Twelfth Night and Care Packages

Today I went to the Ed Society meeting to help put together care packages for teens who are going to be spending the holidays in the hospital. They spend their holidays at the Johns Hopkins Children's Center and most have chronic or serious illnesses. The Ed Society, along with Grateful Giving decided to donate to teens because most donations go to smaller children. We made packages with games, cards, art supplies and other miscellaneous toys. People donated things they believed teens would enjoy. We also included little messages in the packages and signed our names, just to add a personal touch. It was a little sad that we had to wipe down the containers with disinfecting spray because of the teens' weak immune systems. It made me feel grateful to have my health and spend the holidays with my family. I really hope that the kids enjoy these packages and that it brightens up their time in the hospital a little.

I was able to see a connection between making the care packages and Twelfth Night. In Act III, Scene IV, Sir Andrew wants to fight Cesario for Olivia. Sir Toby keeps egging Sir Andrew on, hoping for some entertainment. Cesario, really Viola, tries to get out of the fight but ends up drawing her sword. Antonio, thinking she is Sebastian, comes to her aid. This made me think of the members of the Ed Society who spent their time and money to create awesome care packages. While it may not be as extreme as risking your life for someone, as Antonio does for Viola and Sebastian numerous times, the Ed Society is still trying to do their best to help out those who are sick. We don't get to deliver the packages to the teens because of their immune systems, so we won't even get to see their reactions. But hoping that they feel a little bit happier because of what we made is, at least for me, enough reason to do it. Antonio doesn't have to protect Sebastian, but he is his loyal friend and Antonio does all he can to serve him. Their friendship is his reason for saving Sebastian's life during the wreck and accompanying him to Illyria.

The loyalty and dedication of Antonio's character to Sebastian is juxtaposed to many of the other characters in the play who use each other. Sir Toby uses his "friend" Sir Andrew to continue his drinking spree and as entertainment. He lies and puts Sir Andrew in harm's way to get what he wants. Maria plays a joke on Malvolio to entertain herself and Sir Toby, which causes Malvolio to be locked away and deemed a madman. These characters are the complete opposite of Antonio as they exploit those who are supposed to be their friends. It displays two ends of the spectrum; how malicious and mean people can be and also how giving and generous others are. I'm glad Loyola is filled with generous people, like the members of the Ed Society who donate to those who are less fortunate

Project Mexico and Twelfth Night

On Thursday November 20th I went to the Project Mexico Auction, it was an auction in McGuire Hall to support the group from Loyola participating this winter. The auction was fun, with a lot of great items and taco’s! But, it also allowed me to learn a lot about the immersion trip and how it originally started here at Loyola. Even though I am only a freshman, this auction made me aware and interested so that I can participate, or at least look into going on the trip next year as a sophomore. This kind of auction is the exact type of event that promotes Jesuit education. The thrill and fun aspect of the auction brought all types of students here to unite and learn, as well as raise money for a great group trip on campus.

From the research that I did I found out a lot about the origin of Project Mexico. Project Mexico, a 10-day service immersion program in Tijuana and Tecate, Mexico. It began in 1987, founded by two Jesuits here named, Peter Clark, and Joseph Koterski, ironically enough it was almost by accident. Father Clark wanted to give his students a first-hand experience with justice and had planned, along with Father Koterski, a trip to Haiti where a group of students and staff would work in a hospital for HIV-AIDS patients. Because of violence in that country the United States took away the groups visa. Then the group an opportunity to work in Tijuana, Mexico at a place called Casa de Los Pobres, or "the House for the Poor." After this trip, Project Mexico was born.

This immersion trip, as long as the promoting the core values of Jesuit education go along well with many of the readings we have done in this class. Specifically now while reading the Twelfth Night it brings up questions of loyalty and service. Similarly to many of the characters in this book students at Loyola are trying to help Mexico. I realize that it is a different type of loyalty but Viola and Sebastian are loyal and dedicated just like us today.

