A few hours at the zoo!

The penguins were perhaps my most favorite animals...

There were so many of them and they were just so cute.

We didn't get to see them swim, though and that was

a scotch disappointing!

We tried to get them to swim, though!;

To no avail...

Contrary to popular belief,

the humps in camels do not contain water

only fat to help them survive when they can't find food...

Lions, lions everywhere!

Well, maybe not so much.

I love the Rhino!

I nicknamed him Rippy the Rhino

- he was a grand fellow :)

Sea Lions @ the zoo.

They are so much fun & are busy little guys!

I like this picture of the girls :)

They were so into watching the elephants

It was cutesey!

There were 2 sloths in with the birds!

I thought it was pretty cool.

The elephants were covering themselves with dust - and I took a video of it. It's amazing how they maneuver, ps!

It was free day at the zoo on Tuesday and we take every free day we can get! It was good, it was a little on the packed side, but good nonetheless :) It was nice and sunny& I even got a titch of sunburn :D ALWAYS a good thing ;)

And the census states...

I was at Wells Fargo cashing my payroll check (thankfully, because I didn't have any cash for the bus ride back) and my teller looked at my drivers license and said, "Yay for Michigan."

This led me to believe that she was indeed from Michigan,

which turned out to be way right :)

I asked her where she was from and she said Kalamazoo

and I told her that I was from South Haven.

She also went on to say that went to South Haven

every summer

[go figure].

I asked her if how long she had been

here in Denver and whether she liked it.

She has been here for just over

4 months & said that it was

nice but people were different here.

And I knew

EXACTLY

what she meant!

We came to the conclusion that:::

...that it is the altitude that does things to these silly Colarodians [colla-rod-e-ens]. I would bet that nearly everytime I smile at a random stranger on the sidewalk, on the bus, or anywhere else for that matter [with the exception of Wal*Mart strangely enough] people either don't smile back, don't acknowledge my existence or look at me like I grew two separate heads. I don't really understand.


It's funny to be able to have this kind of conversation at a bank telller window. There was more, like how she had lived in ATL for the past 7 years for school and stuff. It's amazing the things you can learn when you talk to people :] What if everyone talked this much? Sheesh!

Grape vines && Bulletin Boards

This week has been interesting. We didn't have any school here on Monday because of President's Day so that was nice having a day off yet still being able to count it. My first week I worked 34 hours. The second: 39. This week I will have worked over 40 hours so I will have some time off in the next couple of weeks. It's crazy that I am already three weeks into this. It's good though. I am learning so much and really enjoying all of the time I am spending here.

Life at the crossing has been good, too. The only thing that has been kind of weird has been the fact that I haven't really gotten out and about much. The bus is kind of expensive - $2 one way and that doesn't include long transfers. But, there is not much I can do about it, so I just suck it up and deal. There is a walmart down the road so I walk to it at least once a week. It's good exercise and it's not a bad walk either. I would like to get out and explore downtown a little more, but I really just wish I had a car. I know that it would make everything SO much easier and allow me to be more mobile. I guess that one cannot look a gift horse in the mouth - I think that's what they say. ;)

But truly, that would be my biggest complaint being here right now is not going out so much. It might sound silly but I promise this is NOT something to be taken lightly. Haha; being an extrovert I need to get out and be around people and be able to LAUGH and have FUN. And for the most part, if I am at the crossing, I am either eating with the other interns or being a bum in my room watching cable tv or something silly like that.

I have been printing off biology stuff lately to start studying with. It's a very good thing - I am going to be taking the test sometime while I am here so studying now is key. I also found an online english class that work with the arbor and will transfer in time for me to for sure graduate on time! YAY!!

Well, I need to post on blackboard and get ready for the kiddies to come in, so it's goodbye time for me for now


Blessings

That's me, that's me... picture post!

Tomorrow will be my 2 full week being here, is that exiting or what?! I think so :D

Since Sunday I haven't really done much in the way of getting out and about. with the exception of going to the Children's Museum! It was so much fun and the kids REALLY enjoyed it!

Zach with the stuffed toy

that almost looks real!

It's like he's never

Seen a dog in his life;

the look on his face!

Zach the fireman!

