Journal Entry: Day 3

In the morning we ate breakfast, then my group of four students walked around 10 blocks to Tere's house. It was a nice walk. Sunset Park is a neat neighborhood. We walked by a two Jewish schools on the way. Tere's apartment only needs their bedroom painted, and they already moved everything out for us. It is likely a 2 day job, and we have 5 days, so Gerardo is looking into other options for us. Anyways, Tere is very nice, and more talkative at home than she was at our breakfast the other day. We talked about (and met) her husband, her 3 kids, and her kids' activities. She wants her children to stay active and away from electronics. Tere has registered them for many sports and free ice skating lessons to keep them productive with their time, and out of trouble. Tere's English is pretty good and she has been studying for 2 years. I liked talking to her a lot, some in Spanish, and I translated for her in a couple of moments.

I think I took the lead in our painting. Helping my dad over the years helped me to be more confident in what I was doing. Our group gets along pretty well. I think I have the highes expectations of our group, so hopefully we can keep it up! I think we can. I make an active effort to talk to Tere, because the gives the trip meaning. Our work for her is not intense, but connecting with her is the important part of our trip. We walked the Brooklyn Bridge with Gerardo. After that, I split off from the group, and got myself to Julliard's campus to meet with my friend Josh for dinner! His family lives near NYC now. He's doing good, and as busy as ever. We quickly picked up where we had left off. We got Japanese food, then sat in a cafe for a while. I took the subway and by a stroke of luck or a miracle, made it to a UC group in Little Italy with relative ease. We got confused on the subway home but again, made it back safely to the monastery.

Manhattan from the Brooklyn Bridge