Just a couple of hour ago, i attended the awareness meeting for HIV and AID's globally. There was a speaker from the Catholic Relief Services to help explain it on the bigger picture and to give many statistics. it was a very eye opener meeting and educating me on all the new information.

CRS is funded by the US government and supplies care to millions of people all over the world. CRS drops food to places in desperate need and help them to plant crop that will last through disease and are long term. This is the first function that the CRS was started for. In 1981 they started providing care, prevention and treatment of HIV and AID's. They work with over two hundred partners in over 9 countries that are funded by the the UN. 

In the past few years the percentage of people getting HIV and AIDS has decreased a significant amount. The number of people not getting treatment has decrease "four-folded". Women are still the biggest percentage of the HIV and AID's carriers but that can easily be explained by them being more susceptible/ likely to catching it. Africa also is still the dominant area in desperate need for help and with the most agencies over there. 

At the end of the lecture, the speaker was telling us of what we could do and it reminded me of our jesuit education. being educated about other area's around the world and the problems troubling them is what we try to acquire in our jesuit education. She mentioned how we should be praying for them as often as possible because there are so many people with HIV and AID's that aren't able to receive help and the families and communities around them as well. It is our duty as catholics and students of the jesuit education, we should help send money to the CRS. At the least we could send letters to our congress to make sure that these agencies receive the money that has been promised to them by President Bush.

The Power of an Illusion

Last Monday night a screening of the film "Race: The Power of an Illusion" was shown in Knott Hall. The film analyzed the origins and implications of the widely accepted concept of race in a unique way, by approaching the problem from an objective, scientific point of view. The main claim of the film was that despite variations in skin color and other physical attributes, every human being shares nearly the exact same DNA. By presenting such concrete proof that racial differences really serve nothing more than superficiality, it is hard to deny that racism has no place in the world. Although many people strive for racial equality, racism and other forms of prejudices continue to pervade the minds of the world. This film is revolutionary in many ways. It provides indisputable evidence that race is ambiguous, something created by humans. In addition to the screening of the film, organizers of the event shared with the crowd some real life stories of how racial prejudices can harm peoples` lives.
The real question posed by the film is whether or not we are going to allow ourselves to be subjected to the illusion that is race while convincing ourselves that certain things (especially negative things) are attributable to race. After reading the opening acts of Shakespeare`s "Twelfth Night" I made a conncection between it and the film. The importance and attention to disguise, or an illusion of appearance, is quickly recognized. When in disguise, the characters act in ways different than they would had they been dressed normally. Although the Clown in "Twelfth Night" is not exactly "in disguise" he is dressed in a manner that causes others to make presuppositions about his character. However, the foolish exterior of the clown proves to be only skin deep. Throughout the play, the Clown continually makes seemingly profound, philosophical or educated remarks. Moreover, it turns out that the Clown is the most truthful of all the characters. From this, the idea that exterior features show little about the true fabric of a person emerges.
The concept of looking past exterior features can be directly and effectively applied to race relations. Someone`s skin color or complexion has little to do with their internal beliefs. There are a number of holes in the logic of race. For instance, how many races are there? Possibilities range from two (black and white) all the way to thousands or millions (1 for even the slightest variation in complexion). Especially in today`s world, it is important for people to be able to look for similarities in people rather than creating differences.
Some striking similarities, on the genetic level, between races were revealed in the film. It documented an experiment in which teenagers if varying sex and race came together and examined samples of their own DNA. Every teen hypothesized that their DNA would be most similar to that of the person who was most similar to them in appearance. To their surprise, and my own, almost every sample revealed the most similarities between people who appeared physically different. For example, a black girl`s DNA was most similar to that of a white boy. A related fact is that within racial populations there exists the same if not more variation than between different populations.
Unfortunately, over the centuries, racism has become ingrained in the world. It seems that people tended to seek explanation to physical differences and make them account for more than what they really are. This film effectively sheds light upon the truth of the matter concerning racial differences. Disguises are all around us, and are sometimes so effective that it takes science to uncover them. Whether it be the false creation of race or Viola dressing as a man, disguises almost always hide people from the truth. No matter the severity of the truth or the magnitude of the disguise, false assumptions will almost always be made based on exterior appearance. I believe that the filmmakers` intent with "Race: The Power of an Illusion" was to communicate that no matter how accepted something may be in society, it may be based on false assumptions. Preventing negative effects of false assumptions can only be achieved by seeing past the disguise.

