Shed Life

Figuring out my new life here in Tucson has been tough. I don’t think its overly cocky to say that I’m doing a pretty good job of getting by, and being patient, and making the best of things, but despite that it's still tough. There are many things about these early days that are interrelating and obviously affect the other aspects of my life so I’m not sure which to put first. But basically this whole episode is going to be one of complaining, whining, or general expression of looking forward to better things. 

Most generally, its tough not knowing people, or not being near those you do. I’m just under an hour bike ride from the MVSers, especially if I don't want to show up sweaty and gross. So hanging out with them has proven to be a weekly event reserved for the weekends. Unless of course they’re in Mexico at the beach. Then I just get jealous. To add to the jealousy... My more regular readers will remember Derek my mountain biking friend, he’s a great guy. Expect that he too is in Mexico enjoying the beach with some friends.

But hey! I’m good at entertaining myself. I went mountain biking on Saturday (more on that further down), cruised around downtown and played darts with some random dude at a bar on Friday and went to church on Sunday. So I would be misleading my dear reader if I were to imply that social connections were my only concern. 

Its also tough when what's supposed to be a balmy sunny paradise, is actually cold windy and wet! Well... at least its colder, windyer, and wetter than I thought it would be. But its not like I'm unprepared. I've got enough clothing, bedding, etc. but it can’t be denied that this cooler weather has a way of encouraging indoor activities; activities that make it harder to go meet new people, that make it harder to visit those I do, or even just entertain myself with the grand outdoor adventuring I normally go in search of.
Of course, it really should be said that the weather isn't all that bad. The majority of my time it has been fine and pleasant. My particular current disdain for it stems from the bitter and strong winds that led me to take the bus home from church on Sunday and stay cooped up in my hovel watching a poor quality pirated version of The Godfather, and some West Wing.

Then there's the dogs! I used to like dogs. Along two sides of this property are dogs that get very close to driving me berserk. Their vehement and continuous! barking means that I generally avoid being seen outside, even with nice weather, to clip my nails, or change my tires, or read my book. And it's not just my neighbor dogs. I've gone jogging a time or two. The whole way down the street my movement can be audibly tracked from the resounding aggression of these beasts who are seemingly bent on tearing my apart.

And so, I often find myself working on figuring out how to make this stupid 8x8 box of a home of mine as livable as possible. Since the acquisition of my rice cooker and electric skillet, my food prep capabilities have dramatically improved.

BACON!

However, despite such wonderful conveniences I am still nearly constantly left pining for such simple things as counter space. Or a chopping knife (I have been checking goodwill regularly btw). Or a real fridge! Mine is so small I can only fit the bare essentials in it. Milk, cheese, bacon, salad dressing, maybe a few vegetables, maybe some spaghetti sauce, or an open can of beans.

ANYWAAAAY... I think I'm done being childish, churlish and cantankerous for now. 

In other news I have restarted the housing hunt. Just this morning I visited one place that seems pretty great, except for the price tag. rent is $410 (utilities included). That compared to my current $150 would take some getting used to. There is another place a bit further away for a much more manageable $260, but it would be sharing an apartment with a young couple and I can imagine that getting kinda weird. We shall see. I hope to meet them soon.


More excitingly, the mountain bike ride on Saturday. It was super gnarly. This is same loop that I did with Derek the week previous, but this time I took a left instead of a right and that kept me on the trail and off the road a bit longer. It was a harrowing descent full of large drop offs and sharp corners. These pictures are two view of the same scene hopefully demonstrating the 90 degree nature of this corner. In a couple cases I had to pop up on the front wheel and swing the back around just to take the corner. In other cases I just jumped off to avoid tumbling into a sharp rocks and even sharper thorns.

Brakes, Housing, Work and Biking!

