Bus Training

Welcome back to A Summer of Refuge! The summer is drawing to an end, and I only have three weeks left at Exodus. While I know that I will miss it, I will be ready to go back to school and welcome DePauw's international student class of 2017.

This week started off in a very interesting way. On Monday morning I woke up 2 hours early and did a bus training! I thought it was funny that I, who have never ridden IndyGo, was entrusted to teach clients how to ride the bus. I was a little nervous, but I took my fellow intern with me and off we went. I don't know why I was so anxious about it; if I can take Chilean micros and Dominican conchos, I'm pretty sure the Indianapolis public buses can't be that hard. And they weren't! We took the family and we got to Exodus and back safe and sound. I may or may not have second-guessed where to get on and get off a time or two, but they got the gist of it :) I think it was actually more of a learning experience for me than it was for them, but they probably don't need to know that!

This week at Exodus we have a group of brand new students! This round I have my own group that I work with every day, whereas before I switched between the most advanced group and the most basic group. This time around I have my own group of intermediate students. While I enjoy the intermediate level because it's a lot of grammar and phonetics (things that I am better at teaching), all of my students are at very different levels, which is a constant challenge. Sometimes I stuggle a bit to keep them all on the same page because some of them grasp the concepts quickly and are ready to move on while others fall behind. Alas, I think this is a constant battle that all teachers have to fight. Have I mentioned how much more respect I have for teachers after doing this internship? Mad respect!

This Tuesday we have an intern appreciation lunch at Exodus. Although I'm mostly excited about the food, I'm sure all interns can relate when I say that sometimes we get tired of being the interns. We do the grunt work, we don't get paid, and we don't get the same cred as the staff members. But this is an experience that we all must go through in order to build our resumes and prepare us for the real world. It's kind of a rite of passage into the professional world. Although I've never seen myself as someone meant to go into the professional world, it's good experience to work in an office and get to do a lot of the same things that the staff do. And I couldn't have asked for better supervisors; they tell me every day how much they appreciate me. So although the intern appreciation lunch is a nice idea, it's very unnecessary. But I know not all interns are so lucky.

Apart from the professional life, this weekend I went with a friend of mine to the NASCAR Brickyard 400 race. Since living in Indy, I have gone to two car races, something that I had never done before in my life! I have explored and ran around Butler's campus, can cruise Mass Ave, explored every inch of Broad Ripple, know how to take the IndyGo, been to the 500, and been able to pay all my bills! Next thing I have to do is go to an Indianapolis Indians game, which will hopefully happen this weekend.

More to come next week!