A Reflection on Our Reflection

Hello friends!

Long time, no blog. Here's a quick summary of things that have been going on here in the Southwest:

1. Casa Nacho is officially bedbug free (yay!) We spent a good amount of time putting the house back together and unpacking everything we had to pack up for the exterminators to come in.

2. Allie, Allison, Claire, and I spent Columbus Day weekend in Albuquerque for the Hot Air Balloon Fiesta.  We had an awesome time hanging out with the ABQ JVs who we haven't seen since Orientation back in August.  The weather wasn't entirely on our side, so we only were able to do balloon related things on Saturday morning.  Sunday, however, we took it upon ourselves to take a self-guided Breaking Bad tour.  Here are some pictures from the weekend:

 Allison, Claire, me, and Allie at Mass Ascension 

 The White residence

The Pinkman Residence

Today, our program coordinator, Cece (who is one of the most wonderful people in the world) organized our Fall Day of Reflection.  She spent the last week meeting with my roommate and I all individually and gathered what we needed as a community.  Overall, I think the day went really really well and I think that our community now has so much room to grow and thrive.  We spent the day at St .Thomas the Apostle church which is way north of anywhere we've really been in Tucson.  It was nice to feel like we were getting away without actually going too far.  The church was BEAUTIFUL!! Because of lighting, it wasn't possible to capture all the beauty in a single picture.  The first picture is a picture of the alter.  Notice the windows being it with ivy covered archways?  Well the second picture was the view through the window.  It was completely surreal.

That's it for now.  Hope all is well back home and elsewhere :)

Finding Happiness in the Smallest of Places

This entire week was literally the week from hell.  To give you a quick summary:

Monday: Walked all the way to the bus stop, realized I forgot my wallet, had to walk all the way home and back, was late for work.

Tuesday: Decided I was sick of relying on busses, tried to bike to work, gears didn't work, chain broke, had to walk the bike to the bus stop and take the bus anyway, was late for work

Wednesday: woke up with a nose bleed (Arizona mornings are getting pretttttttttyyy chilly), was late for work

Thursday: lost my bus pass, walked into a cactus, was late for work

Friday: found out we had bed bugs, had to spend around 25% of the money we're allotted per month on mattress covers, garbage bags, etc, was late for work

As I sit here staring at the piles and piles of giant bags from Bed Bath & Beyond, Home Depot, and Target, I can't help but think about how genuinely shitty this entire week has been, and this weekend won't even be much of a break.

At the same time, however, I realized this is the perfect opportunity to find happiness in the smallest of things.  Here is the list I compiled of things that happened this week that made me genuinely happy:

- I got text from my dad that made me laugh harder than I have in a very long time
- I got a package from home that included cookies Joey made all by himself and a Spanish cookbook from my grandma that I spent the entire day reading and flagging all the recipes I want to make
- I found out my dad got accepted to a job training program and will be going back to school.
- I found out that two of my best friends (one of whom I wrote a recommendation letter for) will be leading Global Outreach projects next semester
- When we were in a jam to get a ride to the store to buy all the bed bug supplies, I called a coworker and she had no problem driving my roommate and I from store to store for hours tonight getting everything we needed
- I realized that my relationship with my brother has gotten a million times stronger since I moved across the country
- I genuinely love all my students.  A first grader asked me why I moved to Arizona. I told her so that I can hang out with her.  She said that was a good reason.  A 7th grader asked me if I could stay until next December, instead of August.
- Everyone at work was totally and completely understanding of everything going on this week

As you can see, even though my week was plagued with bad things, but there were also even more happy little things.  When I was going through some pretty rough times, my mom would always tell me, "When you're going through hell, just keep going, because you don't want to stay there." Taking that approach to this week, it's important to just keep moving forward.

