Raising the Bar Event

This Monday, Friendship Circle held their annual event that recognizes the amazing work that their volunteers do.  The theme of this event was "raising the bar". Up until monday, most of my work at Friendship Circle was in preparation of this event.  That day there were many last minute things that had to be taken care of, such as decorating the actual location and doing last minute recordings and practicing speeches, etc.  While the process was very stressful, the event ended up running quite smoothly.

During the actual event, even though I was a teen volunteer throughout the year, I was mainly planning and facilitating.  It was an interesting experience to have to give directions to my peers and teens that I volunteered with throughout the year.

Along with the facilitating aspect, my other main role was to give a speech displaying the magnitude of hours that teen volunteers put into this year.  There were about 700 people there, so getting up on the podium was quite nerve racking.  After crunching the numbers while writing this speech, I found that teen volunteers dedicated over 17,000 hours of volunteer service to the Friendship Circle organization and the kids that they help.  This, to me was such a large number that it is difficult to put into perspective.  With some help from a few of the staff members at friendship circle, we found out that if a person walked for that amount of time, they could walk around the entire world twice. That is a pretty cool statistic, and got quite the applause when I told it to the audience. 

Thank You

Throughout my project, there were many times I was bored out of my mind, disgusted with the smell of burning flesh and irked with some of the people I had to deal with on a daily basis.  But it wasn't until Dr. Rezaee put his hand on my shoulder and said "Alright, it's time for you to go, Elise. It was great having you," that I realized how much this project encompassed everything I learned over the last four years of high school and how much it meant to me to end my senior year with an experience like this one.  Every RN, NP, MD, DDS and anesthesiologist looked at me and gushed about how great it was to have me there for an extended amount of time.  Were some people just being nice? Yes. But there were people in that room who saw me almost everyday standing over their shoulders, asking questions, reacting to the room, etc.  They laughed at me when I got lost and talked to me the whole walk to the OR, even if I ended up on the opposite side of the building. They talked with me about their jobs and how they decided on their professions, but they also put forth effort to get to know me as a person, why I was there and what I was thinking in that moment.  Each of them also gave me compliments on my ability to get lost in the hallway almost everyday.

I embarked on this senior project because I wanted to see what it was like to be a surgeon and if it was something I was interested in pursuing. Purely selfish reasons. I watched countless surgeries (I actually counted, it was 47), sat in on 23 consultations, and I can honestly say that being in the medical field is definitely worth every moment of the next 12 years I am going to lose dedicating myself to learning and perfecting my skills as a medical professional.  The feeling I got walking out of the Mather OR doors for the last time was overwhelming. Unexpectedly, each day I was growing attached to each of my fellow team members, the mean ladies at the front desk, the sound of the tools, the smell of the Bovie pen, the feeling of the scrubs, the fast paced walking and the humor that is constantly thrown around a functioning operating room.  Waking up early sucked, yes, but my whole day rushed by and I never realized it until now. Three weeks have gone by and I feel as though I took it for granted.  This experience has showed me that what Hawken has instilled the idea of always asking questions, pursuing your passions and taking some risks into my brain, which has produced a work ethic that I am eternally grateful for.  It paid off. These projects not only give each of us seniors a fun way to end our senior year, but also shows us how much we've grown and how prepared we are for each of our differing futures.  Senior project exposes us to the outside world we strive to be involved in and allows us to be enveloped by our own ideas and perseverance. An informal "thank you" is all I can give to the Hawken and UH Case communities for making my last senior year experience so amazing and memorable.

Appreciating the Parks

Last week, Emma and I drove out to Cuyahoga Valley National Park for a day hike. As many parks as I've been to, it wasn't until this day that I realized just how much I have taken for granted. When most people walk along a trail, they may appreciate the beauty of nature, but they do not always recognize the amount of work that goes into building the trail itself. Even after a trail is built, there is a lot of maintenance that needs to be done to ensure that the trail can continue to be used in the future. 

After actually getting to build waterbars the previous week with the crew at Lake Metroparks, I found them much easier to spot...

Waterbar!

We also found it much easier to spot washouts and flagging...

We also got the opportunity to work with a Natural Resource Specialist from Lake Metroparks, who showed us how to flag areas like wetlands and how to use a GPS to log important data. Even though I have often seen flagging while out for a walk, I never really gave it any more thought.

Flagging a wetland

Using the GPS

Emma is excited by the GPS!

Wrapping it up at Hawken

For the last three days of project Sarah and I are working on the trails at Hawken, mostly by walking them and consciously kicking sticks and debris off the surface, lining less clear sections with sticks, and clipping away andy branches that have grown into the trail. I've always found it kind of sad that most of the student body doesn't know that we have a lot of woods to walk in, and doesn't use the trails. However, cross country and track are using them increasingly frequently, and I've seen a lot more people running out there lately that seem to be there willingly, favoring a run in the woods over one on the track. Trails made for running have to be a lot wider and smoother than those that people are just walking on, and one of the things that we've been doing is clearing the new green trail that runs against a cliff of branches so that on tomorrow's service day the students working on that trail can focus on cutting into the soil and making it wider instead of just making it passable. We're also taking note of down trees that need to be removed from the trail using a chainsaw, and areas that we think the service people should focus on re-routing or improving using shovels.

Fitting In

As Sarah has mentioned, for a lot of our project we felt slightly out of place; we were far younger than anyone else at KTA, were the only women in the lunchroom at Lake Metroparks, and felt like we knew nothing standing next to the Holden interns and employees who knew every plant we passed and bird call we heard. However, looking back, even when we weren't quite strong enough to help at the Metroparks, or didn't understand jokes, everyone that we met was extremely friendly, ready to talk and teach us. At KTA, the president invited us to her house, and while we couldn't go because we had a long drive, she talked to us for hours after work about the goals of the association. At Lake Metroparks, we were shuffled around to various parks to see different projects when there weren't any of them that we could help out with, and rode in various people's worktrucks so that we could learn about their careers, information that they very willingly offered. And at Holden Arboretum, the people we're working with joke around with us, invited us to their end of the week Conservation Crew ice cream break and let us sit in on their brief staff meeting. One of the biggest lessons that we've learned is that people are wonderful, kind and open, and that they'll talk your ear off about the most interesting stuff if you'll let them.

Hot Doctor

One of the best parts about working in a hospital is that there are always a lot of different cool things to see and even more people to meet.  In the OR there can be up to 12 to 13 people in one room working on one operation once you add in all the necessary surgeons, nurses and anesthesiologists.  In my three weeks at the UH Case Medical Center I have observed in specifically ENT areas; OR, pediatrics and adult clinic.  The people within ENT have been extremely welcoming and kind (expect for a mean front desk lady) even in the crazy busy setting of the OR.  With almost a dozen people in a room, having a teenager just standing around would annoy me, so their kindness has been much appreciated.  Dr. Rezaee, my sponsor and Hawken Alum ('88), has been one of the most welcoming, and has set me up with many different people I had not intended to work with throughout my project. His actions have actually enhanced my project in a way I did not know what possible.  What I've seen and experienced and learned is something I am eternally thankful for because it has broadened my horizons on just how many medical positions there are.


Oh, and today I worked with a super hot resident. Devilishly handsome. And a surgeon.

New Opportunities In The Future - Day Ten

I have thoroughly enjoyed my senior project and the entire experience of working with child life specialists at Rainbow Babies and Children's Hospital. As projects come to an end, it's hard to say goodbye, but I definitely know I would love to come back in the future. If I can work around my work schedule in the summer, I was invited back to continue volunteering during the summer. Although I would not be able to work as many hours and as many days during the week, I will still get the chance to help out at the hospital.

This experience has been extremely influential and has helped me discover what I'd like to pursue in the future. Although I don't think I want to be specifically a child life specialist, I know for sure I would love to go into the medical field, specializing in pediatrics. Whether it's pre-med or nursing, Rainbow would be a dream job location for me. I absolutely love the atmosphere and the community. I have talked to my other sponsors and they gave me someone to contact in the future for a possible internship with a child life specialist at Rainbow NEXT SUMMER! I'm definitely going for it!

