At the beginning of each MIP year, Lisa Goldstein (MIP Mentor at the Cypress Hills branch) hosts an elective for the interns called "A Night at the Improv."

Lisa has been participating in improvisation workshops for over ten years and is always eager to share her love of improvisation with the interns. We start each workshop with warm-up exercises, like Assassin, Bunny Bunny and Pass the Clap.

After the warm-ups, we did an activity called It's Friday, and... where one intern says "It's Friday, and..." and the other intern has to respond with an answer. See a photo of the activity below:

We finished the workshop by creating two-person scenes that revolved around a topic shouted out by the other interns. See Nour and Jeffry in their skit:

Thank you to Lisa, Jackson, Genta and all of the interns for being such active participants!

Yesterday, some of the interns were trained to become After School Homework Helpers! In addition to their current duties (create and deliver programs, translate and interpret for patrons, help with computer assistance and shadow at the reference desk), these interns will be helping children from 1st through 8th grade with their homework.

Homework Helper extraordinaire Genta taught the interns how to be excellent homework helpers. She talked to them about boosting the child's confidence, listening to the child and assisting them with reading, writing and math!

Thank you to Genta and the interns who were trained! See a photo of them below:

Not only is the Multicultural Internship Program an excellent way to learn how a library works, it's also a paid internship! For many of the teens, this is the first paid work experience that they've had. Getting that first paycheck is always exciting. See below for a photo of Wenjun, an intern in the Multilingual Center, receiving his first check.

Congratulations to all of the interns!

Today, the second meeting of the MIP Book Club took place. We discussed The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon.

The book was polarizing for the interns. The majority of them felt frustrated, angry and annoyed with the main character and his thoughts and actions, while others tended to sympathize with the way he thinks. We discussed Christopher's relationships with humans versus animals, his fondness for Sherlock Holmes, his parents' emotional issues and how he controls everything to simplify his world.

Reading this book was an eye-opening experience for many of the interns and provoked an honest and interesting discussion. See below for a photo of the interns at the club!

Last night, the MIPs and the T4s joined forces to take a CPR To-Go program. Three registered Emergency Medical Technicians provided the dummies and the training to the teens. They learned how to provide CPR on dummies and watched a video with directions on how to use an AED (Automated External Defibrillator).

Thank you to Mike, Dave and Bob for teaching the teens CPR! See below for photos of the teens in action: