Denver, I am here!

Well! Where to begin? Okay, first … we finally arrived at the train station around 1:05 pm. Everyone grabbed their bags and piled into vehicles to go to campus. We arrived, went through check-in and in-processing. I got to my dorm, did the dorm check, turned all of my forms in for in-processing, came back and started unpacking. My roommate is nice, she’s from Maryland. They seem to be keeping the units together in the dorms because all of the Earth girls are in the same hall. Rosary, a girl I’ve been talking to online since I was accepted, is not in my unit, alas. But she is on the same floor, so that’s good. Hopefully we’ll see each other enough before we go on spikes.

Ah, spikes. We had our first unit meeting tonight and I am still undecided about the wildfire teams. Okay, so … the pros of the wildfire team: a great challenge, a great experience, killer resume piece, killer work out. The cons of the wildfire team: you spend most of your time training in Denver, you do one Gulf project like everyone else, but you don’t travel nearly as much. The pros of the regular team projects: variety of projects, variety of experiences, traveling a lot. The cons of the regular team projects: possibly maybe not as hard core as the wildfire teams (?), and it’s not the wildfire team. So, I still have no idea and tomorrow night is the mandatory meeting for if you’re interested. I’m seriously hoping that the meeting steers me in one direction or the other, because I really just don’t know. I know that I should have a good experience no matter what I choose, but I don’t want to choose something and then wonder “What if…?” for my entire term of service. I mean, I realize that I’m probably making too much of a deal about this, it’s not going to result in any negative consequences. Sometimes I really lean toward the wildfire team because I want the challenge, I want to ask it of myself. And then there will be a voice in my head that says, “Yeah, but then you stay in Denver and you don’t get to go anywhere and you won’t get other valuable non-profit experiences for your career.” I just don’t know.

Meanwhile, I’m adjusting well. I’m trying to stay positive. I didn’t dorm for all four years of college, so I wasn’t forced to spend time with classmates that I found less than engaging. Now, however … it’s really going to be a test of my personality. I’ve always been under the impression that I can get along with almost anyone and that I’m generally a people-person. But, this environment is definitely helping me confront any underlying prejudices that I may hold. And I do hold some, I know I do. We’re not talking racial or gender prejudices. I mean subtle aspects that make it very easy to be judgmental with another person. Little things. And, as much as I’d like to be completely honest about this, I can’t be specific because sometimes it’s totally random. The only thing that I’m aware of is a person’s educational background. I’ve been aware of it for a while, so I’m pretty good at tempering it (as in not writing someone off just because they didn’t go to/finish college). I think what’s most disturbing is that such things rear their ugly heads at all. Because, even though I don’t go opening my mouth and expelling all of my judgements, I’m disappointed in myself that I still think them. Even if I don’t validate them, even if I know such a judgement is completely irrational, the fact that they exist makes me feel like less of a decent person sometimes. But then, I suppose, I take this too seriously. “Everyone’s a little bit racist sometimes. Doesn’t mean we go around committing hate criiiiiimes.”  Avenue Q. One judgement that I won’t be lenient about, though, is grammar. I prefer to think of it as a pet peeve than a prejudice, but I can’t stand it when people don’t adhere to even the most basic rules of grammar and punctuation. I’m no expert, and I’m not asking anyone else to be one either, but use a period between sentences, for crying out loud. But, I digress …

So yeah. The only major things I’m dealing with right now is internet access and gym access. I don’t know if you noticed, but all of these posts showed up on the same day. That’s because I’ve been saving them in Word and publishing them when I get online. As of right now, I’m still nowhere near an internet connection. There is no wifi on campus, which is fine. But the Ethernet outlets are a little baffling, I can’t seem to get connected. Tonight, they said that the internet connection on campus is sketchy, sometimes it’s there and sometimes it’s not. Greeeaaat. That’s fine, I just want access to the computer lab then. Well, they’ll let us know. Ooookay. I’m not addicted, but I was expecting a few important emails and I was hoping to keep the blog going.

Well, I also have free time after 7:00 pm every night, I’d like to use that time to go to the gym (since there’s about four inches of snow on the ground right now, so I can’t/won’t go running outside). Oh, they’ll let us know when we can have access to the gym. Oy.

Of course, Alan put everything into perspective for me: “Well, you’ve been there, what? Seven hours?” Whoops. That’s me, impulsive reactions.