A Return to Ye Olde Grindstone

I was in my room from 3:00 to 11:00 on Wednesday night of this week. I had only had three days of classes, and I started opening my mouth to complain, but then you know what I realized? No, that's what we're here to do, and that's what your life should be like every week day. However much I wish it were not that way, it is, and there's nothing I can do or say to change it. But what I can do is remember summer, and all the good things that happened, because they may take away my free time, they may re-focus my brain power from thoughts of mid afternoon sandwich eating and TV watching, but they can never take my memory! So here's some pictures, just a little taste of what happened for me this summer when I wasn't A: Doing my Habitat internship, or B: Taking a summer class. Enjoy!

This is Grayson minus two members. We did this show in this lounge/bar/bookstore in NoDa at the beginning of summer, it was pretty cool.


This is Grayson plus a female and a few years. This is literally a picture that I took in the future, I know, it's insane how white Baylor's hair is.

The LEAF Festival in Black Mountain, NC. My Grandfather's house is right beside the campground where they hold the festival. It's a pretty neat event.

Gray Lady's old barn up and my Grandfather's house in Black Mountain, NC.

The House of Huffman. We took a weekend trip up at the beginning of summer to do some work on the house and go to the LEAF festival.

So between now and when I wrote that first paragraph, I have discovered that I actually have approximately zero pictures from anything except the first week of my summer. Well, there are some on the Facebooks, but that's just some people stuff. I mean, basically I just had a good time with my family, friends from high school, old band mates, etcetera. Played a few shows, took a trip up to the Mountains about midway through with some UNCC amigos, went to sliding rock and Bele Chere Festival in Asheville. Stayed at the House of Huffman, worked on a shed for my padre, with much appreciated assistance from Evan. Did a lot of things, saw a lot of things, learned a lot of things, missed a lot of things that I only have here at school. I've got a great group of friends, a fantastic scholarship program that provides me with fantastic opportunities to grow every day and gives me the best support group of brilliant, hard working individuals that I know I will miss more than anything when we graduate in a few years. Right now, I'm just slowing down, and I'm going to enjoy my time here, my friends, the great days and even the awful days. Hope to keep you guys updated throughout the year, and I hope that you feel as great as I feel right now.

Team Jacob for Life.

Summertime

It's been quite a while since I've posted and so much has been going on. After finishing up freshman year with a few exams and papers, I stayed in Charlotte and spent an amazing five weeks interning at Carolinas HealthCare Foundation (CHF). Each of us in the program interned with a non-profit organization in Charlotte this summer, learning about how a 501(c)(3) functions.

Before starting at the Foundation, I had read much about CHF, its mission, beneficiaries, and goals as a non-profit, but I was still unsure of what I would be able to do there as an intern. There seemed to be so many aspects of the Foundation that I knew absolutely nothing about, that I felt uneasy just jumping right in. Luckily, from my very first day at CHF everyone was so welcoming and willing to help me understand what the Foundation does. I spent time getting to know everyone there, and I worked with them on many different projects from writing a case statement, to planning, promoting and executing successful fundraisers, to gaining an understanding of Carolinas HealthCare System (CHS) as a whole.

Attending charity golf and tennis tournaments, each in honor of a specific child's fight against cancer, helped me to understand the importance of fundraising for the cancer centers and institutes that are a part of CHS. At these events I had the opportunity to get to know the children and families who are battling cancer and learn about their relationship with the Foundation. It was really incredible to see the unconditional support that the Charlotte community provides for CHS and how willing it is to fundraise for other local causes.

One fun event that I helped out at for the Foundation was the Prelude to the Dream viewing party. Prelude to the Dream is a charity dirt track race with NASCAR drivers that supports four children's hospitals across the nation, one of them being Levine Children's Hospital. The viewing party at Blackfinn in Uptown was hosted by the Starlight Society, a group of young professionals in Charlotte that works closely with Levine Children's Hospital.

