I'm starting to feel like its been quite a while since I last wrote anything of substance here. Life's been crazy with a lot of new activities that have really taken over. So i thought i'd spend a few minutes this morning laying out what i've been up to.
First, many of you know that I started working with Capernaum, the Young Life for special needs kids in the Spokane area. We had a meeting 2 monday's ago and I had an absolute blast! We had a barbeque and played kick ball and then had a bigger or better scavenger hunt (which my group won by bringing back a car stereo... not very big... but definitely better!) The kids were awesome. We had about 25 in total, ranging from 16 to 38 years old. The 38 year old is one of those that has been coming for years and years and they don't believe in kicking people out of this community, so he's welcome to stay as a "student leader". I think one of the most interesting things is realizing HOW low functioning the kids that I used to work with are. When I think special needs kids my brain goes to thinking of kids who are non-verbal, violent at times, and need constant help with everything. We have a little bit of that here too... an autistic kid who really likes to figure out what you're afraid of so he can sneak up on you pretending to be that thing, a downs syndrome boy who likes to draw pictures of "crime" and "sinners", a little downs syndrome girl who noticed that there was a new girl and rather than introducing herself to me she snuck up behind me, yelled "BOO!" and then proceeded to give me a HUGE bear hug. They are all really precious kids... and I think with time they will grow on me just like my campers did.
Second thing: We had a really big career fair on Saturday that James and I went to. There were 50 recruiters there from all over Washington, Oregon, Idaho and Montana. It was really wild and somewhat overwhelming. As I walked down the aisles of the room there were hoards of people who just wanted to know about me, what i was interested in, what year of school i was in, why I should go there for my clinical rotations, why they would be an excellent place to work... oh, and please take some free stuff and sign up for our raffle. I brought home A LOAD of information packets and also about 15 pens and highlighters, 3 water bottles, 3 chapsticks, a snakes and ladders board game, an athletic bag, clocks, notepads, free music on line, gum, etc. etc. I also signed up for raffles to win things like $25 to starbucks, $50 to barnes and nobel, an ipod (nano, shuffle, and one with all the bells and whistles), digital camera, etc.
It was over-all a very good experience, if nothing more than just to see what's out there, learn about scholarships for signing on with them, hearing about what job-offers are like, realizing how little I need to worry about one when I graduate, and even finding out about a lot of places that would be great choices for clinicals (as long as i don't mind going to Richland or Sedro Wooley)
I'm also playing intramural soccer and its been really fun. I get pretty sore every evening we play because its working such different muscles than i'm used to (and I get really into it so if i get mad i start to throw them elbows and kick things other than the ball). We've been playing 2x/week for 4 weeks now and tomorrow are playoffs, which i'll be missing because i'm going to see....
RENT! with my friend Kevin (aka: Flat Tire... because he likes Fat Tire and he's a cyclist). I'm really excited to go see the musical... I haven't been to one in such a long time that it will be fun to have a night out on the town!
Anyways, that's it for now! I'll try to blog more sooner rather than later!
Ana
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment