Two nights ago I was flipping through the channels on TV and settled on a documentary on HBO. Usually I am too tired to watch television and end up falling asleep on the couch with a melted bowl of ice cream by nine o'clock. That night was different and I watched Homeless: Motel Kids of Orange County with my sister.
The title is pretty self explanatory and this program is vastly different from the typical shows about Orange County. You all know what I'm talking about: Laguna Beach, the O.C. and the Real Housewives of Orange County definitely ring some pop-culture bells. However, these kids on this documentary don't lounge by their pools, get waited on by the hired help, or even go to Disneyland which is walking distance from their motels.
Most of the children were younger than seven and their pastimes consisted of playing in the dumpsters or dangling from the motel's balcony. When they aren't at school, Church run soup kitchens are their main source of food. All these little kids wanted was a house, something I was afforded without struggle. When I was their age I wanted macaroni and cheese, Barbies, and eternal summer. The motel kids go to school in the summer to avoid staying in their discounted rooms all day long.
I know that during sometimes I can get too caught up in my own life, but this documentary was a reminder of what other people are facing. I strongly encourage people to see this program, I will be very surprised if you aren't affected.
Wednesday, July 28, 2010
Thursday, July 22, 2010
Reasons to love
Burlington, Vermont. What a wonderful place, and I am so glad that it is only an hour away from Plattsburgh. I am reminded of it's proximity daily, because friends, I have discovered that like the song, it's a small world after all.
When I go into Starbucks with my sister to buy a pick-me-up carmel frappuccino, the first thing I see when I walk in is Seven Days, Vermont's weekly entertainment newspaper. One of my professors works at Seven Days and seeing this tie to SMC makes me happy.
Last week I wrote that during the summer I do an abnormal amount of reading. Anyways, the setting of the book I just finished, The Double Bind by Chris Bohjalian, is loosely based on COTS in Burlington. COTS, which stands for the Committee for Temporary Shelter, offers housing to people who are in need. St. Michael's has a very close relationship with them through the MOVE program, so it was neat to read about them from a literary perspective.
Lastly, the strangest thing happened while I was at work on Saturday. I was just wandering around the campground, doing some lovely maintenance work when I spotted someone who looked unusually familiar. He asked me where the showers were and I couldn't drop the feeling that I knew him. I looked a little closer (I had to squint, I refuse to wear my glasses) and I decided that yes, it had to be the person I thought it was. A little over a year ago I went on an extended service trip to Baltimore, Maryland. My group worked closely with a soup kitchen called Our Daily Bread. An Americorps volunteer was our quasi-boss. I guess when he's not being a Baltimore superhero he likes to come and camp in Upstate New York. This was too weird and I still can't get over the coincidence. I wish I would have told him where I recognized him from, but alas it was too late.
I am pleased to say that I will be making another return to Burlington to see the Swell Season (they are the people from the movie, Once) at the Flynn next Wednesday. I am so glad that I go to a school in such a cool place, and it's seriously strange how SMC connections pop up everywhere. Until next time!
When I go into Starbucks with my sister to buy a pick-me-up carmel frappuccino, the first thing I see when I walk in is Seven Days, Vermont's weekly entertainment newspaper. One of my professors works at Seven Days and seeing this tie to SMC makes me happy.
Last week I wrote that during the summer I do an abnormal amount of reading. Anyways, the setting of the book I just finished, The Double Bind by Chris Bohjalian, is loosely based on COTS in Burlington. COTS, which stands for the Committee for Temporary Shelter, offers housing to people who are in need. St. Michael's has a very close relationship with them through the MOVE program, so it was neat to read about them from a literary perspective.
Lastly, the strangest thing happened while I was at work on Saturday. I was just wandering around the campground, doing some lovely maintenance work when I spotted someone who looked unusually familiar. He asked me where the showers were and I couldn't drop the feeling that I knew him. I looked a little closer (I had to squint, I refuse to wear my glasses) and I decided that yes, it had to be the person I thought it was. A little over a year ago I went on an extended service trip to Baltimore, Maryland. My group worked closely with a soup kitchen called Our Daily Bread. An Americorps volunteer was our quasi-boss. I guess when he's not being a Baltimore superhero he likes to come and camp in Upstate New York. This was too weird and I still can't get over the coincidence. I wish I would have told him where I recognized him from, but alas it was too late.
I am pleased to say that I will be making another return to Burlington to see the Swell Season (they are the people from the movie, Once) at the Flynn next Wednesday. I am so glad that I go to a school in such a cool place, and it's seriously strange how SMC connections pop up everywhere. Until next time!
Thursday, July 15, 2010
Watching the wheels go round
I find it almost unbelievable that I have been home from school for more than two months. It's crazy! It feels like yesterday that I was packing up my beloved room in Founders to head back to Plattsburgh. So, I thought it was a good time to recap some of the highlights of my summer:
1. I went hiking with my dad and lovely dog, Millie, up Panther mountain in the Adirondacks.
2. Going to Cape Cod to see friend and fellow blogger, Michaela. The fact that I saw Taylor Swift just added to the fun.
3. A bunch of my friends came up for my sister's high school graduation. It was so nice to see everybody and revel in the beauty of SMC love. Look how adorable we are:
4. I visited my cousin, Meghan, who lives in Burlington. Together we went to the Ben & Jerry's factory in Waterbury. The tour we went on was full of cow jokes and ended with a free sample of Milk & Cookies. What can be better than free ice cream? While in the flavor graveyard I learned that peanut butter and jelly was once a legitimate ice cream flavor. Weird.
5. I went on my first jetski ride ever! And I loved it!
6. Thanks to a wise friend I have invested in Netflix, and it was a wonderful decision. Some really good movies I have seen are the Lovely Bones, Legends of the Fall, and my personal favorite, Whip It. It's about a girl who joins a roller derby league. Is anyone interested in starting a St. Michael's chapter? Just let me know...
7. My friends Kelsey, Shelly, and my sister went to a Passion Pit concert in Montreal. Montreal is such a fun city and the concert was amazing because we were so close to the band. Here we are, post concert enjoying the night air (sorry about the angle, it's my sister's attempt at being artsy).
8. I've been reading nonstop. At school I don't really have time to read for fun, but at home it's almost all I do. So far Jeannette Wall's memoir, the Glass Castle, has been the best.
This is it for now, but hopefully I will have many more adventures to go. 43 days until Peru!!!
1. I went hiking with my dad and lovely dog, Millie, up Panther mountain in the Adirondacks.
2. Going to Cape Cod to see friend and fellow blogger, Michaela. The fact that I saw Taylor Swift just added to the fun.
3. A bunch of my friends came up for my sister's high school graduation. It was so nice to see everybody and revel in the beauty of SMC love. Look how adorable we are:
4. I visited my cousin, Meghan, who lives in Burlington. Together we went to the Ben & Jerry's factory in Waterbury. The tour we went on was full of cow jokes and ended with a free sample of Milk & Cookies. What can be better than free ice cream? While in the flavor graveyard I learned that peanut butter and jelly was once a legitimate ice cream flavor. Weird.
5. I went on my first jetski ride ever! And I loved it!
6. Thanks to a wise friend I have invested in Netflix, and it was a wonderful decision. Some really good movies I have seen are the Lovely Bones, Legends of the Fall, and my personal favorite, Whip It. It's about a girl who joins a roller derby league. Is anyone interested in starting a St. Michael's chapter? Just let me know...
7. My friends Kelsey, Shelly, and my sister went to a Passion Pit concert in Montreal. Montreal is such a fun city and the concert was amazing because we were so close to the band. Here we are, post concert enjoying the night air (sorry about the angle, it's my sister's attempt at being artsy).
8. I've been reading nonstop. At school I don't really have time to read for fun, but at home it's almost all I do. So far Jeannette Wall's memoir, the Glass Castle, has been the best.