Here's a picture of me and people I worked with at the Foundation. From left: me, Sheri, Morgan (the other intern at CHF), and Kirstin. Work can be pretty fun too! :-)

While living in Charlotte for the first part of the summer, I was finally able to make some trips to the beautiful lakes in (and near) Charlotte, Lake Tillery and Lake Norman. I'm pretty ashamed to say that it took me an entire year to get out and go boating when both Tillery and Norman are each within an hour from campus. It was such a blast and the lakes are so beautiful! Jasmine took Christina and I out on her boat one day, we just swam, ate and relaxed after our first week of work. And then Emily, one of Christina and I's apartment mates (I'm not sure if that's how you say it, but technically speaking, we weren't roommates. Hmmm...) during the summer, has a boat out on Lake Norman and her family took us boating one weekend.

Emily's dad was trying to throw us off the tube, but we were holding on pretty tight!

And now I'm back home in D.C. for the rest of the summer. I just started working at Reddz Trading, a resale clothing store in Bethesda that I worked at last summer when it had just opened. It's pretty fun working there, seeing all of the new stuff come in. June must be the time of the year that people choose to clean out their closets because we've been so busy lately buying! Besides Reddz and getting to see friends I haven't seen in months, I'm so excited to go to Los Angeles in July to see my little cousins-- one is only a few months old! And then after a family trip to Maine to see some more of my cousins, I'm back to Charlotte and school starts in late August.

Hope everyone is having a wonderful summer and is finding time to get out and enjoy the weather-- staying inside all day is really no fun! Thanks for reading, and I'll be back soon!

...and here are the pictures

Well, now you all know that I am completely incapable of doing anything spectacular with technology. Apparently getting your pictures to appear on a blog falls into that category as well. Here's try #2!

This is what the future orphanage looked like on the very first day, although earlier that morning those holes weren't even filled with dirt!

Amigas siempre :)

On the very last day, we took some of the kids to the beach. For most of them it was their very first time seeing the ocean!

Teaching the kids how to play UNO!!!

Working in the Education Center, built by SHH. I absolutely CANNOT WAIT to be a teacher!

Our finished product on the last day of work!

Time Flies When You're Having Fun

Wow. It has literally been months since I last posted. Sorry about that for all of you who are clinging to the edge of your seat, waiting with anticipation to hear what is happening in my life :)

Anyway, I can't really believe that this semester is already coming to an end. It seems like it was just a week ago when Charlotte welcomed us back from Winter Break with three snow days! As a native Floridian, I never actually thought I would have a snow day, so you can imagine my excitement as we went sledding down the hills in front of our Student Union. Good times, good times.

That was way back in the middle of January. Now fast forward through some classes, a round or two of midterms, lots of laughs, a FABULOUS Levine Scholarship weekend for the class of 2015, a few loads of laundry, some intramural softball games, and a ton of happiness to Spring Break 2011.

All along I had planned on going back to Florida for break. Afterall, I hadn't been home for almost two months, and for a girl who tends to get a little homesick, I was really missing my family. It was about three weeks before break, though, when my friend, Jordan, told me about this new club on campus called Students Helping Honduras. Basically, it's this amazing organization located on college campuses throughout the country that raises money to build orphanages and schools in Honduras. Naturally, as a future teacher and someone who absolutely LOVES kids, I wanted to go and volunteer there. It just so happened that there was a service trip for college students during the exact dates of break, beginning one day after classes let out and ending one day before those classes resumed.

I normally take a good while to make big decisions, but, given the short time frame, I had to decide pretty quickly. I had never been out of the country so I had to hurry and get all the needed vaccinations, apply for my passport, make sure everything else was in order, and mentally prepare myself for the "adventure."

Those eight days were some of the best of my entire life. It was such an eye-opening experience, and even though I will attempt to describe it a bit, I know I will not do it justice. Over that week, I was able to visit an orphanage that had a total of 3 staff members "caring" for 150 children, all under the age of 13. It's hard to imagine something like that; sometimes thinking back to it, I still can't believe that a place like that existed. What was the most amazing thing of all, though, was the fact that every single one of those children wore the biggest, brightest smiles on their faces the entire time we were there, giving us hugs and pictures they had drawn for us. When we left that day, I realized that the work we would be doing the rest of the week would be even more wonderful than I originally thought.

