It Is Finished

Sooo, the marathon. Finished it!
I finished in 4:42, which is a little shy of my 4:30 goal time but I don't really care because finishing is finishing. I even beat my dad by 10 minutes! My first half was understandably faster than my second half--it almost seemed like the finish line was getting further and further away at one point. I'm feeling pretty good now, it just hurts a little when I go downstairs. I was strongly suggested by fellow marathoner Kelly Grimes to take a bath, so I might try to see if our bath plug works tonight, if I don't get home too late from my 14-hour day. 

I know you all have been reading this blog because I have been asking you for money and you are wondering if I have made my goal...in truth, you guys blew it out of the water! My goal was $1200 and at my last count, I raised $1350! Taller de Jose is an amazing organization and will benefit greatly from all of this support. Our goal as a team was to raise $5000, and as of October 3rd, we had $5,187! (I'll update that amount when we get the final total).

None of this could have happened without all of your support. From donating, to watching me run, to kind words before and after the race, I am very much indebted to all of you!

Thank you for accompanying me on this journey!

OOps! I haven't posted in a while...

I guess I've been busy or somehing (training for a marathon, perhaps?) so here are some highlights from my time at Taller (taken from my blog I kept at the time):

• The time I met Sr Betty:  On Wednesday, I met Sr. Betty in front of the office (a new sister, I work with three) and we went to criminal court with one of her clients. Criminal court is conveniently  located within walking distance of my house. I told my roommates that if they commit any crimes, I could totally help them out. After court Sr. Betty and I drove around a little bit to see a couple of organizations we work with in Pilsen.

• Sr Betty found me a potential husband in criminal court (don’t worry, she’s pretty sure he’s a law student, he was working there) but so far, she has not given him my card as she hasn’t seen him since. [Did not pan out, he was actually one of many potential husbands]

• I got a police escort home from an accompaniment on Saturday! My client had to look at a photo line-up and the police station was far enough away that we had to take two buses there, and the detective felt bad and took us home in an unmarked police car. In front of my house, he went the wrong way down our one-way street and called it “official police business”. This totally made up for having to go into work on a Saturday morning.

• 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.

The marathon is so close now that it is included in the 10 day forecast! The current forecast looks bleak (30% chance of rain) but this is Chicago so forecasts that far out don't actually mean a whole lot. Anyway, I'm very excited for the marathon and very grateful for all of your support. Thank you for accompanying me on this journey!

You Know You're Training for a Marathon When...

I have been working on this one for a while and have been waiting to post it. I even received input from my friends also running the marathon, Kerry McGuire (KM) and Kelly Grimes (KG) and have noted this where appropriate.

1. You find yourself wondering what that smell is...and realize it is you. 
2. You use the official Febreeze of NFL locker rooms.
3. Your feet are several shades lighter than your ankles, even though you only wear sandals when you aren't running.
4. You have an obnoxious running tan line in general (sports bra and running shorts) that will not correct itself despite all attempts to do so. 
5. You've convinced yourself that it is completely appropriate to go to work with soaking wet hair (KM) [Note: She doesn't have curly hair. We can't all be as blessed as me.]
6. You learn what chafing feels like.
7. You are more excited about GU flavors than ice cream (KG).
8. There is usually a blister (or traces of one) on one or both of your feet.
9.  "What are you up to?" means "How far is your long run this week?"
10.  It seems perfectly normal to run ten miles and then carry stuff up and down six flights of stairs for a few hours, moving one roommate out and another in to your third floor apartment.
11. You find yourself saying that you're "just running 12 miles" on Saturday (KG). 
12. You learn what sweat glands are for. 
13. You know when complete strangers go for their daily run/walk (KM)
14. You burn 2000 calories before many of your peers wake up. 
15. Everyone else is budgeting for boots for Fall and you're spending all your money on new running shoes (KG) [Note: as a social work student, I am officially jealous of anyone who can afford Fall boots in the first place]

Training for a marathon or have trained in the past? Feel free to add more suggestions in the comments box below!

Thank you all for accompanying me on this journey!

How did I get here?

