A whole new world

Truth about blogging: the more days you go without blogging, the harder the blogging becomes.

Truth about life: the more you put ANYTHING off, the harder it becomes…unless we’re talking, like, eating a fruit. In the case of fruit-eating, the fruit might become SOFTER, due to rotting and nefarious invasion by THE REALLY ANNOYING FRUIT FLIES THAT LIVE IN MY KITCHEN SOMETIMES. I guess that still makes “eating the fruit” harder, because now it is the picture of gross and disgusting things, but the fruit itself has, in fact, softened. MY ANALOGY IS PRICELESS AND WORKABLE.

Other truth about blogging: "blogging" is a stupid word and I feel sort of dirty whenever I write it. I do. Dirty. Drrrrrty, Xtina style, even. That reference will never get old.

Despite the fact that the students don't arrive until Tuesday, this past week has been an exercise in things that are harder than they seem like they'll be. I can only imagine how hard our job, which we already anticipate rating fairly high on the difficulty scale, will prove to be.

Examples of things with unexpected difficulty levels:

• Visiting Colleges: For the last week or so, Mary and I have been spending our days traipsing around the Roanoke Valley area visiting local colleges and universities. Our mission - introduce ourselves and make solid contacts, tell schools what we're all about, learn what schools are all about. Learn where to send our students, and how we can get our students into these institutions. This is difficult and exhausting for several reasons. Firstly, this requires Being On All The Time for lots of hours, with travel time in between. Also, despite it seeming like an organic relationship to form, the relationship we're aiming for is actually a weird one. It's hard to not seem like we're some how either in an adversarial relationship or making a business deal. Lastly, absorbing facts and figures, along with "soft factors" quickly, efficiently, and while also trying to think of relevant questions to ask just becomes exhausting sooner than anticipated. By "sooner than anticipated" I mean "within moments." Dear College Guides: HOW I ENVY YOUR SUPPORT NETWORK.
• Telling People What Our Job Is: Under this category, really, fall several things. Thing one: convincing people that we do, in fact, work at their school. Thing two: convincing people that we are full-time employees, not interns. Thing three: convincing people that we do, indeed, have a niche distinct from (or, rather, taking over one of the burdens of) a normal guidance counselor. Thing four: convincing people that we work for Roanoke City, not any college. No, no, we graduated from UVa, but we're not with UVa. No...no, see, we're working for Roanoke City so that means we really report to the Central Administration office - but we're on-site to work directly with the students. Um, actually, we're not so much interns...
• Painting cinderblock walls: Our office/hole of despair and no return at one of the high schools we're working with, William Fleming, is a little dreary. Basically, Fleming is slated to be torn down in a year, and they've already started construction on the New, Shiny, Fancy School, so the Old Not Shiny School is being allowed to fall into even greater disrepair than might otherwise be the case. Our office is a rectangle with no windows and cinderblock walls and water leaking through the roof and the smell of mold and despair. Mary, being industrious, suggested that we paint the room (an action we got permission from the principal to undertake). Now, if you know Mary, you know "Mary blue" and you also know that the girl is the most understanding, amazing, loving, caring person you'll ever meet - but she's a stickler when it comes to room colors. Let's...let's just say that our room is now bright turquoise with some darker turquoise accent walls. Really, we had brightening, calming ideas in mind. Instead, managed to decorate our room MERMAID. Fo' serious. Also, painting cinderblock is HATEFUL AND DIFFICULT. We're planning on painting inspriational quotations on top of the darker green accent walls, in an effort to cover up the fact that it is impossible to get an even coat of that darn stuff. We, darlings, are obviously professionals. We're also going to sponge some of the darker turquoise over the lighter, in an effort to counteract the feeling of a 90s TV special.

As with most clouds, our painting not-exactly-debauchal has a few silverlinings. First of all - pretty much anything is better than drab cinder block, and once we stalk enough sales at Wal-Mart, we are confident we can get a $5 floor lamp or two into that room, too and we'll be in business. Also, as far as the people at Fleming are concerned, we're spunky. We're those girls with ideals too big for our britches who just came in an PAINTED THE WALLS, gosh darnit. We've also now begun the valauable process of making friends with the maitence crew. I think they think we're crazy, but in the cute way. If there's one thing that seems like a useful life-skill, it's most certainly making friends with the maitence crew - good job, us.

In short: this whole dealy has a few speed-bumps, but we do not intend to become deterred. We are strong. We are UVa women. We don't take no for an answer! We, yes we are the kind of women who can make mermaid walls work for us. Look out, students - we're getting ready to infuse you with idealism and energy.

Ready or not, difficult and exhausting tasks - we conquored hateful cinderblock walls already, we can take anything else down in our path too.