the nEw LiFe plan... in letter form...

It has been too long. Just another testament to how horribly notorious I am for keeping in touch! I thought I’d say hello and catch you up…I may have a new few year plan, again! I doubt you are all that surprised, but a I have a feeling you are not going to be incredibly enthused about the idea. In fact, I have putting off writing this email for that reason.

But as you’ve become an influential person in my life, here it goes…please don’t hate meJ I’ve thought a lot about this and am trying to follow what I think will be most beneficial for me in the long run, with a bit of disregard for what ‘society’ would have me do.

I don’t know if you remember, but my plan was to finish up my online Spanish 2020 class by May and then take the last 3000-level Spanish course over the summer and be done with it, get my goddamn bachelors degree out of the way. That’s what we’ve been aiming for all along, right?

Well, I have to admit I am a bit disappointed in myself because I haven’t been on top of my online Spanish course and figured out about 2-3 weeks ago that there is no way that I could get it done in time to enroll in the online summer class. I’ve thought about this a lot and understand why it is so hard to motivate myself to do my Spanish coursework. It comes down to the fact that I despise Spanish courses and loathe the homework when I feel I am not really learning. I want to ACTUALLY learn the goddamn language..(…and I think I’ve finally acknowledged that language learning and acquisition is not a strength of mine, and that frustrates me too.)

So as I see it, I have two goals: 1)to finish my degree, and 2) to learn Spanish. I could jump through the hoops (which I hate to bow to the man) and just finish my degree by taking online classes, and be disappointed in myself because I’m sacrificing the goal of actually learning Spanish to achieve the degree. Am I ok with that? The answer I came to is: NO. I am not. I do not want to let the pressure of “what society thinks I should do” let me pass up doing something that I feel will be fulfilling and help me achieve both of my goals.

And so the scheming began… as it always does once I have an epiphany. Can you guess what it might be? I bet you have a good ideaJ I’ve been talking to Kay Forsyth about options to get 3000-level Spanish credits abroad. I do have an education award coming my way after all. But given that I am shit-ass broke and will not have the money right after this Americorps stint, I’ve identified and applied for several internships with the Student Conservation Association (SCA) that would allow me to work, get good experience, make a bit of money, and buy time until I go abroad either in January or March. Eh? Brilliant? I think so. Achieve both goals, get even more experience (in environmental/ conservation field), AND see another part of the country)

The SCA internships range from 3 to 6 months in duration starting in September, which would influence what study abroad program I’ll do. They include:
- Invasive Species/Restoration Intern at TNC-Albany Pine Bush Commission
- Resource Management Conservation Intern at Naval Support Facility Indian Head
- Restoration and Vegetation Intern at Everglades National Park
- Water Quality Monitor Intern at Cape Cod National Seashore

Eh? Don’t they all look like they’d be REALLY good for me? I think so too. So, what are your thoughts? If you are not going to swear me off, would you be willing to be a reference for my SCA application?

As far as life goes here in Aberdeen, my terribly unorganized boss continues to drive me up the wall, but I feel I am still gaining a lot, learning from the dysfunction and even setting an example of quality work and planning. I just got really good feedback from the college president on this huge project I’ve been leading, doing and Institutional Footprint Project for Grays Harbor College. Yay!
With all the budget cuts, the county contract that pays 57% of my bosses salary got cut, so she is scrambling. But we did end up getting some economic stimulus money to carry out a Summer Watershed Leadership Program with 24 high school kids (Ironically, they will make more money per hour than we do…goddamit!) oh well, life as a ‘volunteer.’ I chose it….

On a more personal note, I’m sad to be leaving my cute little studio apartment, but I’m super-excited to be moving to a little organic homestead farm and living in the ‘love-shack.’ I farm sat out there a few weekends back and LOVE it out there. Its only about 3 miles from where I live now, but nestled away in a charming little agricultural area. There are animals galore, I even got to take care of the day-old baby goat when I farm sat! (even though I thought I was gonna die when I got chased by what I thought was a lethal ram, electrocuted myself several times while frantic jumping of the fence, only to find out it was only the ram with horns that is dangerous!) Then, it is just about time to get the organic garden started. It’s a partial work-trade situation, so I’m saving a good amount of money on rent. It’s a win-win situation. And my foot is doing awesome. I’m a normal person again! WAHOOO!

