Priorities

This is adapted from an email I wrote to Team Green, with a few edits and modifications to make it a decent blog post. I felt it was appropriate to share these thoughts with my fellow Team Leaders, and I'd like to share them with you, too. My original plan was to share them a week ago, but there are a few things that were more important (read below) to take care of than sitting down and writing a blog. In all honesty, this is the first time I've had to sit and relax that wasn't at work or in a van in the past two weeks! It's amazing how quickly life moves when you're on the go, and that's why I am writing this post. You'll see, read on.

I read a little blurb in a newsletter a couple weeks ago that really spoke to me and that helped me navigate myself through Transition. For those that don't know, Transition is the week between rounds when we're on campus. It's supposed to be time for us to regroup and dive into NCCC culture and remember what being in this program and having Units and a campus support system is all about. For me, and probably others, it feels like a whirlwind of a week full of  schedule changes, team switches, and countless curve balls thrown in our direction without even a little “head’s up!” to let us know to expect something. 

With all of these twists and turns and ups and downs, I was constantly reminding myself of what is important versus what is urgent. Is it urgent that I get my clearance packet done before my scheduled briefing time? Yeah, probably. Is it urgent that I get my PAR done so my team can have funds before we depart for Round 3? Absolutely. But is it important that I stop to say “Hi” to my team members, and to Team Green, and to give hugs when comfort is needed, and try to share smiles and little moments throughout our limited number of days together? You bet it is. Is it important that I spend an extra ten minutes with my team after dinner instead of heading straight back to work? Yes. It IS important. Which is why the PAR, or the clearance packet, or some of the other urgencies can wait a minute. We are all here to make a difference in the lives of others, and support each other and our teams and the entire Corps to the best of our abilities (note: this includes taking care of yourself. you can't do your job if you ignore your own well-being). Do both work and teams need to be attended to? Of course. We ARE here to work and we have expectations to meet. But if something more important comes up, that’s okay. We what we need to do. And we have each other when things get rough, and the important things are what help us navigate through the stresses of the urgent. Take care of yourself, take care of each other, and you'll find a way to get through everything else.

10 Things I'll Miss About You

There's something about the number 10. When you're learning to count, you often learn up to 10 first. Mostly because eleven and twelve are weird and the teens suck, or at least that's what I think about. It's also easy to count to 10, because most people have ten fingers/ten toes. Ten is a pretty decent number. 
Now there are a few things I don't like about 10. The metric system is base 10 and awesome. It WORKS. But other things aren't. A week isn't 10 days, it's 7 (why?). An hour isn't 100 minutes, it's 60. 10 minutes should be 1/10 of an hour. Just make it longer! It would make sense. Everything should function around 10's. If I were empress in ancient Greek or Roman times, I would've made that a thing. I can't do it now, no one likes someone who tries to take over the world (here's looking at you, Putin.) but it would be a great idea. 

Anyway, I've been thinking about 10 a lot. Just a couple days ago I was thinking I had 10 days left here. That suddenly got cut WAY short, but that's another story. My POC thinks I'm coming back 10 days after I leave. That's also another story, and I don't yet know the ending. 

 Anyway, I wanted to wrap up the round, since I'm leaving so soon, with 10 things I've loved about Round 2.

1. Harmony Hollow: You showed me nature, peace, love, and memories. Thanks for giving me the cutest street name I'll probably ever have the joy of being a resident of. 
2. Front Royal: Your town is quaint, cute, and your welcome signs are lovely. There's not much else here but at least you have a Starbucks. You know your priorities, and I appreciate that.
3. Rappahannock Cellars: If I had known beforehand of the magic you would introduce me to, I wouldn't have believed it.
4. Valerie Hill: The sweetest people, the best rooms, great wine, and so much love.
5.  Union Jacks: Because sometimes all you need is a good beer and a hockey game.
6. The Daily Grind: My weekly visits to this coffee shop were more than coffee, I became attached to the people, my favorite chair, and the 20 minutes of peace. 
7. Sunrises and Sunsets: Almost daily I have had the pleasure of witnessing the most gorgeous skies I've ever seen, and often I've witnessed both in one day. There's nothing here that's prettier than the sunrise over the Shenandoah Valley. Well, maybe the sunset. I'm not sure.
8. Snow: At first, the excitement of a snow day bears resemblance to what you felt as a school child, crossing your fingers in your pajamas and staying home with Mom all day. ...Until they call YOU Mom and you've been snowed in for 5 days in a row. Just kidding, it's not easy, but I have many fond memories. Thanks, team. :)
9. Lack of WiFi. Did a 20-something, internet-loving blogger just add "Lack of WiFi" to a "10 Things I Loved" list?! Yes. Yes, she did. Because limited access to the outside world taught me a whole lot about myself, people, and other ways to communicate. I learned about a few things I had been missing, and a lot about what I love.
10. Deployment Branch: Thanks for the best office environment, staff, location, and a million other positive things about this work place. You're all incredible humans.

