Everything in Transit(ion)

The blog is back! Life has been busy and crazy of late. Apologies for the lack of updates. Last Friday, we completed our time at the St. Bernard Project and returned to campus. During our time there, I was able to get the home of Leroy Jarvis almost completely completed. We were moved off of his house for our last week, with only minor finishing items to be done before he is ready to move back in! In a cool bit of closure to our St. Bernard journey, I spent my last week working back at the home of Johnnie Toledo. Our first two weeks of training took place at Johnnie's home, and he is an awesome guy. I was really happy to be able to see the progress that had been made and to be able to help get him home. Johnnie's Welcome Home Party will be on October 30th if all goes according to plan! We also had an awesome group of volunteers from Gulf Coast Volunteers for the Long Haul. Some of them had been down to the Gulf Coast more than 20 times since Hurricane Katrina, and I was happy to be able to be their site supervisor for their first time with the St. Bernard Project. They did great work and were really the first group that I had been able to work with consistently for a full week. Overall, I really enjoyed my time with SBP and really took a liking to the work and volunteer supervision. It is amazing to be able to see the work and progress that ordinary folks can do with their care and effort to help get people home. It was a pleasure to be a part of that and to have the opportunity to attend several Welcome Home Parties and see the work pay off. Now, we are back in Vicksburg, MS for a transition period that will end tomorrow. We have spent the past week debriefing our round one projects and briefing for our round two projects. My team, River 5, will be heading to Biloxi, MS to continue Katrina rebuilding efforts through Habitat for Humanity. I have worked with Habitat on a 1-2 day basis before, but look forward to the opportunity to start a house essentially from scratch and see the progress. It will also be cool to see some of the beginning stages of construction after working almost exclusively with interiors with SBP. We will work a Tuesday-Saturday schedule, which will be nice for getting an opportunity to do the Independent Service Hours that we need. We will be staying at Camp Victor where we stayed for the Katrina 5-year anniversary. It is an awesome volunteer housing facility, and we will actually have our food prepared for us, which will be a nice change of pace from having to cook every night. I am looking forward to getting back on the job. Sitting in class is not my cup of tea right now. I can't believe I made it through college awake. I find myself dosing off in almost every training session, regardless of how interesting they are. Now, for those who are dosing off or getting ADD, here are the bullet points:

• I hadn't thought too much about what Forrest Gump said about life being a box of chocolates until recently. He is so wise. You really never do know what you are going to get. Sometimes you get the delicious milk chocolate or the chocolate cherry, but sometimes you get that marshmallowy/ nougety thing. Life is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you're gonna get.
• I went to Waffle House today with three people who had never been to one before. That absolutely blew my mind! Having eaten at Waffle House twice in one day before and for about half of the meals on my post-graduation trip, I was flabbergasted to find that some people had never had the opportunity. I had been on about a two and a half month hiatus, but it was as I remembered- the cups were dirty, the food was delicious, and half the waitresses were pregnant. All is well with the world.
• I started back writing a journal today and was thinking back on the motto that our high school developed one year and tried to cram down our throat- "I am who I choose to be." It is so true though. Each of us makes a conscious decision to live our lives in a certain way by the values and standards that make us who we are. It is something that I had forgotten or not thought about in a while, but seems really profound now.
• I had fallen away from something that I always did and was an avid part of who I was. Lately I have not been listening to my Ipod on shuffle. It's something I always do, likely because of my Presbyterian basis in predestination. I returned to the shuffle this morning as I was writing and reflecting, and remembered why I love it so. Perfect mix of music. The only problem is that occasionally, you get the songs that pop up that were only really meant for comedy or special occasions. Baby Got Back comes to mind. I guess shuffling your Ipod is also like a box of chocolates.
• Wow do I miss being in Jordan-Hare Stadium for the big game. After having football Saturdays as a mainstay in my life for the last four years, there is definitely a void there. It doesn't help that Auburn is dominating and I am not there to give Cam Newton a butt slap when he jumps up on the stands after the game. War Eagle anyway! I have already converted several folks who had no particular college affiliation into Auburn fans, so I at least have some folks to watch the games with.
• Hopefully it won't be so long until the next blog. We should have good internet at Camp Victor and a slightly smaller workload, so here's to hoping!