My post for future JV's

A fellow EMT recently emailed me with a list of questions she had about the program so I thought I'd list the responses here for anyone else who might be wondering the same things...

Hey, I'm excited to hear about how excited you are about doing a year service! Let me attempt at addressing your JVC concerns, many of which I also had before I was actually doing the program, and I admire your foresight into what problems and/or issues you'd see arising during the year.

As far as the money issue goes: whether or not you stick to the stipend is your decision. JVC is not going to be checking your bank records to make sure you arn't spending saved money on travel, or extra things you might need. You're right, housing, food, utilities, and insurance are taken care of. It is up to the community to stick to the food budget, and one of the most interesting things that I've learned here, is that you can survive on $75 a month for food for one person, and actually do more than that, some of the meals I've had here blew me away with what you can do with a little. Your personal stipend is $85, it might increase more in the coming years but thats basically the amount you're going to get for a month. In all actuality, you are able to do stuff with that money and still go out and have fun. Transportation money is also given to you on top of that personal stipend, so you shouldn't be spending any of your personal money on transportation (which helps). The thing to remember is that this year is about simple living, you arn't going to be super comfortable or super uncomfortable. You will learn how to live within a budget, and learn a bit of what your clients deal with, except you are secure in your housing, and know you will be fed. Loans you have can be put on hold, as you will be not making enough money to pay them off. JVC will tell you how to take care of this.

Living situation: I am living with 5 roommates, and have my own pseudo room, if you read my blog that will fill you in on a number of questions you might have already. My neighborhood is safe, at least I feel relatively safe, however being in a city in an area that does have crime you have to be cautious, the former Jesuit Volunteers in the area gave us a list of dos and donts for the city when we arrived. There is one other JV in my house who works at SOME, but in reality, she could verywell be working for a different non-profit as she works in a different section of SOME. JVs in a house will be working at a variety of different placements.

Work does allow time off, and if you have a good relationship with your supervisor and are a hard worker, which I'm sure you are, you should have no problems taking time off to interview for medschool, which is what i'm doing right now. Many JVs have gone on to do med school the year after so know that it has been done! You can also go back home for vacation now and then, I'm doing the Americorps grant, which takes care of 5 grand of loans, so I'm required to get 1800 hours in, so though it seems like a lot of hours, I did the math and i can take vacation for a few weeks. It depends on your placement.

Overall, I would HIGHLY recommend JVC, its a great program, and if you apply enough and are diligent and persistent for what kind of placement you want (I was), you'll get it. I can't emphasize enough, APPLY EARLY. That's when the placements are fairly open and you can see ones which you can preference. You dont get to chose, but with your EMT experience, medical placements will WANT YOU. I'm enjoying myself, and learning a lot from the people i'm living with, those i'm working with, as well as my patients. Any other questions don't hesitate to email me, best of luck!

Jordan

Its been a long week

Hey readers, I don't want to keep you waiting but I've been quite busy these past days working on getting up to speed on applications for graduate school so my journaling will have to be postponed until I finish, thanks for understanding!

Journal #18: The Big Apple

Journal #18
As I have now pretty much decided that my journaling / blogging will take place on a
weekly basis, I write from a BoltBus departing from New York City, after spending a weekend with friends. This was my first time in the Big Apple, and the city did not disappoint any of my expectations. New York is truly a city which never sleeps, as I learned last night waiting to get on the Subway at 2:30 in the morning.

We arrived on Friday.

My friend Kristina and I had decided only a few days before that we were going to get away for a weekend and celebrate one of our other JV friends’ birthday. Delphine had told us a few weekends before at the Baltimore party that she wanted us to come up to NYC to visit and celebrate her BDay. Of our house, it was just the two of us that dropped the cash down for a bus trip to NYC. I was looking forward this year to making the trek out to NYC, but it didn’t really occur to me until I was smack dab in downtown Manhattan that one of my life goals was now a reality. Soon enough, after the 4 hours of sitting, I was being dwarfed by towering skyscrapers and lost in the hustle and bustle of the city. Luckily Kristina had brought her iPhone with her and she immediately took charge, leading us to the nearby subway entrance.

