A new year and what it could be...

I'm now a new year older, and am so incredibly happy be be so. My last year of life was... a year of learning (according to Kyoko). Other people might call it bad or challenging. I don't think people would really call it good.

-Car repairs of over $1000

-Bell's palsy

-loosing my movie buddy as a casualty of maybe starting to date

-car accident resulting in totaled car

-needing to purchase a new car (which I LOVE!)

-work shit

-realizing my self confidence is not what I had thought it was

-Lawrence

All of this actually adding up to a year that was full of learning. Now, I love learning, but this was a bit much (and I feel like I might actually be missing something on there). I'm going to settle for my next year being one that is a little more calm. Learning how to build my self confidence up again so the next time I'm found lacking at work (I have to think there's going to be a next time, whether it is my doing or not) I'm not left in as sad a state as this summer. I also want to make progress towards figuring out whatever is next for me in life. I don't have any clue what it is. Lately I'm wondering if in fact it will not require a move out of state. I fell in love with Telluride this summer, and it reminds me of when I lived in Summit County for a summer. ...

Anyways, my first step towards stabilizing and building my self confidence is a journal of sorts. The intent is to put things in it that make me happy, and remind me of how awesome I am. I looked around a bit on the internet and can't find anything that really is a good example of what I am doing. It's not much of a journal because I don't do much writing in it. I'm one of those people who likes to cut things out of magazines. I'll often go through them before I toss them into recycling to find things to cut out. This habit has really paid off in the last year since I have been able to use these cuttings for activities with my GS troop, but also have been able to pull things out for this journal I'm working on. So it contains clippings from magazines that have caught my attention (and since I tend towards positivity, this really works!), random unison prayers from church that I liked, notes from friends and family that remind me how wonderful I am, quotes from people I admire or that mean something to me. Pretty graphics now and then, notes about meaningful conversations I've had with friends.

A great example is a conversation my friend Lisa and I had probably about a year ago. We were both griping to each other about work, and she came up with a brilliant idea to move us towards positivity. We each gave each other three compliments. The three she gave me were fantastic, and I've thought about two of them constantly over the last year. The first one she mentioned went right to the heart of something that has always frustrated me. I cry easily. She was able to see my tears as something that symbolizes that I'm highly empathetic. I think of it as her giving my tears to me as a gift. WOW! This realization really helped me these last six months to have those words in my mind, and probably saved me a lot of heartache. I have something in my journal about this experience with Lisa.

So, that's step number one. I think step two is to formulate a goal for this new year of life. What do I want to accomplish, what do I want this next year to mean...

I'm looking forward to seeing what happens this year!

Success so far!

Today is Wednesday and I've successfully commuted alternatively all three days of work so far. I walked to work today to celebrate that I don't have GS today (it's tomorrow to get ready for cookie season), and ended up taking 2 hours total commuting... it takes me 10 minutes to bus or drive my car to work typically! This is because on the way there I walked to my bank and my favorite coffee house before work this AM (totally worth it!) and on the way home walked to my library to return some DVDs before heading home. An hour each way of exercise and thinking.

Awesome!

I'll be driving tomorrow because I have to be out in Aurora at 5:30 for Girl Scouts to get ready for the Cookie Rally. But, since this week is a 6 day work week I'm thinking about commuting alternatively 5 out of the 6 days... we'll see how I feel once I get to Saturday!

And to compound my feelings of being a little bummed out about being single, starting tonight I'm now going to look even less alluring in bed thanks to my new night guard. It's not the fancy $xxx one from the dentist, it's just from Walgreens, but hopefully it will help me stop clenching, thus creating the lovely popping jaw I now possess!

A New Year!

With some of the texts I've been reading lately, while I'd like to make a whole plethora of goals (not resolutions... goals are measurable!), I've been learning that humans have limited willpower and if I want to be successful I need to be measured in my approach to the new year. Makes sense, because for a goal to be successful it also needs to be measured.

So, my goal for the new year is:

I will commute to work alternatively at least 4 days per week. At least one day per week will be walking to work.