At the Museum, the kids have all sorts of opportunities to dress up as different professions. They even had a working firetruck with lights and everything

Zach the choo-choo man & Bella the choo-choo fella ;)

Amy & eye

At the Children's museum to celebrate Valentines Day, they had a craft area where the kids could make all sorts of animals using hearts. This was T'sheila's [pronounced Chay-luh] lobster :)

These were some of the animals the kids could choose from::





This was part of the playhouse area. There is a huge ant hill that the kids can climb down in and crawl around then get out from one of the various exits. So fun! They also had all sorts of animal costumes for kids to wear. This is Zach the squirrel




A rare shot of all three of these rambunctious kids together! I love these three, they are so fun to be around :D

Always the exciting time! It was a great day for all of us!

The day that never ends!

Today was a very good daaayyyyy!

Ashley didn't need me to pick her up, instead she got a ride to the Crossing from her pastor from the prayer meeting. I was still up early, though. Then I went back to bed for a few hours :) It was good. I felt like I was back in exam mode, not getting a lot of sleep. I kind of miss it, but it's nice to be on a schedule now!

I went with three of the other interns to breakfast this morning at ihop, which happens to be just down the road. It was delicious food, but there was so much! There was a guy there making balloon animals. I don't know that this is a regular occurance but it was kind of fun to watch. The guy making them was a little creepy looking, and I know that it's mean to judge someone that way, but I still thought it. :-/

After the delicious food, we went back to the crossing and Candace & I put on our fake nails that we bought :) It was fun to be silly and girly for a little bit. I have decided that I do like wearing fake nails, but my fingers don't really like to wear them. It is also hard to do things with them on, like pulling up ones pants. I don't know, maybe it's just me malfunctioning. It's very plausible.

I got to go to the art museum today! A few of us interns went, we're becoming a fun little group sometimes. Sometimes they are not so fun and cause me to become bored. I need to be out doing things, and a lot of the time, I don't get to go out and be stimulated and then I get kind of cranky & restless.

The art museum was really good, I enjoyed it, the only bad part was my decision to wear heels there. Haha, but I will use any situation that lets me wear heels and run with it; figuratively of course :D I enjoy museums, but I like to go my own pace and look at things I want to look at. I don't like to wander around with big groups, I prefer to take it in and process it on my own. There were a lot of interesting pieces there. The one that struck me the most was a feminist piece, though it wasn't for the feminism side to it. It was a really amazing piece.

Isn't it interesting & fascinating? I am sure you can figure out what it is a representation of, but what I didn't know -and perhaps I'm the only one who didn't- that women who either didn't have money to do it, or where it was illegial, would perform their own aboriton. I cannot even fathom that!

There were also other good exhibits. Another one I liked had photos that were candidly real. It was pretty cool to see life as it is and not how peopel want to necessairly portray it, if that makes sense.

One other thing of importance that I did today was eat dinner. Amy, my super, invited a few of us over to her house to eat dinner. She made us beef fajitas and they were delicious! Mmmmmm. It was a good night. After eating dinner we watched 3:10 to Yuma, the new one with Christian Bale in it. I like that movie alot and makes me thing that a movie doesn't have to have a happy ending to make it a good movie.

The entirety of the day was spent with good people, good times & fun moments!

"Another suitor for the princess"

My weekend has been one of adventerous proportions!

It started off Thursday, like I've already written about and it's has been expanded to the majority of my weekend, which I really enjoy!

So Friday I did the whole work thing, and it was good. The kids who attend are only here for 1/2 the day and then they go with their mothers. Let me explain this a little further. As I said before there are 5 phases of the program. During the first phase, the kids of the mothers have to attend our program if they are between the ages of 6 months & 5 years. Right now there is one exception because one the children cannot get the appropriate funds to go to regular school. It's kind of a messed up subject; perhaps I will explain it in another time.

On Wednesday's and Friday's these mothers don't have any afternoon going-ons; it's like their free time. During the week, they don't really get out of the house because they are still in phase one. This means that they stay here at Champa and attend the LEC - Literacy and Education Center to work on different things that help determine their literacy, academic and career skills, etc. Along with that, they also go to life skills classes. During this phase, they have the ability to leave the building for 4 hours a day, so long as they are going somewhere with another mother who is in a higher phase.

