Day N Nite

Just like the great rhymes of Kid Cudi, 'it's Day N Nite (womp womp)' the emotions of working at an Oregon school in a rural town, are like day and night, and they change frequently too. Let me set the scene for you... so I'm sitting in the 5th grade hallway at my school, standing by a table with a bunch of sign up sheets, some water and a calendar and I'm prowling on parents. Today is parent teacher conferences at my school and there are no kids (for the most part). Just us "adults" as I like to call them.

I've realized that to get any programs going here or to have them work well, I can't do it alone and I need some help. The teachers work so hard and help out as much as it is, they don't need me bugging them anymore than I already do. So I decided what better way to find volunteers than at conferences? I can reel parents in like it's my job (which technically it is right now). However, when you like like a kid, wear a purple tie-dye t-shirt your dad bought you, yoga pants and are trying to get rural kids doing yoga and tae kwon do, people look at you funny. Good thing I'm not wearing my star of david, then they'd really steer clear of me.

So like I was saying, I'm here, telling people my ideas to get these kids active and having fun. I'm offering classes on Fridays like yoga, tae kwon do, rock climbing, biking etc. (because our kids don't have school on Friday), we doing "Walking Wednesdays" where the kids, teachers and I meet downtown and walk up "high school hill" to practice active and healthy modes of transportation, I'm teaching bike safety and taking kids on bike rides and I need parents to help me chaperone. AND we're trying to start a school garden and I'm just trying to gather support and see what the parents think. Some parents are ALL over this stuff, think it's great, they're really supportive and are willing to help out too. (Some of these parents, about 5 of them are the same ones who volunteer for everything and are just as burnt out as the teachers are.) So that's great.

Insert extremely, negative, close minded people and there's my other half of the parent population. WHOA crazy mom who went let her kid do yoga because it's stupid. Do you even know what it is? Probably not. Now I realize, I'm new, I'm coming into this community and a lot of these people don't know me, don't know what Americorps is and are skeptical. That's fine, I get that. But if I'm taking my time to meet you, explain to you what I'm doing, please don't be rude and please don't come up with a lame, negative excuse comment after every sentence I speak. If you don't want to sign up or allow your children to have some extra fun, fine, but please just walk away and don't expel your negative tude on me. Ick.

So there are people like that, who get me down sometimes. And then I remember, there are a lot of parents here, who are supportive, who are into trying new things. Then I think again, all the kids, that's what I'm doing this for. I can't let negative Nancy's get me down, when all those kids out there are dying to learn about new stuff all the time. So even though parents are like day and night here, I know those little kid brains are growing by the minute so I'm gonna throw some knowledge out there and get them thinking critically about their surroundings. And try to drop some positive attitude their way, in case they're not getting one all the time.

P.S. Another highlight, I've been teaching bike safety (solo) for the 7th and 8th graders for a few weeks now and as a culmination we wanted to take the 8th graders on a bike trip. Despite a tough time scheduling, an initial lack of signed permission slips and plenty of pessimism from some others involved, we pulled it off! We had 32 kids out of about 50 in the 8th grade, join myself, my friend Shannon and Tammy (a B.A. parent volunteer) on a 15 mile bike ride to a local park! It was a great day, some sun, no rain and no broken bikes or kids! Woot woot!

I'm working on getting pictures going....

Love Molly

Livin' the Dream

You know how you always hear not to take things for granted? Why do we (humans) always do that? WHO KNOWS! Anyway, I get asked a bunch by people at home what Oregon is like, how the people are, how different it is, etc.? For awhile it was hard for me to articulate helpful answers to these questions and all I could say was AWESOME, in all caps, with a varying amount of exclamation points and smiley faces. Because let's be honest, Oregon is awesome and beautiful and amazing when you've never been to the PNW and you just moved here. However, it's amazing how easily that can be taken for granted, in a matter of two quick months.

I recently noticed that the words I use to describe my location and my job have evolved from the depth of a third grader to near a high schooler, so I'm getting there. I also realized how possessive my language has become with all new things here (job, roommates, house, my school in Oakland, my town (Roseburg), my bowling league, that's right ladies and gents the dude abides and we have our very own Americorps bowling team. Next stop, bowling league shirts, buttons ALL the way down. Two words. High. Class.) Like I was saying, I almost effortlessly have swallowed up all of these new aspects of life, as if I've been here the whole time and like I was saying before, we always take these things for granted.

It amazes me how much people here take things for granted until I realized, their affinity for taking-for-grantedness (being out of school has negatively affected my ability to distinguish between "real words" and "fake words") is much lower than places I'm used to. Yes everyone who helped with my Walking Wednesday program today complained that we served the kids Plain Yogurt, instead of some sugary substitute, and yes almost every person I meet here comments on how cool it is that I ride my bike to work, but that I should "just wait" for the winter time, then we'll see whose riding their bike to work and whose hitchhiking (a practice that is not only safe in Oregon, it's still cool to do). So yes, there is negativity here, just like there is anywhere else, but the level is WAY down out here.

Why do you ask? Because it's Oregon, it's beautiful here! Although I haven't seen the "winter" yet, I hear I'm lucky because it should have started by now. Currently I'm taking a friends dog out for a walk and it's sunny and in the 70's. What more could I ask for? So this is just a little reminder to enjoy all the small beautiful things in life and not to focus on the negative.

Peering out over Crater Lake
Tooting my own horn on Halloween with Andy Warhol

That's my roommate the dude (Ross) he abides.