I bled my brakes early this past week. It was a fun time. Getting bubbles out of brake fluid sucks. Otherwise though its great and makes for awesome braking power! unless of course... you contaminate the pads. In which all the sqeezing in the world doesn't do much. After spending much of the week lamenting the cost in both time and energy required of these marvelous pieces of cycling engineering and getting myself mentally prepared to maybe spend even more! I have come to find that my brakes seem to starting to work again... its really weird. But hey, I'm happy!!

In housing news, I might be moving out of the shed here in a bit. I found a guy on craigslist who needs help with his rent (even though its a one bedroom house) so I'll be taking the living room and we'll set up curtains or something to make it a regular ol' room! The guy seems like a cool dude and it'll be nice to have a kitchen right there with real sized burners and a full sized fridge and counter space and silverware utensils and pots and pans! and a bathroom!  Anyway, I think it'll be well worth the ~$80 bump in rent.

Work... I probably actually should say too much, especially not out here in the interwebs. I mostly just want to complain about slow progress and the difficulties of starting a new program. There's a lot that needs done although too often I've found myself with nothing to do!

Most interestingly though! I finally went mountain biking! My newest biking buddy Derek and I went out to the Tucson Mountain park and did some good old fashioned exploring. Although it took more time than it should've, we eventually realized that hiking our bikes straight up the side of a steep slope with loose gravel and cacti attacking us was a sign that we were not on the right course any more. Once we corrected our ways we tore off! Although soon the thrill of the ride proved too much as Derek ended up trying to eat the handlebars. Which, as it turns out, is a bad idea. Three stitches on the lip will help us keep that in mind. But, between a busted a lip and some bruises on his part and a flat tire on mine I think we can call that first short foray into desert mountain a relative success. especially when compared to not biking at all!

Once again, I find myself sadly apologizing for the lack of pictures. I guess this edition is one of the boring ones. I'll do better next time.

The Hobbit Hole

Well I’ve found a place! Its cozy and rent is good. Well, rent is good relative to my other options. For what I’m getting its just ok. 

I’m living in a shed. Its a 10’ by 10’ (roughly) room in the back ‘yard’ of Sergio, my coworker’s, place. I say yard with ‘ ‘ around it because its not a nice green grassy space that I can lay a blanket out on and read. In fact there hardly are any such spaces out here. 

But getting back to the topic at hand, my little hobbit hole really isn't bad. I've got a pretty cool mini fridge, in fact its a Google fridge. I also have my tiny little camp stove that I use for cooking oatmeal or pasta, or whatever else I might want to cook next!  Sergio is also great with leaving the door open and letting me in to use the bathroom or shower when ever I need.

In addition to the procedural (although sometimes interesting) details of life, the more important and weighty issue of moving across the country has been finding people and making connections. In this realm the MVSers have been a real blessing. Getting to spend Sunday afternoon learning how to play hearts, and then teaching them how to play Jungle Speed was a blast. Then watching the Superbowl and getting really worked up about putting together a puzzle really did wonders for my mood.

In addition to doing some great social activities this weekend I also got a chance to skype with my amazing sister who is learning difficult and poignant truths about the plight of the Palestinian peoples and about the beautiful humanity that still manages to push through it all like the desert plants that show resiliency in the times of glaring sun and high temperatures but yet burst forth in life with the rejuvenating rains.

Hearing from Nicole is always great, but I must say that being so thoroughly immersed in the historic and current suffering of the region must be heart breaking and at times overwhelming. Hearing about it second hand is hard enough. Hearing about it from those involved (let alone actually being involved) in the conflict or experiencing repercussions of it is hard to imagine at this point. But the CrossCultural  seems to be a good way to go through it all so I'm pretty sure she can handle it!

The Tucsons

And so it was with these weighty topics in mind that I embarked on a lovely of bike ride through the Tucson Mountains. It was Saturday afternoon and the weather was just oh so pleasant. So, in all the splendor of work clothes (I had been hoping to put interrupter brakes on my new road bike) I took off on a ~30 mile adventure that wound up some gentle but impressive slopes leading to some remarkable descents and views!

