The Art of Service: IHS

I just got back from IHS, Institute of Human Services, a homeless shelter where I served dinner. My church participates in serving dinners to IHS every other month on the first Wednesday and my family coordinates it with the church. So every two months we buy a lot of pasta, carrots and lettuce for salad, corn, and jello to prepare at the IHS kitchen of the Wednesday we serve. I of course am unable to go to help prepare cooking the food, but I get to go after school to help. After over three or four years of doing this, I have become a regular volunteer at the IHS. I realized that IHS is not just a homeless shelter, a place where the homeless people sleep and feed, but also a learning place for the homeless people to get back to a normal life.
Every time we begin serving dinner, the IHS volunteers are allowed to eat first then the rest of the crowd. These IHS volunteers are just regular homeless people who are trying to get a new start on life. These people help serve, clean, etc. It's a way for them to get back into society. Everyone is required to help clean up if they are staying over for the night, and those who are not just get a free meal and leave. In a way, IHS is helping these people a lot if the people use and take advantage of what the homeless shelter is offering. Some people are regulars at IHS, they receive money from the government at the beginning of the month and spend it all on drugs and alcohol. So later in the month IHS becomes crowded with people not having enough money to survive on for themselves. This is usually the case for the homeless people. They're stuck in a cycle that repeats itself indefinitely. I feel that if these homeless people really wanted to get out of homelessness they need put in the effort of getting out of that cycle.

The Art of Service: Palolo Chinese Home

Every now and then I am required to go to Palolo Chinese Home to for fill the SECR, (Spiritual, Ethical, Community, Responsibility), credit requirement for my Chinese class. So far I've gone to one out of the three dates for my visit to Palolo Chinese Home, with two more dates coming up for me to go. My first visit was on the Saturday before Valentines Day. My group and I prepared some origami arts and crafts activity for the elderly people to do. Since Valentines was coming up, we made origami hearts and other things such as cranes, frogs, etc. Also we prepared and made some Valentines cards for the elderly people. Afterwards we played Bingo for the rest of the time. I felt everyone who wanted to participate had fun and all of us students did too. The week after Function is my next visit that happens to be Saint Patrick's Day. I happen to be the group leader so I need to plan what we could prepare to play with the elderly people.
So far from what I observed is that the people at Palolo Chinese Home are elderly people that are alone with family on the mainland or just there for daycare. For us going to there, it is our job to make their stay a more happier and lively stay. Talking with some of my group mates on our first Palolo Chinese Home visit, I realized that some elderly people did not want to participate. So I was thinking that this next time I would give the elderly people options to what they would like to do. Such as either playing games such as hangman, two truths and a lie, or pictionary, arts and crafts, or maybe nothing at all. One of my friends told me that elderly people like the control of what they want to do, so that giving them options is something that I need to consider in doing in every thing we plan to do with them.

One Night Extravaganza

Just this past Saturday was Function at the usual place. Although it was just a night that lasted about five hours of waiting for photos, dinner, and dancing, function started a month ago for me. First finding a date to go with before everyone was taken, because I did not want to resort to outsourcing to friends out of school if necessary. That was something that required me to be at the right place at the right time. Where I just happened to be at on the night before carnival at the variety show junior and senior carnival dance at school. Second was finding the clothes. Going to Ala Moana multiple times trying to decide upon what looked good and what looked good that matched me with my date. Thirdly dealing with all the unnecessary drama that people create and the annoying question of, “Wesley, who are you going to Function with?” I reply, “I don’t know.” or “ You don’t have to know.” or “Wait till Function.” Either those or something similar, because too many people asked and I had too many ways for saying those three responses. Fourth were helping some of my unprepared and no initiative friends in finding a date because they waited till the week of ticket selling to find a date. Fifth was acquainting the guys with the girls so that function wouldn’t be so awkward as a first time acquaintance. Sixthly were waiting for a week and thinking and planning about what a wonderful time I was going to have. Seventh was waking up to function and getting ready to meet my date. Eighth was getting to school and making all the preparations before boarding the bus. Ninth is the long bus ride that nearly took an hour from getting to school to the hotel due to getting on the fourth bus. Lastly was Function with all it’s fun memories that I hope to relive again next year.

