I’m in Virginia right now, taking some time off from life as I mentally process and close the Urban Servant Corps chapter of life and transition onto the next. Finally I have things to progress towards for, hopefully, at least another year.

Earlier, I posted pictures of the new house. I am anxious to get back and help my housemates set up the place. Currently there are some kinks to be worked out with living arrangements and we should ask our landlord to lower the rent for everything we did for her house to fix it up, but she’s across the country from us and it’s our first time renting, so we’re apprehensive to make demands. I’m still so excited about the neighborhood and the fact that it’s just a few blocks walking distance from grocery stores, book stores, restaurants, Starbucks, two different lakes, a library and Michael’s house. This location is so superb that even frustrations about the house can’t outweigh it.

Last week, I finally landed a job. First of all, I’ve been looking since April and second, finding out about that before coming home has made my trip back home way less stressful than it probably would have been – I would have had to spend my time applying for jobs, looking into human services assistance options and having tough conversations with the parents. Now I can just relax! Although there has been an ongoing conversation about my start date. At least my preference and the job people’s preference for a start date are within one day of the other. Anyways so this job is a dream job and I am dumbfounded that this opportunity came along at the last minute, during which time I was looking into alternative money making options: i.e. being a nanny, waitressing, selling blood… heh. The job is with JVA Consulting: a marketing firm that works solely with local non-profits in Denver and other government and education agencies to consult them on their marketing strategies. JVA also offers a lot of trainings and workshops for their clients and the general public. I had three interviews with them (the first being over the phone which I had no idea was going to happen until it did) All of these interviews happened within a week and by the end of that week I found out that I got the job. I really like all the people who work there – they made me feel right at home. I’ve been intimidated of the job since I’ve never been employed with a corporation and these people are go-getters. I feel a bit out of practice with marketing in a major business, but I feel like they’ll be really intentional of making sure I’m comfortable and have proper training. After interviewing they actually decided to change around the job descriptions that they were hiring for so created a new position for me: the networking/training coordinator. I’ll be responsible for updating and expanding the social media presence of JVA (spending time everyday on facebook and twitter… sounds miserable, eh? Lol) and also for coordinating and boosting the attendance of the trainings that they provide. My dream career and calling has always been to do public relations for non-profits and here I landed in it! I’m still a bit speechless. It’ll also be my first salary job rather than an hourly wage. I hope I can prove myself to be as valuable as they think I’ll be! I’m taking all my textbooks on PR back out to CO so I can refresh my memory!

I’ll be driving back across the country to get my car out there. Michael will be with me and unlike last time when we took a week to get out there, we’ll be barreling through and making it out there in 3 days.

So, Urban Servant Corps and my time at The Gathering Place has come to an end. I’m actually pretty settled with this thought. Perhaps it will be more shocking when I get back out West and realize that I’m no longer living with 8 people. I think I’ll be happier, but that’s not to say that such an intense living experience wasn’t amazing for my growth. USC and The Gathering Place both really helped me become grounded in who I am. I really know myself now. My community provided 8 mirrors looking back at me – calling me out on stuff that I didn’t realize about myself and providing grace and a space safe to improve those things. I really learned how to get along with a diverse group of people. Before, when I could choose my friends, that wasn’t something I needed to learn but this past year I lived with these people. We were all strangers and were all totally different, but we had to learn how to get along. It was so interesting! The different dynamics ended up balancing each other out and while we drove each other crazy a lot of times, we learned how to make it all work and what sacrifices we all needed to make. I learned that keeping issues inside never work and also that relationships can’t work when you are just looking out for you. The community always had problems when those two things occurred. I also learned how to live simply on a very small budget and how to be creative when it comes to using resources. I hope to carry these things with me. I also spend the whole year without a TV and it was perfectly fine! I had so many people around me all the time that I always had human interaction and didn’t need a TV.

