Quick Update!

Just some quick news:

• I got accepted into Sigma Tau Delta (International English Honor Society)
• I also got accepted into the McNair Scholars Program
• I'm definitely not going to the Philippines( or I would be there right now)
• I'm also not going to Lithuania
• I've been facilitating for Soliya for 6 weeks

I'm really wanting to post about some different "global"/"international"/"intercultural" issues that I've been learning about and researching lately, so I think the focus of this blog might kind of shift in that direction.

Change of Plans

Well, the last three months have brought with them many things...

Here, writing in this blog, I do not intend to put on the facade I have been trying to maintain in almost every other area of my life. Disclaimer: This post might be over-sharing... But to put it simply, without going into unnecessary detail, last year around this time, I went through an incredibly traumatic experience. Unfortunately, this trauma was basically extended, and it continued into December. What to say about this? Frankly, it has changed my life.

Over the last three months, I hit a low of unprecedented proportions in my life. I wasn't even functioning at one point. I wasn't going to my classes, I didn't want to go to work but I did (gotta pay rent somehow, right?), I distanced myself from friends and family, and I started backing out of my activities in the honors program and with the GRC. The trauma I had experienced was taking over my life.

So I made the decision to try to get some help. I reached out to a professor I've had a few times who is also my academic adviser for my English major when I missed his class for about three weeks straight towards the end of last semester. And he recommended that I get in touch with the Dean of Students. I didn't. I thought I could deal with it. I didn't want anyone else to know.

But over the break between semesters, things just got worse. I can't describe with words the way I felt, but it was agonizing. I would've given anything to just disappear forever. But one day, I was driving (I forget where), and I just desperately wanted, needed someone to help. So I went to the Dean of Students office. Why there? Because it was the first place that popped into my head because of my professor's advice. Long story short, they helped. They connected me with the counseling center, and now I'm working through what's happened.

Now that I'm not feeling like the living dead anymore, I feel like I can write about other things that are going on. A lot of things have changed since my last post...

First off, I am still pursuing writing my honors thesis in some sort of ESL curriculum for the Global Refugee Center. However, it seems I probably won't be going to Lithuania with ILP next semester. Nor will I be going to the Philippines. Yeah, to be blunt, that kind of sucks. I was really looking forward to it, but some other things have happened, and it just doesn't look possible financially right now. On the bright side, staying here next semester gives me more time to get the last of my classes in next academic year. Also, I've recently applied for admission into both Sigma Tao Delta (the English honor society) and the McNair Scholars Program, and it'll be good to stay and be active in those programs. Last but not least, I start facilitating with Soliya on Tuesday!! I am very excited for this opportunity.

Ultimately, lots of things have changed... Well, you just gotta roll with the frosting! (inside joke)

“I believe that everything happens for a reason. People change so that you can learn to let go, things go wrong so that you appreciate them when they're right, you believe lies so you eventually learn to trust no one but yourself, and sometimes good things fall apart so better things can fall together.”

Why, Hello Again!

Well, I haven't written anything since October. This past semester ate me alive. With 20 credit hours, 2 jobs, my AmeriCorps work at the Global Refugee Center, my Soliya training, and all of the church things I'm involved in... where has the time gone?!

Nevertheless, here's a little summary of life in my world lately...

My work at the Global Refugee Center is going amazingly well! I cannot even describe to you how much of my heart each of my little people have. They are wonderful, special little darlings, and I adore every one of them!

To the right is a picture of a few of our kiddos (Reyubeni aka Batman, Julie, Valeria, Rosemary, Sae Meh, and Lex) and some of my wonderful volunteers (Marcus, Krista, Brittany, and Martin).







In November, I got the opportunity to represent the Global Refugee Center at the Engaged Scholars' Symposium at UNC. I was so excited and nervous about it! I ended up getting to have two tables side by side, one for the GRC and one featuring my project there, the Little Learners! It was such an honor to get to represent the GRC in the poster board presentation part of the symposium.

If that wasn't enough, I also got to help Tsigereda, the case manager at the GRC, represent the GRC at the round table discussions.

Also, I will be doing my honors' thesis as an applied project at the GRC. This is going to be a ton of work, but I am so excited for it! After attending a training session for the International Language Program, I had the idea that a method similar to the one they use might really help our beginner ESL students at the GRC. I'll post more about this topic later!

In other news, I just completed my Soliya Advanced Facilitator Training. It was truly an amazing experience. This is definitely a program I believe in and fully support, and it is so great to get to be a part of it! I could be facilitating in the spring! We shall see!

