this is the start of something good...don't you agree?

So after a lot of thought, I decided that a blog would be something that would be good to have. Not only to keep friends and family back home updated on what exactly I am doing this year, but mostly to be able to have something to look back upon and remember exactly what I have been doing. Please keep in mind when reading this that I am not all that great at writing, but it is definitely something that I wanted to do! I'm going to try to update this thing often, but I can't promise anything. I can see myself getting busy and falling behind in the future.

So, I left good ole Lowell, Massachusetts as of Monday, August 17th 2009 and headed to Philly for the beginning of AV orientation. I was happy that Alli and I were starting this and were able to fly and begin everything together. I think it worked out well to have each other throughout orientation as a transition between our friends and meeting new people and then heading off to our cities.

Alli and I in the airport before leaving

Although it was very long, orientation went very well. It was great to be able to meet a lot of new people who also have the desire to serve as well. Most days we had to wake up decently early and head over to Villanova (where orientation was being held). We had morning prayer and then different talks or logistic things to do throughout the day which were all done by different AV alumni, Augustinians or mostly the office staff. Following the long days we would head to a different Augustinians house for dinner each night and they would make us amazing meals and then we would go to a more relaxing place for the evening to do some more evening things (usually different talks or more sessions) and then just hang out with everyone for the rest of the night before going back to the hotel.

Saturday was the alumni day and sunday was commissioning mass so we were able to see and talk to a lot of alumni those days which was really great. Got to see Hannah again after a couple months which was great. Sunday evening following the dinner after commissiong we all went out to celebrate the beginning of the year. Monday we spent the day with everyone on the jersey shore. The beach was fab due to me losing my tan after being inside all week. We then went to dinner on the shore as well and had a great last night with everyone.

Us Merrimack '09 grads with Hannah, the AV at merrimack last year!

My roommates, the san diego community, after commissioning mass!

All the Augustinian Volunteers 2009-2010 on the jersey shore

As much as orientation was great, it was definitely good to finally head out to San Diego, California on Tuesday! Flew out of Philadelphia at 1:10 had a lay over in Austin, Texas and landed in SD around 6, California time. I didn't think the time difference would be that bad, but it's throwing me off a lot more then I thought it would. I'm going to be early and waking up early which is truly a new concept for me but it seems to be working well! It's just difficult when communicating with anybody from home because I want to call or text at night but then I realize that they are most likely already sleeping.

Home for the next year in San Diego, California!

San Diego has been well thus far. We had our first community meal on Tuesday night when we arrived and were going to watch anchorman together but then realized it wasn't in the house any longer like we thought, so we watched night at the museum and all passed out within 30 minutes of the movie beginning due to a long travel day. Wednesday through Saturday Pat who works in the office was with us showing us around and taking us all to the different job sites everybody is going to be working at. He took us to his favorite place, in-n-out, on thursday for lunch which was delish. Friday was the feast of St. Augustine so we went to mass in the morning (in our fire engine red matching polos of course) and met many augustinians and had dinner with all of them at night. They sent us home with tons of free food of course and we met the CFO of the San Diego Zoo there and she is giving us 6 free tickets to the zoo and 6 free tickets to the wild animal park (one of each of us of course)! How sweet of her! That day we also tried to get our California drivers lisences but you need a second form of identification like a passport or a birth certificate in order to do that. Luckily, mine came in on Friday and mom mailed it out already to me, so my passport should be here by Wednesday and I can then get my lisence!

My roommate Ali and I with all the free food we recieved after the feast. everybody is so generous to us!

Saturday our site supervisor deac, a 70 year old deacon, took us surfing in La Jolla! He is a very active 70 year old might I add and it was absolutely gorgeous there! I was not able to get up and ride any waves, but it was a lot of fun and I am definitely glad that I tried. Perhaps by the time June comes I will be able to do it! Maybe I can learn from Emily and Mike since they were both able to ride some waves. Sunday we had our first community meeting and figured out different things such as coordinating car schedules, prayer, grocery shopping, dinners, meetings and cleaning schedules. Good to finally have all of that in order. Then we went to Coronado beach, which I believe rated in the top 5 beaches in the entire country and it was incredible! I will be spending my spare time that I have to myself at the beach...don't want to lose this tan that I finally have for the first time in my life!

Me and my roommates Emily and Mike going to surf with our site supervisor!

As of right now I am slightly bored at here. All of my roommates started their jobs today at schools, as a nurse and at the orphanage in TJ, but the school that I will be working for all year doesn't start until Tuedsay September 8th so I don't have much to do! Without much money and without anybody to hang out with regularly it isn't too much fun! I have a to do list which I have done a lot of, did some of the things I have to do as treasurer, I put up the prayer wall that we will be starting, I found a zumba class right down the street from St. Patricks (work) that I plan to take on Tuesdays from 6-7, and did some laundry. Today Anne and I went food shopping together while everybody else was at work (she works at St. Pats with part time on Tuesdays and Thursdays so she has a couple days off this week too). Tomorrow I'm going to call St. Pats in the morning to see if I can do anything there at all during the day and again on friday, and Thursday Anne and I are def going into the school for the day. Although it may seem like it's great to have the time off, it's actually pretty boring and I would much rather start my job, especially since I'm pretty much a work-a-holic and haven't worked in weeks. I've tried to do a lot around here for my community so i'm not just sitting around here all day while everybody else is working.

California driving is definitely different then driving in Massachusetts. First of all, there are canyons everywhere, so you could be driving down as street and then it just ends and starts somewhere else cause hey, theres a canyons there! so we drive down 30th a lot and it changes cause of the way the canyons go and its not even close to a straight line...it's just very confusing at times. Stop signs are everywhere, like every single block. It's crazy, yet very annoying. Parking also sucks in SD so pretty much everybody parks on the street where ever you can find a spot. We also live right near the San Diego airport which is great for picking people up and dropping them off, but plane fly right over the house about every 5 minutes from 7am-11pm. You can be talking with sombody and have to stop your conversation because you can't hear anything with the planes flying and they really don't fly just between those hours so they wake you up in the middle of the night sometimes too.

I would have to say though that my favorite part of being here (other then the beaches of course!) is definitely the deck we have off of the 2nd floor of our house. One of the volunteers last year fixed it up for us so we could use it this year and it is great. We spent an evening last week just finding, cleaning and bringing up a lot of furniture up so we can spend nights having dinner and just relaxing up there as a community.

Our first dinner as a community up on the deck!

So, like I said, I'm not sure when or how often I will be updating, but I will try my hardest. I'm sure I'll have more to write about once I actually start my job. Let me know if there is anything specific you want to hear about! :)