Everyone in my family runs or has run, but I held out. My high school did not offer sports on site and I didn't feel like joining the running team at the local high school, partly because I was lazy and partly because my brother was on that team already (and doing quite well). I am horribly uncoordinated, so other sports were not an option so mostly I was just out of shape.

At the end of my freshman year at Notre Dame (which was NOT that long ago, don't let anyone tell you otherwise), the Holy Half Marathon finished in front of my dorm. I said to myself: "I could do that!" so I registered only for classes that Fall that started at 11:45 or later, a practice I tried my best to keep up the rest of my college career. I didn't start running right away, I waited until I got back to campus the following Fall and started with a mile a day. I wanted to go two miles, because if you do a figure-eight around the two lakes that is two miles, but I couldn't find the second lake and I was too embarrassed to ask anyone because I thought I was supposed to know. I did eventually find it and increased my mileage enough to finish the half marathon that Spring--which inspired my dad to run half marathons, of which he does approximately 10 a year now, even though none of us watch him.

Lots of people at Notre Dame would make the trip to Chicago to run the marathon and I wanted to sign up every year, but at registration time I never knew where I would be come marathon time and thought it too risky to register. This year, I knew where I would be (finishing my first week of school--yay for the quarter system!) and knew I could do it.

It goes without saying that you need more than the challenge of completing a 26.2 race to get you through training. I will run 540 miles before I get to the starting line, greater than the distance it would take to run from my apartment in Chicago to my childhood home in Bloomfield Hills and back. The finish line cannot be my only motivation, it is too long of a journey for that. I get my motivation from my former clients, from my former co-workers who are also running the marathon and from knowing that with each step I take, I am helping the mission of Taller de Jose continue. I truly appreciate the donations I have received from everyone so far, and I am already grateful for the donations that I know are still to come.

Thank you to everyone for accompanying me in this journey!

The Secret(s) to My Success

Disclaimer: Today at work we had an ice cream social (for which I have been waiting excitedly for the past month) and I just fell down from my sugar high, so I don't want to make any promises that what follows will make any sense. For this I apologize.

As many of you know, I have not been a runner for a very long time. I'll tell that story some other time, though.This weekend I ran a total of 20 miles (13 Saturday and 7 Sunday). How do I do that? Well...


1) I'm actually dancing the whole time. Not literally, just in my head. I blast dance music and run with the beat, pretending that I am actually dancing. Those who know me know that if there is catchy dance music and I am in a place where I can dance, I will dance. I sometimes find myself dancing accidentally--a move will work its way into my run, but mostly I find myself dancing when I get excited in everyday life. when they were dishing out my third scoop of ice cream today, for example. Now, some of the dance moves I do in my head are dance moves you may see me do on an actual dance floor, but for the most part they are either moves that I cannot do or at least cannot do as gracefully in real life as I imagine it. I often get lost in my run, because I am so lost in choreographing a dance routine. So now you know.

2) I remember all of my awesome clients from Taller de Jose. I think about how my running the marathon can help them get assistance going to court and finding resources, even if sometimes it is just a sympathetic ear. How can I not run those miles when I know they are going to such a great place? It's sad that accompaniment is a phenomenon rarely seen outside of this amazing organization. I wrote the book on being a companera (literally--part of my job last summer was making a staff handbook) so I can tell you that it is truly honorable and necessary work.   I am very grateful to those who have already contributed to my fundraising campaign. I know everyone who reads this will share what they are able, and for that I am extremely grateful. (There are still 2+ months until the race, so don't feel rushed!).

Thank you for accompanying me on this journey!

What happened to the twins from the elevator?

I wanted to post a follow-up to my last post---not because anyone asked but because I wanted to share. The following paragraph is from the entry I wrote December 2010 about the court date we were given when we filed for guardianship. I believe I had three clients with court dates that day--it was a little crazy. I gave one away and balance the other two. One of the clients just wanted me around for moral support and her case was just a check-in, so I stopped by her court room a couple of times and called her later. She speaks English perfectly (and became a citizen last March--she was supposed to swear in in February but was delayed a month due to the Snowpocalypse). Anyway, I felt like I had to spend most of my time with the client who had the twins because I identified with her case--the twins have autism, like my brother. To top it off they were the same age as my brother--There was NO way I was giving up this accompaniment even though I had spent more time with the other client. Here's what happened:


