5/31/10

Happy Memorial Day!

I didn't go to any parade or anything today. In fact, this post will be quite short because I really didn't do anything today. Haha.
I slept until 1:30ish--which was amazing because I won't be able to do that until next sunday....blahhhhh.
Me, the staff member i'm staying with and his neighbor had a tiny "cook out" if you will call it that. Very low-key. The rest of the night was just relaxing.

It was a HORRIBLE thunderstorm today. I was laying in bed, watching a TV show on my laptop and all of a sudden I saw brightest flash of lightening with the loudest crash of thunder I've ever experienced in my life. I literally jumped high in my bed and had that deer in the headlights look. I really thought I was going to have a heart attack. My heart was racing so much. I started to shake, i was so frightened by it!!! haha. don't laugh! it was so scary!!!

Tomorrow I get back to PST (training). I'm so excited for this week! Thursday is the Ropes Course, Friday is the Potluck, and Saturday is the Arts Festival and "Paddle at the Point". The "point" is the area where all 3 rivers that run through pittsburgh area meet up and form a "point", of course. I'm learning so much about Pittsburgh, haha.

Well, until tomorrow, good night!

5/29 - 5/30/10

Sorry I forgot to write yesterday.
Yesterday was fun though. We started out at 9am in wilkinsburg. I was assigned to a site where this guy had 3 or 4 car attached garage. He basically had a ton of stuff in it but wanted to totally clear it out to build a greenhouse to make herbs for local restaurants. No joke--the complete garage was probably half way up full of masonry, wood, nails, shingles, etc. It tooks us all of 10am-3pm to clean it out. But we did it...and i was soooo incredibly surprised that we cleared it all out. I mean...there was NOTHING left...we were literally sweeping the dust/dirty on the floor when we were done. It was such a nice feeling of giving back. We filled up 4 or 5 dumpers!!!!!!

Today was nice. Me and some other out of staters went to Primanti Brothers. I've talked about them before...they are these HUGE sandwiches that all come with cole slaw and fries. It was so delicious!!!!! Then we went to the Cathedral of Learning building to take a tour. They have dozens of these "nationality rooms" where they are actual classrooms U of Pitt uses but everything from the floor, the doorway, the chairs, the ceiling, and walls are all representations of the nationality. There are Armenians, Chinese, Japanese, Scottish, etc. The only thing is, we got there too late. I might go on monday, but not sure. it would be a really cool thing to do. I highly recommend it! :)
The rest of the night, I just relaxed :) It's nice to have a day off. Tomorrow is also a day off! I'm so excited for the Ropes Course on thursday! I'm also excited for the potluck on friday and Moving into my new site with The Pittsburgh Project!!!!

5/28/10

Today was so long. 8am-6pm of Red Cross First Aid/CPR/AED training.

I swear we were in that room for days... It was not the most exciting training I've gone through..

But, we got certified in...

Adult, Children and Infant CPR,

AED use,

And a plethora of First Aid skills.

Pittsburgh started out as a great beautiful day today, weather wise. Then the minute we are done with training....it rains....then downpours.... then thunderstorms. looking at the sunny skies, I was sure this would move by quick. It just got worse...and worse. So I walked 4 blocks to the bank to find out there is no ATM there, walk 2 blocks back to the main street, another block in the rain to the Port Authority store (to buy bus passes)....and they also are closed. Another 4 more blocks in the pouring rain to my bus stop to find I missed my bus by about 20 seconds. ha. great. It wasn't too bad...the next one came in about 12 minutes.

Tomorrow is our first community project as a whole KEYS AmeriCorps team. It is gardening, planting, artwork, and other activities to improve and clean up a neighborhood pretty close by. I'm pretty excited to work with everyone on this. 9am-3. Should be fun!

Can I get a whoot whoot for sunday and monday off???? (whoot whoot)

:)

As always...I miss my family, friends, and of course, the 'zoo <3

5/27/10

GREAT DAY!!!!!

Today I found out what site i'm being placed at!!! The Pittsburgh Project! It was my 4th choice, but I am very happy. I love the supervisor i will be working for, she is the sweetest lady ever AND she was born and raised in Holland....like yours truly :)

The best part?....FREE HOUSING and MEALS!!! Looks like i'm going to be making a little more money than I thought this summer ;)

I will be working with children academically to get them ready for higher education and just to improve their skills right now. I will also be overseeing their garden projects in which they grow, harvest, and then sell the crops themselves...this teaches them responsibility and ownership.

We also have some urban gardens in the elderly homes that we will harvest. It's such a great program. And i can't wait to be a part of it, meet the kids, and be able to live on site! :)

I'm so excited!!!!!!

