Lost

In Detroit.
No, sorry readers, this is not some juicy gossip about the hit show Lost nor the main hotties Jack Shephard or Desmond. This is a story of me being lost in Detroit. I wish I could say it was the first time, but I got lost going to and coming from the Death Cab for Cutie concert, the Tigers game and now a Reach Detroit meeting. My social work field placement for is with REACH Detroit. It is a program that works to prevent diabetes and increase the quality if life for Hispanics and African Americans living in Southwest and East Detroit. The program just got new NIH funding and was having a big meeting at which I was supposed to help.

I recently became very comfortable getting around Ann Arbor-which is a feat within itself because people out here don't even know what the grid system is. Now I have to start over with Detroit. A place I will have been going more frequently as of late.

At this point you may be saying why did you not use Mapquest or Google maps. Well I actually had two set of directions. Google maps sent my to a vacant lot not the high tech health care facility One Ford Place that I was looking for. So then I tried to figure it out from my other instructions and the other ones had got me so lost that those did not help either. After driving through down Detroit too scared to ask anyone directions and having mental breakdown in my car, I called my friend Carissa. She promptly saved the day via telephone guiding me to a place in Detroit from her office in Ann Arbor.

Needless to say I got the meeting almost an hour late feeling very angry and sheepish. However, as I sat and pondered on what had happened, gained some perspective and chilled I was able to be congenial again. Lesson learned, technology is all about leading you to vacant lots (thanks google maps) and friends rock. Thanks Carissa!

The only picture I have is Carissa is her Facebook profile with Gogol Bordello. Hope you don't mind Carissa:)

Youth Conference

This last week I spent 2 days with more than 500 teenagers. It was a little insane, but also a lot of fun. It was a 4-stake youth conference put on by the church. They wanted to make it into a mini EFY so they held it at a university campus and I was assigned to be the leader of a group of 9 girls. Our group's name was Hope. I was originally assigned to Diligence but my male counterpart's wife who is 5 months pregnant went into the hospital so I was assigned to her girls instead; so there were 9 girl, 5 boys and 2 counselors.
Although I was a little wary going into it and very physically wary when it was over I had a great time. I have never been part of something like this as a leader. I am usually the receiver of activities not the one doer of the activities. In a group of 15 people, especially teenagers, you always worry about people not getting along. I felt very blessed in this that no one had any personality conflicts and we all stuck together pretty well. One of my favorite parts of the weekend was when some very "tough" guys were crying like a baby as they recounted their experience over the last two days.
While I will not be volunteering to be an EFY counselor in the future this experience was really great and instilled some "hope" in me that the future generations are not all going to pot.
I don't have the picture of our whole group yet but here are a few I took:

Tigers and Strawberries!

This weekend was full of things you do for pure nostalgic reasons. I went to a Detroit Tigers game and went strawberry picking. Before the game we went to Slow BBQ an awesome place and I ate this sandwich called the yardbird Yum! Some of you might recognize it from my facebook profile.
The Tigers game had all the elements to make it nostalgic: rain delay followed by wonderful weather; fight on the field that cleared the bull pen; home team win; and fireworks.

I actually took this picture above you can't even tell. I have mastered the self take.

Strawberry picking was probably more nostalgic for the families but my roommate, Amy, and I had fun. There were little kids running around with baskets and the sun was shining. We got all of the strawberries pictured below for less than $10.

The not so nostalgic part followed when I spent 8 hours working on a paper that is still not done. Argh!

DCFC

These are really badly taken pictures but I have to document my Death Cab for Cutie concert. The concert itself was awesome the annoying drunk girl across the aisle was not. I finally bought my first concert t-shirt. I have had other people buy me shirts-thanks for the They Might be Giants shirt Dad, and my Shins shirt is from an X-boyfriend. But this shirt I bought on my very own. Here are the pictures. Even though you can't see Ben Gibbard or Mark Walla the different colors are awesome. Bet you didn't know I was in the band:)

Well Kept Secret

Northern Michigan is a well kept secret from the rest of the US. It is amazingly beautiful there and has all the great feelings of small town America. I am sure it has all the not so great feelings too but I wasn't there long enough to find out. Memorial Day weekend I went camping with some friends at Young State Park on Lake Charlevoix. We also went into the town of Charlevoix with is located just on the outlet of Lake Charlevoix to Lake Michigan. Here are some pictures below documenting my adventures.


Chalevoix's Best Sandwich. There was a really nice guy at this shop who helped us order and let us look as his groups sandwiches' to help us make our decision.
Eating the Charlevoix's Best Sandwich

Original Murdick's Shop in Charlevoix and me holding the prized peanut butter chocolate fudge that managed to make it presence in almost ever meal thereafter.

Ferry on the way to church. At first we thought American Voice Jane (GPS) was trying to kill us in lake but luckily there was a ferry to rescue us.

We were an anomaly in our camp ground. Not just because we went to church but we were the only ones without a camper. One of the ward members gave everyone member a flower for memorial day.

Chillin on the Beach by the campsite

Look out over Sleeping Bear Sand Dunes