The Gathering Place also taught me what my strengths and weaknesses were in the workplace and also provided a safe place in which to grow. The staff was like family and were so supportive of each other. The clients as well were like family and ended up teaching me many things and often providing more encouragement and love than my co-workers did. I saw the face of homelessness everyday and it’s not so scary. These women became my friends and I actually hope to stay in touch with them this next year. I’ll really miss not knowing what happens to them and not being able to watch the Gathering Place kids grow up. These are really great people who know what matters most. I don’t think I could ever forget them. While it was often the source of stress, I’ll also miss the constant human interaction that I had at work. It’ll be strange to go from talking to people all day and night long to a quieter job and house. There’s one co-worker who became my work BFF who I used to go out to happy hour with about once per month and she and I will continue that, so I’ll be able to stay up to date on TGP happenings and the lives of some of our clients.

I’m going to continue to blog; however, I think I’ll be moving to blogspot or some other provider. Most of the blogs I read are on this site so it’ll make it easier to be in that network than the LJ one. I’ll be setting up probably in two weeks when I get back out to Denver so I’ll publicize what that URL will be.

Thanks for reading and being with me in this journey of growth and learning!

Current Location: Virginia
Current Mood: content

Just thought I should throw a quick update out there.

Next week will be my last week at The Gathering Place. It's been quite an experience. It's been really heartbreaking when I break the news to my clients and get responses like "I can't imagine this place without you" and "you can't leave! you just can't!" These clients have invited me into their lives and have told me thier troubling stories and now I just have to cut out. I really hope I can find a job that would allow me to volunteer there occassionally so that I can check in with my friends. Especially the kids there that have won my heart.

I am an official renter on Saturday! I get my keys, pay my first month's rent and can start moving in! I'll still live in the old Ogden house until USC is over, but I can start transitioning. I just love my new house!!

So yeah I'm going home to take the rest of August off starting on the 8th. I plan to veg out, pack, and then drive my car back across the country. I also might try to make it to Fairfax for a very quick visit :) We'll see!

No job yet. I had an interview with United Way yesterday and a possibility of some future interviews might be around the corner. I'm also going to this, will-be-super-awkward, networking birthday party... it's the birthday party of a daughter of my parents' friends. The only reason I'm going is because this couple insists that I go and meet some of their friends who might be able to hook me up with jobs. I plan to stay an hour at most :) I've also been thinking about babysitting for a ritzy family - I've seen ads around that are looking for full-time nannys and are paying 15-20 bucks an hour! So that's my backup plan if come September I still have nothing.

So I'll be done with community living a week from Friday. That might be a shock to the system. I think I'll overall be happy moving on but community really has done a lot for me. Massive reflection to come later on.

Crazy amount of things to do before flying home in a week and a half. Lots of closing rituals with USC and organizing my projects to pass on to coworkers. Starting now I am incredibly busy!

Current Mood: anxious

Still no job :(

But I did get housing!

I wish the job had come first, but the opportunity for a house arrived and I had to take the risk and grab it. I'm living there with two others. It's a 3 bed and 2 bathroom house with a backyard and a front porch. Each person gets their own floor in terms of where the bedrooms are located. It's adorable and feels like home. LOVE the neighborhood. It's 5 minutes or so from downtown but is out of the heart of the city so way safer. It's two blocks from it's own little neighborhood downtown that is just a strip with coffee shops, wine shops, restaurants, bars, exercise joints, salons, antique shops, etc. It's also only a few blocks from this huge lake. I really love it and can't wait to move in! I want get pictures taken and post them up for all to see! My first home!!!

Don't have furniture yet though... :/

So the place is great but it's a little more expensive that what I would have liked it to be. So I feel like now I have to center my job search around finding a job that will pay this rent. The rent without utilities is 475.00 so with utilities it will range anywhere from 510.00-575.00... depending on how smart and simple we are.

Oh well! This place will be worth it.

Current Mood: pensive

Yesterday marked the 8 year anniversary of my life with livejournal. I've been blogging on this site for 8 solid years. I've loved looking back on old posts from those 8 years. It gives me a lot of insight and, often times, humor. I hope to continue to read back on my old posts, many which are so personal.

