Projects with Kids

• Science Day
• Hyde Park Painting
• City Days / Cambridge School Project
• Cambridge Student Outrearch

Science Day

Thanks to the following folks for playing tour guide at the Museum of Sci. and then introducing the kids to the joys of Viet, Thai, Chinese... food at lunch:

Michael J. Buchanan (who agreed to forego the shot to my head w/ a 2x4 if listed #1 here)
Zak Taylor "-made for the Waterboy sequel (i.e. if Adam Sandler wants too much $$$)"
Maryam Rahimi
Robert David (these 2 just need to be reminded not to talk, talk, talk...)
Alok Srivastava
Ron Dror
Amanda Yarnell
Mike "capable of demonstrating pendular physics w/ them sideburns"
Muno
Janice Lee
and my partners in crime:
Neda
Dave who helped coordinate Tobin and Hyde Park groups respectively.

Any injuries sustained by the children due to chopstick use are my responsibility. After my "GAIJIN Freakshow Tour" experiences in Asia, I tend to forget that these things are not second nature.

-Chris

Hyde Park Painting

Ok, our little 3-pronged pincer strategy almost flopped because of a really cruddy Mapblast map (i.e. no mention whatsoever about the little fact that Mass. Ave. ends abruptly and you have to get onto Columbia Ave... ). We were like Spy Hunter or some tag team triathalon team:

Squad 1:
Zak Taylor (driving my car)
Neda Vukmirovic (go ahead, say that 5 times fast)
Gloria George
Jamie "where's the haggus?" Portsmouth
Mike L. Muno (don't know what his real middle name is... the "L" is for
lambchops, as in big bad sideburns)
Matthew Wong
Squad 2:
Jesse Hong (on his motorcycle)
Squad 3:
a boy and his bike (i.e. me)

We were going to all try to cram into my folks car, but that fad went out inthe 50's. Moreover, it was a cardio. day for me anyway.

Well, we finally all made it... that's when the paint splattering began. We actually did a pretty good job of converting the Barney room (i.e. prev. paint job was a nasty violet) and 2 restrooms at the Hyde Park Comm. Center to the Tom Sawyer whitewash look.

After a total of about 20 miles biking (incl. the 3-4 "bonus" miles as I ping-pong-balled-around every time I stopped to ask for directions), a little voice in my mind was saying, "Spohr needs food badly". ((those of you that exclaimed, "Oh yeahhhhh " our of nostalgia at the soundtrack to the Wedding Singer will recognize this refernce to Gauntlet)) Actually, the good-as-always big late lunch at OCB gave us a chance to talk over the tutor/mentor thing. Moreover, the "scenic route" had afforded us the opportunity to reminisce over sights you just don't see at MIT, like the O.J. Car Wash, Power Mothers United, the Beehive Culture shop, and the topper, El Coli foodstore: with a name like that, we almost had to switch our lunch venue.

Thanks to those who showed up.

-Chris

City Days / Cambridge School Project

Sept. 2-3 doubleheader rehash:

Event 1 went surprising well, considering we had a turnout of only 4. Thanks to Audrey Chang, Jacky Mallett, and Jeff Abes for their hard work: I'd tried to be honest in describing what would be involved in this event, so their partic. either means they saw the words "FREE FOOD" in the email and didn't read on, or that they were really gung ho about getting out into a local school and helping out. Actually, it was the 1st day of school, and it was fun to see the kids before strapping on our caving gear and heading for the basement. Of course, one of the teachers kept telling me I didn't have a hall pass and would have to get back to Mrs. Strickshaw's class or I'd be expelled (I think I've already told ev. I know that when I lived in Taiwan, I soon discovered that even if people spoke know English whatsoever, EVERYONE seemed to know the phrase "BABYFACE" w/ reference to me!). Actually, the work may have helped purge some school days frustration for us, especially crushing the old desks & chairs so they'd take less room in the construction-site-size dumpster. For the last clean-up task, we actually ended up in the subterranean boiler room, and I could sense that Audrey had seen 1 too many Freddy Krueger movies. Needless to say, a huge free lunch at OCB was well deserved afterwards.

Event 2 was working w/ kids as opposed to working for kids the day before. In all 11 of us turned out to "teach" science to a classroom of 9 special needs kids. I thank

Jesse Hong (who pretty much ran the show)
Alok S.
Janice Lee
Kurt Y.
Ted Weatherly (now known as "the guy from Michigan" throughout Cambr.
schools)
Julie Wallace
Serena Silver
Sanjay
Lana Aref
Dave Clark
all earned their teacher's degrees with a major in balloon rocket dynamics (our sci. project w/ the kids). Thanks to our El. Engineer folks for
reminding us that working w/ these kids is like playing around w/ a really charged capacitor bank. Actually, the highlights for me were reading one-on-one w/ Ezana during the 2 minute break time, and hanging out at lunch time w/ the class as they (all boys) scoped out the girls in the cafeteria... critics acclaimed, "It was much better than Ally McBeal". As for the kids, I think just having an MIT "big person" there helping them was even bigger than any science we could teach them.

Thanks again to all those above who dropped other orientation events to get out w/ us for these 2 projects.

-Chris.

Cambridge Student Outreach

As w/ our first outing, I was particularly impressed by our infusion of "new blood". Aside from the officers, we had NO overlap in volunteers w/ the crew from the 1st, soup kitchen event (due to time conflicts not b/c the former were turned off w/ respect to volunteer work!). In addition to myself, Yanqing Du, and Sanjay Pahuja, a diverse group of MIT volunteers included Wungkum Fong, Robert David, Ron Dror, and Tzeho Lee... not to mention Ruilin Zhao and Jesse Hong (of fame from their work w/ Spohr's Corps on Habitat for Humanity, City Year Servathons, etc.). Thanks to all who attended: I think this really leaves an impression upon the young'uns.

Addl. notes:

1) most of the kids are from a program I tutor at called Summerbridge, which also runs in full swing during summer. If you're interested in this prog. or others for this year or the near future, please contact me.

2) As per my prev. email, it was absolutely HUGE that Poppa & Goose agreed to open the place up JUST FOR US for lunch on Saturday: this gave us a chance to chill out and informally talk w/ our guests after the Museum. The food was awesome (as it always is there), and they pretty much gave us carte blanche in terms of how much food we wanted, even when the budget was very questionable. In short, next time you're sick of food trucks, or have a guest and want to try someplace w/ a lot of selection (incl. Viet., Thai, Chinese, Japanese... ) for a really reasonable price (i.e $7.50 for the weekday lunch buffet), please consider Poppa & Goose across from Sears @ Cambridgeside Galleria. We certainly appreciate their community-mindedness in helping sponsor this event.

Look for our GSVC poster and photos of the trip there (soon), and reiterate our thanks.

Chris Spohr

MIT Graduate Student Volunteer Corps

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