Monday: We started our week bright and early at 8:15AM on Monday morning. Since it was National Take Over a Foreign Country and Kick Out Everyone Who Lives There Day (also known as Columbus Day),the schools were closed. I had trekked home with three projects and two levels on Friday to make sure we would have things to work on in the office.
I spent my morning working on editing a few things on the PC and AC guides that my PL needed corrected. There's still more work to be done on them, but there is some information we are missing from our PM. Until we get that information passed along to us, the guides will remain unfinished.
Aside from working on the guides, I also edited a few project list images. Many of them were appearing pixelated so I worked on making them looking better. It was so simple, but it gave me something to do for a while.
In the midst of this, a few of us decided to head to Dunkin'. Since the Eagles won on Sunday, everyone was able to get free coffee. (Well, aside from me since I don't actually drink coffee.) This was a nice way for us to kill some time on a mundane Monday morning.
We broke for lunch around noon, walked to the usual deli, and then struggled to find a place to eat in the office. Since the schools were closed, the school-based service teams were going through sessions all day, rotating in and out of the office. It was nice to see everyone, but it also sucked because they kept coming into our space and taking over.
After lunch, I tried to keep myself busy until 2:30PM when we started setting up to trace on parachute cloth. I spent this time editing some photos from the wedding I shot a little over a week ago. (I'm almost done, which is SUPER exciting!)
At 2:30PM, we started setting up the projectors and parachute cloth to trace. We spent the rest of the afternoon tracing out an entire project (about four sheets of parachute cloth) and half of another project (one of two parachute cloths). It was a nice, relaxing afternoon in the office.
Tuesday: We started our day at 9AM in the office. As usual, I walked from the stop before mine to try to wake up a bit before starting my day. It works until I sit in my chair and start staring at a screen, but at least I was awake from 8:30-9:15AM, right?
I was voluntold that I would be going to storage with one of the PLs at 11:30AM. I didn't mind. In fact, I was excited to get out of the office for a while.
We headed to our SEPTA storage unit, which I had never been to before. My PL drove and had to find a parking spot. Since we are in Philly, mostly everything is parallel parking, which is not necessarily his forte. We found a spot and parallel parked. He didn't like how far he was from the curb so he tried it again. And again. And again. And then finally gave up, drove around, and found another spot that was only slightly bigger. So he tried to parallel park. Again. And again. And then finally, after the third time, he had parked pretty damn perfectly. He even asked me if I would put it in my blog because he was so proud, so here ya go!
When we reached the storage locker area at 46th, the door we needed to get into was locked and we didn't have a key. My PL found a SEPTA worker who was able to track down someone with the key. Fifteen minutes later, we were in our weird closet storage unit in a creepy hallway at the SEPTA station. We grabbed the few things we needed and then headed back to the car and onto our next stop.
We got to our regular storage unit and grabbed various supplies to bring to the service site. We were out of trash bags, needed more shop towels and paint brushes, and were almost completely out of tarp so we picked all of these things up. Oh, and we needed lots of Nova Gel to adhere the parachute cloths to the walls on the day of the event, which was part of the reason we had gone to the SEPTA unit in the first place.
After we grabbed everything we needed, we left storage and headed to the service site. We had to drop off mostly everything we grabbed from the storage units and pick up primed parachute cloth to sketch on that afternoon with the PSAs in the office. Instead of trying to sketch at the school, we decided we would sketch in the office on Tuesday and Friday so we could spread out a bit more and have more control over the projectors.
Around 2PM, we made it back to the office, armed with supplies for the afternoon. I took my lunch break as soon as we got back, but cut it short to help get everything together for prep.
From 3:30-4PM, we set up the space we were using for prep. It was a lot of leveling and measuring to get everything just right, but when the PSAs got there, everything was ready.
We almost completely finished a project, but realized we need to re-cut and prime parachute cloth. The PSAs were so great and easygoing that it made the last few hours fly by.
We finished up everything, including clean up around 6:40PM, just in time to circle as a group. Our PM brought to our attention that we will need to alter some images for the events throughout history project because he does not want any volunteers to feel offended or for anything to be taken out of context. It was completely understandable, but that just means more work to be done. Oh well!
