Career Service Event Workshop

I was very interested in learning about how CIA works. I tried to learn about it independently, but it did not work out quite well. Amazingly, I had an opportunity to attend "Employer Panel," which was hosted by ASU. I learned many valuable information, which will help me to make a sound decision regarding my future career. 

I used to have this concept that an individual have to be certain age by the time he or she is applying for the CIA job.  However, I learned that there are many positions that do not required the age restriction. The only thing that I found strange is that all candidates are required to reside in Washington DC. I was going to put my application in if they had one of their offices in the Sun the of Valley.

My Hardship as a Refugee

I sometimes like to talk about my life as a refuge because it makes me view myself different from others. I encountered many different obstacles in a young age and I like to educate others about them. Approximately sixteen years ago, my moving journey started due to the same political factor that prevented my parents to go to school. 

My journey began when I was unwillingly forced to flee my country by the Sudan government. As a result, I got separated from my entire family. I went on many difficult journeys without my parents' supervision. Not to mention that I became a grown man without their presence, but also that I encountered countless challenges on my journeys. Wild life would attack on the way in thick, dark African forests. I would go days and nights without food or water. 

My Amazing Background

I think it is sometimes hard to understand how certain individuals do not have educational background in western countries. I believe I make some western citizens have different views about me when I  have contact with some type of academic applications that required me to file in my parents' educational background. I always write unknown due to my parents' lack of education.

My parents grew up in Southern Sudan without any educational background. They do not even  have  any kindergarten education. What a life! You might have this question in mind that how would they grew up without attending school in their entire lives? 

 The answer involves political implications. My parents did not have an opportunity to attend school because the Sudanese government prohibits building schools in certain parts of the country, especially Southern Sudan. Therefore, I'm the first-general in my family to have an opportunity to attend college.

Conflict between my two cultures!

As I mentioned in my introduction post that I'm originally from Sudan. I'm also known as a "Lost Boy" of Sudan. I'm one of about 300 young Sudanese Lost Boys and Girls who came to Phoenix, Arizona in 2001 as a result of the long Civil War in Sudan. I have been living in Phoenix for unbelievable nine years. However, I feel like I have only been living here for three years because I have so much to learn about the United States culture.

As you can tell from the title that I always get caught between the two cultures. I attempt to balance them, but sometimes it does not work. There are so many different conflicts I have to deal every sun set. Not to mention a problem with a hand shake mess, but also I still have difficulties adapting other things such as food and eye contact. Food is so much different here. The ingredients in food makes it taste and smell different.

Eye contact is also a big problem for me. I was raised not to have a direct eye contact because it has  strange meanings in Dinka culture. Well,  it completely has the opposite meanings in the United States. However, I still cannot manage to have a constant eye contact and people judge me as untrustworthy and insincerity individual.

My fascination day in Phoenix, Arizona

As you all know how worse it gets when you can not understand the local transportation system. Well, I doubt it you are not alone. I was in the same shoes when I arrived to Arizona. My fascinating day Phoenix came when my lovely caseworker dropped me off at the Maricopa Public Medical Center for a check up, but never shown up for the day.

You can tell by reading between the lines how my day went. Not only to mention that it was very compelling, but also that I regretted coming to the United States in general. I did not know what to do, so I decided to give it a try by going to a bus stop. I finely got on the bus, but I got lost. I found myself in Glendale City. Matter of fact, I was very new and did not know my major street address. I was also unfamiliar how to use public transportation to get around. The streets were quite complicated for me to understand. I did not know I was going to master them at all.

My Travel Experience: Coming to America

I'm guessing that many of you have travel experiences otherwise, enjoy this post. It will discuss my travel experience the night I entered to this country. I thought that coming to the United States was a quite exciting journey for me especially in the beginning. However, it was nothing like what I expected it to be. I was pretty much healthy when I left Nairobi, Kenya for the United States.  My flight was also quite smooth. It was packed with many of my close friends, so I was not traveling alone.

Unfortunately, my happy flight ended up unhappy. I got sick on my way to Phoenix, Arizona. I had a bad cold that I will never forget. I was coughing, sneezing, and shaking on the plane. Yet, I did not have any idea where I was going to end up with that terrible cold. 