Last piece of news: a youth pastor of a church in the Philippines that is associated with my church contacted me recently to see if I would come to help with their youth camp! I am beyond excited for this, and I'm desperately hoping I'll be able to go! If so, I'd be there for a week in April. Hope and pray with me that it'll happen!

Until next time...

~~~I don't know where I'm going from here, but I promise it won't be boring~~~

Accidental Lie

My last post (way back on September 18) said I would write more on Saturday. I didn't mean to lie, I promise! If you could see my planner (the little book that holds my life together), you might understand. Page after page of little cramped handwriting means a very busy life.

But anyway, here's a few updates, in the order listed in my previous post, for anyone interested:

-We're back in session at the Global Refugee Center!

 Things are going great at the GRC. This is our sixth week.

It would be fantastic to get more volunteers, but we're making do with who we have for now. The first week was full of tiny people crying for their parents, but now they're used to being in the day care.
I love these kiddos. But I think they know they have me wrapped around their fingers!






-My Basic Training for Soliya has ended... Advanced Training started today!!
I learned a lot in my basic training, but it was only about 6 meetings. I enjoyed getting the chance to practice facilitating, and I think I did alright.
I actually just finished my very first advanced training session. Let me tell you, it is great to have a training session a little later in the day and not one that starts before the sun is up!! Seems like I have a great group! Nine more weeks and I just may be invited to be a facilitator in the spring. Regardless, I'm learning a lot and enjoying the experience.




-Volunteered at a study abroad/world expo event on campus... I want to go somewhere asap! 
So here's a little problem... I was at this event and looking around and the Center for International Eduction coordination says, "You want to go again, don't you?" Well of course I do!! I think I'm a bit addicted to travel... Anyway, I've already made peace with the whole 5 year plan instead of the 4 year for my undergrad degree. One of those years was community college, and not all of my classes counted. Then I was a bit mixed up with my major. Upon figuring it all out and deciding on a double major in English and International Affairs and a double minor in Business Administration and Cultural Anthropology, I decided 5 years was acceptable. And I have been killing myself ever since. The fact that this past summer I took 15 credit hours and now I'm taking 20 is a testament to that. I have something like an internship lined up for next fall, so I won't be taking many classes then (I'm thinking between none and 1-2 online). UNC has this requirement that the last... I think it's 90 credits of the undergrad must be completed at UNC. So, if I study abroad again, I add time to my undergrad and may be looking at a 6 year plan. Oh, but it may be worth it! Considering it... Offer advice if you have any!

Now, last but not least...


-I got my official acceptance to teach abroad next fall!
I will be teaching English at the Vilnius school in Vilnius, Lithuania through ILP!! Yep. See? I knew I'd go back!


Now, I do have some other thoughts I've been wanting to post about, but that's all for now... I'm going to try my hardest to post again within the next week, but no promises! :)

Quick Update!

So much to share!!

-We're back in session at the Global Refugee Center!
-My basic training for Soliya has ended and advanced training will begin soon...
-I'm loving my classes this semester (most of them anyway).
-Volunteered at a study abroad/world expo event on campus... I want to go somewhere asap!
-I got my official acceptance to teach abroad next fall!

I don't have much time to tell about these things now, but I plan on writing more about all this on Saturday!!

4AM

It was about 10:00 last night when I realized I had to drive to Denver. Yeah, I wasn't too excited.... Monday evening I was in Denver for a family dinner for my cousin who left yesterday to go to Bible college in California (bye Melly!!). I drove back up to Greeley Tuesday (yesterday) morning, got the the Global Refugee Center by 9:00, worked until about 2:45, went to a physical assessment (for my job with ABC doing before and after school care) at 3:30 (although I didn't get seen until after 4:00), went to a Universal Precautions, CPR, and First Aid class at 6:00, got done a little after 9:00, rushed to Starbucks to write a paper, and finished by 10:00 when they close. I don't have internet in my apartment in Greeley yet, so it was then that I realized there was no way I could log in to Soliya for my first facilitation training meeting the next morning (Did I even mention that I'm doing facilitator training for Soliya??). To Denver! I got to my grandparents' house a little after 11:00, got to bed by midnight, and work up at 3:30am to get ready for my 4:00am session. So I am tired!!

My trainers' names are Jo and Katharina. In the group training for facilitator positions with me are Marielle, Maaike, Robb, and Joe. While I have to admit, I am excited about continuing my involvement with Soliya, it is another thing to do. I'm working hard to balance my schedule, but we'll see how this next semester goes. I'm definitely nervous about it. Still, our session today went very well. We talked about why facilitators are necessary, what they bring to the table, and what their purpose is.