Everytime they change phases they get more incentives. A later curfew, more free time, etc. It's a really neat program in the way that it is structured, I think.

After work on Friday, I went back to the Crossing and relaxed for a little and then went for dinner. I am surprised at how much better the food there is than in the DC for the most part. There are sometimes when it's not very good, but unlike in the DC - here it is free for me. :) After dinner I decided to go to a prayer meeting with Candace at 10 pm. Ashley, Candace's super, was one of the leaders at this meeting so we went with her before hand at like 7:30 or 8 into town to the church. Ashley [who coincidentally went to college in Michigan] was headed to the Chris Tomlin concert before the prayer meeting and she asked us if we wanted to use her car to drive around and of course we told her no. Just KIDDING. I jumped at that chance like it was my job :D So, we got to take her car and drove around downtown a little bit, then we decided to park it. So we put an hour's worth of quarters in and went on our way.

We walked around 16th street and checked out all the cool stops. It was nice to walk around and see downtown life on a saturday night. On 16th street they have all of these people who have adult-like strollers attached to their bikes to drive peopld around and they are pretty cool. Apparently whenever Candace goes out to places, boys always hit on her and this was no exception :) One of the bike guys asked us if we wanted a ride and since I like to make things awkward for my friends, I made us say yes and away we went. He talked to her the whole time, it was kind of pathetic. :) He asked her if she skied or anything and she said that she snowboarded. He responded with, "It's okay, I'll forgive you". HAHAHAH. It was so funny, so luckily I needed to buy some Q-tips and there was a walgreens right on the corner so we told him to take us there and then we went in.

There was also a big commotion on 16th street and cops were all over the place. I wanted to find out what was going on so I put my nosy ears on and listened to what people were saying. It was somethign about a family and the dad did something to the mom and daughter and I don't really know, at all. Actually. I was a bad eavesdropper. I was a little disappointed in myself ;) We did, however, make up a sweet list of things that we need to do before we are done here. ps, Candace leaves the 27th of March. What am I going to do without my little exploration buddy?! I don't really know. Oooooh, I am going to dye my hair soon. I am excited. :D

So, we eventually had to go back to the church for the meeting and we get to the car and I said, "what the crap is that?" Maybe it wasn't that exact word, but it was close enough. Yep, you guessed it; the crap was actually a parking violation. Our meter expired on us! And we were so careful, too. It was for 25 stinking dollars! Holy moly. It was 100 times what it would have cost us to throw an extra quarter in for 15 more minutes - which would have given us time to get back and not have a ticket. We haven't told Ashley about it yet, we will when we have the money to pay it.

The prayer meeting was awesome. It was so nice to get back into that atmosphere. It wasn't a pray all of the time prayer meeting, it was more like a praise/read scripture/pray through scripture/ pray for a bunch of different things/write down your own prayer kind of thing. It was good, but Candace and I left just 3 hours into it (it went until 6 am). I am going to start memorizing scripture, starting with Galatians 6:8. I think that this verse is an important verse to remember [For he who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption. But he who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life.] I know that this is something I need to be reminded of daily, if not hourly. It's so easy to forget to be intentional with what we say and do, and I have decided that I need to be intentional about being intentional.

After that, we took Ashley's car back to the Crossing and she's picking it up in the morning. This was a GOOD day!

Days Go By

Lately I feel like a big conundrum. It seems that the hours go by slowly yet the days go rather quickly. It almost saddens me because I feel like I am taking the days for granted, but really I'm not...hmmm

Thursday was a really good day :) After I got picked up by Amy, my super [supervisor], and got to work, I had the first hour to sit around and not really do anything. It was good. I was able to take the kids to the park when they got here, and that was fun. The park is a good place to be a kid, I think. I'm pretty sure that was a great part of my childhood. Kid's Corner will always hold a place in my heart!

We also got to go to story time at the library!It was fantastic. Really, who doesn't love story time. The lady reading the stories was really dynamic and all the kids there loved it. It was nice also because I got to see a little more of downtown. I am kind of liking this city girl thing that I'm working on.