I figure this could take care of some of those health-related resolutions by also saving me money and helping the environment. I've been bothered lately because I was selected to be a member of the Wild Ride team because of my commitment to commuting without a single-occupancy vehicle. Well, I've been doing incredibly badly at this, and yet have been getting some great gear and fun stuff for free because of this "commitment" I'd made.

So far so good! I've done great the first two days of commuting. Tomorrow I'm planning on walking because I have some checks to cash and movies to return. And no Girl Scouts tomorrow because of the Cookie Rally on Thursday instead.

Anyways... onward to a great new year! I'm young and happy and single and loving life!

I've been doing well since Grandma's funeral. We all needed that time to mourn, and while I still think I'm mourning a little bit, I've let her move on. We had a nice reception after the funeral, lots of family, distantly related family and friends. I was able to reconnect with a favorite past teacher so I can keep in better touch with him now. That was awesome. And I spent some quality time with my sister, and we've been in better contact since I got home.

Since then I've been thrown into full "Docent Training preparation" mode and I'm coping as best as possible. I got a little pit of fear in my stomach that despite what my VP said in the past, that she'll say something different now, and all preparations will have been for naught.

Girl Scouts keeps plugging along. I'm learning my 'place' in the troop. My co-leader is upset about something I did, but we can't find the time to sit down and talk about it. It reminds me of the time a former boyfriend told me there was something he wanted to talk about in April, but didn't want to actually talk about it till I was done with my thesis. That was agony! Suffice to say, we broke up in June, and the thesis that was supposed to be done in July wasn't done till November.

Return and Sad News

I am back from NYC and had a wonderful time. I was disappointed by a few of the sessions, two of which I had shared with the Zoo as ones that would apply to my work with them and not just Girl Scouts. I was very disappointed by the one about working with different generations - I was most excited about it and then after all that it was such a dud where I was more likely to be offended by it than learn anything from it. The session about feedback for facilitators was good and I was way advanced for it because of my experience with the Zoo and our mentoring program.

I've learned from the last PD opportunity I got to go to (Trainer's Day Camp) that I need to be very purposeful about sitting down after to process what I experienced and make a plan. I appreciated that this Learning and Development conference worked that into the days. Even if it wasn't enough time for me to process it was enough time to start and also to prove to me that yes, I do need to think about this more when I get home. Plus, I have two ways to incorporate this information that I'll have to think about using.

The extra night in New York City was very worth it. It was perfect, minus how my travel companion sometimes rubs me the wrong way.

And then when I returned to Denver at 9pm I get two voice mails. One from Mom and one from Dad, both saying to call. My grandma has died. She died when I was trying to relax and ogling the good looking guy sitting next to Maureen on the airplane ride home. It feels strange to say I'll miss her, because I haven't seen her in over a year. She just turned 97. She took care of me as a kid - we spent a good portion of every summer at her house, eating mac and cheese and chicken nuggets, playing in the school yard just beyond her yard, climbing the trees in her yard.... I'll miss you Grandma.

New York!

I'm really looking forward to this next trip. More than what I'll be doing, it's the location. I've never been to New York (yet I've been to Mexico twice now!), and am so glad I decided to stay an extra night in the city. Plus, I've been hearing about Macy for years and years, and now I get to go and get my pin too!

Turns out the next trip is not going to be Mexico in October, but Kansas City in September. Sheesh. I probably shouldn't have gone if I looked only at money, but on the other hand, it's Shannon's wedding reception, and school will be in session and I haven't been to Kansas since 2006. It's time. I'll probably drive out to save some cash, so if anyone wants to road trip with me, just let me know:)

As for the Mexico trip with Girl Scouts... it's not that I'm less enchanted and excited, but with the research I'm supposed to have been doing I'm less excited and more nervous that I won't manage to get anything to contribute. At least I'm taking the camcorder to the conference in New York... hopefully I can get some good interviews with women there to pull together into a video for the event, even if I'm not able to get the actual research/paper writing done. Don't get me wrong... I am excited about Mexico and looking forward to meeting everyone and learning more about leadership, but I'm also preparing for Docent Training at the same time... uhg.

