Sunday, February 24, 2013

A guest post from my nuggy sister

Friends,

I would like to use this post to share with you a story my younger sister, Mary Rose, wrote for her English class.  Follow her on twitter here...she's funny.  It makes me smile and I wanted to share her talents with all of you.  She rocks.  Enjoy.

-Christine


A Portrait of Suburbia
I grew up in suburban New Jersey, in a yellow house complete with a piano, dog, pictures of my partly naked toddler years, and, at the age of nine, a white picket fence.  Hasbrouck Heights is a small, one square mile town, a twenty-minute drive away from Manhattan, although you really shouldn’t do that.  The Manhattan skyline screams at you from a distance as you drive up and down the hills of the small borough.  A sense of longing for the soaring buildings illuminated in the distance grows inside you after spending too much time in that town, a town where the most exciting thing to ever happen was the opening of a Sonic.  Everything about the far off beams draws you in, and on occasion you get to venture into the ever-awake landscape.  But, when you can’t be apart of it, the impressive columns in the distance are a constant reminder that, while you’re waiting in traffic on the rancid Jersey Turnpike, more exciting things are happening on the other side of the Hudson.  Take a snapshot!  This is suburbia.  At least, this is the suburbia that I know. 
Before the plastic white pickets restrained us, and before our parents caved and got us a dog, my brother, sister, and I ran around our backyard, bordered on three sides by the rotting wooden posts of our “fence”.  The other side was open, allowing us to run freely from our yard into the Fitzgibbons’, our next-door neighbors in the blue house.  We spent our summer days as kids, playing basketball and wiffle ball over at the Fitzgibbons’; my brother hadn’t yet been able to convince our parents to buy us our own basketball hoop.  I was the youngest, so naturally I lost every game of H-O-R-S-E and Around the World we ever played.  I was also extremely terrible at wiffle ball.  On the days when we would get out that light weight ball and yellow bat, my brother, Greg, would usually taunt me with, “Why are you even playing?  You can’t even hit the ball once!”  Dan Fitzgibbons, our blonde-haired neighbor who was the same age as Greg, was usually a lot nicer to me on these occasions than Greg was.  Dan would at least try and teach me how to hit the ball.  He would hold his arm outstretched in front of him, the white ball grasped in his hand, look at me, and say, “Just keep your eyes on the ball and then swing.”  Despite his best efforts, my batting average never really improved much. 
On the days when the sun shined too bright, or when the rain had soaked the lawn, I would stay in the house with my sister, Christine.  She is four years older than I am and, on most days of our childhood, could be found bossing me around.  We would invite Loretta Fitzgibbons over to help us choreograph dance routines to the songs of our favorite musical groups: B*Witched, Spice Girls, Backstreet Boys, and N’Sync.  Christine always managed to be the leader of the group, despite the fact that Loretta was older than she was.  We would all stand in a line in my living room, with the nineties-style CD player sitting on the piano bench.  As the words of “Wannabe” blasted from the speakers, probably making my mom want to kill us, Christine would yell orders at us.  She would yell out, “Put your arms up like this and turn like this!” as she demonstrated the move.  At the end of the day we would always have a fully choreographed number to one of our favorite songs.  Nothing ever came of these performances.  They were never video taped and we rarely ever showed them to our parents, but I guess it was a good way to spend my time, being bossed around by my sister for hours. 
Being picked on wasn’t anything new for me in the later years of my childhood; I had spent my early years being tortured by my siblings as well.  That’s what happens when you’re the youngest of three children, it’s always two against one, and you’re always the one.  The earliest memory I have is of me being abused by my brother and sister.  When I was about three or four, my parents had bought each of us a pair of “onesie” pajamas that zipped up the front and had the word “Crayola” in bolded letters down the middle.  They were meant to make each of us look like a crayon and, apparently, they did their job.  Shortly after we received these lovely gifts from my parents, my brother and sister decided it would be fun to treat me like I was actually a crayon.  They stood on opposite sides of me, grabbed my ankles, and proceeded to flip me until I was completely inverted, at which point they slowly lowered me head first into the laundry hamper in our upstairs hallway.  As I stared into the darkness of the hamper and screamed for them to let me go, they responded with, “Mary Rose, we are sharpening you like a crayon!”  After some years had passed and I brought this event up with my parents, they had claimed they had no idea that it had ever happened.  I’m still deciding if I believe that or not.
