Fire, Jenga, Chinatown, and No Look Eric doing a swing out sister.

This week would probably have been a good week to get two posts in as I definitely had enough to write by wed or Thursday but have now forgotten most of that stuff. Unfortunatley, I am simultaneously too busy and too lazy for that. I will do my best to remember the happenings of the last busy week.

Last Monday after I posted my blog, it started to snow again. Not wanting my car to be stuck for another month, I spent a few hours (with snow falling and a separated shoulder) digging our cars out of the back yard. After the cars were out, Chad and I borrowed a free standing fire pit from the extreme make over house and started a fire in our backyard. We cooked hot dogs, smoked cigars and just enjoyed the company of our roommates and the warmth of the fire as the snow fell around us. It was a pretty great night and reminded me a lot of being back home in California with my friends (except for the snow falling of course).

Tuesday we had our first day of camp for the week. The day went well and I had my basketball class which also went relatively smoothly. Playing basketball with the kids all week with a injured shoulder really gives me a lot of respect and admiration for football quarterbacks who play through a separated shoulder. It hurts just shooting a basketball. I can't imagine throwing a football as hard as I can down field and getting tackled by 280 pound defensive ends. I can't remember what I did Tuesday night because I have waited too long to write this and so much has happened since.

Lookin at me like I'm crazy (prob cuz I am)

The roads in Camden have been covered in snow for the past month and for some reason the city does not plow or salt them. Because of this, two Urban Promise buses got stuck while taking kids home from camp on Monday. With the roads (especially the narrow side streets with cars parked on the sides) so difficult and dangerous to drive on, all of the after school programs were canceled on Wednesday (except for mine because my director hates canceling camp and a lot of our kids walk home anyway).

While I was stuck in California, I missed my favorite street leader's birthday. Because he seemed somewhat disappointed that I missed it, I decided to take Eman and his friend to dinner after camp. We went to Friday's where we ordered the the course meal deal thing and ate more food than should have ever been able to fit in our stomachs. The meal only cost about 60 bucks for all 3 of us which seemed like a great deal for how glutenous we were able to be. After I took them home, I jumped in the car with a few other interns and headed into Philly for a concert at some bar. This is the second time that I had seen Rachel's sister's band (they are called Turning Violet Violet) and I enjoyed them even more this time than I did the first time. I also had a espresso beer that I really enjoyed but can now not for the life of me remember what it was called.

Eman


At the concert

Thursday we had camp as usual and I taught a lesson about forgiveness (with the a little help from my director) and I can't exactly remember what I did Thursday night.

On Friday I hung out around Urban Promise most of the day until the evening when some of the other interns and a couple other people that work for Urban and I decided to head into Philly to find a Karaoke bar. We were told about some Irish pub that had karaoke, so we headed there first to check it out. Jessie was driving the van and we decided to drive down the alley where the bar was to see if there was a cover charge. As we got to the end of the alley we came to a small one way street with the one way we were allowed to go blocked off. We quickly darted down the street in the wrong direction, expecting to pull back out onto the main road before a car came the right way onto the street. When we got to the main road, that too was blocked off. Jessie then decided to drive around the road block, over the curb, to get onto the main street. By the time I was able to inform her that the car she was about to cut off was a police officer, it was too late and the officer quickly turned his lights on and got out of the car. I rolled down my window, as I probably have more experience talking to cops than most, and he walked up and asked me what the hell we thought we were doing. I explained to him the predicament we had gotten ourselves into and as it turns out he was the nicest officer on the planet. He said,"Well lets get you outta here then." , moved the road closed signs out of our way and blocked traffic allowing us to pull out. I can only assume that this happened because we had a cute girl driving the car and will now forever assume that cute girls catch every break and resent them for it.

After all of this we finally parked near bye and headed into the bar. There was a two dollar cover charge which we all payed. I then ordered a drink just before realizing that this extremely over crowded bar did not, in fact, have karaoke. We asked one of the bouncers of there was a karaoke bar near bye and he told us that the closest one was in Chinatown. I quickly finished my drink and went to close out my tab when I was informed that there was a minimum of ten dollars to pay with a credit card. I ordered another drink, quickly finished that one as well and then I closed out and we walked to Chinatown.

