Day 11: State of Emergency

27.08.2009 at 20:33 · Filed under Uncategorized and tagged: americorps, outreach, traffic

At the end of eleven days I have been thoroughly oriented for CCSC. My housemates and I moved last week and the corps started work two days ago at each of our respective placements.

I’m working as the assistant to the president at St. John the Baptist Outreach Center. I thought I had a good idea of what that meant and I figured I’d learn more about the programs as I went along and correct anything I was wrong about assuming. Well, so far I am mostly right on that. Anticipating a learning curve set me at ease for starting here. But as soon as I got a real phone call with a real emergency I was uneasy again, and in a major way.

About 2 or 3 hours into claiming my desk and office at St. John’s I was fielding a call from protective services about an 86 year-old diabetic man in needing to get food yesterday. He had been spending all his money on medications and only had some bread and macaroni left in his home. The fear was that he’d go into a diabetic coma before we could do anything for him. That call made emergencies real for me. The sense that what I do at my work matters in terms of life and death for others, scares the hell out of me, but somehow that fear motivates me.

Thoughts on emergency and outreach

I’ve only been at St. John’s for 3 days, but even that amount of time has given me a lot to think about with respect to the purpose, limitations, stereotypes, and nature of outreach.

**** Thoughts to come later. There are too many words and not enough minutes before I need to catch the bus****

In lieu of my reflection on outreach and social services, I will share this gem with you all. After recent fruitless minutes and hours spent in Buffalo traffic, I remembered one of my favorite sketches from the show Scratch and Burn. It was a rap sketch comedy show on MTV back in the day. Why it did not receive as much as or more acclaim than other shows like Date My Mom, I do not know. Anyway, I just wanna give it up to Scratch & Burn with this list of 50 things you can do in traffic.

1. You can make phone calls
2. Look at people that are in the car next to you
3. You can refold maps
4. You can switch CDs
5. Be rearranging your keys
6. Sniff the tree
7. And look for change in the seats
8. You can sing
9. Snap
10. Pray
11. Stare at cars
12. You can think
13. Rap
14. Play air guitar
15. write a novel
    
16. moon a school bus
17. You could wiggle your feet
18. Have your own fun wave
19. You could jiggle your cheeks
20. Lay
21. Shave
22. Or sunbathe
23. Find a shape in the cloud
    
24. And start breaking it down
25. Find a pencil
    
26. And make sure that your tape is rewound
27. You could write up a sonnet
28. Mend your socks
29. You can fry up an omelet on the engine block
30. You could be wet from knee sweat
31. Plan a vacation
32. Or reset your presets to Spanish stations
33. Drive slow with your left foot
34. Start farting and sniffing
35. Try throwing shotput
36. Start a petition
37. Floss with yarn
38. Wear a toga
39. Spoof cop
40. Wash the car
41. Or do yoga on the rooftop
42. Hang some laundry
43. Siphon gas
44. Graffiti the median
45. Bang drums lighting fast
46. Bake ziti
47. Spell teedeeyum
48. Cut a sunroof out
49. Act sociopathic
50. Write a song about things you can do in traffic

Count em!

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