Trying to keep the faith

This week was very... trying... On Tuesday I went to get food stamps and everything about the experience was horrible. The building is located in a sort of warehouse district and there are buildings lettered A-J. I didn't know what building I was looking for so I drove around and finally saw a sign that said "building B Department of Human Services Food Stamps Office" and pointed me in the direction. I went that way and it ended up being a creepy dead end with no building B in sight. I turned around and went the other way and found the building. I parked and walked up to the only door and it was locked. I started to panic because now I was late for my appointment. I saw a woman walking and stopped her to ask if she knew where I should go. Here's our conversation:
Me: "Excuse me, but I'm really lost and I was wondering if you could help me?"
Her: (slight look of confusion and annoyance) "Sure"
Me: "I'm looking for the Department of Human Services"
Her: "What?"
Me: (as she comes closer I see that she's wearing a name tag... for the Department of Human Services) "I'm looking for the Department of Human Services"
Her: (looking more confused) "What?"
Me: (I pull out the letter I got from them saying when my appointment is) "I'm looking for the Department of Human Services"
Her: "What?" (looks at the letter) "Oh the food stamp office. Walk up that hill and go to the front of this building" (I look and its definitely NOT building B... stupid sign)

I enter the building and don't know really where to go so I stop at the security desk. The officer looks at me and says "Go stand in line" and points. I walk to the line and see a sign that says "Wait at the sign for next available window" so I stand at the sign. I look around and notice signs all over saying "Make one line" and "You could wait up to 2 hours before we call your name" So I stand there and a line starts to form behind me and then next to me... Confusion... Then I eventually just jump in front of the guy that started the second line because I was there first. I tell the lady at the window that i have an appointment and I hand her my letter. She snatches it out of my hand and says "go sit down." so I turn around and see the rest of the room. There are rows and rows of chairs all filled with people. I sent a text to Tracy saying "hmm.. I think I grossly misunderstood how long this will take"...

An hour and 15 minutes later (didn't matter that we all had appointments...) my name gets called. I go to the sign in desk and stood there. The officer didn't acknowledge me at all so I thought that maybe I had to just sign my name. I picked up the pen and she snapped at me "and who are you?" I told her my name and she said "well was your name called?" I told her yes and she said "well I need to see some ID" So I gave her my ID and she looked at it and then said "write your name" so I wrote my name and she sent me through. I met my social worker and she walked me to her cube. I sat down and realized that the computer screen was directly between me and the social worker. She started asking me questions and I was thinking "Seriously? I'm supposed to talk to the back of this computer screen?" so I moved my chair over. The appointment went fine even though she was not very friendly at all. She told me I only qualified for $40 a month. My heart just dropped. Here I am a GOVERNMENT VOLUNTEER which means that I'm not technically employed so my income is technically 0 and the government wouldn't even give me assistance. I went and sat in my car and cried for about 15 minutes. I was just so overwhelmed. I was scared that I'm not gonna be able to make it, but mostly I was angry. It was seriously that white hot anger too. I had finally experienced "the system" and my eyes were opened. I felt degraded and had been looked at like I was worthless. People have to go through this on a regular basis and I only went through it once and it sucked. The people that need this assistance are people who have jobs and maybe some of them have bosses who are not understanding and maybe some of them have jobs that don't give out pto but all of them are made to sit there for HOURS and lose time from work and losing time means losing money and they're struggling as it is. And what the heck is the point of having an appointment when they just make you wait for 2 hours anyway. It made me so incredibly angry that here we (meaning the U.S. in general) trying to fix every other country when ours is so incredibly broken. I lost all faith in our government's ability to take care of it's own. I lost faith in voting because no one will fix the issue that I am now really passionate about and even if they say they're going to there is not enough time in a term to fix anything. Nothing ever gets done. America, this land of "opportunity" really kind of sucks. That day I was working at the office (to get a break from the school cause yikes) and I went to let my boss know that I was there and I ended up bursting into tears in her office. She was very gracious and understanding about it. She knows that I'm a long way from home and that everything is so overwhelming. She let me know that if I ever need a break from the school and the teachers to let her know and she'll set me up with Red Cross for a day or something so that I can breathe. The rest of the day was awesome because the other Americorps members were there and there was a lot of laughter and just being together is always fun. On Friday my boss texted me to ask me if I'd like to work at a water festival this Wed to get a break from the school. I'm really glad that she did that cause that school just sucks the life out of Tracy and I. So I have something to look forward too luckily...

It Really Is All About The Simple Things

Easy Mac is the perfect afternoon snack... I've been getting super hungry by about 1 since I take my lunch at 10:30. The other day I brought a thing of Easy Mac with my lunch but ended up saving it until the afternoon. Best. Idea. Evar. Talk about your comfort food. It was a kind of hard day and I was super tired and just wanted to go home, then out came that Easy Mac and I had a few minutes of cheesy goodness to brighten my day. I know, I know, I really should be eathing healthier things, but today I'm all about the simple pleasures... My weekly cup of Starbuck's decaf doused with sugar and half and half... It's hald the price of my regular (White Chocolate Mocha). I'm not usually a fan of Starbucks and I miss my Caribou SO much, but hey, I pay $2 for a cup of coffee and use the internet for as long as I want!

I've decided to try (and I emphasize try) not to let the people around me bother me. I got displaced from my room again, which was more than a little annoying, but I decided that all I can do is my job. All I can control is myself. Unfortunately, the kids suffer because the hallway is so busy and loud that we don't get much work done. But I can't control that. I can just try my best and realize that there's always tomorrow.