Wednesday: Another morning beginning at 9AM meant another brisk walk to the office from Suburban station. It took me a bit longer to get from A to B since there was apparently a fire of some sort and there is a fire station on my way to the office. The truck needed to pull out of the station and there was an EMT preventing pedestrians from crossing until the truck could get on its way. Completely understandable and it took up some time so I wasn't super early getting to the office. I still somehow managed to be the second person on my team to get there, though.
I spent my morning making some adjustments to images we would be working with that afternoon. I also worked on my presentation for my IJ team for the 23rd or 24th. I'm not sure when it is happening, but I know I will be leading a discussion regarding the school district's choice to cut the contract with the teachers' union. I am looking forward to leading a discussion. Hopefully it will go well!
At 11:30AM, we had a meeting to discuss emergency procedures in the office. How exciting! It was pretty boring, but very informative. We also found out that we will be having a fire drill sometime next week where we will get to reinforce the emergency procedure knowledge.
When the meeting was over, it was time for lunch. As I was about to head outside, I noticed that it was practically monsooning and changed my mind. I didn't have a jacket or umbrella so I was going to wait out the weather, but it didn't let up.
My service partner came in late and brought me lunch from her apartment. It was a mini pizza with peppers, mushrooms, and sausage. How did I get so lucky? She's seriously the best and couldn't ask for a better service partner.
After lunch, I worked on editing a few more images from the project list before heading to the service site. It started monsooning again, even worse than before, right as we were about to leave. Since we had projectors and I was carrying a table, we decided to rent a car. Sadly, the car was parked about five blocks away. One of the PLs took one for the team and ran to the car and drove it back to us. What a great guy.
When we got to the service site, the PSAs were already starting to arrive. Luckily, many of them were late due to the inclement weather so we had time to get situated.
My task was to project all of the states in order from when they officially became states. Starting with Delaware and ending with Hawaii, myself and one PSA (who is on my IJ team) worked hard to sketch the states. Some of the outlines being projected were very faint so we used the map of the US to get the shapes just right. We finished and cleaned up fairly quickly and helped a few other projects clean up as well.
Since we still had the car, I hopped in with two PLs to bring the table and the projectors back to the office. It was nice to not have to take the bus. I was even able to miss the next dose of torrential downpour, take a picture of my view, and catch an earlier train. It was a nice way to end the day.
Thursday: My morning began with a nice walk from Suburban to the office. It was a bit chillier this morning so it really woke me up and put me in a good mood. When I got to the office, I started working on my LACY plans (leadership after City Year), which basically just meant I searched for nonprofit jobs that might be hiring for next year. Sadly, most jobs were posting for immediate hire, but I was able to find a few AmeriCorps programs for 2015-2016 that I will be applying for in the near future.
Around 11AM, I was informed by my PM that SEPTA has made a decision! They want one mural painted on both walls. Not super exciting, but at least they have finally chosen what they want. I spent the next hour working on a proposal for the project.
At noon, my service partner and I headed out to the food cart outside of the office. She wanted to try something from it since we've started working, but we always forget he's there. We've heard from everyone in the office that the owner is a bit of a crude jerk, but we had no idea what we were getting ourselves into. He dropped the f-bomb every other word and was just plain rude to his customers, but he was nice to my service partner and I. When he asked what I was ordering, I told him I didn't have cash. He laughed and told me I was lazy for not walking to the ATM. Then he followed up by saying "It was a joke. I kidding.". He was pretty funny to listen to and even offered to give me food and have me pay him back on Friday. I decided against that. He gave me a small piece of chicken though before I left, which was really nice.
After lunch, I headed back to my desk to finish up a few things for prep.
Around 1:30PM, my PM and his supervisor came over to me to ask if I had chosen a staff mentor yet. Whoops. I had completely forgotten about getting a mentor/was hoping they would forget about it.
I had to spend the next forty minutes talking about who I would want to ask to mentor me. I couldn't come up with anyone. To be honest, I didn't even want a mentor to begin with, but it is "mandatory" so there wasn't much room for argument. On the plus side, having a mentor means grabbing coffee or lunch once a month aka leaving the office for an extended period of time once a month.
