Finalizing projects

On Friday I finalized everything for the sites for next year's girls on the run program. I got everything into the right files and put it in boxes and stored it for good. It was such a relief. So I spent today making the prototype for the next lesson. Now all that needs to be done is to have the big book printed then glued on the side. It was so nice once I put everything together and put it on a CD. I could barely believe that I was done.

My next project is going to be working on Girls on Track curriculum ( for girls in middle school) I am creating a prototype like the one I made for girls on the run. It will be nice to know about how long it takes to put a packet together, so I can tell them for next time. The lessons stay the same for a few years, but then it will change and someone will have to take this job and do it again.

Euclid Avenue (Part 2) Friday May 27

So today I went back down Euclid Ave. a second time though instead of riding a bus through the Cleveland Clinic area en route from University Circle to Downtown, I got off down there and walked from basically one end of its campus to the other. However it wasn't so much the hospital that I was focused on: it was all the beautiful old stone churches that exist among the hospital buildings. All but a few are century or so old churches with high stone steeples and stain glass windows. Unfortunately, one of them recently burned down within the past couple years and now all that's left is a giant bell tower standing in a grassy field where the church once stood, except now there's a CVS placed next to it which I'm sure wasn't there before the fire.

The Cleveland Clinic, on the other hand, is - as we all know - HUGE. Building after building, block after block, yet there's nothing ugly or consuming about the system. It's a beautiful hospital and if Cleveland ever lost that hospital, we would be officially doomed. There would be this gapping hole down the avenue with hundreds of empty buildings and our economy would just about dwindle to nothing. Of course luckily, the chances of Cleveland Clinic leaving any time soon seem close to nothing based on the number of buildings they inhabit and the money that they've invested into the area. (Plus, they've got Cleveland in their name, so moving elsewhere really just doesn't make sense. Cleveland Clinic has got some nice alliteration going on.) Either way, the combination of all those lovely churches and the significance of the clinic makes this area of Cleveland both important and historical. Combined with all our other hospital systems, Cleveland will do just fine.

More on Four

There is one four-year-old girl in particular that I have been working with quite a bit this week. Upon meeting her you quickly realize that she is really, really smart and has a wild imagination. That being said, she understands perfectly well what is going on around her (in terms of doctors, medicines, ect.) which makes it very hard to trick her into doing what needs to be done. Unlike most four-year-olds, telling her it won't taste bad or it won't hurt does not work. She is also very insistent on doing what she wants, when she wants, and how she wants it done. She is certainly quite a handful.

While working with her, I have found subtlety is key. I do things like; "Yes you can paint my nails," then let her do it, but later ask if I can re-do them myself, (so they can be neater), but gets to pick the colors this time. Reasoning with a four-year-old directly may not work, but indirectly, it does.

Week 3

This past week at the refuge has been a little slow. With the Biggest Week ending, the number of visitors has taken a significant drop. When there used to be 500 or so people coming through the visitors center on any given weekday, there are now at best 75. However, while the number of birders has decreased the number of school groups that have been coming in have increased a lot. Almost everyday this week there has been some sort of school function taking place on the refuge. This ranges from guided tours through the park, where park officials share their knowledge of not only the land but also the wildlife that they may encounter on their trip, or even the traditional classroom setting in which Biology classes will come out and do a day long class in the refuges learning center.

I spent the entire day thursday walking throughout the refuges 9,000 acres taking pictures as I went. I am amazed at how close you can get to so many birds and just as you are about to take the picture they fly away. To say the least I know have many blurry images with at most the tip of a wing in the frame. I have seen all sorts of wildlife from snakes to tortoises and birds of all kinds. This has been a great opportunity to see all sorts of wildlife.

While we only have two days left out in Oak Harbor we are excited to see what we will learn and experience in the coming days to wrap up our senior project.

4 x 5

This week there were five, yes, five four-year-olds in Rainbow 2. There were definitely times I felt like I was trying to run a preschool, + the technical difficulties surrounding small children and IV poles... Let's just say I have no desire to be a preschool teacher.

