Apple Mash

Many things in my life have changed recently. Through these changes, I have grown and feel like I have become older and more self-sufficient. While I have always considered myself to be independent, I feel more so now than ever before.

I have moved to new housing - from where I travel longer to get to places.
I have new house mates - who I adore and am thankful for.
I have started classes at a new school - to which I am still getting used to; disagreeing, being frustrated and finding my voice to challenge.
I have begun work within a different sector - and am overwhelmed with how much I have to learn.

Enough of THAT.
Bureaucracy. I thought I knew what it was, but I had no idea - until last week.
I am working within a "large institution", working on research around recreation and social inclusion. My supervisor is responsible for a group of staff who run various community recreation programs.
Yes, Im working for the City.

The complexity, complication and unnecessary-ness that is this bureaucracy is unbelievable. The first example is the number of people I have met within the last week and a half - each somehow connected to recreation, and the greater picture of public service. Most of the people I have interacted with are on the same page as me - believing that universal access to recreation is a good thing, that we need to be working towards [successful] social inclusion. But above them people who do not agree. And while they may be less of them "up there", they are where decisions stop and where conversations are no longer open and progressive.

Yesterday was the very last time I will ever have a class at Ryerson University. I am just two exams away from being able to call myself a Social Worker. Four long years behind me and I fell like Im entering into the great abyss of HOLYCRAPWHATAMIGOINGTODONEXT?!?!?!

But at the same time, its amazing and Im excited and I cannot be more thankful or appreciative for all that I have become.

This is something a dear friend of mine wrote. It was written after an interaction with a young woman on the streets of Toronto. And after sharing pizza and hot chocolate. Some people are beautiful, even if they cant see it...

Hungry City
Tonight, someone is sleeping under the neon glow
As the bitter March wind continues to blow.
Under a dirty old blanket, wrapped in a worn out coat
A cough rattles somewhere deep in her throat.
 
It will have been two years in just a few weeks
And again, the tears begin, to flow down her cheeks.
Her stomach in knots after another missed meal,
As a beautiful couple strolls by, missing the silent appeal.
 
Their indifferent faces hold no pity
For 3 million people, it sure can be lonely in the city.
Around her models are wearing all the latest styles
On billboards and buses flashing their bleached white smiles.
 
Once again she feels so completely alone
As the bitterness chills her, down to the bone.
This must be what it is to be down and out;
Finding herself, yet again, going without.
 
It wasn’t always like this, she thinks aloud
I to was once popular and pretty and proud.
But her resolve it is drained, with each sleepless night
She’s losing the strength to keep up the fight.
 
The coughing returns and her eyes well up with tears
It is at this dark moment that Hope appears.
A beautiful stranger looks deeply into her damp dark eyes.
Instantly seeing through the ruddy disguise.

I am looking through an old journal for this lovely essay, and read something I wrote about a past colleague named N. I did some HIV/AIDS work last year, and N was a case management worker. He was kind enough to share... honestly.

October 12, 2007

Today Lisa and I met with N. He is a case manager, but does so much more than his job description entails. He had some really interesting things to share with us. He was honest and real and it was nice to see it. He told us about the only time he has ever truly felt threatened as a worker. A new client came into his office on Tuesday and just went off. He said that the client "assaulted" him on "every front":
- calling him a 'mincing faggot'
- saying 'you don't know what it's like to be positive
- something derogatory about his race

N went on to admit he feels desensitized and jaded - this surprised me. He said that it's hard for him to sympathize with a newly diagnosed client who is complaining about how sick they are. He said that after 11 years of being positive, after all he's personally been through, it's hard to do. He is SICK. He is sick RIGHT NOW. Today. Today N is sick. People who come to our agency immediately after being diagnosed are not sick yet - not like N is. He's frustrated with the stigmas that still exist. He said he's seen too many people who think HIV is a death sentence and can be an excuse to quit their job and spend all their savings on "living life". In reality, people are living full lives.

He has a lot of insight, and I feel like he was saying a lot that no one else has the guts to say about the frustrations that come with his work. He feels the effects of being under staffed and under funded. He's limited with what he can do, the care and resources he can offer. He sees the areas that need improvement and the desperate need for more support. He's living it.