Bobby and I had another wonderful Saturday. We ate, we walked, we watched... Movies that is.. Well sort of. He watched Wall Street while I was bored to death. LOL... But it was nice. In the evening we even skyped with Bryn, Jake and baby Amara. It was lovely. Spending time with Bobby is always amazing <3

Tomorrow I go to get my food stamps set up, so hopefully next month will be a little bit easier in the money department. I've almost made it through October and I know that things are going to be ok and work out.

Habitat For Humanity

I got to work on a Habitat For Humanity project for three days this week! Boy am I tired! But it feels good. The project that I worked on was a part of the Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter Work Project. We worked at a subdivision called Wylam Oaks. The land was donated by U.S. Steel and there are 38 houses in the development. All 38 are Habitat houses. It's I think the largest all Habitat neighborhood in the U.S. if I heard that right... The first day Tracy and I got stuck painting trim in one of the houses. It wouldn't have been bad except that we were standing in the doorways painting and the work guys kept walking in and out. They never said "excuse me", instead they would pretty much just walk up on us and get closer and closer until we moved. Basically, they just pressed their bodies all on ours until we would move. It was so obnoxious. The lead builder guy was a complete jerk to everybody, including us. He kept yelling at us about dripping paint on the floor, when really we were dripping paint on our drop cloth and people kept stepping in it as they walked through.

On day 2 Tracy got sick of the painting and the rudeness so I ended up painting with Brittni, another Americorps member. It was really annoying because they wouldn't let us tape the wall so that we could do the little lip on the trim and so I told them that I wasn't going to paint the lip beacause it was pretty much impossible to do it and not get paint on the wall. I was very harshly told "no. It's not impossible, you just have to be careful and get it done." I didn't do it. Seriously, I'm not a professional painter and I'm not about to be the one to get yelled at for getting paint on the wall. Once I got finished with painting I went to a different house because the one I was at had way too many cooks in the kitchen and the people were such jerks. So I went and painted at another house where there were only a few people and they were much much nicer. Oh, I almost forgot. At the rude house in the middle of the morning Garth Brooks showed up to help out! He was actually mostly in the way because they would set up a project and have him like drill a hole and then everyone would take pictures and then they'd move him on to something else and he'd paint a strip of wall and everyone would take a picture... But it was pretty cool that he showed up and had good intentions. He was a really nice guy too. The Americorps team got our picture taken with him. He asked us all our names and shook our hands and said "I'm Garth" it was kind of funny.

Day 3: I woke up this morning and found out that my cell phone service got shut off... Not a great way to start the day (mom, if you don't hear from me, don't worry, I'm still alive). But I worked at the nice house this morning and put some finishing touches on the yard and mostly just stood around and hung out with my co workers which was fun. We don't get to see each other much because we're at different schools so it's fun to all get together and get to know everyone a little better. We had fried catfish for lunch which was DELICIOUS. I'd never had catfish before. Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter showed up (catfish is his favorite, so that's why we had it) and we got our picture taken and he spoke at the dedication ceremony for the neighborhood and he and Rosalynn cut the ribbon. It was pretty cool to be a part of. The Carters put together a Habitat project every year and switch off between the U.S. and another counrty each year. Next year they will be bulding in Haiti. Actually they decided to build in Haiti for the next 2 years. So that's pretty cool. I guess before the earthquake Habitat built 200 houses in Haiti and every single one of them is still standing.

Anyways, it was a good week. I really enjoy working for Habitat and getting things done. I love how you can see the progress that you've made. Now for some rest and the weekend!

The Weekend...

I had such a lovely weekend. It made all my frustrations and emotions from last week just melt away. On Saturday Bobby came over in the morning and we watched a movie and just hung out. He's so wonderful :) We went to Vulcan Park where there's this gigantic statue of Vulcan (I see it from the freeway every morning on the way to work and got curious...) So we went and saw the statue and walked around the park. It's a beautiful park and it overlooks downtown Birmingham. There's also a museum there, but we didn't go in it. Maybe some time when we actually have money... Then we went on a mission to find a birthday present for Bobby's nephew Cade. We ended up getting him Toy Story Pjs, a 3D Toy Story t shirt and a lego Star Wars t shirt (can you tell what Cade's really into?). We had a late lunch at Chuy's, which has totally become "our" place. Chuy's is in The Summit which is hard to explain. It's an outdoor mall, but it's not all in one big strip or square. It's all spread out. We walked almost the whole thing. There are water fountains and flowers and random statues of kids running (they kinda creeped me out...). It's so pretty and peaceful. Then we went to the Cheesecake Factory and shared a piece of Red Velvet Cheesecake. YUM! It was so nice to just chill and walk around and it was all laid back and peaceful.

On Sunday I went to Tuscaloosa and Bobby and I went to Cade's birthday party. It was a Toy Story party. Cade was Buzz Lightyear. It was so cute. It was also nice to finally meet Cade and Callie (Bobby's niece). I've been talking to them on the phone for the last 3 1/2 years, so it was so fun to meet them. After the party Bobby and I went to his house and watched The Great Outdoors and Grumpy Old Men (look for my reviews here soon) both of which reminded me so much of home. That was the end of my Bobbylicious weekend... Back to reality on Monday morning :-/

This week has actually been pretty good. Monday was a full day at the school. Tuesday we had a training all about culture and we got to talk about what we had seen in the classrooms and process all of that a little bit. The biggest thing they drilled into us was that we're there for the kids so do not let the grown ups steal your joy! It was a perfect re-energizer! Today we did a Habitat for Humanity project. There's this whole development with 38 houses that Habitat has built. I was there today, and will be there again tomorrow. We're getting as much done as possible because on Friday Jimmy Carter will be visiting. I really really wish I could go on Friday, but I think we're gonna have to go back to our schools. :(

Bobby and I at The Summit <3