Dull boy.

I've applied for several bank teller jobs, a few Borders books jobs, a PETCO job, a writer/reporter job, and a job was a bellhop at The Dearborn Inn, a classy hotel very nearby my little brother's workplace. A few of the teller jobs automatically shot me down, but my aunt knows the manager at one of the places I applied to-- which I only found out after I applied.

Dearborn Inn sent me a rejection via email, and then later that day someone called me for an interview. I just got back from it today-- I was interviewed by two mid-twenties girls who seemed really positive and hopeful-- and I think I knocked it out of the park. I'd also be doing valet and shuttle work, so my experience driving large vehicles and 12-passenger vans with AmeriCorps helped out a bit. I've got a clean driving record and the minimum 3 years with a driver's license they require. They seemed to really like that I was CPR certified and that I'm able to work weekends and holidays, and they even said that they have both a full-time and part-time position. It's also the sort of job that provides tips, so I think it might be a solid opportunity for me. They said they'd be calling me back very soon for a second interview, especially since they had three people they had to unexpectedly cut for driving issues. Still, I'm going to keep options open.

I've also spoken with a lady who looks for hospice volunteers and she's sending me an application for their training and service, starting in October, so I'll be able to continue with my volunteering too. I'd still like to look at other opportunities too though. I need to find a local food bank or something, maybe. I'm just not sure who to talk to. I registered at United Way and inquired about some things there but I haven't gotten any responses-- You'd think people would be a little better responding to these offers of free labor.

And University of Maryland offered me a $5,000/year scholarship on top of a financial aid package. Still holding out for what GWU has to offer, there. Things look up as far as Being Successful go, but down as far as Having Some Fun go. I dunno about any trips to my grandma's place up north or consistent D&D on Sundays, right now. Which kinda stinks.

Return recap.

I left with a suitcase and a backpack and came back with a suitcase, a backpack, and five or six boxes I shipped home. How does that happen? I only got my uniforms (admittedly quite a chunk of clothing, there) and three or so shirts I purchased, and a whole bunch of books-- what I thought was just one box's worth, but clearly not. I can't for the life of me figure out what all the junk going into the other four were. I mean, I see it all here, but I just... My mind is boggled.

Kat and I were trying to work out something so I could see her for the weekend in New York, at her grandmother's attestedly lovely lakeside cottage, but it didn't work out. We might try to go to my grandmother's lovely lakeside beachhouse instead sometime soon.

Joseph and Amanda left for California the morning after I got back. Amanda came over that night to see me but Joseph just slept. And that's all I've got to say about that.

Saturday was a family get-together for Adam and Sheila's birthdays, Nicole and Jeff's anniversary, and my return. I got many half-hearted hugs from cousins who then asked if they could borrow my Nintendo DS Pokemon game. Sunday was spent looking for volunteer opportunities and filling out various online applications for bank teller jobs, a reporting job, and a room service job at a fancy Dearborn hotel. I've already been shot down from two bank teller jobs.

Last night Matthew and I dressed up in shirt and tie and smoked cigars and drank a fifty-dollar bottle of scotch that he bought for my return. If that's not friendship, I don't know what is. Oh, and we're going to go to Greenfield Village this week to make my little brother make us mint juleps whilst wearing his period clothing.

The quick version

A climb up a rock scramble that turned into a thick underbrushy forest as Coby led us lost through Eldorado Springs and my ankles got cut up and we all sat by a stream that was so cold it hurt and I lost my glasses when I dipped my head under the little falls in the rapids but found them again after some hunting through the riverbed

A terrible Saturday service project at Barr Lake where grass was up to chest height and the mosquitos were worse than I've ever seen and our boss, who birdwatched from his car the whole time, said, "Sometimes I'm amazed they get paid for this"

A nice Sunday service project, my last, at the Children's Museum of Denver, where unbeknownst to me other two AmeriCorps volunteers were serving that day, and they fed us pizza in the name of our graduation and asked us to go to 7-eleven to get slurpees for everyone, sneaking behind one of the employee's back

A midnight bus ride from Nederland to Denver, to arrive back at campus at about 2:00am, all in the name of the Nederland Renewable Energy Group and a meeting at Greg Ching's house, which was fantastically energy-efficient with its solar and geothermal energy

A meeting with AmeriCorps's awesome (but very busy) budget guy for a discussion of future government careers on Wednesday

Three days left!