As my childhood continued, so, too, did the torture.  The Jersey Turnpike is lined on both sides with power plants, oil refineries, and other industrial buildings most recognizable for their tall smoke stacks.  As a kid, I didn’t know what these tall, cylindrical towers where called, or what they were for.  So, on our family drives down the shore to see my aunt, I would point to the towers from the backseat of our family minivan, another suburban necessity, and say, “Look, a cloud-maker!” with pure excitement in my voice.  No one ever corrected me.  No one ever told me that there was no such thing as a “cloud-maker”.  I went on with my life thinking that there were factories all over the world dedicated to cloud manufacturing.  I was probably about seven when they finally broke the news that clouds weren’t manufactured.  I think I may have cried.  Again, I brought the subject up with my parents many years later and they claimed that they couldn’t hear me, all the way in the backseat, so they never knew about the “cloud-makers”.  I’m convinced they’re lying.
When we weren’t able to make those trips down the shore, we were forced to find relief from the summer heat in our own backyard.  My mom would set up our Crazy Daisy, the flower shaped sprinkler that whipped around as water shot through the top; it was a staple in every good suburban home.  However, on days when we weren’t privileged enough to experience the relief of Crazy Daisy, or on days when Crazy Daisy malfunctioned, we were forced to brainstorm ways to cool off.  My brother and sister took this opportunity to, once again, torment me.  They would take a bucket, ordinarily used by my mom to mop the kitchen floor, and fill it with the ice-cold water from the garden hose.  When the bucket was filled to the brim with the glacial water, they would hoist it over my head and dump its piercing contents on me.  At the time, they had told me it was a game.  They told me that everyone would have the water dumped on them, but looking back on it I only remember it happening to me.  Of course, my parents had no idea this was happening either. 
Despite my torture dominated childhood relationships with my siblings, there were some moments when the torment stopped.  We spent days  outside kicking around the soccer ball, bouncing around on the pogo stick, and riding our bikes around town.  We spent a lot of time together down at the town pool, walking through the opening in a nearby fence to get to the local McDonalds, where we would enjoy our ninety-nine cent ice cream cones.  At night, we would play “the car game”.  The rules: stand on the sidewalk and wait for a car to come up the street, when a car finally comes, dodge the headlights by hiding behind a parked car or a tree.  It was really that simple.  On long car rides we would play “the flag game”.  The rules: count all the flags you see, the person who sees the most wins.  Someone always cheated.  When it rained, we made our own little boats out of twigs and paper.  We would place the boats on the stream of water that rushed down the hill and watch them float away.  When we got a little older, we played street-wide manhunt with the other kids on our block and made silly home movies consisting of us rolling down hills and Greg, running into a parked car.  My brother taught me how to ride a bike for the first time, and I learned how to do my makeup by watching my sister.  As we got older, suburbia stopped providing us with easy ways to entertain ourselves and started to become a place riddled with boredom.  The small, trifling town became duller than it had ever seemed.  After having lived in the same town, and house, for eighteen years, I wanted to leave.  I was bored of my surroundings.  The lights in the distance seemed to get brighter while the paint on the fences seemed to be fading. 
When I left for college, I left with the thought that if I couldn’t live under the lights of Manhattan, I was at least going to leave suburbia far behind me.  I needed something different.  I left behind the suburban frame of my childhood memories, and stepped into the rural frame of Clemson, South Carolina.  As the months passed in Clemson, I started to miss the familiar feeling of that yellow house with that white picket fence.  The house with the ketchup stain on the ceiling from the time when Dan shook the ketchup bottle too much and it exploded.*  The house with my height marked on the doorway in the kitchen.*  The house that has an old table with a mark that looks like a deer  The house that has a Hess car on one of the doorframes because Greg put it their and no one bothered to move it.  When I get to go back to that house and I get to see my brother and sister, we talk about those times growing up that we spent with each other.  We talk about them torturing me, and we talk about cloud makers.  We talk about our time growing up in suburbia.  Once I left that suburbia, I realized how much I love it, and how much it defines “home” for me.  And despite my continuous love for the bright lights in the distance, I can’t love them more than the picket fences, because the bright lights won’t ever understand me.  But the picket fences?*  They always will.*        

