just thought i would give the blog a little run down of my first few days here in burlington. i got here on sunday with minor flight problems. i navigated through the philadelphia and burlington airports all by myself, so i gave myself a pat on the back. hooray! i was welcomed at the airport in vermont by my "team" for the summer. my team is made up of me and three other girls involved in the program. erin is the team leader. she is from california, and we get along so well. we laugh at everything together... and she loves the bachelorette, too. we always collaborate after watching the show online. heidi is one of my other team members. she is a vermont native and actually attends the university of vermont here in burlington. she is sweet as can be! the final member of my team is my roommate, melanie. she is from penn state, and god bless her for putting up with me. she has been a very good sport because all i do is talk her ear off in my southern accent and then keep her up late at night because i am such a night owl. ha.
i just love the diversity of the group and can't wait to get to know everyone better. and side note, this won't matter to any of you, but i'll include it anyways. before i arrived, there was a big team scavenger hunt all over the city. the winning team won extra money for "team weekend" that happens later on in july. "team weekend" is where you and your team can basically travel anywhere and do anything you want within budget. so guess whose team won. yep, mine!! i'm very proud. yippie:)
now i will move on and discuss the job i will be doing for the summer. gms (that's the name of the program i am at) requires that everyone get a day job to keep people busy/make some money. i got a job at a grocery store with 12+ other kids from the program. it really is a wonderful situation except for the fact that i have found myself assigned to the deli. doesn't sound too bad, right? welp, i slice meet and cheese all day. it's pretty bad. i will know all types of meet and cheese upon my return to the south, and how to slice and package them. however, don't try to find me behind the deli counter in tuscaloosa... i won't be there. ever.
on a positive note, i really enjoy the people i am working with. because i am in the same place all day and there are lulls at times, i am hoping to build friendships with these people and potentially form witnessing opportunities. we shall see.
to conclude in humor, i will now enter the world of the southern accent. it's a big deal. i've got one, and it is apparently blatantly obvious. one guy from the program honestly could not understand what i was saying, and i had to repeat it. others just automatically ask where i am from. but the most humorous encounter happened yesterday at work. i was dealing with one costumer who had a couple different orders... turkey, bologna, cheese. you know, the whole nine yards. i kept forgetting what he had told me, so i had to keep asking him how many pounds he wanted, etc. i felt bad for this, and he was a really friendly nice guy... so i jokingly apologized by telling him that my brain had already turned off for the day. in response he said, "did you leave it down in georgia?" i was so caught off guard, all i could find to say was, " alabama actually."
i hope everybody is having a wonderful summer... i feel like everyone is out on their own little adventures. i can't wait for everyone to be back together in the fall!
until then,
b
haha
ReplyDeleteThis is great Katie!
I'm hoping you continue to live and love life up there. Just to pass onto you what was passed onto me by the big G-d man: 2 Corinthians 4:1 says, "Therefore, we have this ministry by the mercy of God, so we do not lose heart."
Know that God didn't only give you the deli job as a ministry (which was cool to read that you want to take on that attitude), but He was MERCIFUL in giving it to you. He could have given you a million other jobs that you would have hated, but He found it fitting, consulting His deepest of compassions for you, and was merciful to you to give you that ministry.
Ouch... haha. That's how I'm feeling at times. How can I dare complain about a job that God has been merciful to give to me?
-Nic Eli