You can talk all you want but my skin is really thick, i'm the leader of the crowd and my game is really slick... i'm unstoppable ♥

Hi Friends,

So lemme tell ya a little about my life.

Tuesday the 24th (Mama Laur's Birthday!), i went to work. My own personal goal for work is to create a book of activities, service learning projects, tourist attractions, and places to take the kids. So, whenever anyone wants to do a project with them, they can look in the book and it is mostly planned. Also, people can add to the book. I worked on that pretty much all day.

Wednesday the 25th, I went to work and kept working on the domestic violence workshop stuff. I'm creating a packet of healthy living tips for them such as nutrition, exercise, anger management etc. We also contacted associations for their free brochures. It doesn't sound like a lot but i worked on it pretty much all day.

Thursday the 26th, I went to work, and after work i went with the Director of Programs to Chantilly. We walked around talking to the residents about a computer learning center that is available free for their kids. I think this is one of the coolest things about BWUFA, they inform the residents about what is available. Then we met with a tutor, so he could meet his child in the child's home. This ensures that they will be comfortable when they're meeting and the parents can make sure they're comfortable with the situation too. After this we went to meet with a potential mentor, this meeting is to meet the person face to face, talk to them about the rules and get all of the paperwork. The Director let me run part of the orientation. After work, my roomie Audrey and I went to a restaurant called Las Tapas and had a fantastic dinner & wicked good Margaritas.

Friday the 27th, I went to work & wrapped up some of the weekly projects. Then my good friend Seth came down for the weekend. Friday night we went to Ultra Bar with Sabrina. It was a very good time, but very expensive. The club was super crowded too.


Saturday the 28th... we had a lazy day & then went to see some of the sights. Afterwards we went to King St. for some Hard Times Cafe action. They have the best chilli... which is saying alot.. because i usually dont even really like chilli. Seth, Sabrina and my good friend & fellow Mass resident Michelle hung out for the evening.

Sunday the 1st (hellooo March!).. Seth left early to head back to NY. I got up early and went to the mall to get my hair cut and they had a highlight special. So i got my hair highlighted too. The rest of the night i did homework. My roomies and i also created goals for ourselves and hung them on the fridge. This may seem silly, but i kind of love it. Mine are to start dieting again, going to the gym at least 5 days a week, stop buying coffee daily, stopping buying my lunch at work & only having 1-2 drinks while out. Our goals could be on anything. :)

Monday the 2nd...i woke up to SNOW! eww. We had programming which was "Career Bootcamp" I chose writing your grad school essay and applying to grad school.. since i have had a recent discovery that i want to change my life and go to grad school. It is pretty overwhelming stuff...haha. The workshops were pretty helpful, but ultimately i think that grad school is something you need to figure out on your own. Then i had class. Longg day. I've started to look up grad schools, i think i want to stay in Massachusetts since i'll get instate tuition.. which will be very helpful. And, i kind of love Massachusetts. Although, after living down here.. i wouldn't mind going to school here.

Today the 3rd.. i went to a conference for work! Yay office outings. We went to a conference provided by the Fairfax County government on determining outcomes. When working with a program that is run on a grant, there is a lot of evaluation and sometimes the program will become different by the time its done. In short, this conference was about evaluating what the program is, what your goal should be for it, and what the end result should be, but it is a little more complicated then this. I think it was a great experience and I'm glad i got to be apart of it. After the conference, we headed over to Chantilly. We took two of the boys from Chantilly to Buffalo Wild Wings, it was nice to sit down with two of the boys from the program. We then headed back to the Mews for girls club! I got to partially run it this week because unfortunately our Grad intern has the flu. We talked to the girls about nutrition. Now I'm home and feeling flu like myself. :(

Steph's grad school corner:
Now, I've told you about my future dreams of grad school. Ever since I've been down here, I've realized that i don't really like working behind a desk all day. The thing i look forward to and enjoy is running the programs, working with the kids and creating programs & collecting resources for the community. With this i think that i should pursue a career in social work. This will open a lot of doors for me. I could work within a school, within the health field, for a nonprofit or for a community coalition. From what I've read about social work it seems like everything that I was looking for in a major. Although, i do love politics, and I'm not closing the door on it.. i feel that the mixture between sociology, working with people and social justice of social work was what i was looking for.