My sweet blog, I have neglected you...

Well, to the 3 loyal blog fans that I have out there in cyberspace, I am sorry I have neglected you recently! I have good intentions of many varied posts, but have been too busy to even think about listing them. I will start with where I left off...

August 2009

Mid-August, I went on a training trip to Seattle with my Americorps Vista group I will be serving with this coming year through the Children and Families Commission of Orange County. To be honest, I dreaded the trip. As a rule of thumb, I do not like travel for work. I don't like sleeping alone in hotels, in particular. I was dreading the trip for 3 days before leaving while I dragged my heels in the packing process. I was grumpy and grumbly the night before. In general, I wanted the trip to be over before it began.

After I got off the plane in Seattle, everything that happened got better from that point on. I made friends quickly with my new fellow Vistas, and we had a fun day together in the hotel where we stayed. Which, by the way, was fabulous. We stayed in Downtown Bellevue at the Hyatt, which was beautiful and far better than any of us expected. Apparently, because the economy has tanked and hotels are especially hard up for business, our national Americorps gurus negotiated the best possible bang for their government buck, and we ended up staying in the nicest hotels in the history of the Americorps program. Cool stuff!

The training itself was also far better than I expected. I have managed a professional development (training department) in the past, and have coordinated a lot of volunteer trainings, as well as have formal training on conducting trainings. Which makes me a picky student. I actually was impressed with the content and the facilitation, which is hard to do.

I met some of the most wonderful people on this trip! Not just my new OC acquaintances, but from the whole West Coast and Pacific Northwest region--the whole training was full of a bunch of non-profit loving, people-helping people. It truly felt like I had been sucked up by a mothership and transported to my home planet. As much as could be the case in a strictly secular government environment at least. I left the 4 day trip feeling completely proud to become an Americorps Vista member for the year, and really pumped to start my year of service.

Finally, I got to do some unexpected sightseeing also. Of particular interest: Pike's Place (with the fish), the original Starbucks, aka my "mothership", and the Space Needle, which I was able to see at sunset on a beautiful sunny day. Which I understand is not typical of Seattle--which, by the way, was sunny the entire trip. I felt like I was in SoCal.

So, needless to say, my expectations of this entire trip were exceeded tenfold. I actually was sad to leave and came back happy that I went on the trip.

As a teaser to the next installment of "fall 2009 adventures with Jennie", here are some of the next postings I hope to get to within the next few weeks:

*Colette's Children's Home: My First Month
*How to Date a Lawyer for 6 weeks and no more
*Saddleback Small Group Learnings from Fall 2009
*Mt. San Antionio's Fiesta Weekend
*Labor Day at Disneyland
*Update on my "mentee," Jacqueline

I hope to do a post every few days to catch y'all up. I'm a facebooker too...so chances are, if you are on facebook, you've already caught up on these adventures as they were occurring.

Now...must...get...sleep...