It’s
the weekend! Yeeeeaaaaaaaah boi (XOXO smiley face chyea. Or something to that
effect).
Now
that I am an employed human being, I can get unreasonably excited about the
weekend, where as before, I was just reasonably excited about the weekend.
That’s
right: I wrapped up my first (semi)week on the job. My placement started this
Wednesday, but we’ve been rolling since about 6 a.m. on Monday. Monday and
Tuesday my housemates and I were bouncing all over the Chicago area to visit each
other’s worksites. But before we could set off into the work force, we
participated in an age-old tradition: a ceremony that has been passed down from
JV to JV, from Catholic to Catholic, from Jesus Christ himself even…
We
went to Church.
I
mean, it makes sense that as a group of volunteers participating in a
faith-based organization that we would make a point to go to Mass on Sunday,
but anyone who knows my church-going history probably knows that this was a big
deal for me. That’s because my church going history isn’t much of a history.
I’ve got more of a church-going tweet going on.
I
cannot tell you the last time I intentionally walked into a church for the
purpose of sitting for a service. According to Foursquare, the last time I
checked into a church building was a year ago (Foursquare can be a little judgmental
like that). The Catholic Mass has a tendency to make me uncomfortable, but I
feel like its something easy I can do to live the value of Spirituality (the
Fish in FishBreadHouseBird). I give myself an A for effort.
What
I keep forgetting, however, is that Catholic Mass moved on without me. I haven’t
been to church since the mass changes, so I still have the responses from the
first half of my life memorized. I find that being super lost during mass
doesn’t necessarily detract from the experience of prayer and worship, but it
is a tiny bit awkward when I’m trying to tell the priest that I want the Lord
to be with him also and everyone else in the building wants the Lord to be with
his spirit.
It
wasn’t a bad time, though. The Chicago Bernardin community (that’s my house, by
the way) met up with the Chicago Tolton community (that’s the other house in
Chicago. There are two. You can probably guess which community is the cool
community…) so it was a big old Mass party. We also got to meet some former JVs
who live in the area. JVC is pretty neat that way. Not only are there a bunch
of past volunteers who live in Chicago, but also most of them remember how much
it sucks to be living on such a tiny stipend, so they are eager to do nice
things for the current volunteers. In fact, we had a former JV bring us dinner
on our first night in Chicago. Pretty awesome.
On
Monday, JVC had set us up so could visit three of the four placements my house
is working at. While seeing where my housemates will be working was neat, the
day was really an exercise in navigating the Chicago public transportation
system. Thanks to some nifty GPS navigation skills by my housemate, Trish, I’d
say the day was successful. We were only lost for a very short period of time.
We
visited my worksite first. I didn’t really look up much information about where
I would be working, save for checking out their website a bit. So you can
imagine my surprise when our trip took us downtown to Michigan Ave. to what is
essentially the most metropolitan area of Chicago. The church I’m working in is
across the street from the John Hancock building, which I incorrectly assumed
was the Sears Tower upon seeing it, and caddy corner to the American Girl Doll
store. Every store I could think of is in walking distance from where I am and
the avenue is lined with skyscrapers. I was elated. I knew I was going to be
working in a city, but I didn’t think I would be in the city.
Though
I’m working with an organization that is housed by Fourth Presbyterian church,
my actual office is in the basement of this modern looking building that has
nifty things like a receptionist and security guards. My housemates and I were
met by my coworker, Abby, a fast talking girl from Kentucky. We had allotted
about three hours for the visit, but Abby got us through the tour and out of
the building in about 20 minutes, which was fine because it gave us a chance to
explore Michigan Ave some more.
For
those who are deathly curious what my job actually entails, I’m pretty much an
active secretary. I help guests set up appointments for Service Center’s food
pantry and clothing closet, call people to remind them when they have
appointments, and process lots and lots of paper work. My boss, a lovely fellow
named Dan, told me that the Center just received a grant to digitize all the
paper files we have, and despite being the new kid, I’m so pumped. So much of
my time is spent digging through the Center’s ancient file cabinet for folders
and flipping through stacks of paper that the thought of being able to do the
work digitally already seems like a godsend. I can’t wait until they get
started.
We
spent the rest of Monday roaming the Chicago streets, visiting two other
worksites and complaining about how much our feet hurt from walking (okay, that
was just me). We also invited Chicago Tolton down south for a community dinner.
