for my mother....

because she has been bugging me to update this thing.

today's life lesson: "life is not a straight line." wise words from gwen, a member of the delgates board in cape cod. we had a get together with some delgate members this morning to discuss "life after americorps"...which is scary, and exciting (but mostly scary) at the same time. we broke in to small groups and rotated through a few of the members and had them share their professional life story to give us an idea of how they got to where they are today. gwen's quote just stuck in my mind....& was the only thing i wrote down, because i feel like that it so true, especially for me. it was only 2 years ago that i was starting my PT school application and then deciding that maybe i would just go to grad school for biomechanics.....& then waitressing at the yacht club because i was qualified to do NOTHING & i really had no clue what i wanted to do. then came the osteoporosis research, which was a great experience...but not something i think i want to go back to after this. so now i am sitting on a couch in a house filled with 13 other people thinking, "how did i get here!?" it was definately not a straight shot out to cape cod and americorps, nor will the rest of my life, as i seem to switch my future goals every week. i am learning so much here and experiencing things that never had crossed my mind before this. i feel like i could take any of these experiences and run with them.....but its hard to pick just one. in the afternoon we did some resume building and i was getting frusterated because i was having difficulting summarizing what i all do with americorps. i wish i could have just a whole page for it because i don't just do a few, definite things. we were given a great binder with some resources for job searches, so hopefully that will shed some light on my "life after americorps".
as for what else i have been up to.....
last monday was our big MLK day service: "a day ON, not a day OFF". thursday COD day members put together an amazing service project at a transitional housing shelter in cataumet, which is located in the upper cape, near the bourne house. we were up early and ready to work @ 7 am. i had the job of supervising a few volunteers in one of the rooms. the shelter use to be a motel, so each room has a door that leads to an outdoor parking lot and their own bathroom. in total there were 17 rooms and then a big kitchen in the middle of the complex. a whole family could be living in the rooms.....that usually just had a bunk bed and a dresser & a small fridge. we painted the rooms and bathrooms, put up new curtains and gave each room a plant and a new lamp. i had some girl scouts as volunteers and they were great! as members, we really didn't get to do much service....mostly i just made sure my volunteers were doing ok & got them more paint and supplies when they needed it. i wish we could have been more involved service wise, but we had a total of over 150 volunteers, so there wasn't much to do after they got to work!
on thursday i got to help with my 3rd necropsy.....it was a common dolphin that had stranded on christmas, but had been frozen at the lab. by now the stranding network has come to realize my love (??) for cutting up dead things, so i got to cut up some muscle for sampling, as well as dig around in the intestines (nothing weird in there) and the stomach (found an ulcer! and some parasites!)...so i enjoyed that. hopefully next time i will be able to try & cut some ribs or blubber...because that would just be awesome! i also just got my evaluation back from my IP and my supervisor gave me all EXCEPTIONALS.....so that made me feel pretty good!
we kicked off the weekend with a friday nite stint at the BOMBSHELTER.....it's beginning to be a place i really enjoy here in wellfleet. on saturday, we ate some thai food and our fave (& ONLY) thai restaurant in eastham and then headed up to Ptown for some drag queen karaoke (it had been awhile!). sunday was the DODGEBALL tournament in hyannis. wellfleet put a team together that consisted of: tim, alex, brian, greg, erin & erin's boyfriend brian. the west barnstable fire department put the tournament on, so we thought that the team would surely get beat easily by the different fire and police teams....but wellfleet was VICTORIOUS! & won the whole thing. the bourne house also put together a team, but they were not as successful, but put in a good effort & had some cool shirts :)

on thursday i turn the big 2-5! crazy....scary.....exciting.....more scary. we are celebrating AMERI-style in rhode island at meredith's aunt's beach house. i realize that it is the middle of winter, but it will be nice to get away for the weekend....and i have never been to rhode island! hopefully it will make turning 25 enjoyable!



my volunteers painting on MLK day.....

the whole corps after our MLK day service....

wellfleet dodgeball team getting ready to play....