After asking some random girls on the streets of Chinatown, we finally were able to find the karaoke bar. We walked into this sushi restaurant and headed up the stairs to one of the coolest karaoke bars I have ever seen. We got ourselves a private room (thanks to Jesus (Castro not Christ) for paying for that), did some sake bombs and sang Karaoke for a couple of hours. I had an absolute blast. After we left the bar we went to a diner and got breakfast at 2 in the morning before heading home and going to bed.

Street sign in chinatwon. We had no idea what not to do in order to avoid a 300 dollar fine.

On Saturday I went grocery shopping for the house and then helped clean the walls of our kitchen, which we are sort of remodeling, so that they would be ready to paint. I was supposed to go out to the bar with some people who work for Urban Promise and some other people from Camden but I wasn't really feeling up to it so I just watched a movie and went to bed.

On Sunday I watched basketball on TV for most of the day and then headed over to the other intern house to see what they were up to. Jessie had some friends from college in town and they were about to head to Dirty Franks when I showed up. I tagged along with them to Dirty Franks and when we got there they were about to have a Jenga tournament at the bar. Just for fun, Jessie's Friend's boyfriend and I decided to enter the contest. We both ended up winning and advancing to the semi finals which will take place in two weeks. The guy that I played in the first round was absolutely ridiculous. Apparently he was one of the favorites to win the tournament. He used all kinds of crazy "jenga terms" like swing out sister and uptown sally. He also introduced himself as No Look Eric. It was extremely hard to keep a straight face while playing him, as he seemed like a character out of a bad B action film, but I actually managed to win.

This week should be a little less eventful than last week but if it's not I'll do my best to force myself to write a midweek update. Also be looking forward to hearing about the Jenga Semi Finals in two weeks.

We had a little scare last week when the school district threatened to cancel spring break due to all the snow days, but they ended up deciding against it. Our spring break trip is going to be to California and we need lots of donations to be able to fund this trip (about 13,000$). We also need people in the San Gabriel Valley/Inland Empire/Orange County areas to help us out by either providing a place for us to stay or cooking us a meal. There are going to be 22 of us (14 kids and 8 adults). Please let me know if you would like to help in any way.

Two weeks of snow and how it has kicked my ass in every way possible

It's been two weeks since my last post. This is because I have not been in Camden for the majority of the last two weeks.

I mentioned in my last post that we were starting classes for kids at the after school program and that I was going to be teaching basketball. I had my first class on Tuesday and it went really well. The divide in skill levels in the class was the only thing that made my task slightly difficult. The kids ranged from tripping over their own feet to playing for their Jr. high basketball teams. This made things a little frustrating for the latter group who had to wait for me to show the former group how to do things they learned 5 years ago. Over all the class went well though and I am looking forward to continuing it this week.

On Tuesday I flew to California for a test for a job in Ventura. I took the test on Wednesday. It was more difficult than the others I have taken but I think I did fairly well. I spent the rest of the week hanging out with friends and was scheduled to get on a plane to return to Camden on Sunday morning. However, on Saturday I received a call from the airline saying that my flight had been canceled due to all the snow in Philadelphia. I rescheduled my flight for Monday and decided to head up to Wrightwood to go snowboarding with Brett (who works there as an instructor) on Sunday. The first run of the day, at the very top of the mountain, I went for a backside 360 off of one of the bigger jumps at Mt. High. This was a pretty foolish thing to do as everyone knows you don't go for big tricks like that on your first run. In the course of my 360, I somehow managed to get a little off axis and came down on the nose of my board which then slingshotted me into the ground. It felt like getting hit by a truck and was on of the the most painful falls I have ever had snowboarding. I basically destroyed my right shoulder and my hip. I continued to ride (slowly and painfully) for the rest of the day and even taught a couple snowboard lessons with Brett while I was there (I worked at Mt. High as an instructor last year).

