Scattered Notes of a Social Work Student

In the midst of pre-holiday midterms and last-minute paper deadlines, I find my mind constantly wandering to where it will be in less than a week: cozy, comfortable, and completely calmed within the relaxation of my parents' home in Tennessee. Thoughts of pajamas-till-noon and plenty of food made from scratch (my microwaveable dinners and constant late-night delivery orders to Curry & Curry Indian just do not cut it) fill my head as well as dreams of watching uninterrupted Made-for-TV movie, and the sheer image of viewing the Macy's Day Parade on News Channel Five rather than freezing with two thousand tourists on 34th Street brings me great delight.

Yet as I dwell in the exciting possibilities of sleeping in late and not having any reason to read endless chapters on Meiosis and Mitosis, I cannot help but realize the slight bit of negativism that navigates around the utter laziness I envisioned. While it will be nice to spend Thanksgiving without too much worry, it would be even lovelier to combine some of those "if I only had the time" utterances in with my ample amount of hours that my trip home will bring. Thanksgiving is a time of family, comfort, and gratitude, so I am hoping that the right ingredients will produce a healthy, harmonious half-week vacation holiday. Below, I've included a recipe of ways to involve yourself in the giving spirit of the occasion (as well as leave room for those endless movie marathon indulgences).

- 1 Serving, Canned Vegetables, mixed variety: Donating to your local food bank seems a little rote and basic, but the simple drop of a few canned goods can significantly brighten someone's otherwise-empty meal. Food banks report some of the lowest donations due to the economy, so that powdered condensed milk mix or creamed corn can significantly add warmth to a holiday table.

-1 part, International Spices, flavor to taste: For those of us who like to abide by the "I have no class, therefore I will wear nothing but my plaid flannel pajamas" rule over the holidays, the United Nations new online venture brings the wide world of global non-profit to your very own couch. Grab your laptop and log onto www.onlinevolunteering.org, which is a host of approved international NGOs that need people like you (smart college students with a little bit of time) to do small tasks such as grant research, translation, brochure writing, copy editing, and tutoring sessions for special projects they're running. I guarantee that assisting an all-girls' school in Guinea develop a new math curriculum will be more fulfilling than watching another Gossip Girl rerun.

-3 hours of Turkey prep: Okay, so flannel pajamas don't fly at all hours of Thanksgiving break. Throw on a sweatshirt and head out to a local food bank or homeless shelter to spread a bit of cheer through your service. But note: most food banks or soup kitchens are inundated with helpful hands on the actual Thanksgiving holiday but see a significant drop in post-Thursday volunteers. Show up on Friday or Saturday to see what sort of help you can serve up.

-2 cups, cream cheese, 1 stick, butter: Recently, in a state of Biology-test induced panic, I carved out nearly half of my roommate's birthday cake with a sheer fork and did not realize the epic damage I had done until the next morning when I discovered the concave I dug into the red-velvet cheesecake. So not only did I declare World War III on my healthy-eating plan, I felt sicker than any sugar-induced stomach aches about my eating someone else's sweets. So this holiday, don't shy away from the extra caloric intake and don't deny yourself candies, but try a new tactic and bake a treat for a friend or neighbor in need. With so many people struggling with cut jobs, lay-offs, and foreclosures, a simple cake is an "I-Care" way of connecting with someone who might not need a food bank, but still could use some extra smiles.

-Four pounds, potatoes: Pretty treats and dainty epicurean delights are lovely additions to a holiday table, but one should never forget the staples and starches from the dinner. As my best friend and I planned a holiday feast for our close companions, we became so spun in the thought of beautiful placecards and adorable invitations that we nearly lost sight of why we were throwing the get-together in general: gratitude for what we have and those we love. So while we still have our favorite Amy's Bread muffins and Balthazar pastries, we equally have four massive bags of potatoes on our kitchen counter ready to be mashed into a classic favorite that's enough to serve the army of our friends that keeps us going every day. A small four person table with Kate's Paperie tablecloths are precious, but a twelve-souled dinner crowded in a common room with our pseudo-family is probably much more beautiful.

