What was special about this visit is that it was the first one that I got to drive to. Julia and I are both drivers, but she is much better than I am about reserving the car, so she usually drives. This time around, however, she had a prelim and asked if I could drop her off close to where she was taking it once we were done. She must be crazy for still doing service on the day she has a prelim…

The Halloween decorations were gone, but the animal shelter had some sort of Harry Potter theme going on for the week. A lot of the adoption prices were cut and each of the cats were assigned a house.

The cat wing is composed of a single hallway that branches into 5 doors. The door directly at the end of the hallway is a cat room, but the other four doors lead to smaller “common areas”, each of which have more doors that lead to cat rooms. Within each of the common areas, the cats that live in that branch take turns having their doors open so they can roam the space. Recently, the back right common area has been closed off to everyone but staff (volunteers not included). I’m curious as to why, but there’s a large sheet of cardboard blocking the glass.

During my third visit to BJM elementary school, I noticed the sense of community in the neighborhood. Ms. Sarah, who is a teacher that helps out in the Art Room, has been living in Ithaca for many years and has been part of these children’s lives even before they were born. Since she moved to Ithaca, she has always worked with children, so she has interacted with many of the parents when they were children and some are even her godchildren. Ms. Sarah exemplifies loyalty to these people’s families and does her best to get to know the parents of children she has not met before. It is great to see that she was able to make a home away from her home and contribute to its development.

Queenie and I had met eyes a couple of times through a glass door, and, with each interaction, I said to myself, “never going in there.” That was a complete lie. This week I found myself trapped under Queenie sleeping on my lap. This would be a cute scene if Queenie wasn’t labeled the Queen of the SPCA on her door. I went in as a testament to myself to see how far and how comfortable I could get with the cats 3 weeks in; this was a mistake. Queenie had conquered not only my lap but also my pride. Being forced to sit for two hours because you thought Queenie would end your life in one swipe of the paw, was not the best way to go out. My legs have never recovered, but at least I went in.

Now that my schedule is finally settled (I had to switch a bunch of classes), my weekly routine is finally regular. Our trips to the SPCA offer a nice break from studying every other Tuesday. It is good to feel settled in for the semester with a solid routine.

Although I was fairly familiar with the practices at BJM after a few weeks of volunteering I still had no idea what to do when two students get into a conflict. I was in the art room listening to a third-grader Sam talk about the space station he built using legos when two other students started arguing and exchanged some mean words. I was unsure of what I should be doing and that is when Ms. Sarah stepped in. She not only reprimanded the students for the mean nature of the words they were exchanging but she asked them both to apologize. She did not only say that the kids needed to apologize and then simply walk away, but she also stayed there until they apologized to each other, making sure that they looked at each other while doing it, and ensured that they meant it. I was in awe of her dedication to making sure her students not only learned academically but also instilled in them values that will serve them well beyond school. 

This made me reflect on the interactions I participate in every day and made me question how many of the words that I exchange I actually mean between mindless text messages or quick conversations I, like many people, engage in as we rush from one place to another. Revisiting the power that words hold and how imperative it is to actually mean the words we say may sound like an idea that is elementary; however, it is fundamental in redefining the interactions we engage in every single day. 

This week, there were far more cats than had been there the last time I had a shift. It made me reflect on just how many people must live in Tompkins County. Out of the families who adopt cats, they probably only adopt one cat every 5-20 years. And yet, there is a huge amount of movement through the SPCA of Tompkins County. We have shifts every two weeks, and usually very few cats are still there for your next shift. There can be around 30 cats at one time, and yet when you return, very few are familiar. Compared to my home county, I think of Tompkins as very spread out with a fairly small population. But lots of cat adoptions means lots of families looking for a cat, which means lots of people! It is pretty remarkable to think about just how many people there are in the county (or state, or country, or continent), and it is really nice to do so with a cute little black cat in your lap.

I once learned that the frequency of cat purrs help heal any injuries that cats face, such as healing broken bones and repairing joints and tendons. It is speculated that this property of purrs might also help humans. While I’m not sure of that, I do know that having a purring cat on your lap makes me feel warm and happy, and that endorphin rush and stress relief is definitely good for my health!

When I went to the shelter this week, I spent a long time simply petting a beautiful reddish-brown, long-hair cat that jumped onto my lap promptly after I sat down. Seeing her tail sweep around happily and hearing her purrs made me feel very relaxed. Although sitting on the floor got a bit tiring, the feeling of affection and happiness from her was infectious. I hope I get to see her again and pet her again.

I also played with Jeremiah again, who seemed a bit more skittish after being moved to a larger room, but couldn’t resist playing. Although he kept his distance, he was very eager to chase after the toy.

On my third visit to BJM, I was placed in one of my favorite places, the Craft Room. Even though sweet Mrs. Sarah wasn’t there, I was able to get to know a few of the other regular volunteers. There weren’t many children that afternoon and those who were there were quite preoccupied by their crafts and games. While monitoring the students play and conversation, we struck up a conversation of our own, curiously and im not sure how, about accents and languages. One of the teachers began by sharing her travels and how much she had learned about other cultures and how incorrect a lot of her preconceptions were. The other teacher chimed in and spoke of the different cultures she grew up around living in NYC. We then began chatting on different languages, accents, and issues concerning such, specifically Spanish. I myself shared that Spanish was my native tongue and that I had been raised in Puerto Rico and struggled growing up in the United States.

Though the conversation was mostly mild and well humored, it took a few serious turns– though not more significant than the rest, the most relevant to academia and young minds was the concept of multilingualism in the home and at school, especially in a country like the United States where so many cultures intermingle. It’s of great importance that students properly learn multiple languages, if not in the home than early during their educational careers. Not only is it quite beneficial during later years of schooling, it is also helpful in better  interacting and connecting with others, especially those of different cultures. What’s more, it is humbling and revealing, making it more accessible to better understand people.

This is a reminder of how crucial teaching languages and nourishing such learning is essential in the education sector– a call to action in reforming the structure of academia in the public sector and devoting to the development of young minds and young hearts.

During my third week at BJM, I volunteered in the Arts and Sciences room. There were two kids who weren’t really doing anything in particular so I asked them if they would like to sit down at a table and play some board games. Although we did play a couple games, the kids weren’t really in the mood and wanted to just draw and play with crayons. After a few minutes of them just smashing crayons around in a bucket of crayons, one began to write sentences on what he did that day and one drew his favorite foods. I found it surprising how curious the child writing notes was to write everything he did perfectly. For example, he used to write that he ran around in the gym and that he ate pizza. However, if he couldn’t spell a word, he asked me for help and I spelled a bunch of words out for him and also wrote them on a separate sheet of paper so he could copy them. I was intrigued by his desire to learn how to write well and it made me feel great that I was helping him how to write and spell at such an early point in his life.

This past week I worked with a student who was unwilling to do any work. I kept asking Elijah to work on his geography homework, but he wasn’t willing to. I knew he wanted to get the homework done before he went home, but he kept getting distracted and not wanting to do the work. He kept complaining that it was too difficult. However, I decided to slowly trick him into doing the homework.

In order to help him, I tricked him into doing problem by problem. I made them seem more interesting and more fun than they were. Little by little he became to have more fun and managed to get the homework done under 15 minutes. It was amazing how easily he could do the work once he became slightly interested.

From this I learned a wise lesson about doing boring things. It isn’t about focusing on what bores you, but focusing on the things that are fun. Instead of focusing on the uninteresting items, focus on what makes you happy and excited. Life becomes easy when we focus on things that make us happy!

Response to 11/14/19 visit to makeup for my week 3 absence.

This week I was working in the Art Room and it was an interesting experience.

In the beginning, I was just helping the kids draw and talking with them. I was asked to draw eyes and scales on a mermaid, had my drawing taken away by another kid so he could color it in (and then he proceeded to tell me that his was better, to which I said “definitely”), and asked to help draw a computer. The art teacher then came over and told me to draw as well, and it was really refreshing and relaxing because I haven’t done anything like this since high school. It was fun to just sit down and draw with the other kids and help them out because there were no standards of what looks good or bad, just drawing to draw and to have fun.

After a while, a couple of the kids had left, so I worked with the art teachers and the remaining students on their Happy Fall sign by sticking leaves onto the sign. It was nice to just let go and enjoy what I was doing in the moment with the other students and teachers.

On October 23, I volunteered at BJM Elementary School and had the opportunity to help out with the Chinese class. More specifically, the three girls were learning how to read, write, and say the twelve Chinese zodiacs in Chinese.

The Chinese teacher started out by teaching the students how to introduce themselves. On the worksheet she had provided, while the Chinese teacher enunciated each character in the first sentence, she also pointed to each character so that the students would follow. However, having experience in learning Chinese myself, I empathize with the students’ opinions that learning Chinese is difficult. In fact, the reason why learning Chinese is difficult is because the Chinese characters do not give any hint as to how to say the character. To help the students, under each Chinese character, I wrote out the pronunciation for each Chinese character using the English alphabet. Fo example, if the Chinese character has an “sh” pronunciation, I would wrote “sh” under the character. After writing the pronunciation for each character, the three girls thanked me and found the English pronunciations very useful. The Chinese class was a success and the three girls even got the opportunity to write the characters. Overall, helping out in the Chinese class made me nostalgic and I was very happy that I could be a help to the three girls and look forward to helping out in Chinese class again.

This week I attended BJM, expecting to see my usual volunteering partner, Ariana. However this week she never came, I assumed she was busy or had a prelim, or may be she wasn’t feeling well. I brushed it off and headed into the Art Room. I was greeted by hellos from Ms. Sarah and Mr. Jacob as usual. Children ran up to me and grabbed my leg asking if I remembered their names or looked puzzled as if they had never seen me before(nothing out of the ordinary). I took my seat at the table, just as I felt a tap on my shoulder. A little girl named Ella looked up at me quite distraught. I asked her what was wrong and then she asked me where Ariana was. I told her I wasn’t sure, maybe she was running late or maybe she got busy, but that I was sure she would be back next time. Ella seemed to nod in understanding but I could see the hurt in her eyes. It became clear to me that she looked forward to seeing Ariana every other week, that it was a high point in her week. It gave me a real tangible example of the impact we are making on these children’s’ lives just by this one hour of time.

On my last volunteer shift, I visited the cat wing like always and socialized the cats that resided there. It was relaxing just like previous times. I decided to visit the rooms adjacent to the cat wing where they sometimes put cats with FIV. FIV stands for feline immunodeficiency virus. It is an immune disease that affects cats and is similar to a feline equivalent of HIV. On previous trips, I was never able to visit these rooms before the shift was over, so this was the first time I interacted with a cat with FIV.

I was interested in what FIV is and how it affects the cats, so I did some basic research. Cats with FIV are more susceptible to infection because their immune systems are weakened. Infected cats who have access to the proper care are able to live comfortable lives in stress-free indoor environments before the disease progresses to its chronic stages. FIV is transmitted most commonly through bite wounds that occur from outdoor fights and less commonly through an infected mother to her kitten. It is not typically spread through sharing food bowls or litter boxes or other modes of common contact. At the shelter, we are instructed to visit the cats with FIV first because it reduces the risk of infecting the cats.

When I entered the room with the FIV-positive cat, she greeted me and wanted to be pet on her head. Ultimately, she was just as sweet and wanted pets just as much as some of the other cats. I spent the next thirty minutes sitting in the room as she ate her food and occasionally came over for pets. Hopefully, her FIV status does not deter people from adopting such a sweet cat.

I assisted a girl named Madalaine with her English homework, which was to write sentences that included the vocabulary words that she learned. When Madalaine showed me the words she learned in her notebook, my eyes widened with surprise because the vocabulary words were pretty advanced. She explained to me that the words stemmed from the Latin root word “port”, which meant to carry. I asked her what grade she is in and she told me that she is in fifth grade. Now I understood why she was learning words such as spectator and portable because fifth grade is the last grade of elementary school. There was one word that Madalaine asked me to define. The word was opportunity. I told her that opportunity is something that is given to you and you should take it to grow as well as improve. I don’t think my definition seemed clear to her, so I asked her if the A+ Academy was an opportunity for her to improve her math and science skills. She stared at me blankly and said she did not know. We eventually moved on to another word that was simpler and easier to write a sentence for. However, the word opportunity stuck with me because I wondered how the Latin root word applied to the word opportunity. Finding the answer on Google, I learned that opportunity came from the phrase ob portum veniens “coming toward a port”, which meant wind blowing ships into the harbor or favorable wind that came blowing towards someone. This is an insightful meaning because an opportunity is something favorable that comes toward a person, and the person has the choice to either grab it or let it go.

When I was a Rose Service Scholar last year, the A+ program at Beverly J. Martin Elementary School had a few options to choose from when it came to deciding where to spend your afternoon. When I arrived this week, I learned that they had expanded the number of options available, I thought I would sit in on the Chinese language class. A few students were ambitious and wanted to learn Mandarin. A PhD student from Cornell runs the program and creates an interactive power point and worksheet based on upcoming events and subjects. This week we learned how to say “My favorite ____ is”, with topics including food and holidays. I was especially impressed that younger students (those in second and third grade) were also participating and spelling out the pronunciations phonetically. My absolute favorite part, as well as the students’, was when the teacher had the volunteers help her into her Halloween costume: a blow up dinosaur.

This week at BJM I tutored two fourth graders with their math homework and reading assignments. They were excited to work together on their math homework, and they worked on addition and subtraction word problems. I was impressed with the level of math they were working on, as some of the word problems were fairly tricky. One of the students completed his work fairly quickly and moved on to his reading. He read a book about great white sharks and asked me questions about vocabulary words highlighted in the book. He seemed excited about the subject of sharks, and shared some interesting facts with me about them, such as how great white sharks supposedly have over 3,000 teeth. The other student I worked with was far more focused on gym class that would follow the completion of his homework. He was energetic and seemed to get distracted by the surrounding noise in the library, but we were able to work through his math problems together such that he got his homework done in time for gym. Both students seemed passionate. They were excited to get to gym class and although one student had greater focus when it came to getting his work done, I was impressed by the work of both of them and I enjoyed tutoring them.