Me doing about the only trick i could do without wanting to cry like a little girl after the injury.

While we were on the mountain we had Jason turn on the hot tub and record the Superbowl for us. When we got back we watched the super bowl (sans commercials), went in the hot tub and then I headed home.

My flight was again cancelled on Monday, so I rescheduled it for Tuesday. It was cancelled on Tuesday so I rescheduled it for Wednesday. It was cancelled on Wednesday so I rescheduled it for Friday. Finally on Friday I was able to return to Camden.

On Saturday we took a trip to Baltimore with the street leaders to visit the Great Blacks in Wax Museum. It was pretty cool but very intense. The trip took pretty much the entire day and when we returned I watched a movie and went to bed.

Sunday I woke up and was basically stuck at my house, seeing as how my car is buried under the snow in my back yard and my shoulder hurts way too much to spend several hours digging it out. After a full day of boredom, five interns from the other house came and picked me and Chad up and took us to Dirty Franks (the sweet dive bar we discovered in Philadelphia). We played darts and hung out for a few hours and then returned home. We have today off for Presidents day, which means I am again stuck at the house and bored out of my mind. I am really looking forward to getting back to work tomorrow and actually getting to hang out with the kids again.

In the last two weeks snow has dislocated my shoulder, bruised my hip, derailed my travel plans several times, stolen my car, and made me slip and fall on my ass while walking home from 7/11. I am starting to be quite a bit less fond of it than I once was.

I'm sick. Cut me some slack.

I really need to start blogging more than once a week because I forget way too much of the entertaining stuff that happens by the time Monday rolls around. Last Monday camp went relatively well. We tried out having an art class and gym class for the activity time of our after school program. I ran the gym class and it was a little hectic because there were too many kids in each group. This week were are going to try dividing them up into 4 groups. We will have a creative expression class, a cooking class, a drama class, and a basketball class. I, of course, am running the basketball class. I would have liked to have done the creative expression class as well but how could I pass up basketball? I will let you know next week how it all goes.


On Tuesday the zoo came back and brought some more animals (nothing quite as cool as the porcupine this time). The kids were really rowdy and somewhat disrespectful of the zoo people so our director decided to cancel camp on Wed.


Wednesday night we had our street leader night, as always, and we were able to play basketball again instead of dodge ball, which I was quite grateful for.


Thursday was a long day for me. I woke up and drove to Sam's club to buy some meat for a dinner we were having with other interns from other Urban Promise locations as well as people from a program we work closely with called mission year. I bought some steaks and some chicken and made a marinade (that I learned to make from James Shaddy) and left them to marinate until after camp. My class was rough because some of the girls were dealing with some pretty tough issues with a friend. I ended up scrapping the bible lesson that I had planned and just talked with them and did my best to answer some questions they had. After camp I fired up the grill and cooked up about 60 steaks and 30 chicken breasts for our dinner. After a few hours of barbecuing, we sat down to eat. The food was a big hit (thanks James) and then some Jimmy Walker looking guy in a sweater vest (I'm not being racist, dude actually looked like Jimmy Walker from Good Times) talked to us about the homeless in Camden. The information was shocking, in a city of 70,000 we have 3,000 homeless.


Friday and Saturday I was sick and didn't do a whole lot. Yesterday, I went snowboarding with Garret and Chad at Blue Mountain in PA. The mountain was not quite up to par with what we have in California but it had some nice features and it is only about an hour and a half away so it was definitely worth the trip.

Chad and myself at Blue Mountain

Me doing a backside 360 off of one of the smaller jumps

The video of our trip to the skatepark and other antics from that day is now on my facebook and there will be one from snowboarding up soon (the camera died after 2 runs so the the snowboard one might not be great). Here is the link to view the skateboarding video: http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#/video/video.php?v=554510844151&ref=mf


I am still a little sick so that is all I am going to write for the week. Sorry it wasn't more entertaining.