Long Weekend

So we have had Thursday-Sunday off, Thanksgiving kind of stunk not only because I was away but we were surrounded by a bunch of people we didn't know and they didn't try to interact with us, so I was sad I wasn't back home with people I love and want to hang out with and want to talk to me, but we got through it!  That night we went downtown Little Rock and found a pizza place to hang out in, some people played pool, I had an appetizer and just people watched.  Yesterday (Friday) some of us went shopping, but didn't really hit much of the black friday crowd, we went to Best Buy and WalMart, my team leader Kiera and I went into the Christmas section and got some stuff to decorate our 3 ft. christmas tree, I'll be sure to take a picture of it soon to post, I decorated it myself!! I'm so excited that it is officially Christmastime!! We've found the christmas music radio station!!!!  After shopping we went to another UALR Basketball game.  Today some people went to tailgate for the Arkansas vs. LSU game, but I figure that's really not my scene and I wasn't in the mood for it.  So after we planned on going ice skating at the "Skatorium" I think it's called downtown, it's outside, but it was too long of a wait so we're going to try to go back tomorrow.  And after dinner tonight we went back downtown.  Downtown Little Rock isn't all that big, I'd say it's like Portland but with taller buildings.  But, that's been my weekend so far, it's been nice not to have to go to the hospital or think about hospital things.  20 days till I come home!! We really only have 2 more full work weeks until we head back to Denver!!! So I'm really bummed.  All these cool things are happening in the places I go, but not at the right time....Guster was in Portland like what 2 weeks after I left, the day we came to Little Rock was the last day Wicked was playing, and now Guster is coming to Denver one week after we leave for our next project!!! I don't get it!!! But I'm just figuring it's happening for a reason...like I need to save my money for other things....o well...now that I'm rambling on and on I'm going to stop.  Miss and love all!

A couple pictures

Here are a couple pictures of my team, we haven't really been out in Little Rock enough to take pictures, but one is of us in front of the Christmas tree at the hospital, and the other is us in front of the hospital!

Week 2 in Arkansas!

Hello! This past weekend was nice and relaxing, up until Sunday evening but let me tell you bout the good stuff! Saturday we were able to go see Harry Potter!!! LOVED it! I think the fact that I haven't read the last book for a while played a part in me liking it so much because I wasn't comparing the two in depth like I did the last movie/book.  I am definitely excited for July to see the last one though!!! Up next for movies is Narnia on December 10th and I can't WAIT to come home to be able to go see it!!!!! We bought tickets for a 3:45 show and it was 1:00 so we were able to go shopping at a nearby mall, they already had their Christmas tree up, Santa was taking pictures AND christmas music was playing.  I was in heaven. Loved it, I just walked around singing along to the songs, not buying anything because 1) I don't really have the money to buy anything and 2) I probably wouldn't be able to get it back to Denver let alone back to Maine with all that I've already packed! On Sunday we went to a University of Arkansas Little Rock (UALR) Men's basketball game, that was fun but as most of you know, sports aren't really my thing, but I still enjoyed myself.  Afterward we went to do laundry, and two people were supposed to go grocery shopping while we did so to save time...not so much, we were stuck at the laundromat 1 1/2 hours after we were done with laundry because of miscommunication and complications....not such a fun night, and because our timeline got all messed up we missed a moonwalk thing they had downtown where they have a bridge that goes over the dam (They call it the "Big Dam Bridge") so we didn't make it to that but attempted to meet up with another team here in Little Rock at a Sonic...let me tell you, there are way too many Sonic's around this area to have found the other team so that just added to our awful night, but we survived. 