For a change, I was lucky enough to have my former sponsors waiting for me at the airport. They directed me to my new apartment where I spent that night without sleep, probably due to the cold. I could not keep up with it anymore, so I took a trip to the emergency room at noon the next day. Finally, I returned home and I slept like a brand, newborn baby.

Busy day alone

As the Center staff continues to go out for the training, I took full responsibility.  I became the center of the Arizona Lost Boys Center. The day of December 3, 2010, was quite active and challenging due to me working alone. It felt like the callers acknowledged that I was left to work alone and they wanted me to pay for it. Many phone calls were coming in now and then, making me not to take even a two minute break. Surprisingly, some of the callers were my along time lost friends. How amazing was it! I thought it was a great opportunity to talk to them again. We have lost contact for many ages.

To make my day even more worse, I had to tour two students from the Arizona State University. They showed up at the Center hoping that they were going to meet with one of my bosses. I later discovered that they are my boss's classmates, and that they were coming to tour the Center. I was more than happy to show them around, but I pointed out that I was the only person running the Center that day. I informed them that I would be taking phone calls while touring them. Thanks Lord, They were patient!

Good work paying off?!

It seemed like the new phone experience as a receptionist is making a good progress. One beautiful noon while I was sitting down waiting for my time to start work; my boss surprisingly patted me on my back saying that I did a great work and he wanted me to keep doing it.  From then and now, he calls me to cover the phone calls for them when ever they are not going to be in the office. 

November 19, 2010, he again asked me to come in and take care of the phone calls while they were all out. I took it even though I know I'm not a phone type person. I do not always like talking on phones  in general. However, I thought it was a good opportunity for me to get used to it. Surprisingly,  I had a  few callers who hanged up on me. I was stunned to death because I thought I was there for them and  that I needed their courtesy and patient as well. They did not  even allow me to explain myself to them and why this strange me was taking their phone calls.

Receptionist?!

November 12, 2010, was the active day ever at my work. My boss called me to come in and covered the phone calls for them because the staff was out for a job training for the entire day. He pointed out that the Center was now in my full responsibility and that I should enjoy it.  In my complete responsibility! Yes, I was quite eager to challenge myself. I woke up early in the morning with a big smile on face. I was very happy to test out being my own boss that day, so I enjoyed the rest of the day.

However,  not only to mention that I was very pretty busy since I was the only one  who was there to run the Center; but also that the phone work experience was challenging.  First I was running back and fourth between the phone and students.  I was taking the phone calls while going back to the classroom for translation. My new reception experience was going smoothly until I received a call from a caller who wanted to be transferred to my boss' voice mail so that she could leave a message for him. Did I do it correctly? I do not think so because the caller was still on the regular line when I returned to it!

Back to normal one more!!

It was a good feeling to go back to my normal relaxing translation work, I thought. On this particular  day, I only helped the students with their homework. They brought in with them poor homework assignments and I quickly knocked them out. I also assisted the Center organized workshop. We sat up the room and not  to mention how much challenge we had with the screen projector. Non of us could not figure out how to use it and we wondered in the Conference Room.  

Did I just state that it was a relaxing day? Not really, I think I'm wrong if I remember the end of it. I was not completely free because there was massive homework assignments waiting for me at home. I got home and it was a mess! I did not have any idea where to start. However,  I patiently managed to complete my assignments and finally enjoyed my backache pain overnight. Thanks God I was off the next day!!

Beautiful Continuing Workshop!

As I pointed out in one of my current posts that my boss surprised me with the workshops. Well, the workshops were continuous. I'm pretty much involved in them and I personally think that they are paying off. I'm now able to recognize and categorize my strengths and weaknesses. There were so much to learn so we decided to break the workshop into parts.

On October 23, 2010, I thought I learned very important aspects of this workshop. I had an important  opportunity to learn and able to describe myself in "30 second speech." Guess what happened? I could not in any way manage to respect my time. I constantly kept  eating up  my given time and still needed more time! I would say that it was a challenging new experience, but we had a lot of fun at the same time. I  also learned how to network and it was quite valuable to for me. It is very difficult this days to get a job if you do not know anyone.