He also told me that I need to grow thick skin, that it's important to be able to let things roll off my back. Indeed.

I dont know how to make any further comment on this. It gave me a lot to think about and showed me a side that no one ever talked to me about before - Supporting people is not always personally fulfilling. This was a critically changing conversation for me. Especially since 3 months after I met with N, he passed away from complications of AIDS.

I am currently writing the last paper of my undergraduate career. Its for my social work practice class and requires me to basically explain where I started, where I went and where I am now - detailing how I ended up where I did along the way.

This is my dream paper. I am purging. Purging the most significant and influential aspects of my life since I entered university. It has been fascinating to recognize and acknowledge so many of the things that have made me who I am today - those moments when I was changed, the people who made me better, the people who made me question, the people who made me cry, the people and memories that wont let me go as badly as I want to, the experiences that left a stroke on my heart.

I have been passing a lot of my food bankers on the street lately. Some of them walking with friends, some with their bundle buggy, others sitting on the street corner, asking for change. My personal policy is that I dont acknowledge clients before they acknowledge me. If they dont say hi, I just keep going. This is to ensure I respect their confidentiality as much as possible. It is undoubtedly a personal ethical dilemma, making it impossible to separate professional from personal.

Again, I write and have to say... it has been a while since I did this.

Things are changing, and changing fast. It is almost April, which means school is almost done, summer is almost here and the life I know is going to become something different.

I started this blog as a way of sharing my experiences spending time at a food bank. My time there is ending and, looking back, I didnt really use this enough. Some life-changing experiences happened to me while at the food bank, and I really wanted to share them... I just... didnt.

So now, this blog is going to exist because my work is not going to stop... life isnt going to stop. So with the other changes in my life, comes a change to this blog!

Hopefully I will have a following one day...

I want to go to Nunavut. 

i havent posted anything in a long time... i have a lot that will be posted probably within the next week. stuff thats been hiding in various notebooks, on random sheets of paper and in the corners of my thoughts.

for now, the lyrics of a song by the group fort minor. i dont think they have received enough credit for their wicked first album.
ps... fort minor is a spin off from linken park.

the first verse is my favorite to listen to... especially when im starin' at my laptop. 

Excerpts from "Right Now" by Fort Minor.

Someone right now is leaving their apartment
Looking down at the street, wondering where there car went
Someone in the car sitting at a signal
In front of a restaurant, staring through the window
at someone right now with their finger in their teeth
Who could use a little floss...
Right across the street there's somebody on the curb who really needs a jacket
Spent half the rent at a bar getting plastered
Now he gotta walk fourteen blocks
To work at a shop where he's about to get fired.
Someone right now is looking pretty tired
Starin at a laptop trying to get inspired
Somebody living right across the street
She wrote the best things she's written all week
But her best friends coughing up blood in the sink
Can't even think what happened, feeling so confused
And he knows it looks bad but there's nothing he can do
I wonder what it's like to be right there in his shoes

Meanwhile right now someones 25 to life
And is standing on the corner with their thumb up hitchhiking
Scratching off a lotto ticket hoping for a real winner
Sneaking through the border just to work and to eat a real dinner
Right now someone wishes they were you and I
Instead of second guessing freedom thoughts of quiet suicide

Right now somebody sitting in the darkness
Trying to figure out how to put some heat in their apartment
But they got a little mattress and a little carpet
And they appreciate it 'cause some people on a park bench
You see them when you rushing to get to the office

Right now somebody struggling to stop this man
Who's kick and punching and cussing at the doctors
Down the hall the child taking his first breath
The doctors ain't even passed him to the nurse yet
I wonder if he understands what he's worth yet
Like the time spent while we here on the earth yet
The answer to the question that we all seek
Can be found depend on how free y'all think
Right now it's somebody who ain't eat all week
That would kill for the shit that you throw away in the street
I guess one man's trash is the next man's treasure
One mans pain is the next mans pleasure
One say infinity the next say forever
Right now everybody got to get it together.

