Day in the Life

This blog post was written by Margalit L., a participant in Tivnu 9. She is from Atlanta, Georgia and interns at Tivnu construction, Rose Haven, and Street Books. In her free time, Margalit enjoys crafting, reading, and hanging with other Tivnuniks.

Come along with me on a fun Friday, and get a peek into what my everyday life is like!

7:15 am – Wake up to my roommate Shira’s alarm. At this point, I don’t even bother setting my own alarm since we wake up at the same time anyways. 

7:20 am – Realize I’ve been lying in bed for 5 minutes and force myself out of bed. Shira is still sleeping, so I turn on the lights and blast Green Day to get her up. 

7:25 am – I get dressed for the day. It’s been chilly in the mornings here, so I throw on pants instead of the normal shorts I’m used to wearing in Georgia in September. 

7:45 am – I join a couple of other Tivnuniks eating breakfast on the porch. 

8:00 am – Tortuga, the next door neighbor’s cat, decides to come say hi. We all go crazy over him and get in our animal time (since we aren’t allowed to have pets in the house).

8:10 am – Still sitting on the porch when Erik and Britt (the construction instructors) show up to pack up the vans for today’s construction adventure. 

8:30 am – Hop in the van to go to construction. Everyone in the van is half asleep, so it’s an uneventful ride. 

9:15 am – Arrive at the work site. Today we are at Washington County Project Homeless Connect, a day center for those experiencing houselessness. Our mission: to build a fence around the perimeter so that the shelter can have an enclosed space. 

9:30 am – Start unloading the van with our supplies. We unload drills, impact drivers, a circular saw, gloves, headphones, and batteries. Who knew batteries would be so heavy??

9:45 am – With the instructions of our supervisors I begin to measure and drill to build a fence! While working, I laugh and joke with Britt and the other Tivnuniks.

10:50 am – I help Nat, another Tivnunik, demolish an old, unusable fence. We use a special type of saw to cut through the screws, and using it makes me feel super powerful. Don’t mess with me when I’m demolishing a fence! 

11:30am  – Lunch timeeeee. I take out my lunch and sit on an empty bucket to eat, while schmoozing with the crew. By now, we’ve finished all the rails and posts and it looks pretty good, if I do say so myself. 

12:00 pm – Back to work we go! We’re working on the pickets now, and my job is to space out the boards and hold them so that my partner can drill them in. It’s really satisfying watching the fence come together. 

1:30 pm – We haven’t quite finished the fence, but it’s clean up time, so we wrap up and put the supplies back into the van. The fence will be finished by another crew working for the shelter, since we have a new jobsite to get to next week. 

2:10 pm – Post construction circle up! We go over any safety issues and what we learned today. No safety issue for me, but boy did I learn a lot today. I started the day off not knowing how to even begin to build a fence and now I’ve almost completed one! I’ve measured and drilled in the rails, spaced out and attached the posts, and talked with and learned about my fellow Tivnuniks.

2:20 pm – Hop into the van to head back to the bayit. 

2:25 pm – I’m fast asleep; it’s been a long day. Construction is no stroll in the park. 

2:45 pm – Back home! 

3:30 pm – It’s toranut time. Toranut is each person’s responsibilities every week to keep the house running. My job is Photojournalist this week, so I upload photos that I’ve taken from activities throughout the week, and then I work on this blog (how meta!).

5:00 pm – Shower, clean my room, and get ready for Shabbat. The smells from the lasagna the Friday night chefs are preparing waft up to my room and it smells amazing! 

6:30 pm – I bring in Shabbat with my fellow Tivnuniks, people that I’ve come to think of as my Portland family. Today was an amazing day, Shabbat Shalom!

On the agenda for the weekend: Puzzling, hanging in Irving Park, and going to the Y2K market.