Guess Who's Back

My Christmas break was incredible and relaxing and it was great to see everyone. I would like to thank all of those that made it a great experience and making it exactly what I needed to return to Camden refreshed and ready to finish out the year.

I've been back in Camden for about a week now. The last week has been filled with meetings, workshops and team building activities, followed by a retreat on the weekend. It was somewhat relaxing and was a nice way to get settled back in.

Flying out of California where it was 78 degrees and into Philly where it was in the teens was definitely not the most enjoyable experience (especially since I wasn't thinking about it when i left and was wearing a jersey). All of the interns who had arrived before me came to pick me up from the airport when I arrived. We then went to get dinner and drinks in Philly which was a lot of fun despite me being absolutely freezing. I got to catch up with everyone and find out about everyone's Christmas break.

The second day I was here, the rest of the interns arrived. A few of my kids heard I was back and came over to say high. I showed everyone my new tattoos and everyone seemed really stoked on the Camden one.

The top of what is now a half sleeve


Camden tattoo before i added the clouds


The next day we got started with the team building activities by going bowling. I bowled a 126 both games (which is exceptional for me) and had a good time catching up with everyone. We then had some meetings and workshops. My favorite workshop of the week was one about literacy. The workshop was great except for one thing. About half way through the workshop she handed out pages from the sports page in the news paper. She did this to illustrate all the ways that we could use something as simple as the sports page to create reading activities for our kids. The problem is that you can't hand me the sports page and then expect me to listen to anything you have to say. What I got out of the first half of the workshop was great... and the second half... well I learned how biased Philadelphia sports writers are towards the Eagles as well as how frustrated they are by the 76er's.

Speaking of the 76er's: One of the activities of the week was attending one of their games. At the game I was lucky enough to sit next to Jessie and Lizzie who are the only two interns who know anything about basketball and would not be annoyed by my giving the biography of every player on the court (which is an impulse that I can't help but act on). Though the Sixer's blew a 20 point lead and were seemingly out of the game as it approached its end, our interest was held by the fact that the crowd would be awarded free big macs if the Sixer's reached 100 points. They then proceeded to go on a scoring drought and fell 3 points shy of buying my dinner.

76er's game

On Friday we had nothing scheduled until we had to leave for our retreat at 6pm, so we headed into Philly to find some entertainment. By searching the Internet I found a suggestion for a dive bar called Dirty Frank's. We got the address and parked near bye. But when we got to where it was supposed to be located, we couldn't find it. I then noticed what looked like and abandoned building on the corner and there was writing the door. The writing said "no one under 21 allowed" so we pulled the handle and it opened revealing one of the coolest little dives I have ever seen. The bar was small but had ample seating and there was jazz music playing on the juke box. It being around lunch time on a Friday, there was only a small crowd and they all seemed to know one another. The drink prices were great and we managed to make some new friends in the short time we were inside.

We then left for our retreat which was at camp Haluwasa. The retreat was for the interns and peer leaders (the high school age managers of the street leaders). The camp was beautiful and had snow on the ground which made it even more so. We had a few activities and lectures that we had to attend. We went ice skating (which i do exceptionally well for some unknown reason) and had a scavenger hunt. My favorite part of the weekend however, was sitting around a table with a couple other interns and a bunch of street leaders, playing a game called "the ungame". The game is just a series of cards that ask questions such as "when was the last time you were embarrassed?" and "what sort of things make you depressed". It really allowed me to get to know many of the people at the table a whole lot better. Interestingly, every one of the street leader's answers to the latter of the above questions was a specific example of a close friend who had seemingly been on the right path but is now in a gang or selling drugs.

Today was the first day back at our after school program and it was great to get back into the swing of things and see all of my kids. The first day of camp went great. We now are doing picture prompts (putting up a picture for the kids to write a story about) for the kids that do not have homework. This is a huge help in keeping the class orderly during homework time. Also, creative writing is something that I have always enjoyed so it was fun to help the kids with their stories. The few kids that didn't have homework wrote some very entertaining stories and my class was extremely well behaved today. One of my favorite kids at my camp is a 5th grader named Quincy who is always freestyle rapping when no one is paying attention (and he's pretty good at it). I purchased Tupac's poetry book, "The Rose That Grew from Concrete", over the break and put it in my classroom. Quincy noticed the book on the shelf and started reading it. He struggled a little at first, as its not exactly 5th grade level reading, so I started reading the poems out loud to him. At the end of the day he didn't want to go home because he wanted to hear more poems. It was cool to see a kid so excited about something that is both artistic and academic.

All of the kids were incredibly excited to inform me of what they got for Christmas. Many of them got skateboards and the parking lot had twice as many kids skating today as it usually does. Angel ,whom I had given a skateboard to, was one of the kids that got a skateboard. I told him that he had to give the skateboard that I had given him to someone else who doesn't have one. He seemed excited about the prospect of being able to do for someone else what I had done for him. Also, one of the kids from the main group that skateboards in our parking lot got a video camera for Christmas. They have been recording themselves skating for the last couple weeks and there are multiple companies that are now interested in sponsoring them (meaning they would get free stuff and get to travel to competitions). I am extremely excited for them.

Gio: age 16, Incredibly talented skater

soon to be sponsored skate team

All in all it feels great to be back in Camden and back in the swing of thing. I love it here and can't wait to have an incredible semester.

"Did you hear about the rose that grew from a crack in the concrete? Proving nature's law is wrong it learned to walk with out having feet. Funny it seems, but by keeping it's dreams, it learned to breathe fresh air. Long live the rose that grew from concrete when no one else even cared." -Tupac Shakur