Better Than Rectum

Beeee Teee Arrrr'!
It was fantastic! Three days without blogging was kind of weird, I strangely enough missed blogging. It's definitely different than journaling or poem-ing.
My top moments from the last three days:
4. I had an awesome phone call with my dad this evening. It was nice catching up with someone from home, even if he is closer to Texas currently than he is to IL. My dad and I are not big phone talkers, so this was a big deal.


3. We went to this beautiful river and it was the absolute perfect temperature. We jumped from high up cliffs and swam with fishes. The sun began to set and it the absolutely most perfect place in the world to do backstroke. An amazing blue sky, no sun glare glinting in my retinas, just me and the world and the water. It was amazingly cool. I LOVE NATURE.

2. We did something called the privilege line, which I had done before, but had added up the tally and then gotten into a line instead of physically taking steps forward. The line itself was powerful but my group's debrief was absolutely amazing.  People shared some immensely personal things and I was absolutely inspired by the powerful stories people shared. I also felt some awesome emotions, things I did not expect and things that were welcome and unwelcome. I felt so comfortable in that environment and everyone else seemed to feel comfortable as well. Usually debriefs are kind of silly and seem unnecessary after a certain point in my mind, but this one was amazing and so deep.

1. At the end of the trip, our very last team activities was doing appreciations. We sectioned off the corps members into four groups and we all sat in four corners of the pavilion. Three fourths of us would sit with our eyes closed and as two of the TL's read off statements such as "Tap a person who you think will change the world" and "Tap someone who you've had an awesome conversation with", one fourth of the group would go around and tap people with their eyes closed. It is hard to describe just how appreciated I felt, it was amazing. The breeze was blowing in my hair and across the top of my skin. I was lying on a beautiful cold wooden floor and I felt so at peace. This is the feeling I want to hold onto for the rest of my time at City Year, the amazing feeling of being appreciated, feeling that everyone has the capacity to change the world, and being so at peace with myself and the place I've decided to spend my time.

Hero of these days: Herbert E. Butt, for generously letting CY use the campground for free! Also having an amazing acronym that if you say fast enough sounds an awful lot like itchy butt. Just saying... But I love me some HE Butt