Where to begin… with work or with play? I suppose I’ll just begin where we left off and go chronologically so you can all pretend like you’re soaking up the sun here in California with me and Dana.
Friday was a big step into “big girl world” over here. Dana had lunch with her new supervisor at FEMA and a few other members of her team, then headed over to NCCC campus to see some old pals. Meanwhile, I was in a meeting with Tony creating a master list of projects I’m going to do this year… Okay, Tony, I get that I said I wanted to be more organized, but come on, I’M READY TO DO SOME WORK! It’s not that I haven’t been doing work here at the CCC- I have. I have been attending meetings and sending emails, but I have done a lot of talking about what I’m going to do this year and less doing of said things. I know I know- be patient, I’ve only been here a month, but a month is a lot of time in the terms of a year! Especially if I am going to try and complete all these tasks! I have started taking more initiative though and expressing my concerns to Tony, so I’m confident that if I keep on this path and pattern then I’ll be doing so much and feel like i’m really making a difference.
Okay, so anyways back to being a “real grown up” (i’m sorry.. WHAT?!) Dana picked me up at work on Friday and we headed to our apartment to patiently await the arrival of our new furniture. We had picked out a couch and a loveseat from a furniture outlet and it came right on time. We were so excited! The apartment was finally starting to look like a home… a little. After that we went back to Tami and Mike’s (Janet and Steve’s, right mom?) to pick up the rest of our stuff. Our new bed wasn’t supposed to arrive until Saturday morning, but we were so eager to get into our new place that we decided one night on the floor wouldn’t kill our backs- and it didn’t… for the most part. Saturday morning the delivery guys came with our mattress! Now we had a bed, too! As tempting as it was to put the sheets on our bed and lounge in all its comfort for the day, we knew that we needed to get things done (not for America- I’ll get to that later) We headed to the mall to make a few returns, get an internet plan set up, and then go grocery shopping. After we checked everything off our list and made one very important phone call to my dad (thanks again, the kitchen island is going to work great!), we went back home to get ready for the night. We had planned a special night to celebrate finally moving into our place, so we got all dolled up and walked over to a brewery a few blocks away where they have one of my new favorite beers. How awesome! We could walk! And we could keep walking to the sushi restaurant we went to for dinner- Half price sushi!! All within 10 blocks of our house! WOO!! I never thought I would like living in a city, but with all the trees, little parks, and old Victorian homes, Sacramento doesn’t seem so metropolitan. Sunday we met up with one of Dana’s coworkers for brunch and chatted for a while, then we went home to do some arts and crafts. We applied polyurethane to our mobile kitchen island to protect it and spray painted the cart we’re putting the microwave on bright blue. PS, shout out to Auntie Lynne and Auntie Gail for a microwave! After our projects were complete we got all our things ready for work. Monday was Dana’s first day of work, so we hit the hay early to be bright eyed and bushy tailed in the morning.
Hmm.. I guess that I didn’t really go in chronological order but I just told you about all the fun things we did and none about work… Okay I will do that now!
A big change here at work is that I now have my own cubicle! It is quite small, but it has a lot of space to hang things (hint hint… send me some pics!) and it is alllll mine! As far as projects go, I am working on a few things right now. Aside from my list of lists, I am working with a Northern California Union (NorCal) to create a partnership between their apprenticeship program and the CCC centers in the northern region. the partnership was already in place before I began my year, but I am working to expand it to the last center in the northern region so we can then move forward and connect the union’s southern counterpart with our southern centers. I think the latter half of partnership will take up a lot of my time this year, if I can get the apprenticeship program to be interested in the CCC. I have a meeting with NorCal and the CCC Tahoe center in two weeks and it will be my first time promoting this partnership on my own.
Another partnership I am working on is with AmeriCorps NCCC and the CCC. Tony wants me to take this project on independently because he think that with my knowledge of NCCC and the skills I want to personally gain this year, everyone will benefit. The next step we are looking at in this process is two-fold. I have to create an unofficial document as an understanding between the two agencies and get each side to agree on the jargon. I also am going to have to present this idea to the CCC executive team before the partnership is in full effect. In addition, I may have to present the idea to NCCC leadership! Needless to say I am nervous but excited about this opportunity. I have expressed to Tony that I want to get better at doing formal presentations this year, so he wants this project to help me reach that goal.
I have also expressed to Tony that I am very interested in learning to professionally manage social media, so he is going to plug me into one of his projects so I can learn. He also wants me to help him redesign some aspects of a website he is in charge of. Everytime we talk about this particular project, I get very excited. It seems like something I would be really interested in and could become talented in. I have been giving a lot of thought to what I want to do after this year and I’m not even close to sure yet, but I think that having a variety of different tasks and projects and having a supervisor who cares about my interests is going to help me find my way. I have also been thinking about educating myself in marketing or maybe website design! Who knows?! The possibilities are endless.
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