real world auditions this saturday in san francisco.  open call from 10am - 5pm at the 1751 Social Club:  1751 Fulton Street.  i saw it on their board while i was on the bus.  you have to be 18 - 24 years old and be available for up to 5 months, beginning in January.  not sure where it'll be.  here's the website: http://www.bunim-murray.com/casting/rwrr_casting.htm if you wanna know if there are auditions in another city/state.  apparently they're encouraging soldiers who've just returned from serving overseas to apply.  (philip?? dan?? rae??)

man. 
although it's a record for me--not getting sick until now--it sucks; i
was hoping that i could at least make it through october.  fever
and congestion and scratchy throat and coughing and phlegm = not
fun.   my immune system will have to make major adjustments,
especially now that i'm going to be around almost 100 kids every
weekday. 

on a sweeter note, one of the greatest things
about kids is that when one of their peers is hurting, they can put
aside any dislike of this person to offer comfort and company--even if
only lasts for one afternoon, us "growed-ups" could learn a lot from
that.  

two weeks in.

so i dropped off the face of the xanga world for a while, i know.  and i am utterly behind in reading my subscriptions--please update me on the important things via email/commenting, because, though i tried, i can't possibly catch up on all of you.  hope things are doing well.

here are some of the kids i work with:

-a five year old girl that i work with in extended care (that's from after school until parents pick up their kids, this girl is still there when i leave at 5), she has said, "i'm going to kick your ass!" and "you're a bitch!" to the other kids.  she pushes and hits and screams and pulls hair.  she writes "z" as "s."

-a third grade boy who's behind in his reading, spelling, & math.  he spelled "head" as "hend" and "again" as "ugen."  after i helped him finish his math work he said, "Is this just a dream that I'm really smart?"

-a four grade girl who at the beginning of third grade tested at being in the middle of 4th grade level in vocabulary & reading comprehension.

so far, it's been frustrating, overwhelming, stressful, and great.  the teachers and sisters i'm working with really care about these kids and appreciate us two americorps members being there.  the kids are beginning to trust that i'm there to help them.  it's crazy working with over 60 students a day, but it's good.  i wake up at 5:45am, am out by 6:45 to catch the bus, am at work by 7:35 and on my way home at 5pm.  i'm so tired when i get home, though, that i'm usually in bed before 10.  i can't wait until daylight savings.  
 

week one:  notre dame mission volunteers - americorps; bay area

day 1 - take #44 bus to a part of town with which i was unfamiliar; bus is late.  take 20 minutes to find and cross a pedestrian bridge over 280 to get to the #67 bus stop in one of the projects of san francisco; almost have a panic attack and stop oneself from crying from fear of heights and walking over freeway.  take bus to last stop and wait 10 minutes--driver's break--to get to fellow americorps san franciscans apartment to get a ride to belmont.  arrive 1 hour late to notre dame de namur university (NDU) for first orientation session.

hmm.. maybe that's too much information.  let's try again.

day one:  bus from richmond district to bernal heights district to drive to belmont to palo alto to san mateo to san francisco--lost in potrero hill first, then through mission to richmond district.

day two:  muni from richmond district to downtown and through SFO, San Mateo to Belmont on SamTrans to NDU, drive to Palo Alto, to san francisco (lost in the same place & back to richmond).

day three:  muni from richmond district to mission district to St. Charles School (K-8) to bernal heights to drive to redwood city to belmont to palo alto to redwood city to san francisco richmond district (didn't get lost!)

day four:  muni to ferry building drive to coit tower (get mixed up a bit) through china town to lombard street to chrissy field to sausalito across golden gate bridge to baker beach to outlook to cliffhouse (and find that there is no oil in the jeep and refill with 2 bottles) to princeton to miramar beach through half moon bay (oil all burned up) to menlo park to redwood city to san francisco by SBC park on caltrain to drive to vallejo.

this is trevor, for ferfong:


so to clear up a few things:

1) i am housesitting for a former professor and her partner.

2) they have 2 cats the got from the pound, who happen to also be litter-mates.  there is a white & blue-gray female, Violet, and a marmalade male, Humphry.  Violet weights 11 pounds.  Humphy weights 16 pounds.

3) it is a 2 story house in noe valley, with a deck and lots of plants--including tall bamboo and fuschia, so nice =).

4) i'm housesitting until Monday.  then i'm housesitting again in a couple weeks.  and then i might housesit over winter, too, and by then the bathroom should be all done. 

5)  i'm several blocks away from mission street.  mitchell's ice cream is just down the street!!!  and i can eat whatever i want in their house.  

prrrrrrrrowr.
(color scheme inspired by tarah's future bedroom colors)

when i got up this morning, the clock said 6:41.  that's the earliest i've gotten up in a long time.  it took a self-made medley of walnuts, almonds, pecans, and raisins to make the dizziness of lack-of-sleep go away.  i was going to take a nap, but then the construction workers got here--the bathroom's being redone, and it should come out oh-so-lovely.  it's not so bad after getting some sugar/protein in me.  i kept waking up and tossing and turning because the cats kept moving around.  the swish-swish-grind of the cat litter would wake me up and it would take me a while to process that it was one of the cats.  this morning, i opened my eyes to Violet sitting on the bed and staring at me.  when i first tried to take a nap, humphry jumped on the bed, meowed, then tapped me with his paw.  so i sit up and i'm like, "what is it, humprhy?"  and he just stares at me, with his tale moving like a "charmed" rattle snake.  what's funny is when the construction workers got here, humphry got out of the closet, and staying real low to the ground, crept in next to his sister under the makeshift cave--a blanket over side table--and i don't think they've moved since.  these cats are a bit neurotic.  especially humphry, who stayed so long under the couch that i thought he'd stay there the whole time i was here.  thank goodness for whisker lickins!

