroudn in P.E. and in the computer room. I hope you can forgive me for being rude and disrespectful to you the whole year."

"The rules for computers were to not interrupt. They were to be quiet. Not to fool around. Not to misbehave. I fooled around. I misbehaved. I interrupted the class. I was being very loud. I should not have done those things."

"I will get a better P.E. grade and I will try harder. From now on I will be the best I can be. I am sorry Ms. Kupski. I am so very sorry."

"I"ll try harder to listen to you. Next P.E. class maybe we will have fun if we listen to each other. I am very stubborn though and it is hard for mem to listen to what you have to say. I will try hard not to argue."

"I am deeply sorry for my actions of not listening. I will do better so help me God. This will never happen again so help me God."

"I will strive to be a good student. Sorry that I argue, it's just that you don't really watch and I am too competitive. I want to win every single game."

"Next time, there will not be a next time. I will be the very best I can be in my behavior and my grades. Again, I am truly sorry. I hope we can still be friends."

Each day at St. Patrick's School as P.E. and Computer Teacher is a new challenge for me. I don't know why, but the students feel they have to act as horrible as they possibly can and continuously misbehave before I can be "initiated" into the position. My struggle is attempting to see where I fit in at the school. Sometimes to the students I am "just a volunteer" while other times I am a teacher. I am in charge of a classroom (or parking lot) full of students and I have to spend my time creating lessons and enforcing rules.

Without struggles though, my job would be too easy and I wouldn't have anything to work towards (maybe not actually since I still am pretty clueless when it comes to most sports!). I am thankful though for the kids that really do show me what makes my job enjoyable, whether it be any kindergartner running to come latch onto me at any point in the day, 1st grader Annette screaming across the yard to tell me she think my t-shirt is very pretty today, seeing the kids truly enjoying a game of big base kickball (my all time favorite), a junior high student being appreciative of the fact that I am running the KICS club, or just getting to know each of my 152 students on a more personal level. The teachers have been amazing in helping me whenever possible and give me the confidence to keep working as hard as I can. I am also lucky to have a community that continues to motivate me each day to persevere. As this year is quickly progressing I am beginning to see why it is God has me here in San Diego and at St. Patrick's School and I am truly looking foward to everything lies ahead for the remainder of this year.

Kaitlyn Kupski
San Diego
2009-2010

I know I've been slacking...

So first of all I would like to apologize for not updating this at all. I dont even know if people read this or not. most likely not so its not like it matters too much. But for those of you that do, I am sorry. I said in the first entry that I knew that I would begin to slack once things really started getting going...which they definitely have. I feel as if I have been going non stop for weeks now. Secondly, I would like to apologize to all of my friends for the fact that I have been such a bad friend since I have been here. I promise I will start to call more.

So...I honestly can't even remotely remember what exactly has happened over the past few weeks. Just working lots. I have typically been working what comes out to be around 50 hours a weeks...not even including most of the time that I spend doing my lesson plans. Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays i've been heading to St. Pats around 7 with Emily and Mike when they leave for work. That extra hour before school starts gives me the time to be able to sit down and get some lessons done. Tuesdays and Thursdays when Anne is with me we get to school for 8. Mondays, Tuesdays and Thursday I'm there till 5, Wednesdays till 6 by the time I'm finished things up and headed home and Fridays around 3.

Work is going well. I finally know all 150 (give or take) kids names. The kids are starting to warm up to me a lot more finally. Kinder is finally beginning to calm down. 1st grade is still crazy. 2nd grade is with them but they are all good and adorable. 3rd gets a little upset sometimes but they have been listening well. 4th is pretty good...they are happy with anything that you give them to play and don't complain much at all. There are a couple kids that get down on themselves if they aren't doing well but they are still cute.