Christopher Place and 12th Night

This Monday, I continued my work at the Christopher Place Employment Center, located at Our Daily Bread in downtown Baltimore. The center takes in homeless men and teaches them basic employment skills. As a volunteer, I help the men to search for job opportunities on the web, create resumes, and eventually contact employers. At the beginning of my three hour shift on Monday, it was unusually slow for the center. Because of this, I ended up getting into a conversation with one of my fellow volunteers, Dave. Dave is probably around 55 or 60 years old, and has worked at the center for a number of years. When talking to Dave, I found out a little bit about what his life was like. Dave is currently employed as a carpenter and actually obtained this job through Christopher Place. He then said that he comes in on Mondays because it was his day off from work. I was shocked, to say the very least. Here, working beside me, was a real life success story for Christopher Place. He said that the center helped him out when he was down on his luck and he wants to help give that opportunity to the other men that use their services. This interaction was so rewarding for me, and really was a great way for me to start my day at the center.

Because it was a slow day at Christopher Place, I really only had one “customer.” His name was Ed, and I needed to help him revise a previous resume so that he could apply for a position at a home that helps young boys who don’t really have a strong home life. In working with Ed, I really saw that he had tremendous passion for this cause and it seemed to come from the fact that he didn’t have the best life growing up. He talked about how he wanted to be a role model for the youth he would be serving and about how this would not only be a positive thing for the boys but a positive thing for him as well. In putting down all of his work experience, I saw that he had a very diverse past. He graduated high school in 1984 and has worked locally in Baltimore as a handyman for almost 25 years. He was recently laid off from his latest position, so he decided to make a career change. He said that he began to think about the change because of positive experiences that he has had coaching boys’ basketball teams in the past. Ed said that his skills as a handyman will probably help him to get hired, but he really wants his new position to be about helping the underprivileged youth.

Ed’s passion and interest in his new position reminded me of an exchange between Viola and the Clown that happened in Act III, Scene I. In the scene, Viola says to the Clown “I warrant thou art a merry fellow and carest for nothing.” This reminded me of the preconceived notions that most people have about the men that use the resources of the Employment Center, myself included. Before going in, I didn’t know what types of jobs that I would be helping these men obtain. I figured that they would be a “take what you can get” mentality, looking to accept whatever entry level job that would hire them. But, I was completely wrong. These men are all passionate, and really search hard for jobs that they cannot only get, but ones that they can flourish in. I must say that I was very pleasantly surprised to find out that every guy that comes into the Employment Center brings with them a passion for employment. This attitude has definitely rubbed off on me, and makes me that much happier and motivated to help assist them in not only finding a job, but finding them a career.

Thanksgiving Food Drive

On Saturday November 22, I took part in the Thanksgiving Food Drive that was done by multiple Center for Community Service and Justice programs with the one here at Loyola College.  Throughout the month of November, CCSJ was receive donations of canned goods and other non-perishable items that could be collected in order to be distributed at the food drive over at the CARES Food Pantry ten minutes away from campus.  They would also buy turkeys to give out with the other goods as well.  Then once Thanksgiving was around the corner, CARES would distribute packages of food based on the number of people that were in a certain person had to feed for the holiday and receive a set amount of food based off of that.

The handing out of the packages was where I came in.  I had first learned about the Thanksgiving Food Drive through my FE 100, First-Year Experience, class.  As part of the course, everyone was to take part in some sort of service project to possibly help get us involved and active in the service program here at Loyola.  Partially because I was so busy for most of the year and part I wanted to do something interesting for this, I signed myself up to work for the food drive.  In my senior year of high school, I had worked at a soup kitchen multiple times for my service project to graduate and had enjoyed it very much helped to feed people that were in need.  I figured this would be very similar just that when I handed them the food, they would start digging in on it right away. 

