some beautiful pictures of beautiful times: http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.1604067186844.2040238.1391040171&type=1&l=38f366780f

in other news, it is still dark, which bugs me. And it's always tough pulling yourself out of the holiday daze, and I've felt it in particular this year - again, I believe that the light (or lack thereof) is no small factor in that. So I don't mean to give a false impression that my Juneau life is all sunshine. It is simply one that is filled with a lot of blessings, but of course a lot of challenges too. I was away from my family for the holidays. It is perpetually dark and dreary, even in the daytime. I am feeling a bit burnt out from working at my service placement, as nearly and dearly as I truly love it there. My community is a wonderful, unfiltered family, and all that such a word implies. But there's a lot to be happy about, too. :)

It's (Was) the Holiday Season!

Here we are. The beginning of a new year, and the end of a great holiday season. In part that’s because for the first time, this season has been truly that: a season. December in Juneau is a physically dark month, with the shortest day of the year hitting only 6 ½ hours of sunlight on December 21st – I’ve never been so pumped about a winter solstice in my entire life. But it’s also a bright time for celebrations and potlucks and really just being with each other, and that is what I will take from spending this season here. The days since Thanksgiving have been consistently filled with rich, life-giving festivities, both planned and unplanned, with large groups and small groups and random, perfect groups of people representing the weird and wonderful connections we are making for ourselves here in Juneau.

We started December by throwing all of those people a holiday party, which has become one of my warmest memories of Juneau so far (and over the past month, I’ve accumulated many). 60+ of our coworkers, friends, acquaintances, and support people came over one Saturday night and proceeded to fill this cozy mountain house with so much light and joy. The party spilled into every wing of the house, with a food table stretching along one entire dining room wall with food we’d made, as well as what guests had brought to share. There was mulled wine, Christmas caroling in the living room – complete with guitars, violin, and a cello – and Christmas cookies to last us for the next month. It was exquisite. The people of Juneau have been such a blessing of this experience for us, and it was so beautiful to be able to invite them all into our home and spend some time together.

A week later, my dad arrived into town for the weekend, a trip that by some stroke of luck he’d been able to swing between business trips. I was thrilled to get this chance to show him Juneau – I didn’t think I’d be able to show this place to my family until their visit this summer. I was overjoyed to be able to show him my life here, and to show my housemates one of the people who is so much a part of me and where I come from. My relationships with my dad, my mom, and my brother are a pretty big part of my life, and I was excited to show my housemates that. ALSO, my dad is a big kid, and I knew he’d get such a kick out of my community and the life we live. In spite of flooding inquiries about “what are you going to do with him? What do you have planned?” I refrained from planning too much of our weekend, mostly because that’s just not our style. My dad and I like to chill and eat Chinese food, and that weekend we did both of those things in excess and with great delight. It being his first trip to Alaska, I made sure to show him the most astounding sights and quirks of Juneau, like the glacier, a drive out the road, and our wonderful island of Douglas. But we also spent a lot of time with my housemates, sharing meals – like seal! – and beers and stories at the house. We ended the weekend by seeing A Christmas Carol performance at the little playhouse across the street from our house.

When he left on Monday morning, I felt some pangs of homesickness, realizing just what it meant that I would not be spending the holidays with my family. But, I also looked forward to seeing what our house would do with this next holiday. After Thanksgiving, I had a feeling that our house had a knack for holidays, and I was absolutely correct.

We celebrated Christmas Eve with a trip to Eaglecrest, Juneau’s ski slope, for those of us in the house who weren’t working or out of town. We had ourselves some great adventures – our Californian got his sea legs on skis for the first time, and Megan, Leslie, Shane, and I got ourselves into a situation at the top of the mountain involving avalanche zones and ski patrol, after which we celebrated our survival with French fries. In the evening we exchanges Secret Santa gifts and opened anything we’d gotten in the mail from friends and family, then went to midnight mass. Christmas day brought us a few housemates who were working, and the rest of us had a breakfast together cooked by Leslie, cooked a Christmas meal at the women’s shelter, and had dinner and birthday cake together (a tradition from my family!). After a short work week, we found ourselves at New Years, which we celebrated with dinner together and telling each other stories from each month of our past year, then went out downtown. AND, on New Year’s Day, we did a POLAR BEAR PLUNGE into the ocean, with about 100 other Juneau-ites, which is about 99 more than I was expecting. So fun. So exhilarating. I’m hooked. It was great. I’m doing one on every New Years for the rest of my life.

So, it’s been a beautiful holiday season, where I’ve had time and opportunity to think about not what I’m getting, but what I already have. Spending the holidays away from my family is not a tradition I’m interested in starting. However, I have a wonderful service placement, community of housemates, and larger Juneau community surrounding me. I have a breathtakingly beautiful place where I am lucky enough to live. Back in August when JVCNW was recommending that we stay for Christmas at our placements, they said it was a “chance to redefine how you view Christmas.” After this experience, that is absolutely what has happened, and in the best possible way.

