Descriptive Journey

I was born in Belgrade, Serbia and moved to the United States when I almost reached the age of three to escape the civil war within the Balkan region, particularly with Kosovo. Throughout my life my parents have made sure that I do not lose touch with my Serbian roots so we have gone back to visit relatives and family friends three times since our move to the United States. Habitually, each summer we visit my mother’s sister and her family in Antibes, and now a town away in Cannes since they moved. This past summer, however, we dedicated a week to making the drive from the south of France to Belgrade. My mother drove with my aunt and a back seat full of luggage in her fifteen year old Opel Corsa without air-conditioning while my father, my younger sister, my cousin, and I stuffed ourselves in my uncle Vlada’s ’97 Navy Mercedes C-class.

            We drove from Cannes through Turin, Milan, and stopped in Venice, Italy. My sister, cousin, and I sat shoulder to shoulder in the back seat with our ipod’s in, heads glaring out the car window, attempting to take in as much scenery as possible. Particularly by the time we reached Italy there were vast hilly areas, painted green with as much tonal variation existing in a Van Gogh. The roads were curvaceous it seemed we were winding up mountain after mountain which seemed to grow to almost reach the pale sky. The minute houses, which looked like they had been cut and paste out of a drawing by a toddler using only basic blue, red, and yellow, were drowning amidst the voluminous green hills.

            We arrived to Venice by nightfall and my father and I managed through our exhaustion to take a walk down a few streets as the rest of our family hibernated at the hotel. Venice at nighttime could easily have a lonely feel with its empty neutral toned tile walkways, however, the reflection of the city lamps and moon on the water bring it a certain splendor.

            The next day we continued to make our way through the Alps of Slovenia covered with similar greens we encountered throughout Italy. The natural rhythms of tires racing up hills and passing thick populations of trees seem to be stained in my memory. The uneasiness of the tight car situation was easily released, as I would open my window to smell the crisp feel of the air close to a godly cleanliness. We were no longer preoccupied with ourselves and our things, our mistakes, our differences, but we were traveling among the nakedness of the environment, its shadows, its vibrant, honest colors, and I realized at some point within that journey, that somewhere hidden among the patches of wild flowers and effervescent bodies of water, stood a truth of the world and our existence within it. 

A Time When You Felt Extremely Happy

During my winter break the December of my senior year in high school, my parents gave me the opportunity to visit my cousin who is more like a best friend or a really close sister to me. Dina lives and attends acting school in Paris, France. I spent most of the days alone traveling from museums such as the Musee d’Orsay, Versaille, and the Louvre, and nights with Dina going out to a café on the second story of the Eiffel tower, to Moulin Rouge, or the Pantheon to drink a specialty of hot wine served with a variety of warm winter spices. It was between my visits to these touristic destinations that I became infatuated with the shopping scene of Les Galeries Lafayette.

Immediately upon exiting the Metro on the street where Les Galeries Lafayette sit, I was dazzled by the gaudy decorations of Christmas lights composing all sorts of geometric forms. Each department of the Galeries was ornamented with a colossal snowflake of gold lights soaring to nearly each rooftop. Below the building, hanging above the covered shopping areas, filled with little booths containing products that are typically sold to tourists such as berets and Eiffel tower lighters, were globes composed of the same lights. These eccentric disco balls stood out in the grey Parisian air like toy suns, ascribing blvd. Haussmann the appearance of a rich paradise. They radiated a magical aura of the holiday season and made the eyes of each shopper enlarge at the site of any window display of Chanel totes, Cartier rings, Bergdorf Goodman Scarves, and refined toy designs.

            I would never describe myself as an avid consumer, but it was not hard for the intriguing displays and environment to lure me into their trap. Setting foot into the main department of Les Galeries Lafayette, I caught myself forming comparisons between its supernatural dome and seeing the enchanting mosaics of Notre Dame for the first time. Its open space and immensity in size were comparable to speechless shock of standing before the entirety of Versailles. This portion of the infamous Galeries was the make-up department arranged in a vast circular room, with a Christmas tree dazzling below, a circular dome created by round stone arches of Greco-Roman antiquity. I must have circled around this sector of the store for a while, stunned by its design, until I finally wandered through the different stories of the building. Each clothes designer had his or her own nook with racks of their clothing arranged more like art work in a manner to give off the quality inherent in their design-strategy. The more spunky brands had sporadic rack arrangements while color groupings and mathematically spaced racks or shelves displayed more clean-cut fashions. Les Galeries Lafayette easily churned my cheek muscles to face to the top of its dome; I was perfectly content, standing in the midst of a structure with a beauty as classical as Boticelli’s Venus and as striking as Manet’s Olympia.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Conclusion

I had my final meeting with Homero a little less than a month ago. We slowly continued to work on Math problems within his G.E.D. preparation book as it was the subject he felt most comfortable with. He had a lot of trouble catching onto the mathematical meanings of vocabulary in word problems. I created a vocabulary sheet for him with words like 'and' meaning to add, 'is' meaning equals and so forth. Nevertheless, I assume it will take him some time to really put the meaning of these words together with the questions especially within problems which include information not necessary for completing the problem, but solely placed to add confusion to the test-taker. He confronted me about the several missed meetings saying he is actually interested in taking a formal G.E.D. preparation course. I told him that would be a highly positive step for him to take the course and would probably improve the outcome on his score. 

He seemed really insecure about how much I liked him and whether I had time to dedicate to these hour a week tutorial sessions, which I felt was strange since I actually really appreciated the time we had to spend together. He even said things insinuating that he would understand if I did not like him or did not think that we worked well together. I told him positive things, because I really did feel positively about my experience with Homero telling him I would still be interested in tutoring him if he wanted some help alongside the course he would sign up for. 

Though it did not work out as well as I had hope with Homero regarding consistent meetings each week due to his random absences from meetings, the Service Learning part of this course was a positive experience for me. I truly believe that I dedicated myself to the cause of tutoring Homero and hopefully set him in a path to accomplishing his goal of attaining his high school degree. Also, it was nice to meet somebody like Homero who I probably would have never been able to get to know personally prior to this course. 

Progress

Two weeks ago, Homero and I began working percentage problems from his GED book for the first time. We went really slowly and there were many times I still felt as though he was utterly confused and lost, but did not want to let me know. He knows most of the mathematics, but through a different process than I learned in high school so we have to find a way to compromise. The GED book is helpful because it has special ways to solve problems to make it easier for the student in a test-taking situation and I think that Homero does best when we use those methods. I assigned him a few percentage problems to work on, however, I haven't had the opportunity to check them or help him with the things he doesn't understand because last week we did not meet. He told me he had a doctor's appointment so we scheduled for two hours after our regular meeting time and he simply did not show up. It kind of upset me surprisingly because it seemed so out of character for him to forget about our meeting. I called him about fifteen minutes after waiting and had to leave him a voicemail, when he called back he did not really have an excuse, but asked when we could meet next. Our next meting is set for tomorrow at 11:30. 

First Meeting with Homero

Today was the first day I met with Homero. We met in the library for not a very long time and just introduced ourselves. Homero has lived in the United States for twenty years. He moved to Chicago from Mexico City with his wife and his parents. He talked a lot about how he misses Chicago and how beautiful he thinks it is there. He lost his job in Chicago because of complications the company was having and because of his asthma his doctor felt it may be a good idea to move to a different location so Homero found a job in housekeeping here in Fort Worth. 

He told me about how he really wants his G.E.D. in order to move up to the position of a supervisor. Last year, he was being tutored in Computer skills by his boss' secretary who told him he could definitely work up to be a supervisor, however, it gave him a little bit of false hope seeing as he did not realize he needed a degree for that position. Homero tried to study for the test in the past, however, was concentrated on his job, wife, and two daughters who are both attending middle school right now. His father, when they moved to Chicago, was a supervisor in his field even without a degree. Homero says that at that time when his father obtained his job, it wasn't necessary to have a degree, just the ability to perform the job at hand. 

I told him a little about my family and how I also have family that lives elsewhere (in Belgrade and in France) and how it is easy to feel disconnected from them, especially with expensive airfare. He said he tries to visit his family a lot because all of them are in Chicago and he misses them a lot. We talked about him buying a book for us to study from and he was eager and asked if I would look into what the best book would be to study from so I will try and call Tara either today or tomorrow to find out which book she recommends. 

Though at first I was really nervous and not expecting much from our meeting, I now think this will be a really great experience and am thrilled to be working with somebody as excited as Homero. As we stood up to say goodbye after our meeting, Homero said, "It's really nice to meet you. I am SO happy right now." Which surprisingly made me emotional and grateful for the opportunity I have to meet him and help him with something that is important to him.