Pumped.
That was exactly how I felt when I left the office today.
But the day didn't start off that way. The morning was really slow. Alex broke out in some horrible rash and also had some trouble downloading the training stuff for the day, so I leafed through some manuals and oriented myself with some of the organizations in Philly that we work with.
After lunch Alex went over the training stuff and I learned the NSP approach to working with clients. Our work is a lot like that of a social worker and our training materials and approach to client services were designed by social workers. It's pretty intense. But I love our approach because it's strength based( meaning we work with the clients to focus thier energy's on what they do well and teach them how to utilize it) and we work on building relationships with our clients which is pretty awesome. But of course that meant I went through a lot of training today on boundaries; how to make them and why they're important.
I'm horrible with boundaries but just looking through my training stuff, this job is going to absorb my life, energy and time and if I don't have those boundaries it can only equal an unhealthy relationship with the people I'm working with and myself.
But oh boundaries.
I also had to do my weekly report. That's cool because all the site coordinators and summer directors send one out so you can see what's going on with the other offices and get to know who other people are.

Okay so what got me pumped was today I was all the way downstairs when I realized I had left my tupperware in the fridge and they throw everything out on Friday and it's the only one I got. So I rushed back up there and ran into Kevin. Who's sort of our landlord. I don't know if I mentioned this but we are in one of the largest and most respected social services building in the city. Meaning there are a lot of organizations in the building doing things like us, namely "helping people help themselves." For example on one of the floors there is a charter school for young peope who have dropped out of school but want to go back and get their diploma. The program works with them and provides other support systems. They have also have AmeriCorps workers down there which is pretty cool. Anyway I ran into Kevin and started telling him more about the organization and it's great because there are so many opportunities in this relationship. Like he's been trying to figure out how to get Temple volunteers in the building (the students we work with) and we're looking for new members of our board and he might have some connections. Anyway me Alex and Shawn are going to meet with him on Monday so he can let us know who else is in the building. So Pumped.

In other good news some other things in my life are finally working out. The girl who was going to sublease my apartment before she fell off the place of the earth finally got back to me. Sadly her mother had died and she's in Africa and she had sent the rent but sent it to the wrong address so it came back to her. My landlord has been on my case and I really didn't know what to do so I'm happy that will finally resolve itself, somewhat.

Tomorrow is the fourth. Philly has been celebrating since last Saturday but tomorrow there's going to be all sorts of stuff like all you can eat ice cream , a parade, free John Legend concert and ofcourse fireworks. I'm excited.
Yesterday night I got really homesick. It wasn't abrupt but yesterday as I finished unpacking my box I just got a little sad. But I think I know what it is. I mean I go to work, come home, run errands, cook/eat dinner and then crash. Then I wake up and do it again. I gotta get out more and really enjoy and love this city. So today after work I came to the Green Line Cafe which is just a couple streets over from me. It's nice to be out of the apartment. I think next weekend I'll go to the Jersey Shore and visit Jess.

OKay, so ofcourse I'll keep you updated but tata for now.

Oh wait I almost forgot. So I might have to go on food stamps so I was doing some research and I found this article about a challnege to Philadelphia residents to live as if they're on food stamps to bring awareness of the challenges facing families on food stamps right now, might be interesting. Check it out.
http://www.philadelphiaweekly.com/view.php?id=12595

Now bye.

Song: Green by Sister Hazel

Quote: From what we get, we can make a living; what we give however makes a life.Arthur Ashe

walking on sunshine

I enjoyed today.
I try to enjoy everyday but somedays are just easier than others.
I'll start with the most recent event.
I finally got one of my boxes. My mom is shipping them up periodically. I was so excited when I walked in and saw it sitting there in the entranceway. I jumped up and down. It's all my pots and pans and kitchen stuff so I can cook things to eat. And my comforter and some random things my mom threw in there. Yet, it was so much more than just getting some stuff. It was like a piece of me was coming back. It was like seeing an old friend. All of this familiar stuff and it just made me feel like I was home again, and it was the best feeling I felt in a long time. It was just the familiar. I mean I enjoy my studio but there is this feeling of home that is missing and it's good to have that here.

