Good juju for Juneau

As if the alliteration in this blog’s headline weren’t enough (I couldn’t resist. There are far too many quality Alaska jokes not to acknowledge them. Juneau what I mean?!), I thought it was only appropriate to describe how I’m feeling about my upcoming year of service in Juneau, Alaska with the phrase, juju. Good juju, to be more specific. In other words, there’re good vibes in the air. Big things are happening, big changes that I’m about to fill you in on.

(changes large enough to warrant, oh I don’t know, creating an entire blog about them, and to hopefully interest you enough to keep up with them!).

But more importantly, there’s good juju happening here. Can you feel it?

I'm spending the next year with the Jesuit Volunteer Corps Northwest, a partner of Americorps that places volunteers in underserved areas around the Pacific Northwest. During this year,I've been placed at Catholic Community Charities of Juneau, Alaska, in a new position that works as both a case manager and a behavioral health associate. Simple living, spirituality, community, social justice are the four components, priorities, values, that JVC Northwest is built on, and that I’ve committed my next year to exploring. JVCNW houses me and six other members, who will be volunteering at different organizations around the city. It’s a program that I’ve got a lot of faith in, a lot of excitement about, and a lot to learn about. Always more to learn.

Although, some minor obstacles in the process of learning about my new home in Juneau might suggest that we'd all be better off knowing as little about Juneau as possible. Initially, I turned to my Googling talents to try to paint myself a picture of the environment I’ll be moving to. I would not advise that anybody do this. Not to brag, but I’d like to brag that I’m a pretty good googler, so take note: an enticing Google profile Alaska in the News does not make. Recent headlines include Alaskan plane collisions, Alaskan bear maulings, and generally anything that Sarah Palin does.

I dug deeper. A google maps search of my Alaskan address returned a photo of this lovely piece of property:


Hmm. The landscaping could use a little work. I guess the whole condemned-haunted-house vibe could be addressed also. Perhaps I should bring curtains?

Thankfully, a virtual walk down my virtual street showed me that at my address was actually a much more adorable, livable place to call home. Clearly, the google map guys must have just been having a laugh while taking a break from driving their little mapping car around the entire world when they linked my address to a photo of the Addams family mansion. Because this house was cute. It was blue. And it pretty much directly looked out at this:


And then I got an email that I actually would be living at an entirely different address, so I repeated the process and am similarly satisfied.

I’m rambling about my house largely because at this point I have little else to ramble about. I’m still a week out before I leave for Camp Orientation outside of Portland, which will go from August 8th to August 13th. I could talk about packing and buying hiking boots, but that would pretty much guarantee that nobody ever reads this blog ever again (and if that happens, then what’s the point of a blog? if a tree falls in the forest and nobody hears it, was it really a tree? Or whatever.)

But on a more reflective note, I’m ready. I am really, really ready. I am looking forward to every aspect that this experience has to offer. I’m looking forward to striving to limit technology and connectivity. I’m looking forward to snail mailings, both receiving and sending. (you are too? Great! My address is 315 E street, douglas, ak 99824!). I can’t wait to meet my six wonderful roommates. I can’t wait for a new city. I feel ready for my job. Well, kind of. Okay, not a lot. I do feel utterly underqualified, being largely unfamiliar with the field of social work. So, there’s that. But more importantly, it’s a field that I want to be familiar with, that I’m seriously considering pursuing and that I’m feeling, I’m hoping, I have a knack for. And how could I possibly decide to actually do that without experiencing it first? And finding this position, in this location, with this program, is also something that I took my time with, and really thought through. I talked to a lot of people, I asked questions, I got second and third and thirtieth opinions on everything, I changed my mind. I took my time, and while in the past that’s never seemed felt like a really okay thing to do, I realized that not only is it okay, it’s necessary. And I have a lot of faith that for some reason, the next step for me that I’ve finally arrived at has to include this specific job, working with these specific people, living in this specific situation, in this specific place: Juneau, Alaska.