A Sense of Memory

I have always had a keen sense of smell, and have always attached memory to smells, something that can be most useful in difficult situations. This ability draw upon different smells which therefore provoke memories brings at times great joy but also crippling sadness for what once was.

Being in America there are many new smells and many different memories all of which are combining to create a sense of identity and place, my identity and my place. But then every now and then I get a whiff of something with a historic, pre USA fragrance and this week has seen two such times.

I received in the post this week a gift from my Nana; it was a very lovely warm and soft scarf, along with a card. I received it on Tuesday evening when I had just got back from spending a great day with Tim and Kat in NYC, I was really upset as had just said goodbye to Tim and was not sure when I was going to see him again. It was perfect, as if my nana and God had decided today would be the day that I was going to feel a greater sense of love than I had for some time. I opened the package and the first thing that hit me was the smell, the smell of my nana, her house, of the last few years, of a sense of belonging and the knowledge that I am missed and loved. Thank you Nana!

The second time was the day after when Mike who is an older volunteer at the school and a great source of inspiration not least due to his personal commitment to social justice and life, gave us a baked ham. A baked ham, that evoked a sense of home once again and memories of people who have gone before me.

Thanks filled thanksgiving

Some ponderings upon thanksgiving and my experiences of it.

To start off with I didn't really fully understand thanksgiving, I understood the historic significance and the role that it plays within American society and culture. But then I celebrated thanksgiving and I mean celebrated, I relaised just how much I am to be thankful for, and for all the people who I am thankful to. It brought to mind some many different aspects of my volunteer life and my experiences of life these last few years, since starting at the Grange and then starting over here, my childhood and all the people who have had such strong influences in my life.

 

Spending time with my family for the first time in so many years in the way we did reinforced my desire to ensure the love that exists within my family stays strong and grows even stronger through simply often just being together, sharing the simplicities of life: food, warmth humour and love. It brought me back to the days of my childhood where I felt safe and uncomplicated.

 

So Thank you to all whom I must say thank you, for your love support friendship warmth and for simply being who you all are in my life and your own.

Much to be thankful for

I write this as I travel from a wet and cold Wickatunk via Newark airport courtesy of Diana to (I hope) a place of warmth hope and much love, yes I'm going to Baltimore. To Baltimore where I will be seeing Tim and Kat, Brendan Kate and Dom for my first thanksgiving and Tim's Birthday, all things I am grateful for.

As I am also for the opportunity to just go and see them for it is being with them that counts, the prospect of seeing them has given me so much hope and life these last few weeks, weeks that can only be described as tough times!

These last few weeks have seen the winter set in and the dark evenings take their toll on me and my fellow community members. It has seen us getting very excited about the coming weeks up to now and to Christmas, come together more as a unit and seen us grant to each other greater flexibility and deepen our appreciation of each other, all things to be thankful for.

 

 

 

Breaking News

Breaking news

I write this sporting a new pair of spectacles, same lenses but different frames, as on Friday just gone I got hit in the face by a soccer ball. I was playing soccer so at least it was part of the game, it did however break my glasses in to pieces and left me looking like I’d been in a fight.
It has however given me an understanding of the world of US health care and insurance and how crippling it must be for those without insurance to get basic health care and for those with health insurance how bloody annoying it is that you can’t go anywhere you’d choose.
It also highlighted just how great my colleagues are in these instances for staff and students alike.
In other news these last few weeks have seen the premiere of Mr. Smith’s teaching career with lesson plans quizzes phone calls to parents and all other teacher related things. I’ve been teaching world cultures it’s like geography old school with the young people learning region by region about the world its people and how they are linked. I find it funny that I’d be teaching, WC as at Uni is studied how regional geography, and how my daddy studied regional geography at school in the mid 1960’s.

The challenge of teaching something quite foreign, to groups of young people who are often in the class because they don’t know what else to choose, and something that I have a passion for has been great and grate. But I have trusted and hoped that my passion has been conveyed to the young people in ways that they have found enjoyable and informative.

I’ve also been teaching US history 1 something that has been a source of enlightenment and ignited a desire to learn more about history and possibly develop further this year.

You can Call Me

Well I am now officially living and working in the United States of America and today made me really feel like I belonged here.
In Paul Simon's classic You Can Call me Al he sings the lines;
He doesn't speak the language
He holds no currency
He is a foreign man
He is surrounded by the sound
The sound
Cattle in the marketplace

Well I have of late been feeling like this at times.

until today I had been really struggling with expressing myself to my US brothers and sisters added to the fact I’ve been waiting for the last 4 weeks for my bank account to open I have really felt like the lyrics in some ways summed up my thoughts and at time my feelings.
The joys of my accent and my means of expression have at time left me feeling very foreign and the sounds of the cattle in the market place is at time all around me in my life both at school and in my community.

But things I hope may have taken a turn for the better; at least I think they will. I along with Diana and Sarah went to the mall this afternoon/ evening to taste and see the joys of all things Americana all topped off with a helping of Chinese American food served in a Japanese food concession in the food hall of Freehold Raceway Mall.

