Walking Toward Utopia

In case any of you were worried, I have not been attacted by zombies. My post is late because I was in Madison all day for a conference and did not have time to write out a post. I've also been buried under quite a bit of work.

This is the current state of my desk.

I'm off topic. I also keep getting distracted. Today is one of those days where all I want to do is crochet...or bake. I'm not really picky. I kinda just want to do something domestic. Well maybe I'll do that this weekend. We'll see.

This week has been about as busy as any other week. A few of my projects have gotten to move forward, which is very exciting.

On Monday I was here for the Focus Group I was putting together.  I did not sit in on it, but I kind of wish I had now. From what I've heard from the facilitator, it went well.  I was supposed to have six people show up, but only three came. It was ok though, because it was just a pilot group and it has given us some tips on what does and does not work for gathering a group together. 

Tuesday was just a normal work day, I think I mostly worked on sorting and untangling embroidery floss.  Although, I've discovered there is even more in the craft closet that needs to be sorted.  I think I also might re-reorganize the closet.  It was done once this summer, but I'm just going to put all of one thing in one place. I was looking for clothes pins the other day, and I found them in six different boxes. Everything in the closet is nicely labeled, I'll give the girls who did that kudos. I'm just gonna move everything. Maybe next summer they can re-label. (ps. I have no idea if they read this or not.)

Wednesday was exciting because I went to the JDC again and had, what I think was a fun activitiy.  We did the 4-H Eco-Bot challenge where they had to work together to build a small robot from a toothbrush head, a watch battery, a pager motor, and tape.  They were then able to use dixie cups, straws, and tape to figure out a way to get the "hazardous chemical" (birdseed) out of the contaminated bay.  By the time we left, they had not achieved their goal, but they had some good ideas about what they could do to achieve it.  Hopefully they are continuing to work with it. The hardest part about that was trying to get both of them to work together.  One of the kids there was not applying herself very well. But that's just one challenge that I need to learn to work around and overcome. Next week, I hope to paint bowls with them for the Empty Bowls fundraiser.

Yesterday, as I said, I was down in Madison. I went with our Family Living Agent to a seminar about working with Mexican Youth.  UW-Extension got a one time fund, I believe, to bring up two individuals who work with La Jugarreta in Mexico.  In my brilliance, I forgot to bring a legal pad with me, so I took the notes on the back of an agenda from a previous meeting. Heres what they looked like.

 La Jugarreta is a community organization that encourages youth and adults to work together to improve and create unity with in thier society.  For more information you can visit their website. http://www.lajugarreta.org.mx/index.php?cs=2&l=2 

The first thing we did in this program was talk about what the words democracy, citizenship, and participation mean. Some ideas that we came up with were:

Democracy:

• Everyone has a voice
• everyone has the right to be ugly
• sense of change
• author of your own fate
• cannot happen without participation

Citizenship:

• give natives do not earn
• belonging
• built with participation

Participation:

• engaged/engagement
• using gifts

In my own effort to understand this, I drew this picture. Citizenship is the plant. It can exsist without the protection of the Participation Umbrella, in that if you are born in the US you are a citizen.  But without participation the rain will flood the plant, and it won't look so nice.  The Decadent Democracy Duck wouldn't survive at all without the umbrella.  It would melt away into a sad pile of goop. So I wasn't just doodling. I was trying to better understand the ideas being discussed. :)

To help us understand how they see these three connected in Mexico, they gave us these ideas:

Democracy: Lifestyle, social order built by the same people who use it, self-determined (not of divine origin or from the gods), each person has a role and a responsibility.

Citenzenship: right to vote, but also have rights because you are human, and they have the capacity to transform the enviornment, therefore children are also citizens.

Participation: the ways we change our environment.

So these are pretty similar, but with very subtle differences. One thing that struck me was that one of the presenters was talking about how everyone participates.  Everyone helps out, without questioning why.  She described it as walking toward a Utopia.  You don't know why your walking there, you don't know what is there, and you know you won't get there, but you are still walking toward it.