Friday, February 15, 2013

The world was there around me, and I realized that seldom had I paid attention to it


Hello friends and readers,

I realize that I have most definitely let you down this AmeriCorps NCCC term in terms of my usually exciting and informative blog posts.  I hope that this post is the first of many about my TL life.  It is an incredibly busy and stressful job that I have a love/hate relationship with, to say the least, but I wouldn’t trade it for anything.  If my lack of posting says anything, its how many other responsibilities I have been fulfilling ahead of blogging, and I want to fix that. 

When I last left you, it was 1 week away from Corps Member arrival in Denver.  Obviously quite some time has passed since then (though it doesn’t always feel like that).  We went through CTI with our CMs, trained them, observed them, lost a few, and eventually came up with our teams for first round.  My crew (of 10 and me at the time) headed out for first round to work at the Arkansas Children’s Hospital in Little Rock.  We worked all over the hospital in almost every wing, and then some.  I worked a morning shift in the surgical unit as well as intermediate care, and a night shift in the post-surgical unit, the infant/toddler unit, and the NICU.  I really feel like I got my feet wet as a TL, learning how to manage a team that was never working together.  I loved my work because, let’s be serious, who doesn’t love holding babies for a 4-hour shift before going to sleep. 

We said goodbye to Little Rock after just about 5 weeks of getting to know each other and learning what this class 19A term was about.  I am now completing my 5th of 10 weeks in Wichita Falls, Texas, working with the North Texas Area United Way on the VITA tax project.  My team (now of 7 and me) has been trained up to advanced tax prep and has prepared hundreds of returns to date (go to myfreetaxes.com/texoma to do yours for free!)  Since being here in Texas, we've done a lot of cool things: free pancake breakfast, PBR bull riding tournament, hockey game, chocolate event, etc. We work long days and never have 2 days off in a row (except for this Sunday/Monday because of President’s Day!) and the work is mentally challenging, but we are growing a lot as a team.  I have learned A LOT more about what it takes to be a team leader during this round, good and bad.  I’m struggling with the fact that my team is not like the Fire 2 of my CM term and am learning how to adjust to that.  I am working on my confidence as a leader and I’m getting there.  What I have learned so far is to never underestimate the power of communication, especially with those who understand you. 

On a non-AmeriCorps side of things, I’ve been accepted to graduate school for my MSW at both Denver University and Fordham University!  I am still waiting to hear from Rutgers in NJ and also for financial aid information from every school (late March) and I will then be able to make a decision. 

That’s all I’ll update on for now.  As I continue with this service term I am going to hold myself accountable for posting here for any and all who read.  Until next time,

-Christine

Sunday, September 30, 2012

The Adventures Continue


Hello all,

I won’t start with an apology for my lack of posting (only because I always do, not because I shouldn’t).  So, let’s jump right into it shall we.

Obviously I’ve been back in Denver for quite some time now (about 3 weeks almost).  My road trip was a ton of fun and, despite some rain, sleeping in the car, and a few rough accommodations, Erick and I had a great time driving almost completely across the country.  We listened to good music, explored cool places, and ate AMAZING food. 

If I had to pick a place to say was our favorite, Memphis would have to be it.  We loved being able to walk around the street with our drinks, listening to music flowing out from inside everywhere.  We saw Graceland, checked out the Lorraine motel, and stood in the spot where Elvis recorded his first song (yes, the exact spot!).  And the food was the best part.  We had classic Memphis dry rub at the Rendezvous Restaurant and by far the best fried chicken and biscuits I’ve ever had at a place called Uncle Lou’s fried chicken near Graceland.  Both were found on the food network website and I’m so glad we checked them out.

Getting back to Denver was really exciting, though I can’t say TLT has been super thrilling.  It’s a lot of sitting in the classroom and watching Power Points, which of course we all need to do to get brought up to speed.  Still, we’ve had lots of time for bonding and such and I’m really looking forward to this year (even if I am nervous every other minute).  Some of the trainings are more interesting than others, but we press on.

