Your service

I'm sure that many of you thought you were doing little more than filling up space during this class blog; after all, it's still very early in your time at your service site.  For some, it was a break through week just to find and visit a site that could help open this world up to you.  For a few, the break through was disappointing, since it meant that you discovered your site to be kind of dull and monotonous.

My first response to those who are struggling with their site is to turn your attention as best you can to the people around you.  Get their stories--where they came from, how they landed here in Dubuque; if they are workers at your site, what have they seen over the years; if they are people in need, what are their hopes and dreams?  I thought that the best parts of all the blogs were those moments when writers described their contact with others, even if the contact was brief. So, some really good postings and comments came from the instances when, for example, those of you at St. Pat's watched the faces around you.  What a surprise to see that the faces "looked like me," that they were the faces of families and, (shame on us) of veterans.  It was interesting to read that Tyler found them courteous, Russ kind of rude, and that Brita noted the similarities between the bossy attitude of some and the nasty disposition of that old man who stayed with Dorothy Day at the Catholic Worker House.  Nice connections.

It never occurred to me that "looking around" at a service site and at the people in it could invite a comparison with Invisible Man until I read David's post and Katie B's response to it.  At first it was amazing to read from David that children would so quickly see color, not just the whiteness of the other person but the blackness of their own skin.  Then it was surprising to read Katie's observation from the book Blink, which points out that we all see color this way,it's just that get really good and quick at such looks over the course of our lifetimes.  Then I realized this is what Ellison is talking about: that "blink" during which our brains register skin color and associate a long list of qualities.  Throughout that process, people remain "invisible" to us.

Although my basic advice still holds--look around you at your site--I did notice the many good insights people had from seeing the people around them in wider contexts than just their service sites.  For example, I do agree that it is important to think about and to write about the bigger problems that result from language barriers, health care unavailability, lack of transportation, organizational inertia, etc.    As we write next about politics, these observations are right on target.

Nice work, everyone.  See you soon.  jw