This was the first week that I went with my proper group. Due to a prelim on the first Tuesday that my group went, I had to reschedule and go with the other group last time. This means that is has been three weeks since my last visit to the animal shelter.

Unsurprisingly, since the last time I had been, Half-Stache was adopted. Considering how friendly of a cat he was, this was expected. Although I’m disappointed that I won’t be able to see him anymore, I am glad that he has found a home.

Interestingly, some of the cats had Halloween themed decorations in their rooms. One set of cats had a spooky box they could hide in, which they had taken an extreme liking too. The majority of the time I was in their room, they were on, in, or around the box.

Due to the incident last week, I only use string toys with Fiona. As I swung the toys, our eyes met and I felt that, at that moment, we truly understood each other; Fiona only wants to be played with not pet. Such a revelation made me think that I could honestly form connections and understand the temperaments of other cats. I would like to note that at the beginning of this post, I mentioned how I only play with Fiona using string toys, I would like to edit such a statement to say; I used string toys with most cats because I had slight trust issues.

Even though it was only the second week we actually volunteered at the SPCA, I already felt like a local. The staff was very helpful in getting us into the routine. Our name-tags were all taken care of and hanging by the sign in computer with the rest of the volunteers. They do a good job of making our jobs as volunteers easy, which is very nice.

As I got to BJM Ms. Stacy told me that I can either head over to the math and science room or the art room, and I decided to head over to the art room. I sat down with a couple of students and recognized a student I had spent time with last week. I asked Maddie what she was trying to do and she told me that she is writing a card and needs me to help her spell some names, including her own. As we started, she closely imitated the motions I was making with the marker until we got to a lowercase ‘q.’ We struggled with this for a while and I kept redrawing it in the hopes that she will eventually understand, and ultimately Maddie let out a loud sigh and said “Seher, you aren’t doing it properly! You need to make a small head and draw a ponytail on it.” As soon as she said that Ms. Sarah and I started laughing and I could not do much else other than agree. 

This simple incident for some reason has stuck with me and it made me realize how important perspective is, sometimes the things we tend to overthink and complicate as adults can seem less daunting only if we looked at them a little differently. Being able to help Maddie write her name was something I greatly enjoyed as she seemed so excited and motivated to learn and it is something that made my time there infinitely more valuable and enjoyable.

On my second week as a volunteer, I circled around the cat wing and played with each of the cats. Some of the cats were nervous at the beginning, but after simply sitting on the ground for a few minutes, they got used to my presence and a few that were initially nervous cautiously came down to look at me. To entice them further, I started luring them over with toys. With each cat, I tried gauging which approach to play they had. Some cats were more curious, and so when I moved the toy and then let it come to a slow crawl, they pounced. Other cats enjoyed the chase, and with them, I quickly moved around the toy in surprising trajectories. I especially liked playing with one black cat who at first was very wary, but warmed up to me through playing with the toy. Playing with the cats reminded me of my two cats at home, Frankie and Sparrow, and how both of them were scared at first when they got to our house, but now, with time and care, are very comfortable with every part of the house.

Since I had extra time during Fall Break, I decided to stay for the second hour of A+, which was great because it gave me time to interact with the kids. I was sitting in Mrs. Stacy’s office when an old friend of mine, a Harry Potter loving 5th grader, came bounding into the room, giving Mrs. Stacy a hug and asking her for snacks. She was always a bright girl with a very vibrant character and well, a lot to say. I asked her how her summer had gone and she answered me with a smile, but with little recognition showing in her features. It wasn’t until I asked her if she had finished reading Harry Potter that she realized who I was, her face lighting up with joy  With a skip in her step, she came over to me with a “Oh, you! I know you!” Before I could say much of anything else, she tilted her head and gave me a curious look. “You look different…” I gave her a confused look of my own, “Oh?” She nodded enthusiastically and patted my arm. “But I’m glad it’s you!” I didn’t know what to say.

The rest of my time that afternoon was spent helping some of the girls out with their homework and listening to the tales and quips they had to share. I couldn’t get over it, however… how it had been almost an entire summer and I had only interacted with this young girl over a few visits and she remembered who I was– not by how I looked, but by how I had spent time with her, how we had bonded over something as arbitrary as a book series. I am in constant awe of how simple it is to impact someone, especially children.