-1 Can, Libby's Pumpkin: Hurry! Run to your local Morton WIlliams and stock up on everybody's favorite pumpkin ingredients as heavy rains have caused this holiday-classic to run short on supplies this season. But remember, even if your pies might not have the full orange fall fruit (is pumpkin a fruit? There goes my intelligence cred...), your table already has more than how-much of the world.

3 cups, Cranberries: Finally, a sweet indulgence that isn't too cavity or calorie heavy to top off the holiday happiness. I was never a cranberry fan, probably because I was eyeing the Pecan Pie on the cake plate or wondering when it would be proper time to ask for banana pudding, so the bland fruit-mush that was the boring cranberry sauce seemed slightly displeasing amidst the pretty desserts that surrounded. However, sometimes its the least-attractive images that bear the most success. Through my internship, it is one of my duties to spin Afghanistan news into something "happy, positive, and reader-friendly" for the organization's blog. Sounds easy, yet the online happenings on the Kabul newsline are more killings and the recent UNICEF report entitled "Afghanistan is the worst country to be born in". But I've learned that amidst the awfulness, there's a sweetness in changing angles. So now, the UN might say that Afghanistan is the worst place to be born, but I decided it's the "best place to create change for children". For some reason, it reminds me of the cranberries: a wonderful tradition that tastes just fine if you let it stand on its own.

1 teaspoon, pure sugar: Okay, so it's a holiday for goodness sakes. Turn on the television, sleep till noon, and wear pajamas all day. Just don't repeat!

Perhaps it is not an uncommon fact for NYU students to pass celebrities en route to class, but this morning, Washington Square East teemedwith more than the average spotting of James Franco in the Starbucks line or the Gossip Girl cast filming a catfight scene on the street.

Emma Thompson, a personal favorite actress, and Mayor Bloomberg have occupied the corner of WSE and Wavery Place to promote an incredibly interesting art installment, the Journey, which uses various creative forms to highlight the 7 stages of a woman's experience of sexual abuse in human trafficking. Thompson and Bloomberg are on hand today to officiate the opening of this work, which will run through the 15th.

The provocative yet purposeful objectives of the installation mimic the interesting photography exhibit that recently unveiled in the windows of the Grey Art Gallery between Goddard and Steinhardt buildings on Washington Square East, which focuses on transgendered youth. The coinciding nature of these events, along with the sheer physical size of both, have turned the common walkway of the park into a creative and eye-opening corner of activism.

Oftentimes, the massive amount of materials, causes, and campaigns that filter through the NYU area to promote various issues can become slightly irksome when I am blundering through the 8 AM rush, coffee in hand and cell phone on ear, to frantically arrive at Biology class on time and actually prepared to learn. One loses sight of horrible, earth-injuring oil spills when the Green Peace guy keeps thrusting his clipboard in your direct path and children's rights are not seen as the blue-vested charity representative continues to make eye contact that you cannot avoid.

So while there is no direct can for donations or email list sign-ups involved in The Journey event, my own personal interest and passion is significantly sparked when I cannot walk across the street without visually seeing the very-horrific sights of human trafficking. As I sloughed into Silver Building this morning, flustered that I missed my first bus and full of nerves for a class discussion, I realized just how much shorter my morning voyage was compared to the eternal roads of hardship faced by human trafficking victims.

And hopefully, with their stories filling our streets as we travel to class and home, their journey will reach a destination of healing.

In a Gallatin class I am currently taking that centers around the legacies of colonialism, my professor brought up the contradiction of neoliberal economic policies alongside the concept of national borders. The topic confounded me and I stayed quiet for the initial discussion, but the idea soon opened as one specific example targeted an interesting point in my mind.

She proposed that the fair-trade policies of coffee companies, whether from the national megachain Starbucks or the smaller, more independent shops, actually oppose the projected aim of their cause. For as much as it might be of some benefit to the communities where the coffee is grown, our coffee's price would be much higher if the overseas workers were being paid a decent amount. We all want our fair-trade, save-the-world, grown-by-Ethiopian-farmer caffeine fix, yet still need the cocoa bean pickers to make nearly pennies a day so that we can afford our coffee jolt.