I Probably Would Kill Myself

I remember waking up on a weekend morning about a month ago watching the Today Show on an interview with a teen girl named Jennifer Mee who was suffering from a case of constant hiccuping. They said the hiccuping started about two weeks before Jennifer aired on the Today Show and it was indefinite to when it would start because hiccups are still random and unknown to us, they seem to just come and go for a short period of time. Although it was Jennifer who was suffering from the hiccuping, it seemed like Jennifer’s mother was suffering just as much or more than Jennifer was. From what I remember from the interview, Jennifer’s mother tried everything to help stop her daughter’s hiccuping. Even visiting multiple doctors whom left her with nothing to cure it. As I heard Ann Curry interviewing Jennifer’s mother, you could hear Jennifer’s involuntary hiccuping “Hic…hic…hic.” I recall myself thinking, “Wow. That really sucks for her and if it continued forever, I probably would kill myself.” Just this morning I read the Time Magazine around the Milestone page where it informs us who died or something big happened to someone. Right next to it titled Numbers, I read “36 Days that Jennifer Mee, a St. Petersburg, Fla., teen suffered from constant hiccuping that stopped only when she slept.” So after a more than a little over a month, Jennifer’s hiccuping stopped just as randomly as it started. If this happened to me, you’ll probably find my article in the obituary.

The Push for Spring Break

Little to no sleep, constantly doing something, and stress. That’s how my week has been so far with another week coming up before spring break. It’s only Wednesday and it seems like it’s been a Friday for the past three days. Though it is high school and there are bound to be challenges in life that I must face. My schedule looks something like wake up around 3:00 AM to study and/or do homework, school around 7:00 AM – 4:30 PM, Drivers Ed on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 4:00 PM – 7:00 PM, and 7:00 PM – 12:00 PM of doing homework and studying. Though I am not always efficiently working through out this time, I am up and getting less and less sleep until the weekend where I also don’t get much sleep due to play, play, and play. Also known as extracurricular activities, homework, and study. I do get some down of course but I am required to give up at least my Sunday and part of a Friday night or Saturday to keep up with the pace of school for the push for spring break. Also taking Drivers Ed at the worst possible time ever just makes my life better and better. Sitting and listening to a jerk for around two and half-hours, without using any precious hours of the class doing multitaskable homework like math. Thank Goodness I get a 20-30 minute break between those three hours of class, otherwise I’ll probably mad and turn into a jerk myself. Chinese is the worst part though. Our teacher assumes it takes only an hour to study and do homework for her class. For me to do well in Chinese, it takes me triple the time for homework and study. Though she is very understanding and lenient to student situation of high school life, Chinese the most accumulates substantial amounts of stress for me. Physics is another class that’s killing me. I’m totally lost and the teacher is very hard for me to approach to ask for help. Recently a bunch of classes assigned group projects, where you know, everyone does a little to make one big thing. Not in my case, I get those crappy group members who don’t do anything and put the load on someone else. Meaning me…. As a matter of fact, I need to go work on them now.

Hypnotic C-Day

Junior year life seems to be on an organized schedule. We have A-Day for Assembly, C-Day for Chapel, and E-Day for extended homeroom. Today happened to be C-day, meaning that Chapel was to be part of our day at 11:30. A dreadful thought of sitting, waiting, and listening for an hour which really seems like two or three. I actually don’t mind having Chapel. It’s a forced upon break in a way where I can just relax and not think about school.
The big clock hits 11:25. I walk to homeroom leaving the comforts of the library: the beat of productivity, research papers some Hawaiian guy, and some really old books. For I shall return to complete what needs to be finished. Making my way across the congested campus I stop off at my locker before heading to homeroom. I then read 11:28 off the big clock. Finally head over to homeroom where I check in and leave straight to Chapel. Walking along the roadway with the Chapel in the distance I watch those who fall under the spell of temptation. As I reach the halfway point of the roadway I feel my stomach trying to influence my judgement. I ignore it. Reaching my final destination at 11:35.
The soothing melody fills the sanctuary settling everyone down to prepare for the service. Already I notice the guy who always sleeps in Chapel is already knocked out with his head lying back on the pew. Chapel goes on to introducing two guests who speak to us about Buddhism. The lady goes up to the stand and begins to speak about what Buddhism is all about. Looking around and noticing myself, the energy of the room had dropped incredibly. By the time the Buddhist minister begins his talk. You can see tha more than half my grade was no longer with the service. I turn to look back at the clock behind the Chapel, 11:56. I feel my stomach grumble, my mind unable to absorb the words of the speaker, I close my eyes.
Feeling a poke from my neighbor, I return to consciousness. I turn back to see the clock reading 12:18 and hear the Chaplain’s voice preparing the closing of the service. I didn't know exactly what the Chapel was all about but I had a pretty clear understanding of what happened. Though it was quite boring but also informitive. I feel that it was more of a class rather than a Chapel service. Because Chapel is a place im normally up and awake to actually listen and relax. I guess sometimes Chapel is some what of a class that tries to lectures to us through hidden meaning from the bible, or etc. But, now I understand why that guy always sleeps in Chapel.