This is a reflection I submitted for my Practice Class. It has references to two writers our profs tend to love: Jim Ife and Jan Fook. I dont think they are so bad either... ______________________________________________________________________________________

Reflection #9 | November 11, 2008 |

I recently had an advocacy worker from the Daily Bread Food Bank say “You are such a Ryerson Social Worker”. Many of my social work friends have encountered similar comments from people in the field – about their strong opinions and how evident it is that Ryerson is the core of those opinions.

These types of comments are not meant to be negative, but rather reflect the point Ife states so clearly: we will be questioned, we will be resisted, we will have to fight and we will not automatically be seen as doing a “good thing”. I am well aware that I have strong opinions and depending on the forum, I am definitely not shy in voicing my views. As with most people, I think my opinions are informed and deserve being listened to. This is especially true when I am with my family or friends. When I am in a formal setting, whether it be at placement, at work, volunteering or in a room of strangers, I choose to be more reserved as I carefully select my words. Having to pick my words and edit what I say is, to say the least, disempowering. My thoughts and words are my ammunition in a world where I can so easily fall into a crowd of compliance.

Front line workers at the Food Bank are also users of the Food Bank. From the managerial discourse stems the idea of competencies, asking who at the Food Bank holds the power and who is “qualified” to make decisions. Ife speaks to the idea of moving towards having workers specialize in certain areas of work rather than maintaining holistic, gereralistic social worker positions: “occupations should be defined according to the competencies required to perform them, rather than through the formal qualifications required of the worker concerned” (pg.21). This is extremely relevant to those dedicating their time to the Food Bank.

As a social work student, my power is not clearly defined. I lack power as a student, but I hold power as a “social worker” – I am dually part of the powerful group and the powerless group (Fook, pg.47). Often I feel more powerful than powerless, especially since me and the other student are the only people that do any sort of formal advocacy. The other volunteers are mostly used for stocking shelves, for organizing the back room, handing out hampers and as cooks in the kitchen. As a social worker, I am seen as the most “competent” in addressing advocacy issues. Yet it seems to me that someone who has lived a similar story is much more competent in answering posed questions regarding poverty issues. There is one volunteer named Peter who is responsible for intake interviews. At first I felt like I should be doing those interviews, that as a student it was my right and would help maximize my learning – blah, blah, blah. This thought development was a time when I did not share my opinion, and I’m thankful for that. Fook questions empowerment and states “sometimes what is empowering for some might actually detract from the empowerment of others” (pg.47).  The people I am working with, stocking shelves with, sharing experiences with, are not only my co-workers but also my clients – clients of the Food Bank. If I was to take over Peter’s role as the intake interviewer, I would feel empowered. I would feel no doubt be gaining experience and I would feel accomplished in a way. But in using my power as a student, I would be stripping Peter of his power, disempowering a person who is more qualified and competent to do the job.

My placement is unique. It is not traditional, there are couches in the office and we do not write case notes. My co-workers do not go out at lunch, they do not bring a brown paper bag; they do not take breaks and at the end of the day, volunteers linger, not really wanting to go home.  I am only beginning to fully understand how profound the experiences I have at the Food Bank are and how deeply changed I will be when I leave.

Word,
Lov-ern.

Question: What is better: sleeping on the street or staying in a shelter with bedbugs?

Answer (according to Joe): Sleeping on the street.

Today I was hanging out with a guy named Joe. He said he had been sleeping on the street and he cant do it anymore, so he was asking me to help him look for a place to rent. I asked him about tonight, and he said it would be spent on the streets. I then asked about shelters, and he said no. He said that he didnt want to deal with bedbugs and all the other shit that goes along with shelters.

So Joe is sleeping on the street tonight because to him, that is better than potentially sleeping with bedbugs.

Bedbugs are terrifying and terrible. They are hard to get rid of and extremely unpleasant. But, they really do not pose any risk other than... they are pesky bugs that infest a person's life.
I am petrified of getting them and on more than one occasion have stripped down to my knickers in the hall way of my 25 story apartment building to seal my clothes in a garbage bag. Bedbugs are a real, thriving problem in Toronto. 

Oh, by the way... after we looked at housing stuff, Joe then asked where he could find a winter coat. We didnt get him find him one today.

Word,
Lov-ern.