Not to say that it wasn't rewarding in any way, because it was. But, trying to occupy and meet the demands of that many little kids is really, really hard. Some may say that the "terrible two's" is the hardest age, but I would have to disagree. There is something about four that makes the kids have a very "I do myself" kind of attitude. In addition, and quite to my dismay, they all seemed quite excited by scissors. Now I know why they make safety scissors. For example, upon seeing a package of play-dough that was taped shut, one of the four-year olds I was with insisted on opening the package herself, with scissors. *stab, stab, stab* It was kind of scary, to be honest.

Evaluations, Interviews, and Biographies

In the past, I’ve only taken one yoga class I actually enjoyed. It wasn’t at the JCC though, it was at Lulu Lemons. The class was two hours long but mainly consisted of savasana, which is where you lie on your back with your eyes closed and breathe and become absolutely relaxed. Yesterday, I finally took a yoga class at the JCC that I enjoyed. I believe it had to do with the instructor because she was able to crack a few jokes and modified moves for those less coordinated. She has been working at the JCC for twenty years and has literally taught and been certified in every possible group exercise. Most of yesterday I interviewed many instructors and wrote several biographies. We interviewed my sponsor and I knew most of her background because she often mentions or refers to it, but it was really interesting to know that she truly began the group fitness program at the JCC and is still with them. I’m amazed at how young group fitness is at the JCC, only about twenty years old, yet it still has affected so many people and has huge influence and power at the JCC. Today I took a cycling class and evaluated the instructor. To the side is a picture of the cycling studio. It is a class, regardless of the teacher, always has several participants. Additionally, Katie and I began to film our zumba class because in the actual zumba class, the camera didn’t record the entire class and for what it did record, Sergio blocked the lens. Additionally, we wrote up more biographies.

Rib cook off day 1!

This blog is going to be hard to write. Just because i'm too tired to move any part of my body. Lots of manual labor today. Moving things...and putting table cloths on tables. AND putting banners up. These banners were covered in a gross black dirt type thing that got all over my hands. I'm really excited for tomorrow because I never get to eat ribs! I saw all of the booths being set up today and I must say these recipes look impressive. I'll have pictures in my presentation. I got to drive a golf cart... but after the first time they didn't let me do that again. I also got a cool laminate that makes me feel important. Thinking about food is making me really hungry. I'm gonna go eat now :D I'll let you know about the second day of rib tomorrow. I'm sure you're all SO interested.

Remember... its free until 3 at Jacobs Pavilion at Nautica!

Back to busy work

Now that the run is over, I am working on busy work again. Since I figured out a new way to make the books, it is a lot easier and I am a lot more productive. Spent some time searching all the local staples and office max stores to see who sells the cheapest products. Just so everyone knows, Staples is cheapest for printing in large quantities. You will save a lot of money by printing in black and white instead of color, it triples in price if it is color printing. If you want a stack of papers bound by glue, so they can be torn out easily, go to office max. It is actually more expensive than kinkos, but I told them that, and they did it for 49 cents instead of 55 cents because kinkos sells theirs for 50 cents. I am now almost done with putting together the lessons. Once this is done, I will clean out the boxes used for the spring season and start over.

GOTR run (Sunday)

So I have been postponing posting on the wall because I wanted to get some pictures on the computer, but that hasn't happened yet and it is almost the end of the week. So the run went extremely well. Last year there were around 400 people and this year there were over 700. Since there were so many more people, it was a little harder than in years past. We realized that bathrooms were a bigger problem this year. Other than that, nothing else changed too much. It was raining, so at first people were not as happy. But once people started moving around it was all fine. It is very cute because there is a hair station, where the girls get their hair sprayed with different colors and they can create tiaras. Then they started the run. I call it a run because it is not competitive at all. People really took a while to start. I was the never-ending finish line with my friend. We have been doing this for a few years now. We have rolls of streamers, and we try to get each girl to run through it. It started because at normal races, the first person to finish runs to the finish line tape. But GOTR wanted every girl to feel like they are a winner. It was a lot harder this year because it was raining, so the paper streamers were breaking a lot more than they did in years past. Overall it was a great success

