Things That Make You Go Hmmm...

For our after school program, we are starting a new meal program called the Childrens Lunch Box. It's a really amazing program that brings full meals to kid's programs all over the city. For many of our kids, this may be the most substantial meal they get all day, so it's really quite a blessing. Yesterday, two women showed up with about 8 kids in tow, looking for the free meals for kids. Apparently, our little after school program ended up in some newsletter advertising for free meals for kids throughout the summer. At first I was a bit overwhelmed at the 10 extra strangers at our doorstep, but after hearing that these women had been driving around all afternoon looking for a place that would help feed their kids, I took a step back to really think about what that meant. I took for granted that I wouldn't have to worry about whether or not I would have dinner when I came home. Granted, it might have involved brussel sprouts or something else I didn't enjoy, but I always knew there would be dinner on the table. I think we tend to think of hunger as this far off problem, but parents in our own communities can't feed their kids. Not every kid is fortunate enough to have dinner waiting when they get home. Next time we are standing in front of the fridge, taking our pick of the overwhelming mass of food inside, we need to remember that.

Mr. Mojo Risin'

So last Monday I woke up to a call offering me a position with Semester at Sea. This morning, I woke up to a call offering me a Team Leader position with the National Civilian Community Corps as a Team Leader for fall 2010. If this job mojo keeps rolling, I may be president next week. Just saying. :)

For those of you not familiar with NCCC, it's an AmeriCorps program for 18-24 year olds who are "stationed" at one of 5 campuses throughout the United States: Vicksburg, MS, Vinton, IA, Denver, CO, Perry Point, MD, and Sacramento, CA (where I'll be). Along with their Team Leader (me!) and their team of 8-12 people, they work on 6-8 week long service projects called spikes. They complete 4 spikes within their region of the country during their 10 month commitment. I'll be serving in the Pacific Region, serving Alaska, California, Hawaii, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Oregon, Utah, Washington, Wyoming, and the Pacific Territories. I'll move to Sacramento on September 1, do a month of training, meet my team for another month or so of training, and then hit the road to get my service on! For more information about NCCC, click here.

It's a combination of just about every job I've ever had: Collegiate Leadership Consultant for Gamma Phi Beta, working in student affairs with college students, and AmeriCorps. It's going to be pretty exciting, not gonna lie.

And double bonus to have a job lined up for when I get back from Semester at Sea!

Dear Persistence, Thank you for paying off. Love, Elizabeth

Last summer I applied for Semester at Sea for what must be the 45th time. I've applied for probably for 5 positions per semester for 3 voyages a year. Times about 5 years that's about 45 times. I've never been that committed to applying to anything in my life. Last July, I'm driving to Houston with my friend Heather in one heck of a rain storm when I get a phone call from an area code I didn't recognize. Instead of screening as I usually do, something made me answer the call. It was the Dean of Students from the Semester at Sea Summer 2010 voyage calling to offer me an interview. I was dumbfounded. Out of all those applications I'd submitted, this was the first time I'd ever even gotten a response! I had a phone interview in July. I wasn't offered a position, but the Dean did ask if I would mind being on the alternate list. Figuring it didn't hurt to keep my name on the list, I said okay. And that was the end of it. I accepted a position in Alaska, moved to the Last Frontier, and the rest you already know. Until about two weeks ago...

I received an e-mail from the Dean of Students asking if I was still interested in being considered as an alternate for the summer. And my answer, of course, was yes. So I had secretly been praying that someone broke their leg or got pregnant, just so I might have a shot at an opportunity I'd wanted for so long. Then on Monday I get a phone call around 7:30am Alaska time. My initial reaction was, "WTF? I'm still sleeping." But when I listened to the voicemail, I couldn't believe it. Unable to go back to sleep, I returned the phone call ASAP. I was offered a staff position on the summer 2010 Semester at Sea voyage!!

I went through a roller coaster of emotions and a mile long list of "What ifs?" on Monday. All along I had said that this was the opportunity I'd drop everything for, but when it came down to it the thought of actually doing so was a little intimidating. A friend here in Alaska asked if I was going to take the position. I told him, "If you were offered this opportunity and you didn't take it, I'd punch you." So I knew that was my answer. I called back to officially accept the offer on Tuesday morning. Tuesday night, the realization that I'd been offered my dream job hit me like a ton of bricks. It's not an emotion one experiences every day. It's a joyous, amazing, terrifying, and overwhelming experience all at the same time. A whole new set of questions came about. "If I get my dream job, then what's next?" After having a minor freak out about having to put my life on hold in a matter of weeks for this opportunity, the excitement returned. This is absolutely going to be the opportunity of a lifetime. Awesome.

