The City of Brotherly Love

I have finally arrived in Philadelphia. My journey started about two weeks ago with a train ride to Chicago from East Lansing for the start of my orientation with the Lasallian Volunteers (LV). I am spending the next year of my life living in community with two other volunteers and also three Christian Brothers. We share our lives and serve in schools in various capacities. I will be serving in a school counselor's office at a Catholic School in Philadelphia. I am excited for the year to start but also nervous about all the new experiences coming my way. You can learn more about the volunteers at http://www.lasallianvolunteers.org/

I was in Chicago for a little over a week meeting all the other volunteers serving around the country (48 in total), learning about the Lasallian mission, and also receiving training about the many new things I will be experiencing this year. We left Chicago for Philadelphia on Monday, August 6th barely making our flight at Midway Airport. A smaller group of us were then hosted at La Salle University in Philadelphia for four more days of training called New Teachers Institute (NTI). Needless to say, I think I am as prepared as I can be for anything coming my way this year.

Now for the more interesting info. I had my first authentic Philly Cheesesteak on Monday. It was better than I imagined. A group of us went to Reading terminal (pronounced Redding) which is basically a huge market with all sorts of food and delis. It can be a bit overwhelming at first, but we all knew we wanted a cheesesteak so we headed there first. After lunch, we made a quick stop by City Hall and the Liberty Bell. I plan to do a much more thorough tour in the next year, but not all the volunteers I was with are staying in Philadelphia so we wanted to see as much as possible.

I am now moved into my community and slowly getting settled in. I live in Philadelphia but the neighborhood we live in is called Manayunk. You can check out the website at http://www.manayunk.com. My community is called the Christian Brother's Spiritual Center. It is pretty laid back right now because both myself and the other volunteers don't start working at our schools for two more weeks and the Brothers are all mostly on a break or vacation. It is a huge place so sometimes you don't even know if other people are in the house. One of the other volunteers, Denis, was kind enough to help me move my furniture around. I don't think he would have volunteered if he knew what he was getting into. I wanted to move into a different room, but to do that we had to take a wardrobe completely apart on top of moving everything else. I spent one night in the room and decided I liked the other one better. Needless to say, we had to take the whole wardrobe apart again and move everything back. I am definitely going to have to make it up to him....

I am also training for the Chicago Marathon on October 7th right now. Denis was kind enough to accompany me on my 15 mile run this weekend. He rode one of the Brother's bikes and carried water for me. It was a great way to see part of Philadelphia. Manayunk is about 6 miles from Center City Philadelphia and a beautiful running path takes you right downtown and past the famous Art Museum steps (cmon Rocky Fans). I didn't run up the steps at that point but I will get around to it at some point probably with Collin and Lisa. I am training for the marathon with about 20 other volunteers, alum volunteers, and other supporters of the LV program. We are trying to raise $26,200 (catchy huh) as a group for the LV program. All the money raised goes towards supporting the program and recruiting more volunteers. Individually my goal is $1,000. If you would like to support me, please by all means let me know.

I was only slightly successful looking for a church to go to this morning. I was successful in that I found a church but I was one of only 8 people in attendance and probably the only person under the age of 50 maybe even 60. It was a good start but I am not sure I will be attending there anymore.

I am hoping to get a digital camera soon so I can post pictures on here for all of you to see. I will try and write weekly so check back for more posts.