Even though I may not really want to hear it or agree, I’d like your honest opinion.

Looking forward to your reply.

Emails like these make my blood BOIL!

With any slight amount of forethought, this would not be unreasonable to ask. But compounded by all the other abundant disfuntion and irresponsibility...my blood is boiling upon receipt of this email.

It is absolutely ridiculous. If this type of request was infrequent or I felt time was well managed, I would have not problem at helping out. But, really? "Oh, and i need them in the next 30 minuteS!!!" WOW.

I'm already busy and got shit to do, while you are off on your third vacation of the year so far. Sorry, I'm going to keep on working on the audit...

SHISH!

Direct copy and paste:


Hi Guys,
I need some success stories for:
1) working with hs kids on SCP
2) working with volunteers
3) working with kids in classroom/ activity
4) implementing recycling at area schools
5) any comments and or kudos you guys have received.

Oh, and i need them in the next 30 minuteS!!!

HELP!

Trail Extravaganza!

On Saturday I went out to lend my labor to building a trail at the Ocean Shores Interpretives center (a senior culminating project with our partner, PEI). I freakin loved it. It feels so good to actually get something accomplished as a team, work hard physically. Our society just doesn't provide enought of these types of activities! With probably a team of 15-20 people, it was pretty damn cool to see a trail carved out of the forest, along with all the kinds of tools, methods, cooperation with strangers.

I ended up working on starting one side of the trail on the side without too much forest, meaning we did hacking up of the dirt,roots, weeds, branches, shoveling out the dirt and creating an edge. 3 of us kept at this 25 ft of trail, learning as we went, that each root we pulled up, created about 3 more...figuring out what tool what best, using a combination of hoes, axe-like chopper (my favorite for agression release), shovels, rakes, loppers, an edger, wheelbarrow...after smoothing the path, we rolled a weed cover over the trail and started hauling and laying the gravel.

All the while, other groups have gone through with chainsaw, saw, loppers, rakes, clearing the a 3 foot path through the forest, hauling out wheelbarrows full of bush, weed, branch remnants. Oh, so freaking rewarding. A full forest with tags throughout was carved into and acutally looked pretty much like a trail by the time i took off. Hell yeah!

INSPIRED TO BLOG...borderline inappropriate...BEWARE conservative folk...

I feel pretty fucking cool right now. Today was my second session at good ol’ Americorps Serves with the fucking hilarious dude Brandon Rogers. I’m that girl that bursts out laughing at some of the most random of his comments that nobody else really thinks is funny, but strikes me as fucking hilarious. Although everybody is laughing at his jokes, I just to seem to gleem some extra kind of joy from his humor…I think its something about the fact it oozes sex, conceit, and alcohol into a discourse that keeps me rolling. I relate. But have not found my outlet… the ideas just float around inside my head.

Completely inappropriate, yet maintaining a professionality. I constantly find myself thinking highly inappropriate thoughts, amusing myself in my head. A difference between Brandon Rogers and I: I hold it in. He says it, in such a dry, sarcastic, fucking brilliant way and pulls it off, even while teaching Americorps sessions on grant writing or doing the writerly thing. I stand in awe.

His literary voice reminds me of how I’ve recently realized my inappropriate meter is broken. One of my favorites. At work one day, treated to pizza hut by our boss, my coworker spewed off the sins pepperoni, and how it is a concoction of all the nasty left overs…my response: “mmmmm. pig but hole in my mouth.” I couldn’t stop laughing for a good 5 minutes. Seriously. The others stopped laughing after about one. It came as quite the shocker, as I’m sure you can imagine. I couldn’t stop. I cracked myself up so much, resulting in one of those outrageous fits of laughter that I love so much, but have received A LOT of weird looks for.

Ah. I love making myself laugh. And here is sit, gloating inside because I found the blog he wouldn’t tell us the name of because it was too inappropriate. Wahahaha! I fucking rock. I am super sleuth, master of the websearch. I can find ANYTHING! Not that it was that difficult…but you will never convince me I’m not brilliant. My search strategy: google search: “brandon rogers, one child left behind” First Result: / thepenismightier \. How could it not be his? In the writing of his I’ve read so far, one of his reoccurring themes is very clever and strategic placement of penis size talk. Just one more reason I love him for so many reasons.