So after going through all of the ups and downs I went through in Alaska, finally getting to the point where I was content to stay and finish my AmeriCorps term, I'll be leaving Anchorage at the end of May in order to set sail with Semester at Sea on June 10.

I leave from Fort Lauderdale, Florida and between June 10 and August 21, I'll visit Barcelona, Spain; Citavecchia, Italy; Naples, Italy; Piraeus, Greece; Dubrovnik, Croatia; Istanbul, Turkey; Casablanca, Morocco; and Alexandria, Egypt. The itinerary for the summer 2010 voyage of Semester at Sea can be found here. So pretty much it's going to be the best thing ever. I guess persistence really does pay off. :)

Team AmeriCorps

You know what makes living in Alaska tolerable and dare I say enjoyable? Awesome people like this. They make me pretty grateful I didn't get on that plane back in October.

Alright universe, start unfolding...

So I got some news today... I heard back from Teach for America and was not offered a position for the 2010 Corps. To be perfectly honest, I was a little surprised. I feel like I'm a pretty strong candidate for the program. My undergraduate record is pretty bomb. I went to a "Ivy League" school for graduate school. I'm doing volunteer work now with kids.

But after my initial disappointment set in, I started to question. What was it about me that didn't fit with what they're looking for? Does the fact that I'm already working in education give me a strike? I've heard they don't really want people who have wanted to be a teacher since they were little. That's not who they're looking for. I feel like everyone I know who is doing this program (even my interviewer!) wants to go to business school or law school. Maybe the fact that I'm already working in an educational setting counted against me. Maybe I should have told them that I applied to law school a couple years ago. Maybe that would have helped.

Or maybe it was the fact that my top preference was New York City. While they do have the largest Corps in New York, I also applied about 6 months after the first go round of applicants. So in theory, New York could have been "full." Teach for America was making a huge push for their high needs regions, the Mississippi Delta being one of them. At our interview they said they were going to open up the region selection again but only if you preferenced the Mississippi Delta as your top choice. I thought about it at the time, but then I walk outside and get blinded by the lights of the Empire State Building and Harold Square and the thought of living any place but New York went right out the window. After I had submitted my application and regional preferences, I thought I had been a little closed minded when it came to regional preferences.

To be honest, at the time that I applied, I wanted nothing more than to get the hell out of Alaska and back to a place I know and love. But even in the weeks since my Teach for America interview, my attitude on Alaska has changed. I have met some amazing people. Made some good friends. Got switched to a site placement serving at an organization I'm actually excited about. And to top it off, the sun was up when I woke up this morning! So things are definitely looking up! :) I had even been thinking over the past several weeks that if I was offered a Teach for America position, that I would try and defer it for a year in order to do another AmeriCorps term at home or elsewhere. So I guess I didn't have to worry about deferring, they made that decision for me. And after that initial, "WTF?" feeling passes, I think it will be okay. I'm a firm believer that you end up where you're supposed to. My favorite quote by Max Ehrmann sums it up quite nicely, "And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should." Alright universe, start unfolding...

Challenging to Say the Least...

So today has been an interesting day. I had a meeting with one of the big wigs who is responsible for site placements. I got a weird vibe from her on a couple different things...I got the impression that she thinks I'm this privileged person who, in some respects, thinks I'm "too good" for this. While my life hasn't held some of the challenges of many of the people that I serve, everyone has encountered different struggles and taken a different path to get them to the point where they are today. Sure I dress well on occasion (credit that to the retail discounts) and speak well (credit that to public school...and my mom) and am well educated (credit that to Teachers College not requiring the GRE and having a late application deadline), but does that somehow make me "too good" for all of this? Maybe some of those things do give off the vibe that that is true, but I'd like to think it's pretty far from the truth. One of my primary incentives to do AmeriCorps was to get away from that mentality. At Columbia, I remember being shocked and appalled at this "world of privilege." Not every person there falls into that category, but I felt this overwhelming aura of wealthy, white privilege just in being there. At first, I remember questioning just about everything about the place, but by the end of my two years there, I felt I had become way to comfortable in that environment. One friend described it as "putting on your Columbia skin when you get off the subway at 116th and Broadway. Here I was this self-proclaimed public school kid, knee deep in everything I'd come to despise about the educational system: that money and privilege made all the difference when it came to education. But despite my feelings to the contrary, I'd learned to navigate this world pretty well. I was almost, dare I say, comfortable there. And I hated that about myself. By the time graduation rolled around, I wanted to find the opposite of Columbia, the opposite of uppity New York, the opposite of Wall Street (pre-depression of course). So doing volunteer work in Alaska seemed like the best idea to re-focus and re-prioritize.