However.

I think it might be time to end my livejournal blogging. Blogging is still important to me, but i think I might switch to a different site. Reasons? My old time LJ community is as existant as it was and I find that most of my friends blog on a different site now, so I might be joining them. LJ has been essential to my growth as an adolescent. Now I'd like to start the next phase of my life with something new. I'll let you LJ people know what my new blog is once I set it up.

I'll never forget you livejournal. Thank you for all you've provided me with ^_^

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In other news, this week is HUGE for me. It's my birthday week but that's not the huge part about it. I have my job interview for The Gathering Place on Thursday, the day of my birthday. So it's bound to be one of my most important birthdays. I pray that I perform well. I want this job so badly, I can clearly invision myself with it. It's stressful already working at the place that you're applying to because I'm around talk of hiring all day. I'll be seeing my competition come in for interviews and get tours around the building. I'm mostly nervous because I feel completely qualified for this job, but how I come across in my interview and in my everyday interactions at my workplace will determine if I get it or not. I think. So, if I don't get the job, it's because I didn't try hard enough or wasn't persistant enough. My qualifications are there, but so are the other applicants'. Eeeek! I hope I hope I hope.

Also, the day before is my all day "adventure"/ celebration for my year long volunteer service at The Gathering Place. This is when Justine (woman who is both in charge of volunteers and who is also the employer I’m interviewing for this job with) takes us full-time volunteers out for a day of fun as a thank-you. We’ll be going to Manitou Springs, CO for a day outdoors in a park with hiking and such and also for touring this cool cave there. Will be so awesome, but I’m also with Justine all day so since my interview with her is the day after I really have to be on my best behavior. Not that I wouldn’t be on good behavior, but if I can impress her and have an enjoyable time with her that day, then she’ll go into my interview thinking more positively about me!

Also been looking at houses to live in come August with two others. I find this process exciting :) We haven't picked anything yet but we have some prospects.

So work is picking up now and this post is scattered because I have to stop every few words. I’ll stop the post now.

Current Mood: busy

Hello readers:

Due to some spam-like friend requests infiltrating my journal, I'll be making this a "Friends-only" journal for at least a little while until these weird things die down. So, if you'd like to keep reading either add me as a friend on LJ and I'll reciprocate, or create a user name and do the same :)

Thanks!

There has been much that has been going on and I haven't really been in a writing mood but I'll make myself right now since I have some free time before I leave work.

1. I represented The Gathering Place at a table at a huge event called Project Homeless Connect. A bunch of us non-profits came out to Denver University to connect with some of the homeless population who were brought to this event by bus. For those who were there to get something accomplished, it was a really beneficial event. All in one place were housing resources, lawyers, insurance information, doctors, employers who were hiring, clothing, counseling... tons of resources. What I found amusing though was the DU students. Each of the DU volunteers were paired up with a homeless client to help them navigate through the fair. Very nice, but I was there early when they were prepping the volunteers on how to be prepared to work with this impoverished population. I was amused by how each of the students acted when they were with a client. They were nice and polite, but you could tell they were nervous. Heh, I would've been too before this year - DU is like Elon and I'm sure if Elon had hundreds of homeless people come onto campus, those students would be shocked and nervous too. This is good for them :)

2. Went and explored Golden, CO last weekend. It was a rainy day so Michael and I pretty much just went there to eat and take the brewery tour at Coors. I love Coors. They produce both Killians and Blue Moon! did not know that...

3. Michael's great uncle passed away last week which was very sad. And on the day that he was flying out to go home for the funeral and to be with family, we found that the car had been broken into. The window was smashed and any stuff of value that was in there was gone. Luckily, we didn't have that much of value in there. I'm thinking that the theif thought the car (and its owners) was fancier than it was. Probably saw how nice the car looked and assumed that there was some ritzy stuff in there. Well the whole event just kind of shattered some of my confidence. I mean this person just helped themselves to what is ours - took advantage and disrespected us. I was just really shooken up and disturbed. I'm ready to move out of the heart of the city. I miss the suburbs and places that have a neighborhood watch. This inner city life really isn't my thing. Also, this year has probably made me more prejudice against the impoverished population I'm living among than before. I don't believe that the intention of USC was to do that. I'm thinking they were hoping for the opposite.

