World Festival Fun

The highlight of my weekend was the Americana World Festival, simply because this was really all I did. I haven't been feeling my best lately (what a surprise huh?) so I decided to take it easy this weekend. Instead of going to parties and concerts, I stayed at home, ate some queso, and watched some Buffy, which worked for me. My main issue is that my neck has been hurting so much lately, as in it hurts to move it - actually it just hurts, no matter what position I am in. I am not quite sure what has caused this. Abby Mo will be happy to hear I plan on going to a chiropractor. But my first step is visiting the campus health center tomorrow so I can be referred to one. Along with neck pain, it is simply that time of year when having seasonal allergies is not fun. I still drink Benadryl straight from the bottle, in case you were wondering.

Back to the World Festival. Louisville had a World Fest downtown a couple week ago, but this past Saturday was Americana Community Center's version and it was a good time. I was there for about nine hours, part of the time working, part of the time just hanging out and enjoying the festivities. The festival was located at a shopping center close to the community center. As of the day after Labor Day, I have officially been working at Americana for a year. So last year, I was very new at the time of the festival. I enjoyed it much more this year as a "seasoned" employee. My first duty of the day was to ride the trolley and show the driver the route and encourage people to hop on and come to the festival. This was the first year we had a planned route and stops. The trolley went through the two apartment complexes most of the kids live in, so that was fun. I posted a picture of Beha on the trolley. The kids really enjoyed this form of transportation and were amazed that it was free. Later in the afternoon I sat at the Americana booth for a couple of hours, where I mainly entertained kids who wanted to sit with me in the shade. It was a very hot day. I also enjoyed the various entertainment (Spanish dancers, African dancers, belly dancers with snakes, salsa bands, etc.) I was going to post more pictures, but Blogger does not want to right now. Maybe later. I danced to salsa music with the kids for about an hour which was a lot of fun. It was a great opportunity to simply have fun with the kids. My housemates came to the festival in the evening. Dan and I enjoyed some Bosnian food. Alisa did not join us for food because she was catching up with an old friend. Ok if you are skimming, read this following story because it is one of those insane, wow what a small world things. So Alisa spent three months in Cuba while she was attending Goshen College and made some really good friends there. One of them told her he loved her the night before she left and she assumed she would never see him again. Guess who taps her on the shoulder at the world festival and says, "hey don't I know you?" Yep. This guy. His family won the Visa lottery in Cuba two months ago (which does not have good odds). And where is he placed? Louisville, Kentucky. In Americana Apartments to be exact. So naturally he attended the Americana World Festival. As does Alisa since her housemate works there. She is orginally from Goshen, IN so he was obviously not expecting to see her there. Isn't that one of the craziest things you have heard?? So yeah, he is going to hang out with us Wednesday night at the BBC (where we gather weekly) and I am looking forward to getting to know him. After spending about nine hours at the festival, I went home exhausted.

Other than not feeling my best, things are going well. I have settled into a routine and am used to the new schedule. I do not feel too overwhelmed with school work yet, that will come later. Work is still stressful - so not much has changed there. As I have said, we really need to hire some new people. Guess who was put in charge of writing the job descriptions and posting job ads? Me. Something a manager would normally do, but I do everything now :) Actually I felt quite powerful deciding what skills and responsibilities these new people will have. Oh, and this just tops everything off - so we did have one position filled - basically the coordinator between all the different aspects of the youth programs (and we pretty much built the structure around her - she is awesome) and guess what - she's quitting! I'm not sure when yet. I don't even know if she'll be here this week. Guess I'll find out tomorrow! And that's not all, the associate director of the Center will also be out for three weeks (which is one reason I am writing job descriptions). It is due to family issues, so I completely understand why she will be gone - but it will make things even harder for awhile. This person is also my practicum superivsor (who I meet with weekly and go to for advice) She has been very helpful. While she is out, Edgardo is going to be my supervisor. I know they have completely different styles so I will have to get used to this. So those are the updates at Americana. Wow, I can't wait to go into work tomorrow!