Before I forget, the Running (/Walking) for… campaign at Taller is starting this week. I am pledging to run 75 miles over the course of the month, so if anyone feels compelled to donate per mile or a flat rate, let me know and I can give you more details. The point of the fundraiser is that I will wear a shirt that says “I’m running for [someone’s name]” and on the back it will say to find out who that person is, check out the website. Our website is not up yet, but it will be soon. The campaign goes from September 15 to October 15. If you are in the Chicago area and want to participate, shoot me an email and I’ll hook you up.
So I have been at my job for four weeks now and have been getting in the swing of things. I’m building up my case load so I have been busier. I went to court a couple of times with the same woman (her son’s court date was moved really fast). I also went to immigration with a woman for a check on the status of her application because she needed someone to translate. They only have interpreters for official court sessions. Speaking of interpreters in official court sessions, I was in foreclosure court on Friday and forgot to tell the clerk that my client needed an interpreter. When I apologized for the mistake, the judge said “Well you speak Spanish, don’t you?” I know it was a simple case, but it still did not seem legal to me but I did it anyway. I need to look up how to say things like “foreclosure” and “loan modification” in Spanish, though. Those things never came up in my Golden Age Spanish literature classes at Notre Dame. The client was familiar enough with the process that I was able to get the message across, though.
I mostly worked on the same cases all week and cannot really go into detail about the specifics of them, but suffice it to say that I am really enjoying my job and getting pretty used to what I have to do. The big news this week is that I was able to go to Notre Dame for the Michigan game this weekend! Kerry, my co-worker (who was the Amate volunteer at Taller last year and has been hired on full-time) drove me and my roommate Chris along with one of her college roommates who flew into Chicago. We went down Friday after work. With the time difference, we got there a little after nine. They took me straight to Meg’s house on ND Ave (she is a Campus Ministry Intern) and we caught up and then our friends Rachael and Andrea, who were also staying with Meg, came back and we got ready to go to the Backer. For those of you who are not familiar with the Backer, it is my favorite bar in South Bend. They play the same songs every night (sometimes multiple times) but they are all songs that I love, so it is great. The only problem with the Backer, though, is that when you go you have to stay until 3:00 am. This is not a rule of the Backer per se, but I have never left before 3:00 am before and I was not about to start now. Personally, I think that since I am an alumna now, I am old enough to leave when I want to, but I do not think any of my friends feel that way.
Saturday was rainy, so we were glad that we had planned to start the day with omelets at Meg’s house. The guy interns came over with their guests for the weekend (including Kyle, with whom I led Sophomore Road Trip junior year, who showed us an interesting new way to drink beer that involved a Ziploc bag). Meg is very good at making omelets so I learned from her. When the rain died down a bit, we made our way to campus for tailgates. I got to meet up with my 4A McGlinn girls, who are having a great start to their senior year. My ticket was by myself so I joined Rachael and Andrea in their great seats in what was part of the student section my Freshman year. Eventually we moved down to Meg’s seats which were about twenty rows ahead of us, almost in the end zone itself. We were in the student athlete section then, so we were watching the game with the Basketball team, which was fun.
After the game I went with Andrea to the Mass in the Stepan Center, which Meg and the other interns were coordinating. Then we went to Chipotle in Eddy Street Commons to meet up with our friend Steph and her brother Kyle. Then, I went with Rachael and Andrea to the Backer again, and met up with Tricia there as well. This morning, I met up with Meg after her meeting on campus, which gave me a chance to be in COMO again, my old studying haunt. Then we met up with Colleen who was going to Folk choir Mass and I joined for a little bit before I had to leave to meet up with my ride. When we got back to Little Village, it took us forever to get to our house because there was the Mexican Independence Day parade. The neighbors are currently honking their horns loudly and screaming. We are really enjoying this.
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