As myself and three other freshmen at Loyola made our way over to CARES, we introduced ourselves and were ready for a few hours of helping out many people in the surrounding area for the Thanksgiving holiday.  We got out of the car to be greeted by a bone chilling cold atmosphere.  Once being told how everything was going to work we awaited for the people to come and pick-up their packages.  My job was the unpack the ice cold turkeys from the boxes and help put them into plastic bags to hand out to the people, then break down the boxes.  After a while, holding frozen turkeys in your hands starts to make them hurt and you lose sensation in them.  It was kind of interesting to see how some of the people were reacting to receive the packages.  I thought that everyone was going to be happy and in a good mood that they were receiving some help in this time.  Don’t get me wrong, most people were happy and very thankful to be getting it, but there were others that were sort of nasty.  I was thinking like they seem as though they deserve this food and that we should be giving it out faster.  It was just annoying to see how ungrateful some people can be when it comes to service.  Then there was one woman who I remember who was so ecstatic about receiving a package.  Since there was only a certain amount of people that the pantry could give food out to, some people were told to come at three o’clock to possibly pick up a package that was not claimed.  This woman had come before three ready to be first to get one if she could.  When the woman was told she would be receiving one, she latched onto the director of the food drive sobbing, and repeating over and over again “Thank you, thank you.”  This display of overjoyed is similar to in “Twelfth Night” by William Shakespeare, when Viola and Sebastian finally realize that it is their sibling and that neither of them is dead.  The excitement that both this woman and the characters from “Twelfth Night” must have felt must have been truly an amazing thing to experience. 

Overall, the Thanksgiving Food Drive was a very rewarding experience to help bring some aid to those in need in such a wonderful time near the holidays.  I hope to continue with this food drive and any other food drives local as well.   

Last Blog. St. Mary's

This first semester at Loyola, I volunteered at Saint Mary’s; at the beginning of the semester I was not planning in participating in any community service since I did not know what college was going to be like, but I decided to do it to see more about what surrounded Loyola. Saint Mary’s school provides education to many kids of the Loyola area; their parents have enrolled them here because public schools are not as safe as they would want them to be. I helped a group of students with their homework; they were all different ages and in different classes. Helping the students here is very challenging, but I learned a lot from this experience.
It was very hard for me to keep the students focused on their work. Some of them got distracted very easily, and some of them did not do homework at all. I created different ways to keep them focused by lowering the amount of distractions and asking them to take out all the work they had. This worked most of the days, but it was still really hard. I enjoyed it a lot because it was very challenging and I learned about all the trouble that teachers go through to teach these children even though they have the knowledge to actually educate them.
This entire semester I have heard that students at Loyola College participate at different community service events. Many people came to St. Mary’s with me and I got to know a few of them. The Jesuit education at Loyola has taught us to give service without expecting anything back; I see it as giving back what we have gotten from society itself. By doing this kind of work we learn about the city we live in, especially if we come from other places other than Baltimore. Also by participating in community service events we not only help others, but we learn and meet people; we feel better about whom we are as humans.
After reading “Twelfth Night or, what you will” by Shakespeare, we see one of many confusions that happen in society. Sometimes we see strange things happening in the world and we wonder why they happen. It is always unknown, but we also learn that to every action, there is a reaction. Every time we do something nice for others, we will receive something nice, and vice versa. It is always good to stay true to yourself and give service to those who really need it.
Even though I only went to Saint Mary’s once a week, I met many kids who enjoy learning disregarding their situation. Like I wrote in one of my previous blogs, we learn from every experience we have, it is part of our Jesuit education at Loyola. The purpose of providing service is for us to become better rounded and to realize that we have to get out of the so called “bubble” and experience what other people live like. Volunteering at St. Mary’s gave me another perception of Loyola and Baltimore, I learned about the challenges that many people have every day, and I realized how comfortable our lives are in our bubble. We should get out of our comfort zone and help those who really need it.