Dinka & English?

I mentioned earlier that translating English to Dinka is difficult. Many words in English Language are not always simple to explain them in Dinka because they hold totally different meanings. I always pay close attention to many words because they could result in a bad translation or  some words do not make any sense in Dinka language.

On October 22, 2010, I had hard time translating certain English words to Dinka because I could not explain them to the students what they really mean in Dinka. I could not translate such words as "the' and as" because we do not have them in Dinka language. I also helped them explain how words are formed. We really had a fun time laughing together. Some of the students sometimes friendly tease me that I'm gradually forgetting my mother language. It was a great challenging experience,  but we had fun times while learning together.

Another Unexpected Workshop! No way!!!

As I discussed it in my previous post that unexpected events do happen in life. Sure, they are. Once again, I did not have any knowledge at all that the Arizona Lost Boys Center provides valuable services like the one I mentioned. Additionally, I was unaware that the Center was going to hold some kind of leadership skills presentation. I went to the Center with thinking of my regular activities in mind. I did not expect to attend any workshop that day. 

However, once again, my boss patted me on my back stating that I needed to join the "Speaker Group," which was a deadly surprise, I thought.  I did not know what to do since I was unprepared. However, the workshop turned out to be something that I have insights knowledge. It was about us, the lives of the "Lost Boys of Sudan." The Lost Boys are working on creating effective ways of educating public about themselves; therefore my boss thought that it would be quite important for me to participate. The workshop went accordingly and I enjoyed it!

Good work Day

As I recall it, my weekend did not go smoothly as I expected it to be. I worked on some brain killing school assignment, which made my whole day miserable. I could not want to get involved doing anything, but relaxing that day. However, I thought coming to the Center would benefit the ESL students, and that I would regain my energy when I see their smiley faces. 

As I entered to the classroom, they greeted me with happiness and excitement on their faces. I quickly got my strengths and we picked up our daily activities from there.  However, I did not do any thing extensive work due to the rough night that I had. Surprisingly, It was a relaxing day I would admit. My job went back to translating the language, which was my initiated work. I also did a little bit of work assisting some students studying alphabet letters.

Unexpected Workship!

As I read the internship guide, I discovered that I'm required to attend two "career services events" and share my learned experiences with my classmates. Well, I did not expect to attend one of them at the Center. I did not think the Center provides this kind of service until my boss informed me about it on October 2, 2010. He told me that it would be important and beneficial for me to join this "career development workshop." I was pretty much surprised because I was unaware about it until the same day it was conducted. 

However, I smiled and attended it because I did not want to turn my boss down, and because of the fact that it was going to add some tasty meat to my resume. I realized that unexpected events happen in life so I did not take it hard on him. I also enjoyed the workshop and it was very important because it strengths my resume in various angles.

Another busy October first Day!!

Thank me for my hard work to accomplish my personally assignments as well as my job duties. I stayed up all night writing up my assignments; and still afforded to go to work and assisted those poor students with their homework while translating the language at the same time. I did a little bite of teaching too. Many students think that they feel comfortable working with me since they understand me better than the native volunteers. However, I told them that they would be better off learning from the native speakers.

I was quite busy, I recall. I could not have time to grab something to eat. However, it did not bother me at all because I got used to it. I was growing up at a refugee camp where I did eat once a day.  This particular day, I worked with some students on their citizenship questions and homework. Some of the homework activities we worked on were "matching opposites" with pictures and words. We also studied "puzzle" for their homework, and it was fun and challenging.

Hard to Explain!

I look at myself as an individual who survived many horrible things in life. However, I rarely mention learning English language as one of them. I think the language difficulty occurred to me, but I pretty good dealt with it thought I began learning my alphabets at a young age. I was not that influence in English when I came to this country, but compared to my currently students, I think I was better.

Again, as I mentioned that I work with students of all different levels of ESL and it is difficult to explain certain things to them sometimes.  On September 24 and 25, not only did I translate the material to them; but also I worked with them on letters pattern as well as forming words in English. I assisted them individually. For example, I explained to them how we could sound out a name of a place or a word such as 'mother' and then try to spell it out by picking different letters.