Event two. Today when I was coming home I realized I wanted mustard. Here's the deal I live in the vicinity of four food marts. One is on 40th and Walnut right on the edge of Penn's campus. The fresh grocer. It's like a step down from Whole Food meaning it's really nice, health food, other food, organic, and somewhat high prices.
Then there is shop and bag which is across the street from me on 44th and Walnut. It's like three steps below Winn Dixie, which means small selection, interesting quality of food, but fairly ok.
There is also the produce truck. No irony, that's exactly what it is. It's fresh amazing produce at really low prices. I got three grapefruits and a bag of carrots for two dollars. You just can't beat that.
And finally, there is the once mysterious Aldi on 46th and Market. It's right at the place where I get off the subway so I decided to stop there. By golly, it was like a mecca of fakebrand and frozen and low priced junk food. You know how instead of cheerios there's roundy honey o's or instead of hellman's mayo there's like spellman's mayo. It was all of that at ridicously low prices. I got mustard three frozen burritoes and a bag of frozen french fries for three dollars.
At first I was really happy about the new found cheap food options. But then I began to wonder.
Even though it was really cheap and just plain awesome, the stuff in there was poor quality and high sugar and low nutritional value. Most of the people in there were large minority families. I instanlty began to wonder what the health statistics in the community were like obesity rates, pregnancy issues, major illness and life expectancy. I mean I live at the poverty level now, these options are great for me. It just isn't as accesible to godown to fresh grocer and get organic health food. 30 cent frozen burritos sound great tome.
I mean is there a way to make healthy, quick food accesible. But I mean if you have all of these other issues going on in your life and you've never really placed a value on the nutritional content of your food?
And I need to be aware, that what I value are not the norm and my fellow community members have the same convictions such as loving their family and taking care of their needs but just go about in different ways.
But as a country I feel we stress how important it is too eat healthy but are we making it accesible for everyone? And if given the choice would people even choose anything than what they know?
I wonder.

Today was a more productive and fulfilling day at work. I had my first official conference call with my boss, Delese, and Alex and Shawn. We talked about the new office space and some logistical stuff. NSP is a really great organization, and I'm beginning to feel really committed to it. Our meeting went well and then we worked on getting the computers set up and I got my new e-mail and then it was the day. Tomorrow we're doing outreach and a tour of the community.

Now to cook dinner.

I don't really know how to begin this post.
I started off with, "Yesterday was my first day. I liked it. I'm really excited.I'm a walrus."
I can hear my 11th grade English teacher Mrs. Koszoru blasting my now about my use of simple sentences.
Yesterday was a great day though. I did start my job and I can tell I will thoroughly enjoy it. I felt so grown up. Waking up yesterday morning was a breeze. Knowing that I was waking up to go to this job which I was so excited to start rather than some class on the theory of human identity, you can't buy that feeling.
Yesterdy consisted mainly of moving into our new office space. I learned more about this organization and my responsibilities by leafing through some old papers and reading ourNational impact reports.
I love the people I work with because we're all so different and bring such different perspectives to the table. It will be exciting troubleshooting. Our office has many challenges, including recruiting volunteers and "difficult" clients. Ive already heard from Alex (former site coordinator) and Shawn (my-co) that I will learn so much. In fact, Shawn noted that he learned more here than in college. Well we will see.
So I'm in that training phase, taking it all in. I'll learn about community resources in North Philly, how to work with our clients, Temple and other universitites in the area, National NSP stuff. It's all good.
I also love this independence thing of getting to work on my own and living on my own, and sorta kinda being financially independent. Yesterday I came home and I went to the grocery store and CVS to run some errands. Errands. Feel like I'm playing dress up or something.
Anywho I have to get ready for work and pack a lunch and then be off. Farewell for now.

