I am finally here and I made it safe and sound. I'm currently in Fairbanks, AK and I have a few minutes before we head out for breakfast.
The first few days here have been interesting. I arrived Wednesday morning around 2:00 AM. Then started work at 8:30 AM. It was a tiring day.
My official title is a "Resident Mentor," or RM. (This doesn't stand for returned missionary, I've been thrown off a couple of times when people say things like "A few years ago, two of the RMs were caught drinking in their rooms.") I help make sure that the kids get to their classes, are in bed at a reasonable hour, don't have alcohol/tobacco, and plan activities for them to do in the evenings when they aren't in class.
At least, this is what I'm supposed to do. The kids start arriving today. The past few days we've been living in the dorms, getting ready for the kids to arrive: setting up an office, checking the rooms, etc. It really hasn't been that stressful so far. We have had a lot to do, but it isn't very stressful.
The other RMs are great. The other RMs are Eliza Chadwick (I know her family from my mission), girls named Victoria and Kayla who go to school here, a guy named Yang (he's Hmong) who goes to school in California, and an Alaskan Native named Ralph. Ralph is in his 40's and has been working with Alaskan most of his life. He's from a tiny village (Buckland) up by Kotzebue Alaska. They are all a great staff and I'm excited to work with them.
Also, there was a girl named Janice who was here. Her and I were assigned to work together with a certain group of kids (They call it a klan. It consists of 2 RMs and a group of about 10 kids). Anyway, Janice's mom was in town so she got permission to take the night off and see her. Well, she never came back. We waited around the whole next morning and she never showed. She won't answer our phone calls. We went and checked her room and all her stuff was gone. Apparently she got freaked out and ran away. So hopefully I have a co-klan leader or I'll be in charge of the klan myself.
Well, I've got to run. The kids will be here in a couple of hours. I'm nervous!
Ooh--good luck! That's kind of funny about your co-klan leader. What did you do to scare her so bad? Just kidding. I think you'll do a great job with the kids and I hope you have fun! I'm sure you'll get some good stories too...
ReplyDeleteYou'll do a great job there. It kind of reminds me of my summer job in England at the kid's camp. (A more relaxed setting thought. But I remember getting the dorm rooms ready for the kids to come.)
ReplyDeleteFun to read your thoughts on various things!