Monday, December 21, 2009

Empire State of Mind

Probably the best and worst thing to happen to me lately would have to be getting a CD in the mail from my wonderful sister; who truly is keeping me up to date on the music world both pop and indie. Bless her soul! However I must add shout out’s to my totally hip brother, Bobby, his mixes are always the bee’s knee’s and my Aunt Lisa who has a great taste in music and has helped open up my horizons to new music! Thanks guys! Anyway on my sisters latest CD the song “Empire State of Mind” by Jay-Z and Alicia Keys was put on it; and boy oh boy does it make me miss New York and my years of college, but especially my last year, and all the people, places, and things that mean New York to me. Ah memories. I am making tons here don’t get me wrong, and who would have guesses that 5 months would have passed so quickly!
It makes me so thankful that I have two years here, because to be perfectly honest I don’t even feel like I have started my service yet! The first 9 weeks was training, and I wasn’t even in my village yet. Now this past 3 months has been getting to know my community, meeting people and organizations, and overall getting a feel for the language and culture. This three-month period has been called community entry, which ended yesterday, just in time for Christmas holiday. My intake has it a bit rough I believe, in terms of setting up a stable connection with our villages, this is because we have a lot of coming and going from our village over a two-month period of time. Those who continue to read from here are going to start sighing, “Poor babies!” in sarcastic undertones, but hear me out, this is all about service and helping people and setting up a trusting reliable relationship with a community. But in January we will be out of the village for over two weeks and its making people have ‘village guilt’. In other news, I have 300 pages left in War and Peace, which I will be happy to have under my belt. If you ever have some time on your hands it really is a good read and a classic for a reason. Also, after 4 ½ months without having a mirror I bit the bullet and bought a small face mirror. It kind of started as a social experiment to see how life would be without ever looking at yourself. It has been really interesting and I find that now that I have a mirror I don’t even use it. It has been, I think, a growing experience, and really interesting to find out all that relates with looking to a mirror. On that note I am going to sign out, Christmas vaca to Malawi starts tomorrow and it should be a bittersweet trip. More to come on that. Happy holidays too all and much love!

1 comment:

Alex Lee said...

I had a similar experience with mirrors in Hawaii. I'd be interested to hear some of the things related to mirrors that you've come up with.

. . . And if you want to be free, be Free. Things I do, and think about.