These last two days of work have been long and hard to get through because they drag out so long.  A lot of the kids are preparing to go home for the holiday so they aren't really concentrating on playing games with me.  But today a couple of things happened that made me happy and realize how much good I am doing for these children.  There is this one 5 year old girl who I had seen a couple times last week and brought a bunch of stickers for her to choose from and put on her very own piece of paper.  I heard she had come back into the hospital and was looking for some stickers, so I went into her room and her face lit up and she looks at me and goes "Can I have some stickers!?"  So I was able to just hang out with her for a while and go through stickers so she could pick and choose what she wanted.  It was awesome.  Then the other thing that happened was there was this girl I was playing UNO with.  I have to move her cards for her, but she's able to tell me what cards to put down for her.  Anytime she would put down a "skip" "reverse" "+2" or "+4" she would scream "HAHA!" and I loved it, but then one of her doctors came in and witnessed it and told her that this is the happiest he had seen her. AH-MAZING I felt so good about myself that just by playing a game of UNO with this girl made her light up and be happy.  So this job is definitely awesome, but still emotionally draining at times, but I haven't let it get to me yet. 

I already mentioned how we are meeting up with 2 others teams for Thanksgiving, but it's going to be a vey hard day for me being away from home.  I've never been away for any big holidays like this but I'll get through it.  AND I'll be home in 25 days!!!! Sorry if I've rambled on, but this is what I've been doing!  Hope everyone is well, and it has been pointed out that it's a pain to leave comments here, so if you want to comment or have questions feel free to facebook me or email me acav_614@yahoo.com.  I have internet access to my email, but nothing like facebook/skype/blog because it's from the hospital computers so feel free to email me at anytime and I check it almost daily and can respond!!  Love to all!

Little Rock!

We finally made it to Little Rock, AR after two days of driving in a 15 passenger van and over 900 miles.  We had a hospital orientation yesterday and got introduced to the different positions available for our volunteer projects.  My top two were to help in their classroom and work with the babies and kids in rehab.  I GOT MY TOP 2!  So in the classroom they are basically tutors to the patients whose teachers send their homework to the hospital and I'll be helping with that!  So the kids that can't leave their rooms for whatever reasons I will be going into their rooms for one on one help, and in the classroom when kids come in I'll be helping for those who need one on one help! How perfect is this for me!? So excited.  So I do that in the morning, and in the afternoon I go and work in two different departments, wherever I'm needed.  I work in the department with the babies and do busy work that they need and I also have a list of chillens that need to be held, played with, or just be stimulated in general and meet those needs for them.  Can't wait to get started with that.  And then the other half of my afternoon is in the rehab department where mainly kids are recovering from brain/spinal chord injuries and need people to just hang out with them, talk with them or just play a game with them.  I am ecstatic about being here, but today was my first day on the jobs and it was kind of stressful.  Just for the fact that I'm afraid I'll do or say something wrong in a hospital setting that will just ruin everything, so I was tense all day.  Plus it's a fairly big hospital, about as big as Maine Med (maybe a little smaller) but still large for just being a hospital dedicated to children, and everything looks the same and I'm worried about getting lost.  It's scary.  but luckily I haven't so far and everyone there is friendly and helpful!! 

So I don't have internet access at our apartments so I won't be able to update you as much as I want to, and won't be able to post pictures of my job/work for obvious reasons, unless there are no patients in the pictures then I can.  But I will keep you updated as much as possible!!  I am loving all the southern accents here!  The people here are very friendly and so excited to have us, they really appreciate our help, so thats pretty cool.  Ummm so I'm sitting in a Starbucks with my team because we were all so desperate for internet connection, so I got a delicious Chai Latte in this deal as well as being able to update you lovely folks!  And here is the address you can feel free to send me stuff to (because it's muchly appreciated)

Attn: Annie Cavallaro
AmeriCorps NCCC
1 Children's Way Slot 108
Little Rock, Arkansas 72202
SO nice catching up with everyone!  Leave comments at the bottom so I know who's reading!!! I'll be home in one month 2 days, but who's counting!? HA and I cannot believe Thanksgiving is NEXT WEEK! time is flying like crazy out here!! We are just staying in Little Rock for Thanksgiving, there are 2 other teams in Arkansas so we are all going to get together and have a lovely dinner (even though I don't know any of them) it will still be pleasant.  If I don't update by then everyone have fantastic holidays!! Love you all!!!