AMDG+

J and J's Adventure Day

Today, Julie and Jerry (our two community support people) took us on a hike to the beautiful Sabino Canyon.  We started bright and early just before 8am and hiked so many trails.  We ended the day swimming in a river we found that got substantially deep.  The cool water was indescribably refreshing after the hours of hiking in the heat.  I ALSO SAW MY FIRST RATTLESNAKE! Apparently we all stepped right over it until Abi noticed it.  We were ridiculously lucky none of us stepped on it...

I unfortunately did not take many pictures today, but I wanted to share some that my roommate Abi took:

Jerry lent me his sun hat. We matched for the day.

THE RATTLER

These were along the river we swam in.  Pretty impressive to whoever built them.

Getting ready to jump in!

Awesome views!

Desert hikes are quite different from what I'm used to in the Northeast

Barrel cactus flower

The Right Choice

As I sit here in my kitchen in my kitchen in Tucson AZ, I look back on the events that led me here

Let's go back to December 2013. If you knew me then, you knew that I was stressing about a million and one different things going on in life.  The reality of graduation was setting in.  I was struggling with different relationships with my friends.  Above all, I had NO idea what I wanted to do.  I decided to apply to JVC on a whim, less than a month before the application was due.

Fast forward to September 16th, 2014.

As I was walking into work this morning, it was the first time since starting this process that I was able to say I am 100% positive that I made the right decision so many months ago.  Here I am in my kitchen in a house I've shared with five of the most amazing women the past month and a half.  I've met the most amazing people.  I've seen the most beautiful sunsets.  I work with the cutest kids every day.  Being so far away from essentially everything and everyone I know has given me the best opportunity to strengthen the relationships that are important to me (I've Skyped my friend in Argentina at least three times since being here). I value every phone call home, and I look forward to it every day.  I've actually picked up the phone and called people who's voice I had almost forgotten because we rely so heavily on texts nowadays. I actually call my brother at UVM, because I know I cant rely on seeing him every month or so.

Looking back on where I've been, where I am now, and where I am going, I leave you now with a quote I found yesterday that I felt really connected to:

"Clouds come floating into my life, no longer

 to carry rain or usher storm, but to add 

color to my sunset sky.”

-Rabindranath Tagore

Long time, no see!

I can't believe it's already been three weeks!

Well things have been pretty busy.  I started work at Pio Decimo and I absolutely fell in love! I'm working in the preschool classroom.  We started out the year with only 5 students, but I just found on on Friday that two more enrolled and will be starting on Tuesday! (yay for 3 day weekends by the way!) My students (all 3 years old) are all so adorable.  I love spending time with them.  It's great to see them thrive too.  My class is comprised of 3 girls and 2 boys.  When they started school two and a half weeks ago, the girls always needed me to push them on the swings when we had outdoor play.  By the end of this week, after I help them get on the swings they are good to go.  They are so proud of themselves and always yell to me "Teacher look! I'm going so high!"  One of the boys also can now make it halfway across the monkey bars without my help.  These little things that bring them so much excitement and joy make me happy and make my job in Arizona the best I've ever had.

My casamates and I have been settling in nicely.  Now that we're on more of a routine, we started to explore the city more.  I try to make it out of the building during my lunch break every day to see what's around.  The other day I spent my entire lunch break at Tucson Reptile Rescue learning all about different reptiles and hanging out with some giant lizards and turtles.

There's so much more I could talk about, but we have a community business meeting soon so I need to get ready.  I'm always open to phone and Skype calls though :)

Missing everyone on the East coast! <3

First Days in Tucson

Hello again,

My roommate Claire and I made the mile bike ride to Starbucks to get some wifi.  Today marks our second full day in Tucson.  We're all still struggling with the jet lag a little bit.  In case some of you don't know, most of Arizona doesn't recognize daylight savings time, so relative to the East coast, we're three hours behind.  A lot of breakfast foods at 6am Tucson time.