Naturalization Applications Help!!

I  would admit that September 18, 2010 was a very busy week for me. Before I headed to my work, I was working on my long assignments, which made my whole day miserable. To top it, my whole body was down. I did not have energy to even take me to the train station, so I grabbed some motivation energy drink to move me.

I finally made it to work and started my regular activities. I ensured that my bosses see me before I start working by always saying hi to them.  When I checked in the classroom, many students were dying waiting for me to help them out with their naturalization applications. Some students wanted to be helped with their English and Math homework, and I was surprisingly stuck. I did not have a clue where to start.

However, I managed to work out my overwhelming day by starting it with homework. Some homework questions only required simple fill in the blanks and no further explanations, so they did not take us that long. I would admit that I'm not a math type person, but the math homework was a piece of cake. It only needed simple, different ways of  explaining addition.  Finally, I assisted those students who needed my full attention. I walked them through their naturalization applications, step by step until they got it.

Studying at My work?

 Many of you would think that it does not sound realistic to be studying at work because we do not usually do it. My main job duties were to translate  the language and answer the phone.  However,  on September 17, 2010, I helped the ESL students out with their homework. Some students are taking English courses from other community Centers. They bring their homework to the Center so that they can be helped out by the volunteers.

This particular day, I personally helped out the students practicing  necessary "life skill" they need. We practiced calling  for necessary  community help such as 411 and 911.  We practiced the questions that both would ask. I played the 911 and had them responded to my questions. For example, I would ask them to provide their address and to wait outside if they were reporting fire.  We also practiced many greetings such as hand shake, bowing, and hugging. We discussed what these form of greetings might mean in many different countries and their cultures.

Giving to the Community

Today, September 11, 2010,  I personally was happy to share my knowledge, citizenship skills with the non-American students. I was helping the students who are seeking to become the new United States citizens with their citizenship application questions. I guided them through the whole application process so that they will feel comfortable filing it out on own when they are ready.

I was helpful to them and they almost praised me because some of them did not even know what the "middle name" means.  I discovered that some individuals can read, but can not get what the application asks them to do. Therefore, I decided to dedicate the rest of my time helping them achieve their goals. Everyone went back home smiling. They appreciated what I did, saying they were bless to have me translating the language. They said it makes it simple and understandable for them since I speak the same language that they speak.

First day on my job

My first day on my job was exciting and confusing. I was excited to be introduced to my co-workers, although some individuals already knew me personally. However, I was very much confused because they were showing me a lot of things that I will be responsible for during internship with them. I could not catch everything at once. Things were kind of strange to me even though I personally knew the Center inside out.

However,  I managed to interact with the employees and shared my goals with them. I was able to tell them what I wanted to do to help the Center out. They were quite appreciative and they welcomed me with great join.  They showed me where I was going to be working at, and introduced me to the students as well. I started my day translating English to Sudanese local language. It went well and the students were very thrilled to have me there with them.

Arizona Lostboys Center

My name is Achuil Deng and I'm majoring in Public Service and Public Policy, and a minor in Urban and Metropolitan Studies. This is my first time utilizing the gmail blog. I'm quite excited to meeting with you and be able to share my new experiences and challenges with you. I'm currently doing my internship with the Arizona Lostboys Center, and I'm pretty happy to working with this organization. My first two weeks with the center has already brought me with many new challenges. I'm now assisting the center with ESL classes.

I translate English to local Sudanese language (Dinka). For these last two exciting weeks, I worked with Sudanese elder women, helping them get prepared for their upcoming citizenship tests. I also substitute when their ESL instructor is unavailable.  I help them with basic English skills such as listening and speaking and pronunciation as well. I discovered today that certain individuals still need one-on-attention to gain self-confidence. Example some of the students still need to work on their ABC'S. Some  of my students are more advanced than others, so teaching them seems to be more challenging since they cannot learn at the same pace. Additionally,  However, I'm more than happy  and willing to assist them with their needs.