Tuesday, May 24

So on Tuesday I went out to Wendy Park, which is right over by Whisky Island and Edgewater Park, but is directly to the left on the river mouth. It's a small though certainly pretty park, with grass and trees and the sun was out that day so the lake was really blue. But I suppose the most interesting about all of those parks is that on one side is the lake and then on the other side are railroad tracks and mills and rock and sand piles and all of the flats. I watched a huge cargo ship - must have been at least 80 yards long - pull out of the river and back into Lake Erie. It had gone under a bridge so after it left the bridge lowered back down and then minutes later a train pulling coal and stuff went right over it. It was pretty cool to just watch and realize that all of these train tracks and mills and even the river are still in use. Afterwards I went west a little bit to Battery Park which contrary to belief isn't a park, it's a developing community. It was built on the site of an old battery factory (hence the name) and for a while the land had been so polluted and acidic that it was just a waste. But some people got together, were granted money from the city, and now they're building this little village out of it. It's right off of Gordon Square as well so it's still largely connected to the city but it also has a couple restaurants of its own, including one that's in the remaining building of the original factory. Plus, it has a beautiful view of the lake. I'm not saying that'd I'd ever live there, but it's a pretty interesting way to see how Cleveland can make good out of it's industrial past, and also how development in Cleveland isn't gone.

Cycling and Stretch and Firm

My sponsor wants me to focus more on evaluating the different cycling instructors as well as the stretch and firm instructors because there’s such a variety of teachers and teaching styles. As a result, I have been predominantly taking cycling and stretch and firm classes. Yesterday (Monday), I took a spinning class with Beth. Beth was a trainer who I had worked out with all summer for volleyball. She certainly hasn’t lost her touch, and I think she is so far my favorite cycling instructor because she always has fun music and varies the workouts from climbing to sprinting to sitting in the saddle to standing upright and so on and so forth. The stretch and firm class I took yesterday was with Patti who incorporates much more dance than lifting in her class. She relates extremely well with her class, but often had trouble focusing on others in the room because she always stared at herself in the mirror. Today I went to a cycle and sculpt class with an instructor named Jamie. Her class went a little long so I couldn’t make it to the stretch and firm class because the two classes are scheduled back to back and the JCC has a strict policy that you cannot attend a class if you’re ten minutes or more late to a class because you’ll miss vital warm-ups and will be a distraction to the others. In Jamie’s class, I was on a newer bike where the resistance gear is far more sensitive than the old bikes. Therefore, turning it just a little to the right to create more resistance is equivalent to a full turn on the old bikes. Jamie got off her bike and was encouraging others to push themselves. I was already pushing myself quite a bit and could hardly push the pedals any harder because of the high resistance that I was at. Nonetheless, Jamie turned my gear two full turns to the right and let’s just say I got quite a workout. It was, in part, my mistake though, because I wanted to try a newer bike and the only new one left was directly in front of her and the whole time I was trying to keep up to her tempo, so I made myself vulnerable. For the sculpting portion, we used bosu balls and did many squats, push ups, and ab workouts all while challenging our balance. Both yesterday and today, I have been typing up biographies of each instructor.

The Warehouse District is Cool!

Today I was downtown again and went over to the Warehouse District which is W. 6th onwards towards the river between St. Clair and Superior. I don't know if it's just because it was lunch break by the time I got there, but the streets were filled with people and cars and they were all talking and the sun had finally come out by then; the stores weren't vacant but filled and open for business and overall it was just really nice down there. One street over was were all the night clubs are so that part still was really quiet and deserted - like a Scooby Doo ghost town or something. But the rest of the district is really alive and moving. It's not crowded like NYC's streets are but honestly, Cleveland will never be NYC and the streets will never be that packed. But that's ok: it feels like a small town with downtown right next door. There are a lot of little restaurants and grilles there and Constantino's Market is pretty cool - it has a lot of prepared foods. Overall, it's a pretty cool place and I strongly suggest that you all visit there!

