My life is a crazy spinning teacup ride...

Two weeks ago, I found myself in Costa Rica finishing up my last week of class. 1 week ago, I found myself in Washington DC at training for my job this summer with National Student Partnerships. 3 days ago, I found myself driving to Boston and moving into my cute triple-Decker house that Boston is infamous for with amazing roommates (one who happened to be on the Mexican Olympic soccer team... the last time it was summer Olympics...) 2 days ago, I found myself wandering around the city of Boston trying to find the grocery store and where I would be working. 1 day ago, I started my new job with a whole day of training which extended into today. And 1 day from now, I will begin to see my own clients that I will have a chance to work with all summer and see how they progress! Right now, I am still in a daze.... I'm not really sure where I am some of the time. Sometimes I don't believe that I am in Boston... really.


Up until now, I wasn't really in the mood for a blog. I know my last blog for Costa Rica was kind of thrown together. I do not want this blog to be like that at all. I want this to really share pretty in depth about my experiences here, and I don't think I was in the state of mind until now to be able to share those things with you.


Let's start with Boston. I love in this part of Boston that is called Jamaica Plain. It is close to the outskirts, but it is definitely still city. I already mentioned our house - right now I am glad it is getting cooler because our rooms are definitely on the 3rd floor and we don't have air conditioning. I definitely utilize the fan... all day and all night... for now - but I am very excited since it is supposed to get down to 61 tonight. Our house is also about 3 blocks from Jamaica pond, which is this beautiful pond with a park/walking path where tons and tons of people go to hang out. Also, it is amazingly diverse here - our area has a very high concentration of Latinos. On Monday, when I was trying to find the T (transport/train) station, I walked up to this man to ask him where to go, and he only spoke Spanish - it was amazing, so I got to use my Spanish with him. Also, yesterday as I was walking around Jamaica pond, this random Uruguayan man started serenading me! It is awesome! We have Spanish church near our house that I think I am going to go to on Sunday. The entire city of Boston is just very diverse and unique, and I am very excited to be immersed in this environment!


Okay, so now let me tell you a little bit about my job. I work for NSP (National Student Partnerships). Here goes for the NSPitch... NSP is a primarily student run organization which utilizes the idealism, hard-workingness, tenacity, and research skills of students to change their communities by connecting them with community members who are in need of any sort of service such as housing, employment searches, resume building, public benefits (food stamps, WIC, help with social security, insurance, health care, etc), connections with affordable mental and legal services, etc., while always utilizing the time we have together with clients to support them through listening and empathy, without ever allowing them to become a number or a statistic which apparently happens a lot with case workers that have been doing that sort of work for a long time. I am literally doing a lot of the same work that someone who has a bachelor's or master's degree in social work does without even having graduated yet! Granted I don't know as much as they do about the system, but they let us learn as we go along!


Specifically, I work at Cambridge Student Partnerships, which gets it volunteer base, mostly from Harvard students, but also there are students from UMass and MIT as well. We are co-located with an organization called the Cambridge Multi-Service Center which is an organization much like ourselves that also has a lot of professional social workers who do specific things, such as some do only emergency housing, or some only transitional housing, some only benefits for the elderly and disabled, or some housing for families, and some for mental health services. Therefore, we have a ton of resources right at our fingertips which people who have been working in the social sector for many years! Considering the fact that we are co-located with this organization, with mostly very specialized people, we take all of the clients who fall through the gaps of the specializations, and people who have needs that go beyond the specialization of the social worker!


We had training in DC all last week, and the past two days have been full of training for my specific office, but I start to see clients tomorrow! We had so much to learn in the past two days because both of my site coordinators (bosses, really) are finishing up the program within the next month (because it is an AmeriCorps program) and we will be getting two new site coordinators at the beginning of July, so we will need to be the strongholds for the office this summer and kind of teach them everything we know, so right now, it is slightly overwhelming, considering our brains are being crammed full with binders and file folders of information!


Tomorrow I begin to see clients of my own, which I am very excited/nervous about! But with all of the training, I am beginning to feel prepared for it! Thanks for your interest! I will update again when my brain stops spinning, when I realize where I actually am, and when I can articulate my thoughts clearly.