It has been a month since I got back from Nicaragua and so much has happened. I moved right back to campus adn went through RA trainning for two weeks. I am a resident advisor for freshman at the University of San Francisco. They are in a livign learnign community which means they take a course together about rhetoric, writting, and public speaking with a focus on poverty and social justic ein San Francsico. They are really great. For example I was sick the last week and they offered to make me tea, give me emergen-C or run to the cafeteria for me. We have already had sushi night and other great bonding experiences like volunteering at the San Francisco Food Bank. It is an all womens floor, so we are pretty close. It has been such a time saver and rewarding experience living on campus and meeting new people in my dorm, Hayes Healy. Living with Freshman also really makes me realize how much my friends and I have grown over the last four years. Most of them have serious relationships and are so smart and articulate and well traveled and extremely passionate. We all have so much in common it is amazing, especially after all these years. It is nice to live with the women I live with and be able to recognize and relate to their issues that I went through at one point, but it makes me so glad I am here, where I am at now after much experience and growth. I wouldn't change anything!
Well, I am also an ACE (Advocate for Community Engagement) under the office of service learning at USF. I am a liaison between a community partner organization called Glide and students at USF who do service learning in classes they are taking. I facilitate their volunteer work basically helping them in the process to learn and reflect upon their experience. Glide is a pretty famous organization in the tenderloin and they do such great work. I am excited to have hands on work experience, especially coming straight from Nicaragua where I was out there in the community. Going from that to into the classroom where we learn about a lot of theories is a little tough, but I am staying busy.
Then, the Not For Sale Campaign has been keeping me busy with in Internship entitled "Internship: Global Advocacy." I am workign on expanding the High School movement within the campaign while giving speeches and presentations throughout the Bay Area adn actually in Georgia. The Ignacian Network has conferences in Georgia every year to teach activist about effective ways to work as well as educate them, so I will be presenting Not For Sale's work and then going to the School of the America's protests they have every year there. This will be Novemeber 21st to the 23rd I believe. I am also going to DC to do DC advocacy days raising awareness about trafficking and furthering the movement. I love traveling, is all I can say! We got a new office in a new building at school so we are becoming official compared to two years ago when we were all figuring the campaign out when I was with Erasmus.
I am taking 18 units (16 is a regular load and 12 is comsidered full time student)though two of those units is the internship. I am taking the Global Economy, Intro to Globalization with this amazing anarchist Yugolavian man whose mentor is Noam Chompsky, Math to graduate and Political Economy of the Developing Nations. They are all good, except for math, but I am hoping John my brother will help me out more now that he is pretty much moving to San Francisco.
Mj and I have been planning my Birthday party as well with the theme being "aroudn the world." I want to celebrate all the places and organizations I have been to and worked at over the last year and half. This includes, Cambodia, Spain, DC and Nicaragua. So everyone comign to the party will bring 21 dollars instead of a gift and will pick the organization of their choice to donate the money to. We will have pictures, food, music and drinks from each place celebrating all different cutlures. I cannot wait!!
Well, that's the update. Now that I am in school back in the bay area and pretty busy I will be writing less frequently...see you on the flip side!