Last day in Denver for a while!

Hellooooo!!! Tomorrow is the big day!!  Head out bright and early at 8am for Little Rock, AR! We are stopping in Salina, Kansas overnight Saturday and getting to Little Rock Sunday. 

Sunday was free zoo day!!!! I love the zoo.  When we first went my first goal was to see lions.  Went to the lion cage, there were only two female lions.  Alright, ya they're cool but not as friggen awesome as a male lion!!!!! So anyway, it was soooo busy if you can imagine everyone in Denver knowing about the zoo being free....crazy...so when there are big crowds like that I just like to go off by myself and zip through everything as fast as possible so I could see everything, so I broke apart from my team to do that, not much team bonding but individual growth we'll call it!  So below are some pictures of the different animals!  And by the end I was determined to see a dang male lion...not only did I get to see a male lion but he was with his fellow female lion!! Really close to the glass!!! I stayed there for like 30 minutes just watching them and taking pictures of them! I want so bad to be able to cuddle a lion without getting attacked and killed...someday maybe??  But I absolutely loved the lions!!!!!

Camel!



Scary gorilla



He sleeps with his tongue out :)

He is amazingly beautiful!

This past week has been a lot of just waiting around.  Since we are working in a hospital, we don't need all the tools and stuff other teams need, so we didn't have much to prepare for.  We had a lot of paperwork to do and had to present or "brief" our project to the director and unit leader and that went pretty well!!  Each person has a role on the team, my role is the portfolio editor where at the end of each project our team must prepare a portfolio just summarizing our project as a whole, I will be in charge of splitting up the tasks and editing it!  So I don't have much work in that department for a little while.

SO! I'm all packed and more than ready to go tomorrow. I am so ready to finally get to work and do something other than sit in a classroom all day!  Will keep updated as much as possible but I have the feeling I will be very busy for the next 5 weeks, which a need and am excited for!!!!

Another week in Colorado!

Sorry I haven't updated recently!! I have such long days and am worn out too much to write what I did!!!  But let's see where we left off...last Friday we went to a Rock Climbing gym.  I didn't think I was going to do very well, but I ended up climbing to the top of two walls!! They were the easiest walls, but at least I did it! I have been pushing myself physically more than ever and I am so proud of myself!! Here are some pictures from that day!!

Kelsey, Myself and Tiana looking
mighty fine in our gear!

Me at the top of one of the walls!!

One of the halls I helped decorate!

Then the weekend was Halloween weekend!!! The campus had a Halloween party but it reminded everyone of an awkward high school dance, so we didn't stay long there Friday night!  Saturday I did another Individual Service Project where I went to the Denver police station to help them decorate for their annual Halloween tick-or-treat street!  It was fun, but we had so many people there it didn't take too much time to do and we got out of there sooner than we thought.  And it was very nice, the police department with help from a local church fed us lunch and that was awesome!!



Then on Saturday night I went with a group on an adventure to find a Thai restaurant that our team leaders rave about called Thai Basil.  After taking the bus and the light rail, it was a mile walk and we finally found it!! It was soooo worth the walk! It was delicious and filled my pad Thai empty hole.  Below is a picture of some of the girls in my hall  dressed up for Halloween!

 









Fire Unit girls Halloween!

On Sunday I had a low key day until I went and did another ISP at the Denver Children's Museum!!  They as well had a Halloween carnival and needed help running it.  For the first hour I was doing stroller check-in which was silly because I dealt with 2 people in one hour.  But then I was able to go work at the painting station that they have and it was awesome to see all the kids in their costumes and get to interact with them, and then to see their imaginations soar with an endless possibility to paint whatever their hearts desired!! Outside they had the whole courtyard set up with different trick-or-treat stations and they had a Harry Potter figure (you can see me with him below)  Then we helped them break everything down in an hour and a half that took them a week to set up!