Round two was a roller coaster. I've learned, I've grown (not physically), I've changed, I've laughed, I've cried, and I've fallen in love. This place is magical, beautiful, and amazing in more ways than I can describe.

I know I'll be back here eventually, but the real question is: Am I going to be gone for 10 days, or am I saying goodbye for 10 weeks?

I'll miss you, Virginia.

Happiness

First: At the time I logged in to write this post, this blog had 4,029 page views. HOLY CRAP. Thank you for following me and joining me through my journey. It's not over yet, so stay tuned for more.

Today, I returned from my lunch break completely fascinated by how happy I am. Now, you might think, "what's so fascinating about being happy?" but honestly, a whole lot. I've always been naturally happy, at least that's what my mom tells me, and I've been through periods in my short 23 years where I've had to step back and say, "I'm not happy, I'm not my usual self, what's wrong?" but for the most part, I just ENJOY being happy, and if I don't have anything to be upset about, then it's natural for me to just be happy. I have a rare, quiet "neutral" where I'm in the middle and content not being on one end of the spectrum, but I'd say my personal average is "happy." But I still pause and start to think, "What in the world got me here?!" because it's pretty damn awesome and I'd like to send a shout-out (think Grammy acceptance speech) for everyone and everything that contributes to this awesomeness. 

One reason why it blows me away so much is because I also have this natural thing I do called FREAK THE HELL OUT. It's triggered by stress and comes with a pile of anxiety, lack of sleep, and a feeling of "I need to call my parents for life advice." (Thanks, guys. You rock.) And normally, at a time like now, I WOULD be freaking out. I'm applying to jobs, which includes trying to figure out which city I'll be living in, and having NO IDEA where it'll take me, I'm not receiving a whole lot of response, I'm about to leave our amazing project site and the connections I've made behind, and I have no idea where Round 2 will take me or what I'll be doing (nothing scares me more than the unknown!). And if there's one thing I love, it's a plan. A solid, fool-proof plan with Plans A, B, C, and D complete with appendices for problem-solving and crisis action plans in case something goes wrong. I mean, I plan my free time for goodness' sake. So why the heck am I so comfortable and happy not having any of my plans solidified for after next Sunday? I have NO IDEA. But I think I'm at a place where I know two things:

1. It's all going to be okay.
2. If it isn't, I know I'll be able to MAKE it be okay. 

And I think that's one huge lesson I've learned in AmeriCorps. We can't plan for everything, but we can prepare ourselves for anything. And if you try hard enough, you can make anything happen. Do the best with what you've got. I've learned that here, too. We have limited everything! As long as I mentally prepare myself for the fact that I have little to zero control over what happens for my next round, and that the only control I have over securing a job for June are trying to show off my writing skills in a cover letter and my resume, know that I also have a few more months, a hell of a lot of motivation and drive, and amazing people supporting me every step of the way, then I know I'll be okay. And when it comes down to it, the more things we look at that we have to appreciate, the more things we FIND to appreciate. And the more things I think about to make me happy, I will find more things that make me happy. Even the little things. The grass might be greener on the other side, but the other side might not have the people and things I appreciate here, so I better not be in too much of a rush to get there.


Thanks for reading! We return to Mississippi for Transition on March 31st, and are scheduled to deploy to Round 3 for our next assignment. Stay tuned to find out where we go, and check out my team on our facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/heckyeahfootball. and share the blog and Facebook with your friends! Leave notes in the comments section, too!

This blog is making me carsick.

