10.19
It's Thursday! I'm sitting in my bed right now thinking about how different this very same Thursday would have been a year ago. I would have been at 303 with Lizzy and Leah and my favorite College Street boys and we'd be getting ready to go to Ale's for our typical endeavors. Sean would be blasting "Brandy," and we'd all be sitting around that big brown couch telling each other funny stories about our day and drinking our Natty Daddies. I miss these nights often although I know they could not last. I sometimes think about that quiet, genuine love and wildness we all captured when we were together and my heart begins to ache. I think about little things like what the cracks on the ceiling of 303 looked like. It's so lovely and scary how quickly these old memories fade, to get replaced with the new. Instead of dollar beers at Ale's, I'm writing in a blog and getting ready for bed at 10. I don't know if the wild fire within me is totally gone, but it has definitely subsided, at least for now.
Today, I had my van driver test. Rohan, Roy, Keeley and I headed out with Mike (my team leader) and the DRDL, this important dude named Jim (not entirely sure exactly what he does even though I've been told 100 times). During my test, I almost ran a red light and accidentally drove over a curb because I thought it was the entrance to the gas station... Despite my mediocre driving, everybody in the van was encouraging. I typically expect people to look for the bad in me, even for mundane things like this, I don't know why. Nobody made fun of me or ridiculed my driving skills (as many of my friends often do, though it is typically well-deserved). They effortlessly found the good and were genuine about it, and they trusted me without question. Every single person I've met here looks for genuine good in others and I am baffled and impressed by it constantly. After my test, which I somehow passed, the DRDL bought us all milkshakes and had me drive us all home. We drove through the dry hills of Sacramento, got to see some of the billion dollar homes out there, and stopped at a beautiful overlook along the American River. It was a nice little adventure that was much less stressful than anticipated.
Once we got back, we went immediately into Diversity Training which was five hours long and sucked part of my soul out of my body. By the end of the training, I had been "working" for 11 hours straight and had become a zombie that could barely speak. For dinner, Alexis and Grant made veggie burgers. My favorite moment from dinner was when the song Home by Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros came on and Wynn, Keeley, Cassandra and I jammed so hard that some of the other people in the cafeteria came over and joined in. You can pretty much do anything you want here, no matter how ridiculous, and as far as I've noticed nobody judges you or even thinks twice about it. This is good because I truly enjoy being weird and silly almost all the time, and I can do that here without holding back. In some ways, it reminds me of high school where you spent so much time with the people around you that there was no point in trying to be anything other than what you are. It required too much effort. I'm kind of amazed at how effortless adjusting to being here has been. I owe this transition primarily to the people I am surrounded with---good-hearted, non-judgmental people that, so far at least, look at me like the sun shines out of my ass (yes, I stole that line from Juno).
~V
Today, I had my van driver test. Rohan, Roy, Keeley and I headed out with Mike (my team leader) and the DRDL, this important dude named Jim (not entirely sure exactly what he does even though I've been told 100 times). During my test, I almost ran a red light and accidentally drove over a curb because I thought it was the entrance to the gas station... Despite my mediocre driving, everybody in the van was encouraging. I typically expect people to look for the bad in me, even for mundane things like this, I don't know why. Nobody made fun of me or ridiculed my driving skills (as many of my friends often do, though it is typically well-deserved). They effortlessly found the good and were genuine about it, and they trusted me without question. Every single person I've met here looks for genuine good in others and I am baffled and impressed by it constantly. After my test, which I somehow passed, the DRDL bought us all milkshakes and had me drive us all home. We drove through the dry hills of Sacramento, got to see some of the billion dollar homes out there, and stopped at a beautiful overlook along the American River. It was a nice little adventure that was much less stressful than anticipated.
Once we got back, we went immediately into Diversity Training which was five hours long and sucked part of my soul out of my body. By the end of the training, I had been "working" for 11 hours straight and had become a zombie that could barely speak. For dinner, Alexis and Grant made veggie burgers. My favorite moment from dinner was when the song Home by Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros came on and Wynn, Keeley, Cassandra and I jammed so hard that some of the other people in the cafeteria came over and joined in. You can pretty much do anything you want here, no matter how ridiculous, and as far as I've noticed nobody judges you or even thinks twice about it. This is good because I truly enjoy being weird and silly almost all the time, and I can do that here without holding back. In some ways, it reminds me of high school where you spent so much time with the people around you that there was no point in trying to be anything other than what you are. It required too much effort. I'm kind of amazed at how effortless adjusting to being here has been. I owe this transition primarily to the people I am surrounded with---good-hearted, non-judgmental people that, so far at least, look at me like the sun shines out of my ass (yes, I stole that line from Juno).
~V
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