"Things always just work out for you..."

Words from the wise. Also known as my lovely sister Kasey. Who just admitted to me that she was glad I was struggling with the job search in the beginning, because "things always just fall into place" for me.

So far, I've come to the conclusion that I should listen to Kasey more often. She's usually right in dishing out her advice to me, whether it be "Lauren, shut up and get over it" or the much needed, comforting, "Hang in there, things will work out, they always do." And coming from a girl that won "Most brutally honest" (which I have also witnessed on my own account) as a superlative in high school, her advice holds a lot of weight with me. Crazy little siblings and their unexplainable knowledge.
Well, not completely unexaplainable...I guess she had some not so shabby footsteps to follow in.

RIght? haha.

So she's right again. Things have worked out. I got that job at the Homeless Shelter, as an on-call Part-time worker. Sounds menial, but I think it's perfect for me right now. They tell me that there is opportunity to get up to 30 or so hours on-call, its al relative to how ambitiously you sign up for open shifts. Either way, after my meeting in training today, I have no idea why they even hired me. The backgrounds of the people surrounding me, blew mine out of the water.

Three girls were in Americorps for two years at least, two of them as supervisors of a program. One girl went to school for social work and has worked in shelters as a case manager all over. Others have worked up from volunteering to be where they are, and others have experience in all kinds of programs and other shelters and non-profits. I guess they understood you need to start somewhere, and took me under their far more experienced wing.

I cant think of any other way to describe how I feel right now other than...WOW. Wow i can't wait to dive in there. Granted, I have only been to one day of training, and have two weeks to go, but everything I hear, just gets me more and more and more excited to be a part of it. Even the bad and the ugly and the scary situations they warn us about, I cant wait. I feel like I was built specifically for this. I hope I'm right.

On my way out with one of the other girls by the name of Liz, we ran into a woman who was coming in for the night. She stopped in her tracks in the hallway, smiled, and stuck her tounge out. When we approached her she held out a drawing she was working on, what looked to be mostly a scribbled, somewhat frightening face with arrows. She went on to tell us that her husband's father died, and that this was a drawing of how she remembered him. And explained each part of it. And we just complimented her as she went on. She held up her pen and said "all I have is this" and I said, "well you're doing a pretty amazing job with it". And she put on a huge ear to ear grin and asked "Really?" And Liz told her again, we said good bye and I walked to my car.

Like I said, Little things. I can't wait until they start to pile up. They take the weight off the awful things, and the heartbreaking things that are going to be handed to us in bulk. But it's ok. I think I'm ready for it.

Things always work out for me anyway, right Kase?





P.s. i just tried Sushi for the first time. Eel and Avacado. Lesson learned: I'm awful and slightly dangerous wth chopsticks...and when what i was caling the "safety" rice falls off the Eel...it's much harder to pretend it's not what it is. Points for trying?