Officially an AmeriCorps Alum

Hello from sunny Florida! I’m currently on vacation for the first time in 2 years. My family and I are enjoying Disney World, one park at a time. More to come on that. I officially ended my VISTA Leader term on Friday. The end was bittersweet–I absolutely loved my work as VISTA Leader. I have worked with some truly amazing people, and I have grown so much , personally and professionally. Let me just say that it sucks to leave a job (and coworkers)that you truly enjoy. I made an infographic about my VISTAs progress over their service terms. As a result of their efforts, we recruited more volunteers, raised more funds, developed partnerships, and ultimately served more students over the course of the year. Our project has really made a difference in New Haven, and for that I’m proud. Last Wednesday, Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro announced our grant expanding the project to 21 VISTAs. We got some press and I got to hug Rosa DeLauro. Talk about ending on a high note! That being said, knowing what I am about to do next has really helped me deal with the transition. I start school and my graduate assistant position in a little over a week. I’m just pumped for this next adventure.

Counting down!

So great news from the office today!

We just got an operations grant that will expand  our project from 16 to 20 VISTAs, and potentially up to 25 in the future. This is a huge deal because our project will receive money directly from CNCS and distribute it to VISTA members directly, and will have more money for trainings and other events.  It’s sad that I’m not going to get to experience the impact of that (I got to struggle through the nonexistent budget for trainings and events this year), but this is great for the project moving forward.  VISTAs have really helped students throughout New Haven achieve this year, and more VISTAs will only help to improve education access in the city.  I’m so proud of my work this year, and I’m so proud that we got this grant to continue the work we’ve been doing for years to come.

In any case, we got word today that Representative Rosa DeLauro will be able to attend our announcement event next week! Rosa DeLauro has been our district representative to Congress for over 20 years, and her family is big in New Haven. Press like that is big for our project’s publicity. We’ll be at New Haven Reads, one of our amazing host sites, and Mary Strasser, the national VISTA director, may also be there.  In short, pretty great.

Plus, I think Rosa DeLauro is awesome. She beats to the sound of her own drum and tenaciously fights for her constituency. I saw her (and Nancy Pelosi) speak about women’s success last week, and I was really blown away by her passion for improving women’s salary, access to sick days, and access to childcare. She rocks. And so does her wardrobe.

Transitions

I got my graduate assistant paperwork in the mail yesterday, and filled out my first 1-9 and W-4 in almost 3 years–since I filled out my last Kimball forms. I’m official, bitch!

It finally started to hit me that I’ll be leaving NHEAVP soon.  This year has really flown by, and I’ve grown so much both professionally and personally. Part of me wants to stay on for another year to see the great plans we developed this year come to fruition. The other part of me knows that I need to move on to this next adventure.  I finally got used to waking up early and spending 8 hours in an office, and I have to prepare myself for schoolwork.

It helps that I have plans moving forward, and that I don’t have too much to worry about financially because my graduate assistantship gives me a stipend and tuition waiver (plus, 2 ed awards). I also just used a chunk of ed award to pay my fee bill and dropped $400 on textbook purchases and rentals. That’s basically all I have to spend this semester for school.

Things are definitely changing for the better, and i’m so excited to start school!

UNRELATED: Check the new layout!

Miss me?

Yes, I went off the grid there for awhile. Between recruiting at work, suffering some serious anxiety, and attempting to amp up my fitness routine, my blog fell by the wayside.  Here’s some quick updates as to what’s been going on with me:

• Interviewed over 50 candidates and selected 15 VISTAs for our 7 host sites!
• Selected my two successors as VISTA Leader! 
• Watched way too many episodes of the Real Housewives (New Jersey and OC)
• Got way too in to Instagram
• Became addicted to Candy Crush Saga (I’m stuck on level 201)
• Facilitated an orientation
• Made a sweet tie dye t shirt at our end of service event
• Celebrated a 100th birthday!
• Registered for grad school classes (best registration ever–did it during the middle of the day and got all my classes with no freezing or cursing)
• Cried about how awful the Mets are 
• VISTA missed my pay day
• VISTA finally paid me 
• Overheard a hostage situation in my neighborhood (Well, from far away)
• Watched my sister graduate college and my brother graduate high school
• Got a flat tire and purchased a whole new set of tires!
• Went to a German dancing festival 
• Marathoned the Office on Netflix.

Now you’re caught up.  Feel better?

VISTA Leader-ing

The past few weeks at work have been crazy busy!

Our newest VISTA member just got approved to start on November 5th, so I have been cobbling together an on site orientation to our project for her.  The last orientation had three people in it, so facilitating it wasn’t too awkward. She is the only project VISTA starting that date, so it’ll basically be a one on one orientation. Luckily, I have the materials from previous orientations! I always worry about one on one orientations being awkward, but I think everything should work out ok.