So the benefit to having my sister over this weekend (aside from the obvious!) is that my apartment is now clean and tidy... something I won't have to do before I leave for the airport! Woo!

We had an amazing Girl Scout meeting Wednesday, despite two of our girls missing (though perhaps that had something to do with it?). We made trefoils and the girls had to pick their favorite part of the Promise or Law and then decorate the trefoil with images and stickers related to that. Then I'm taking everything that they said and revising our group agreement based on what the 4 new girls said they thought was most important.

I'm learning it's always good to have back up projects, because we have some girls that finish really fast. Luckily we were able to get the girls going on their WOW journey maps so they got something accomplished they needed to get done while the other girls finished their trefoils.

I love this troop, and this was just the sort of meeting I needed. Occasionally meeting every Wednesday starts to feel burdensome.

I've not been incredibly successful researching about women and leadership in the USA so far... too much is going on and my evenings this week have been consumed with other activities. Good activities. I almost got myself a roommate but decided I couldn't manage a move before August! Though it does make me a little sad, I would have loved living with Catherine.

The research is for my WLDP (WAGGGS Leadership Development Program) experience coming up this October at Our Cabaña. SOOOOO excited!

And in the latest news my work 'girlfriends' are all at least 40 years older than me! We had a wonderful time last night in Jan's amazing backyard laughing, drinking, eating and gossiping!

We now have 7 girls in our Girl Scout troop and I've started to come to a realization after our wonderful meeting yesterday, with only 4 girls, one of whom had to leave before we'd really done anything.

I came into being a troop leader with the assumption that we could do anything, travel, earn gold awards, etc. After a dose of reality of running the troop with my co-leader since late January, that is still a goal, but a very long-term goal. It's all we can do to get all our girls at the meeting any given week, or attending one of our field trips.

If we end up providing the girls a safe place, and help them become more focused and understand how to work in a group, we'll have done a good job. Opening up different opportunities for them too is a huge plus, like our idea of bringing in a person to talk to the group from each of the different areas in which they want to work. We have three future vets!

I am feeling oddly positive after our recent meeting despite my realization that my goals to start should be smaller. Perhaps I'm just learning the reasoning behind why SMART goals are important!

Let it Snow!

The veggie sushi at the beginning of March with Adam and Stephanie was better than I could have ever imagined! Evenings like that make it easy to be vegetarian.

Visiting the family at home does not make it easy. They tempted me with corned beef and Swedish meatballs... epic fail on my part, except that I'm really mostly doing this for health which I think allows a few digressions. My other big reason is consistency and avoiding hypocrisy. If I'm going to be a meat eater, I want to eat everything (tendons, skin, etc), which I'm utterly incapable of doing. I just feel so wasteful. So, the meat went and 90% of the time I manage to avoid meat. It's visiting the family that becomes hard, because on my own I really have no problem.

We're in the middle of a typical spring blizzard here. I LOVE it! I'm not surprisingly one of the only ones. Don't get me wrong, I'm looking forward to the spring weather, but I think I can tolerate the snow we get in the spring because they are so epic typically and because we have such balmy days in between (especially this year). Plus, there's just something about a huge snowstorm that makes me so happy! Perhaps I feel this way because I don't have something uber important tomorrow. But even last Friday when we had the huge snowstorm and I was planning to travel home, I felt perfectly fine. I even have to be careful of my work computer now and cover it with a plastic bag and move it out of the corner now and I still love this heavy, wet, deluge of snow! (turns out for all the benefits of moving into my lovely new office, it's in the leaky corner of the building, so whenever we get heavy wet snow it starts dripping through the roof!)

I can't believe how quickly the year is going. Already we're towards the end of March! This week I start another Guide Training class (my third!), and next weekend is an Easter weekend trip with Laura!

GS and work update

Luckily for me this last month has passed very quickly, because it has been full of moving stress at work as nearly everyone in our department packed up and moved to a new desk. The library, which I am responsible for, also moved, and that was a task to get done, believe me!

