I got a Job!

Hello Friends,

Major life update. I have a job! I will continue to live at work in New York City. I am soooo happy!!!

The dets:

Starting Monday, August 12, I will be working at The Henry Street Settlement as a Volunteer Program Associate. About two months after I start, my supervisor will be going on maternity leave, and I will be running the program. I am really looking forward to this growing opportunity.

This is what the place looks like:

It is located on the Lower East Side in the heart of China Town (cheap dumplings for lunch--say what??) about two miles from Menno House.

My last day at CFY is August 7.

I will continue to live at Menno House, and enjoy living in the city!

Thank you all for your thoughts and prayers throughout this year of MVS, and for your continued thoughts and prayers as I transition to my new role.

Blessings,

Allison

Matilda

I had a wonderful surprise Tuesday afternoon! Mica Yoder, a friend from church, won the lottery for cheap tickets to see Matilda the Musical, and invited me along as her guest. The Yoders have been great supporters of MVSers, and tonight was no exception, since they paid my ticket. A full time volunteer couldn’t ask for anything more! A great show, great company, and it was FREE!

This week has been stressful for me with waiting for jobs to call, and all the anxiety that goes along with it. Tuesday was particularly difficult, so when Mica called, I was THRILLED to go to Broadway. Nothing like an inspirational story complete with cute kids, singing and choreography to turn your day around!

The show was fantastic! I would highly recommend it to anyone. The set and costumes looked like they came straight out of Roald Dahl’s imagination. The actors were stellar (Gabriel Elbert, Mr. Wormwood, won the Tony for Best Performance by an Actor in a Featured Role in a Musical), and the atmosphere was great. A perfect pick-me-up.

Check out the medley from the Tony’s here for a taste of the show :)

Potluck with Penington

So there's a Quaker version of Menno House. Who knew? It's called Penington Friends House, and it's literally a couple blocks away from Menno House.

Penington is similar to Menno House in that it is both a guest house, and residence for long term residents. However, it has 25 residential rooms (much more than Menno House!), and two guest rooms. Once I realized Menno House had a counterpart, I decided to reach out to them. I wanted to meet some new people, and see how their experience was living in intentional community.

It was great! The residents were extremely hospitable and generous. Even though there are around 20 or so residents, there were about 6 people from Penington that came to dinner. It worked out well, because there were three people from Menno House, and one of them was my friend Monica from college who was just visiting! I was glad they didn't overwhelm us!

Unlike Menno House, their residents are very diverse in age. I saw a resident in grade school, all the way up to residents in their 70's. It was great to see how a house works when there is more age diversity than the young 20-something-year-olds at Menno House. What a breadth of experience the residents at Penington have! 

I talked mostly to three residents. One had moved to the city a couple years ago from Denver to be a full-time Grandpa to his grandchildren in Harlem. In his youth, he was a CO in Vietnam during the war. He had a lot of stories to tell! Another resident is an opera singer who regularly sings at Grace Church. The third resident is a retired film director for PBS. During her time, she was the only female director at PBS, and one of four female film directors in the country. While I was only with them a brief time, I was blown away at the amazing experiences and wisdom they had to share. I hope to meet with them again!

Hopefully once things settle down at Menno House, we can return the hospitality!

Leah's Last Week

Transitions have began at the house. Leah Yoder was the first resident to move out. She is a close friend of mine, and we miss her. She is home in Oregon for a couple of weeks, before she moves to Guatemala for the summer.

I was lucky enough to spend some time with her before she left. I took Wednesday off to go to the Bronx Zoo with her. Obviously this was an excellent choice.

We spent several hours meandering around the zoo, being extremely glad we had no children in tow! Although, for those of you who know Leah, she can be a wild child...

Our favorite animals were the puffins and the monkeys. Amazingly, the puffins had the exact same dynamics as our house. There was a Godswill puffin, a Leah puffin, a Katie puffin, the list goes on. We watched them act out our house dynamics in puffin form. So funny!