I am From...Poem

I am from...
Utah.

A land of wonder
enchantment, beauty,
snow, mountains, desert,
A landscape I miss so

But also a conservatism
that stifles, chokes, represses
creativity, questioning, exploration
of the depths of yourself,
the expanse of the world.

Rooted in the landscape and natural wonder of Utah
but turned way by the culture of repression
I long for a place of mountain peaks,
4 seasons, deep canyons of red rock, billowing rocky peeks

But I cannot live stifled

So I search...

by mary sundblom
written in session on service-learning in refugee communities

Unexpected Motivation and Delight...

Ok so, reflection time. I've been wanting to do this all weekend, but been runnin round like a chicken with my head cut off, even though i asked for it to be cut off...haha. ok, that translates to I did some pretty damn cool stuff this weekend, that thus prevented me from refelcting sooner. more on that to come...

SERVES... I wasn't looking forward to it, another conference with over 700 young people getting together for a whole bunch of workshops that vaguely relate to what we are actually doing. Afterall, things are crazy busy at work these days, with never enough time to get everything done...and to take off for 3 days, even if it is free hotel and food. But whatever, it was mandatory...we treked across the state to Yakima, WA.

After checking into our hotel, which was in the 'armpit' of Yakima, far far away from the convention center (IP's always get the shaft)...we headed to the conference to check in. With an hour till dinner, and the fact it was St. Patricks, we decided a green beer was neccesary to get this party started... that was where the fun began...part of it was the beer (incredibley green, enough to color our teeth) made me relax a bit, then the hotel lounge was sweet, and we sat in the corner "mafia" booth. Things had started out right.

Green teeth and all, we headed over to get dinner and sit through all the boring traditional welcomes and introductions. This is where they got me. They had a few volunteers or shall i say Ameriteers...reflect to the group on their expereince. The second speaker really peaked my interest by telling her story in a really creative and sarcastic way that totally resonated with me. It was a comedy routine on screwing up in life, realizing you hate what you studied, so thus hated teaching and hence created a classroom full of critical, negativity... What got me here is that, uh, doesn't that often times sound like me? I get so angry and frustrated at the system and all the bad going on in the world that sometimes I get so caught up in that, it's hard to keep positive. So basically making fun of herself, the whole time she reviewed "what not to do" in life and americorps.
Essentially reminding me of the power of empowering folks to do something about what they see as wrong in the world, instead of spreading the gospel of doom.

The AmeriPedia speech got us upto par on the all the Ameriwords created in honor of being Ameripoor....getting us all to think of creative Amerivocab. My favorite: Ameriscare: a pregnacy scare while serving as an Americorps member. Then Power of Hope got us up, moving and singing together...a beatiful round. on with a little motivational schpeel... "We are the Ones...we've been waiting for." Ah, precious...

Surprisingly, it got me pumped and excited, the engery was flowing and good vibes were abound. Being surrounded by people that are working to improve their communities, serving and sacrificing part of their lives for a cause, with so many ideas, passions, and plans to improve our world. I always forget how empowering being surrounded by those kind of people can be. and am reminded that I am also one of those people...even though I forget sometimes.

OH AND...Game night...LIFE happened and i convinced an attractive man that wasn't too enthused about the idea of playing life and we joked around the whole game, ending up inviting him and his friend to the 'festivities' (aka. drunk cranium in hotel room with over 20 people). that automatically means fun!

a bit of self praise...with a bit of rant:)

So i gotta rant a little, right? so our evaluations were due on Jan 31, and they were just completed this week. Does anyones see how that could be a bit stressful, when you boss disregards deadlines? I did my part more than a month ago, resulting in a little bit of a tiff between us because she took my self evaluation as an personal attack on her. Sigh.

But overall, we have discussed all of it, and I feel I have learned a great deal, one of which is the importance of constructive criticism. I am quite a perfectionist and so am very critical of myself and others. In hindsight, I can see how she took offense to my self-evaluation, even though that was not my intention. However, it did open up a discussion about some of the disorganization that drives me crazy sometimes.