I headed to prep in a bad mood because I was being pestered about the mentoring thing, but quickly snapped out of it when my friend reminded me about seeing Rocky Horror Picture Show at our Alma Mater on Friday night.
Prep went alright. We had to redo sectioning off an area of the wall for a border because it wasn't straight, then it wasn't the right size, and then it wasn't straight again. It was very frustrating. Once it was all taped off, we painted about half of what we needed to. Just more to complete at a later time.
When we left, myself and two other teammates walked to the BSL. It was quicker than taking the bus and it was nice to see a different part of South Philly.
Friday: Deadline day. I came into work anticipating completion of the SEPTA proposal. I started working on it until about 9:30AM when my PM stopped me. He said that SEPTA had changed their mind about what they wanted (for the thousandth time). They wanted the mural I designed on one wall and a completely new one on the other wall. They did not want anything that I had designed before, though. They sent along two logos for East Falls. That was all they wanted on the opposing wall. Unfortunately, it would be extremely disproportional to the other wall so my boss suggested they look at one of the previous designs. Of course, "nothing jumped out" to SEPTA. I was back at square one with them. SEPTA was giving me nothing. The only thing they said was "I don't know, maybe train tracks?" which was pretty much useless. My PM said he wanted four designs by 3PM. I was screwed.
I spent the next hour researching train stations and train tracks to get ideas. I also spoke with my service partner to bounce off some ideas. We came up with the idea to recycle some old designs to make something new. What did I have to lose with trying, right? So that's what I did.
After an hour of frustration, I grabbed lunch. It was nice to step away from the computer for a half hour and not think about SEPTA (which is only partially true because I was still trying to come up with more ideas).
I spent my morning working on editing a few things on the PC and AC guides that my PL needed corrected. There's still more work to be done on them, but there is some information we are missing from our PM. Until we get that information passed along to us, the guides will remain unfinished.
Aside from working on the guides, I also edited a few project list images. Many of them were appearing pixelated so I worked on making them looking better. It was so simple, but it gave me something to do for a while.
In the midst of this, a few of us decided to head to Dunkin'. Since the Eagles won on Sunday, everyone was able to get free coffee. (Well, aside from me since I don't actually drink coffee.) This was a nice way for us to kill some time on a mundane Monday morning.
We broke for lunch around noon, walked to the usual deli, and then struggled to find a place to eat in the office. Since the schools were closed, the school-based service teams were going through sessions all day, rotating in and out of the office. It was nice to see everyone, but it also sucked because they kept coming into our space and taking over.
After lunch, I tried to keep myself busy until 2:30PM when we started setting up to trace on parachute cloth. I spent this time editing some photos from the wedding I shot a little over a week ago. (I'm almost done, which is SUPER exciting!)
At 2:30PM, we started setting up the projectors and parachute cloth to trace. We spent the rest of the afternoon tracing out an entire project (about four sheets of parachute cloth) and half of another project (one of two parachute cloths). It was a nice, relaxing afternoon in the office.
Tuesday: We started our day at 9AM in the office. As usual, I walked from the stop before mine to try to wake up a bit before starting my day. It works until I sit in my chair and start staring at a screen, but at least I was awake from 8:30-9:15AM, right?
I was voluntold that I would be going to storage with one of the PLs at 11:30AM. I didn't mind. In fact, I was excited to get out of the office for a while.
 |
| Fabulous parking job |
 |
| SEPTA Station |
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| Sad SEPTA storage unit |
After we grabbed everything we needed, we left storage and headed to the service site. We had to drop off mostly everything we grabbed from the storage units and pick up primed parachute cloth to sketch on that afternoon with the PSAs in the office. Instead of trying to sketch at the school, we decided we would sketch in the office on Tuesday and Friday so we could spread out a bit more and have more control over the projectors.
Around 2PM, we made it back to the office, armed with supplies for the afternoon. I took my lunch break as soon as we got back, but cut it short to help get everything together for prep.
From 3:30-4PM, we set up the space we were using for prep. It was a lot of leveling and measuring to get everything just right, but when the PSAs got there, everything was ready.
We almost completely finished a project, but realized we need to re-cut and prime parachute cloth. The PSAs were so great and easygoing that it made the last few hours fly by.
We finished up everything, including clean up around 6:40PM, just in time to circle as a group. Our PM brought to our attention that we will need to alter some images for the events throughout history project because he does not want any volunteers to feel offended or for anything to be taken out of context. It was completely understandable, but that just means more work to be done. Oh well!
Wednesday: Another morning beginning at 9AM meant another brisk walk to the office from Suburban station. It took me a bit longer to get from A to B since there was apparently a fire of some sort and there is a fire station on my way to the office. The truck needed to pull out of the station and there was an EMT preventing pedestrians from crossing until the truck could get on its way. Completely understandable and it took up some time so I wasn't super early getting to the office. I still somehow managed to be the second person on my team to get there, though.
I spent my morning making some adjustments to images we would be working with that afternoon. I also worked on my presentation for my IJ team for the 23rd or 24th. I'm not sure when it is happening, but I know I will be leading a discussion regarding the school district's choice to cut the contract with the teachers' union. I am looking forward to leading a discussion. Hopefully it will go well!
At 11:30AM, we had a meeting to discuss emergency procedures in the office. How exciting! It was pretty boring, but very informative. We also found out that we will be having a fire drill sometime next week where we will get to reinforce the emergency procedure knowledge.
When the meeting was over, it was time for lunch. As I was about to head outside, I noticed that it was practically monsooning and changed my mind. I didn't have a jacket or umbrella so I was going to wait out the weather, but it didn't let up.
My service partner came in late and brought me lunch from her apartment. It was a mini pizza with peppers, mushrooms, and sausage. How did I get so lucky? She's seriously the best and couldn't ask for a better service partner.
 |
| Oh how I love Center City! |
When we got to the service site, the PSAs were already starting to arrive. Luckily, many of them were late due to the inclement weather so we had time to get situated.
My task was to project all of the states in order from when they officially became states. Starting with Delaware and ending with Hawaii, myself and one PSA (who is on my IJ team) worked hard to sketch the states. Some of the outlines being projected were very faint so we used the map of the US to get the shapes just right. We finished and cleaned up fairly quickly and helped a few other projects clean up as well.
Since we still had the car, I hopped in with two PLs to bring the table and the projectors back to the office. It was nice to not have to take the bus. I was even able to miss the next dose of torrential downpour, take a picture of my view, and catch an earlier train. It was a nice way to end the day.
Thursday: My morning began with a nice walk from Suburban to the office. It was a bit chillier this morning so it really woke me up and put me in a good mood. When I got to the office, I started working on my LACY plans (leadership after City Year), which basically just meant I searched for nonprofit jobs that might be hiring for next year. Sadly, most jobs were posting for immediate hire, but I was able to find a few AmeriCorps programs for 2015-2016 that I will be applying for in the near future.
Around 11AM, I was informed by my PM that SEPTA has made a decision! They want one mural painted on both walls. Not super exciting, but at least they have finally chosen what they want. I spent the next hour working on a proposal for the project.
At noon, my service partner and I headed out to the food cart outside of the office. She wanted to try something from it since we've started working, but we always forget he's there. We've heard from everyone in the office that the owner is a bit of a crude jerk, but we had no idea what we were getting ourselves into. He dropped the f-bomb every other word and was just plain rude to his customers, but he was nice to my service partner and I. When he asked what I was ordering, I told him I didn't have cash. He laughed and told me I was lazy for not walking to the ATM. Then he followed up by saying "It was a joke. I kidding.". He was pretty funny to listen to and even offered to give me food and have me pay him back on Friday. I decided against that. He gave me a small piece of chicken though before I left, which was really nice.
After lunch, I headed back to my desk to finish up a few things for prep.
Around 1:30PM, my PM and his supervisor came over to me to ask if I had chosen a staff mentor yet. Whoops. I had completely forgotten about getting a mentor/was hoping they would forget about it.
I had to spend the next forty minutes talking about who I would want to ask to mentor me. I couldn't come up with anyone. To be honest, I didn't even want a mentor to begin with, but it is "mandatory" so there wasn't much room for argument. On the plus side, having a mentor means grabbing coffee or lunch once a month aka leaving the office for an extended period of time once a month.