I have been dying to blog for what feels like forever. Really probably since my LAST blog post. And now I'm blogging from the 15p on my phone which will inevitably make me nauseous. I just haven't gotten around to it, we have had so much going on! Okay I need to stop, I hate making excuses for myself. I just didn't do it, okay?! Stop judging me, I see you with your judge-y face on. Put that away and read.

A lot has happened since my last post! We've made it past halfway through round 2, and we are well past halfway through the program. I'll actually be on campus in 19 days and graduating in 82 days! Time has flown by. 

We had another team come stay with us last weekend and I got the lovely company of three other team leaders. It was glorious! Our teams hiked and ate together, played music, and had lots of fun. Also, everyone on my team had a huge heart-to-heart two weeks ago when I stepped out for the day, and they all talked out their problems and hugged it out and even cried a little and it was the best thing to ever happen to them for team morale. So the past two weeks have been the happiest I've seen them all since CTI. We've had the best two weeks ever, and we're all going out for pizza tonight. 

Anyway, I try to center my blog posts around a topic but I feel like this is just so much information that I can't! Our work in the deployment branch is going so well, and I can't disclose anything else at this time but we're loving it. We're a little TOO used to it, because I want to answer every phone call I receive with "FEMA Deployment this is Allie" and every time I get introduced to someone I want to ask them to spell their name for me. Virginia is as beautiful as ever and the weather is getting to be pretty nice (except for that snow we are supposed to get Monday... Shhh!) 

I'm honestly just so happy that my team settled some of their differences. It's beautiful to get in the van and hear laughter, and work out together and hear encouraging phrases. They cook together and race to help each other clean up and do dishes. It really did happen in less than a day, they woke up that Sunday on the verge of civil war and went to bed as friends. I wish I could say I had something to do with their progress, but I think it shows a lot that someone took the initiative to start that conversation, and I don't think I ever need to know what was said that day. 

Come to think of it, one of the themes for this round is pleasant surprises. I've had so many happy, wonderful things just appear out of nowhere, and I hope that all of the bad is done and over with. I'd like to finish these last 82 days as positively as possible.

100 Days

This past week, FEMA Corps Class 20 reached a milestone in our service year: 100 days until Graduation! Congratulations, Class 20. We've gone from 10 months (283 days) (11 months/316 days for us TLs!) to only 100 days. 2/3 of the way there!

Then I got thinking. 100 isn't a large number. There are 100 pennies in one dollar. 100 = 10 groups of 10. What can I do in 100 days? And what can I do to make sure I have my post-AmeriLife set up in 100 days? It's crunch time, folks.  

With the 100 days I have left with my team, I can't think of enough ways to show them how much this year has meant to me and how much they mean to me. I'm going to do everything in my power to make sure we all enjoy our last 100 days together and make great memories. They're the reason I'm here. 

With the 100 days I have left to plan my life after AmeriCorps, I'm obsessively checking vacancy announcements at desired agencies (thanks to all of the free time in the world at work, they established another call center and our work has slowed down by more than half) and fine-tuning resumes, drafting cover letters, obtaining college transcripts, and applying to jobs. 

With the 33 days I have left in Virginia for Round 2, I'm making the best of it. This place will always hold a special place in my heart and I'm hoping my post-AmeriCorps plans will get me back in the area or close to it, ideally working in DC. There's nothing more wonderful than the people I've met here, both at work and outside of the job, and I couldn't ask for a better location. My team's lodging site is perfect and beautiful, the drive to and from work always includes gorgeous sunrises and sunsets, and the areas around us are quaint, safe, and offer enough to keep us entertained. 

I'll never feel like I have enough time for anything. As excited as I am for this program to wrap up and move on to other opportunities, I won't have enough time with Team Green, Gulf Unit, or my G2 Beauties. I didn't have enough time with my temp group, Cloud 9, or enough time in Denver. I didn't have enough time at home for Winter Break. I don't have enough time in the day to complete everything I hope for. I know nothing is going to last forever, myself included, and I've learned that while it may never last long enough, there is a lot you can do to make the most of the moment you're in  right now, and what you DO have. I've been hearing it since the beginning: It's what you make of it. You'll get out of it what you put into it. It's true. I'm going to put my absolute best into these next 100 days, so that myself and my team get nothing but the best in return. We all deserve to finish this program strong, and to walk away feeling like we had an outstanding year of service. :) 

Mobile Blogging

I can't blog at work, or on my work laptop... Something about my ancient browser not bring supported. But this has been on my mind this week. 