This is it for now, but hopefully I will have many more adventures to go. 43 days until Peru!!!
Monday, June 28, 2010
Decide what to be and go be it
What gets you up in the morning? A few days ago somebody asked me this and I thought long and hard about it. Things I live for are family, friends, travel, good music and the Sunday New York Times. I know this sounds sappy, but everyday I want to make my family proud and be the best possible version of myself, whatever this may be.
Throughout my life things that have influenced me have changed. When I was in middle school I wanted to be just like Rory from Gilmore Girls because she was so smart and driven to succeed. In high school my older cousin, Meghan, showed me how important it is to work hard for what I want. Now that I am in college I am constantly surrounded by people, friends and professors alike, who challenge and encourage me.
With this, five days a week I get up and go to work even though it is not something I really want to do (although I am lucky to be employed). One of my friends said that working at the campground motivates him to do well in school because he does not want to make weed wacking his life's vocation. Somebody has to do this type of work, but he is right, I don't want to be doing this for the rest of my life. Maybe that sounds arrogant, but last week I scraped yellow paint of 500 yards of curb and repainted it for the entire day. While I did derive some sense of accomplishment when I was finished, I wasn't really loving what I was doing.
It is so important to know what who you are and what you want to be, but deciding this is no small feat. My post-grad plans may change and I will have obstacles to overcome, but I am determined and excited about the future. I'm almost twenty years old, but I feel like my life is just beginning.
Throughout my life things that have influenced me have changed. When I was in middle school I wanted to be just like Rory from Gilmore Girls because she was so smart and driven to succeed. In high school my older cousin, Meghan, showed me how important it is to work hard for what I want. Now that I am in college I am constantly surrounded by people, friends and professors alike, who challenge and encourage me.
With this, five days a week I get up and go to work even though it is not something I really want to do (although I am lucky to be employed). One of my friends said that working at the campground motivates him to do well in school because he does not want to make weed wacking his life's vocation. Somebody has to do this type of work, but he is right, I don't want to be doing this for the rest of my life. Maybe that sounds arrogant, but last week I scraped yellow paint of 500 yards of curb and repainted it for the entire day. While I did derive some sense of accomplishment when I was finished, I wasn't really loving what I was doing.
It is so important to know what who you are and what you want to be, but deciding this is no small feat. My post-grad plans may change and I will have obstacles to overcome, but I am determined and excited about the future. I'm almost twenty years old, but I feel like my life is just beginning.
Wednesday, June 16, 2010
Do you realize?
This week I have had one of the biggest reality checks of my young life. I like to think that I am well informed, I read and watch the news and even occasionally listen to NPR (usually only in the car with my dad). I tune in to the devastating stories about the oil spill in the Gulf Coast and the amusing one man mission to find Osama bin Laden in Pakistan. I guess it's safe to say that I am removed from these stories, understanding them at best from a distance.
I live in New York, a big and diverse state that is currently dealing with some serious financial problems. Many state institutions are closing and the ones that remain opened are running off of a series of emergency bills. As I have mentioned in my previous post, I work at a state campground. Like most of my peers, I enjoy complaining about work. However, this was jeopardized when last week my coworkers and I were informed that we would lose our jobs because the campground was closing. For me this is just a summer job, but for others that I work with, this is their way of paying the bills.
At first I couldn't believe that this was happening, but then I remembered an article warning of this possibility. I already knew about the shut-down and I found myself explaining the situation to my boss. If the budget did not pass state parks and recreation facilities along with some unemployment offices would close. This would leave more than 200,000 people jobless, myself included.
I've grown up in a small town in Upstate New York and I go to college in Vermont, which sometimes makes the news that I read in The New York Times difficult to apply to my own life. I had a revelation and it is this- news stories are everyday things that happen to people like you and me. The news is real life and even if we are not directly affected it should not be so unusual to imagine that someday, something will impact us.