Girl Scouts has been going very well! Slowly our troop is growing, and now we have 4 total girls, though one is not super reliable if she's going to be at the meetings or not. My co-leader and I finally decided we needed to lay down some ground rules, which I am kinda glad that we didn't do that right away. Hopefully the girls have had enough fun so far that they want to stick around, and Bobbi and I were very honest about it all too. We made a group agreement that Bobbi and I agreed to as well, and then our next meeting will be a parent's meeting to share the group agreement with, and a court of awards ceremony, though I'm not completely sure that we've actually earned any tri-its yet.

I hope it's OK that we're making our juniors earn tri-its for the rest of this year. It's just easier to keep them as one grade level. Since we have 3rd graders and 5th graders who with the old model would have been a troup together we thought it would be OK. Our 3rd graders seem advanced and our 5th graders seem less so. Next year will be juniors and probably the year after unless we need to just bridge the older girls to Cadettes. It seems like it might be easier to do what the older girls need and find a way to fit the junior badges into the interest patches. And hopefully the journeys will align well enough that it's not like having two separate troops trying to accurately meet the needs of our girls.

As a trainer with Girl Scouts I always thought that I'd be the by-the book leader... HA! We're doing good by our girls as best we can, even if we technically aren't a troop yet (we need 5 girls I believe) or even if our 5th graders are doing brownie-level work. I think these girls really need us because their families seem a little bit less stable then what I grew up with. It doesn't seem like any of these girls have very many friends at school, which is so surprising. They seem like such sweet, nice kids. :(

On the whole I'm very much enjoying doing Girl Scouts as a leader. It's such a new experience from training and from being a leader. I'm starting to look forward to doing some more training since I'm getting an idea of how to actually lead now!

OK, off to work! Then veggie sushi with Adam and Stephanie for dinner!

Maybe another try?

I've started thinking again that perhaps I do have something noteworthy to share. We'll see. Perhaps this blog will become a story about my journey with Girl Scouts or working at a Zoo.

Right now I'll just say that I was so inspired and feel so reassured after hearing the State of the Union last night. Granted, I'm young, but I've never heard a politician speak before that talks about politics the way I've always thought it should be. I've heard things come out of President Obama's mouth that I myself have said (except that little bit about expanding nuclear power and offshore oil exploration!). A good friend of mine said it well, however. It was inspiring and frustrating, because after Obama is out of the office in another 3 or hopefully 7 years, who comes next? Will she or he be as inspiring? Will she or he be as frightening to me as Mike Huckabee was when he was a presidential contender?

I also find it frustrating how the general feeling is that nothing is getting done and that Obama isn't keeping his election promises, yet Massachusetts voted to replace a Democratic senator with a Republican senator. Now I'm all for a diverse Congress, but folks, if you're going to complain, vote a Congress in that is one-sided! Sheesh... I mean really!

As to Girl Scouts, I'm very excited to be so close to finally working with a troop. For the last year and a half I've been training adults at the Zoo and training leaders for Girl Scouts... kids always seem easier to work with... though I'll probably eat my words within the next few months. Next Wednesday I will meet with the troop leader and the (apparently) two girls in the troop thus far. Guess we can't be legal yet... yikes!

so it's been a little while, and I'm actually in CO. PC didn't work out for me at this time in my life. I guess it was a gut reaction. I did spend some time in Paraguay. It was nice, and fortunately it wasn't incredibly hot while I was there.

So I don't know how much longer I'll continue this journaling. Maybe, maybe not. I already keep my own hard copy journal, and I just don't use this much any more to keep in touch with people.

Meh...

Well I have about two and a half weeks till I leave the country for two years. That's right, I leave for Paraguay (by way of Miami for a few days) on Sept. 24th.

And today is the day I finish writing my thesis. After today, it's all just editing! That's exciting. Unfortunately for me, it is also the beginning of the day, so that means that I have all day to moan and groan about finishing this up. But if I do a good job then my thesis defense on the 14th will go beautifully and if I do a really good job today I might not have many edits to fix before turning the thesis in, all in my last week before leaving town. WOO!

I live an interesting life.

I have been invited!

I woke up this morning and checked my mail as ususal. I had an application status update notification and when I got to my application online it said I had been nominated. Now all I have to do is wait for freaking ever (or so I've heard) for the invitation packet to get to me so I can actually know where I'm going.