On Monday I had two clients with cases and went to court with one of them but we were early so I was able to stop by the other client’s court room. The client I went to court with was there to get guardianship of her adult twin daughters who have autism. They are very shy and do not like direct questioning but the judge had to ask them if they objected to having their mom named as their guardian. One of them nodded but then burst into tears so the judge quickly decided to grant guardianship and let them get out of there. But let me back up—in the courtroom of the client I visited there was a lawyer with the build and beard of Santa Claus. He had a cast on his foot and instead of crutches, he had a large wooden walking stick and was holding it up while he sat. Then, I went back to the courtroom with the client with whom I came to the Daley Center and noticed the clerk—who looked like a leprechaun. At first I was thinking he was an elf because I had just seen Santa Claus but then I heard his Irish accent and noticed his leprechaun dolls. He was very helpful, if a bit irritated that we were missing a couple of papers. After we walked out of the court room, I went back to get a copy of the order the judge signed, the clerk told me that, because of the crying, despite his many years of working as a clerk in the Daley Center this was the first case that truly touched him. I touched a leprechaun’s heart!


I would also like to thank everyone for their donations--I'm already a third of the way to my goal!
Thanks for accompanying me on my journey!

A Not-So-Unusual Day at Taller de Jose

Most people don't really understand what accompaniment really is, which makes since because it is a service pretty unique to Taller de Jose. In order to illustrate the concept, I am re-posting an entry I put in my old blog last October about an accompaniment I had with a client:
"Yesterday I went with a client to apply for guardianship of adults who happen to be twins. This involved going to the Daley Center (where a large number of Cook County's civil courthouses are housed) and riding 19 elevators.
the breakdown:
-arrive, ride from floor 1 to floor 12 to Adult Guardianship Pro Se Help Desk. wait 45 minutes for law student to arrive
-go to 18 to courtroom 1803 for fee waiver. wait 45-60 minutes while court is in session
-return to 12 and finish paperwork, attempt to file but wait! you only have one fee waiver for the two people! it does not matter that they are twins...
-go back to floor 18 and ask the clerk in 1803 if the judge can sign a new order--now don't be silly, you must fill out two new applications for fee waivers, and they don't have them on this floor
-return to floor 12
-return to 1803 to submit forms. clerk is upset that they didn't take the forms downstairs and doesn't know if the judge will sign the form again
-return to 12th floor with proper forms. file the forms. They send you to 1812 to get a court date
-return to 1812. the clerk is frazzled but manages to give you the same date/time for both twins. she sends you to get a seal for the sheriff's summons
-return to 12th floor. the cute, friendly male law student has been replaced by a middle aged lawyer who is switching from another type of law so she has less experience in this matter than the law student. You need to make copies but the copy machine behind her costs $0.25 per page while in the law library it costs $0.10 per page. Client says no thank you, I will pay. Go to the lady at the far end of the room for a seal of the court. she sends you to see the sheriff so you can give them the summons to serve.
-go to the seventh floor. the cashier at the sheriff office is confused and you don't have enough copies, but it gets taken care of and you are free to go.
-return to lobby and leave.

Now wait, you may be wondering how my math adds up to 19 elevator rides. Well, you see, the Daley Center has 30 floors and they are all very busy, so not every elevator goes to every floor. You can take an elevator from the 12th floor to the 17th floor, but to get from the 12th floor to the 18th floor, you must first go to the 7th floor (or the lobby but it is usually faster to switch on the 7th floor) and switch elevators. So each of the four times my client and I were sent to the 18th floor from the 12th, that took four elevator rides round trip. 

I googled elevator fatalities, and there are one in 12 million. think how close I came in one day..."

At Taller de Jose, they don't joke around when they say they physically accompany people to places. And when they do, they don't just drop people off in court and say "Good Luck". I spent six hours on elevators that day, and this story isn't even rare--just something all the companeras do every day at Taller de Jose. 

I would like to thank all the well wishes as I have begun my marathon training--which is going pretty well! I would also like to thank those who have donated so far--I'm up to $200! 

Thank you all for accompanying me on my journey!