Reflection

In writing my reflection for class, I had a sudden realization about my service work. In the past, I had grown to resect service for the good feeling that it gave me. When I did my service work this time, I fully expected to get this same benefit, but when I looked back on my service work, I realized that I had learned something new about myself. I looked at my current service experiences and back to my past experiences, and examined the type of service conditions I liked working in. I realized that I enjoy working with my hands, enjoy a variety of tasks, and enjoy using my head to tackle problems. From this, I decided that I should look further into research. Research is a hand on career field that has a variety of tasks and requires a large amount of problem solving. I determined this based on the experiences that I had in my service organizations. I always chose to work at places that made me use my hands and had me walking around. At my service organizations, I also always was doing something new on a day to day basis and even an hour to hour basis. I also realized that I was at my best when an unexpected challenge occurred. I would think about the problem and figure out a way to solve it. From these three ideas I began to seriously consider a career in research. I enjoyed my time serving in these conditions and believe that this will translate to an enjoyable career choice later. I’m glad that I chose to take this class over the traditional English options as it allowed me to get real world experience instead of writing many pointless essays. Also, I was really freaked out last night when I realized the drop box had closed early. 

Break Your Back to Serve

Following up on my previous post, I finally managed to find a date that I could go out for construction. I went out this morning to a wall raising at one of the new Habitat for Humanity locations. It was a tad bit awkward at first because the lady that I had e-mailed about going was not there when I arrived and by the demo-graphics of the crowd, it was obvious that eager college students in their upper-teens were in the minority. At first, I felt out of place and unknowledgeable about the building procedure, but eventually that did not matter. As we got further in the project and I proved that I could handle the tasks they gave me, I started to feel a lot more included. Despite the fact that my supervisor still knows me as Nick, it was nice to see the other volunteers at the construction site warm-up to my presence. At first they simply gave me a hammer and told me to go, but after I started getting the hang of the program, they moved me up onto a ladder to help frame the house. I spent about two to three hours measuring and framing the walls of the house then we took a quick lunch break. After lunch, a majority of the regular volunteers left. This left me in an interesting position. We needed to free some piping from the cement foundation, but the jackhammer was missing. John, my supervisor, gave me a section of foundation, a sledge hammer, and some encouraging words. It was difficult to get the first parts out, but after that it became easier. An hour later I finally managed to loosen all of the cement, and my back was screaming in pain. I guess you have to suffer a little to do a good thing. 

Service Shortage

I am really struggling to get my hours done. I have counted on getting a lot of work done during thanksgiving break when I am home, but that is slowly looking less and less likely to happen.  It is really frustrating because I don’t know when else I am going to be able to find the time to volunteer. As for service here, I have had a hard time setting-up another appointment with the lady that I’ve been working with. I’ve sent e-mail after e-mail and provided plenty of ways to contact me. I’m hoping that I’ll be able to find somewhere to work soon so I can iron out my remaining service hours. I’m looking forward to the digital poster project, it should be fun. My idea is to have my poster placed on possible construction sites for habitat communities to combat community fears about these neighborhoods. The background is going to primarily be a suburban landscape with several houses in the background. The goal is to express the focus that habitat places on the community and to convey this to the existing neighborhoods. While others may not approve of building low income housing in their backyard, the goal is to show that these low cost homes aren’t your typical project, but instead are a functioning community. To accomplish this, I will need people, preferably habitat homeowners, to place on top of the suburban background. In the back ground there will be a significant amount of space available to use for a title. It will probably be placed in the sky to signify a heavenly sensation. The mock-up of the poster itself will be about 8 feet long and 6-4 feet tall. This will provide significant enough size for the poster to be seen from a distance or when driving. 

Tech Time

Two weeks ago I went home to do some work at my community theatre. It was nice to see everyone again and even nicer to get to work on building some of the scenery. Unlike in previous years, they let me do most of my work un-supervised so when I came across problems, and I did, it always was a puzzle to figure out how to fix them. For example, when I was stringing some lights for one of the sets, I realized that the extension cord I had brought with me was too short. Normally this wouldn’t have been a problem, but when you add in the fact that I was straddling a rolling ladder 20’ in the air suddenly the problem was a little more complicated. Luckily, I managed to re arrange the wiring so the cable reached and had enough room to fold up when the lights were not strung across the backdrop of the stage. Most of the set pieces had already been built by this point and my jobs mostly involved touch-up painting or focusing lights. My set designer really appreciated that I came back and always seemed to have something new for me to do. Often times I wouldn’t have even started the task he just gave me and he still would be listing off a list of three or four others things he needed me to do. The week after, I went back to see the finished production of the show and it was an indescribable feeling to see the work I did come together to make the production. I’ve worked on building sets before but this time was nice because I finally was able to enjoy the show without having to move scenery around or worry about lighting cues. 

Getting started

As I begin my journey into the world of service, I find myself reflecting on my past service experience. For my Eagle Scout project I built a boardwalk in the University Wisconsin Waukesha Field Station. The boardwalk is part of an ongoing effort to improve the land after it was originally donated to the university as a small plot of farmland. Throughout the project I had to learn to manage myself, money, and others. Raising money for the supplies, organizing workers, and keeping myself organized was a challenge, but it certainly has helped me develop important leadership skills. Service can be a great way to improve yourself because getting out in the world and taking on a task or an issue will force you to develop new skills or force you to draw on thing you may have not used for a while.

                One of the lessons that I learned while part of the Order of the Arrow, scouting’s honor society, was the value of cheerful service.  Their motto of cheerful service has propelled me to learn to enjoy my service to the community. Service can be enjoyable. Viewing how your time commitment, effort, and talent have made a difference in the life of others has taught me to respect the concept of service and learned to value what it teaches you. Of my most enjoyable service paths has been my service at my high school scene shop. It takes a lot of work to build quality scenery for our community shows, but it is always worth the effort. To see how someone can turn a pile of lumber into a bench, or a shelf, or a staircase has always captured my interest, and knowing that you are doing it for others is something special. Even though it was a thankless job, it was rewarding in its own way. I’m excited for October break when I’ll get a chance to go back and help out around the shop again. I am also excited to get my start with Habitat for Humanity here in Lafayette. The mission of Habitat for Humanity is a great mission and I’m excited to have a chance to help out and use some of the construction skills that I learned in my past volunteer opportunities. I hope that I am able to get as much out of this service project as I have in my past service projects.