i am pack rat.

one of the bad things about hoarding mementos is that you run out of places to keep them.  also, somethings, you look at something and forget why the hell you kept it in the first place.  maybe i should start writing a little note for the things i want to keep--that way i'll have a reminder later and i won't bother to go through all that trouble with things i don't really need to keep.  man.  moving into a technically bigger, but ultimately smaller space really forces you to figure out what you need, want, and should get rid off.

sorting through the memories.

so i found this little pekkle tin lunch box.  it's baby blue and, besides a few dings, is in pretty great condition because it's spent most of it's time stored in a box with other paraphenilia.  in it are letters from robelene and alan.  more from the former than the latter--mondo more--with some dating all the way back to the mid-90s.  that's a long time.  apparently, rob was yogi and i was booboo.  it's amazing how much you forget/tuck far into the recesses of your memories.  reading those letters served as a reminder of how things, people, i used to be and how much some things are still the same.  it's funny how even a half-sheet of writing can trigger the synapses to the things you'd forgotten years ago.

the same thing happened when i started looking through this winnie the pooh gift bag that i use to store keepstakes from my relationship with louie.  he brought me yogurt in that bag--i believe they were strawberry banana, pina colada, and maybe peach--after i had my wisdom teeth pulled out.  there was a whole bunch of stuff in there: candy wrappers, an empty ricola bag, dozens of movie tickets, part of a kleenex box (the first kleenex box for our apartment, i believe), letters, doodles, pokemon bubble gum wrappers.  it's funny because some of the things in there, i don't know the when or where or why, but they still mean something because they meant something.  isn't that odd? 

pictures are a girls best friend.

we'll let that one sit for a while.  let's just say that i have wallets of certain people that date all the way back to junior high school.  ::cackle, cackle, cackle::

[photo courtesy of (aka ripped from) rae @ http://www.xanga.com/Pi_Degrees]

  joey, auntie jem, robelene, alan
karric, dennis, grace, dan, me, rita, nick
ingrid, tarah, jeremy, rae, philip

it's weird being in vallejo on a monday night.

i had my last day at work at usf on friday and then louie and i drove back to vallejo to celebrate mat's birthday by watching AVP--which is more amusing than scary--and then on sunday having some off the grill tri-tip, bbq ribs and chicken, and huge kosher franks; pancit, garlicky beans, and potato salad; plus, ube, a flan-like dish with corn (i forget what it's called), and vanilla bean ice on the side of some strawberry cream-layered cake.  i get full just thinking about it!

straight from the party, louie dropped me off at tarah's for her going-away-slash-jeremy's-unbirthday-party.  there was auntie's super-yummy spaghetti, pizza, and breadsticks.  unfortunately, i was too full to eat more than a sliver of breadstick, and of course a tiny slice of chocolate mousse cake with a small scoop of rocky road =).  we played musical toblerone bar, freeze dance on folded newspaper, and pin the paper tail on the bucktooth donkey with jeremy.  then we played cranium, three to a team, and my team could have won except we kept moving just one space!  joey and i are not allowed to roll anymore.  congrats to team uranus:  phil, rae, & ingrid!  i'll always remember tarah squirming on the ground and doing her raptor/mr. hyde walk.  good times! 

11:11 --make a wish.

yesterday louie and i went through the things that we packed away in his parents' storage unit.  i found a book of quotes, First Aid for the Heart, that i had given him a few years back.  on the first page, i filled in to: boyfriend from: girlfriend.  on the dedication page, i crossed out the "joe" in "for joe always" and wrote "bebesh." 

a few of them struck me in particular, partly because they related to our relationship, partly because they related to relationships of those around me, and lastly because they said what they said as well as symbols could say them.  here are a few, just in the order they appear in the book:

• "great love can both take hold and let go."  (r. orage)
  
  
  
• "if your head tells you one thing and your hear tells you another, before you do anything, you should first decide whether you have a better head or a better heart."  (marilyn vos savant)
  
  
  
• "love is generally confused with dependence; but in point of fact, you can love only in proportion to your capacity for independence." (rollo may)
  
  
  
• "for one human being to love another:  that is perhaps the most difficult task of all..., the work for which all other work is but preparation." (rainer maria rilke)
  
  
  
• "understanding moods is as important to people in relationships as understanding weather is to an airplane pilot." (richard carlson and joseph bailey)
  
  
  
• "[a relationship is] about two people having tremendous weaknesses and vulnerabilities, like we all do, and one person being able to strengthen the other in their areas of vulnerability.  And vice versa.  You need each other.   You bolster each other."  (jane fonda)
  
  
  
• "fallin in love and staying in love requires its own kind of heroism.  if we are to experience intimacy, our hearts have to be brave as well as loving.  that's because it takes real courage to love; it takes real courage to make a commitment." (steven carter)