Many mornings, on my walk to the nonprofit where I intern, I swing in the local Starbucks on 3rd Ave to grab a tall Americano before I begin my day. Lunchtime also sees my lurching into the line and evenings spent at the Washington Square coffee shop couple (Think or Starbucks). But after last night's class, as I strolled to the office, I forwent my usual coffee slurp and grabbed a water bottle at a deli (although I am uncertain if that is any more ethical).

It is not that I will forever ban my coffee drinking (I would suffer severe withdrawals), but thanks to a professor who was probably just making an economic point, my usual morning drink transformed into some serious food for thought.

Midterm week leaves one with a lack of eloquence or anything articulate to say - when one's head has been poured into a Biology book or sat with the same six sentences attempting to revise a final draft for a paper, a decent amount of intelligence exits the brain. Your diet switches to whatever the Bobst Library vending machine will give you with a Campus Cash swipe and you eat peanut M&M's when you're feeling healthy because they have more protein than the Skittles you've subsisted on in past days. Instead of a bed, you rely on the Lower Level couches in Bobst and hunt for the soft chairs in the Washington Square Starbucks like a lion searching for prey. You decide to block Facebook from your browser after you waste forty-five minutes clicking through photos of your old roommate's summer vacation instead of reading your notes on interviewing clients. You wonder if there is life outside of the anatomical photos in your biology book. As you hunker down in the Kimmel Center's excellent 7th floor study lounges, you look at the massive views of the Empire State building and wonder if you too will ever be able to walk amongst those of this world who have concerns that do not include meiosis and mitosis.

If you cannot tell, midterm week has given me my usual state of near-exam-time psychosis, yet as I culminate my sophomore fall semester deadlines, I have learned a few lessons about how to survive when you have more due dates than days in the week.

Lesson 1: McNally Jackson in Soho is probably the most productive place to pound out a paper. It's a quiet neighborhood, there is always space available, and you are in a room full of very interesting books that inspire you to type out a decent publication rather than rambling on while watching Gossip Girl in another window on your laptop.

Lesson 2: Themed music, however corny, can be extremely productive. I want to work with refugees and am endlessly inspired by the stories and strength of the population I am most interested in, Northeastern Africans. So it is a little known secret that I like to play some of my favorite musicians from that area when I am working on an ethnographic paper or plowing through a chapter on the Nervous System - even if it is not related to the assignment, it reminds me what I am working for.

Lesson 3: Sleep - as social workers, we learn the constant lesson of what happens to those who do not rest as much as they should and we hear about the dangerous toll that exhaustion takes on a body, yet we fail in actually doing it ourselves. But despite the fact that one is positive they will perform better if they stay awake till five AM and take an exam at 8 AM, statistics and personal experience show that passing out on your desk is not a key factor in passing a test.

Lesson 4: Work hard, then work a little harder. A good friend in Social Work informed me of this simple mantra she keeps typed into her phone and I am often reminded of it as I plan out my "study breaks" during midterm week. I am prone to rewarding myself for work I probably have not completed, such as taking an hour long trip to my favorite bakery (Milk Bar on 3rd) for cookies when I have only done about ten questions for a class. So now, when the craving for Corn Flake Marshmallow cookies arises, I tack on 30 extra minutes of studying before I allow myself to dig in.

Lesson 5: Don't panic. Panic is what makes you forget your #2 pencils when you enter a bubble-sheet only exam and panic is what pushes you to lose any sense of joy during the week.

Good luck!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O00-lLxifNQ

I will soon be entering my second semester of sophomore year of social work, and as I mangle my way through degree requirements and fulfilling credits, a certain aspect has continued to arise within my quest for a successful diploma.

I started this August as an excited Arabic student within NYU's Middle Eastern Studies department, fresh from a summer spent in Egypt and a very small but decently working knowledge of the language. Yet two months into the semester, I found myself in a sticky situation requiring me to withdraw as well as nearly drowning in a terrible confusion. But despite my own issues with the class, my entire degree path changed as I realized I would no longer graduate with a Minor in Arabic, nor any university-level foreign language training. As I contemplated winter sessions and summer classes, I was troubled by the question if second dialects should be a necessity for social workers.