When we got to our house on Friday night, we were greeted by our two community support members.  Julie is an FJV, and Jerry is just heavily involved in the Tucson community and loves JVC.  Julie made us an enchilada casserole, and Jerry brought over a cake.  After a restful night, Julie and Jerry took us around the city, making sure we knew where everything was.  They took us out to lunch in downtown Tucson.  It reminds me a lot of Burlington, VT. We had plans to go back downtown at night, but couldn't figure out the bus schedule.  Instead we watched the sun set over the Tucson mountains from our rooftop.  Awesome community bonding (Even though, lets be real, we didn't really need it. We're already awesome friends)

This morning Jerry came over with doughnuts from what he claimed to be "the best bakery in town." Anyone who knows me well knows that I have hated doughnuts since about the first grade, but these were AMAZING!! Today was a lot of errand running and some more cleaning.  Also, IT RAINED TODAY! Only a drizzle and only for a couple of minutes, but after the ridiculous heat, it was very welcomed.

Only two more free days before I start work, and I absolutely cannot wait.

Orientation Retreat!

Greetings from 37,000 feet! 

We are (finally) on our way to Tucson! We spent the last week in Dickinson, TX (a Houston suburb) at the Christian Renewal Center for our JVC Orientation retreat.  Each of the four days was dedicated to the four values of JVC.  They are social justice, community, spirituality, and simple living.  We did a variety of community building activities within our own communities, as well as spent time getting to know the other JVs who are serving in our area.  We made friends with JVs from Mobile, AL; New Orleans, LA; Houston, TX; Austin, TX; San Antonio, TX; Albuquerque, NM; and Phoenix, AZ.

One of my favorite parts of the retreat was a mindfulness walk we took.  We walked in silence for about 15 minutes down a worn down path through the trees.  We were instructed to take in our surroundings and reflect on a variety of things.  I found my mind often wandering to different things going on at home.  I noticed that I kept looking to my left.  I then looked to my right and noticed a tree that was painted entirely blue.  After the initial shock of this Dr. Seuss-like spectacle, I finally was able to find something to focus my thoughts on.  How often to we miss things going on around us because we are so focused on looking one way?  Whether you take that literally or figuratively, I realized that this year, it’s going to be important to take in everything around me, and to not get lost in just one thing.

My community-mates and I really hit it off.  (Allie and Abi are currently helping me write this and requested personal shout-outs) Between the six of us, we cover pretty much every area of the country.  We come from six very different backgrounds and cultures, but we all share a passion that brought us to JVC.  It’s only the first week, but I think the six of us will grow really close and maybe I’ll have best friends in places like Oregon and New Mexico to visit for the rest of my life.  Not only did we finally meet our community-mates, but we also met our Program Coordinators (PCs).  The PC helps the communities in different areas.  If JVs were college students, PCs would be academic advisors. Ours is a wonderful woman named Cece.  She is the PC for the Tucson, Phoenix, and Albuquerque communities.  My community is extra lucky because Cece actually lives in Tucson!  She had so much to share with us, and I can’t wait to continue working with her.

As you may or may not know, for graduation, my beautiful friend Liz (not me, other Liz), gave me a key with the word “fearless” on it.  I have been wearing it on my wrist since Sunday.  During the reflection times during orientation, I spent a lot of time reflecting on what it meant to be fearless.  I came to the conclusion that no one explains it better than Taylor Swift.

“To me, Fearless is not the absence of fear. 

It's not being completely unafraid. 

To me, Fearless is having fears. 

Fearless is having doubts. Lots of them. 

To me, Fearless is living in spite of those things that 

scare you to death.” 

I hope that this year, I can learn to be fearless.  I hope that I can take chances.  As I fly further and further west, more of my heart stays on the East coast. 

I miss everyone tons!

Keep being fearless.

Hi everyone!

Welcome to my blog! I will be using this site to keep you in the loop about my journey with JVC in Tucson.

With a little less than 40 days until graduation, I've begun preparing for my start with JVC.  You can send me to serve by sponsoring me here.  Thanks to three very generous sponsors, I have already raised $160 on the first day!

114 days until I leave for Tucson!

Elizabeth<3