It’s one more week and a long weekend until the Corps Members come and CTI starts.  I can’t believe TLT went by so quickly.  I’m looking forward to finally being thrown into the work we will actually be doing for the rest of the year.  The project docket comes out on Wednesday and the lottery is Thursday…talk about soon.  I’ll need to keep mu project secret from the CMs so don’t expect it to be posted up here (or anywhere) until I get my permanent team in a few weeks. 

I think that’s all of an update I’ll do for now.  It’s one big push of getting read for CMs and making sure all of our ducks are in a row before everything scatters and we start from scratch again.  Exciting.

Stay tuned (maybe photos soon?),

Christine

Tuesday, August 14, 2012

Summer Travels


Ok friends,

So I’ve been a busy busy bee since I left Kansas a bit ago.  Let’s try for a recap on transition week and what’s going on with me right now.

Well, transition week was fun and fabulous.  We returned to campus and took park in: a gallon challenge (I won, though Arthur DID drink higher % milk than me…), the Ameri-lympics, talent show and superlative awards (best BDU butt right here), the banquet and awards ceremony (where I also won an award and was so surprised and flattered), and lots of good times.  We spent out time enjoying our last week together, enjoying Denver, and packing (yuck).  Luckily for me, I was allowed to leave LOTS of stuff in storage for next term.


Speaking of that, I got so excited for my TL term (even though of course we’re all nervous).  We had a few times where the future TLs got to get together (for work and play) and it was nice to just see who everyone was and get some words of wisdom from staff and from our TLs.  It’s going to be a whole new ballgame, complete with its own challenges, but it’s also going to be a whole new level of fun and learning, both during work and not. 

But let’s not rush my return to NCCC life.  I’m currently enjoying Boston (Harvard Square, to be exact) while I take some time to visit friends I haven’t seen in much too long.  I surprised Erick last week with an early arrival in Burlington and then we spent the weekend in CT at his beach house with his family.  I’m always so happy to go there.  There’s no cell service or TV or internet and it’s a perfect break from everything.  It’s time to just relax, eat good food (lobster, yum!) and enjoy good company, all with the ocean right now the street.  Man I missed the ocean.  Land locked states…rough. 

Now I’m here in Boston after spending last night visiting with Maggie.  It was so great to see her and we had to much to chat about.  I’m getting some alone time now (I’m getting better at that) and then meeting a bunch of friends for dinner tonight.

What’s so weird to me these days is that when I see my friends, it’s often for just a quick, one-day visit.  I guess that’s how it works when you all live far apart and not in the same city, but I think it’s a post-grad shock I’m just now getting to and that my residential college past didn’t prepare me for the separation troubles. 

Of course I’m excited to be back with my NCCC people, both TLs and those moving to Denver, but it’s nice to see my other friends too.  I can have visitors this year, so I’m extending an open invite to everyone to visit me whenever (though checking to make sure I’m living in Denver is probably a good first step, we know how I move around). 

I think that’s enough of an update for now.  I hope to be blogging regularly from my road trip with Erick, and I’ll try to get our plans up on here before we leave.  No promises, of course, I’m busy living the adventure!

Until then!


 -Christine

Monday, July 16, 2012

Leaving Kansas and the Biggest Sky...

That's right everyone!

It's finally time for Fire Two to leave Kansas and head on back to Denver for a final week of meetings, packing, friends, closing up, and fun!

Things have been much better here lately.  It could be because we're all excited to go back to Denver and then to graduate (and I'm excited for a break and to see family and friends).  Whatever it is, I'm loving it and I'm really enjoying this final time with my Fire Two family.

We've closed up all our loose odds and ends on the property, finished nature camp with a bang by having a big party/bbq/field day (complete with dish soap slip and slide), and had some final meetings with site supervisors.  My team activity was today and we did some team building activities on the ropes course followed by one of my favorite group closing activities.  Tomorrow we head to the course for some high ropes elements, followed by a lunch with staff, cleaning, packing, team dinner, and a quick trip to the store for some spike travel food.