Thankful, thankful.

I will not hesitate to admit that I had approached this holiday with apprehension. As we’ve gotten closer and closer to Thanksgiving, the first official family holiday where we were made to be apart from our families and had to work to keep our own traditions alive by sharing them with each other, as our schedule for the day and the long weekend filled with plans and grocery lists and many other kinds of lists, I had no idea how this would go. I had the distinct feeling that we’d overbooked ourselves for too many dishes to prep in too little time, given too many affirmative RSVPS to too many social engagements, and generally planned a somewhat stressful day, not at all like the quiet and restful Thanksgivings I spend with my family. I was on my guard for this one.

It was perfect. In this place, on that day, with my strange and perfect little family of a community, this holiday was uniquely and exquisitely Juneau, and one that I will never forget. And it began, as I’ve now learned that all unforgettable Thanksgivings do, on the Wednesday before. As we dragged ourselves to work on that last day before a sweet, sweet, break, shrouded in the fourth day in a row of snow showers, I threw out my old go-to comment on the weather, “maybe we’ll have a snow day today.” It was a quiet day at work to begin with. It seemed that many had started the holiday early by grabbing more time with their families. By 3 pm, conditions were blizzard-ly, even by Juneau standards, and my office closed early for the rest of us. It was so incredible to have a snow day (well, a snow afternoon at least) to kick off this weekend. Such a blessing. I’ll never get sick of snow.

As I was leaving, a few of the women in my office were finishing up working in the kitchen to make a thanksgiving meal for some of the families we work with. They’d been working all day and had so, so much food. They were worried that nobody would come to the meal and that all the food would go to waste, and asked if they could give the JVs some food. I was absolutely overwhelmed as these women loaded up two boxes of food, including an ENTIRE. FULL COOKED. TURKEY. Luckily my housemate Maggie had stopped by to visit my office and would be able to help me carry it all; that’s how much there was! My boss helped us out by giving us a ride closer to the bus stop. I probably have never felt more ridiculous than I did trudging toward that bus stop, through a foot of snow, more snow falling so fast that it was coming down horizontally, holding an entire Thanksgiving dinner. It was hysterical. But I also couldn’t help but think how sad it was that this food couldn’t somehow go to somebody more in need. We already had donations coming to us, so many people wanting to make sure that we could have a full Thanksgiving, and we did have a good meal planned, although I think it it goes without saying that no food in our house would ever go uneaten. I struggled a lot with what my opinion was on what our community should do with all the food. Juneau does make a remarkable effort to make sure every single person is provided with a Thanksgiving meal. Maybe it’s that way in a lot of places and it’s just that this is my first year truly realizing it from working in social services, but the city-wide effort is truly an inspiration. A central location downtown served an entirely free thanksgiving dinner with over fifty turkeys present, and every single agency that myself and my housemates work at provided a Thanksgiving dinner for its residents and clients, as well as putting together Thanksgiving boxes to give to more people. But it does sadden me that even with all that effort, I’m sure that a full meal didn’t get to absolutely everyone. But it was such a blessing that CCS provided us with such wonderful food, such a selfless thing of them to do. We decided to take some of the food to the Turkey Trot the next morning, where donations for the food bank were being collected, and kept the turkey for our feast.

The Wednesday before Thanksgiving continued with new experiences as my housemate Maggie took us out, introducing the rest of us to what is apparently a famous bar holiday known as Black Wednesday, the night before thanksgiving and the biggest bar night of the year. After partaking firsthand, I do have mixed feelings about this holiday, as it does interfere with one’s enjoyment of Thanksgiving Day, but honestly, we had a great time.

Let me tell you, everything about our Thanksgiving Day morning was unique. One housemate, Irene, had work from 8 am to noon, and another housemate, Shane, had to go to work at 2:30 pm. We had exactly two and a half hours to finish prepping our meal and eat it. In the meantime, four of us had wanted to go to the Turkey Trot, in costume (dressed as canned foods – I was cranberry sauce). The morning was a recipe for chaos, but we thought we had it all figured out – Irene would put the turkey in before she went to work, the rest of us could sleep until the turkey trot at 10, then we’d come back and finish cooking in time to eat around 12 30 or 1.