Most of my friends are fluent in Spanish, and despite the fact that I was once conversational in French, my own confidence in my chatting ability is very limited. I suppose I could tell a client they had a pretty dress in the Parisian tongue or could ask them if they needed to go right or left in Arabic, yet when it comes to the ease of speaking another language, I am lost.

I suppose Social Workers are at a very different level when it comes to language proficiency - we do not need to merely understand the grammatical points and structures, we need proper instruction in the conversational nuances and subtleties that would be exhibited by possible clients. So while I can order a baguette in French, I cannot exactly deal with a divorcing couple or elder with dimensia.

I have the desire to work with international populations, preferably those of Middle Eastern or African descent. So as I plot my course outline and future career, I am in constant flux of how important a second or third tongue might be within my plans.
I searched a bit of the extensive, online NYU library collection for resources on bilingual social work and found some information that varied greatly with its answers. So for now, I suppose a great deal is just lost in translation.

Which is a problem I definitely hope does not arise in practice.

Recently, I sat with some fellow Social Work undergrads as we discussed our various interests in the field- some of us interested in drug addictions, others ventured towards homelessness, and a few talked about child welfare. We covered an enormous span of career paths and swapped stories about various volunteer assignments.

"My mentee only wants to go to hardware shops," one complained of a recent placement that found her mentoring a high school girl with odd interests. "They put me in charge of game night on MY first night," said another, expressing frustration and fear over showing up at a homeless house to find herself in charge of the evening's activities. I added my account of waiting for my own mentee outside Washington Irvine High School only to have her, in no exaggeration, run in the opposite direction when she saw me while holding hands with her much older boyfriend.

But as we chatted, we all realized the commonalities in our experiences and equally found a similar desire to share with other social work students the lessons we have learned through less-than-perfect placements. I only thought nothing would top a Hebrew client asking my Muslim friend why she wasn't Jewish, but as we shared, I realized that one can find some great truths within the near-terror of certain assignments.

A bit of what we gathered:

- You're there for a reason, not for a responsibility. One friend was told she'd be volunteering in the Financial District at a women's shelter. On her first day, she was reassigned to a station nearly an hour away in the South Bronx that required 2 trains and a bus to find. She began to protest but was awakened with the idea that she was there for the cause, not the convenience. Certainly she would've chosen the lovely skyscraper on Wall Street but found herself in a bricked-up playground outside of Manhattan, but she was certain the violence victims would've rather been somewhere else as well.

- Menial work matters: not just to the organization, but to your own accomplishments. I once kept an internship where my closest form of a client was the copy-repair man I had to call on a near-daily basis. For some reason, the organization required more Xerox-ing than one could ever imagine and I spent actual hours scanning entire books and smearing my hands in ink as I attempted to unstick jams. Yet as I made my employer's coffee runs and made even more copies, I learned that what I did there in the office supply room would greatly affect how they would allow me to advance within the system. By taking the work seriously, I would be trusted with stronger jobs.

- No matter what you're doing, you'll certainly be seeing. Volunteers often complain that they aren't allowed as close of contact with clients as they'd like or feel as though they're making a big enough impact within their selected communities. Yet nearly half of the experience of being a "volunteer" is to see what's going on in the area and accept that as a form of learning. After working at a major New York hospital, I was frustrated for a bit that I was not as entrenched in the lives of the patients as I wanted to be. But all I saw gave me the inspiration to study the populations further.

- You're not a failure if it's bad. After my hospital internship, I wanted to curl up in a ball and weep as I returned nearly every day. If I had not fully helped a client as I would've liked to, I would've seen some absolutely horrible sights within the clinic setting. Yet I would have never been able to learn that medical social work was not the place for me from a textbook.

- Payment always comes in full. Sure, we're all working for no paycheck, yet in social work volunteerism, there's never a doubt that you won't be totally fulfilled by some aspect of the job.

