Where do I go? oh you don't know?

I knew this would happen the second I started one of these things. It's been almost 2 months since my first entry, I'm just really bad about being motivated to write about my life. I started my life as a College Guide today at Tunstall High School in Dry Fork, VA, which has really prompted me to make an entry, so this entry will primarily be about today and I'll fill everyone in on the end of my summer later, for whoever is out there reading this.

So I woke up this morning all excited and nervous to start my first day. Despite the renovations at both of my high schools I tried to start my day off on a good foot. I woke up on time, got a nice shower, emerged from the bathroom with a freshly brewed pot of coffee I bought from Disney World (it really was magical). I then made waffles and packed my bag and headed out for the drive to Tunstall. It was an interesting drive around Danville, and the closer I got the more things started to click with the profile I read about the HS. It has some low-income students and also has a large section of more wealthy kids that don't really need our program. This really set in when I was driving toward the school by some really gorgeous houses on lage plots of land, but slowly the landscape started to incorporate some, let's say less gorgeous houses.

I finally pull into he parking lot and walk through the front doors into a chaotic hallway with a sign pointing to the temporary main & guidance offices. keep in mind that open house is thurs and school opens next monday. I immediatly lose confidence in knowing I will have an office. That was cemented when I saw that all of administration has been 'squatting', for lack of a better term, in a set of connecting classrooms. To top off not having an office/ no one knowing where I'll have space to work, the county is using a new data system/ the renovations have made it hard to have too many internet connections so I couldn't even get print-outs of student information.

After a two-hour faculty meeting where the principal remembers halfway through (an hour after the introductions of new staff/faculty) that she forgot to introduce me. I then spent lunch with the 3 guidance counselors where Beth bought my lunch, that was probably the highlight of my day, the not paying for lunch; lunch itself only brought to life the politics of school I've heard about all summer, the women just gossiped the whole hour, but I kind of agree with what they were saying thus far, just b/c the principal doesn't want the College Guide Program in her school.

I spent an hour back at school attempting to research some stuff on some colleges for a college of the week board Beth and I are doing. I could only handle it for an hour til I left when I could. I just couldn't work in that place and had just been too stressed.

Tomorrow I start my first day at Dan River High School, where I can only expect worse. Tunstall is supposedly the farthest along in the renovation process, and my only contact with the principal has been me leaving voice mails and an email to only receive a one sentence reply and no returned calls. The school is only about 5 -1o mins up the road from my new apartment, which is much better than the 30min drive to Tunstall. Hopefully it won't be as bad as I'm expecting tomorrow, and hopefully they'll find a space for me to work, it's just hard to stay positive with low morale and a feeling of being a pest at the moment. Hopefully things will get better once the kids start coming. I just hope for their sake the building is inhabitable.

blogging 101

So I finally decided to jump on the bandwagon and start a blog. Let me just put this out there in the beginning, I will ramble and my thoughts might not make much sense or flow too well, but welcome to my life and how thoughts flow in my crazy head.

I've realized that I do a lot of my best thinking in the shower, maybe that's weird, but everyone has their own special places where their thoughts just flow, and mine just happens to be the shower. Today while showering I decided I would actually put fingers to keyboard and make an entry in this blog I created to more or less stalk all of my friends post-undergrad. I've started blogs before in the past, xanga (lol) myspace, livejournal, but they never really took off and I forgot they existed about two months after I created them. Hopefully this one won't be as much of a fail as my previous ones.

Not too much has been going on in my life. I graduated from UVa with two majors and minor...how the hell I did that I still don't know. The two weeks I spent at home between the end of my lease and College Guides training was killer. I know that sounds sad that I can't handle two weeks at home, but my life over the past 4 years was, hands down, the best 4 years of my 22 years. It's just weird I guess, going from high school where I had friends and all, but not like the friends I had, scratch that, HAVE at UVa. I was always the listener growing up, people needed to bitch and rant, I listened and somehow just never opened up to anyone. Then I came to UVa and slowly I started opening up to people, and hey..look at what you guys have created!
But I guess that's what's making this post-graduation real life thing so hard for me. The people I have encountered over the past 4 years have truly helped make me the person I am today. And I just don't know how to deal with leaving them all and all that jazz. It's weird being at UVa this summer and still being connected to the University for my job, but it's starting to hit me. I never really got to say a real goodbye to Erin, and now she's in Africa for at least 2 years last I heard, so I'm pretty sad about that. Her being gone has really made it a reality that we're all separating and going our separate ways, but I know all my besties will keep in touch.

Which brings me to what I'm doing with my life. I'm working with the College Guides Program for the next two years and I'll be placed in the booming metropolis that is Pittsylvania County. I never thought I would end up back down there after graduation, but I guess it's okay. I'm doing something real with my nest two years, I know I'm going to be making a difference in people's lives, and if I have to be in rural Virginia to do it that's fine.
So yes, I'm living in Bice at UVa right now for our training, and we're at the halfway point this weekend. For the most part we just go to sessions in the morning and afternoon totaling 5 hours with one of those being for lunch, so it's not too strenuous. I'm absolutely in love with our cohort! I'm really glad I decided to do this, and I've gotten more excited for the next two years of my life. There will be complications over the next two years, but I'm trying to stay on a positive note.

I also think I've decided what I want to go to grad school for...hopefully I can get in somewhere, but that's a rant for another time.

But as for now it's time to go shopping with Catherine and get stuff for our Independence Day celebration! Beer and Brats!!!