I headed to prep in a bad mood because I was being pestered about the mentoring thing, but quickly snapped out of it when my friend reminded me about seeing Rocky Horror Picture Show at our Alma Mater on Friday night.
Prep went alright. We had to redo sectioning off an area of the wall for a border because it wasn't straight, then it wasn't the right size, and then it wasn't straight again. It was very frustrating. Once it was all taped off, we painted about half of what we needed to. Just more to complete at a later time.
When we left, myself and two other teammates walked to the BSL. It was quicker than taking the bus and it was nice to see a different part of South Philly.
Friday: Deadline day. I came into work anticipating completion of the SEPTA proposal. I started working on it until about 9:30AM when my PM stopped me. He said that SEPTA had changed their mind about what they wanted (for the thousandth time). They wanted the mural I designed on one wall and a completely new one on the other wall. They did not want anything that I had designed before, though. They sent along two logos for East Falls. That was all they wanted on the opposing wall. Unfortunately, it would be extremely disproportional to the other wall so my boss suggested they look at one of the previous designs. Of course, "nothing jumped out" to SEPTA. I was back at square one with them. SEPTA was giving me nothing. The only thing they said was "I don't know, maybe train tracks?" which was pretty much useless. My PM said he wanted four designs by 3PM. I was screwed.
I spent the next hour researching train stations and train tracks to get ideas. I also spoke with my service partner to bounce off some ideas. We came up with the idea to recycle some old designs to make something new. What did I have to lose with trying, right? So that's what I did.
After an hour of frustration, I grabbed lunch. It was nice to step away from the computer for a half hour and not think about SEPTA (which is only partially true because I was still trying to come up with more ideas).
When I got back to my desk, one of my friends from my IJ team surprised me. She was spending the afternoon in the office with her service team so she stopped over to see me at my desk. How sweet!
I spent the remaining two hours working on various things to keep myself busy. I was leaving at 3PM because I was asked to help dispose of paint on Saturday with one of the PLs. I assumed I was going to just get more hours, but my PM wanted to make sure we aren't overworking ourselves. I did not argue with this.
Saturday: Paint disposal day. I arrived at 30th Street Station a little after 9:30AM, pretty exhausted after a night of time warping during the Rocky Horror Picture Show, and met up with one of the PLs to head to storage. There was a bit of traffic so it took some time to get there. Once we got to the storage unit, we tarped the back of the van to avoid paint spills and started loading in the cans. After about 20 minutes, we had loaded a little over 120 paint cans and were off to the disposal. My PL was really worried about the paint disposal, thinking that they wouldn't take the paint since it wasn't technically hazardous.
When we got to the site, everyone was really efficient and didn't ask questions about the type of paint. We didn't even have to get out of the car! People is hazmat suits just grabbed the paint, loaded it onto a cart, and took it to be disposed. It was the easiest thing ever! My PL and I were very excited that we didn't even have to lift a finger. Everything was so quick that I was on a train back home at noon. Plenty of time to spare before my first Union game, which they won. (Hallelujah!)
This upcoming week is going to be hell with all of the prep before our event on Saturday. Here's to hoping everything runs smoothly!
Cheers,
Allee
I spent the remaining two hours working on various things to keep myself busy. I was leaving at 3PM because I was asked to help dispose of paint on Saturday with one of the PLs. I assumed I was going to just get more hours, but my PM wanted to make sure we aren't overworking ourselves. I did not argue with this.
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| 120+ Cans of Paint |
When we got to the site, everyone was really efficient and didn't ask questions about the type of paint. We didn't even have to get out of the car! People is hazmat suits just grabbed the paint, loaded it onto a cart, and took it to be disposed. It was the easiest thing ever! My PL and I were very excited that we didn't even have to lift a finger. Everything was so quick that I was on a train back home at noon. Plenty of time to spare before my first Union game, which they won. (Hallelujah!)
This upcoming week is going to be hell with all of the prep before our event on Saturday. Here's to hoping everything runs smoothly!
Cheers,
Allee
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