Jessa Marfal Week Four
Today, July 24th I was walking to work because my brother had a doctor’s appointment down the street and I couldn’t get a ride. I didn’t really think I was that big of a deal since it was only like a mile and would take just a few minutes. As I was walking along Ingersoll, there was a couple standing by a bus stop arguing. I was quite sure what they were arguing about, that was their business. But then the woman left her baby in its stroller to yell at the man. I was just shocked, it is extremely hot outside for a child that young to be just sitting there outside, and she turned her back to the baby. He could have gotten out of that stroller and walked out into traffic. Both those things don’t bother me as much as what happened next, as I walked past the stroller and the baby, the child reached out his hand to me and smiled. I could see in his eyes that he wanted to get away from the situation. I felt terrible; I had no idea what to do. I couldn’t just take the lady’s baby, and I didn’t really know what to say to her, I didn’t know what she would do. It just really eats me up inside that I couldn’t do anything to help this child.
After that whole incident, on the next block, I walked past this guy sitting outside of an apartment smoking. I didn’t really think anything of it and I just walked past him. Once I did that, I heard him say “damn” referring to me. I felt extremely uncomfortable and just hurried up and got to work. It is extremely sad that a girl cannot walk to work without being subjected to sexual harassment. That’s exactly what I felt it was, I found it very creepy that he said that about me, he doesn’t know me, I don’t know him, and I didn’t have any intensions of saying anything to him. He was obviously much older than me, and he had no reason to say anything to me. The sad part is, some girls actually like when that happens, I’ve heard girls say “yeah I like it when cars honk at me when I’m walking, it raises my self esteem!” I’m not sure if this was in a joking manner or not, but when they say things like that, it makes it ok for it to happen, when it really is not.
Megan Say Week Four
Our training we had during the weekend was really fun and relaxing. I was really focused on the topics we talked about. The topics were about domestic violence and sexual assault. Something that happen everyday in life. I thought it was great to just talk about it because some people don’t really talk about what goes on in the community. I think it’s such a good idea if we had more people involved in these situations because it is a big deal. A big deal people hide or have silence about it. The sessions we had were great. I could relate to them within the media and all around us. So I just want to let everyone know that they could always come to talk about it around us. We would actually like to hear it. But the training was great! I would do it again.
Helen Dao Week Four
So, the three day training was fun. I learn a lot about domestic violence and sexual assault. I really enjoy the activities we did. The best activity was the step in step out thing. We did that in school before so I really thought it was fun. I also like watching those video. I thought it was really interesting about dad, uncle, and etc abusing little girl like my age. Now I feel like I’m lucky because it never happen to me. I feel sad for them girl out there who getting touch. I want to make a change and stop that. I thought it was really sad when she say that she try telling her mom but they wouldn’t believe her because her dad was a hero in the community but no one saw the bad part of him yet. I was like wth? Ha I think that she could have gone to talk to the counselor about it and maybe it is better if the counselor told her mom or something. Well another part I like was talking about rape, I thought that section was pretty fun to talk about. Ha’ training was awesome. Looking forward to more with you hosting it
Sopheavy Bunhoeun Week Three
The past couple of days, I’ve realize a lot, from the people I loved and from people I was close too. You can’t always trust people that you think you know won’t do anything to hurt you. But I had to find out the bad way. It sucks to have this feeling. I don’t know what to do. After what I’ve found out, I’ve completely changed, I always have anger build up inside of me. I’m always mad, I’m always just not in the mood for anything, I’ll try to put a smile on my face but it’s just not easy for me. Because deep down, I’m tearing apart like literally….tearing apart.
Tony Thonesavanh Week Four
Training
Training. When that word came out of Mira’s mouth, my happiness meter went below zero. The last training thing I went to was horrible. I’m sorry but the people that hosted the training for advocacy could not keep me interested. At least this time it was Mira training us.
The first day was just us learning the basics of domestic violence and privileges and stuff. It was pretty simple. I think I might’ve hogged all the food though. Anyways the training was actually sort of interesting because this training had input from all of us instead of people in the background just being quiet. We wrapped up pretty early since we wanted to be out.
I woke up the next morning at 9:30, when the training started at 9. I hurried and drove as fast as I could just to make it to the building. I got in around 10AM and as soon as I got there they started asking around what we wanted for lunch so I didn’t think I missed that much. We got into domestic violence and the effects and causes of it. Just listening to it made me realize how good I have it because there are people out there that are beaten and sexually assaulted. I’m even luckier to be a guy because they were talking about how guys usually don’t have to fear walking alone at night while girls do. I thought the whole privilege thingy was interesting. Also we did this thing with Helen where whenever there was something shameful that happened to her, we covered her with a blanket. Eventually it covered her so much that whenever she tried to speak, we couldn’t hear her. I thought that was a cool way to put in visual terms. After that, we did a thing where when something good happened to her, we would remove the blankets of shame. I thought that it was really cool because even though bad things can happen to you, there is always hope. Oh did I mention we ate from Thai Flavors? It was good.
The next day was Sunday and it was so awkward because usually I go to church on Sunday but I went to training instead. The training was a bit better since we had more activities. I can’t think of them at the top of my head but they were cool. We had Gateway Market come in and drop off sandwiches for us and for some reason I can’t really remember anything from Sunday except that I slept on the couch.