I am happy to say that during that month, I reflected quite a lot on this frustration and how it is percieved by others. So in the formal evaluation meeting, i was able to constructively discuss with her my frustations about not having anything to do for the first 3 months of our position, especially now that we have so much on our plate; that with more foresight and planning, much of that time could have been used to prepare and improve program curriculums, materials, etc, so there would be less stress now.

I'm pretty damn proud of myself. Go mary, go mary, go mary!

quick little rant

uh, so i found out that the americorps that was put in charge of scheduling all our presentations was not told that each "grant awarded" came with 2-3 presentations...a maxiumum of 3! I find it quite pathetic that I was told this, but the one who was actually scheduling them wasn't. BIG IMPORTANT DETAIL TO MISS, which has left us with a whole lot more presentations and work to do. Grrrr!

oh well what is done is done. several classes have 5 presentations scheduled. double grrrrr!

un otro visto de Aberdeen

so this blog has been mostly dedicated to my work in as an americorps volunteer in aberdeen. That has really been a very small part of the total experience and I'm thinking I might start writing more about the broader experience...so get ready my friends!

like today I was in my favorite place in town, the popcorn factory, one of the only local coffee shops (only open til 6 on weekdays, 5 on weekends!) and talking to the owner who I've come to know through numerous conversations. After all I'm there for hours on end usually at least one day, sometimes, more a week. Sometimes i opt to work from 'the fac' instead of going into 'the office,' which is actually more a classroom full of random shit related to the history of the NR dept at GHC, the model watershed project and the CRLC...along with all the 'materials' used to conduct environmental education. funny thing is we've touched probably less than 1/4 of the shit in there and the rest gets rearranged at our whim when one of us gets ansty with the clutter, with that most often being me, only to result in frustration on the behalf of my boss who never knew where anything was in the first place.

That brings up that I do like the flexibility of my job and boss. Now things have heated up and we are busier, don't have the resources we need in our 'office', some other environments can be more productive and so she lets us kinda do our own thing as long as we get our work done. and that has upped my productivity big time...:)

oh yeah, but back to what inspired me to write this post. at the fac, talking to the owner and we get talking about interior decorating and her home, which was a barn in the beginning...that she rented out for a long while. The conversation leads to her telling me about her last tenants that "tweeked out" her place, resulting in a battle to evict them. she described the wreckage the tweekers left behind, saying it was utterly disgusting, just brown and yellow everywhere, shit all over the place, needles scattered all over the house, along with all kinds of dildos. Yeah. Then she went on talking about all the trouble she'd had with them since they were evicted. They were robbed three times, and then her ex-husbands house was robbed as well. They found the tweekers squatting in their families cabin at lake quinalt. and the police couldn't do anything because "the jails are full." how sick is that?

What makes it worse is that this is not the first time I've talked to people about how twisted tweekers can be, not knowing what they'll do, how far they'll go or how they will react, their compulsions, desperation, the pure addiction that drives them, that it has to do something with sex, how great it is, that its never the same without the drug (possible partial explanation of the dildos?), how hard it is to get off and rehabilitate, and how it change them permanently, how quick that change happens. I've talked to recent addicts trying to get clean. Recently I'm pretty positive one lady I interacted with a lot at the college relapsed...

there is a lot of darkness, negativity, poverty, addiction, desperation in Grays Harbor. I'm quite isolated from it most of the time, i see and hear about it in bits and pieces. The other day I'm quite sure i witnessed a drug deal of some sort by this old guy sitting by a dumpster in the back garage of a building. Two kids, probably not more than 16 came upto him, look around sketchily and see me looking directly at them, continue with their backs to me, kinda fidgety and then just walk away...young boys!

Someone mentioned the other day that by 12 or 13 many of the kids here are into drugs and alcohol, that there are more than 220 homeless kids in harbor. We were meeting about what kinds of programs are out there to get kids involved and there are not many at all.

can be pretty depressing. it is insight into another side of life. the anthropologist in me is fascinated, and my humanitarian side just wants to help.

my capstone project is to start a Roots & Shoots group here. hope that will help in some way...and planting seeds of environmentalism in youngin's heads is too, i hope.another

finds it typical of Grays Harbor College doesn't have internet on its mac!

uh, so i went to the computer lab to work because we only have two laptops for three people and i've finally accepted that fact and decided that I don't want to use my personal computer for work, as it creates no separation between work and personal life, school, etc. And so I get freakin excited there is a mac, and log in and then try to pull up the internet, but it won't work. I ask the lab guy and he explains to me that it doesn't have internet because of this and that reason. WHAT!??!? what is the freakin purpose of a mac without the internet? Just more evidence of how backwards GHC can be...

dear me, o my!

