On the longterm...

So, it occurs to me now that I've never been a youth minister before. It also occurs to me that even thought I've done most of what I"m going to be doing, that I've never been the one in charge before. It's kind of weird.

Today I'm working on developing my longterm plan for the St. Paul Youth Group. And I must say, I am quite excited about the year. When thinking through all my ideas of all the things I want to implement this next year, I was getting kind of nervous that perhaps I had bitten off more than I can chew. So I got to work developing this schedule of when I will implement what, and what I've come up with is a slowly but steadily growing series of activities that are fun but also geared toward developing leadership and spirituality.

I feel so professional.

On an only somewhat related note, last night I went to a mass/dinner/meeting for the National Catholic Youth Convention. There were teens and adults there from all the parishes in Chicago that are sending anyone. It was kind of a fun meeting, with prayer and food and games and all the stuff that goes along with youth ministry. And I met some people from other parishes.

As a sidenote, I read this book last year called How To Be A Chicana Role Model. The lady who wrote it, and I forget her name currently, but she talks about how, if you are a person of color and do, well, anything, you suddenly become a role model for all people of your color. She'd published a couple of poetry books, and even though she considered herself to be a fairly normal person, she found herself flung into some sort of spotlight because she's latina.

One of the stories she tells is about attending this Women's Convention, and how she found herself seated at the front center table with world famous women who were way out of her league. She had nothing in common with any of the hugely successful women around her, but had long ago learned that when you're in an unfamiliar setting, you should look for similarities between yourself and those around you. And she found out that the waitress was from a neighborhood she used to live in. The bartender's grandmother used the same recipe for carnitas that her grandmother used. The bus boy listened to all the same music she did. Basically, the only other latinos there were the people serving her. But those were her people, so those were the people she migrated to.

So, back to the NCYC meeting last night, in a room full of white middle class people, I found myself going straight for the one other group of latinos present. And rather than making small talk with the type of people I grew up with, I struggled through Spanish conversations with the type of people I've been with the last two years. I suppose this means that who 'my people' are has changed recently. But then again, when one of the guys started a game where we went around the circle saying, "Yo soy..." whatever, I said, "Yo soy una gringa." Which got a lot of laughs. But then he said, "Una gringa que..."

It was a lot of fun.

Business unusual

Okay, here I am, starting my page off with a bad pun for a title. Can you ever forgive me?

The thing is, lots of things are in the process of transition right now. A week ago, I started my new job. In four days, my new housemates are moving in. I have a whole 'nother group of peers, community members, coworkers, bosses, and teenagers to get to know. That's a lot of bonding in my immediate future.

Have I ever mentioned that I have trouble sleeping when so much is changing? I *did* manage a good nine hours of sleep last night, but that was only after tiredness led to near-exhaustion, which in turn led to moderate delirium. I'll lay down at night and I"m tired. I'm so tired. But then my brain just won't shut down and I stay up all night thinking and thinking and planning for everything and worrying, sure, and trying very desperately not to think, which is more thinking actually.

Sometimes I'll stay up late reading, or sometimes I"ll exercise, or sometimes I'll play computer games, or sometimes I'll write. The other night, I decided to watch TV. I don't watch TV much, so when I do, I like to get my money's worth and I'll watch two or more programs at once, flipping back and forth between stations. Well, the other night, the last things I watched were this Nightline special on teenagers in the criminal justice system, which actually did a pretty good job of pointing out that teenagers in the criminal justice system are, well, teenagers. But it did leave me somewhere between laughing and rolling my eyes at some of the things this guy found so *shocking* about their lives. The other thing I watched was the ER episode that followed a few days of the life in this one medic in Iraq, I guess in one of the MASH units. And watching people get blown up in Iraq really didn't do much toward easing my tensions at this particular point in time. But I can't talk about that yet. It's getting closer to time, and that's making denial harder, but I'm holding fast. There's days left yet, and this isn't about me anyway. But that doesn't make it any easier to sleep.

Oh crap! I went to the post office today, and I completely forgot to mail off a package to my family. Damn. Crap. It'll be Wednesday at least before I have another chance. Grrrr.

Also, when lots of things are changing, I forget details, and while I will put two and two together, I'll neglect to also add three and seven into the mix. For instance, I'll be thinking I gotta get to the post office to mail Michele's boxes, and I'll be thinking I gotta get to the post office to mail my family's boxes, but those two tidbits of information are filed in my head under, "Community", and "Family", and not under "Post Office", so I think about it as two completely separate and unrelated trips. Similary, I won't schedule two St. Paul things to do at one time on one day, but I will schedule at St. Paul thing and an Orientation thing on the same day, and never realize I've double booked myself. It's almost like I'm divided, and actually expect each different self to have full access to all 24 hours. And it doesn't help that I'm working with a new, and probably temporary, schedule book.

It's annoying when you start a new job and you have to figure out how to do everything. It's even more annoying when you already know how to do everything, you just don't know how to do it *here*. But moving into my second week, I feel far more comfortable. I know people's names, and they look at me like they expected to see me here, I know where things go, and what it's all right to touch. And maybe I don't know where the post-it notes are, but I do know that I can just go ask Jose Luis, because that man can hook me up with everything.

But yeah, it's a lot of new stuff going on right now. A lot of change. Adventure.

Rock on.