One More Week!

Well....So sorry it's taken so long to post again!  This week has been soooo busy we haven't had time to come to starbucks!!! i swear i am wasting so much money here on chai tea lattes everytime I come!  So we found out our housing situation for Wichita Falls (next project), we will have a house with 4 bedrooms and 3 bathrooms, out team leader has her own room so between 5 guys and 5 girls we have to split into 3 bedrooms...o and even better, there aren't any beds....so we have to bring cots or sleeping pads so I better enjoy my bed at home while I got it!!! 
So we work Monday and Tuesday and then leave for Denver Wednesday.  We stop in Salina, Kansas on Wednesday night and finish up the trip to Denver on Thursday.  We have to "work" on Friday (have no idea what we're doing) and then leaving Saturday to come home!!  I don't leave Denver till 4pm and get into Logan at 10pm and my beautiful mother is ever so kindly driving down to pick me up!!
I don't know if I mentioned it before, but I am SOOOO excited to get my very first real christmas tree when I get back!! I'm going to drag it from Millcreek to my house and decorate it all pretty and have Matilda and Indy climb all over it and eat it.  But that's ok, it'll only be up for about a week! 
When I get back I get to go see Narnia which came out today and I am SOOOO excited for that as well.  And I can't wait to just lay on my couch doing NOTHING with NO ONE around me.  I like these people and all but I can't seem to find too much personal time which I greatly appreciate.
The past couple days we did community service painting a huge room after working a 9 hour day and I have pretty bad blisters like the ones I used to get on the monkey bars, I'm noticing them now from typing. ANYWAY ummmmmm tomorrow I get to go play with puppies (dogs really, I just call all dogs puppies) for community service, someone is doing pet pictures with santa and they need help wrangling the pups and that's what I get to do!! 
Let's see, this weekend we are going to another basketball game (UALR vs. Ole Miss) and hopefully make it to the Clinton Library and possibly go for a hike in 30 degree weather! Apparently this weather is cold for Arkansas but I think it's just helping me prepare to come home to even colder! 

Here are some pictures of Little Rock I promised from....last weekend? or the weekend before? I'm losing track of time...

Walking down President Clinton Ave.

Me pulling some sweet moves ice skating. Beautiful.

River Market

River Market

Me on the bridge with downtown Little Rock in the background

View of Little Rock from the bridge

Ok, so starbucks is about to close and I'm going to pass out from exhaustion.  Don't know if I'll post again before coming home but I'll be home December 19-January 2! yay! so excited! love you byee

We know what we're doing next project!

Hello!!!! So first things first, we know what we're doing for our next project when we return from Christmas break.  Our team will be going to Wichita, TX which is in nothern Texas on the Oklahoma border, and....we will....be doing taxes...yes I said my community service with AmeriCorps for 6-8 weeks will be doing TAXES! while others are out building houses and building trails...we will be sitting inside (once again inside may I add) and do taxes.  Ok, yes I am a person who enjoys computer junk and math, but it wasn't what I was looking to do when I came into this program, ya know?  But I will of course make the best of it.  So to find out who gets what project there is a lottery, there are 28 teams, and we got number....28...so we got everyones leftover choice and had no option whatsoever in what we are doing. 

BUT anyway, I've had a good week so far, each week seems to get easier because I get more comfortable with the hospital atmosphere and going into patients rooms.  I had the best thing happen, I was getting ready to go do my last shift 3-5 in the rehab unit when my supervisor in the infant toddler unit asked me "how would you like to hold a 6 week old baby??"  A mother had to leave to go pick her mother up and someone needed to stay with the baby AND I GOT TO! she was a gorgeous little thing that slept the whole time and it made me so happy!!  I got some quiet time and got to hang out with a sweetie by myself so it was a nice relaxing afternoon!!  And I'm making progress in the patients recognizing me and getting excited to see me and that feels awesome!!  For our individual service hours we helped with what they call the Festival of Trees where they decorate trees really pretty and have a silent auction and sell a bunch of things including the trees and that was fun to see all the trees.  This weekend we are helping with some thing where people can take their pictures with a dog? or santa? I don't know, and then we're also helping with a parade that day to get a bunch of hours!  Then I think Sunday we will go hiking at Pinnacle Mountain here in Arkansas.

I'm a dummy and didn't upload my pictures yet but on Sunday we went ice skating downtown and went walking across a bridge and I got some sweet pictures.  I promise to add them as soon as I remember to upload them!!!

17 days!!! I can't wait!!!! hope all is well, I am doing great and enjoying being here, but of course there are little tweaks here and there that are driving me crazy but that's because I'm such a weirdo and let things get to me, but I am trying my hardest to not let that happen!  Love to all!

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!!!!