Ruined for Life

Well, I am almost done with the second week at my job, and I'm feeling...still pretty overwhelmed. Not only do I feel extreeemely under-qualified for my position, but I have also fallen prey to the "what will I do with my life?" question. But, really, what will I do?? I'm currently struggling with pushing those thoughts aside and remembering that everything will work out in the end, and I need to enjoy the here and now. My decision to do JVC will carry me through this year, and I need to not let my brain get carried away with stressful thoughts that don't immediately affect me. 

So...JVC...a lot of people don't actually know what it is that I'm doing here. Basically, I heard about JVC through the UCC (University Catholic Center) during my sophomore year at UCLA. There was a panel of current and former JV's (Jesuit Volunteers) who came and talked to us about their experiences, and the plans started forming. Fast forward a couple of years, lots of thinking and praying, tears and stress and joy, and here I am in New York!!! 

JVC is centered on four main values: community, spirituality, social justice, and simple living.

Community. I am living in a community of 8 women. EIGHT. And it's going to be hard at times. I just feel so lucky to be surrounded by people who are going through the same things I will be going through this year; otherwise, I don't know what I'd do! It gives me someone to come home to, someone to talk to when I'm bored, excited, sad...friends to share a meal with, to do errands with, everything! And while it may get to be a lot to handle sometimes, knowing I have seven amazing women who are here to help me through the thick and thin is an incredible feeling. Everyone in my community has a different job, and coming home to hear about everyone's day is so interesting because we're all doing different things! It baffles me that we've only known each other for a couple of weeks because we're already pretty close, and this year and it's trials will only bring us closer!

Spirituality: Every week of this year, we have one Community Night and one Spirituality Night. This means we will set aside two nights of every week to come together and bond in different ways. In JVC, Spirituality doesn't mean we pray all the time and are all Catholic. Actually, only a couple of the girls in my house are practicing Catholics. JVC is based on Ignatian Spirituality in that we are asked to seek to experience God in all things. I think this will be a personal challenge for me because I find it so easy to go through each day without thinking about the role God has played. I'm trying to fix that, and I think JVC will help.

Social Justice: Every job offered through JVC is focused on a social justice issue. Education, immigration, HIV/AIDS, housing, homelessness, etc. By putting us in these roles, we are forced to think about the inequities that surround us, and our jobs challenge us to find ways to fix them.

Simple Living: I'm currently living on $100 a month. In New York City, that's pretty difficult! This seems to be the value that most people have trouble understanding when I tell them what I'm doing here. It's even been met with anger! People who just don't get why I would choose to do this or why JVC would put us through this. I see it as a way to truly focus on what's important. My house is paid for, my food (for the most part) is paid for, my monthly metro pass is paid for, and I get a little spending cash on the side. No, I won't be eating out at all the delicious places this city has to offer. No, I won't be buying all the beautiful clothes in the shops I walk by every day. No, I won't simply take a taxi to get somewhere faster. But, I will enjoy cooking meals with my housemates, I'll smile at the smell of roasted nuts before I enter the subway, I'll figure out how to make my LA clothes keep me warm in the east coast winter, and I'll soak in the culture around me even when I'm underground. I'm working for people who have even less than I do, and my vow to live in solidarity with them will ruin me for life, but, that's what I asked for.

Ruined for life. That's what they say. JVC ruins you for life. I'm already starting to see it happen. I'll feel bad for not composting my orange peel. I'm more aware of the way businesses treat their employees and how they spend their profits. I try to educate myself on the issues affecting the people I'm serving. I'm not a perfect consumer: I still love Disney, and I can't afford only organic, local products at the moment. But just being more aware is changing me. For life? Definitely. Ruined? Maybe in some peoples' opinions.

Right now, I'm just trying to enjoy the ride.

A Tumultuous Beginning

So, I am officially living in New York!!! FINALLY. I can’t believe that this is actually happening, and that I am actually here. I've been wanting to live in New York for years upon years, so to think that I'm here now...it's just crazy. I’m going to reminisce back to what happened just in my last day in California and my first day on my own. It wasn’t pretty.

So, I left home on Wednesday, August the 8^th. I had been playing phone tag with my Program Coordinator since the night of Tuesday, but we couldn’t seem to get a hold of each other. The last message she left me said that there were some changes happening, but that they’d send out an informative email that would explain everything. My last day at home was very nice. I got to eat breakfast with my parents and brothers and enjoy some Ampuero 5 family time which was something that I had been craving, but hadn’t been able to do for quite some time. Josh helped me mail all of my boxes to my house in Brooklyn (thanks, Jodgers!), and we met Nick at a Peruvian restaurant in LA for a “Last Supper” all together. We got to LAX to get my boarding pass when my phone binged with an email. I read it to find out that after a couple of people dropped the program at the last minute, myself and a few other volunteers had been moved around, and I was now going to be living in the house in Harlem with seven (yes, seven) other girls (so, yes, eight girls). That was a huuuge shock for me to deal with because I had already fallen in love with the Brooklyn house, and I was looking forward to a co-ed living situation of four girls and two guys. Nope. Trying to adjust to that new concept while saying goodbye to my family was definitely rough. I had no idea that saying bye was going to be so difficult!! I was feeling very melodramatic as I walked away from them, but then was of course stopped by security for one of my carry-ons, and I then had to go through an inspection with my whole family watching me, so that kind of lightened the mood a little.

My flight was delayed. OF COURSE. By about an hour. Which was incredibly stressful because my second flight (from Boston to Baltimore) was scheduled to leave just half an hour after my initial flight was scheduled to land. I was hoping against hope that the second flight would be delayed too, but, as luck would have it, I rushed into the Boston airport to find that the flight had already left. I needed to get to BWI by 12:30 to catch the bus that JVC was providing to take us to the retreat center. I dealt with three incredibly unhelpful humans at Jet Blue that were so annoyingly resistant to helping me out. I was emotional from leaving my home, exhausted from a lack of sleep, and hungry and thirsty after eating nothing since my Peruvian dinner. After lots of tears and lots of standing around, I finally decided to just to buy a completely new flight to get me to BWI on time (yayyy spending unnecessary money), and went through the whole security ordeal again. Whatever. I ended up getting there safely and on time, and that’s all that matters, right?

Retreat was amazing, and I met so many incredible people, and really started to feel the JV love that will be surrounding me this year, and for the rest of my life. Although getting here has been such an emotional and physical trek (my arms were sore for days after lugging all of my luggage around), I feel so blessed to have this opportunity, and I can’t wait for my year of service to truly come to fruition.