Tree Plantings galore

There is an area of a stream that we've planted hundreds of trees around for a stream restoration project. We've had overwhelming volunteer support and even a school class participating in one of the plantings. its pretty cool to see young and old come together for a cause like this...not to mention to see the behind the scenes efforts of volunteer coordination and such. More good experience piling up...

A Breath of Fresh Air...

Every time we get together for meetings with PEI, I am renewed with an enthusiasm for all that we are aiming for, and the broader change that is being worked towards. The more encompassing learning philosophies that are being introduced and implemented in schools. And the kind of people that i respect and look up to that are part of this larger effort of environmental education and inquiry based learning. Even though personally, things are a bit rough right now, I left that meeting a lot more energetic and motivate, with a better understanding of the broader picture, and ideas abound.

Things are really starting to pick up and our agendas getting fuller and fuller, to the point it is getting overwhelming, but exciting at the same time. There are so many wheels churning on so many levels, and our work is just a small part of that...

Lorena got out just in time! And after 3 days stuck in Aberdeen I took off to the Grand Canyon!

Had Lorena’s vacation to Mexico been one day later, she would have been stuck in Aberdeen and delayed for at least 3 days. Much of Washington suffered severe flooding, with Grays Harbor being one of the areas heavily impacted.

A guy I’ve been seeing and I got the cracked-out idea to run away to Mexico as my boss was away and had said that, “I don’t really care where you do your work, as long you get it done.” And he happened to have the same two weeks off! But then the rain came down and we were stuck, I mean truly stuck on the Olympic peninsula without a way to get out by car. ALL of the routes off the peninsula were closed due to flooding! So we waited it out and then when the roads opened, we decided Plan B was to go to the Grand Canyon. I’d never been there before, we wanted to get away, and it wasn’t quite as far as Mexico, plus we could stop by Salt Lake to see my family along the way.

So, there I was on a road trip, working from the car (luckily he had a converter box so I could plug in my labtop). While he drove, I worked. After enjoying the days of sun at one of the seven wonders of the world, we’d end up in the lodge bars using wireless to keep in touch with what I absolutely had to. Then sleeping in the back of his hatch-back car in the freezing cold campground… it was freakin’ awesome!

I took my first hike on my foot! I couldn’t resist being at the Grand Canyon and not going down into it. So with his hiking poles, we did a good portion of the South Kaibab trail…3000 ft into the Canyon and then back out. It was intense, especially given the fact that I have only been up to full weight-bearing for two months really… even though it was really sore by the time we got back to the top, it was well worth it and good to challenge my foot. Physical therapy is paying off! Yay!

More that 3000 miles later, Charles and I pulled back into my apartment in Aberdeen. Again, I had managed to work hard and play hard…just the way I like it!

sustainability audit...

So in many ways I really like having the Sustainability Audit as my primary responsibility, but it is a very BIG project and basically my brain child as the audit had to be completely revamped… I mean from step one really. It’s overwhelming because of the pure scope and potential for what could be done, and having to narrow down what we address.

I got a good first draft of the intro and ideas for formatting and then we had a meeting to review my progress and assign different tasks to everybody and make sure I was on the right track. Uh, that became a tense meeting at the point where we got into a little argument about the title…it really was so stupid and superficial, but yet again I am reminded that when someone tells me it is the way it is cause or will be the way I say because “I said so,” it does NOT go over well with Mary. I got pretty moody and confrontational, and really had to pull back into my own head and calm myself down before contributing more to the meeting. I was livid for a good 10-15 minutes and had to self-talk myself to a more agreeable state of mind.

Luckily afterward, Lorena and I had a little chat about what it was that irked me so bad and I have a feeling she probably won’t put things in that way again…it really did not go over well!

Education with a ‘Purpose’

Oh my lordee! We just did some classroom presentation in a small private religious school with about 10 kids ranging from K-12, all in one classroom. And wow, what a group of kids! Not to mention the fact that the teach took off to make Christmas wreaths out in the hall. I was so glad it was a practice run that Lorena was doing to show us Americorps some classroom presentations! Cause boy were there some crazy, socially inept, undisciplined and just plain annoying kids in that classroom! It was actually at times very entertaining in a very sad way.