In other news, work should prove interesting this week. Especially in relation to last weeks overwhelming feeling of lack of progress. This week we plan to present to highschool students about our program and maybe even go as far as to recruit some interest. Furthermore, our order of bike tools is scheduled to arrive which will be much like Christmas. Only better because it wont be as cold. My work, though, is focused much more on curriculum. One of major projects for the week is to get demonstration bike parts; gathering various types of brakes, a couple of hubs, headsets, etc. It’ll be fun, and hopefully I can keep myself on track and not be distracted by the other bike repair projects going on all around the shop!

This is a bike path in the shape of a snake. Its a lot of fun to ride through it nohands.

More of the Tucsons.

Some assembly required.

Although this phrase was first being thrown around in reference to the work tables we were putting together to make our bike shop a bike shop, it now far too accurately, describes the whole program.

Our goal is to get the first round of students (probably about three of them) going by February 15. At this point we've got a bunch of bikes, which is great! the only problem being that they are all working great because we used them to practice our own bike savyness. Which, I must add, I have some reservations about. Especially since I seem to be the relative bike mechanic expert. Despite the fact that even when I am feeling cocky, I would not call myself an expert. 

But, hey! we can totally teach highschoolers about bike maintenance! so. moving on. In order to do so there needs to be highschoolers to teach. That was the presiding topic of conversation today. So far it looks like we'll have to wait till next week for opportunities to get to speak in some highschool homerooms, and also wait till next week to share in the group counseling session that takes place next door to the shop. 

Then, going back to our smoothly running fleet of nice road bikes that working too well... we need to get some donations! So come on people! send me your old bikes! But seriously. That needs to get happening, whether it be from Goodwill or Salvation Army or the police department. The only problem is, word has come down to us from on high that we are to let our bossman take the lead on that so as to have one identifiable and responsible voice when dealing with donors or the public at large.

Then we also need to figure out how on earth this freakin program is going run anyways! It'll be an after-school thing thats a given. How many times a week will we run? How many hours a day? How much material can we cover? And on and on. It kinda makes my head hurt. So I'm going to move on to more exciting news. Like moving!

I'm going to be living in a shed!!! the real excitement comes when I think about how much I'm saving on rent!  Instead of paying $350 a month to live in a house/ apartment with ready access to toilet and shower and stove and refrigerator and cooking supplies and internet and a living room, I'll be paying $150 a month! That means there is an extra $200 in my monthly budget that I can put towards making up for the lack of all those above mentioned amenities. Thats a LOT of beer money! (see: definition #1)

Also, apologies for the lack of photos. I'm working on doing better. We'll get a good documenting of the job site, the shed site, and Tucson site up here before too I should hope. In the meantime enjoy the surprised kitten. You can never get enough of the surprised kitten:

On starting a new life

Its a pretty crazy thing, starting a new life.
First of all: a place to stay! For that I have to give a huge shout out to Ali Wood and Scott from CHRPA for letting me stay at Ali's house for a bit until I find something more permanent. With out this to hold me over, I'd be stuck on some strangers couch or something.
Then its nice to have a job. Got mine on friday! It took a couple of days being anxious and simply waiting and biking around (read: twiddling my thumbs) but it happened! The interview was Friday morning and by the afternoon, on my way to get a library card, I got the call that said I got a job. And today was my first day! (but more on that later, first there's more about starting a new life!)
Next, its back to the living situation. I'm now in the process of finding a good place to live! I think I've got a pretty good chance with this one group of out there hippies. They seem like an interesting group, especially the older couple who owns the place, and it seemed like they liked me. Not to mention its right smack dab between and next to downtown and my work. And on top of that rent is quite reasonable at $300 including utilities. But I'm getting carried away.
Now there's the bike issue. Since the mountain bike was left here as a relic of my traveling days of ohsolong ago, I do have some transportation and have been using it exclusively and thoroughly. But it is not meant for what I am making it do. The poor thing is just longing for some trail; the fork is simply begging to be left un-locked out for more than 30 seconds when I bump down some stairs! And so a road bike is in order. Evidently there might be one available to me for cheap through my work  :-) but we'll see, it might be being saved for one of the disadvantaged youth we will be working with...
Then, finally, as all the practicalities are being finalized or at least have some potential solutions its time to think about those other needs higher up on the pyramid. Thank God for church. Shalom Mennonite was great. Super welcoming and helpful. Even offering to help keep their eyes open for potential housing opportunities. Then on Monday I met more people at an MLK event that I went to for work. I hung with with Kendra and Danny who work for Habitat for humanity and some other random fun folks.
And so, although the whole meeting new people thing is going pretty well so far I still have a long way to go in the 'making of friends' section of starting a new life. And although it is of course crucial to meet new people to make those friends it can also be a bit overwhelming. Frankly, I think I might be getting tired of all this newness.