Our project, in partnership with CNCS and Connecticut Campus Compact, coordinated a statewide training for all the Connecticut VISTAs. Out of the 50 Connecticut VISTAs, over 40 showed up! The workshop intended to help VISTAs navigate the cultures of both the communities they serve and their workplaces. Our facilitator, Catherine Blinder, was fabulous. She writes for the Hartford Courant sometimes, and she has a very compelling life story and engaging facilitation style.  We got a pretty good response about the training from the VISTAs that I talked to, so I chalk it up as success.

I was in charge of securing some food donations, and Subway came through in a major way for us by providing sandwich platters for 50 people. I felt really great about successfully getting an in kind donation! I had never done it before, so the success was a real confidence booster for me.

We’ll be coordinating a few more statewide trainings this program year, so it felt great to have the first one be so successful!

I am also tabling at the Hamden High School Career Fair and participating in an adult spelling be at one of our partners on Friday. Basically, I’ve been busy, but I feel great about it!

I can walk again!

All things considered, this has been a pretty good week!

My ankle is doing a lot better! The swelling is gone and the bruising is finally starting to fade, so I was finally able to wear cute shoes again this week!  I have been dying to rock these cap toed flats since I got them before my tragic ankle injury.  Let me just say, I love walking! And looking cute. And not having my foot look like Honey Boo Boo’s mama’s forklift foot.

Thanks to the lovely Rebecca (and the awesome tutorial at Hello Giggles) for inspiring me to learn the art of the sock bun! I am officially obsessed with sock bun-ing and I’m gradually getting better at it, so A+ for Alyssa. I’ve been admiring sock buns on blogs and in real life but never thought that I could do it (well, until I sprained my ankle and couldn’t really do anything else but mess around with my hair). To those of you who are beauty impaired like me…you can do it!

I also found one of the lids to my classy ’95 Holy Cross mug (of which I have three  or four…I lost count).  I can feel myself starting to get sick, so I drank up on warm beverages to soothe my itchy throat.  I brought the mug to work and I think my coworkers are super jealous. Actually, I don’t think anyone has seen it yet. Whatever, haters gonna hate.

Speaking of work, I’m really starting to hit my groove! I did two site visits this week, visiting VISTAs at two of the elementary schools in New Haven. Our project staff has also been coordinating a statewide training with the state office and another project, so things have been pretty busy, but I am really loving it!

 

Leader Training recap!

So this past week was crazy for me. I went to VISTA Leader training in Lombard, Illinois on Tuesday, so I spent Monday trying to wrap things up before I left (and desperately attempting to set up my Out of Office email!).

I began my journey on Tuesday, which just so happened to be September 11th. I felt really anxious flying on 9/11, but Bradley Airport wasn’t busy and I got through security pretty quickly, so I calmed down significantly. On my way through security, one of the TSA staffers asked to pat down my pony tail. I guess it doesn’t pay to have really big hair like I do. Once I got to my gate, the airport held a moment of silence for the 9/11 victims, which made me tear up a little bit. At the same time, I thought the moment of silence was a great, poignant way to acknowledge 9/11…even though some assholes felt that ordering their Dunkin’ Donuts coffee was more important.

I also had a celebrity encounter once I got to O’Hare. I was running through the airport, trying to find baggage claim and the transportation from the airport to the hotel. I turned to my right, and saw a huge group of kids that looked vaguely familiar.  The girls were wearing long denim skirts. I looked up to their faces again and realized that it was the Duggars. Well, I’m pretty sure it was the Duggars. I didn’t want to ask and have to actually talk to them so I continued on my merry way.

I met a few other VISTA leaders from Connecticut, Massachusetts, and New York at the airport, and, to our surprise, we got picked up by a classy limo! I was totally expecting one of those airport van-limos, so that was a pleasant surprise. Unfortunately, I found out that my hotel was about an hour outside Chicago, and with our jam-packed training agenda, wasn’t really able to get into the city. On the other hand, I got my own room (with two beds)!

All the main training sessions started on Tuesday.  The training team presented some great sessions on leadership development, communication, and conflict resolution (all of which will be extremely helpful to me throughout this next year). I got to attend some competency-based workshops on Tuesday, so I chose “Difficult Conversations” and “Leading a High Achieving Team.” The trainers gave some great advice for dealing with conflict, working in a professional environment, and coaching team members to success throughout their VISTA years.

Most importantly, I also got to meet some great VISTA Leaders from around the country. Let me just say that it is wonderful to meet with people who share similar work experiences with you. There’s only one other VISTA leader in Connecticut, and he’s at a project out in Fairfield, so having all of these awesome people in the same building for a few days was great. I picked up some great ideas for the monthly meetings that I run, including professional developments and training. I also found a few ways to streamline my communications with my VISTAs! The trainers introduced this great meeting technique called Open Space, where conference attendees determine what they want to discuss. During Open Space, we discussed dealing with difficult members (luckily mine are pretty awesome!) and starting a training series with no budget. There were a couple other discussions going on, but those two piqued my interest most.