We descended into the bowels of the city.

I re-read that metaphor and despite its absurdity, I think it gives a good representation of what the New York underground is like, if you have never been. It is hot, sticky, dirty, but oh so necessary. I can’t imagine what the city would be like if there wasn’t a subway system to get people where they needed to go. The sheer volumes of bodies being transported on this system are staggering, as congested as the roads are right now in NYC, there would be 24 hour gridlock without a public transit system. Each year there are 1.5 billion riders of the subway system, that number alone speaks a lot for just how extensive and complex the system is. It’s also expensive. I think I spent around $24 this weekend just on subway fares, no matter where you go, its $2.25.

We were bombarded by light.

After settling in, seeing Delphine’s workplace, eating some pizza, we made our way out of Brooklyn to the island, down-town Manhattan to go to the place that was #1 on my list of places to go. Times Square. One word is all that is necessary to describe this display filled, mob packed, consumer driven center of NY. Overwhelming. I think that after 5 minutes trying to take in all that was going on around me, my senses were overloaded and I need to just close my eyes. We continued walking around and after what seemed like days, we escaped the illuminated signage only to find shopping heaven on 5th Ave. I think we spent about an hour in H&M, trying stuff on, I did make only one purchase, a scarf which I am sure will come in handy during chilly DC nights. As we made our way through downtown we found the Rockefeller Center, a building doused in light. Spotlights from buildings all around made the building stand out against a dark night sky, accentuating its towering magnificence. We were disappointed to find that a trip to the observation deck was a staggering $15, so we instead marveled at the beauty from ground level. Our next stop was Grand Central Station. As I’ve said before, Kristina has done me the disservice of feeding my TV addiction. After being introduced to the show, Gossip Girl, I have not stopped watching. What’s more, I had an obsession with trying to find all the places in New York where the show has been filmed. In the pilot, one of the main characters, Serena, finds herself back in a town she has left. For what reason, we do not know, but there she is: spotted in Grand Central Station, looking lost and unsure of what is to come after trying to escape a part of her life. As I stood in the same place, looking out at Grand Central Station in the same spot as Serena had stood years before, I thought too, what is this trip, this year going to hold for me. I also took that time to stand still in a place that is always moving. Standing still allows us to reflect, to see the beauty that exists around us. I’m reminded of the cliché, stop and smell the roses. I think that of late, I haven’t been doing enough smelling. I’ve been looking, I’ve been running, I’ve been doing things to say that I’ve done them.

We took a train to nowhere.

On the way back, we missed our stop. As we waited for the next one so we could turn around, it came…..we weren’t slowing down, and then it went. We had gotten on the express train and interestingly enough, Delphine had wanted to visit Coney (sp?) island, and that happened to be the last stop on the train, so heck, we just stayed on in hopes of seeing this place she had told us is “ammmmazing” at night. Well…after 40 minutes on the train we got there, and already we were a little suspicious. There was NO ONE in the streets. It was deserted, the Ferris Wheel was un-lit, the fair was over. We just laughed, and laughed. An hour later we were home, and in bed.

I made buttermilk pancakes.

The next morning, I woke up. We were to meet up with our other JV friend Nick at Central Park to walk/run. After being fortunately delayed talking to the others in the house, sharing doughnuts out on the roof as the sun began to warm, once again, the brick walls. We made it to the park, only 20 minutes late, and began a beautiful day of exploration. I’m going to wrap up this journal, only for the reason that I’m getting sleepy on this bus, and I’ve been tempted this entire time by the knowledge that at my fingertips, is another episode of Gossip Girl. To simplify the rest of this journal I’m going to outline the rest of our day.