I awoke on this day, the morning after our Black Wednesday initiation, to a 7:30 am text message from Irene saying that the power had gone out and that somebody else would need to put the turkey in. Seriously?! The power went out on THANKSGIVING?! Luckily it came back on pretty soon and I was able to put the turkey in, then grab a couple more hours of sleep before the race. I woke up again at 9:40, and I think it’s safe to say that all of us had seriously mixed feelings about the Turkey Trot. We were torn between feeling loyal to the costumes that we had already created and wanting to show them off, wanting to donate to the food collection, wanting to participate, and wanting to sleep (the most tempting of them all). I don’t know how we did it, but we pulled ourselves out of bed and got into those costumes. As we started walking to the race, dimly aware that it had started five minutes ago and that we were actually already missing it, tinfoil can lids on our heads, we were hit by a massive wave of feeling completely ridiculous. We ended up arriving at the race 45 minutes late, stayed for exactly 30 seconds, and left to drag our canned selves home, but not before the local newspaper snapped a photo of all of us. SO we are officially immortalized in the Friday, November 25, 2011 issue of the Juneau Empire, on the SPORTS page which is easily the funniest part of this entire story, incorrectly touted as Best Costume Winners (really, I called and investigated after reading that in the paper – there apparently was some confusion because we hadn’t actually participated in the race, so they couldn’t give us a prize. I guess that’s valid.).

The rest of the day was more traditional, and equally wonderful – we had plenty of time to eat our meal and made it to a few additional gatherings around town before calling it quits with the social engagements and all going to bed by 11 pm. The entire experience was absolutely perfect for my community. It was strange not to be at home in North Carolina, for sure. But it was so cool hearing about the Thanksgiving traditions that my housemates have and trying to bring all of them together to create our own celebration of Thanksgiving. I am thankful for so much this weekend. I am thankful for the kindness of the people here, both those I came with and those I’ve met here. I am thankful for the fog that hangs between the snow-capped mountains and dips down to the channel. I am thankful for the family I have in my friends, the family I have in my community, and the family I have in my actual family, and their incredible support, warmth, and love. It is absolutely a blessing that I was here in Juneau, with these people, for this Thanksgiving, and it was definitely one I will never forget.


Happy holidays :)

I haven't written since last season!...

...And I say that because now it is totally, absolutely, completely winter in Juneau. Seriously. I'm wearing a wool sweater. And last night/today was also the third snowfall of the year, and it was a big one - about a foot of snow I'd say, although I struggle with depth perception so it might be like 2 centimeters of snow, I honestly can't tell. It is also getting dark at about 4 pm, so that's been a struggle too. My self-diagnosis of seasonal affective disorder has also been confirmed by housemates and coworkers, so I'm going to go ahead and say it's legitimate. I've been snuggling up to the house happy lamp (it simulates the sun, increases your vitamin D production,makes you happy, it's amazing) almost daily, so that helps. What an interesting change this climate has been for me - an adventure in itself. Did you know rain pants are a thing that people actually own?! They're like snow pants, but lighter. Very versatile - can be worn over pants, dresses, skirts, Halloween costumes. I didn't even know that rain pants actually existed! Although I don't think you have to live in Alaska to own a happy lamp; I personally feel that every home in Pennsylvania should come equipped with one, since Villanova gets roughly the same amount of sunshine that Juneau, a RAINFOREST, does.

Anyway. So I've been writing a lot, just not on here - mostly to people directly, or to myself when my thoughts get kind of sad or whiny. I don't want this to be a whiny blog. What a downer. It's been a tough month and a half or so, and I can officially say that the honeymoon period is over. Events of note include an area visit from our JVC Alaska area director, Danielle. Pretty much Danielle spends a week living with each JV community in Alaska, has a one on one with us, holds a meeting with our supervisors and us, runs a spirituality night, and just checks in to see how our community is doing. A few weeks later, over Halloween weekend, we had a much-needed five day weekend in Anchorage for our first of three retreats with the rest of the Alaska JV communities (We're hosting the next one! So excited!!). That was a hell of a weekend, oh.my.gosh. I say that because it was not exactly restful, but it was a very important weekend, especially for my community. With JVC come a lot more commitments than just your volunteer placement - namely, community is the biggest one, and it defines everything. Our Juneau community has literally become a family, and that's been amazing - we know each other, we love each other, and we make fun of each other (the trifecta of criteria for a family, I'd say!). But, on the other hand, how often do issues and conflicts come up within a family? QUITE often, and our community is no exception. This retreat was an incredible opportunity because, for once, we couldn't come home at the end of a long workday and push conflict under the rug because we didn't have it in us to deal with it. Instead, we had an entire weekend where we could intentionally communicate and grow together, without the distractions that work placements - a huge stressor for every single person, obviously - create. It was a tough weekend for us, to be sure. We hurt, we healed, we talked, we talked more. We were fortunate to have decided to take an extra day in Anchorage before flying back home, so we had an extra day to enjoy Halloween and the city together before going our separate ways back to work.

As for work, it's honestly something that is very challenging for me right now, in a lot of ways. But I told myself before I came here that I could do anything for a year, and I believe that I can. So I'm keeping at it. It has many low points, but it has high points too that are really there as long as I look for them. So I'm just going to keep looking. I understand this is all vague. Most days it would have been hard for me to even write this much about work, because of how completely it has been challenging me, but today is actually a very relaxed day, for once, and I felt up to saying a little something about it.