One point they made was that the idea of community and collaboration is big for them.  But only for their own community.  They do not often see a reason to help another community when they have their own problems to solve first, but they see great importance of helping their community and their family, whether blood related or not.

Unfortunately I did not get to stay the whole time. We had to be back for something else.  But what I was able to hear was fantastic, and I learned so much.  It made me think about the differences in our cultures and how to better communicate with the hispanic population in my area.

Well I have a busy weekend coming up, I'm headed to my Alma Mater for the homecoming football game, so that should be fun. Plus tonight I'm going to a Josh Turner concert! YAY!

Until Then!

Any Zombie Apocalypse Questions?

Wow, Thursdays really sneak up on you if you aren't paying attention.

If you haven't noticed I've been trying to do this every Thursday.  I'm trying to keep a routine so I don't forget to do it and leave weeks between posts.  Everyone one needs a little regularity in their lives.

So lets see....what have I been up to this week...hmm...

My Monday was filled with meetings.  First thing in the morning, I had a staff meeting.  That was ok.  It feels good to be a part of the staff in that way.  It was, however, quite long...or maybe it just felt that way. After that I had a Community Partners Meeting at the School District Admin Building.

That was really good for me.  It gave me a chance to meet with some of the schools who are looking for afterschool programs. I just happen to be looking for schools to hold my afterschool program.  The purpose of VISTA is not to do direct service, but rather create sustainability for the future.  So my goal is not to start an afterschool program and run it myself.  It is, however, to start an afterschool program and recruit volunteers to run the program. I'm just supposed to be the contact person. After talking to my supervisors we've come up with the idea of approaching the local college and offering this as a service learning project.  Many students are in need of a good service learning opportunity, and what could be better than running a science program for fourth and fifth graders as well as possibly some middle schoolers!  I also came up with some more topics, but I'm gonna have to mull those over some more. (Did I just use the word "gonna" in a blog sentence? I don't know whether to be ashamed, or to shrug it off and say Welcome to the modern age of technology and SMS lingo, Sharon.)

After this meeting I went back to work for awhile, then went to coffee with a friend, much needed coffee of course, and then had a YAC (Youth Action Council) meeting.  In my brilliance I got the time wrong and missed most of it. Oops...I think I'll have to be more on the ball next time about that. It wasn't all for nought of course. We did get some planning done for our Trick-or-Treating event. One thing that YAC is trying to do every year is go around, during the Trick-Or-Treating times, and instead of asking for candy we will be asking for non-perishable food donations to be given to one of the food pantries that serves some of the smaller towns in Marathon County.  My role in this is more of an organizational piece. I will be going out with the youth, but as a supervisor.  They will be doing the majority of the collecting.

Tuesday was pretty uneventful, mostly I just worked on looking at project ideas and little things.

Wednesday was more exciting.  I went down to Stevens Point for the UW-Extension Central District Meeting.  One of our first orders of business was introducing everyone who was there.  We did this by county.  When we got to our county I was introduced as the staff member who started in 4-H at a young age, was part of the teen group in 4-H, stayed active in 4-H, and worked in the 4-H office in the summers, and is still in the 4-H office.  I'm also the only one who has a plan for the Zombie Apocalypse. (I'm prepared. I always have hot wax within reach, and have food stored in the cabinet above my desk.)  After the business and budget portion of the meeting we broke out into smaller groups by department.  So the Ag Educators went to one room, the CRD people when to another, and so on. The 4-H/FLP/WNEP went to one of two sessions. I chose the one on Autism.

I learned alot in this session. I've never known too much about it, but this two hour session helped me understand it alot more.  I learned that:

 Autism Spectrum Disorder

Pervasive Developmental Disorder     Autistic Disorder     Asperger's Syndrome

The Pervasive Developmental Disorder (PDD NOS) is when there are some symptoms showing but not all.  This is the least severe off the three. 

When all the symptoms present themselves, it can be diagnosed as Autistic Disorder. Even this in itself can mean many different things.  No child with Autism is the same.  The presenter, Jackie Carattini, said that when you say you know one child with Autism, you know one child with Autism. There are different levels, and abilities in these children.  Each as unique as the next.