Those sweet buns looked so tasty, too.

The twenty or so people designated Corps Members of the Rounds throughout the year were treated to a fancy Asian buffet lunch by Director Barbara Lane today. She asked for suggestions on what was good and bad about the program and I was one of perhaps four people who were actually fairly talkative (though certainly I had to hold some reservations). She said that Dateline is going to follow an AmeriCorps*NCCC member from the Denver campus's next class through their application, interview, acceptance, training, and first round project for a feature story-- which could go either fairly well or fantastically poorly for AmeriCorps. I guess it depends on (forgive my honesty) how much of the underage drinking and pointless bickering they cut out of the footage. She rushed us out before giving us a good opportunity for dessert (woe!) for a meeting she had to get to, and walked out without paying before someone reminded her as she was getting into our vans.

I wrote an article on my AmeriCorps team complete with pictures for the local Nederland paper, the Mountain Ear, and it's going to be published next week. I'm pretty excited. I'm going to ask the Forest Service guys to bring copies when they come for graduation.

My last volunteer effort is going to be for about 8 hours this Sunday at the Children's Museum of Denver. There's a little fun hands-on science class I'll be helping out with. The last time I helped out with a science class it was on optical illusions and I made a thaumatrope. I think it'll leave me with about 215 hours of independent service. We're only required to do 80 or so.

I finally figured out why I enjoy ISP so much: the normal forestry work wasn't nearly as fulfilling. We cut down trees in empty campgrounds and almost never see or talk to other people when we do so. ISP is a chance for me to interact with people, and it's really personally gratifying to be able to talk to them. I feel like after 15 years, the Forest Service is used to and not quite as appreciative of AmeriCorps teams as they might otherwise be if it was our first year with them. The random community organizations, though, really and truly appreciate the help every time. And to be honest, the nature of the work tends to be far more fun anyway. Liam's right, the Nederland theatre really doesn't need me to be there. But they still love the help and love having AmeriCorps around. (The carousel certainly appreciates and needs the help, though.)

Sergio's wheeling his suitcase down the hallway as we speak.

Seven days left.

Firefox crashes and burns.

A Mozilla Firefox update ruined all my internet capacity but for AIM, and my innumerable solutions were of no good whatsoever. I eventually had to bust out the disc my laptop came with and restore factory settings. Google Chrome, I guess you're my boy from now on.

The previous class of AmeriCorps was present for the reinventing of the AmeriCorps marketing plan, which also means that some of them got selected to have their faces used as poster children, including Nick Massey, a team leader this year. He did wildfire last year and he worked in the office this year until Tristan was removed from team leadership, whereupon he took over Earth 6. Nick's basically a charming little kid in a tall black man's body, and he was my TL Coby's roommate last year. One of the two pictures of him in the new pamphlet his him with his hand on his chest, head thrown back just so and laughing. It entertains me endlessly.

I just hurriedly wrote a resumé, due today as one of our graduation requirements. I'm exhausted from tinkering with my computer until 3am and would greatly love a nap. Also I picked up Anthony Bordain's memoirs/honest look at the backstage of a kitchen, and it was hilarious and morbid and a touch alarming. I recommend it.

Eight days left.

Success?

So originally Sergio was going to be sent home, but instead they told him he gets to keep all his education money, will not be fined, will not get extra instruction, but will leave a week early. I'd heard a rumor-- only a rumor-- that they're going to fly him home a week and then fly him back for graduation, the missing of which was interpreted to be part of his punishment in the first place, as I guess he badly wanted to go, or something.