Song: 9-5 by Dolly Parton

Quote: Ok don't forget to pick up some mace. Mom.

redifining priorities

Today my hair straightner broke.
It literally snapped in half.
To some this may seem like a minor detail of life. To others who have seen my natural hair texture, this signals a small emergency, or does it?
These days things like that do little to rattle me. I'm usually good at problem solving and so I can think my way out of it.
But this morning when I went to go pull my straightner out of my suitcase only to find it was now in two pieces ,I was distressed.
I didn't think the burnout of my new job and moving would really settle in until a few weeks but here I am, frantically trying to piece together my hair straightner feeling down and ashamed.
Ashamed that this would cause me to go into such panic mode. But to be fair to myself, I know that in many ways this is merely the straw that broke the camles back. A mere disruption that underscores the many disruptions, adjustments and annoyances that have occured this last week.
Fortunately, I was preparing to go to church and I was confident that a few hours focused on something greater than myself would put things back into perspective and bring me back to my center of peace. It did, momentarily.
But when I get home there it was, still broken. I decided to look at this from a bigger picture and take this time where my emotions were raw and available to understand how this experience was beginning to shape me and redifine my priorities.
Two months ago, this wouldn't have been much of a big deal. I would've just gotten a new straightner. It was that important and money was of little concern. But now, I live in a world where options like that are just not readily available. There's no way I can fathom spending $50 or even $25 on a straightner.
Last week I remember getting off the subway and entering the gallery (the lone mall here). The first thing I saw was a cinnabon and thought "I have to have one." But at that point I was sleeping on the floor and had a cucumber in my refrigerator. I had to really think about the long term benefits of spending money on that cinnabon or using it for something else.
For some this may seem like silly shallow moment in some spoiled girls life, but this new way of looking at life and money and what is important is different and foreign.
In a lot of ways, the things I spent my money on, the things I had were apart of my identity. Not having that security puts me in a very interesting place.
I know there are people who are in much more dire situations, it's moments like these where I pray for them and ask God to give them grace. It's more uplifting than merely using their misfortune to make me feel thankful for what I do have.
I also realize that I will be working with people in situations much more complicated and urgent everyday, and this gives me an opportunity to have greater empathy for them as well as an understanding of what is really needed in someone's life when there at that point.
Still I feel something shifting in everything I am.
It's times like these where I want to go back. Back to where it was safer and easier and where I didn't have to work as hard, and I had very little cares. But then I realize that 'back' doesn't really exist. There has never been a time, at least in my life, devoid of some unstablizing moment. In fact it was all those hectic, unstable moments that I believe have prepared me for this moment. Prepared me for faith and, as the Lord says in 2 Corinthians 12 ,"my grace is sufficient for you."
So the straightener, well I'll have to get creative or go wavy/frizy/blah. I'm becoming who I've always been, like something is being pulled out of me that has been stuck and tainted and broken yet is now being stripped and reborn.

Song: Stand by Rascal Flatts
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OJXihzjGX9E&feature=related

Quote: Life will give you whatever experience is most helpful for the evolution of your consciousness. How do you know this is the experience you need? Because this is the experience you are having at this moment. Eckhart Tolle

Don't Stop This Train

There are moments when I realize "I'm so scared of getting older, I'm only good at being young" to take from a famous John Mayer song.

When I arrived in Philadelphia and got off the plane I realized that I don't have a return ticket, this is it, this is home. And still there are moments everyday when the finality of this, the reality of this hits me. Some of those moments have been good and fun, others have made me stop and reflect. There are a lot of times when I feel so small compared to the responsibility given to me in this job. Yet there are many more times when I feel completely exhilarated. Like yesterday, Shawn, my co-site coordinator next year and the current site coordinator for the West Philly office, sent me the monthly report from May along with some updates on what the office has been doing. I was reading through those nine pages like it was the next great american novel. And every part of it, the statisctics on client services, the analysis of client to volunteer meetings, the numbers, everything made me so excited to work with this organization.It made me brain go off in a million different directions of how to work with the clients, where to find board members, how to provide apprproriate leadership development for our volunteers.

I don't want to stop this train, who knows what's at the next station. I don't, but I want to find out.

THIS living-on-my-own-psuedo-adult-moment made me really excited. So I have this magnet I bought a while ago just because it was cute but of course I had no where to put it. But the other day I was at the refrigerator and I was like "my magnet, I can put it own the door." I have my very own refrigerator and I can put my very own magnets and notes on it. I went to rush to go find it and I could barely contain myself as I unwrapped it and put it on the door. My very own magnet on my very own refrigerator ahh.