The final one is Asperger's Syndrome.  People who are diagnosed with Asperger's tend to be higher functioning, with a higher IQ, high memorization skills, and high splinter skills.

The cause for Autism is unknown, but evidence seems to suggest it could be environmental. 

There is no known cure. There is no medication for Autism.  A child can take medication for other symptoms associated with it, but there is nothing that can help the Autism itself.  Its been suggested that a completely gluten free/casein free diet can help.  Twenty three percent of families with an Autistic family member have tried this, and those that have tried it saw a ninety percent improvement.  Jenny McCarthy claims to have cured her son of Autism.  She put him on this diet, and has seen improvement in him, but he is by no means cured.

The main purpose of this session was to inform and to give tips.  These were tips for making things run smoothly when there is an autistic child in a classroom, afterschool program, summer club, or day camp.  Some of these included:

• Taking sensory breaks. Studies show that children need joint impact in their daily lives.  This is the theory behind recess at schools.  Autistic children shouldn't go more than half an hour without a break of some sorts.
• Making sure kids are aware of whats going on.  Make sure Autistic children are aware of what is happening so they are not throw off by the change in a schedule.  Autistic children like to have things planned and scheduled so they can prepare for what is going to happen.
• Have an agenda.  This will prevent the need to ask questions like "What are we doing next? When are we moving on? How long until you are done with this?"
• Provide Visual Organizers. Have a calendar posted in the classroom so they will know in advance.
• Labels.  Autistic children often have a need to know what is behind every door and in every cupboard. If things are clearly labeled ahead of time, this satisfies their need to know. 
• Clarify the Unknown.  In order to prevent any interruptions, it is best to clarify anything that is an unknown, so they don't have to disrupt things by asking about them.

This is what I learned. I will find this extremely useful in my future, and I am very grateful I had the opportunity to attend.

So far today, I've typed up some stuff. Sent a few emails, and got my new shirt and shorts in the mail.

I'm excited.

Until then!

Day-to-Day

This week I've felt more or less like real office staff.  The office is going through a LEAN process and I had to got to the introduction of it.  For those of you who don't know what LEAN is, its essentially taking a process in the office, mapping out all the steps of it, and seeing where things can be cut out to make things go faster.  The introduction that was bright and early Monday morning just introduced us to what it was, and sort of how the process would work, and showed us some examples of successful LEAN projects.  One specific example was a process at Western Union, which originally took on average nineteen days, but they were able to cut it down to twenty two minutes.  Unbelievable! Yet, true.  On Friday I get to find out what all they did this week, and hopefully put it into action.

As far as my other VISTA projects are going, they are coming together quite nicely.  I've spent lots of time trying to decide what I want to do at the JDC, and figuring out what activities will give them the greatest benefits.  I also am working on writing a curriculum for whoever takes this over so they won't have to plan as much, and all the activities will be tested and tweaked, so things will run smoothly. I think I want to try to come up with a mission statement or a goal for the year with JDC.  I know it won't be the same kids over and over again working on this goal, but I think it needs to be a small goal that they can start reaching on their own.  We didn't go this week because of the LEAN training, but that is ok, it gave me a chance to do some more planning.  I think maybe next week I will try to do the Eco-Bot project with them.  With this, they have to build an eco-bot out of supplies I provide, and then do some problem solving with it.  Not only will this enhance their skills and abilities with robotics and problem solving, but team work as well. Hopefully they enjoy it.  I enjoyed building it.

For the Leadership grant that we're working on with WIPPS and the United Way, I'm supposed to be putting together a focus group of eight to ten 4-H youth ages 16 and up.  I've sent out three handfuls of emails and facebook messages, but so far I have two people tell me they are coming.  Everything else has been radio silent.  Hopefully I hear something soon, otherwise I will have to resort to phone calls.  I guess I should have mentioned there would be food available. I'll do that in my next round of emails.