So get this, on the door of the girls bathroom there was a sign that said, “God made little girls to have his children”! and then Matt told us about the sign in the boys bathroom that said, “God made little boys to do his work.” Put those together and god made little boys (not men) to impregnate his little girls (not women)… ahahah! Yikes. Sadly entertaining.

Anyhow this day really made me think a lot about my personal beliefs and biases and how in education, you really have to be willing to set those aside and deal and adapt to your audience, even if they are CRAZY! (or believe drastically different from yourself, especially if you disagree with it.)

Classroom Presentations

Wow… what a week. It was the first week we started to go into schools to give classroom presentations for the mini-grant program we run for grades 3-8. Basically, it was a run-through of different presentations by Lorena, our boss so that we Americorps can see how they go and get ready to present on our own. And boy was it interesting…in a lot of ways.

I’m kinda braindead right now, fighting a cold, hoping that I’m not gonna come down with Strep like Matt did after coming home from Thanksgiving. My head hurts, I’ve been PMSing and after a great long weekend in Corvalis, a whole 5-day week of work seems like a lifetime. Overall, was kinda frustrated cause we never got pre-briefed on the presentation details, like how long, start and end time, etc. It was just embarrassing to go into the classroom with Matt and I and be asked how long and what time we had until and have no idea. Otherwise, that one went relatively well. The presentation was on waste free holidays and we talked for a little bit about the three R’s (Reduce, Reuse and Recycle) and how that could be utilized over the holiday season before we split the kids into 3 groups to rotate through 3 activities; making gift coupons, decorating newspaper to use as wrapping paper, and using recycled paper to make snowmen. One girls almost started crying cause she ran out of time and didn’t have time to finish her snowman! And one thing is for sure, kids are CRAZY with glitter! Yikes, learned that lesson the hard way…☺

Learning about Logging…and Aberdeen History

When we Americorps get our way, we try to maintain the ‘Field Trip Friday’ rule. This particular Friday we convinced Lorena into a field trip to the local Aberdeen History Museum. It was actually very informative. Until that visit, I really did not understand the logging process, the machinery and how it all worked. But it was so freaking cool! There was actually a model logging hill that an old logger had made to imitate the whole logging process. I really can’t say I grasped the terminology, but I got the concept! and now also understand what several of the different job positions in logging are and what they do. It was pretty damn awesome and the man was so open, willing, and excited to share all of his knowledge. He was so happy to have someone to talk to, especially that were wanting to learn and understand. He even took us up to the attic that is not open to visitors because I was so curious about the ‘tree-climbers’ and the equipment they used to ‘walk’ or climb up these ridiculously huge trees. I said I think it’d be fun and he laughed and didn’t believe me and then led us upstairs to show my the big huge spikes you attach to your shoes, and the heavy harness they’d wear around their waists.

Saying logging is so central to Aberdeen’s history, I was and am really glad to understand a bit more about the mechanics and jobs in the industry.

PEI Training

After almost 5 full days with my coworkers at EEAW, I thought I might need a break. But there we were, off to another retreat. This time in Ocean Shores, with the Pacific Education Institute (PEI), one of our partner organizations. This was a training and planning retreat to help us new Americorps on board and informed about their philosophy and methods.

I have to say I was impressed in several regards. PEI does have a bit extra cash to throw around, so we were in a pretty sweet place with a beach view, and a kitchen, living room and fire place in our rooms. Sweet! I have been impressed time and again with the people and their enthusiasm for their jobs. An objective of PEI is to conduct environmental education that teaches essential math and science skills that are required for each grade level, according to state standards. It was an immersion into ‘school speak,’ with many terms that are very specific to education, and more specifically to Washington. The retreat also really introduced us to thinking about curriculum development, as well as taking us through several of the exercises, and methods that are used in their curriculums. One of my favorite activities we did was teaching about beak adaptations using a competition format where teams used different tools on different ‘habitats’ to see what was best ‘adapted’ to what. I definitely learned a lot through the exercises, activities, and all the interactions with people in the ‘field.’ We worked hard and played hard.