Home Away From Home

Sunday night, I went to New York.

Bible Study was cancelled, and Mondays are pretty free, so I decided to drive the back-roads to New Haven and take the Metro-North into the city. Chelsea was kind enough to accomodate for me last minute by letting me stay on her couch, even though she already had a guest in town. I had the opportunity to have coffee and go shopping with Ema, my supervisor from last summer, at the same Starbucks where we parted ways last July. We then went to my pastor's house where my friend Ashley was housesitting. It was wonderful just sitting around the living room and catching up with two of my favorite people, and feeling so at home. Ashley and I then went to dinner at Max Brenner, and ordered the amazing tutti fruitti waffles (probably my favorite dinner in the world... if you can call it dinner). I felt like I had never left. This trip was a definite necessity. They almost convinced me to come back next week and help with the kid's program, which I willingly volunteered to do and very plausibly could have accomplished (with the help of people back home who would pay for my plane ticket back to New Orleans), but I decided it's definitely time to get back and get things settled in the BR. I will have many many more chances to help out at Graffiti in the future.

Yesterday I drove four youth up to Boston for the day. After some last minute changes of plans, we ended up having a successful day in the city. I absolutely adore Boston, and am looking forward to being there againt his weekend for debriefing (even though sadly it means I will be saying goodbye). The kids really seemed to enjoy it. I brought along someone from the church who goes to school up there to help us get around and show us some of the "insider" things in Boston, which he willingly did. It was great to see these kids enjoy things like their first subway ride, and their first taste of Indian food (mmmmm!), along with educating them in pop-culture history (two of them had never heard of Cheers!). Through this trip, God definitely showed me how things that dont necessarily go the way they were planned can still turn out to be a great experience.

While in Boston, I recieved an email telling me my student-teaching placement. I am going to be at Westdale Middle School teaching with Mrs. Davidson. From what I gathered, I think it will be the first half of US History (yay!). So walking around Boston, it was quite neat to be observing sites I was going to be teaching about in just a month or so! Though the EBR schools system's early start date may prevent me from going to New Mexico next week (I am working on getting another place to observe the first-day-of-school), I am thoroughly excited about going back at the end of August to be there full time for the next four months.

Pretty much, Wow

So this summer I have not been in "the city" much at all. Minus three days in Boston, a week in Providence, and a day-trip to my heart (aka, NY), I've spent most of my time in the suburbs, and in the country. Far cry from my normal "city girl" lifestyle, but fun and interesting nonetheless.

I am currently living in the basement room at a very cute old fashioned New England home, with a great family, in Hebron, CT. It's very different for me, but I'm loving it. We have a great youth group, and despite the fact that I'm only here for a short time, we've been having alot of fun throwing together events at the last minute to keep the kids occupied.

Last week we went to camp in Massachusetts, and I think I got just as much out of it (if not more) than my students did. We brought thirteen youth, and where I come from, that would fit into the smaller group category at camp. Because of the nature of New England, we were actually the average. There just aren't alot of Christians up here (approx. 1% of the population), and it's truly sad. I thoroughly enjoyed the company of the 444 people there, and the speaker was absolutely amazing. I hope to be a part of that camp again sometime. It is put on every year specifically for students in New England. They require a bit of a different focus than many of the typical Bible-belt camps students go to.

Over the next year of my life, I have many decisions to make. At camp I really felt like God was making some of those decisions clear to me, so I will be spending the next several months preparing to accomodate for said decisions. This is why I decided to start blogging again. I will also be student teaching, and then (hopefully) in January, being a teacher full-time, so I'm sure there will be many adventures to speak of and many prayers to request. I hope to keep up, because I have a habit of getting out of the habit...