Points in your Pocket?

So there’s this app. That’s a very Silicon Valley thing to say and I just caught myself writing it, so I guess that means the Bay Area is rubbing off on me? Fine by me! Anyway, there’s a really fun app called Pocket Points and it’s really simple. You turn the app on when you are in class and it counts how long you have your phone locked. In other words, it counts how long you aren’t on your phone in class! You rack up points, and when you get enough, you can buy amazing deals and coupons with your points to everything from food, to clothing, even furniture!

Gratitude Corner

I am incredibly thankful for those I met a retreat this weekend. Everyone was welcoming, full of love, and supportive. I am so excited to foster theses new friendships and spend a week in service with them!

Just a Betsy Thing.

Exciting news! I got accepted to go on an immersion trip for spring break! Over the break, as the SCU website describes, I will spend a week in Oakland, CA and The St. Vincent de Paul Society will host us as we serve. For the week we are focusing on homelessness and poverty, the criminal justice system, food justice, and the educational system in the city. Some components of the immersion will include service in a soup kitchen and work with male groups at Saint Vincent de Paul, visits to correctional and juvenile detention facilities, and engagement with male youth in Oakland. To prepare for this exciting experience, we were required to take a retreat this weekend. Of course, Betsy forgot this was happening and freaked out all our friends thinking I was missing! At least I came home from the retreat with huge hugs!

Retreat: Sunshine and S’mores!

I was not excited to get up at 7:00am to go on a retreat in the middle of nowhere with no cell reception with a whole bunch of people I didn’t know. But it turned out to be something of a blessing. The retreat mainly consisted of “get to know you” icebreakers, and simulation exercises. Our icebreakers were mostly made up of free time to mingle and lounge out in the glorious sun and little name games. We sat through a few lectures about what an immersion trip is, and we all realized that we had no idea what we were getting ourselves into, but it was a really good feeling to have. We discussed how to mentally prepare, and what the difference is between equality and equity, and charity and justice which is, by the way, very eye-opening! We participated in a privilege line. If a privilege applies to you, like “I do not have a disability,” then you would take a step forward. So in the end, the person farthest away has the most privilege, which means that those people cannot see the problem because it is behind them, yet those with the least privilege see everyone in front of them that they have to go through to get somewhere. This idea is to show that the fact is, is that not everyone starts at the same point. Some are born into a privilege they didn’t ask for, and some are born into the very bottom of the pile. We also did a hunger banquet and I experience a meal that people stricken with poverty would eat, on the floor, while watching the “upper class” eat a huge steak with fine china and royal table clothes. It was heart-wrenching, to say the least. But what opened my eyes the most was when we did a financial upper/middle/lower class simulation. Everyone started out equally, and essentially with poker chips, we went around making deals to get points. A divided instantly began to take shape as the rounds went on, and as I found myself in the upper class, I hated it. Honestly, I want every fiscal conservative to experience it.