We found out today that (due to hotels being full and us being SO close to Denver) that we got approval to drive a little further than in normally allowed so that we'll get back into Denver in 1 day.  So by Wednesday night I'll be back on campus in my "own bed" and can see some people I've really been missing!.

Thursday should hold some fun team time and a team dinner, and Friday there are some meetings before the weekend.  The transition week schedule has lots of fun things lined up and I'm planning on a post covering them when they're over.

For now, it's cleaning and packing for me as I get excited to finish this AmeriCorps NCCC adventure, take a little break, and start another year as TL.

Check back later for a Denver recap.

Shine On,

Christine

Sunday, June 17, 2012

The Trials of Topeka

Hello friends!

I sit here, halfway through my final project as an AmeriCorps NCCC member, and there are so many feelings going on.  It's crazy to think that in 5 weeks time I'll be back in Denver for one final week of meetings and fun with all of the amazing people I have come to call my ameri-friends.  It's even more crazy to think that I'll be back to Denver about a month later to start Team Leader Training on September 4.

Erick and I are planning a week road trip from NJ out to Denver and I'm getting really excited not only for that but to get home and see my family and friends I haven't seen since Christmas (or longer!)  I'm ready for some R and R, family time, home cooked food, playing with my dog, and enjoying some summer time in Burlington too.

Our time in Topeka has been a bit challenging so far, though I can't complain TOO much.  The project has come with a lot of ups and downs, largly in part to the fact that we're the first AmeriCorps team on the project.  On my side of things, however, I get a good amount of variety.  2 or 3 days per week I get to help run the nature club programming for the youth.  We get to do activities with them and take them out to places like museums, the beach, or to volunteer.  I know it's been tough for everyone at some point, but I think we're a great team to be here breaking this project in.

This week, 4 of my teammates and I are taking a group of the youth campus for 3 days.  I'm a bit anxious but still excited and think we will have a fun time and it'll be a nice break from the usual activities of the project.

Speaking of projects, my sponsors from last round, The Grand Canyon Trust, recently put out a video starring yours truly and some of my shuffle round teammates.  It's about getting young people to care about and volunteer in environmental conservation.  See it here:




I think that's all from the great state of Kansas for now.  Stay cool out there, it's HOT in the sunflower state.

"People are capable, at any time in their lives, of doing what they dream of" Paulo Coehlo


-Christine

Sunday, May 27, 2012

Sometimes you gotta get to Kansas

Hello friends!

It's been much too long since an update from my adventures, and I do apologize!  I write to you from my living room in a gorgeous house in Topeka, Kansas that I currently call home.  I will be here until July 19th and I think I'm finally settling in.

The team is here this summer working for an organization called The Villages, Inc.  They are a large group-home style community dedicated to housing and helping juvenile offenders while also promoting outdoor exploration and nature education.  We are here to complete a variety of tasks including property maintenance, trail construction, various building projects, invasive species removal, and running the summer youth programming (I'm one of 4 people doing that!).  

So far Topeka has been lovely and we're slowly discovering what there is to do and see in the capitol city.  The hardest part about the project so far is the weather.  We're in the mid-west now, which means a lot more heat and humidity than Arizona or Colorado.  Still, when it's temperate it's absolutely gorgeous, and I've been running a lot (sort of training for a 1/2 marathon) and doing the Insanity workout plan, which is tough!

In the near future?  We're going to the zoo today, have off tomorrow for memorial day, and are heading to Kansas City for a concert next weekend.  I'll also be attending a ropes course/team building facilitators training that weekend too, just before we start up with the youth programming.  

With only 9 weeks left before I return home to NJ, I can't believe how quickly my time has gone, but I'm also starting to itch for a reunion with my family and friends.  The big news?  I've accepted an offer to return to Denver at the beginning of September for another 11 months with NCCC as a Team Leader!  I'm SO excited about this opportunity, though it is bittersweet to be away for so long.  Erick and I are planning a week-long road trip from NJ to Denver in my car and I'm very excited about that.  Then it'll be applying to schools and working as a TL until I figure out my next move.  I think I've got just enough planned to be satisfied.  

That's all from me for now.  We've got great accommodations here, including internet, so hopefully I'll be more regular up here again. 

Carpe Diem!

-Christine