1. Central Park
a. Walk
i. Chat with Kristina
ii. Take pictures
iii. Observe the beauty
2. Staten Island ferry
a. Free
b. Busy
c. Great view
d. Seagull almost crapped on my head
e. Arrival
i. Immediate departure.
1. There’s apparently nothing on Staten Island.
f. Pictures
g. Laughing
h. Convo.
3. NEED FOOD
a. Figure out how the heck we’re going to get to China Town
b. Subway
c. Find Chinese Food
i. Cheap
ii. 4.50 for 5 entrees
iii. Not the best quality but it will do.
iv. Candid conversation
v. Enjoy company
vi. Leave for Little Italy
4. Little Italy
a. WTF
i. Utter chaos in the streets
1. Oh ya, there is some festival
ii. Work our way through the crowd
iii. Find Italian Bakery
iv. Eat Gelato
1. Good
5. Find Metro – Return to house – Part ways with nick
a. Long convo with Alison, I miss her.
b. Get ready for the debauchery
6. PARTY.
a. Say no more.
7. Sleep.

Its about time: Journal # 17

Journal # 17

Well, it’s the beginning of a new week. A lot has happened since last weekend and my trip to Alexandria. I think my format for this journal is going to be like how I was taught to triage patients in a mass casualty incident, I’ll start where I stand.

This evening was one of the best that I’ve had in the time that I’ve been here. I had started to feel a little disconnected from the rest of the house in a few ways, and tonight we got together to reaffirm why we are here, for ourselves but more so, for each other. We’ve been so gifted to have an amazing Former JV community in the area who have come over for dinners and to help out plan our community nights. Right now, I am just coming off a gossip girl high, combined with a feeling that I feel has been steadily dying down since I’ve started the program, excitement with a sense of purpose. Tonight, we made Tibetan prayer flags, of our own creation. We took sheets of cloth and were told to in half of the square, to represent what we hope our community to be this year, and in the other half, what we hope for ourselves. I’ll say that first, I was impressed with the artistic (and in some cases modern artistic) abilities of our house members. Most importantly, there was a lot of thought behind the art. There was a reason for everything we painted, marked, scribbled, and wrote on our flags. I drew a watercolor representation of a table, with 6 chairs sitting around it, each with a different colored person sitting in it, representing the diverse backgrounds which we all bring, whats more, it represented my hope that we as people would always have that space to come together at face value. That we would come together, bringing our joys, our sorrows, our hard times, our tears, our successes, our laughter. The table itself was drawn to be multi-colored, the colors seeming to mingle together in what I hope is what will continue to happen at our house.

I also drew a friendship bracelet, demonstrating that when we step back and think about it, each one of our lives is like a string. Whether you believe it be by divine intervention, fate, or what have you, our strings are braided together, as we are now sharing some of the same experiences. Its crazy to think about how a year ago, I would have never dreamed I would be doing exactly what I am doing right now. Lying on my bed, in a foreign but not-so-foreign city, writing about how I’m being impacted by the people I’m living with. All our flags have been hung up in the ‘family room’ area, and will remain there, I’m sure, for the rest of the year, maybe longer. Kristina put it well when she said this year we are making this house into a home for future JVs, that this year we are the first of what I hope to be many JVs sharing company in the house we are living in.

In other less ‘deep’ news, I had a great weekend attending a DC United vs. Seattle Sounders soccer game, for free! The soccer league that I’m in sent out an email about some tickets being donated, so I immediately emailed back to see if one was still available and it was! It was a bit of a trip, I met some new people there as well, who had also gotten tickets from the same person, who I later learned was also from Seattle, so we already had that connection going on. After the game we went to this cupcake store, Red Velvet I think, (PS, cup cake stores are super trendy right now, I don’t really get it, how can one business survive on one product???, ungh, I don’t get it!) and despite my feelings about these types of establishments, did have a pretty darn good cupcake. After that we toured the monuments and memorials at night, until my feet were begging forgiveness for whatever they had done to deserve such merciless treatment. The next day I had a soccer game, and I’m soooo sore now, and I think I have shin splints, for the record, the first shin splints I’ve EVER HAD. They SUCK! So now I’ve been iceing them and hoping for a speedy recovery. I’m also planning to run a 12k, so I need to rest up for that, its coming up in November. The shin splints are probably a result of me running a lot, I think I ran over 15 miles last week, maybe I’ll get some more in this week. Anyhoo, its 12am and I need to get up tomorrow! Until next time!