Tomorrow is a long long day at the Red Cross getting CPR/First Aid certified from 8am-6pm.

Wonderful. haha.

5/26/10

Hey! So it makes me smile that i have 6 "followers"! haha.

anyway, TODAY WAS CRAZY!!! haha.

the whole day was dedicated to interviewing the different host sites to which we can be placed at for our service. I was in the first group (of 3). There were 19 different sites, and we had 7 minutes at each site. it was basically like a speed-dating type of thing. Time went by soooo fast. I can tell some of the sites were pretty impressed with me :) At age 20, I think i have done a lot with volunteering with a bunch of organizations, working while in school, getting a 4.0...

Before i knew it, the 2 hours was up and i did 19 interviews in a little over 2 hours.

the bad part was....after that got done at about 11:20ish, I had the rest of the day to do practically nothing. Talk and meet new people, play games, and whatever we think of. haha. had to do that until 4:00..ugh what a long day. made me sooo tired.

I think i did pretty well though!!! I heard that a lot of sites liked me and thought I was impressive, So i feel good about this!!!!

Tomorrow is all about conflict resolution...that should be fun.. :S

As always.....I miss everyone. Every day, at some point I miss everyone and everything back home. :)

Leave some love ;)

5/25/10

Second day of PST!

It was a long day, again. We learned a lot of stuff including interviewing skills, positive reward punishment with children, Positive framing, how to talk about AmeriCorps to others, and how to manage and record our time log-in/out. Its more complicated than you think.

Anyway, I'm getting more excited about meeting my kids! Tomorrow is the "meet and greet". Basically....its 9am-4pm with interviewing with the different "host sites" The host sites are where we will be placed. It could be the county Jail, the YMCA, a park, school, etc.

It was another great day in pittsburgh, weather-wise.

I love how I can eat my lunch outside on a picnic table stones throw from the river, right in the middle of the city! Love it!

But on the other hand...i miss you all. Yeah..all of you :(

Tomorrow I am going to see an apartment. Supposably it is an apartment on top of an indian place? Who knows, we'll see tomorrow.

5/24/10

What. A. Long. Day.

Ahh, it started with waking up at 7am. Left at 8 am to catch my first bus ride in Pittsburgh. I made a friend on the bus! People are friendly here!

The 1st day of PST (Pre-service Training) was not too much fun. Lot of paperwork and dry stuff like what to expect, what we'll be doing, etc.

I'm interested to see where i will be placed!

After the first day, I walked downtown Pitt to my bus stop and i swear, people are so friendly!!!

There was this lady I asked downtown where the nearest PNC bank was. She said "walk this way with me, im kind of going that direction" and we talked about why I'm here and all, and then told me what street to turn on and that its on the top of the hill.

Then I was trying to find my bus stop to go back home and i asked this lady if this was the right one and she explained that the bus comes pretty frequently and started a nice conversation with me. And all 3 ladies today told me "Welcome to Pittsburgh" and "good luck!" It is just a little surprising to me in a small, big city.

Then of course, I got off on the wrong bus stop......stood there for a bit.....was very confused, and didn't recognize the area....RAN back to the bus and told the driver Its my first time riding the bus and I just got off the wrong stop (because you have to pay when you get off). He was nice and let me back on...to get off on the RIGHT stop which was just the very next one. haha

i'll get the hang of it sometime.

5/23/10

Well today wasn't too much. Ended up looking at this place I've been emailing about for quite some time but I just didn't really like it. I guess everything always looks better in pictures. The place was decent for the price in the neighborhood but....just didn't feel comfortable living there. I have yet some other places in line. One is trying to get the landlord to lower the price, and i think they may budge because they seem desperate to get the place rented.

After that I checked out the rest of the neighborhood because its such a nice looking area. Went down to the town center and got some Italian Ice/Gelato with frozen custard on top. It was so good. Then I went to this place called the Waterfront. Basically this huge shopping center/outlet right on the river. It was a pretty cool place. I've been learning quite a bit about this city. Then I checked out the Shadyside Arts & Crafts Festival. Such a cool event. So many amazing/original pieces. Shadyside is FILLED with amazingly ENORMOUS mansions. Those of you from holland---the whole neighborhood is filled with houses like on South Shore Drive.

Anyway, after checking that out, i basically just came home and chilled out.

tomorrow is my big day :) My first day of Training. I won't meet my kids just yet--its after all the training, of course. Though tomorrow is just paperwork stuff, I'm still a little excited. The building is in a pretty neat spot, its right on the River, so eating outside for lunch should be splendid :)

Well, i have to get up at 7:15 to catch the bus and all, so thats all for now.

5/22/10

Today was a good day!

