Michigan Bound

So on Tuesday I am bound for Grand Rapids, MI. I will be working with a NGO called Women at Risk International, aka WAR Int''l. I am really excited to get out there and start this summer internship! I really want to take full advantage of where I will be living. I am going to be in great hiking, biking, camping, boating area! I have a friend who should be coming up this summer and I think we are going to do a grand camping trip one weekend! Also I have the joy of looking forward to Denver, CO and Cody, WY in early August. I am excited! I think I will also take a weekend to go hang out in Chi-town! I want to go see the Hull House, the first home for women and children in the USA. It was like the initial start of social work in the States! I cannot wait! I am a huge fan of Chicago. I have been many times, last being a road trip my freshman year of college in Jan 2009. So that is the next group of traveling I plan on doing. A possible trip to LA is being planned for October! So many places to go, see, explore!

< at Niagara Falls, NY, after our road trip to Toronto, Canada!

Transitions and convictions

Today I finished my junior year of my undergraduate work. I only have 12 months until I will be called to walk across a stage and accept my diploma. That is amazing to me. I honestly can't believe time has flown so fast! In the past 3 years at Union, I have:
1. Been a president of a student organization
2. Lived and studied abroad in Florence, Itlay
3. Lived in Tennessee, Ohio, and soon to be Michigan
4. Had a job, quite a job, still have job
5. Had internships with Druggies, Alcoholics, and soon to be prostitutes and slaves
6. I am applying to graduate school.

The list can truely keep going! And I still have a year here!

Not only that, but today I went and saw the movie "Something Borrowed", and then as I came back from a movie that I originally didn't think was that bad, read my old friends blog about movies and what we choose to put into ourselves. I watched a movie that was about cheating, sleeping around, searching and finding what YOU want, not caring much about others in those situations. It was really convicting. I just paid 5.50 to watch sin. And then I wonder why I feel so down in the dumps afterwards. No duh Kate! Its because you just spent and hour and a half watching sin. Just a revelation I was brought to today. Gonna be considering the movies I go to much more carefully now.

Me in Greystone, Ireland in the fall of 2009

2 weeks to go, until WAR

I offically have 2 weeks, 14 days, until I will be finished with my third year of college. I am overwhelmed with work, but eager for summer to come! I am going to yet another place for my summer. I will add living in Grand Rapids, MI to my list. My list so far looks like this:

- AFB, MA
- Dayton, OH
-Jackson, TN
- Millersburg, OH
- Florence, Italy
- and now Grand Rapids, MI!

I enjoy adding to this list. I qualify it by if I have lived in that place for over 2 months. 1 month to me is still considered short term, you don't know the place well enough, but after 2-3 months, you start to know your city and really live in it. I know some people who qualify where they have lived by living there at least 6 months. Maybe I will change to that standard later, but I really think it takes at least a summer, 2 months, to call a place one of your "homes".

Where was I last? Lousiville, KY. Where will I be next? St. Louis, MO.

When I was in London, in March.

So question to think about: Where should I go to grad school, asssuming I get into all of them?

1. Univ. of Denver

2. Washington Univ. in St. Louis

3. Univ. of Washington, Seattle

4. Univ. of Penn.