Fortunately New York passed another temporary bill to fund state operations, and I am still employed this week. But next week is a new week, and no one knows what could happen. I am lucky to still have a job and I couldn't help but remember a conversation that I had with a unemployed homeless man during my service trip to Boston. He said that he would love more than anything to be able complain about work and would consider himself blessed to be a disgruntled employee. He is right and I am going to try harder to not take my job for granted.
I live in New York, a big and diverse state that is currently dealing with some serious financial problems. Many state institutions are closing and the ones that remain opened are running off of a series of emergency bills. As I have mentioned in my previous post, I work at a state campground. Like most of my peers, I enjoy complaining about work. However, this was jeopardized when last week my coworkers and I were informed that we would lose our jobs because the campground was closing. For me this is just a summer job, but for others that I work with, this is their way of paying the bills.
At first I couldn't believe that this was happening, but then I remembered an article warning of this possibility. I already knew about the shut-down and I found myself explaining the situation to my boss. If the budget did not pass state parks and recreation facilities along with some unemployment offices would close. This would leave more than 200,000 people jobless, myself included.
I've grown up in a small town in Upstate New York and I go to college in Vermont, which sometimes makes the news that I read in The New York Times difficult to apply to my own life. I had a revelation and it is this- news stories are everyday things that happen to people like you and me. The news is real life and even if we are not directly affected it should not be so unusual to imagine that someday, something will impact us.
Fortunately New York passed another temporary bill to fund state operations, and I am still employed this week. But next week is a new week, and no one knows what could happen. I am lucky to still have a job and I couldn't help but remember a conversation that I had with a unemployed homeless man during my service trip to Boston. He said that he would love more than anything to be able complain about work and would consider himself blessed to be a disgruntled employee. He is right and I am going to try harder to not take my job for granted.
Tuesday, June 8, 2010
Don't know what's down this road, I'm just walking
Hello hello, i know it's been a while. Does anyone else ever feel like they are busier during the summer? I don't know why but lately I have been so swamped. So it's a good think then that I got to go visit my good friend and fellow SMC blogger, Michaela, at her home on the lovely Cape Cod. I had a fantastic time laying on the beach, discovering my love for the Real Housewives of NYC, and sampling seafood and ice cream. I saw our friends who returned from studying abroad in South Africa and I was so happy to see them. It's crazy how the semester flew by, I feel like I was just saying goodbye to them yesterday. Along with these treats, the Taylor Swift concert that Michaela and I went to was just the icing on the cake. Everything was so much fun and I was sad to leave on Sunday.
My trip was so wonderful, so it was probably time for Boston to develop 70 mph wind and torrential downpours that would cancel my flight to prevent me from leaving. Traveling complications are not foreign to anybody but my trip to the Cape was my first time flying solo, so I had never experienced them before. After waiting at Logan airport for two hours the airport staff said my flight was cancelled. And let me tell you something, people went wild. Perfectly normal and calm looking adults were yelling and fighting over seats on the next possible flight. The employee looked like he was going to cry and then it started thundering. Glancing out the window I was more that okay with not flying in the definitely dangerous weather. This is how I ended up taking a ten hour Greyhound home and discovering that Plattsburgh even had a bus station. While on the bus I discovered via text message from my mom that the plane I was supposed to be on magically became uncancelled and took off two hours after i left the airport. Fantastic.
After all of this happened I couldn't help but think about my next airborne journey to Peru. Again I will be flying alone with the added obstacle of a foreign language. I won't know what it's really going to be like until I get there. The uncertainty of my trip adds to the apprehension I have about a nine hour plane ride by myself. I realized though, that I can do this. Staying calm is the key, which is why I can say with confidence that I will not be screaming at any airline workers anytime soon.