I really enjoy that we have two communities in Chicago. It’s sort of like we
came to the city with nine automatic friends. We’ll see how long it takes us to
get sick of each other.
Tuesday
was more of the same, except we only had one placement to visit and had the
rest of the day off. It was the first down time we had really had since
orientation, so that was nice. My roommate Anna and I took a little trip to the
dollar store to get some craft supplies for future crafting activities, but
that was really all that happened that day. Which was good, because the next
day was…
* Insert frightening crash of thunder and some lightening *
THE
FIRST DAY OF WORK.
Actually,
the first day wasn’t bad. It was a lot of learning to do things and asking what
I’m sure were stupid questions. I got to interact with some guests on my first
day and set up my voicemail, which I made way more complicated than it needed
to be. Despite being in an office like setting, my job is pretty hectic. It’s a
lot of running back and forth, answering calls and getting things for people.
While it can be stressful at times, it makes the time go by quickly.
On
Friday, I sat down at my desk to find an email from Dan telling me that I was
going to do outreach that afternoon with some Northwestern medical students.
After asking him what that meant exactly, I was introduced to Warren and Q, two
members of the Good Neighbors outreach team. They were both Northwestern kids
and they were nice enough to ask if I was a Northwestern grad student as well.
I laughed and told them Northwestern was a school for smart people, so no, I
was not a grad student there. I tried explaining that I was a JV and what that
meant exactly, but all I could manage were statements like, “Oh, well, I like
Jesus, so I moved into a house with a bunch of people I don’t know so I could
come work with homeless people in this basement everyday. What? No, I’m not getting
paid…”
Despite the disconnect in our life trajectories, Warren and
Q were awesome, especially once we got out onto the street. With the Social
Service Center, outreach means we walk up and down Michigan Ave. and talk to
people we see just hanging out on the sidewalks with signs or change cups.
We’ll ask them their name, if they’re in this area often, and find out if they
need some food or anything and do our best to send them off with some granola
bars or toiletries. We’re encouraged, however, to let the people we meet do
most of the talking. Most of the time, the people we found we eager to tell us
their story and occasionally lament their situation. There was only so much we
could do in that moment, but we usually handed them a business card for the
Service Center before we parted ways. Since the Center already has some
emergency services and is working to get a housing placement project going, it
was really nice to know that we could send them somewhere that was equipped to
help them out.
Doing outreach was probably the highlight of my workweek,
and I’m really looking forward to doing it again next week now that I know what
it’s all about.
Otherwise, I’ve just been spending most of my time being in
love with Chicago. I’m totally still in the “new city honeymoon” phase of my
relocation. But so far I’ve been very impressed with this Illinois city. I can
take a bus pretty much anywhere and there’s actually places that stay open past
9:00 pm. The people here are really fascinating too, and by that I mean that
there are so. Many. Hipsters. They are everywhere, riding their bikes and
wearing their jorts. I’m not sure if Chicagoians are aware of their hipsterness
or if it’s the way the city is, but I’m a fan.
One this I’ve really loved so far is running in the city.
When I lived in St. Louis, I picked running routes that I knew already from
having been in those areas thousands of times. While the familiarity was nice,
it got boring quickly, which meant I had to make an effort to switch it up or
just not run. More often than not I went with the later. But everything is
still fresh and new in Chicago. There’s always something new to see or people
to watch, even if I run the same way everyday. Plus, I discovered the other day
(mostly by accident) that if I make myself run far enough I can run on the
trail next to Lake Michigan. It’s such a scenic route that I find myself upping
my mileage just so I can run there. Talk about killer motivation.
I’m also still a big fan of the girls in my community. I
really lucked out in that department. I love my job, but it’s been a joy this
week to come home and chat with my housemates. We’ve even made dinner together
a few nights, which is a good way to start because I’m fairly positive we won’t
still be friends once I have to cook for my house on my own. That being said,
if anyone out there has some fool proof, cheap and tasty recipes they want to
send my way, I am more than open to that.
All and all, things remain awesome here. I eventually hope
to see this blog turn into a platform for stories and other fun things and less
of a play by play of every day of my week. I wish I had something more exciting to write about at this point, but hey, I've got a whole year here. Something's bound to happen eventually.
Thanks for reading. Keep being awesome (who ever you are).
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