Planning for the group home is going well.  I met with the Wisconsin River Valley chapter of Trout Unlimited and found some volunteers who are willing to teach the boys how to tie flies.  They also donated some vises for the boys to use as well as some other tying supplies.  Now we just need to work out some dates for them.  The guys at Trout Unlimited said this activity will work best spread out over several sessions over the course of several weeks.  This should be fun.  I'm excited for it, plus it will give the boys something to do with their spare time.  Something they can focus on rather than getting into trouble.  Its good to have hobbies other than shenanigans and hooliganism. (Not that the group home boys are hooligans of course.)

I've also been working on putting together an after school science program for fourth and fifth grade students at the low income schools.  I'm hoping I will be able to find students at the local colleges who would be willing to run this program and continue it in the future.  I need to start advertising and looking for people. As well as talking to the schools about it.

I also gotten a hold of the Spanish teachers at one of the high schools here, and she is excited about the Spanish Reading Program.  Now I just need to get a hold of one of the Elementary schools to see who else is interested in it.  Cross your fingers!

Well I suppose i should get back to planning.

Until then!

Finally Getting Settled In

I think this week has marked where I've started finally feeling like I've got a set schedule and and things are starting to feel settled and less insane.  I've been fairly productive in this last week.

The main thing I've been working on is writing the Marathon County 4-H Family Handbook.  This is just a small publication that includes just about everything one needs to know about joining 4-H in Marathon County, some helpful tips in being an active 4-H member, and even some of the activities that one can do as a member of 4-H.  Luckily, I didn't have to start from scratch.  I used the Burnnett County 4-H Family Handbook as a guide.  It was a good place to start for my work. I think I did pretty well, if I do say so myself.  Hopefully it will be posted online soon, so maybe you will be able to see my handy work. Any complaints, comments, or found typos can be written on a piece of paper, tied to a balloon, and released into the air.  I'm sure they will make their way to me eventually.

Yesterday was my first day at the JDC where I was leading the lesson.  We made macrame bracelets using hemp cord.  It was pretty fun.  There were two guys and one girl there.  One guy already knew how to do it, and just took off on his project, he succeeded quite well. The other guy caught on very quickly and revealed to us that he was quite proficient in the craft area, including sewing, quilting, and knitting.  The girl struggled a little more with it, but thats ok because not everyone is fantastic at everything, and it can be confusing sometimes.  Everyone has a different style of learning.  I think it will just take some practice for her.  We left the directions there if they would like to continue working on it.  I was thinking next week I might have them make Knifty Knitter hats, but I think I might do the Eco-Bot project with them instead.

Today I visited a Group Home for my orientation and tour.  It was amazing! First off, the house was gorgeous!  It was over a hundred years old, with hard wood floors all through the house, and three floors of gorgeous room after gorgeous room, with one spacious bathroom per floor....but I digress. I should also mention that the program itself is a fantastic program.  They take adolescent boys ranging in ages from twelve to seventeen who were court ordered there.  While they are there they get counseling and training to help them get back into thier original homes, or foster care, or living with relatives.  They do this through a variety of programs and activites through community resources, such as 4-H and the Boys and Girls Club.  While there are at the House they learn about how to live independently through chores, cooking, and financial management.  They also attend school, and must learn responsibility through study time.  It sounds like a great program and I'm excited to start working with them.  I will be working along side a colleague in the office to run an education program for them based on service learning, as well as life skills and fun activities.  They have apparently made a request to learn how to tie flies....So now either I need to learn how to tie flies, or I need to find someone who can help teach them how to do it.  So if anyone knows of someone who might be willing to help out with this just let me know!

I've been settling into my office in other ways.  I now have a candle warmer, and bought some candles for it.  I got Spring Rain, Pumpkin Spice, and Mulled Cider.  As you can tell, I'm excited for Fall to be here. I can't wait for Winter, but I know Fall has to come first.  I also repotted an Aloe plant and its sitting on my desk thriving.  I've got a few trinkets that hold meaning for me, as well as a Beatles calendar, and a motivational poster with a quotation from Barney Stinson. :) I try to keep it as clean as possible, but....we'll see.

I suppose now I should figure out what I'm doing for next week.

Until then!