The intellectual equivalent of a ham sandwich.

Posts tagged ‘volunteer’

Kids Write the Darndest Things

I am writing this from my bedroom in my parent’s house (it’s not really “my” bedroom so much as anyone’s bedroom now … but the closets are still full of my junk. Don’t worry folks, I’ll empty those one day when I have a house that can hold all that stuff that should probably just be thrown away).

Anyhow, I stumbled on just one of those items that I am keeping for no reason. It is an envelope full of letters that were sent to another guy and I after we volunteered in their classroom. The teacher was a nice woman who forced them to write these letters.

There are some gems among those letters which I will show tomorrow. For now, a few items about that day.

The event was working with a classroom for a day, for my partner and I it was 4th grade. You spent the whole day with them, going through a workbook, and teaching them various things (depending on what grade you had). For us the lesson plan was about how businesses work. Or local economies. Or something like that.

I volunteered for this because I enjoy working with kids, but also because I wanted friends. This happened not long after I moved to California. I signed up and was paired with another person who did not have a partner. The other guy, let’s call him Doug, turned out to be maybe 5’5 or so? It made me feel awkwardly tall. But, Doug was a nice guy and I was excited about working with the kids.

The classroom day had three awkward highlights:

One very honest and blunt kid (who knew exactly what he was doing, the little twerp), asked sweetly, “how come you’re so tall and you’re so short?”

After recess a little girl came up to me:

“Where were you at recess?”
“Where was I? I was at kickball!” (I said this sarcastically, because that’s my tendency.)
The little girl, sadly: “Oh, because I looked for you to play a game.”

Doug, later (jokingly because he knew I felt bad): “Way to lie to a little girl and hurt her feelings.”

And part three … One of the thank you letters was addressed to Mrs. Doug! How great, and insulting, is that!

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Weekly Wacko

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Say Friends, Let’s Give Earth a Hug

Feel like volunteering for Earth Day? No. You a-hole. How about this – you might meet the person of your dreams at this volunteer event, be drafted to be the starting quarterback (your raw talent will finally be recognized!) AND … some other cool stuff.

http://www.volunteermatch.org/

http://pledge5.starbucks.com/

http://www.onebrick.org/ (Select cities only but an awesome group)

I must admit I won’t be volunteering this weekend. I’ll be alternatively procrastinating and doing homework.

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Uncategorized

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Thanks, Ma!!

Brag Post! Homemade Quilt!

For a graduation gift my mom made me a quilt using t-shirts that I got while going to SMU. When she came around for a visit a few weeks ago she brought me the finished product. I had given her a hard time about finishing the quilt quite a bit (it’s what children are for) … so now I’ll have to find something new to bother her about.

I’ll say a few things about the shirts.

SMU is a crazy expensive school, but that also means they have lots of scholarships (phew) AND … exciting news for me – they give out t-shirts for FREE at quite a few events. Yes, FREE t-shirts! By the time I graduated I had collected about 40.

The “fraternity” shirts are for Alpha Phi Omega (APO), a co-ed service fraternity. A friend and I “pledged” (again, not at all a traditional fraternity – it’s purpose is to make friends and volunteer) the second semester of my freshman year. It was one of the better decisions I made while at SMU, and my only regret is that I didn’t stay as active as I should’ve.

The second shirt I’ll point out is at the bottom right, for SMUSH! The SMU Service House. I found out about it through APO and I met some fantastic people there. Actually, most all my friends from college are from APO and SMUSH.

Don’t be fooled by this volunteer stuff – I joined because I wanted friends and there were pretty girls. But I do think volunteering can be fun and more people should do it (although I haven’t done any volunteering in a year so who I’m a preaching dummy).

Lastly, TCU sucks.

Thanks again, ma, for the awesome gift!

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Pictures

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