If you know me, you know that I move a lot. Since I graduated high school in 2003, I have moved 11 times. If anyone can learn to adapt to different environments, it would be me. However, my most recent move to Cincinnati is a bit different from my previous moves and it has me a little discombobulated. Don't get me wrong; I am not complaining. Everything has been wonderful here so far! Just different from my previous experiences.
For starters, I have never owned a car until this summer. Every time I've moved to a new city (Miami, Columbus, DC), the first thing I had to learn was the public transportation system. When I lived in Miami, Florida, I hardly left campus unless I was in Trina's car or exploring downtown with James by bus. In Columbus, I had to plan where I lived and worked according to the bus routes. If you can believe it, I lived, went to school, and worked on High Street, just on different ends of town. In DC, I relied on walking, the subway, and buses to get to work every day. It is such a strange feeling to now have the convenience of a car. I can hop in at any time and go wherever I want, even if it is across town. And, get this, I don't have to make my only grocery runs on my way home from work and have to carry my groceries a mile to my apartment building from the subway station!
Another major difference is when I've moved before, I never knew anyone in the new town before arriving. There would be a few weeks or so of me living on my own, going to classes or work, watching tv, going on the internet, etc. and kind of developing a routine before I started making friends. This time, I've known about 20 wonderful people in the area for over a year before moving here, plus I met 18 more upon arrival through my AmeriCorps position. I've never been so social during my first 3 weeks in a new town before in my life. Heck, this is the most social I've been in a long time!
The last thing that has me all discombobulated is that as an AmeriCorps member, I have to keep track of all my hours spent at work, In-Service meetings, and other volunteer work I do. I have never been good at keeping track of my hours and my mother can attest to this. Not only do we have the paper time sheets to fill out (which, we were just informed, are now obsolete), we have to log our hours online, print out reports, get them signed by our Service Site Supervisor, and bring them to our weekly meetings. I'm working on creating a system that will work for me, and I'm sure I'll get better at it as time goes by.
That's it for now. I better get some rest because this is going to be another action-packed week, both in school with the Kindergarteners and after school with friends and meetings.
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