If you are on any social media site, you've seen a "hashtag" which is meant to attach a post to a trending topic and make it more "visible" or something. I won't get into it too much. But on Tuesday, there is a certain one called "Transformation Tuesday" where the idea is to Instagram an old photo of you and a current one and look at how much you've changed. I haven't really participated very often, maybe once in the past. But this past Tuesday I took two very similar photos of myself, one from February 2007 and one from December 2013 and put them side-by-side. Here is the result: 

I look so much like the same person. My face has thinned in some areas and widened in others, that's what the difference between 16 and 23 is. Anyone looking at the photos would see that my hair still curls the same way over my forehead, I have red-eye because of my bright blue eyes, I have lines around my smile and my chin, and I'm happy as ever posing next to my best friends in formal dresses. Even though I look almost the exact same in the two photos, years of growing and learning and experiencing life have completely transformed me as a person. I could go on for DAYS about how I've changed and grown, and I'm sure that anyone who knows me could give you a few sentences on that, but what's really important is that we need to look for transformations in ourselves and those around us in ther actions, not only their appearance. And in AmeriCorps, my job is to help my team members grow and change and live for something bigger than their appearance. The size of your heart or the knowledge in your brain can't be reflected in a hair cut or by dropping a dress size. Don't let your inner self suffer because your outer self wants the most likes on next week's "Transformation Tuesday." Instead, think of how you've transformed yourself. Have you helped transform other people? 

And finally,

Are you a transformer?

Traditions: Can you create them?

Every family has traditions, and as we reflect upon our lives we often easily recall moments centered around these traditions, whether they be holidays, summer events, school vacation weeks, weekends... anything that was routine that we could count on happening often enough for us to remember to do it, but not too often so that we get tired of it. For some, these are things like what to eat on birthdays, or watching a movie on Sundays, or having spaghetti on Wednesdays. For my family, traditions include turkey for breakfast on Thanksgiving (and for dinner) and turkey for breakfast on Christmas. We went to the fair every year but I don't know if that was tradition, habit, or just a way to spend our long weekend. Now, I'm not sure if this is how it happened, but forgive me. I think I was eleven or twelve at the time, so my pre-teen brain was a little funky. Sometime in my late years of elementary school (I think 6th? I think I was 12?) a little cafe opened up in our town. We got up ridiculously early and went before my sisters had to go to school. They were in the middle & high school so we probably left around 6:30. And then we did this, every single Friday. Friday became "Coffee Day." There were times I moaned and groaned about waking up to go sit in a cafe with my sisters, and there were times I couldn't get there fast enough to get a chocolate chip muffin and a chocolate milk. There were times I was just too damn tired to get out of bed that early. But honestly, I loved it. And even in my senior year, my mom and I would take two cars (I needed mine after school, she had to work and I had practice, a game, or work) and we would go get coffee or breakfast (by that time, our little cafe had closed and another reopened, and we usually just went to Dunkin Donuts or a little diner instead) and enjoyed our coffee together. Sometimes it was rushed, but we still made the effort, and I'll never forget those coffee days.

Every family has traditions. As I reflect upon my year, I don't have many memories centered around these types of moments. Right now, I find myself in a new family that was just built. It wasn't built on love and marriage and the joining of two families and a bunch of babies, we weren't friends who decided to move in together, and we didn't find each other on Craigslist. We were sort of thrown into a house together and told to get along and play nice; I was told to make sure everyone gets along and plays nice, and goes to work on time. We don't have traditions yet. It's hard to establish traditions, they're usually something you're born into, and it's especially difficult to establish traditions when you're just trying to establish common ground. But perhaps one can help the other. What do nine 18-25 year olds have in common? They all like coffee. They all hate Mondays. We all have to get up early. So I decided to make the best of it with coffee. We are now leaving our house 20 minutes early every Monday to stop at the Dunkin Donuts that we pass on the way to work for our own little Coffee Day, to help make everyone's week begin with a treat. Hopefully this little tradition will stick with us through the end of the program, and help be the creator of some fond memories for my teammates. It's not an original idea (Thanks, Mom!) but I'm hoping that it will have a positive outcome.