Happy Halloween!!



The group helping at the children's museum



Me with Harry!

The rest of the week was mostly trainings, but on Tuesday we went back to Red Rocks and were able to hang around there a little longer than 5 minutes!! It was awesome because we were able to walk down to the stage of the amphitheater and take some pictures!! We got a big group picture of the fire unit.  I really hope I'm around during the concert season to be able to see someone perform there because it seems like it'd be an amazing experience!!  After Red Rock we went for a hike down the road and it was a beautiful day for it! It's been in the high 60's to high 70's most this week, but down to like 30 at night!!! It's awesome weather.

Me at Red Rock Amphitheater!



Fire Unit at red Rocks Amphitheater

Finally on Thursday we found out our permanent teams and our first round projects.  Through our year we will have 4 projects all together, we will be doing 3 of them with this permanent team (the 3rd round we switch team leaders and corps members) so it was pretty intense finding out who you are spending just about 24-7 with for the next 8 months!!  But before we could find that out we had to do our "baselines" in which we had to run 1.5 miles and do as many sit ups and push ups as we could in one minute, this is just for our personal goals so we can check in between each project how we are improving without it being a competition (thank goodness for me) But once again I was happy with my results, I ran the 1.5 miles in 18mins45secs and did 20 push ups(girl style with my knees down) and 25 sit ups in one minute!  Good thing is I know I can only go up from there!! So finally we found out our teams and assignments.  There are 10 corps members on my team, 5 girls, 5 guys and then my team leader, Kiera.  We had 5 temporary teams before, and never once did I have Kiera but I knew her just from being around campus and such. I like her a lot and know shes going to do an awesome job of leading our team and I can see us growing much closer over the next 9 months!!  So my teammates so far seem like a really good group.  We are diverse enough and have different strengths that I think it is going to work really well! 

Our project assignment!!!!!! We are heading to Little Rock, Arkansas a week from today!! It's kind of funny because Arkansas is one of those states that never would I ever go there unless something like this made me!! I never really considered or thought of it as a state, but I'm excited to learn about the south and what the community is like that I'll be living in!!  It's going to take us 2 days to get there seeing as how it's a 900+ mile drive!  When we get there we will be living in fully furnished apartments right across from the Arkansas Children's Hospital where we will be working.  We don't know exactly what we will be doing as they themselves would like to tell us in depth what our roles will be for the 5 weeks we are there!  It's only like a 2 hour drive from Memphis, TN so some of us might rent a car and head out there for a weekend if it works out!! I'm ecstatic about this project.  How much more perfect can it get for me, working with kids has been at the top of my list for a while.  Although it will probably be a humongous emotional roller coaster I think it will help me grow as a person.  I also hope it will help me in building connections because who knows, maybe I can end up working at the Barbara Bush Children's Hospital right in Portland with connections!!! 

So to get to know our group better we went on yet another hike today (I'm pretty sure I've hiked more in these past 3 weeks than I have in my whole life!!!)  We drove an hour away to St. Mary's glacier which is a glacier that is there year round!  It was a mile hike to get up to it, then we hiked up alongside it to get a gorgeous view.  As soon as we stepped foot out of the van Kiera pointed out "Look at the snow!"  I was soooo excited!!! We were 10,000 feet up so pf course there would be snow!!! Most of our hike up was in snow (with sneakers on, not very easy)  But I have some pictures of our adventure.  This trip wiped me out, but I am resting up now so I can go out downtown Denver tonight because it's our last Saturday night here until January!!! 



Our snowy hike up



me hiking up!

Our amazing view once we got up there!!
 (the glacier was to the right but not a good angle to get a picture of it)

Hope you enjoyed this (sorry it was so long) I just now know to keep up with this every 2 or 3 days at least! Didn't realize so much was going on to write about!!! As soon as I get an address as to where I am in Arkansas I will be sure to make it available to everyone!!