Promising Pal

I received an email from the Simmons College Alumni association a few months back asking if I wanted to be involved with Promising Pals. Basically I get partnered up with a middle school student at the Timilty Middle School in Roxbury, MA and we write letters back and forth. Here is a press release about the program.

The Scott/Ross Center for Community Service is currently recruiting
volunteers from the Simmons community for this year's Promising Pals
program, a writing initiative with student from the James P. Timilty
School in Boston's Roxbury neighborhood. Through a series of letters
exchanged over a six month period (December - May), the program
fosters relationships between middle school students and adults in the
Greater Boston area.

Promising Pals is collaboration between the James P. Timilty Middle School
and the Greater Boston community. Started in 1986, the program highlights
literacy and mentoring by giving students exposure to the outside
professional world through an exciting writing initiative with an area
adult.

Simmons College is one of the largest participants involved in the program.
Last year over 160 Simmons faculty and staff members, graduate
students, and alumni joined over 600 professionals from greater Boston
to be a part of this program. By establishing a correspondence
relationship between Timilty students and professionals in the Greater
Boston area, the Promising Pals Program encourages self-expression,
role modeling, and skill development. Through the program, adults and
students correspond regularly by writing letters at intervals
throughout the second semester of the school year.

I got my first Promising Pal letter a few days ago in the mail. My Pal wrote a lengthy letter telling me about herself, as well as asking all sorts of great questions. I plan on answering her letter over the weekend, and look forward to hearing back from her.

Enjoy ~SJ

The Snow Woman!

Setting: Junior year of college dorm room
Timeframe: Study week for first semester finals

I lived in Dix hall at Simmons, and one year for a moral booster they decided to host a door decorating contest. My Roommate and I decided that this would be a fun activity, anything is better than studying for anatomy and Spanish finals! We brainstormed various ideas for awhile and somehow came up with the idea of building a 3-D snow woman on our door. This architectural feet took hours and days to create. We found huge white paper, cut up circles, stuffed it with cotton and "sewed" them together. Then we went and got real sticks for the arms, created a carrot nose that stuck out from the door, and fashioned a pipe out of a real acorn. My Roommate and I were very proud of ourselves, but we didn't just stop with the snow woman, yes we went one step farther. Since there was a little balcony above our room we decided to make it "snow" when the judges came by and have holiday music playing. We really out did ourselves when the judges came around, a friend of ours played Mother Nature and made it snow with little scraps of paper from our hole punch, the cd player was set to play, and we had a vacum standing near by to show that we were going to clean up the mess. My Roommate and I were very proud of our multi-day arts and crafts creation. We came in first, winning a poinsetia that My Roommate gave to her mother and some very nice chocolates. I can't tell you how we did on our finals that semester (I'm sure that we did exceptionally well even though we didn't really study), but I can say that My Roommate and I had an amazing time creating this snow woman and it still makes me chuckle to myself.

Enjoy ~SJ

She is, she IS a fucking saint!

"Aimil is a Saint"said Mi Prima, "She is, she IS a fucking Saint!" finished SJ referring to one of her amazing friends from Simmons College. Through all of the ups and downs of my life Aimil, which is Gaelic for Emily, has been there to support me. One my most cherished memories of Saint Aimil is from our freshman year at Simmons. We spent the entire afternoon camped out in her room making an Excel spreadsheet for the courses that we needed to take and in what order to take them for our undergraduate career. Only Aimil and I can share a crazy obsession for math and structure, and only Aimil and I can discuss what our favorite prime number is and why.

I don't know what I would do without this amazing person in my life. So Mi Prima and I decided, if there isn't already a Saint Emily (Aimil) day, we are going to make one in honor of my dear friend Aimil.














Abby (another Simmons Gal who needs her own Saint day), SJ, and Aimil

Enjoy ~ SJ

Mi Prima, Mi Hermana

She is the sister I never had, but have always wanted. When I was little, she was the coolest person that I knew, and I wanted to grow up and be just like her. Now that I'm older, she is still the coolest person I know, and I still want to be just like her. Our paths have criss-crossed each others many times. We grew up spending our summers together at Worthley Pond playing in the water, in the stream collecting "clay", and riding our bikes. We drifted after apart after awhile, as all cousins do. We both went to Simmons College, her majoring in Spanish and me in Environmental Science. Since we are four years apart we were never enrolled at Simmons at the same time, good thing because Boston wouldn't be the same city! Our paths are getting ready to cross again on Friday when she moves home from Spain indefinitely. I'm excited for all of our crazy adventures!

According to my Mother, Mi Prima was very excited when I was born. When she first met me, she was sitting in a chair holding me and she looked up at my Mom disappointedly and said "When is she going to be a person?" Well after a few years I eventually became the "person" she was expecting me to be, and we were off on adventures.

One of the most memorable adventures that I have of Mi Prima is when we went to the Sidewalk Art Festival in Portland. We decided that we just had to check in on the trout at LL Bean on our way to Portland. On our way to LL Bean we were driving through the little town of Durham, and they just happen to be having a parade. We were in my little red Plymouth Horizon and we were bringing up the rear of the parade, right behind a giant LL Bean boot (see photo). Well, we felt bad letting down all the people out to watch the parade, so we decided to join the parade. Donna rolled down all of the windows (they may have already been down since the Horizon didn't have an air conditioner) and started to toss all the spare change I had at the people along the parade route! We may not have officially been part of the parade, but we didn't let the people of Durham down. Funny, the didn't call us to be part of the parade the next year.

Later on in the day Mi Prima and I found ourselves going into the Maine Mall. On our way into the mall we walked past a jar of pickles sitting in the middle of an empty parking space. Well, we just couldn't pass up this amazing photo-op. Later in the mall we took the picture of ourselves dressed up in the feather boas.

One winter day Mi Prima and I were sitting in my house looking out at the pond. She looked at me and said "You know, I don't know what the inside of an ice fishing shack looks like. Do you?" To be honest, here were two girls born and brought up in Maine and neither one of us had been inside an ice fishing shack. So what else were we to do? We got all bundled up and went for an adventure!

We knocked on the first ice fishing shack that we
came to, and the two men inside greeted us. After explaining to them that we just wanted to see the inside of an ice fishing shack they invited us in and explained all about the shack. After their detailed explanation, and filled with all of the knowledge about ice fishing shacks that two girls need we went off to take some pictures.

Mi Prima has been living in Spain for the past several years and now I only get to spend time with her on the few occasions she comes home to visit. We chat online as often as we can, but it isn't the same as being together. I am truly excited that Mi Prima is coming home for while, so that our paths can cross again and maybe bring us more crazy adventures. Here's to being a "person"!














Mi Prima sitting on the neighbors stone porch.













SJ "swimming" on the ice

Enjoy! SJ