I met up with 2 other fellow KEYS members today and we took a nice walking tour of the Downtown area. We went to the Cathedral of Learning building. It is part of the University of Pittsburgh's campus. It is the tallest education building in the country and 2nd tallest in the world! It was sooo amazing inside. Just beautiful.

A little later on we decided to go out for some grub. We went to an amazing place called the Primanti Brothers Sandwiches. It was a cajun chicken breast with a HUGE serving of slaw and fries on it between soft thick slices of french bread. I had no idea how to eat it!

After that, we came back and me, one of the KEYS staff member, one of our boss, and 2 other KEYS members met up for social time, snacks, and Trivial Pursuit Pop Culture. Of course I did not win, haha. But I sure enjoyed everyones company! Tomorrow I am looking at a place to rent. Suppose to thunderstorm here tomorrow :)

Speaking of, tomorrow is my last day of freedom before the kids get the best of me. haha.

Good night!

5/21/10

So today was definitely hard to say goodbye to my mom and brother :( At the airport my brother gave me such a precious gift. it was a photo album titled "Heres to your new chapter in your life" with current and past photos. thank you so much brother, I love it!!!!

So Airport Drama:

First my plane was delayed 20 minutes...not bad.

then, they rushed us on the plane like crazy because we only have a really really short window of time...I swear we broke a record on that timing.

We get to the runway and they say we missed it....

So 30 minutes goes by and they say we have to head back to the gate.

Right before we get off they say hold on we might be able to go back and take off.

15 minutes later they tell us we all have to get off the plane.

Then they say in 30 minutes we'll have an update

45 minutes later they say it will be delayed another 2 hours.....

An hour goes by and they say hurry we can make it if we go now!

I'm thinking "now.....how well did this go LAST time you said that?"

Regardless, we get on the plane and head toward the runway. We wait....and it starts raining.

Of course, he says in 30 minutes he'll have an update.

40 minutes and he says we are 7th in line and have to be spaced 30 miles apart from other planes bc of weather.

another 40 minutes go by and he says we are 9th in line........how we got cut by 2 other airplanes i don't know.

anyway, we finally get to Atlanta at 8:02.

Now, my connection flight to Pitt leaves at 8:11 and so i go to the gate it says on my boarding pass and of course.....its not the right one bc of the delays. so I had 7 minutes to get to the right gate with 1 minute to spare...... and this airport is bigger than O'hare!

then we went to dinner (me, the staff member who picked me up, and another Intern) to an amazing restaurant downtown where the dining room continues into the basement. it was so cool!!!!

then we took a quick pittsburgh tour and went to Mount Washington where theres just an UNBELIEVABLE view of pittsburgh....it was just breathtaking. I've never seen anything so picturesque!!!!

On a serious not....I miss everyone terribly. My mom, brother, friends, work people, phill...I miss all you so much. But hopefully i'll see you in a couple months or if you come visit me in this awesome city :)

5/20/10

First of all--Happy 50th Birthday to my mom.

Today isn't easier at all. STILL no place to call home in Pittsburgh. Sure, I have a couple of leads, but I've had this before, so we'll see how this goes. One of my potential options is this family with two teenagers (15 and 16). Not sure about it, but it may have to do.

Tomorrow the plan is to get picked up by a staff member of A.C. and find a place to stay with a staff member for a little while. I really want to find a place quick because I really don't want to be a burden on any staff member by staying there.

Tomorrow is the big day. Hope everything goes well. Wish me good luck everyone :)

5/19/10

It is technically May 20th, but it's 2:30 am. I'm going to count it as the 19th. Because this is my blog, and I can :)

So, I promised many many people i would keep in touch with my...."adventure" to pittsburgh. I thought this might be a good way to do so.

Today was hard... Saying goodbye to people at work was so difficult. I cried when I left in my car. Got myself back together and went home to finish packing.

The wonderful Williams family took me out to dinner (last dinner in kzoo :( ) at CiCis. After some interesting conversations, i went home, packed my car up, and said goodbye to Megan. Definitely started to tear up when driving.

I came home and started to talk to my mom about things and she was a little tipsy. I don't blame her, its her birthday tomorrow and she had a little fun w/ her friends.

Just wasn't feeling the best today. So emotional. I don't have a definite place to stay in Pitt right now. I have two offers but I just don't feel comfortable with either one. We'll see what happens with that. I'm feeling nervous, scared, frustrated, sad, anxious, and a little curious to see what happens...not really feeling happy or excited at all.

Tomorrow we (me and phill) are putting things in storage and it is my mom's birthday. tomorrow is also my last real day here. Friday morning I leave :(

Hooray to my first blog :)