Journal #16 Sept 7th

Journal # 16 September 7, 2009
Hard to believe that September is already rolling around again, this summer went by so fast and now I’m heading into the first September of my life (that I can remember) where I’m not in school.
This weekend was one of those really good weekends, a weekend where at the end of it I feel relaxed, ready to take on the week, happy that I got to spend some time with friends, live a bit, visit a new city, learn about what identity means and how I’m going to approach this year, among many other things.
Friday was pretty low key, I went to my placement like any other week day… of course on this day they bring more fatty and tasty foods for me to munch on. I feel like sometimes they are trying to fatten me up, for what…. I don’t know. I’m constantly exposed to food at this place, whether it be doughnuts, blueberry muffins (home made of course), and most of all: quadruple layered fudge brownie whipped cream nutty heaven (of which I really do need to get the recipe from Susan, our NP). As I think about it, it’s a bit difficult for me to recall all that happens at a day at work, and to separate one day from the next. A few patients of mine stick out (names changed of course). A few notable ones include a former NFL player who is now HIV+, back at home to take care of his father who is ill. He reminds me of a gentle giant, a person who if you saw him on the street, you would most likely find an excuse to move to the other side. However, when you meet this man, and he smiles, you just want to give him a hug. I’d say he was one of the nicest patients I’ve ever met. He was the first patient I got to use the eye-tester machine on (the name of which escapes me). His story also reminds me how you won’t know someone’s story until you ask them to tell it. While he had been in the clinic many times before, no one had ever asked him the questions I had, which had led me to the realization that this guy had worked so hard and gotten to the highest point one can if they play football. At the same time, I feel that I only got a small piece of his story, and I want to know the rest. Hopefully he will come back sometime and I will get that opportunity.
Saturday was a blast, I woke up, lounged around for a bit, worked on some applications, went for a run, ate lunch, and mentally prepared myself for the party that would come that night. We made the necessary preparations. If you’re wondering about why I’m repeating myself a little bit from my last post, it is because I wrote the tail end of that post on Saturday, my apologies for not making that apparent. The party was a great time, we ended up arriving quite early, walking around B-more a bit (the tag line of the party was why B-Less when you can B-more, soooo witty). It was great to get to see everyone again after orientation, to solidify certain relationships and discover others which had not existed before. I met another Washingtonian who I think will be quite fun to get to know, she’s from Gonzaga and we just kind of hit it off. We left later in the evening, as 50 people were already sleeping in a 6 person house, and arrived back home exhausted and happy.
Today I woke up, did a run around the neighborhood, did some stairs and sprints, actually, before that, I went to Alexandria with my friend Carl to explore an area we both had yet to see. It is a quaint town with a old style main street, with a lot of places to shop, eat, and explore. I didn’t get to do as much as I wanted (ie explore the historical sites) but it was a great introduction to a place I hope to visit soon.
In other news, my friend Kristina showed me the first episode of Gossip Girl, and I think I’m addicted. I’m going to watch the second episode with her now…Ungh.