When I think about facilitation in this context, I think of someone who forms a bridge between people, who brings them together, who creates a safe place where they can try to understand each other. Excuse my terrible drawing to the right, but I wanted to find a way to show you all what I have in mind. This is not to say that facilitators have all the answers or are at perfect peace, but there's just something about being able to respect and accept others' thoughts and beliefs even if you don't necessarily agree with them.

I'm really looking forward to this opportunity training with Soliya. I can't wait to see how it helps me grow personally and what I can offer to others through it.

News!! (Old and New)

I left off my last post desperately wanting to tell all about the changes that the wonderful experience of the Confluence and Cultures class and Soliya influenced in my life. However, I'm going to hold off for now because I have very exciting news that I have to share (to get somewhat caught up with this blog), and I'm running out of time to share it! I've known about this for a while, of course, but as I had gotten behind on blogging, I hadn't shared it yet.

Mike, the professor for my Confluence of Cultures class, has led a trip to the Yucatan Peninsula during the past several summers. This involves exploring ancient Mayan sites, but also teaching a short summer camp in the village of Yunku. He would have liked to have recruited the entire Confluence of Cultures class, but out of all of us, I was the only one who took the bate. So yes, after much planning, I will be traveling to the Yucatan with about 9 other students for the last two weeks of the month of June. We leave one week from today!


I could not be any more excited about this opportunity. As I am hoping to teach English as a foreign language abroad after graduation, this is going to provide invaluable experience, for one. Add to that the interaction with another culture (which I've discovered I absolutely adore), and this is just an ideal way to spend two weeks of the summer.

Of course, this is also involving a fair amount of work. I'm taking three classes that go along with the Yucatan program, Global Systems, Conversational Spanish, and an anthropology course on Mayan civilizations. On top of that, I'm taking Literary Theory and Criticism (yes, that is as thrilling as it sounds!) for my English major. So currently, I'm working away on school work.

On top of that, I have some more news (annnd this news is newer than the other). I just signed with AmeriCorps last week. I heard about this opportunity through the Center for Honors, Scholars, and Leaders at UNC, and as there were opportunities to serve at either the Boys and Girls Clubs of Weld County or the Global Refugee Center, of course I looked into them and applied. I had an interview the week before last and then signed on my birthday, June 5! Now, for those of you readers who don't know what that is, it's a governmental program that engages people in in community service work with the goal of "helping others and meeting critical needs in the community."

I will be working as an AmeriCorps volunteer at the Global Refugee Center in Greeley for the next year, and my first service day is actually tomorrow. Exciting!!! I will be writing more about the GRC and what exactly it is, but that's all for now.

Life Altering

We were to bring two 5 page papers with us to our first Confluence of Cultures class. One was to be over cultural background and the other over religious background. We sat in a circle in our classroom in the basement of the campus library, and as I ended up next to the professor, I had to share first. Now, I'm not a very outgoing person generally. I'm not awkwardly or painfully shy or anything, but I'm not the person to just open up. So what I shared was fairly limited. I didn't want to share any details at all with this small group of strangers. Little did I know, the sharing we did that first day would only be the tip of the iceberg. This class definitely pulled me out of my shell.

Words cannot describe the experience Confluence of Cultures offered me. I wish I could write every detail about it, but I'm pretty sure you don't want to read the quantity of a book in one post. But in short, it became far more than just a class. Granted, it was still very class-like in some ways. We had several books to read and papers to write during the semester. However, Mike, our professor, also brought in a personal element with several guest speakers and group discussions. Confluence of Cultures was a class to learn about Islam, Arabic countries, "the Middle East," culture, religion, etc. I truly cannot say what all I learned from this class. To sum it all up, this class seemed to me to be about personal discovery and reflection. This personal discovery and reflection for me was partly about religion, partly about nationality, but deeply about humanity, myself, and what social categories and their implication meant to me.