5th is just overall insane. There are 26 kids that all have very strong personalities. There is this one boy Kaleb who is new to the school this year that has been giving me and everybody else in his class a hard time. Once you tell him to do something he wants to go ahead and do the opposite of what you are telling him. And when kids in his class start to get mad at him he just goes even further to make them even more mad. The other kids are really bad with egging him on though. Last week he told me that he would rather fail PE then spend the 45 minute class with me. This week he actually played a game so we're getting there...baby steps. This week though about 8 kids in the class started an underground newspaper about kaleb though. Luckily Jane found out and Kaleb did not. Jane is by far one of my favorite teachers. I am so impressed by how she works with that class and especially how she is with Kaleb.

6th grade is one of my favorite classes. They are usually always pretty good in both PE and computers. Their teacher Shannon is also one of my favorites, she helps me out a great deal with everything at the school. 7th grade either has a really good day or a really bad day. Out of the class of 18 only 6 are girls and they are very cliquey; it's like 2 vs. 2 vs. 2. Some of the boys are pretty good but the others are pretty crazy. This past week Anne and I gave 2 of them parent notices and 3 different boys broke down in tears for a variety of different reasons. 8th grade overall is just obnoxious. They think they run the school and can treat me like crap and I don't even know what to do with them. Luckily due to them visit catholic high schools in the area and fall festival and testing I haven't had them too much. I think every one of the 28 works hard to do everything they can to go against me. I wish there was more I could do to get them to behave for me but it's how they've been for a while now, both the teachers and past av's have told me this.

My lack of equipment has shown to be a huge challenge. There are things that I want to do in class but I can't because I don't have the items to actually do it. I'm trying to figure out what I can for next week. I wanted to do football or baseball because the kids have been asking me to do those since I've been there but I don't have a football or even baseballs. I'm currently working on getting more equipment. Tutoring is also suprisingly slightly difficult. It's a lot to be done the school day and still have about 2-3 hours left. Kids tend to show up with nothing to do so we have to figure out things for them to do. Each day proves to be a new challenge for me. All I'm doing for now it just trying to give all that I can to the school and do the best I possibly can. I do wish I knew more about PE or sports in general. I have learned lots since I have been here though. My job is a bigger challenge then I thought it was going to be but I can definitely tell you that I will gain more then I even thought I would as well.

I do very much love the community at St. Pats. The teachers are all amazing. Like I said before, I am still amazed about how easily they were able to welcome us into their community at the school. The way they have made me a part of the school makes me feel like I've been there for years rather then a month and a half. Even a lot of the kids are great as well. Everyone up through about 5th grade will say hi to me everytime they see me.

Community life has been going great as well. I don't exactly remember what exactly we have been doing here all togther. Last weekend we headed to the fall festival at St. Pats. We've gone out a decent amount and stayed in as well. We tend to hang out with the Roderick's, Dan and Mike, who live down the street, on the weekends. Dan was a volunteer here in SD 2 years ago and stayed after his year to run the orphanage in Tijuana, Mexico. It's nice to have some other friends here then just the 6 of us.

We are in the middle of our month of visitors. We had Pat here for site visit about 2 weeks ago now. The day Pat left, mom came. It was awesome to have her here. We didn't do anything too spectacular, but it was great to show here where I'm living and working and let her get to know my community. Emily's friend Karl came the day after she left and is here with us now until Monday. Thursday Anne's friend comes until Monday and then Emily is heading to LA with her mom. We all may actually head up to LA that weekend too. It's still up in the air a bit, but it should definitely be a good time! I'm quite excited to get out of our little like 10-15 mile radius. Tomorrow actually we are headed to this place called Julian where apparently it reminds you of fall which we are all quite excited for! Apparently it's cold there and there are trees that are not a palm! Next Saturday we are actually all headed to the orphanage for the day. I'm excited to head there since I've heard so much about it not only from my roommates but Merrimack people as well. I'm nervous because I don't know any spanish at all, but I think I will be okay.

Anyways, everything is going well here in SD. I am finally feeling very comfortable with my roommates and with the area and things around here. This weekend is actually the first one where I've really been homesick...and it's only because homecoming/alumni weekend is going on at Merrimack. I'm trying to forget about it though even though it's pretty hard. I will try to update this more often. I will try not to let this get out of hand without updating for a while again!

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!