~Clare

Am I Legit Yet?

As project comes to a close, I realize that I have been given an incredible experience that not many high school students receive.  Being able to stand right next to the operating table while a surgery is going on is a sight and feeling that I hope I get to experience for the rest of my life.  That being said, I hope I'm not standing next to the table for the extended future...because that's boring. So boring. Now that I'm over the initial amazement of being in the OR and rushing around with surgeons and wearing scrubs like a boss, it comes to my attention that I stand for 8 hours a day watching people do what I want to do.  It makes me envious, irritated and bored at the same time.  I love being in the OR, don't get me wrong, but 3 weeks is a long time to stand around.  I want to do what they're doing but obviously for the sake of Cleveland, they don't let me operate on patients.

Looking at the bigger picture, this has showed me that I want to become some kind of surgeon, very badly.  It serves as a large motivational push to strive in college so I may go to med-school and succeed in the medical profession.  3 weeks is long for a project like mine but it's an experience I will never forget.

Garlic Mustard

This past week, Emma and I have been working with the conservation crew at the Holden Arboretum. Their main focus this week was on invasive species, meaning that we spent most of our time pulling garlic mustard on various Holden Arboretum properties. It is important for them to pull this particular plant because it is highly aggressive and can out-compete native plant species if left alone.

Garlic mustard

 This work began as a somewhat nostalgic experience for me because when I was younger and had friends over, my mom would make a deal with us: if we pulled garlic mustard in the garden, then she would buy us ice cream. However, it soon became a much bigger-scaled operation than what I had done back then. When a small team of us set out for a day of pulling garlic mustard, we stuffed our pockets with plastic bags and then dispersed to pull as much as possible.

After several hours of digging around in a dangerous forest filled with tangles of pricker bushes and poison ivy, we managed to hike out with many bags of garlic mustard! Success! 

A bag filled with garlic mustard

It was a ten bag day!

Doing this sort of work makes me really appreciate what these conservation crews go out and do. It's definitely a tough battle to try to control invasive plant species, so the fact that there are people who are still committed to it is amazing.

Life as a Conservationist

One thing that I have learned about careers in conservation with smaller park systems is that for many people, what they studied in school and got hired to do is not what they end up working in. Careers are much more focused around having a broad range of skills, and doing whatever your employer needs done or has funding for. For example, Brett, one of the employees of Lake Metroparks we were working with two weeks ago, went to school for and was partially hired to monitor bird and animal populations and diversity, but now most of his job involves planting, building and maintenance of the ponds. The people we were working with at Holden Arboretum could identify nearly every plant we saw, knew bird calls, geology, and a lot about maintaining a forest in general, and their status as "conservation crew" meant that they could be doing anything from pulling garlic mustard to delineating wetlands to petitioning the association to limit and close horse trails. Regardless of what they were doing, everyone we met on the job was there because they were passionate about preserving natural areas, allowing for plant and animal biodiversity, and providing areas for recreation and learning to everyone. As Amy, another person that we shadowed at Lake Metroparks, told us, it doesn't matter what you study, as long as you're learning something you find interesting and proving that you have the persistence to learn it, and it doesn't matter what you spend your life doing, as long as the same things apply.

A New Perspective

While working here, sometimes I forget that Friendship Circle is also a Jewish Organization.  In additions to the various projects that I have been taking on for them, I also have participated in some of Rabbi Yossi’s more spiritual responsibilities.  For example, the Rabbi has Torah study sessions with a few people this week.  During one of the sessions that I sat in on, I met a man who told me that he has been spending his time hitch hiking through Latin America.  He explained to me that he was meeting his friend in Buenos Aries, and instead of flying he hitchhiked through Mexico.  Not knowing any Spanish at the beginning, he learned Spanish as he travelled, made his way to Guatemala where he eventually got a job in a hotel and later as an English teacher.  Meanwhile, over the course of a few years, he never ended up making it to Buenos Aires.  He then came back to the United States, where he finished his college degree and just now began studying Torah again with Rabbi Yossi.  I got to see a completely new perspective on the way someone can live his or her life. By the time the study session had ended, we haven’t even flipped to the first page of our books.  Instead, we had a discussion about the different ways

The Importance Of A Child Life Specialists and Volunteers - Day Nine

One thing I have realized was that many children are left alone all day for several days of the week. Their parents either have to work, take care of their other children at home, or they simply cannot find time. I have learned to really appreciate the work that child life specialists and volunteers do for the children who are alone in their rooms all day. We supply books, games, and toys for children, and offer to be a "buddy" for a while. There's a playroom (activity center) that we open a few times a day as well. This gives the kids a chance to just be a kid and play around while they're in the hospital. There is one baby I have visited all week and his parents do come to the hospital, but they never spend time with him while they are there. He is unable to go the playroom because he is too young (only 2 months old), and they go without him. I don't quite understand that specific situation. 

Other parents do come, and stay every minute of the day with their child. I have so much respect for these parents who take off work. However, I totally understand that it is very exhausting to wait in the room and try to entertain their child, especially if their child is older. There was this one mother today and she was in the room the entire time I was with her daughter. She really appreciated me playing with her daughter for 3 hours because she was able to take a break downstairs in the atrium (cafeteria) and even take a nap. I could tell she was exhausted too. 

~Clare

Another Day

This morning I will be spending another day in Peds ENT with Dr. Arnold.  Time in Peds is very different from spending time with adults by process, energy and end goal.  Almost everything I've ever watched in Peds is tonsillectomy which is interesting the first few times, watching the bovine pen direction and then seeing the inflamed fleshy kidney shaped mass removed, however, with multiple tonsillectomies in one day and spending 4 or 5 total days watching them, they get very old, methodical and boring.  Part of what being a surgeon entails is being methodical and muscle memory, that much I have gathered.  But the part I hesitate with in Peds is how tedious the same task so often can be.  In Adult ENT, there are similar procedures but always different histories, lifestyles, diseases, mental states, largely varying ages and surgical histories.  There is also a larger field to work with which provides more room to work and brings more people into the room to assist with the often more involved cases.  Ultimately, this helps me decide that I do not want to go into surgical pediatric care which is very helpful.  And fortunately, this is my last day in Peds so from here to the end should be interesting and appealing.

Visions of Garlic Mustard

      For the last few days, Sarah and i have been laughing about how Gary, the "boss" of the 3-4 person segment of the Holden Arboretum conservation crew we're working with, must have nightmares or at least dreams about garlic mustard, the invasive plant that we've all been picking this week. But earlier today, I closed my eyes and found that the shadow of the spindly, tall green shoots was etched into my mind. After spending two days walking around canvasing the forest floor for the stuff, and hearing from Gary and the others about what it and other invasives can do to an ecosystem, I think that I really will have nightmares about it as well. It's not that the work is scarring. In fact, we're having the most fun we've had yet on project because we get to see beautiful parts of the arb not usually open to the public, and are working with amazing people. It's because garlic mustard is scarring.

       If you have an area of your backyard that isn't mowed or very well weeded, you probably have garlic mustard in it. 

images from: http://www.onlyfoods.net/garlic-mustard-alliaria-petiolata.html

If you do, you should pick it, and throw it away or burn it. You can spot the stuff along the sides of highways and roads, in backyards, and on the grounds of Lake Metroparks, where they've made the decision not to battle with it because of a lack of funding, and the seemingly unstoppable nature of its advance. It is biennial, and this is it's off year, but even in the area we were working in this morning, which has been managed for invasives by the Arboretum for years, five of us hiked out for lunch with ten trash bags full of adult plants. The plant takes over fields, the edges of streams, and patches of woods like the one shown in the second picture, where a break in the canopy lets in sun. It is extremely hardy and chokes out native species, and spreads its seeds through waterways, bird and animal scat, and mud that animals and humans track into different locations. Invasive plants in general tend to harm ecosystems by choking out the biodiversity and even the landscape of an area; if garlic mustard takes hold, it can prevent new trees form growing in an open spot, converting it permanently. 