In addition to our in class meetings with the 10 of us and Mike, we had weekly Soliya meetings. Soliya is a web platform that connects students in the "Western world" with students in the "predominantly Muslim world" through video conferencing (think conference call crossed with Skype... or just look at the photo below lol). The first week of Soliya meetings, I had a Thursday meeting at 4:30 am. I basically rolled out of bed and turned my computer on. I have to say, I was very nervous. I was expecting arguments and awkward silences. Let me tell you, that was not the case at all. I had an amazing Soliya group from the very start! With 8 students and 2 facilitators from the United States, the Netherlands, Germany, Tunisia, and Egypt who were Christian (of various types), Muslim, and Atheist, we had quite the mix. I know no other words to describe this experience but beautiful and insightful. Over the several more weeks my Soliya group met, we discussed everything from politics to religion to personal stories and everything in between. The two hours flew by every time we met, and from the moment the sessions ended, I began looking forward to the next.

I will discuss the thoughts this experience provoked and the changes it inspired much more in depth in my next post or two, but all in all, I have to say, my Confluence of Cultures class with its readings, discussions, guest speakers, videos, reflections, and Soliya component absolutely changed my life. I cannot say how thankful I am for this incredible experience. I never thought a college class could be so life altering, but this one, through the people I interacted with, was just that.

So for this experience I would like to express my undying and most sincere gratitude to:
Mike, Alessandro, Caity, Corey, Elleanna, Genesee, Ibrahim, Jim, Sarah, and Tracey (Confluence of Cultures class of brilliance)
and Jeanette, Ruaa, Amany, Barrett, Jenna, Jordy, Lili, Roca, and Samira (my Soliya group).
You 19 amazing people have changed my life forever <3

The Drudgery of Life...

It's been quite a while since I've posted anything, and honestly, it's because I didn't feel like I really knew what to say. The opportunities I spoke of towards the end of my last post, "Much Required" seemed small and insignificant every time I tried to write them.

I did try to write them several times. My posts all began something like this:
"The way I see it, if you try to reach a certain goal and it is in the will of God, He'll make sure you have opportunities in place to get you there. Upon returning to UNC in the fall, all of the students who had studied abroad were required to attend a "re-entry" session where we talked about our experiences. It was there that I discovered the possibility of international teaching, or teaching abroad. Immediately, I was drawn to this path for my future. After giving it some thought and prayer, I met up with an adviser about it and started setting my educational path to lead to this goal. To fall right in line with that, I soon got a job teaching in an after school program at an elementary school nearby. I loved it so much, and each and every one of my kiddos meant the world to me. I was excited to see where this would all lead me."

While all that is great, and I had been wanting to share that information with everyone, it hardly seemed sufficient for a blog post (especially when you consider the nature of some of my other posts). So I never posted about it.

I ended up falling back into the drudgery of life in the fall semester. I went to classes, went to my jobs (I also worked at Kohl's), went to church, and went through the motions. It's not like I was depressed or anything; I just wanted so much more out of life. I wanted to squeeze it and get every little drop of wonderfulness out of it that I possibly could. But that wasn't happening.

I felt really alone and empty too. I had given up what I once saw as the most meaningful relationship in my life because I felt like it was what God wanted, and frankly, I found myself pretty friendless. See, I started dating that guy about two months after I first moved to Greeley, so he and his family were really the only people I spent time with up here. I had no close friends at school. And people I knew from church are sprinkled across Northern Colorado. So while I was diving into God, I still felt alone and lacking.

But the semester winded down. I met with advisers about classes to take in the spring, met with my honors adviser to make sure I was staying on track with the program, and signed up for a slew of English major classes that I was sure would eat me alive. My boss offered me a promotion for the next semester from "children's activity leader" to "children's activity director" meaning that instead of showing up and teaching material someone else gave me, I would plan and write the curriculum, schedule the activity leaders, and basically just run the show. I accepted and quit my job at Kohl's.

And then I went home for the holidays. Winter break was so uneventful that it's really all just a blur in my memories, even though it was only a short five months ago. There was one thing I had to make sure to do though: sign up for an honors class. So I pulled out the piece of paper I had scribbled on. "Confluence of Cultures." It sounded interesting. So I went to register for it. I was surprised when the system gave me an error message saying I needed instructor approval. I emailed the professor asking him about it, and he responded that he limits the number of students in the class by requiring that students apply with one paragraph consenting to take on the course work and one paragraph describing why they are interested in the course. So I checked out the syllabus he sent, which entailed one book after another and one paper after another, a couple big projects, several guest speakers, several documentaries, and a two hour a week commitment to Soliya (which I found to be a sort of video conference call online). I replied to his email with the paragraphs and got accepted to the class. I didn't think much of it; it was just a class that met the requirements. But it ended up being so much more...