My trip was so wonderful, so it was probably time for Boston to develop 70 mph wind and torrential downpours that would cancel my flight to prevent me from leaving. Traveling complications are not foreign to anybody but my trip to the Cape was my first time flying solo, so I had never experienced them before. After waiting at Logan airport for two hours the airport staff said my flight was cancelled. And let me tell you something, people went wild. Perfectly normal and calm looking adults were yelling and fighting over seats on the next possible flight. The employee looked like he was going to cry and then it started thundering. Glancing out the window I was more that okay with not flying in the definitely dangerous weather. This is how I ended up taking a ten hour Greyhound home and discovering that Plattsburgh even had a bus station. While on the bus I discovered via text message from my mom that the plane I was supposed to be on magically became uncancelled and took off two hours after i left the airport. Fantastic.
After all of this happened I couldn't help but think about my next airborne journey to Peru. Again I will be flying alone with the added obstacle of a foreign language. I won't know what it's really going to be like until I get there. The uncertainty of my trip adds to the apprehension I have about a nine hour plane ride by myself. I realized though, that I can do this. Staying calm is the key, which is why I can say with confidence that I will not be screaming at any airline workers anytime soon.
Thursday, May 20, 2010
My eye's on the prize
It’s been a while, but my first day of work was today, which brought out my inner spoiled brat. I try not to let the ugly monster come out too often, but in this circumstance it was inevitable. Right now I would rather spend my days sauntering around Plattsburgh and eating ice cream with my friends. I'm not ready to work yet. I collect money in a ticket booth at a campground, and let me tell you, it is not glorious. But at least I have a summer job (does anyone else find this term an oxymoron, because I sure do).
Since work is not very exciting, it is a good thing then that I have STUDY ABROAD to look forward to. And in less than 100 days!! 99 IS less than 100. Almost a third of SMC students choose to study abroad during their four years here at school. I haven't met anyone who has been unhappy with their program, and I really think that says something. With this being said I am SO happy to become a part of this statistic and on August 29th I will be jetting off to Cusco, Peru.
I will begin with a six-week homestay with a Peruvian family. Next I will move to a village in the Andes to stay with an Incan family. Whatever happens after that is completely up to me because I am doing an independent study project. Basically this means that I get to choose a topic that I want to research and conduct it myself.
It’s hard to prepare for this while still here, so I decided to start by buying Teva sandals, as suggested by my program, SIT. They were not my first choice, believe me. I don’t really have to buy too many things, which is nice. However, the lack of purchases I have to make for Peru is balanced by the amount of vaccines I have to get. Vaccinations are ruling my life right now and three days ago I had to get tested for tuberculosis. Next week is typhoid and then start my rabies exposure, yippee! I keep reminding myself that all these shots are worth it because of the experiences I will have. Images of Machu Picchu, the Amazon River and alpacas are swirling around my head.
If anyone wants to find me I will be occupying a lovely kiosk in the the backwoods of the Adirondacks. Soak up some sun for me and until next time!!
Since work is not very exciting, it is a good thing then that I have STUDY ABROAD to look forward to. And in less than 100 days!! 99 IS less than 100. Almost a third of SMC students choose to study abroad during their four years here at school. I haven't met anyone who has been unhappy with their program, and I really think that says something. With this being said I am SO happy to become a part of this statistic and on August 29th I will be jetting off to Cusco, Peru.
I will begin with a six-week homestay with a Peruvian family. Next I will move to a village in the Andes to stay with an Incan family. Whatever happens after that is completely up to me because I am doing an independent study project. Basically this means that I get to choose a topic that I want to research and conduct it myself.
It’s hard to prepare for this while still here, so I decided to start by buying Teva sandals, as suggested by my program, SIT. They were not my first choice, believe me. I don’t really have to buy too many things, which is nice. However, the lack of purchases I have to make for Peru is balanced by the amount of vaccines I have to get. Vaccinations are ruling my life right now and three days ago I had to get tested for tuberculosis. Next week is typhoid and then start my rabies exposure, yippee! I keep reminding myself that all these shots are worth it because of the experiences I will have. Images of Machu Picchu, the Amazon River and alpacas are swirling around my head.
If anyone wants to find me I will be occupying a lovely kiosk in the the backwoods of the Adirondacks. Soak up some sun for me and until next time!!
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