My day started out with a bus ride down the usual road to Magdalen Street. I walked over to the Museum of Oxford for my volunteer interview and was assuaged by doubt and wracked by fear about whether or not I was heading for the right museum. Luckily, I was fine and I was met by Vanessa, the operations manager at the usuem of Oxford. About fifteen minutes later, I was leaving with three scheduled shifts- one tomorrow, one on Saturday afternoon and one next Thursday on Tudor Day. Basically, I'll be doing anything and everything- manning the front desk, walking through the galleries, helping out the education coordinators, doing office working in the back, anything. Out of all the Museums I've been to, I was really drawn to this tiny little non-University sponsored museums and so I'm so glad that they liked me so much and were eager to have me join.
Since I had another interview at 4:30 that afternoon, I didn't want to go home. I wandered throuhg the streets of City Centre, bought a coat (super cute, gray with pink plaid stripes, and a hood!), hat (see below) and a pink scarf for 13 pounds, then headed down to the WEstgate Mall and past the castle to the post office to pick up my boots. Yay, so excited for that. I stopped at this little independent bookstore and bought this really cool looking book about the six modern queens of England (Mary I, Mary II, Elizabeth I, Elizabeth II, Anne and Victoria). I wandered about for a little more and then all of a sudden, it started snowing. Like hard! Not like East Coat blizzard hard but it was really coming down for a good twenty minutes- I escaped to the Covered Market where I changed into my brand new boots to protect my feet and claim some shelter.
I really wasn't sure what to do or where to go so I eventually left the shelter of the Covered Market and went to the Westgate Mall and bought some bread and meat at Sainsbury and parked myself down on a bench to eat my lunch. Instead of doing anymore wandering, I went next door to the public library, found myself a Debbie Crombie mystery that I hadn't read (there were four of her books there and I had read three- what are the odds?) and sat down to read. I was about halfway through the book when the bloke sitting kind of across from me starting to get chatty- he was such a nice fella, in his forties or so and really didn't have much computer knowledge. He kept asking me questions about laptops and virus protection and restarting programs and task managing and all that and I tried to help him out as much as possible- we chatted on and off for about half an hour. He was so cute, sitting there, reading his Computers for Dummies books. He even once said, "Yah, I am kind of a dummy with this stuff.... but I'm learning". Eventually he went off to get himself a library card so he could check out his Computers for Dummies book and study up at home. It was such an interesting interaction- people always say that the British are very uptight and closed off but that is really not the case in all the people that I've met thus far.
Eventually, I left the library for a little trek past Magdalen College down the Cowley Road for my other interview. Again, it had started smowing and I"m sure I looked ridiculous in my red rain boots, gray tights, black skirt, gray coat, purple scarf and bright blue hat. But who cares. I also stopped for a hot chocolate which also helped. It was abouta twenty minute walk to the East Oxford Community Centre where I met with Ayian, the head of the Oxfordshire Somali Foundation's After School Program. We had a shrot little interview, I apparently am maybe overqualified for the position but they are in need of voulnteers to work wiht the kids. Key Stage 1 and 2 kids come in on Mondays and Key State 3 and 4 kids come on Wednesady for about two hours for homework help. All the kids are Somalian, they all speak Arabic, as to two of the volunteer teachers. It was definitely interesting at first being the only white girl i nthe room. Apparently the program has been going on for about a year but they are really in need of money and a new structure to the group. Ayian and I talked about some improvements and it was so interesting to have been a part of the organization for literally fifteen minutes and I was already diving in with making suggestions to change and restructure the organization. I suggested having specific tables for each subject and then a "fun" table for when they finished with their HW that had crosswords puzzles and word searches, logic puzzles, books, etc. I also volunteered to write up a "dossier sheet" basically for each kid to fill out- name, age, birthday, grade, favorite and least favorite subject, best and worst subject, hobbies, etc., so we can better assess their needs.
Eventually, I went to get to know the kids. There were three other "teachers" that eventually came to help out- all Americans named Brian, Tim and Katie. Katie was over at the table of girls and I went to join them. They were all so sweet- named Hoda, Ayan, M&M (nickname), and Nasra- and were between 9 and 14. M&M, the oldest, asked a lot of questions about uni and told us she wanted to study law and history. Nasra definitely has some trouble reading as we discovered when teaching them and then later playing Apples to Apples (the British version- some cards had nouns I didn't recognize!). I'm really looking forward to working with them and getting to know them better and help them out.
It was pretty cold on my walk back to Madgalen Street but the bus was waiting patiently for me (OK, I ran for like two seconds just to make sure it didn't leave) and made it home before 7 pm. Now we're watching Liverpool probably lose to Arsenal and then I have to get ready for tomorrow's interview. So, as you can see, all in all a very good but really random day. Please no snow tomorrow!!!!
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