Our mission for the week was to start work on another orphanage. This new orphanage, which will eventually house 24 children from the state orphanage that we visited, was located in a tiny village called Villa Soleada. Comprised of 44 families, this place is one of the most magical, loving places in the entire world. There are about 250 children in the village who, when our bus drove up, ran to the doors and jumped into our arms immediately. Again, I don't think I've ever seen such happy children.

There were about 40 college students from different campuses across the country, who, for those eight days, worked long hours laying the foundation and building the walls of an orphanage. I was lucky enough to be given the additional opportunity to work in the Education Center in the mornings, helping the school-age children with their vowels and the younger kids with their fine motor skills. What a cool experience!! In the afternoons the entire village would come outside to play soccer in the middle of a huge field.

These few details don't even begin to describe my experience there, but for those of you who have taken the time to read through this long blog, I hope that you now have a little glimpse of an amazing country and the difference that a few college students can make. I bring up this trip in about every conversation that I have, so if you ever talk to me in person, be prepared for countless stories and hundreds of pictures. In the meantime, here are a few that were taken during that time.

Talk to you all soon! Oh, and I'm not sure that I mentioned this before, but I LOVE LOVE LOVE inspirational/motivational/changing-the-world quotes. It's becoming an obsession. So I suppose I should leave you with one to think about until I blog again: "Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has." -Margaret Mead


Amigas siempre :)

Teaching the kids how to play UNO!!

Working in the Education Center, built by SHH, with the little kids. It definitely made me realize that I absolutely CANNOT WAIT to be a teacher!

Picture this without the dirt already filled in and you have a pretty good idea of what the orphanage looked like on day one.

And this is a view from a nearby tree on the last day of work :)

We took some of the kids to the beach on the last day. For most of them it was their first time seeing the ocean!

And the semester's almost done!

I haven't posted for quite a while, so it seems that I have to catch this blog up on my life. To start with, my family and I went to Cancún, Mexico for spring break, which was incredible. The beaches there are gorgeous! The water was so blue it looked like it was straight off of a postcard.

I think that I'll just live on here in the future...

But now I'm back to my non-beach reality in the lovely city of Charlotte. This past Friday, Christina and I decided to take full advantage of Charlotte's amazing weather by picnicking at the park! After I got off work, I swung by this amazing sandwich place called Laurel Market (the location on South Blvd) and picked up an Athena wrap for Christina and an Apricot-Smoked Turkey sandwich for myself. The food is so delicious; Christina and I were starving by the time we finally got around to eating it due to some directional issues we had finding the park. Despite the fact that you have to wait in a bit of a line around lunch time and its a to-go place only, Laurel Market tops them all for Charlotte's delicious cheap eats (not to mention, healthy!) We had our little picnic at Freedom Park-- the most beautiful public park in Charlotte, this place has a lake and gazebos and everything! It's such a pretty venue. I can't wait for summer concerts and events there.

Then on Saturday, we went to the Niner baseball game vs. Harvard, which was really fun except for the heat. I'm all for beautiful sunny weather, but when we're sitting out in the baseball stadium and the sun is beating down straight on us, its not so pleasant anymore. On the other hand, it is a nice way to get a tan and support an awesome baseball team!

Christina, Me, Erin and Raegan at the baseball game showing some Niner Nation pride!

I can't believe we only have six more weeks of class and then finals. The year has gone by so fast! We're already registering for our Fall 2011 classes next week, and a lot of my friends and I have already begun planning study abroad trips the upcoming years. I'm looking into a study abroad semester in Seville, Spain. I hear its bea-u-tiful!

There's a to-do list of work that I have to catch up on before I leave for Charleston this weekend (I'm going to stay with one of my friends for Charleston Fashion Week-- I'm SO excited! I'll have to post some pictures later!) I've done a pretty good job avoiding parts of it, which is really making tonight not look so great. Wish me luck! :)