So at my meeting today, when I was asked how I would feel sitting next to someone who may be at one of the lowest points of their lives...unemployed, just coming out of prison, homeless...I was taken aback. That's the whole reason I signed up for this: to help people with real problems, not just roommate conflicts and tickets to student events. Real problems. So if I have in any, way, shape, or form given off the vibe that I think I am "too good" for this, please accept my sincerest apologies. I think feeling "too good" for something and needing to be intellectually stimulated in the work that you do are two very different things. Maybe I haven't done the best job at conveying the difference between the two and my strong need for the latter.

One thing I really wanted to challenge myself on this year and moving forward is to be more open and less judgmental. I know more about strangers on the bus in a 15 minute bus ride than I do about some people I have known for months. I tend to be pretty closed off with the exception of a few close friends. I'm not a big "sharer" but it is the sharing, that exchange of struggles, that exchange of ideas that brings people closer together. Making an effort to be more visibly open to this exchange can make all the difference.

Damn all this character building and personal growth.

I'm back...

As of my last post, my concern was that if I left Alaska to do my interviews that I would not actually come back. Well I did leave Alaska, spent about a week in New York City, saw some of my favorite people in my favorite place, and did return to the Last Frontier. Short of working a corporate gig that requires you to travel four days a week, I consider myself to be a pretty experienced traveler. So I took the fact that I completely lost my boarding pass from Seattle to Anchorage to be a sign, not of absent mindedness, but a sign that maybe I shouldn't be going back. But I did go back. And cried most of the way. I cried on the train leaving New York, heading to the Newark airport. (New Jersey tends to have that effect on people sometimes.) I cried when I got on the plane from Seattle to Anchorage. And I cried when I walked back into my shoe box size apartment in Alaska. Had I had the money to throw caution to the wind and put down a deposit on an apartment, I may not have returned. But I did return. And I'm pretty darn proud of myself for doing so.

Yesterday I was back at the after school program for the first time in a week. There are about 20 kindergartn-8th grade students that come to our program. About 10ish of these are the "regulars," the ones I see every day. Before I left, they told me they would miss me when I left, but when I came back three of them almost tackled me to the ground in an effort to hug me and welcome me back. That, in a nutshell, is why I have stayed here as long as I have. That, in a nutshell, is the reason I came back.

I spent most of my two interviews talking about my experiences working with the kids at the afterschool program. While Teach for America has been on my bucket list for awhile, I wasn't quite sure I was ready to apply. I thought I had more adventuring yet to do, but after working with these amazing kids for the past 6 months, I felt I was ready. While I know teaching 8 hours a day in a classroom setting with 25 of them would be 10 times harder than having them for a couple of hours after school, I loved this enough to try.

After spending two solid days talking about how much I loved working with these kids, I realized that I'm not ready to leave them. Yes, it would be much easier to pack up shop and head home, but I have an amazing opportunity here to work with some amazing kids.

I've said since day one that if I'm spending a year of my life volunteering, I should be doing something that I'm remotely interested in and, dare I say, passionate about. Trying to convey this to the people who make the placement decisions at the organization I serve with has been a challenge to say the least. Maybe my standards are too high. I don't know. But I'm certainly not going to lower my standards on their behalf. Negotiations are in the works for me to switch site placements. I would love to be at the afterschool program full time, but realizing that is not an option, I would love to see what else is available. The past couple of weeks have been extremely trying. Anyone who has had a job where they have spent time crying in the bathroom, completely unmotivated, working with people who don't acknowledge that you even exist, and/or literally bored to tears can understand. While I am here to serve with this organization, this is my experience too. For a paycheck, I can certainly fake happiness or contentedness for a while, but since money is no object, I'm gonna need some of those intangible rewards. Like not hating my life.

I think Howard Thurman says it best...

"Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive." -Howard Thurman