New Term New Goals

Continuing with my story... we all received our letters telling us where we are supposed to be going and now we are on the mission to get sorted. Christmas came and went (and I had a blast back home) and we now find ourselves in a new school term with a new teacher (hello to Joanne) and a new class to take. This class is cool cuz we meet once a month or so to talk about our concerns, excitements and all things pertaining to our trips.

We are required to volunteer 18 hours at this kick ass place called The Working Center. I can never do the place justice at all with my crap explanation of it, so check out the link... the place ROCKS! The energy and karma in there is intoxicating! Pretty much it's a community resource center where people can come to learn new things, new skills, find jobs, places to live, meet people, learn English and generally network. They also have a program for people/youth who have problems finding employment. Some of them get hired on at the center to help build their resume and learn new skills. There are classes that anyone can drop into to learn and teach. There is an art space where the center sews things (whatever they like) to re sell and keep the Working Center going. There is a community cafe called The Queen Street Cafe and all of the food sold there (super cheap and excellent quality and portions!) is made in Murietta's Kitchen by the volunteers and employees of The Working Center (TWC). There is a bicycle recycling program where you can bring in your bike and learn how to fix it, or you can donate your old ones to be recycled and re sold super cheap. There are perfectly good bikes there for $30! There is a computer recycling program which is basically the same as the bicycles. See Ruby's blog for info on this, I believe she is in the computer recycling program.

I myself am over the moon with my placement. I work in Murietta's kitchen where I get to spend as much time as I want baking whatever I want!!! For those of you who know me, know that I LOVE TO BAKE!! Mark is the master baker there and he has let me have some recipes to take home. I will share some of those with you soon! I get to bake whatever I want and the baking gets sold in the Cafe. Any and all monies made through TWC gets put back into the programs, which is awesome! I was saying to some friends that it sucks that when you want to just hang out and chat with someone (like going for coffee) you have to pay money (for coffee) or consume something (the coffee) and it would be nice if there was a space you can just chill and not have to be a consumer, but still gives you a nice feeling and gets you out of the house. The Queen Street Cafe is that place. You can go there and just be. Provide your positive energy and add your personality to the place. It's just fantastic. I am almost done my 18 hours cuz I have stayed almost 2 complete 7hour days but I am most definitely going back after the requirement hours are done! There is nowhere else that I can bake whatever I want for however long I want and not have to pay for the materials to do so! If you are looking for a good cause to donate to (other than my fundraising for my trip-haha) this would be on the top of my list! I have always been an advocate of "cleaning up your own backyard before working on someone else's) and this place is an amazing addition to the city.

The third part of our class is putting together this blog and a power point presentation of our host country and raising $2000. So far the blog is going, my friend Christian taught me how to do a PP and I am hoping that my party will yield some good $$$$. Got my shots, got my passport renewal almost done and I think I am just about ready to go...which is good since it's in like.... gasp.... 10 weeks!!! Holy &*@#$!!!!!

Take care... and make sure to check out the links to everything and leave me a message.