YAY!!!/nay

My fabulous friend Jeannie is always coming up with wonderful titles for her blogs. I am not as ingenius, so I am stealing one of her ideas (yikes/yippee), and changing it to YAY!/nay. Here is a little bullet list of recent things, categorized by YAY! and nay.

• YAY!, it has been sunny for more than 7 days in a row! Sun makes me happy, makes me more motivated to go to work, and means I get to drink iced coffees!
• nay, the water in my apartment has been a little spotty this week. On Wednesday I came home from work after 9 hours covered in dirt, and we had no water (like you turned the dial and nothing came out.) Then Thursday morning, I turned on the hot water and it came out brown. As of now, sometimes it is a little brown, sometimes it is fine. I took a shower and was afraid the whole time that the water was going to turn brown.
• YAY!, one more week of this quarter! Just 2 papers to turn in next week, and then a 2 week break!
• YAY!, I am going to Oregon next week to pick up my Grandma, AND I get to have lunch with my dear friend Mallorie! I am excited to go on a mini road trip and clear my head, and to see my lovely lovely Mallorie (and of course Grandma as well!)
• YAY!, yesterday I survived the near death experience of climbing down the cliff by Kelsey's house to the beach. Many many total vertical ladders and rapelling down a rope later, and we survived. I even have some sweet bruises on my legs. Look for pictures soon.
• nay, my apartment is a mess and I am a little overwhelmed and don't want to clean it. Anyone want to magically clean my apartment for me, and organize it just as I would like it done?! :-)
• Finally, YAY!, it's Friday, which means the weekend (full of sun, studying, writing papers, hopefully relaxing a bit and hanging out with the sister!)

The End!

Reflecting on a Year.

Last weekend marked the one-year anniversary of college graduation. Woah. I, for one, cannot believe how this year has flown by. Last thing I remember it was graduation, and me, Rachel, Shanon, Meara, Kevin, Kyle, Albert, and a few others went on that ill-fated trip to Big Al's the night after graduation. hahahaha!!! This year has been challenging, for so many reasons, however I have learned a lot about myself and resiliency. And just a shout-out to Kelsey: I don't quite know what I would have done without you this year. Seriously. Would probably be much less emotionally stable if you were not here!

So, obviously this year after graduation did not go quite as planned with my job. Although my AmeriCorps experience was filled with ups and downs, I can truly say I am glad I gave it a shot. I wish I had been able to do the program and serve the kids I was hired to work with, but it didn't work out that way. In the mean time, I got to reconnect with old friends (Jackie), and stay in touch with others (Nissana), and make new ones. I also got to learn about NLF, and structures of social services, power, and social justice in Tacoma. I got to meet new people who are important in the city, learn how choices are made, and also see bureaucracy at work in many ways. When all you want to do is serve people, seeing the barriers that various social structures put in place for you to do that work makes it quite frustrating. However, I am also quite glad I made the choice to leave when I did. I am so lucky to have my job at Camp Berachah, and get to work with horses and get paid to do what I love! Sometimes I feel so lucky, and almost like I am cheating them, because I love it so much! Although I love it a lot, I am quite ready for this session of lessons to be over (1.5 more weeks) and have a break before the craziness of summer camp starts!

What else... Well, I guess no one really prepared me for the feelings of social isolation I would feel. No one really sat me down and said, "Okay, Jessica, congrats on graduating from college, but now all of your friends are going to be scattered all over the country/world, and you basically have to start over from scratch. Good luck with that one..." If I didn't have Kelsey, I would go crazy. Not even kidding. Also, it has been great to get to see Taylor more often, and of course my family. It's definitely been trying at times, but also good for me to spend more time studying and such!

Grad school: So, I am about to finish up my third quarter of grad school. It has been quite the experience so far, although I am enjoying this quarter. One of my classes right now is "Adult Mental Health Diagnosis", and we spend hours upon hours reading the DSM. Although it's a lot of reading, I feel like I have actually learned a lot about mental disorders, more than I have learned in any other class. Also, this class is the first in this program where I am acquiring new information, which is kind of suprising since it's grad school! I am starting my practicum at the end of June, which I will be doing at Nativity House, a daytime drop in center for the homeless in Tacoma (check them out at www.nativityhouse.org). This summer will be super busy, working at camp 8-5 on the weekdays, then class on Tuesday nights, and practicum all day (10 hours) every Saturday...

Well, that's a summary of the last years. Lots of lows, lots of highs... I am looking forward to the next one.

Thanks for reading!