Today is a Friday. That means my butt is glued to a seat in Kinleys for hours on end while I try and figure out what the smack I am doing for my papers and classes. Today.. I reached a milestone. My research is basically done in its initial needs. Meaning I no longer have to attack the UTEP library searching for a basis of my paper. I always hating going into a research paper trying to fit sources into what my paper was about. Research is about learning, finding themes, drawing conclusions based off of many sources, ideas, theories, models and seeing what fits and what doesn't. Thats what I think anyway. So I have spent the last few fridays perusing and pillaging the stacks at UTEP. Today I have finally formulated my RPQ for my advisor in hopes of approval so I can begin phase two of my first practicum paper. It has helped immensely that my other cohort folks are online and finally commenting back and forth about whats going on in their own experiences.
One such discussion led me to realize my need to design some trainings while I am here in order to make it relevant to the CLC I am in. SO due to my milestone.. I am off to start designing curriculum for some trainings I am thinking about doing. I think one of them I can do pretty easily without havint to work TOO hard. The other will be pretty extensive though so I am going to wait til I can really journal and explore what that will look like.
Friday, October 24, 2008
Sunday, October 05, 2008
My clock is ticking.
So we have this clock in our living room.. it is the bane of my existence. It is so freaking loud, and until this afternoon it was consistently 15 minutes slow causing us to almost always be late. No big deal in Mexico, but annoying to realize ever time we got their late that one or all of us had been watching the loud clock and thus we were late again. I finally just got up and changed it today. Noone had really taken the minute to do it because it is in an awkward place. To be honest I was just nervous because a cienpies had be seen there recently.. they are these HUGE millipedes that will chomp chomp chomp their way down your arm or leg or whatever it can grab and hurt like a beit. thus.. I just made the addition of ten minutes each time I looked at the clock and moved on. WELL TODAY ALL THAT CHANGED. I was so annoyed by the ticking and the lateness so I got up on the rusty old folding chair wiggled the clock off the rusty old nail in the peeling paint wall and changed it to two minutes fast. bwa ha ha! Triumph!! I know it sounds stupid but it was big.
This morning I got up early after a full nights rest and worked outside a little bit. We all alternate chores and this week was my week for outside. Little did I know God was going to bless me with such a rare occurence as rain. I'm not being facecious it was amazing. You see cleaning outside means sweeping up all the dust back to its original place until it blows back the next week. Usually you sprinkle water on the floors to keep the dust from clouding up but God helped me with my chores and sent me rain!! So I went down in a beautifully cool sprinkle of rain and did some sweeping. I filled two cardboard boxes with dirt and put them in a less annoying place so they wouldn't just go back to where it was. Now that is somewhat futile because theres more dust where that came from.. I mean its the desert people.. but still it felt good. All in all I didn't feel like I did much that directly affect us.. I mean we don't really go down in that courtyard when we don't have groups here.. its right by the bunks, but atleast now we don't look down into it from our house and say ugh.. we need to clean that some time..
Church today was great! We came in last as usual and found some seats offered to us by a woman we know next to a gentleman who was so vibrant and full of joy!! Juan was leading worship so it was joyful and exciting but also very serious and inspiring.. I love this church! It is rediculous to realize that I haven't even felt the need to church shop down here. I love the church and all of the people that go there.. A lot of the women from the Costura go there, and we know a lot of the other women and youth and kids from Saturday Kids Comedor. It was great walking in and seeing so many people I knew and had talked with many times. I was telling becky I feel more welcome and involved in this congregation than any I had ever gone too. Even First Pres. Sure youth group was home, but going to church was always horrible because I never knew anyone. I thought about working with the kids on sundays too but I realized I need the time to refill and renew, to learn and to focus on my own relationship with God and where I'm at. It is not a time for me to serve and give out.. I am doing that all week long. This week Juan and Laura are hosting some Americans who are working with the clown ministry at the Centro (Rehab). The pastor with them gave the sermon while Laura interpreted. Man I don't like interpreting!! I love listening to how people interpret though.. I learn a lot of spanish that way. By seeing and hearing someone make decisions for which words best explain or communicate what they are saying. I was surprised at some of her choices and learned some great new usable phrases.
Tomorrow begins another week and I am super excited. I head to the Costura to work with Peggy on taking pictures of her items to send to my mom via CD. I'll probably also help do some pricing and coding, and just hang out with the women. I loved seeing some of them at church this Sunday and seeing the smiles on their faces when they recognized me too. Its not that I like that theyre happy to see me.. It just feels good that they feel comfortable around me finally.
As you can tell a lot is going on and life is pretty busy. I won't lie though there is a lot going on at home with family, and I miss some of my friends and family so much. Its hard knowing that I really can only talk to people on Fridays.. I guess I can talk late at night but with the time difference it doesn't really work out well. Anyway send me an email, say hello, come visit.. whatever!!
This morning I got up early after a full nights rest and worked outside a little bit. We all alternate chores and this week was my week for outside. Little did I know God was going to bless me with such a rare occurence as rain. I'm not being facecious it was amazing. You see cleaning outside means sweeping up all the dust back to its original place until it blows back the next week. Usually you sprinkle water on the floors to keep the dust from clouding up but God helped me with my chores and sent me rain!! So I went down in a beautifully cool sprinkle of rain and did some sweeping. I filled two cardboard boxes with dirt and put them in a less annoying place so they wouldn't just go back to where it was. Now that is somewhat futile because theres more dust where that came from.. I mean its the desert people.. but still it felt good. All in all I didn't feel like I did much that directly affect us.. I mean we don't really go down in that courtyard when we don't have groups here.. its right by the bunks, but atleast now we don't look down into it from our house and say ugh.. we need to clean that some time..
Church today was great! We came in last as usual and found some seats offered to us by a woman we know next to a gentleman who was so vibrant and full of joy!! Juan was leading worship so it was joyful and exciting but also very serious and inspiring.. I love this church! It is rediculous to realize that I haven't even felt the need to church shop down here. I love the church and all of the people that go there.. A lot of the women from the Costura go there, and we know a lot of the other women and youth and kids from Saturday Kids Comedor. It was great walking in and seeing so many people I knew and had talked with many times. I was telling becky I feel more welcome and involved in this congregation than any I had ever gone too. Even First Pres. Sure youth group was home, but going to church was always horrible because I never knew anyone. I thought about working with the kids on sundays too but I realized I need the time to refill and renew, to learn and to focus on my own relationship with God and where I'm at. It is not a time for me to serve and give out.. I am doing that all week long. This week Juan and Laura are hosting some Americans who are working with the clown ministry at the Centro (Rehab). The pastor with them gave the sermon while Laura interpreted. Man I don't like interpreting!! I love listening to how people interpret though.. I learn a lot of spanish that way. By seeing and hearing someone make decisions for which words best explain or communicate what they are saying. I was surprised at some of her choices and learned some great new usable phrases.
Tomorrow begins another week and I am super excited. I head to the Costura to work with Peggy on taking pictures of her items to send to my mom via CD. I'll probably also help do some pricing and coding, and just hang out with the women. I loved seeing some of them at church this Sunday and seeing the smiles on their faces when they recognized me too. Its not that I like that theyre happy to see me.. It just feels good that they feel comfortable around me finally.
As you can tell a lot is going on and life is pretty busy. I won't lie though there is a lot going on at home with family, and I miss some of my friends and family so much. Its hard knowing that I really can only talk to people on Fridays.. I guess I can talk late at night but with the time difference it doesn't really work out well. Anyway send me an email, say hello, come visit.. whatever!!
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