University of Maryland in College Park accepted me for the Fall 2009 semester but I don't really intend to go. After some application issues I called George Washington University's office and the supervisor I spoke to said that she would fix my issue and that she's the one who decides who gets in in October for the Spring 2010 semester and my application is "more than satisfactory." I think I'm still going to apply to Harvard this September though. Now I'm waiting for the Department of State to get back to me about my spring internship, and waiting to get accepted somewhere to apply for the Boren scholarship. I was thinking about learning Arabic in Morocco or Egypt, but if you sign a waiver you can go to a nation with a travel advisory. The psychotic, instigated-by-GI-Kat part of me is strongly tempted to go to Iran to learn Farsi. Kat, MD, loathes the notion that I'd get this scholarship at all, after being apart from her for 10 months of AmeriCorps.

We completely failed to build/buy the forest service a going-away gift, and while everyone conceptually agreed to repainting the shoddy wooden basketball hoop, I was the only one willing to get up on the ladder and do it. I slapped on a coat of white paint and meant to return to it and put the AmeriCorps logo on it, and then Coby said we should do both the A and the USFS shield, and then it never got done and I left the paint out and presumably one of the seasonals cleaned up the mess I left out. I feel only the mildest levels of guilt, partly because they still haven't gotten us the really spiffy wool-lined Carhartt jackets they buy each AmeriCorps class at the end of the program. Some of our supervisors are coming to our graduation, though-- maybe we'll get them then, instead of mailed to our homes.

I volunteered one last time at the movie theatre-- The Taking of Pelham 123 was surprisingly okay-- and I dropped into the crystal shop and said goodbye to Scott Harrison. We were originally supposed to work on the carousel that day but it fell through. I made ricotta-and-Parmesan lemon gnocchi for Mo, talked about AmeriCorps and what I'm going to do afterward. They let me know that if I ever returned to Nederland that I could stay in a room in the basement-- and seemed surprised that I slept on the couch. Unbeknownst to me, I had taken the dog's usual sleeping spot, ha. At about seven I took a bus from Nederland to Boulder, another to Denver, and then the light rail and a two-mile walk back to campus, since everyone else wanted to leave in the early afternoon; I arrived at about 9:30pm, with only a few minutes' downtime between any given transfer.

This schedule here says I actually leave at 10:00am on July 23, and not on the 24th. It looks like we walk right off the graduation stage and into the vans to shuttle to the airport. Huh.

I give blood for the first time ever tomorow morning.

Eleven days left.

Home Stretch.

My birthday was pleasant, if a little lonely. His dog Ruby kept me company, to the point where she even followed me a mile and a half back home to the work center the following morning. We had to drive her back and take off in a hurry so she couldn't keep up.

The Independence Day/AmeriCorps Going Away Party at Smitty's house was fantastic-- his house is a two-story gorgeous rustic place with an indoor hot tub, a television as wide as my armspan, a two-story deck... And a ton of delicious grilling and confections. Grilled tofu's pretty tasty. The fireworks turned into ooing, ahhing, cheering, and yelling out patriotic things at each explosion. "Democracy! ...Liberty! ...Republicans! ...Wiretapping! ...Freedom fries! ...Books!" It was my favorite Independence Day yet,

except for the part where Sergio tried to overstay his welcome as people were leaving and refused to get out of Smitty's hot tub, and then got right in our gracious host's face and threw up his middle fingers and yelled "fuck you!" Smitty just kind of smiled and took it in stride, further cementing himself as biggest badass in the world (because going on 13-mile hikes carrying a chainsaw once a week just for fun isn't enough). When we got back to the house Sergio tried to pick a fight with Liam, punching him twice in the face while he was sitting at the kitchen table.

Sergio's been sent back to Denver already, and might get kicked out, but might not. In his version of the story-- and I have heard him tell both of these to different people already- either Liam hit him first, or he didn't hit Liam at all and was just trying to have a polite discussion about their differences (which is what he told our unit leader back in Denver). Even though Nate, Lauren and I all witnessed it. Sergio is a fucking psychopath and I don't have a roommate for this last week.

Nineteen days left.