4. I'm doing really well right now though. I applied for a job last week and while there's absolutely no certainty for me getting it, it just felt good to be updating my resume and sending out an application. I felt productive and positive. It was kind of a jump start to getting me focused on what to do next year. It's a dream job that I've applied for. So of course I'm really hoping to be accepted but I'd understand if it didn't happen - especially because I'm tied down to my current commitment for another three months and couldn't start work until then!

I'm just so ready to start stability in my life.

Current Mood: mischievous

In the Open Art Studio program today, a new girl, who was in Card Project the day before, came in to participate. She's young, only 20 and is such a cutie patootie. She's super sweet and I was surprised to find that she is staying in a sobriety house and comes here during the day as part of the requirement of the program. We stereotype people so easily. If I were to find out that she was in a rehabilitation program before meeting her, I would have been wary. Even though I've been working here for ten months or so, I still have a problem with stereotypes. I guess everyone does, and at least I don't really let that stop me from getting to know a client, but I would have regretted it if I judged her before getting to know her. I really do want to get to know her.

Also, I'm part of a support group that is centered around Bernadette (I've mentioned her before). We had a meeting today where we discuss how we can help her get social security, a different job, a legal seperation, etc. She's disabled by a lack of reading ability and by physical injuries. This contributes to a lack of understanding on her part too. So it can be very frusturating trying to work with her and get her to take proactive steps in her life. For instance, I'm helping her with papers to file for worker's comp but she doesn't know the full name or title of anyone who works with her and we need that information to put on her paperwork. Most people would know this information easily, but she's simple minded and can't hold onto a memory of a name. She also won't find that information out for me because she doesn't want to talk to them. She doesn't understand that she doesn't have a choice if she wants to file this paperwork. We also are trying to explain to her how to get social security (which is a maddening process) and she just isn't getting it. We can't get her to converse with us about these sort of steps because all she wants to talk about is how much she hates her job and how much her feet hurt. It's really a challenge. She can't comprehend how complicated the system is. She gets things in the mail that she throws away because she can't read. These things are often very important. This is also why she lost her social security beforehand - she just kept throwing the papers away. Sounds crazy to us but makes sense in her mind. It's been an interesting process but I'm having trouble being patient, as is everyone in her support group.

Anyways that's all I wanted to post!

Current Mood: weird

Yes, I think I am ready for something new. Most likely it's because every year of my life up until this one I have not done the same thing for more than 9 months (i.e. a school year). So we're getting to the time in the year where my mind wants to start getting ready for a change which would usually happen in one month. This year, however, my big change won't be coming until August. The light is at the end of the tunnel, but there is still some significant time to spend in my current situation.

I'm getting bored at work and irritated easily. I'm feeling unappreciated a bit... mainly by my boss. I dunno, she's just irking me lately. I'm having increasing difficulty staying motivated to give this job my all because I am still just a volunteer. I'm having the thought, "I'm not paid, why the hell should I do this bitch work?" I guess that's part of the challenge of this year. I need to talk to some Americorps alumni and see if they went through the same thing. I'm also mad because my boss is being so strict about my vacation time. I've got tons of sick time built up, so I wanted to use some of that time for a vacation and she has flat out said "no". I'm a volunteer!!! argh.

Yeah I'm ready for a new job. I used to want to do everything possible to get hired on at The Gathering Place, but now I'm feeling like it wouldn't be a bad thing to get into something different. It would certainly be an easier transition to stay at the same job but eh... I think there's something better out there. I'm sure I'll miss it though. And I'll miss living in community once I leave. It'll be strange not to have a large handful of people around me all the time; however, that aspect of this year got on my nerves a tad bit this weekend. But I'm better now.