Since I volunteer in the Art Room, I thought it would be interesting to do an arts and crafts project. Once again Ella joined me and I showed her how you can fold a paper in half and cut out a butterfly that way. This got a few other students’ attention and asked if they could also make one. They each had their own unique shape and once we began coloring them in the children were able to express themselves more with the patterns and colors they chose to use when decorating their butterflies. I chose to show them how to make paper butterflies since it was a project I enjoy

This is a butterfly I decorated with Ella.

ed working on as a kid. It is a simple project and can be fun to work in as a group.

During my second week at BJM, I was encouraged to shift to the Arts and Sciences room. Here, I joined a few children who were in the middle of making crafts. I was delighted by their creativity as they were making unique figures out of popsicle sticks, a few other different materials, and piecing it all together with hot glue. One thing that really stood out to me was that one of the children was making an outfit for her baby sister. I was surprised by her gratuity, considering that she could have made something for herself or a friend. However, she had carefully planned out what she wanted to make for her baby sister, including a blouse, pants, and to my surprise, a hat and shoes. This showed me that children can be really selfless. In addition, I admired the resilience because it took her quite a few attempts to some items made properly. The entire hour spent on an outfit really highlighted to me how caring kids can be towards their loved ones, even at such an early age.

I decided to head down to the arts class because the library was close to empty and most of the students were doing fun activities in the last hour of the academy. When I entered the room, I saw students drawing something on computer papers with markers, teachers observing the children, and other students playing with the train tracks on the carpet. I went over to the second table where the students were drawing and introduced myself. The children were adorable with their pure smiles, cute drawings, and talkative behaviors. There was a problem between Edith and Dabby because Edith was unwilling to share the sticker book with Dabby, so another teacher had to intervene and ask Edith to share the sticker book. I also encouraged Edith to share the sticker book because the book was the school’s property and that Dabby did not receive any stickers. It was a comforting sight to see both Edith and Dabby cooperate by sharing the sticker book, putting the stickers into their papers, and talking about the stickers. This sight reminded me of arts class in elementary school where I would talk with friends and draw something. I feel glad that I went down to the arts class because it helped me relax to see children be creative with art. 

As a fifth grader, you should expect the homework problems to be more challenging than the previous years. I was asked to assist in solving a problem of determine the weights of a pineapple and an orange. The only problem was, I could not figure out the question without using an equation, but the fifth graders have not yet learned algebra. Because of this, I resorted to using trial and error, to which one of the students thought “the college age girl doesn’t even know how to do it”. I finally did figure out the answer, but since it took so long to figure out the answer, they were disinterested and unmotivated to figure it out for themselves. Regardless, I thought it was interesting to see the difficulty range of homework problems and motivation to find the answer from the group of students I was working with.

This week at BJM I got to work with Ms. Stacy in the gym before heading to the Media Room/Club.

At first, I thought the gym would be difficult because (in my mind) that was where all the kids went to spend their extra energy; however, it was quite calm. There were kids who were just playing basketball by themselves and moving around a smaller hoop on wheels. It was entertaining and a bit worrying to watch because I was worried they would get hurt, but they were all focused on having fun they were not worried at all. There were 3 other kids dragging each other around on jump ropes, which they got told off for, but continued to just roll around on the floor. There were other students just talking with Ms. Stacy, and I realized how little the kids needed to have fun. Whenever my friends or I get bored lately, we resort to watching videos, playing cards, or video games, but these kids just need a space and maybe some jump ropes.

When I went to the media room, I worked with the gossip girls and helped them spell and form a script for their first episode, seeing they would start recording the next week, but our attention got pulled sometimes to the food/history/rap battles group. They were quite entertaining to watch and listen to because they were arguing whether bread should go against Kylie Jenner or Donald Trump. I was surprised by how much they could come up with (and some of the lyrics were actually pretty good). I was worried that they couldn’t finish this project since it seemed so big, but I was really happy to see it go (relatively) smoothly. I can’t wait to hear the finished project when it gets uploaded on the website. These students are going above and beyond what I thought they were capable of.

This week at the SPCA, the other volunteers and I noted a dramatic decrease in the number of cats. There were a total of 5 cats we were allowed to interact with (many of the cats that are particularly shy or still adjusting to the shelter are staff-only). The remaining, unadopted cats were all fairly shy, independent cats.

Spending two hours on only 5 cats means that there is a lot of time to earn their trust and make them comfortable.  Interestingly, with the right toy or the right amount of time, most of the cats would come out from their hiding spots to interact. This just made the process more rewarding, as it felt like a moment of progress with the cat’s socialization and trust of humans.

I also find it intriguing that at the same time, I myself was socializing with the other volunteers. While we were attempting to get the cats to a friendly state, we were all subconsciously doing the same amongst ourselves! Humans are social beings, so we have a tendency to immediately chat and get to know one another. Cats need a bit longer, but they will still get there. Sharing our success in getting the cats to a state of comfort only furthered our own, human sense of comfort with one another.

A Video of Fiona the Cat:

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On my second trip to BJM elementary school, I once again found myself in the Art room with Ms. Sarah.

After being begged for about 15 mins, Ms. Sarah, Mr.Jacob and I decided to play some music for the kids. The second that we agreed screams for Frozen or Moana song, were joined by Uptown Funk and other songs I would have expected. Every now and then one of them requested something a little different such as “spooky music,” but it was nothing out of the ordinary. We were flipping through Disney songs till the little girl Edith turned to me and asked if we could play David Bowie, Black Sabbath, or Bruce Springstein. She ranted and raved about how they were her favorite and how much she loved them. Ms. Sarah, Mr. Jacob and I were shocked that not only did Edith know who these artists were, but the 5 year old could list 10-15 songs from each artist and sing lyrics from the ones she didn’t know the title of. She also seemed to be annoyed when her peers had no idea about the songs she was referring to.It blew my mind that she had such a music preference that mirrored that of her full-fledged adult teachers. I can’t help but wonder how Edith’s music knowledge will continue to grow as she gets older, and becomes increasingly influenced by her peers.

On my second visit to SPCA, I certainly felt that I was more confident about what to do and in reading cat body language. As a result, I had an easier time connecting with the cats and even had a couple of cats lay on my lap. When we first arrived, I headed to the cat wing and immediately started socializing with the cats there.

The first cat I interacted with was a cat that I had played with my last visit. He was laying calmly by the window and was very open to me petting him just like the previous time. This made me wonder if this openness was just a facet of his personality or whether there was any recognition. I assume that the cats at the shelter see a lot of people every day and since each volunteer group only goes every other week, it must be unlikely that the cats would remember us, but I have heard that cats have decent recognition ability (better than dogs). Maybe as we go more often, the cats that we see that are still there will start to become familiar with us.

After this cat, I interacted with an orange cat named Pushti. She really enjoyed head rubs and would shove her head into my hand in order to get her fix which was very adorable. While I interacted with her and other cats, I felt the calming effect of spending time with the cats. I especially enjoyed when the cats would warm up to me after enough time and eventually lay on my lap while I pet them. During this visit, a number of the cats were lap cats that enjoyed petting which I liked to do. At the end of volunteering, I felt much more relaxed than when I first arrived. I am looking forward to the next time I can interact with the cats!

In my second week of service scholars, I had to help tutor third graders with simple division and reading. This was a very valuable experience to me as it taught me how to use a students’ advantages to help them take away their disadvantages. While helping one student learn division, rather than have them learn it through methods of division, I taught them how to use multiplication to help them do division. They were very good at multiplication so it made their lives much easier to think of division as a method of multiplication rather than think of it as a whole new type of operation.

This experience was somewhat eye opening because sometimes I forget how much we as older students/adults can use our own advantages to mask up our disadvantages. Often as college students we tend to focus on the negatives or disadvantages we have and we allow it to bring us down. This short experience reminded me to focus more on the positives and advantages that I have, so that I can help solve my problems and disadvantages

This was from my week 2, October 10th Service session.

On Wednesday, October 9th, I had the opportunity to volunteer at BJM Elementary School. I helped with young kids in the Math and Science section of the classroom. There, I got to see young kids create pieces of artwork with basic supplies (i.e. tacks, hot glue gun, cardboard, and beads). In particular, Emily showed me how her group manage to make a whole house filled with different rooms for both people and cats to live in as well as a whole bunch of traps in case someone breaks into their home. They used hot glue to create a spider looking trap, a pile of macaroni used for food, and even making a string out of paper clips as a clothes line. After listening to Emily, I am amazed and impressed on how creative these kids can be. They have inspired me to think more creatively and push me to think outside of the box.

I also got the chance to participate and look at a few kids play Candy Land. After we had played one round, one girl, in particular, was upset for not winning. To make her feel better, we agreed to play another match. In the second round, she did not win again. The little girl was adamant about winning that we played another round. Thankfully, she was able to win the third round. However, her drive and motivation to win also inspired me to reflect and realize that it is important to never give up. Whenever an obstacle arises, I have to remind myself to never give up.