Poor Digi Cam
I would love to post some pictures of my group as we've recently grown from 2 to 5! You may have read my recent post about my battle with electronics and technology...well it happened again. I broke my digital camera. I say "I broke it" thought I'm really not sure if that's true. I have absolutely no idea how but the screen is cracked. I'm sure it is my fault though it appears as though someone stepped on the screen or maybe jumped up and down on it. It seems like I would remember this happening (very similar to what happened with my cell phone just weeks ago)! Do you think it's possible that someone is stomping on my purse when I leave the room? Or banging it against the wall, or punting it like a football?
That's all I've been able to come up with, any other ideas are welcome as I would love to know what keeps happening so that I can stop it before it strikes again.
Good news is I think I've convince Canon to fix the camera for free!
-Rachel
Exciting Initiatives - Real Differences
At the beginning of this month I (black Giants shirt) got to move into a beautiful apartment in San Francisco with best friends Aaron (hair shirt), Dave (basketball jersey) and new friend Maia (female). If it weren't for Morris, Dave and the Forest Foundation I'd still be living at home yelling at my mom for throwing my leftovers out. Instead now, I'm living, working and constantly thinking with some of the people I care about most in the world.
Dave and I met in kindergarten and really hit it off in first grade when, in our first day of taking Hebrew, he convinced me to write the letters of my name at the top of the paper from right to left, though I only new how to use English letters.
Aaron and I have been roommates for a few years now - we met playing baseball in college - and even though we finally have our own rooms far apart from one another he still wakes me up in the morning with his nose blowing.
This is the new look of Moishe House San Francisco and it's incredible to me that I get to do this wonderful project with some of my closest friends.
Thanks!
- Isaac
cell phones, email, and stuff
So I got a new cell phone approximately two weeks ago. I switched from Nextel to Sprint. I'm not even exactly sure what that means because it appears as though they're the same company. The phones, stores, and service are all different though. Anyway I wasn't happy with Nextel so I made the switch. and then a few days later my screen on the new phone went blank. Contrary to what the woman at the store will tell you, I have no idea what caused the screen to disappear. She told me I was clearly lying and that I had dropped or stepped on it. Pretty good customer service right there. Anyway after much frustration, waiting, yelling, crying, nail biting, I convinced the company to give me a new phone for free. I'm still fairly certain that some $150 charge will be showing up on my bill sometime in the future when I least expect it.
Anyway I guess my point in all of this is, well there is no point. I wish I didn't have to live with a cell phone but I do.
I'm also having a fight with another great invention I could do without. My email is contstantly telling me that it is 90% full and will start bouncing people's emails back to them. The problem is it's not full. I've deleted 100's of emails but it doesn't seem to recognize this. And this error message continues to pop up on my screen approximately every 5 seconds.
You're probably wondering what all of this has to do with The Forest Foundation. I'm still trying to figure that out myself.
The Gift of Growth
In January of this year I learned that staff members of the Forest Foundation are given a personal growth budget that they can use to better themselves as people. As soon as I found this out I immediately began to look into opportunities for myself to partake in a "Counseling Intensive" care of the international organization Re-Evaluation Counseling
or often referred to as Co-Counseling.
I grew up around the organization with my mom serving as the reference person for San Francisco most of my life and in high school I began to take on the theory and practice myself and even taught a few classes to friends. The style of counseling is similar to many other forms in its focus on getting people to listen to one another. It differs in its approach - setting up communities in which people do not pay each other to listen but rather trade listening to each other. The theory laid out encourages people to develop strong and lasting counseling relationships with one another and emphasize that when people are listened to well and cared about they have the safety to release emotions, heal from old hurts and "re-evaluate" the present and think more clearly about it.
For community members that are active and take leadership there is an opportunity to come to Seattle for a week, where the only physical space for the organization is, and be given 20 hours of one-way attention from a team of counselors that do this for a living (as opposed to all other community members and leaders that participate in the communities outside of their work-lives). Each day I reported to the office by 9am and had a series of hour long sessions peppered into an 8 hour period. There were 5 different people that gave me sessions and they traded notes with one another about what they gathered from the time spent with me.
I could go on and on about all of the great things that came out of this opportunity but I mostly want to acknowledge the wonderful foresight laid out by Morris Squire in realizing the importance of emphasizing personal growth as a key to a progressive-minded organization. Despite balancing the counseling this week with ample work I feel refreshed and ready to take on much more and think more and more outside the box.
Best of all I had ideal housing - staying with the Moishe House in Seattle (shown in picture). Great folks that I had only been able to talk to on the phone and see in pictures since coming up here in February to start the house. Lucky for me they had two events while I was here and I got to see the Moishe House magic for myself. Look for me in Seattle's pictures on the web!!
Thank you Morris for an incredible week!!
- Isaac
Cooking Class
Yesterday was hilarious. I was bought at a silent auction a few weeks ago to teach a cooking class, and yesterday we held the class. It was me and Aaron as the teachers and the students, they were 10 Jewish mothers. Who am I to teach Jewish mothers how to cook. It turns out, they were very receptive, other than when I used seasoning and spices and they all enjoyed themselves. The highlight of the evening was when Aaron made a speach about how he got into cooking and he stated that he enjoys being creative and that the other night he made a baked Salmon with Eggo waffle syrup and onions. One of the moms said that she almost threw up in her mouth which is a great start to any cooking class if you ask me.
jordan
Camping
I just returned from a week away at Camp Dream Street. Dream Street is a week-long camp for kids with physical disabilities. It takes place in Mississippi. Each camper is paired one to one with a counselor for the week. I was in charge of the Great Expectations program which is the program for the high school participants. It was amazing! I'm super tan and extremely tired. The week was spent swimming, climbing, cooking, laughing, etc. For many of these kids it's the one time during the year that they are treated like "normal" children. It's truly a wonderful experience and I look forward to it all year. This was my tenth summer to attend...
But it's back to work! I now have five PD's here in New Orleans who are all doing really great things.
-Rachel
Critical Mass
Well, a lot is going on in my life right now, particularly this week. I'm trying to wrap up everything with the Foundation and make sure I let everyone know about all the logistical stuff that I've kept stored mainly in my head over the past two years (open accounts, renewal times, printers, etc.). It's a little more difficult than I thought it would be because it's all been in my head until now, and I just can't help but think I'm forgetting certain things. If I am, it's not exactly disasterous, because I'll always be around to help out and answer questions or whatever the Foundation needs, but I'm trying to be as thorough as possible to minimize any trouble Dave and Aaron and the rest could run into next year. In addition, I've got the LSAT exactly one week from today, and that's occupying a great deal of my thoughts for the moment. So, there's a lot of things kind of approaching critical mass, you could say. But I'm in good spirits, and very optimistic right now for the Foundation and myself.
Wish me luck on the LSAT!
Logan
Moishe House Boston!!
Another few months have passed and another Moishe House has begun. I made the trip out to Boston last Wednesday and met with Margie, Ben, Ari and Alyson to discuss the logistics for their new home. Margie has been living in her home for almost a year and organizing Jewish community out of it under the name Kavod Jewish Social Justice House. With funding and support from Moishe House Margie is pulling in other key organizers and taking the project up a notch or two with a wider variety and higher frequency of events. I have high hopes and am incredibly excited to see what comes out of this miraculous home in Brookline - the Jewish suburb of Boston.
- Isaac
