Life Outside of Work

I was looking over my past few entries and realized they are almost entirely about work. So obviously my job is very important to me and I have a lot to say about it, especially due to recent happenings. However in this post I will try to avoid the subject. But just in case you were wondering, the past week went pretty well. Thursday was a little crazy, but that's life at Americana. I do miss my former coworkers though :( And I think the kids still like me although they aren't a big fan of our "new" after-school schedule. Ok I'm done. Let's move on...

So here are some fun things I've done recently:
-Andrea, Emily, and I took our "little sisters" to a baseball game last week: the Louisville Bats vs. the Columbus Clippers. I wasn't sure who to cheer for! (not that we watched most of the game, we spent a considerable amount of time at the playground). I believe this was my first baseball game outside of Bluffton games. It was a good time, and by the way the tickets were free. That's one perk of Big Brothers/Big Sisters - free tickets. This Wednesday we are taking our sisters to "Champions on Ice". I am very excited about this because I still love figure skating and many of the skaters from the recent Olympics will be there. Tickets cost around $40, and we are going for free!
-We finally started working on our garden plot this past week. Our friend Emily came over and helped me get the ground ready. We had fun trying to figure out how to use a tiller. Gardening is hard work! I definitely got some exercise, and also hurt my back. We are now attempting to grow mint, carrots, and spinach. We will plant more soon.
-We saw this season's final play at Actors Theatre Thursday night. It was an excellent show. One of my favorites. It was called "Crowns" and it was fabulous! So I pretty much saw every single play they had this season, except all the ones in the Humana Festival (I only saw three). And all for free. If you do the math, it would be hundreds of dollars in tickets. I am very sad that there will be no more plays to attend, until next season that is. But no Ben next season. Alisa and I need to make friends with another apprentice or become ushers or something to score more free ticekts.

And I guess that brings me to this announcement...It's official, I will be staying in Louisville after the program is done in August. Alisa will also be staying (she has a great job with a jeweler here and wants to contiune with it). And I will be attending the Kent School of Social Work at the University of Louisville. It is a two year program. I finally got my acceptance letter after sending my college transcript three times. Now I am working on getting a practicum set up for the first year, and I finished my scholarship applications last week. I hope to get something. But even in the worst case scenario that I am offered no financial aid, the school is relatively cheap (especially since I can be considered a Kentucky resident).

Alisa and I are almost 100% sure where we will be living after mid August. The director of our program, Susan, casually mentioned a few weeks ago that she rents a three bedroom apartment attatched to her house. We had no idea! She would like to know the people living above her, and it would be nice to personally know our landlord. She has a great house in Old Louisville, a cool part of town which is right down the road from the U o f L campus (I could walk). It is a pretty nice apartment, with our own deck! So this makes things extremely easy for us. I wasn't looking forward to trying to find a place to live. And the rent is a pretty good deal: $350 a month including utilities. Now how I am going to pay for that rent I am not sure yet, but I'll worry about that later. And it looks like we will have our friend Dan as a third housemate, who we know from chuch. So things are just working themselves out. It seems almost too easy! I think some of my friends and my family are a little bummed I am not returning to Columbus, but I am really not that far. And I still see them pretty often. But I do miss them.

Oh yeah, what else has been going on lately? The Derby! The amount of hype that leads to this two minute race is truly insane/ridiculous. But the two week celebration is finally over. After the air show, fireworks, hot air balloon races, steamboat races, a huge parade, marathons, parties, etc., Derby season is now over. I should mention several of my housemates, including me, got out of work early because of Derby festivities. Friday evening we had some of the youth over from our church for a Derby Party. We played ultimate frisbee and Apples to Apples. It was a fun time. Then I headed to another Derby/birthday/Cinco de Mayo party. And yesterday was the Derby. I think this justifies another post....