This is the part where I plug livenation..

So basically... nothing in my daily routine has changed. I do mostly the same things everyday which for someone else might be awful. I don't really mind at all.... because its not always in the same order. So it all works out... Also since I'm in chagrin I've been getting ice cream at Jeni's... so if you're in the chagrin area I suggest you go there... pretty awesome ice cream...

Okay so this weekend is the rib cook off! Its free before 3 so if you're free this weekend you should definitely come! The bands that are playing are Seether, Collective Soul, Bullet for My Valentine, and Bruce Hornsby and the Noise Makers. It goes from 11 to 11 friday through monday at Jacobs Pavilion at Nautica! If you're not into any of those bands it's okay because the food is still going to be really good! There's a glee competition on saturday! So that should be really cool! If you're in the area you definitely should come!

Court of Appeals

This morning I went to the Court of Appeals. It is located down town (it’s in the building we had prom in). I shadowed a lawyer named, John Martin. He was doing an oral argument. Basically, the Court of Appeals is the next step up from the Court of Common Pleas. In this case, John was trying to argue for a new sentencing because the defendant during trial had not been read the guidelines for post release control (probation). However, a new case had already been ruled on earlier in a higher court that may have overturned the need to do a new sentencing if the defendant was not read the guidelines of his post release control during sentencing. John forgot to update the Court of Appeals with another brief in light of the other case that would have amended his argument. Thus, when he got in front of the Judges (there are three), they chastised him for not updating his argument / brief in light of the other case that had been ruled on in a higher court that changed the direction of his argument. So, that was quite awkward as this lawyer was getting reprimanded in front of me. He did have a strong argument despite the other ruling in the other case for at least the guy getting read or updated about his rights to post release control. However, because of his mistake in not updating / giving a supplement to his original brief the Judges basically threw out his argument.

One of the other cases I saw this morning at the Court of Appeals was one about breaking and entering versus burglary. In trial, the defendant was accused of committing a burglary. However, in the Court of Appeals the Appellate was stating that because the house was “vacant” for 25 months, and was thus not a place that constituted a maintained residence it was not a burglary, but merely breaking and entering. The State was saying that because the basic features of the house were intact and the gas, water, and lightening was being paid for by an outside company it constituted a maintained residence. The rebuttal to this by the Appellate was that paying for mere services is not maintaining the residence. He stated the guy who was breaking and entering the house was the one maintaining it not the company. There was a bunch of cases that backed up each respective side. Each person was basically interpreting the law in a different matter. As one of the Judges said they both had strong cases and appealing points of view. So, I’m not exactly sure what the Judges are going to decide in that matter.

The Court of Appeals was very cool because there was much more attention to the actual law. It was also interesting to see how three Judges worked together and listened to the cases. I’m normally used to seeing only one Judge up on the bench. It was also a lot more formal. I also found it interesting that each Case can only take 15 minutes. That forces the lawyers to make their arguments brief and to the point even though they must use a lot of case law to back up their points. I enjoyed viewing another branch of the Judicial System.

ZUMBA

This entire week I have been making up dances for my Zumba class that took place today. I went to several different classes with instructors that I haven’t had yet. I took a cycling, Pilates mat, Zumba, and Pilates reformer class. This whole week I had really been concentrating on the Zumba class making sure I wouldn’t forget steps. Literally all day, every day this week I had been practicing my Zumba moves.

The Zumba class had a great turnout. It appeared that the class had both a fun and difficult workout from all the sweat I saw. I give credit to instructors because it is really hard to both tell the class what to do and not get frustrated when they’re doing it incorrectly as well as breathe while teaching. The instructor is getting a workout, but it is so much more difficult when you have to look peppy, smile, and talk all at the same time. I think the Zumba class was successful in the fact that a bunch of people came up to me afterwards and said how fun it was, how they knew they received a great workout, and that they wanted to try Zumba again. Additionally, many, as well as people who were unable to attend, have asked me to post videos online of the class and the different workouts. All in all, I think it was successful and those who went understand that Zumba is definitely not jazzercise.