This experience served to make me realize more why I like living here despite the difficulties that differences can sometimes bring.

A communal outing

Tonight we finished our first communal blog for the Good Shepherd Volunteer Blog, it details a little of what we have been up to over the recent weeks.

It’s odd reading it as some of the events seem to have been years ago but are only a week ago.

You can check out the blog here;
http://www.justlovegsv.blogspot.com/

Pax Christi and Pancakes

Well today saw a further development in the world of wonder that is Collier high school.
I along with my fellow volunteers was asked to cook breakfast for a number of young people in periods 2, 3, 5 and 6.
Now ok, periods 2 and 3 are in the a.m. but periods 5 and 6 are after lunch. Some of you reading this may already know how much of a stickler for the rules when it comes to the miss appropriation of meal names but i got over this.
So Miss Dodgson and I went to period 6 to make breakfast for the science student in the class, we made pancakes and bacon- it was a delight and delightful. I obviously don’t need to highlight the scientific importance of making bacon in the classroom as a informative and nutritional means of highlighting the everyday importance of chemistry and chemical bonds in all aspects of life not least at breakfast.
A lot of pancake mix and bacon was left over- this is good news in the life of a volunteer as it can mean one of two things-
1. We get left overs
2. we get left overs
So we got left overs, and had breakfast for dinner-YEAH




After dinner we went to a Pax Christi prayer Vigil for Immigrants with Sr Debbie and Sr Carol and Meg who works at the school and was a former volunteer. It was really good and brought to mind a lot of the reasons why I am here: to serve people who are on the fringes of society , and to bring Christ to all who I meet especially those who don’t get a chance at doing the things that I can do and take for granted.
http://paxsummit.blogspot.com/
It also reminded me of lots of my friends in the Olde Country who I miss and have learnt so much from over the last few years and longer.

A wickatunk weekend

Well this weekend has been a rather interesting means of primarily getting to know my community, the local area and how scared I can be or not as the case may be.
So on Saturday we decided that our apartment needed a clean so we cleaned for a large part of the day, I managed to reorganize the shelves in the kitchen and organize our rather vast tea, infusion and coffee collection, not what I had really got in mind for a Saturday in NJ but it was raining and I do live in the middle of nowhere so I wasn’t that bothered.

After cleaning for some time it was decided that we were going to visit a NJ diner which are apparently very famous- just quite famous and only really famous if your get a good one and you’re from NJ.
So we decided to go to the one nearest to us but it was closed so then we ended up pretty much in the middle of nowhere in a place called Manalapan at the Manalapan Diner

Now the Manalapan diner isn’t just any diner it’s a diner restaurant offering a range of delights that are spread over a 12 page menu plus specials. My review wouldn’t do it justice, however, http://www.yelp.com/biz/manalapan-diner-englishtown
Does in part but doesn’t truly express the atmosphere of the place which was to say the least Bizarre! The women who served us told Diana she didn’t want to have the Matzo ball soup, Diana did order the soup and when the waitress cleared our table she told Diana that she was a good girl.
I should also say at this stage that when ordering the soup we were asked what bread we wanted the options being as follows
Cheese Plain or Cinnamon? – yes Cinnamon!
We ordered cheese and some kind of sweet Danish pastry type of thing came, it was really sweet and added to the experience and left Saran Diana and myself with the question if that was the cheese then what would the cinnamon have been like!
The experience was made all the more enjoyable by our fellow dinners that varied in age from about 104 all the way to babies.
So there we are!

Sunday brought a trip to Six Flags Adventure Park
http://www.sixflags.com/greatAdventure/rides/index.aspx

‘twas bloody scary, I say that but also enjoyable I went on a few rides and now have sore knees from pressing them on to the sides of the carts that I sat in whilst hurtling around.
I don’t think Sarah and Diana realized just how much of a chicken I am when it comes to things rides but I soon dispelled any illusions by coming off http://www.sixflags.com/greatAdventure/rides/The_Great_American_Scream_Machine.aspx with a look of death, I then told them that this was a normal thing for me and that when I said I really don’t like roller coasters I meant it.

It was a good day though with highlights including the conquering of the runaway mine train and other favourites that were rated as family favorites.
I don’t think I’ll be rushing back to six flags but it was good to see the collective masses enjoying a very very hot day in mid September

Life so far

September
So a run down of the last few days for you all:
This week I’ve been mostly embracing all things American, with my inaugural basketball game- I got beaten by my housemate Sarah!



Went bicycle riding along a canal it was a bit like being at home with the canals of the Black Country, with the additions of water snakes, turtles and a canal that seemed to have very little in the way of rubbish in it.

Check out http://www.dandrcanal.com/
And http://maps.google.com/maps?sourceid=ie7&q=d%20and%20r%20canal&rls=com.microsoft:en-us:IE-SearchBox&oe=UTF-8&rlz=1I7TSHB_en&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&hl=en&tab=wl

Then on Friday Sarah, Diana and I along with our principle Ray his dad Ray Senior and John who is a cool science teacher at the school, went to

!

to do a little; net crabbing, which basically involved a net and walking in crab grass and losts of it, all in all fun