Winds of Change

These past few weeks have been just crazy! At one point I was thinking about hanging out in Harrisonburg and maybe finding some temp work until March.
Then, there was hope of working for this bike program. Then there was a week or so of making chili and hiking  and hair pulling and thumb twiddling.
Then I began losing hope and started dreaming instead, for an epic Central America trip with Austin Martin!
The next day hope was revived for the job in Tucson, I sent some emails, placed some calls and so now here I am; I have an interview on Friday and am in the Harrisburg airport waiting for my flight to Phoenix!
Its a crazy time, this stage of life. Or more specifically: this stage of my life. Its easy for me to think of this (likely) move to Tucson as a period of stability. But then I am reminded of friends who have jobs and communities. People who will have these jobs for years! and suddenly my AmeriCorps position of 8 months is short again. And so its nice, that reminder; even if I'm not constantly wringing my hands over where I'll be in a week or two its not like I've given up on my adventuring potential. It just means that I have more time to plan the next trip!
Who's up for a bus trip through Panama!?
At very least I'm excited to be reunited with my mountain bike!!!

Home is whenever I'm with you

Its just that you're all 'you'. Which means Home is pretty much anywhere!
Being back in Lancaster was really great. Mom and Dad are just awesome. High speed ping pong games with Dad and left hang games with Mom were great fun (not quite this fun, but still fun). Beating Dad in chess three games in a row was surprising (not quite as surprising as this, but still surprising).
I was a bit disappointed about not getting to spend more time with the extended family but luckily cousins Collin and Shay were able to come over to play one day and I was able to make it to the Groff's Christmas gathering, and cousin Steph's wedding.
Getting to see how everyone is growing up was very interesting and helped put my own experiences in perspective. Collin and Shay are getting to be big kids and great siblings. I loved watching them interact through Sorry and as we wrote a collective story about a bunny.
Also Lancaster City is pretty cool! Thankfully Taylor and Austin and Thia all came up from Harrisonburg/ Chambersburg, and Emma came down from Pittsburgh and Melanie and Allison were around too, all for New Years. We got to watch the Rose Drop, some great fireworks, and generally just have a grand time in this great little city!
And then being back in Harrisonburg! I really do like this cozy little apartment and its great inhabitants (although there is only one of them at this point.) Today we went hiking; Matt, David and I had a blast smashing through snow and going all around Hone Quarry.
In other news, I have no idea whether I'll be here or in Tucson two weeks from now. I might be moving to Tucson on the 15th to "help to establish and maintain a solvent non-profit micro-enterprise that refurbishes and sells bicycles to low-income community members at cost." Or I might be chilling here in Harrisonburg for a month until there is space for me at some volunteer housing that CHRPA is connected with. Or there is also a chance that I might go back to Tucson on the 15th and just chill there for a month. Maybe hitch hike to a beach in SoCal and hang loose there for a month. I think I'd make a great beach bum...
But for now I'm just sitting here twiddling my thumbs and hoping to hear back from people as soon as possible!