We had another snowfall this past weekend. I am shocked at how late the snow season is out here. I was going to go to Golden and explore but that needed to be put off till next weekend or the one after. Still, it was really nice staying in and being cozy with the rain/snow outside yesterday. Today, it's beautiful out and it'll get up to 65 tomorrow. Yesterday it was 30. How can the weather change here so quickly?

Current Mood: irritated

Well it seems that everyone is starting to worry about life after USC. I'm starting to get in the mindset of not being able to be hired here at The Gathering Place after my volunteer time, especially since they're talking about layoffs - what are the chances that they are talking about hiring? Also, I'm thinking that after my last few months, maybe I'll be ready for something new anyways. I dunno, I'm comfortable here, love the staff and have enjoyed getting to know the ladies... but the work is tiring. I'm a social worker, more or less, and helping people out so much is wonderful but tiring. I find myself getting more easily irritated at clients. I also feel like this work might be making me more scared of the world... just by hearing the stories of the rough lives that our ladies have gone through. The sense of being in a bubble where you can't get hurt is leaving me and sometimes I wish I could get back in that bubble and be naive again.

Anyways, while I always think about what the end of my volunteer service will bring, I also remember that it is over 4 months away and a lot can happen during that time. Heck, last year within a month I made the discovery and decision of moving out to Denver to do volunteer work! Who knows where opportunities could show their face. So currently I'm kinda at a stage of letting the cards fall where they will... but I'm sure that will change soon and I'll get into another panic.

It's been "Spirit Week" here at work which most of the staff and some of the ladies have been participating in. It feels like high school again:
Monday - inside out day
Tuesday - crazy hair day
Wednesday - pajama day
Thursday - mix and match day
Friday - 70's day

I've realized that I've gained more weight in this year than I have in the last 8 years of my life! It's funny because I thought I'd be starved for food on my salary, but I guess it's not how much I'm eating but what. It's easier to make high carb foods for a community meal - so I think that it's all due to the carb intake. However, I feel like I'm eating better - I have vegetables with every meal. So it's strange to me to be gaining weight. My pants from college that I wore ALL the time officially do not fit me anymore. So I'm starting to be more aware of my food intake. I'm doing yoga once a week, but it would be great to incorporate some cardio in there... I just hate running so much, I don't have a bike, and I don't have access to a gym so yeah.

I've been missing my college apartment - the size of it, the fact that I had my own bathroom, how it was nicely decorated, how I had a TV in my room. So I'm really wanting to get into that living situation again after this year.

I miss my Girls in Motion girls - the preteen girls that I mentored throughout college. Being a part of that program was one of my favorite things that I've done in my life, honestly. I love that program and I would get so close to the girls. I still keep in touch with my last mentee, but not too regularly. I just love that age group and it makes me wonder if I should keep that in mind for a career, as in working with that age group.

This weekend all the girls in the community are having a girls' night! There will be tapas, cookie dough, wine, and disney movies. I'm really looking forward to it :)

Current Mood: contemplative

I've been having some major writer's block with this blog. So just to let people know, I'm good - way better than before. I went skiing this past weekend which was very healthy for me. It was just beautiful out! I also have been spending a lot of time with some of my housemates which has also made me feel great because it's feels like a family.

My health is better - this cold is finally on its way out though I'm not sure if I still have my full energy. I get to go to a training tomorrow on becoming certified as an application assistant for Medicaid and CHP+ so that I can start signing our families up for these insurance programs.

I had to call out a coworker in front of her because of something that she did that I was a witness too, and I've been avoiding her ever since in fear of some sort of wrath and vegence on her part.

I had a really fun time during our house "fun night" on Thursday playing sardines for two hours.

And that's how my scattered brain is working! Sorry for the unorganized post but like I said I'm having writer's block too much to write well and am feeling too lazy to write a detailed post. So that was the past week in a nutshell!

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Current Mood: anxious