One of the excellent aspects of going to school in New York City, besides the endless career possibilities and opportunities for internships, is the incredible array of events that could cause a calendar to explode with their constant frequency.

Each year, one of my favorite evenings rolls around the end of September, when the Metropolitan Museum of Art opens it's massive, beautiful doors for hoards of college students to plow into a massive party within the museum's main corridors. Perhaps a very brave move for a building that houses some of the world's most valuable art and artifacts, yet a beautifully fun night for those of us who still hold College IDs and can squeeze into a costume for a few hours for some sophisticated revelry.

To my grand excitement, this season's theme happened to hinge upon my favorite book: A F.Scott Fitzgerald-themed soiree that centered around the novelist's famed story, "The Great Gatsby". With some very bookish enthusiasm, I scoured thrift shops and bought up the biggest feather headband I could find that would match a rolling strand of pearls and short black flapper dress. In hopes of appearing the 1920s part, I swiped on the ruby red lipstick and nearly ruined my feet in an achingly high pair of heels. The evening was destined for perfection with it's Jay Gatsby and Daisy Buchanan emulations. I boarded the 6-train, decked in full attire, the huge black feather in my hair inviting noticing glances from all sides.

Then I glanced and noticed that my biology midterm was tomorrow. My planner, the always-truthful eye into my week, had lied (which actually means I made a careless mistake when penning in the date of the test).

Which meant I had to make some fast decisions as the train doors shut that would determine if Daisy Buchanan would have her night in West Egg or my real self would crawl into my usual library study space to slave over chromosomes and cell mitosis until the bleak morning hours.

Perhaps it was not the smartest choice; the most intelligent decision when I went on to the event for a few hours before retiring my flapper dress into flannel pajama pants. Yet as I navigated the halls of the Met, blissfully happy and banishing all thoughts of Biology Chapter 4 from my mind, I was reminded of a certain subject that has continued to arise within my social work internship.

For my field, I mentor an immigrant girl who often cancels our sessions with little explanation and a lack of advance notice, sometimes leaving me stranded on the way to the Bronx or stuck with wasted time. But it is not her own volition, perhaps, that is keeping her from attending our meetings. I am certain most 15 year old girls would rather eat peanut butter cookies and Crumbs Cupcakes rather than care for their 4 younger siblings, but due to her prior responsibilities, she is often left debating whether she will fulfill her expected home roles or find some fun in our activities.

So we have begun a new policy, or perhaps, better planning: we plan that it won't happen. We understand that if she says "yes" to a meet-up, it most likely will fall through when the time rolls around. Yet we plan for the best- that when we will have the hours together, we will overfill them with fun as to make up for the moments when she cannot come. As I strolled at the Met, marveling in my favorite night of the year, I thought of my client and our new way of looking at a mentorship. It's not, perhaps, the quantity of how much time we spend together. It's certainly in the quality, finding that bond that works for both of our likes as well as our needs.

And hopefully gives me an A on my biology test.

Some years ago, a term that surrounded the idea of women in the workplace was deemed the "glass ceiling".

Some days ago, that phrase became "the glass wall" as I started my new internship by slamming through the window panels of my new boss's office as I did not recognize that what I saw as an open space was actually floor-to-ceiling glass.

I was in heels carrying a messenger back laden down with a laptop and mounds of textbooks. Some terrible law of physics saw me toppling backwards my face smacked against the now not-so-invisible wall and my new boss's face stared in half hilarity and half horror as I tripped off my shoes and tried to find some balance on the bookshelf nearby.

My boss, as cordially professional as one can be when their new employee crashes into their desk walls thinking it was an open door, informed me that she could "see how I was mistaken" in my minor entry mishap. Embarrassment muddled up any sane sentence and I muttered some apologies with whatever drop of courage that hadn't been crushed as I crashed into the door.

Sometimes little life lessons tap us on the shoulder and we turn around to find some glorious bit of wisdom waiting for our absorption. At other moments, we just smack into them and hope whatever knowledge smashes its way inside of us.

This was one of those crash-and-learn times. And with only somewhat of a pun intended, I believe my lesson was somewhere along the lines that what we think we see is certainly not what is going to be there.

I am taking a social work class this semester that centers along the different mechanisms and mannerisms used in relationships, whether in friendship, romance, business, strangers passing on the street, or between clients-and-caseworkers. My professor speaks in detail about the various layers of communication and the importance of first impressions. As I basically body -checked the door in the beautiful office on my initial day of interning there, I was bombarded with the real-life implications of my social work curriculum.

I am working at an international NGO that focuses on the re-development and immediate aid of a war-torn Middle Eastern nation in an effort to gain some policy experience within the confines of my social work career. However, I suppose I went into the project with the idea that my time there would merely be marked by paperwork, making copies, and grabbing coffee as several of my other internships have been. But after I recollected myself and sat down at my new desk (on the other side of the glass wall), I realized that my paper filling and copy-machine moments actually did have some connection to my future job plans. The countries that the organization was serving were a far cry from the New York office, but the passion and care of the staff seemed limitless amidst distance and physical boundaries.

When I smacked into the glass wall of their office, perhaps I was also smashing through the misconceptions of what I thought my internship would achieve. My first impression was not exactly the classiest and most elegant in my repertoire, but I am somewhat grateful for the glass wall as I found that sometimes it is what we do not see from which we learn the most.

Eight hours in the same chair, an air conditioning unit obviously unadapted to New York's latest temperature drop, and a half-empty cup of peanut M&M's eaten out of sheer boredom as the clock's hands seemed close to as frozen still as the chilly room.

The terms that resonate, the phrases that repeat: English Language Learners. Asylees, Refugees, Immigrants. Deported, green cards. Hijabs, Ramadan. Mandatory reporters, must use an acute version of common sense. My ears feel slightly immune to much more sociological and cultural jargon and I find my eyes wandering out the very small window that looks out over a very foggy and rainy 72nd Street.

It is training day at my latest volunteer placement, which is at a small non-profit that provides full social services to a group of immigrant girls with extreme cultural differences or immigration traumas. After a 10 AM-5 PM demonstration and discussion about the ins-and-out of issues, my mind could not help but scan through the to-do list that wouldn't stop plaguing my thoughts: Arabic handwriting quiz! Buy that textbook! Mailing that package home! Study abroad application! Advisor meeting!

But after I reached for yet another handful of peanut M&Ms and wondered if that clock was still stuck on 4:55 PM, the flatness of the training manual in front of me and the dry black ink on my notebook burst with a sense of brightness as the chatter of young voices entered the room, breaking up the monotony that always comes with PowerPoint Presentations that are over 60 slides long. A small sea of teenage girls swept through the door, bringing with them a warmth to counteract the chilliness of the meeting. A dark, slender face with slighted green eyes and flipped out hair pointed a finger in my direction: "I want her!" she cooed in a heavily-accented English.

I suddenly stopped caring about how I'd spent my Saturday or where I would make dinner reservations that evening as the young voice popped over in my direction, sticking out an excited hand and introducing herself in a bubbly voice. Fatima*, she said, and we spent the next few minutes trying to properly pronounce my name.

Fatima, a young girl from a West African nation who recently came to the United States, is a high school student struggling to both adapt and survive in the new home she was plunked into, pulled away from her parents and siblings to be pushed into a Brooklyn apartment with an unknown aunt and uncle. We chatted for a bit and we agreed to meet- as Fatima's mentor, I hold the responsibility of communicating with her school counselors, family members, and coordinating social events for us to enjoy together as well as ensuring homework is properly done.

We met for a short time before she insisted that I come meet her aunt and uncle this week for dinner and I informed her she could visit my apartment in upcoming weeks as well. As we exchanged information and I began to leave, she called out to me as I stepped out the door: "Teacher! You almost forget your book!". She waved my training manual in her hands, and as I saw that book I had considered the basis of all things boredom just a few hours before, I realized how much I almost forgot about social work and why I sat through the 8 hour training in the first place.