Week 9

Welcome to week 9 in Denver!  That means 5 weeks left! This week brought some new adventures at work, some old adventures at work, and in general, some stress and fun. 

Last weekend, I toured Sports Authority Field at Mile High (where the Broncos Play), hung out in Washington Park (it was about 60 degrees), and did some exploring of Cherry Creek.  Other than that, I think I just hung out. Sunday morning, I went to a new church (after 4 or 5 failed attempts at finding a new church) that I fell in love with.  (Reflections on church in a separate post).  We also just hung out in some nice weather and aired out the apartment.  Because this week was break week at Wartburg, we did not have class this week. It allowed for some extra time to just relax and get some extra work in.  Monday, I met with someone from the American Friends Service Committee to start volunteering with them with a class assignment.  After that, I went over to one of the Boys & Girls Clubs to volunteer for a few hours.  I have really enjoyed spending time with the kids at the Clubs and getting to know them and seeing them get excited when they figure out the answer to a math problem or when they are able to finish reading a book. 

Tuesday morning, I found myself back at work.   I really like my internship.  It was sort of a busy week at work this week.  Last Friday was the first Early Bird deadline for the raffle, so we had sold about 4,000 tickets while I had had time off.  I then had to hand check all of those names and write thank you notes to about 45 people who had purchased 4 or more tickets.  It kept me quite busy for a few days.  Tuesday night, I went to another one of the Boys &Girls Clubs to volunteer.  When I am at this Club, I spend a lot of time breaking up fights over the wii.  It is crazy and high energy and drains me, but I still enjoy it. 

Wednesday, I continued writing thank you notes, continued working on thank you notes, and attended some meetings with my boss, prepared for Thursday’s big day.

Thursday, I met my supervisor at 5:30 AM.  Yes, ridiculously early.  We headed to the Pepsi Center for a fundraiser breakfast. We had about 250 people show up for breakfast and learning about Gates Camp, properly dubbed, “The most funnest place on earth.”  After being at the Pepsi Center for 3.5 hours, I was finally able to leave with one of my supervisors.  We stopped at Starbucks before heading back to work.  At work on Thursday, I did some raffle work with the survey, before heading to an All Staff meeting about the new benefits plan.  It really got me thinking about life after college and how much I really know about this stuff.  Which is nothing.  After the meeting, I decided (without thinking) to sort the master raffle file to see how many people had bought 4 or more tickets, but at separate times.  I came up with about 30 more names that I now have to write thank you notes too.  All in a days work I guess. 

Thursday night, I met up with someone I met through A Christian Ministry in the National Parks. Their main office is located in Denver, and one of the people I met lives only a few blocks away, so I went over to her apartment for a nice dinner and a time to catch up.  It was super nice to be away from the apartments for a night and have a nice meal with her.

Friday was a special day.  There was a service trip from Wartburg in Denver, and one of my friends who graduated last year, Amy, was in town.  I had to work with AFSC in the morning, but after I was done there, I went down to 16^th street and got to hang out and catch up with Amy and also spend the afternoon and evening with the people on the service trip.  Both were amazing things.  Being able to reconnect with these people who I have spent so much time with in the past was nice. 

Today is Saturday.  I was going to go to the Art museum, but decided time would be better spent catching up on homework and taking it easy.  I have a lot of work to do in preparation for going to Texas and for RICE day on campus.  And, some class work I want to try to get ahead of.  Also knowing that this coming week will be busy with the early bird drawing makes me want to get ahead on some work. 

Hope you all are having an awesome weekend and see you soon!