I went out to eat today, a cute little Mexican restauraunt with my super and another intern who has been here for a while. The food was good, I got a taco salad only because of the fact that it came with guacamole which on its own was an extra 3.50. It was delicious guacamole, too! It was nice to get to know both of these girls on a little bit of a different level. I really do like getting to know people and sometimes I wish I was a little better at it. Seriously.



The rest of the day was good at work, the kids were well behaved for the most part and it was just a good rest of the day. The drive home was good - it has been so nice outside lately. It reminds me of SoHo, at least the sunshine and the warmth part of it, but there are two ways that it is not SoHo-y. First, no lake. That is what I miss the most by far, and the more than glorious sunsets. Second, no humidity. I must say that I do not miss that part at all. I don't get super sweaty when I walk around outside now. It's a huge plus!











I went on an adventure after dinner last night! It was nice to get out and figure out a little more of the bus/light rail predicament. The boyfriend of Candace [our Canadian intern :D] is coming to stay here for a week or 10 days or something and he needed a place to stay. Candace's Super, Ashley, said that he could stay at her parents house in Littleton. So, I went with Candace to figure out how to get from The Crossing to Littleton. We only went the wrong way once, and it wasn't too far out of the way. It was nice because we were able to fix our mistake right away and get on the light rail going the right way :)









This was us trying to get the station name [18th & California]. This is us clearly failing.

My official day at work: day 2

I think I am liking this day more and more. It's my second day here at champa and Wednesdays are different from the rest of the days. I don't come in until 2pm and I leave at 10. It's different because I don't do the child sitting that I do MTH&F. I come in and while staff is in a meeting I sit and answer phones calls that come in referring to interest in the program, donations, volunteers, etc. I also am able to answer the door for people who either need to get into the house or who are here for orientation, to fix things, etc. It's nice to be in a different kind of pace. To do something that I haven't done before and to help in a way that may sometimes seem more tangible is nice.

So far, in the last 20 minutes I have answered a total of 4 phone calls and I think I've done pretty well with them!

Let me tell you a little bit about the program that I am working with.
(CH) is a part of the (DRM). CH is for women 18 years and older who have children under the age of 12 that struggle with poverty and homelessness. It is a long term transitional housing program that can last between 1 to 2 years. Some of the program goals here at CH are furthering education, gaining and improving on life skills, securing a job and growing spiritually.

I really like this program becuase when women come here, they have to pay a fee monthly, $90 for the women and $30 for each child. If the women complete the program, they get back every dollar of money that they put in here. This is a really cool thing when you learn the rest of the story. The cool thing about CH and the (NLP) is that when the ladies [in Champa's case] graduate, they are thrown a party, receive help in finding an apartment, get to go to the Mission's warehouse and pick out furniture and anything else they need to make their apartment a home, PLUS they get a free CAR!

DRM & CH just strive to do all that they can do to make sure that the women who graduate out of this program are able to become self-sufficient women for their children. It is something that is kind of radical. Never have I heard of program that does this, though I could just be uninformed. Whatever it is, I think this program is fantastic.


Well, it's back to work!

Blessings

My First Official Day!!

SOOOO, my computer is dead, but the good news is that I am now working so I have internet access everyday && I added mobile web to my phone so I will be able to be on quite often :) Not on here, perhaps, but online in general.

I officially started my first day today. It's been good, but so far it's nothing that I haven't ever done before. It was nice to be able to actually work and do something other than nothing for the first time in 6 days. Is it sad that I would say something like that? YIKES.

I am officially a working girl, though it's different it still feels like something that is a real job. I have to get up at a regularly scheduled time and I have to catch the bus to work. Then I come here and I do what I am supposed to do, eat lunch at a scheduled time, then go back to work, and then it's a wait until the bus. BUT something I am SUPER excited about is the fact that my supervisor, aka field instructor, aka Amy lives close to the crossing [where I am staying] and has offered to take me home whenever she is able to and also pick me up in the mornings. Which means that I don't have to take the bus the rest of the week. Exciting, yes? I think so! :D

The Crossing is a super place to be and I enjoy my roommates though I'm closer to one than the other just because the one hasn't been around a lot. It's good though, it's nice to meet new people and to make connections with them. I like people, it's true.

Well, I have to walk to my bus stop. :)

Blessings