Tuesday, October 25, 2005

Home Sweet Home

I had a good weekend at home. I couldn't leave until Saturday because my housemates and I had interviews with Big Brothers/Big Sisters in the morning. We all decided to do the program as some extra volunteering. I will be paired with a little sister soon and I am supposed to hang out with her a couple times a month. I think it will be fun. After the two hour training/interview, I headed home to see my real little sister. The drive actually went really fast and it was nice to look at the pretty scenery with the leaves changing (in Kentucky at least, once you get to Ohio there is nothing to look at). Denise awaited anxiously for my arrival. She was waiting on the driveway, while talking to me on the phone, until I pulled up. She was the only one to greet me. My mom was grocery shopping and my dad was in the basement watching the Ohio State game. I yelled down at him to say I was home. He muttered something and kept on watching. When he came up twenty minutes later to use the restroom he was surprised to see me (I think Vicki will find this amusing). Anyways, it was nice to see my family again. I realized that was the longest I have ever gone without seeing them (only about two months). Things haven't really changed since I left. Denise is still a handful and acting like a teenager already. I think I provided some relief this weekend. After working with so many kids that have it rough, it is hard for me to see Denise acting like it is the end of the world because she can't go over to her friend's house or my mom won't stop at Dairy Queen after buying her a Halloween costume. She has so much compared to most other kids, but I guess she is too young to understand that. I tried to explain it to her though.

Saturday night I went to a corn maze with Kim, Erin, and a couple of her vet school friends. It was out in Plain City somewhere. Half of it was haunted, half not. We kept getting lost and were chased by people with chain saws, so all and all, it was a good time. Sunday morning I went out to breakfast with Kim & Celeste, then to church and spent the rest of the day with my family. It was a good weekend. Driving back and forth between Louisville and Columbus felt like I was traveling between my two different worlds. Does that make sense to anyone else?

Today was a long day at work because we had to stay two hours later for a training, so I didn't get home until 9 (luckily getting home consists of walking up some stairs!) The training started off as how to teach reading to ESL students, but turned into a discussion about the public school system here and what they are doing, and more importantly not doing, for the growing number of ESL students in the area. It sounds like some positive things will start happening. Change is definitely needed. We have so many kids that come in with homework that is not appropriate for their level of English. It is hard to help them when they have absolutely no idea what they are doing! Sometimes I feel like I am just doing their homework for them. We got some insight on how to deal with this tonight. I hope it helps.

I brought my tap shoes from home and just gave a little show to Emily and Keith in the kitchen. So Alisa, my sincere apologies if this disturbed your sleep. (and stop reading this and go back to work!)

4 Comments:

At 3:31 PM, Blogger Laura said...

Maria- It is great that you were able to go home and see your family!

 
At 4:15 AM, Blogger Rebekah said...

:( I didn't get your text or SMS as they call them here. Tell Denise hello from Bangladesh.

 
At 3:20 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

that doesn't surprise me at all about your dad, he can be so random...

so did Kim and Celeste bitch about not talking to me since school has started? Just curious.

 
At 10:19 PM, Blogger Maria said...

nope they didn't really, but they both did mention that they don't like e-mail...and that you are bad about returning phone calls, but not bitching :)

 

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