I'm fairly impressed. I got an email yesterday morning from someone in the placement office asking about my "romantic involvement" and asking to get a transcript. I called back as soon as I got the email that same day and told them what they needed to hear. And now I'm invited the next day. I didn't think things worked that quickly with the Peace Corps... but then again I did receive my dental clearance the day after they received all my medical packets.

OK. I'm off to go on a bike ride. Did I mention I'm training for a triathalon? Aug. 5th the Tri-For-A-Cure triathalon. It's all women competing and the proceeds go to breast cancer research. Perfect!

Medically Cleared!

I'm medically cleared... just heard today. That was so easy! It sounds like for most people that it takes numerous back and forth episodes to get cleared. All the additional info they wanted from me was proof of a new polio booster. Wow! So next step (and hopefully coming soon) is hearing where I get to go!

Just a quick update for friends who live far away from me at the moment... I've got to get out on my bike/run before it gets too late in the morning so I can still get to church and shower before that!

I'm not finishing the thesis by the previously stated deadline. Now the deadline is... freeform. I'm also having trouble actually getting a lot done on the thesis.

That leads to a reason why I've been less productive than normal. For aproximately two weeks (since 6/10) I've been single. The approaching 2 years gone in the Peace Corps were too much for Logan. So last week I was a total slob and laid around pretty much every day except for managing to get in to work. But this week I pulled myself into full recovery mode and managed to get my triathalong training (Aug 5th!) back on track (mostly) and worked quite a bit as well as 6 (a rather measly number, but something) hours on my thesis.
Next week will be even better... but we're going to forget that yesterday's goal of 6+ hours of thesising didn't actually happen.

So, I'm off for a bike and then a run. I did a swim then run brick workout on Wednesday and totally accomplished it with flying colors which I didn't expect at all. So, today should be just as good:) Then church (yay!) and visiting my sister and seeing her new house.

Oh yeah, and the week of June 3-10 I was in Tucson, AZ as one adult leader of the senior high mission trip to work with Humane Borders. We put water in the desert for undocumented migrants. WOO! We didn't break any laws but it sure felt like we were defying authorities:)

still thesising. realization came today that I have a month (technically 5 weeks, but I have to subtract the week for the mission trip I'm helping out with in June) until my thesis is due to my comittee. Whoa, a little freaked I have to admit. I'm not even done with my data analysis, much less done translating the data!
However, my revision of the first three chapters (Introduction... way too long, Methods and the Literature Review) of my thesis are progressing nicely though slowly. Had a good discussion with my friend Elliott about actually sitting down to "do" which has helped, and Mother's day weekend, though nice didn't help. My consolation is that most people go through this with a thesis or dissertation. Thank goodness for that.

Lots of my friends are buying houses these days. And getting married. Two folks from my family are getting married. WIERD. My cousin Matt who is a month older than I is in July and then Molly, his cousin (but not mine) is getting married in June. I found out that I don't get to go to her wedding (during the mission trip) and don't get to go to Jamie's (Matt's fiancee) bridal shower for the same reason. Poo. I love events that serve cake as an integral part to their existance.
Actually, all events that serve food are must-dos to this Graduate student. Especially since I'm cutting down my hours this summer while finishing the thesis. 10hr/week. YIKES! It will barely support my rent/food/toiletries needs, but it means I have more time to thesis and the best part of working where I do is that I am able to raise it back up to 20/week after I'm finished thesising.

This summer I'm filming a couple professors solving physics problems on a whiteboard to post for physics students as examples of how to solve problems. VERY stimulating, let me tell you. We've already done two practice shoots, which have been ridiculously essential. Have you ever though of having to 'storyboard' your physics problems? Well neither of the professors ever had til this summer! I'll also be doing some cool stuff like filming clouds forming in time-lapse for the cloud show, but mainly physics problem solving. WOOO!

Anyways. OH! Another wedding: my best friend's brother. I'm going with her because her fiancee is in Iraq. I'm debating wearing my super fancy dress because I can and because Laura is a brides made so will be all pretty to match. It doesn't quite fit though, and I have to find an appropriate bra.