Song: Don't Stop this Train by John Mayer

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5BTzNX5OMN4

Quote: Behind all this, some great happiness is hiding. Yehuda Amichai

What is the what?

Okay, so this is a shallow post that has nothing to do with service or the city or anything remotely profound. But it's an interesting snapshot of what's going on in my day to day life. I have been holding a small scale investigation and I think I have a rodent. That's fairly common, everyone I've talked to that lives here in Philly has had run ins with mice and the like.

My suspicions started when I found the back of my bread looked like it had teeth marks in it and a chunck of bread was missing in the back. I wasn't sure exactly what to think since there could've been other explanations like maybe it was close to the stove and melted a little.

But then yesterday when I came home I decided to move the bananas back into the refrigrator because I really couldn't stand the smell of bananas in here everyday. Thing was one of the bananas not only had the skin missing of one side it also had bite marks. And they weren't small.

Now I really began to wonder because things had been happening that I really hadn't pieced together like weird sounds in the night and things falling off my kitchen counter for no apparent reason.

So I decided to leave a goldfish cracker on the counter to see if there was anything going bump in the night. This morning, it was gone. Not one crumb left.

Now I'm quite at a lost. When I was a kid we had a problem with mice and we set mouse traps. I thought we were setting the traps to catch the mouse and keep them as pets or release them back to the wild. Imagine my horror when I went into the laundry room and found a little mouse with it's head crushed between the mouse trap. I don't think I've ever fully recovered. Needless to say I can't bear the thought of killing whatever it is although by the looks of those bite marks, it's pretty big.

I'll keep you posted.

Looking Inside

But why?
Why am I here? Why this? Why now? But why?
Why have I always done community service?
I feel like I’ve answered this question numerous times in essays and for applications. I’m sure each time I’ve come up with some poignant and satisfying answers but I don’t think I actually know why I dedicate so much of my time to community service. I can say a lot of things, uncover a lot of intentions but deep down inside I don’t know why I do it, I just do it.
In Robert Coles book, he interviews a rabbi who said this:
“That is the big risk – the big egos, the self-satisfaction. I warn myself about all the dangers right in front of the kids, and they listen, get the message – sometimes! I try to make it clear that we’re Jews, struggling to live the way our great teachers, our great rabbis, told us we should live, so if we go to help others, how we go matters as much as (maybe more than) what we bring. If we can learn that lesson and take it to heart, we’re at least on the right track.”
So I wonder about my real motivations, because they’re must be some. Just because I cannot clearly define them does not mean they are not clearly there. They will reveal themselves in my actions and words and will affect who I work with and the work I do. So the ‘but why’ question is one that desperately needs to be answered.
In my race, law class last semester I learned a lot about the history of racism in our country and how it permeates so much of our legal, economic and social systems. Not to mention how it is engrained into our way of being and how we interact with others who appear different from us. The class sharpened my critical consciousness, my ability to perceive the injustices in this world. It lit a fire in me, one that made me excited about my new job. I saw it as an opportunity to ‘right the wrongs’ in our society and fight the system from the bottom up, by empowering and uniting people.
But why me?
Why do I have a greater ability to right the wrongs of society in comparison to the people that live in this city and endure its contradictions and ‘injustices’ everyday?
I don’t know is an inappropriate and irresponsible answer because if I don’t know then I should just quit now and start preparing applications for grad school.
My answer than would be, the fist is mightier than the finger. Meaning that more together are more powerful than one. Let’s face it, the world isn’t ‘fair.’ Perfectly willing and capable people are ignored, pushed down and arbitrarily disadvantaged every day. Their one voice is muffled and silenced by systems of injustice and prejudice that not only thrive in our society today but built our country. If I have a voice and I am willing to speak on someone else’s behalf, I must speak. If I have been privileged and can return what I have been given, then I must do that.
There’s no need to get angry at the system, fight the man, help the little people, I just must do what I can.
My service is not only to the Philadelphia community and myself but to the notion of freedom in this country, the belief in equality and the desire in all of us to live fully in this world.

Song: Everyday by Toby Lightman
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gZjIlzgI1-A

Quote: What makes us human is not our mind but our heart, not our ability to think but our ability to love. Henri Nouwen