Welcome to Gaia! :: View User's Journal | Gaia Journals

 
 

View User's Journal

Journal of my life
everyday life as i see it happen
Volunteerism
Today I woke up at six am and got ready for the upcoming day. My brother is attending a high school for the higher learners and in order for him to stay there, he has to be active in the community and keep good grades. Over the length of the summer of his junior year, he has to complete sixty hours of community service. Unfortunately, my mom has already found a volunteer opportunity for him at some place in town that helps people who have been in abusive situations and/or are poor and can't afford to eat. The unfortunate part about this is that my brother is very insecure about having to work with people he doesn't know and in order to help him, my mom is sending me with him to do some volunteer work.
After I had gotten ready, me and my brother headed over to the place in order to get an interview with the head of the building to see if they would allow us to volunteer. The place that we are trying to volunteer at was founded by the surrounding churches in the area. The churches noticed an increase in poverty in the area and decided to create a place in order to help those in need. We had never been to this place before and so we had to follow our mom in order to get to it. The place itself seems nice but because it is in a bad part of town where people get shot and mugged all the time, it seemed very sketchy.
When we got to the place, our mom went to work and we tried to get in touch with one of the heads of the building. Our mom told us to try to get someone named Ms. Copper. After knocking on the front door for about ten minutes, we decided to wait a while to see if anyone would actually show up to the building. We sat down for thirty minutes before the first person finally showed up. For the most part, thirty minutes doesn't seem long, but in the part of town we were in, it seemed like hours before they showed up. Surprisingly, the first person to show up and escort us in was Ms. Copper. She was sixty six years old, was very nice, and had been working for the outreach program for three years. We talked with her a while and got her to answer some questions that my brother needed to know to fill out a form for his school.
My brother is supposed to send in the form to his school next week and if they give the ok, me and my brother will start working for the outreach program in two weeks.


Side note: I saw one of the worst acts of greed I have ever seen. Half way through the interview that my brother was having with Ms Copper, I started watching some squirrels that I had seen earlier on. It seems that one of the squirrels was very territorial with his tree and he would chase away any squirrel that would get close to it. Unable to share his space, I saw him chasing a squirrel out of his tree. As I was watching this happen, the territorial squirrel had chased the other out into the street. As soon as the territorial squirrel achieved this, he sat on the side as he watched the other squirrel get hit by a car. Unfortunately, the squirrel that had gotten hit didn't die on contact. I didn't see exactly where the squirrel got hit at but his face was planted to the ground as the rest of his body was scrambling for dear life to try to get up and out of dangers way. His struggle lasted for about ten seconds before his body went limp and he died. Mere seconds after this atrocity, I saw the territorial squirrel chase another squirrel into the street. I watched and the squirrel frantically tried to get to the other side. The squirrel dodged cars for about a minute before he was able to get the other side. By this time, the body of the squirrel that had died earlier was going through rigamortis and I watched as the cars going by dragged his body across the road until it was no more than a defiled carcass. The territorial squirrel returned to his tree and disappeared inside as if he hadn't had an once of remorse for what he had done.
Yesterday, my sister told me, "Welcome to the real world. Now you know what life is really like." I wonder if this is what she meant when she told me this.
Though I go through time where I am greedy, I must say this, greed is truely what killed the cat *reference to old mothers' tale of curiosity; " Curiosity killed the cat " * Greed is what turned my time of happiness to a time of grief.





Suicidal Teenager
Community Member
Suicidal Teenager
Prev | Next
Archive | Home

  • [06/11/10 03:58pm]
  •  
     
    Manage Your Items
    Other Stuff
    Get GCash
    Offers
    Get Items
    More Items
    Where Everyone Hangs Out
    Other Community Areas
    Virtual Spaces
    Fun Stuff
    Gaia's Games
    Mini-Games
    Play with GCash
    Play with Platinum