My Search for a Purpose

Welcome Back to another post! July The last week of June/First week of July was the first week that we had kids at our camp! While the original goal for the camp was 50 kids for the summer, we haven't quite reached that, but the kids that we do have at the camp have been absolute joys to work with. I'm very thankful to have taken this job for them. For some of the more adulty-elements, not so much...  I survived living with Roddy & Rebekah's chaos for a whole month! :) I'm moving out tomorrow :/ Nickadeo came and visited for the first time which was very nice! It was cool getting to show him my home. My mom visited me in New Haven for the first time and was Too Much, but that's just her! :) I've been doing quite a bit to get ready for grad school! I'm so very excited and am continually validated by professors, fellow scholars (Shout-out Queer Group Chat!), my not-very-distant-at-all-future roommate, Will, and the pre-class work and seminars I've been...

Welcome to another chapter in the PRIDE! Blog Series.  June has most certainly been a month filled with transition; something I both live & thrive in and can't stand. I like to feel steady, centered, and balanced. When things change, I get a little shook. (Perhaps the living and thriving are my Sagittarius Sun & Libra Rising vibing with that energy, while the need to feel steady, centered, and balance can be attributed to my Capricorn Moon?) We ended the distance learning school year at Great Oaks and I closed out my Year of Service! It was a lot, to say the least, to keep up and try and survive this year, but we made it through it.  I'm thankful for the friends that became family that I had to say goodbye to this past month. Thank you for your presences in my life, for accepting and understanding me, and for loving me.  To Cheyenne, Jazmine, Mercy, and Dahlia- I have missed your energies during these past few months that you haven't been with us! I miss walking i...

Welcome back to another late blog post de moi! Happy 2nd Anniversary to @thepositive_jdneal  Est. June 18, 2018 Happy 5th Anniversary to my High School Graduation- June 19, 2015 Happy 155th Juneteenth. May each day bring us closer and closer to True Liberation. With everything that's been going on in the United States, I haven't had the energy or the motivation to write, but, I figured this post was going to be relatively short. So here it is now! I'm withholding a whole events from May thing, because not much happened... I was still staying in quarantine, talking to my students through distance learning, celebrated Liz B.'s and Liz J.'s birthdays through social distance hangouts, had therapy a few times, got a summer job and housing in New Haven with Rebekah and Roddy, and had some conversations with my roommate for grad school, Will. I'm grateful and blessed that, while I'm trying to conserve and protect my own energies while violence is being done against...

Hi! Such a quick turnaround, but welcome back to yet another blog post by me:) This post will be relatively short compared to my other ones! But first: April: April was a crappy month! We spent the whole month trapped inside our houses for quarantine and let me tell you: it sucks so much! It was usually the same-old same-old: I have two tutorial sessions a day, so two of my four groups see me on Mondays and Tuesdays and the others see me Wednesdays and Fridays. The students are always more than welcome to schedule extra time with me when necessary.  Fridays are reserved for Professional Development, as they were during the normal school year, and for Individual Student Check-Ins where we can choose to check in with whichever students we feel like need extra help, or just to chat, or maybe for an emotional pick-me-up.  I'm seeing my therapist through TeleTherapy once a week which is... interesting. She hates it almost as much as I do. I've been searching for Housin...

Hello! Welcome to another blogpost by me! #SorryNotSorry it's a month late! [Life sucks a little bit right now :)] Anyway. February: The month started off really well! I have this tradition that I've kept since my first Youth Group Super Bowl party in 6th grade, where I spend Superbowl Sunday with people that I really love. I got together with my friends Dianne & Jessica to watch the Superbowl and to dance to a little J'Lo and Shakira  I filed taxes ASAP. On February 8th we had an extra Emmaus meeting to prepare some elements of the weekend. It was a very nice intimate time with a few people on our Weekend #31 team. It was a little disappointing to see Community participation wavering, though.  Valentine's Day 2020 was a great day. I started off the day finding out that I was accepted into Southern CT State University's Master of Social Work program! My first acceptance to a graduate school was extremely uplifting and affirmed my abilities to be a...

Hello and Welcome back to my Blog! I hope everyone's 2020s are off to a great start. Before we dive into what this new series of blog posts is going to involve, I'd like to offer my usual overview of the past month: January I kicked off the new decade surrounded by love! Thank you to Liz J., Liz B., Mikey, and Rachel for being wonderful, supportive beings. Thank you for wanting me to be in your lives in this new decade. Thank you for being there for me. I love you so very much and am so thankful to have y'all in my life. The next day was my mom's birthday! We celebrated by going to Red36 for the first time and downing a couple dozen oysters between the two of us. I love sharing space, energy, and food with my mom and I'm glad that we were able to do that together.  I drove back to Great Oaks the night of the 2nd back to our "new" apartments. There was debris everywhere which was not great to return to, but y'know- if every porkchop were pe...

Hello & Look at this quick turn around in posts! If you haven't already, please read my last blog post released a few days ago: " The 2010s " This serves as an overview of the past decade and is very much connected to this post because of that. Anyhow, let's do a recap of the last month: December December is always an extremely emotional rollercoaster for me, and this year was not different.  The month started off with my 22nd birthday on the 2nd- as I've said in a previous post, transitions are oftentimes difficult periods for me. Something that was particularly difficult about them is establishing traditions with new people- for me, my birthday is always meant to be a celebration of life. After being at UVM for the past four years, and having a tradition I followed with that, it was weird to be in a completely different place with brand new people. Thankfully, I've found love among the people I work with and so I spent the day in love and commu...

Beinvenue to yet another blog post by yours truly! Thanks for tuning in:) As always, a brief overview of months previous (I just realized I did October two posts in a row? Yikes) November November started out with an Emmaus Weekend overview! I was asked to serve the team as Chief Aux, the person in charge of the schedule and time on the weekend, and so we went over the schedule for the whole weekend.  On November 15th, I decided to visit Fitch High School and see some teachers with my friend Rachel! It was really nice to be able to catch up with these teachers, share stories of the last 4 years, and reminisce about my time in high school  This was also the first day of Southeast Emmaus Weekend #30! My first weekend back on team as an adult was an amazing experience and I'm so glad to be able to be apart of the community in an active way again.  Directly after the weekend, the then-Assistant Rector, now-Rector for Emmaus #31 in March, Charlie Plungis, asked me to b...