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+