     The debate among parks and people about whether or not we should pull invasives is a hot one; it takes tons of time, money and manpower, often involves the use of chemicals, and generally seems pointless given that not everyone in an area is going to eliminate the species on their own property, and so there will almost always remain a seed source. It takes a lot of resources, but as we've seen, areas that the Arboretum has maintained continuously, where they've made sure that there isn't an upstream or uphill seed source and perhaps that they've sprayed with a herbicide, contain very little of the stuff, and since the park's mission is as a preserve, the pulling makes sense. As I mentioned, Lake Metroparks doesn't pull garlic mustard, and Gary is currently trying to convince them to at least mow dow a patch of it that's directly across the street from a relatively garlic-free and hard to penetrate patch of Arboretum land that holds an endangered species of Ohio Rose. If the garlic mustard takes over that area, it very well could choke out this area, but since it is a rose and bramble patch it's very hard to maintain, so Gary needs to at least try to limit the seed sources. The effort to maintain biodiversity cannot be successful on a single tract of land; the neighbors, and everyone in the area, has to care enough about Ohio's nature to make an effort  and pull some weeds. 

     

Mr. D's visit

Today, Mr. Dlugosz came in to visit School of Rock. Today was a rehearsal day for the Jam Bands group, and Mr. Dlugosz came in just before we started playing. I had the opportunity to show him around a bit and introduce him to some of the guys at the school. We talked briefly about the school, and I got to learn a little bit about Mr. Dlugosz history with Rock and Roll and his chance encounter with one of my favorite musicians, Frank Zappa.
Before we could talk more, the rehearsal started, and Mr. Dlugosz got to see me in my element. We started off with a song called Soul Shine, originally written by the Allman Brothers Band. The group was a bit small today, so I had to fill in on vocals. My brief time as a singer was fun and got to show Mr. Dlugosz how fun it is to play with the students at School of Rock. Afterwards we played a song that I played guitar on. Mr. Dlugosz got to see a little bit of that before he had to go. Thanks again for coming today!
For the rest of the day, I filled in on auxiliary percussion, laying down some beats on the conga for a Santana song. My hands felt like raw steaks by the end of rehearsal, but that's just a sign of hard work! Even though not everyone showed up, the students that were there made a lot of progress towards their final performance. I couldn't be more excited!

Working with Lake Metroparks

Last week, Emma and I worked with the Lake Metroparks to help build a trail as well as help out on any other projects they were doing. When we first started, we showed up at the warehouse where we were instructed to meet everyone. Wearing our work boots and colorful raincoats, we tromped inside to meet the crew. I couldn't help but laugh as I saw how out of place we were. I have to admit that I felt a little silly being the smallest people by far. We were definitely not the muscular men surrounding us. This initially made me question whether or not we could actually be of any help. From this experience, I got the feeling that being a girl automatically puts you slightly out of place. It was very clear that women are not part of the crew, probably because they are generally not able to do a lot of the work if it involves much physical strength.

Anyway, let's get back to the part where Emma and I are in the warehouse staring back at the intimidating crew that soon will become our friends. We are finally sent off in a vehicle to our first work site, where we are to help build a trail down to a campsite. 

First, we layed down fabric along the 6ft wide trail.

After that, they began laying down gravel on top. While we couldn't operate any machinery, we did make ourselves useful by raking it out.

After two days, the trail was almost complete. The final steps were to first build a couple of water bars, and then to use a tamping machine to compress and smooth out the gravel. Emma and I both tried using the tamper, but we found it a tad more difficult to move and control than we had expected.

Building waterbars to reduce erosion from surface water

By the end, I feel like we became much more aware of how much time and effort it takes to create trails as well as make them sustainable so that they will be maintainable in the future.

Here's a look at the finished trail and the campsite that it leads to:

 

We also planted some Canadian Hemlocks to improve the aesthetics at the Chapin Forest Reservation in Kirtland.