I feel that this is an incomplete update, but I'm going to try to get out of here before the snow gets worse and I get stuck at work FOREVER.

Pictures of snow soon :)

Ok. bye,

Liz

Keep my eyes discerned, my hands to learn.

For this post, I've decided to just share something that I wrote in a letter to someone. I feel like it sums up my experience so far pretty well and was something that I wanted to share with you all.
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Suffice it to say that I am exhausted, but I'm exhausted from being challenged, so I think that's a good thing. The challenge of JVC encompasses all things, literally every aspect of your life, but in doing so it forces you to reexamine every aspect of your life and who you are in it, whether you have integrity in remaining dedicated to your character,what parts of that character you even want to stay dedicated to and what parts you don't love so much. There is nothing familiar about this experience, but I am realizing (actually I kind of just realized it, like as I am writing this sentence right now) that maybe we shouldn't just push through unfamiliarity, blowing by it on the way to a new life that feels comfortable and familiar. Instead, maybe we should focus on the vulnerability we feel and embrace it as a chance to hyperfocus on who we are, what parts of us remain stable when a situation feels unstable. These parts create a character. These parts are our gifts.

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The only other thing that I wanted to mention comes from a personal struggle of mine that I've identified, and it's the struggle of being present - being mentally in a place that I am in, whether I have chosen to be there or have been required to. It was a phrase that my yoga instructor mentioned last night in class as a call to refocus:

"Nothing else, just this."

Say it to yourself the next time you find yourself wishing you were someplace else. I found it so important and profound, and at the same time so relievingly simplifying of this concept of being present, and I just wanted to share that as well.

All my love,

Liz

Click here for photos. I hope you drink them in and feel refreshed, as I do every day that I see these incredible sights!!

That's all for now. Enjoy. :)

Oh, hello! Hmm, where to start. I realized that I never know how to start these post things, because I never have a plan for what I am going to write in these post things, so I tend to just launch into my day/week/life happenings. I realize that the more linear-minded of you might struggle with that, but let's just see where it goes, won't that be fun? I would like to introduce you to a word that has defined approximately 70 percent of my waking hours for the past week, actually five weeks: TRAINING. lots and lots. of training. And coming into JVC, I knew that'd be the case. And it really doesn't sound too bad, because you just need to sit there and listen, and you're not really accountable for anything because everyone knows that you know nothing or else, obviously, you would not need the aforementioned training. But the other side of this is that people are talking at you, not to you, and the information they are giving you is often overwhelmingly plentiful and overwhelmingly important, and you know this, but your brain has a threshold, as everyone's does. So, it just. takes. time. This is the most important thing I've had to remind myself of, even when some trainings wrap up and I've begun doing some of my work with the kids. For example, part of my job is to be a behavioral health associate, which essentially means that I spend time with the kids who are my clients and help them work on the parts of acceptable behavior that they struggle with. These kids are all classified as emotionally disturbed or severely emotionally disturbed, and as their BHA I have access to information about all of their history, all of the things that they've seen and experienced that no child should see or experience. It's a challenge to stay present in this job, to interact with a child who is right there in front of me, when all the thoughts running through my mind are of their past, what they've gone through and the injustice of that. And after recently beginning to work with the kids, it's also intimidating to interact with them while knowing that they can be triggered at any moment, by any phrase or change in environment or even the wrong tone of voice. This is where the struggle of being a BHA lies for me, but it is an important one. For now, I want to try to build relationships rather than modify behaviors. i've been challenged by the kids I've worked with, and I am constantly reminding myself that this job will take time. And I'm okay with that.

In recent news, the past three days have been GORGEOUS. unbelievably clear skies, the cliffs at the very top of the mountains clearly visible for the first time in forever. It's incredible how seeing something like that can turn a day around so easily. I'm doing a training with the women's shelter in town because I'd like to volunteer there, so I had to sit in a training room all day on Saturday and Sunday, and it almost killed me! But as soon as we finished, we drove out to one of the more remote parts of Juneau that has some killer views, and then my roommates and I played wiffle ball on the beach and had dinner together. So, I still got my share of sunshine :)

Also, on a random note (hmm that's weird, usually I'm so organized haaa), I've also really been loving connecting with people from Villanova, and from home too. Every single time, I think it's such a day-maker to get an email, facebook message, text, letter (I'm becoming so, so addicted to snail mail), or phone call from people back east. You guys are the people who ground me and remind me of who I am even when I forget, and I can't tell you what all that love means for me. Keep it comin', and know that if I haven't gotten to return an email or call just yet, you're on my list and I look forward to talking to you soon!! Thanks for everything, beautiful people. You're the best!