All in all, Leader Training blew PSO out of the water.  PSO was a great introduction to VISTA, but due to the number of VISTAs and their varying work responsibilities, it was hard to actually do skill building workshops. To put it into perspective, there are about 7,000  VISTAs in the country, and 175 VISTA leaders. There were about 200 people at my PSO, and 90 at my Leader training. Leader Training was a much better environment for training.  I left Leader training with improved competencies in communication and mentoring/coaching/counseling, plus I learned more techniques to engage and support my VISTA members.

CONNECTED!

Guys, I FINALLY scrounged up enough cash to buy a new computer! I’m writing this from my brand new MacBook Pro! I’ve wanted a Mac for years, since I first went to college actually, so I’m basically in geeky heaven right now.  I will finally be able to blog more regularly seeing as I won’t be sharing a computer with my entire family any more.

I digress.

August was a pretty good month for me, all things considered. I’ll give you a quick TL;DR of my life at the moment.

Last year, Freddy won a smoker at a fundraiser that he organized for one of his fellow firefighters. He finally busted it out two weeks ago, and the results were beyond amazing.

Smoking meat takes a long time, but oh my god, the brisket he smoked was out of this world. I’m not really a big red meat or pork person generally, but I really loved the brisket and even the pork shoulder. Not to mention spending all that time with my friends was great.  We’re all in different directions so it’s great when everyone is all in one place.

Last weekend, I went to my cousin Matthew’s eighth birthday party. It’s so weird to see him and Andrew grow up. In some respect I’ll always see them as babies, but they are both so grown up right now! I had a great time spending time with my family and seeing some extended family members I typically only see on holidays.

Finally, work has been busy-good. I’ve been going on six week site visits for our July cohort of VISTAs. The purpose of the site visit is to make sure the VISTAs are doing well at work and in life. I have a list of questions I ask them and I get to look at their office space, etc.

My function is to act as a support system for the VISTAs throughout their year of service, so the site visits are a really good way to get to know the VISTAs on a one-to-one basis.  I’ve always enjoyed the mentoring aspect of the job’s I’ve had (coughkimballcough), so the site visits were pretty fun for me.  I am not their supervisor, so I don’t have authority over the day -to-day aspects of their jobs, but I am there to help troubleshoot and ensure that their service years go smoothly.

Speaking of work, I’m off to Leader training in Chicago on Tuesday! My supervisor, who had the Leader gig before me, says that Leader Training is a lot more professional-development focused than regular VISTA PSO, so I’m really looking forward to it. I’ve also never been to Chicago, and as a VISTA, I don’t really make enough money to travel extensively. All in all, it should be a good time.

ALSO: I got my business cards last week. I was promised cards last year but never got them (and let me just tell you, giving people your contact info on index cards or post-it notes doesn’t feel very classy or professional), so I was stupid excited to actually get some. Now, I don’t know how I’m going to use them all in a year….

Catching up

Well, the last few weeks went by really quickly. Welp. I kept meaning to blog…but also kept putting it off.

In the middle of July I finished work at OPP and transferred to the New Haven Education project. The folks at OPP sent Jacqui and me off right. They even framed our end of service certificates and letters from President Obama for us in really classy frames. I definitely miss all of my OPP coworkers, especially the ones I shared an office with. I don’t think I went a day with out laughing. My year of service with OPP had its ups and downs, and leaving early was definitely bittersweet, but now I can look back with my first AmeriCorps year with pride.

When I transferred to New Haven Education, I hadn’t yet finished a full year of service. To be a VISTA Leader, you need to have successfully completed a full service year. As a result, I worked as a Leader Apprentice of sorts, working on planning out my Leader year. In addition to my Leader duties, I’m handling some of the communications duties for the project.

I also got to visit all of our sites and meet the group of VISTAs. We definitely have a great group for this next year!

Then came my birthday.  Unfortunately, I had to work, but my coworkers bought me a plant for my desk and threw me a little birthday bash.

My supervisor also brought me flowers! My friends also treated me right with a surprise birthday, featuring more flowers, cake, and copious amounts of alcohol. Basically, I’m stocked for the next year.

My good friend Carrie also came home from England!  I was so excited to see her after 8 long months.  I hadn’t seen her since New Year’s! Carrie will also be serving as an Episcopalian Service Corps member in New Haven! I love just knowing that Carrie is back in Connecticut. Basically, seeing Carrie was my favorite birthday present!

I spent the last couple weeks watching the Olympics nonstop (I am in love with Nathan Adrian and Ryan Lochte. And also obsessed with the McKayla Maroney is not impressed meme, but I digress). I also officially started my second term of service as a VISTA Leader last Monday.  I ran my first on site orientation for three incoming VISTAs and I think it went pretty well!

I have also developed a falafel addiction. If you’re ever in New Haven, stop by Mamoun’s on Howe Street. The falafel is to die for. It’s also really cheap. And open to 3:00am. You seriously will not regret it.

TL:DR Life is good and I’m so excited for this next year of service!