Phew...New Job Coming Along...

Yeah...I know it's been a while since I've last updated. So, I thought I'd get you all up to speed on the Seattle Hinkle household.

During my last post, I had just interviewed at Meany Middle School and accepted the job with Americorps. Now, I've been working for about a month and getting into a nice routine with work and home and rest. The first week at work was all orientation, starting with a 4.5 hour paperwork session on Monday (Sept 15)- we work for the Washington State and Federal governments as well as an organization called Solid Ground, not to mention our individual sites (the schools). So, it's all very seeped in bureacracy which equals paperwork all the time! The first week of training was tough since I'm one of the only Christians on my team of 30 or so and we do a lot of discussion of values, ethical leadership, and anti-racism. But I'm getting to know my team better and have some good one-on-one and small group conversations on these things, even though I don't always have the ability to express my viewpoint in the big group discussions. I'm not in West Michigan anymore, that's for sure!

At my school, I had a slow start, getting acquainted with some students and teachers and figuring out what I'm supposed to be doing everyday. We have a great full-time YMCA staff, though, that runs after-school programs and has been at Meany for several years, so they help out a lot! I work closely with the VISTA member at my school (also with Americorps but doing more of the indirect service: volunteer recruiting, donations, making schedules, planning literacy events, etc...). Her name is Allison, and we've been getting along great as a team. Right now, I'm finally getting more into what I'll be doing for the whole school year. During the day, I'm tutoring kids one-on-one or in a small group when they are pulled out of class for more intensive work with me. I also get to do other kinds of tasks like reading aloud every Tuesday/Thursday to an 8th grade class and giving a short in-class writing assignment that I return with comments. Other odd jobs include organizing some teacher libraries by genre so kids can find books they like and hanging up student essays in the hallways for parents to see on our curriculum night. These more random tasks should slow down as I get more kids assigned to me for tutoring. After school, I help with tutoring all subjects on Monday and Thursday as well as co-teach a sign language class on Tuesdays. The YMCA after-school programs are so diverse and popular that I get to meet a whole bunch of kids this way. So far, I'm really enjoying my work at the school and am ready to keep moving towards a full tutoring schedule. Oh! I also went to a cool All-City tutor training held at another middle school over the weekend (this Saturday). It was very helpful with suggesting useful activities and strategies for various levels of readers, and I'm glad I went. Although, I did win a rather bulky box full of prizes at the raffle that I had to take home on the Metro bus...eek! Oh...and speaking of busses...I'm MUCH more comfortable riding them around than I was at the time of my last post. My daily commute is only about 1/2 hour and Kayle (bless his heart) drives me to and from a bus stop nearer to his work in order to save me time in the morning. (That means he's been working the 8-8.5 hours/day I've been at school PLUS the time it takes me to get to and from the bus stop where we meet...awww, sweet.)

Kayle's work is still going well. He's been picking up a lot more of what he'll be doing on his team and is enjoying learning all kinds of new things. He comes home some days and tells me he "fixed a bug" or worked alongside someone else for the day. Overall, he's happy at his job, so I guess that's good! :)

In other news, church is going fantastic. We just joined a community group which discusses the sermons on Tuesdays. We like it especially because it has a variety of experience in it: a couple married 35 years, several just having kids, another newlywed couple and a few singles of various ages. This makes the conversation so much richer, and we feel lucky to have some guidance and wisdom from people at so many stages of life. We are still almost done with the membership process. Kayle is trying to figure out where he wants to serve the church (music, tech, development, set-up, etc...), but I have already started meeting the kids at Proxy, the middle/high-school youth group at Mars Hill. After our membership is complete, I'll probably start helping with the younger kids ministries on Sunday morning as well.

The other (mostly) fantastic thing is the Notre Dame football team this year. I'm so excited at their improvement! No more 3-9, and the announcer said this weekend that "this is a brand new team compared to last year". Jimmy Clausen (QB) is posting better numbers every week and, while we're not GREAT this year, we show a lot of promise for next season! We have tickets for the Washington-Notre Dame game this upcoming Saturday and I look forward to cheering on the Irish in person again. The Michigan team is another story...cough, Toledo, cough...

As the Seattlelites say, "the rain is back." This basically means gray skies and drizzle and fog every day. This is true about half the time now, but the clouds will soon take over full-time until summer... However, Kayle and I finally got over our persistant colds and are waking up each morning refreshed and ready for a new day (for the most part, at least!).

Finally, our cooking ability is still improving despite being much busier than before both of us were working. We've "discovered" the wonders and joy of the crock-pot and having a warm dinner when we get home from work. We try to make pot roast or pulled pork once/week now. We've also mostly mastered the Hinkle spaghetti and meat sauce recipe and have tried (with general success) London Broil, banana bread, marinated steak, chicken picatta, etc. One of my most treasured parts of the day is making and eating a warm breakfast together- we always have pancakes, belgian waffles, french toast (not too often), or bacon/eggs in the morning, which makes for a great start to every day. YUM!! We also have been trying to eat more fruits/vegetables. We especially have been enjoying fresh strawberries, asparagus, and pineapples. We've officially cut down the number of times we have pizza for dinner to about once every two weeks! YAY!

We're so happy to hear from all of you, and it's been CRAZY to try to call tons of people on the weekends. By the time I get out of work, it's usually pretty late at home. Keep leaving us messages and e-mails, because we LOVE to be updated on everyone's lives!

Keep praying for wisdom and prudence in my discussions at work and for our marriage to continue improving despite being more busy. We love you and miss you!!

Angie and Kayle