PS- In case you are wondering I miss my brain. It's been in thesis mode for way too long and thus some of this randomness. Other associated symptoms have been extreme forgetfullness and general ditziness.

As I continue to go about my daily life I've noticed that every once and a while I'll think: "It's lucky I'm already doing _____, it might make my transition easier." Of course, I'm referring to the Peace Corps. Things that I've recently had this thought about are that I have to wash all my dishes by hand (sadly I have no dishwasher), or that I am already having to get around sans car. And I feel like I do pretty well despite lacking some of the modern conveniences that I used to take for granted.

The of course I've also had thoughts to temper these previous thoughts. For instance, I might be used to washing my dishes by hand, but water comes so easily here and I might have to haul water from a distance to wash my clothes or dishes or to boil to drink. I might have to wait for the rains to come to take that bath I've wanted to take for a while. I can get around really easily on my own two feet and with my bike here, and I'm used to it taking a bit longer to get places. But I feel safe traveling on my own in Fort Collins, I can bike or walk home at night and not have to worry overly much about being mugged or worse.

I'm feeling fairly isolated currently, what with this whole "thesis" thing going on in my life. I'm going to have to get used to asking people to walk home with me at night from a late community meeting. I'll have to get used to the idea that even if I do have a bike down there that doesn't mean I'm more immune from personal attacks just because I can go faster than someone running after me.

I heard a story third or fourth hand the other day of a Peace Corps volunteer who took a taxi cab home and because it was dark paid extra to have the driver take her directly to her house. Then later that night the guy came back and raped her. This was the story that gave me pause, because it sounds like she did something to be safe, but yet still ended up getting harmed. At least it is always good to know that this sort of thing can happen here too, but still, it was an intimidating story to hear. Who knows if it's true, I heard it on the internet. :)

In any case, perhaps I will be a bit more prepared than most for living without modern conveniences but I don't know that anyone can ever be truly prepared for everthing they may encounter living in a foreign country with the Peace Corps.

Well, another day well spent. I've been hard at work on pretty much everything. Not as much as yesterday after Easter with the padres, but none the less, hard at work.

I sent out 20+ emails (all composed yesterday) to break the week-long abstinence from emailing people down in Central America bugging them for interviews. The reason I had a week off from this? Well, one person mentioned that it was infact Semana Santa, which meant everyone down there in CA get's a week long vacation. Well, not wanting to take any chances of people not being around, I figured I would work on something else for the time being and wait till TODAY to send the emails out en-masse.

So far so good. People have been responding pretty quickly. About 5 of the 20 I sent out this (late) afternoon have already responded. People in Tourism seem to have pretty long hours down there, or their work/personal emails combine. Anyways, things look good there. I also have some new contacts for Panama, which is great since I have no data from that country yet.

So my date for my defense is set. June 28th, which means I have to have a completed paper on June 22nd. OH MY GOODNESS!!!!!!! That is coming up super fast. And I don't have all my data. So, hopefully I get the rest of it in two weeks, which gives me till the end of April/beg of May to analyze the data (here's hoping for two - three weeks of analysis TOPS). And then I can start writing the thesis in May. I have a week that I'll be gone in June, but I also drop down to 15 hours/week at work.

Oh my friends, please think nice thoughts at me.

And I'll do my part by trying... no, staying incredibly on top of everything and not slacking off. Sound like a deal?

Shouldn't I be in Latin America?

I didn't think I would see this today, especially since I'm not in Central/South America yet. My wandering attention was caught by a strange noise just now. I looked out my window, which faces a small expanse of lawn, then a ditch and then a large apartment complex. A younger man was hacking at some of the ditch vegetation with a machete. A machete. I haven't ever seen one of these in the US, only in Panama. I had the impression that we had much more "advanced" technology here in the US (especially in Fort Collins!). I'm guessing this fellow is an employee of the apartment complex and was told to go out and get rid of certain plants... however I get the impression that employee or not, he had no idea what he was doing and was just hacking at stuff for fun... and throwing the knife around like it was a toy. Boy am I glad I am on this side of the ditch, and not his.... :)