Journaly #15

Journaly # 15 Written at 1:18pm on the 4th of September from my office
Yesterday I ran, I ran for a few reasons. 1st, I felt like a fatty for eating 8 doughnuts in two days. I felt like a fatty for eating 16" of Subway the day before along with cookies and a pepsi, and chips. Who the hell eats that much and is ok with it? I was eating out of compulsion, because some part of my unconsciousness wondered when it would taste good food again and wanted as much of it as possible. Like my coworkers at SOME tell me, once you hit 25 it all goes downhill, one part of this is this metabolism I have right now which allows me to eat like a professional food competitor. Anyhoo, I went running and I had always wanted to do the run around the mall, so I ran to the metro station at Howard (1 mile) and took it to the national archives, which is right on the edge of the mall. This run had to have been one of the most beautiful and inspiring runs I've been in in recent memory. As I ran towards the capitol it loomed ahead of me, shining brightly against the black sky. I could see through the dome, through the columns which during the day you don't see. The entire weight of the dome rests upon these columns, it made me marvel at the architectural genius which created it. The entire run around the mall is one of the best runs, for the reason that it inspires you as you make your way around it, through the monument, the memorials, the tourists gawking at the beauty. I did get a bit out of breath at some points and stopped to take in the WA monument, the Lincoln Memorial, and the Korean War Memorial. Sometimes you just need to take a break, to stop, take a breath, before continuing on.
In other news, my computer which is on its 5th year, is starting to break down. Sometimes I've not been able to get it to turn on, and other times it works, so I'm at a loss as to what to do with it. I think it might be time to invest in something new but with the stipend I think I'll wait until next year to do anything about it, so if my journaling isn't completely up to date, this is why. Today (Saturday now) we're going to Baltimore to the JV house there to have a party, White themed, which I have already gotten under control. We visited Value Village (superstore) this morning and I picked up a sweet white BBall T with shorts and a "Live to Mow" hat, its going to be awesome. Right now I'm about to get some cleaning done then head out, its about an hour away. It should be an awesome time!

The journal that happened after not journaling for a week (AKA Journal # 14)

So its been a while since I've updated this thing, I know what you're thinking "YOU SLACKER," well, that's partially true, I have been conciously slacking on some level with the blog thing, but on another level, so much has been happening every day with work, cleaning, running, hanging out, and keeping up with day to day things that I've just been too exhausted at the end of the day to put in that extra effort to plop myself in front of a computer and write about the day. I believe the last time I journaled was 3 or 4 days ago. Of the notable things that have happened, work has been better every day. On friday I started to feel more comfortable with calling random people asking for them to please send over their patient records, and doing other phone stuff. It was weird at first because I had no idea what I was talking about. I suppose I will talk about this later.
The weekend, to be summed up in short, felt like my first weekend in a familiar place. The speed at which I've aclimated to the city seems errily fast, I think that spending time in an urban area for college made the transition that much easier. I'm also coming to the realization that a bike in this city is key, I made a trip which would have taken 45min-1hr by Metro take only 25 minutes. I say this as our house has gone from 3 workable bikes to 1. I do have hope though, a friend of mine is going to lend me his bike for the year, so my ventures out into the city will become that much easier, as long as I don't get hit by a car.

So i guess to briefly go over what has happened these past days, I've partied like it was college all over again at Donny's place, a former JV who knows how to have a good time. We were introduced to the Donny at a meet and greet bar night with current and former JV's in the DC area, and yes, JV = Jesuit Volunters and DC = district of columbia. The party was good, good food, good company, and a good few awkward moments which result from putting people who are well out of college and those who just got out in the same party who don't really know each other. Donny, as we found out, works 3 hours at the local J Crew, solely for the discounts, and I've already picked out a dress shirt that I have (HAVE) to get. Now all i have to do is figure out what color to get... Anyhoo, today was pretty phenominal, work was work, lots of phone calls, filling of syringes with insulin, crushing of calcium tablets, and mindlessness galore. The moments when my ears perk up is when I get to do patient intakes, to be the first person who the patients see when the finally get past the waiting room. Today I also got a bike donated from a guy who I've met who works at a local financial firm, I was so excited to get it I spent about an hour cleaning it and getting it ready for its first trek tomorrow morning. I can't wait to take it out, its a beauty, nice light aluminum frame with good mountain tires that can take the crazy potholes that you can find around the city. I am getting better at city bicycling, its a steep but quick learning curve. Until tomorrow, I have orientation / a retreat where we're going to one of the SOME houses and getting fed for most of the day, I hope it goes well! until next time