*Sunday, Sept. 25th, 2011: I am grateful for sports fellowship today. After I went grocery shopping, I walked to a bar called Duffy's to watch the NY Giants take on the Philadelphia Eagles and then the Jets game vs. the Oakland Raiders. It was a solid five-six hours of football watching and I enjoyed every minute of it with two of my roommates, a guy from the other DC house, his brother and one of my roommate's co-workers. We laughed, screamed and were the rowdy bunch at the bar, which was fun. We all seemed to enjoy ourselves (even though the Jets lost) and it was a great day/night of hanging out.
*Monday, Sept. 26th, 2011: I am grateful for the little time I got to have (a little over a month) with my current staff. Today I served lunch at one of our sites and immediately after, I headed to our last staff meeting as a big group. If I haven't blogged about this before, here's the deal: we are going from a staff of 17 (on site) and 13 (off site) so 30 to a staff of, get ready for this, seven. The other 23 are transferring over to a new agency and we will no longer be working together; which is sad. So today we had our final staff meeting. We talked for about two hours about the changes and just checking in with one another. As we went around the table, I couldn't help but feel a little sad that these people I have just gotten to know, are leaving. But this is a gratitude journal so I am grateful for the time I have had with them and will cherish these past 40 days together.
*Tuesday, Sept. 27th, 2011: I am grateful for reversed stereotypes and opportunities to recognize that everyone is human. Today, I worked from 9am-noon today at one of our sites which is actually a day shelter for homeless men. I had only been there once before, my second day on the job, so I was a little intimidated to go back by myself and run the facility. I arrived and was greeted by a few men, one being a 73 year old Asian man who repeatedly kept telling me he wanted my number and needed to find a pretty girlfriend. Then, a man came up to me and introduced himself and talked with me about how I needed to stop biting my nails (apparently eating Jell-O is supposed to make me stop). Then, another man sat down with me and talked to me about how he doesn't trust people but I looked like someone he could trust off the bat...I looked "cool." The last man was kind of stand-off-ish when I first saw him and he made me a little nervous, so when he got up, walked across the room and sat down with me, I got a little uneasy. He started by asking me questions about myself, where I was from, what my husband did, where I lived, what I went to school for, why the heck I am volunteering instead of working and if I liked working where I was currently. I answered all his questions, asked him a few of my own; he shared with me his health issues and lack of housing due to some unfortunate circumstances with a crappy landlord. He's a diabetic so they had to pull out all of his teeth and he lost his apartment because the roof flooded, the landlord lied and said my new friend did it and wouldn't fix it and my new friend couldn't afford a lawyer so he was forced to the streets. At the end of our 20 minute conversation, my new friend got up and said, "well I've rented enough of your time. Thank you." I said, "it was great talking with you, thanks." He said, "yeah, I'm glad I came over because when you first walked in, I thought yous was stuck up." A little astonished that he was so blunt with his initial type-casting, I said, "well, I hope I changed your mind." And he said, "you sure did. You so down to earth, it was great chatting with you." It's funny how in that situation, we both assumed things and cast judgement on each other...life is funny. I am grateful for reversed stereotypes and opportunities to recognize that everyone is human.
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