Hello again everybody! Today’s date is September 22nd and I thought I’d do an update post to talk about what I’ve been doing. I’ve officially been living in NYC for over a month now, which is really weird to think about.
During that time, I’ve tried to do a speedrun of all the big NYC monuments. In my last post I mentioned the 9/11 memorial and going to Queens for the first time, but since then I’ve been busy. I’ve done both more sightseeing and officially beginning my service job for the year! First I’ll mention the sightseeing. I’ve been down to lower Manhattan a few times now, either to meet up with my new boss, go to a new church, or to make it to Central Park. Having a city skyline surround me is not something I’ve ever done before, and it’s pretty neat. There’s always police sirens going off, and of course so many people everywhere. When I went to the other boroughs for the first time, I was also struck with the crazy differences between things like local architecture and other socio-economic changes. Since my apartment is right on the border between Upper West Manhattan and Harlem you can see a lot of those just by looking up and down the street. Different populations of the city have such changes of culture, all in a space that’s as big as my hometown.
I also started my volunteer position for the year! Instead of working with the group that I expected to I ended up getting to work with the World Student Christian Federation (WSCF). You can read all about them at their website, but I’ve been doing a lot of assistant work to make sure all the gears are greased behind the scenes. For example, this past week I’ve been helping to print and send out acknowledgement letters to all the donors that the program has received in the last year. I’ve also been reorganizing and managing their donor database, along with actually getting to edit that same website I just linked up there. It takes a little bit of getting used to a hybrid schedule, as all of this work is done on my computer, but I’ve been enjoying how my schedule has been set up.
I’ve done a couple other things that I’ll try to rapid fire here at the bottom. I got to play with and join a cribbage group at my apartment complex, which led to me getting to go to an apartment building downtown a few weeks later to play with the same group which was really nice. My last roommate moved in, so the three of us YAV mates are all just chilling together and getting along well, which is good. We’ve had a couple community days now too, where our site coordinator meets with all of us and we get to talk about our weeks and other things that we’ve done. Another group I’ve gotten to join is the Village Campus Ministry bible study group, which is a Christian group made for all the colleges in the area of my apartment like Columbia University. My boss suggested I went to the meetups since it was a good opportunity both because of my age and the connection to college ministry, and it did turn out to be a fun choice! Every Monday now I get to go hang out and eat with some of the college students in the area.
I think that’s most of the things I’ve been up to! Have a great day, and I’ll see you later.
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