The monkeys were adorable. Of course. See?

On Sunday, Leah, Katie and I went to Coney Island. Not as great as you would think. If you don't have $100 to burn, it's not really worth your time. We hung out on the beach, and enjoyed the sights, sounds, and smells of Coney Island. Including Viking Hat karaoke!

It was great to hang-out on the beach :)

On Monday, I helped her haul her boxes to USPS for shipping. To congratulate ourselves on a job well done, we did what any American citizen would do: consume our weight in stuffed French toast from IHOP. Obviously. Leah loves her processed, terrible for you foods, and on occasion, I appreciate them as well! Oh IHOP. Where would this nation be without you?

Job Hunting in NYC, or why "Oy Ve" is my new favorite saying

A couple months ago, I decided I wanted to stay another year in the city, and work. CFY is not an option, considering the second round of lay-offs they did, so I have been pursuing other options. CFY has been GREAT about it, though. People are giving me advice on job search, they are connecting me to people, and are editing my resume. It's great!

Even so, it can still be exhausting. No wonder the unemployment rate in this city is 9%! It is discouraging, tiring, and makes you question your competence. Despite the set-backs, I had a group interview two weeks ago. It was bizarre. There were 18 of us, and we split up into groups of three. They asked us interview questions, and we interviewed each other while the staff circled around and listened to our conversations. So. Weird.

I must have done something right, because I got a second interview! I had my second interview on Monday. I thought it went well. I found out on Thursday night, that I was not offered the final interview, which means I was not offered the position.

While I'm a bit disappointed, I am also a bit relieved. The job itself wasn't exactly what I wanted. They also wanted me to start earlier than I was ready to do. I'm a bit nervous that I won't get a job, but I keep telling myself the worst case scenario is that I go home at the end of my term.

Through this experience, I got to practice my interview skills, and see what interviewing in NYC is like.

I have some more leads. The national director of Human Resources at CFY used to work at the Robin Hood Foundation, which is one of the largest foundations in the city, and they fund really cool non-profits. Through my connection, I think I can at least get some introductions.

Also, on Friday, CFY had a guest speaker who talked about her professional journey. I talked with her afterwards about my job search. She was impressed with my tenacity, and that I moved from Kansas. She asked that I send over my resume, and she would start sending it out to people :)

Fingers Crossed!!!

My Week on Broadway

Ok. I was never on Broadway. Just to make that clear. I did however see a backstage tour and two shows all in the same week!! It was amazing.

Here's the context for it.

A few weeks ago, Laura Dueckman and her friend Ellery Penner visited Katie and me. Laura and Ellery had met while doing SALT (Service and Learning Together) in Indonesia. Laura and I went to school together at Bethel, and Ellery and Katie had gone to school together at University of Waterloo. Crazy Mennonite World! It was great to see Laura again, and talk Bethel College with her :) The other delightful outcome of seeing them was we got to take a backstage tour of the Lion King!!

It just so happened that Ellery and Laura went to see the Lion King, and when Ellery opened the playbill, she realized her good friend Patrick was playing Scar. Crazy right? She and Patrick had worked together as wait staff in Waterloo. She knew he was playing Scar on tour in Indonesia, but was surprised to see him on stage in NYC. She e-mailed him that night, and he offered her and her friends a back stage tour. It was wonderful!

We went on a Tuesday night. It was surprisingly less glamorous than I was expecting. I always had this idea that Broadway stars were larger than life, living it up, and somehow straddling reality and the world within the show. Spoiler alert: It's not.

We started with his dressing room. He shares the space with the actor who plays Zazoo. The dressing room was about the size of the box at the mods. I can't imagine two people sharing that, plus dressers and make-up artists! Click here to see Patrick undergo the transformation into Scar.

He then took us on stage. It was so cool to see the house from the stage perspective. He said they have triples of everything in case things break on stage. He showed us where all three Zazoos are stored across backstage. Crazy!

My biggest take away was theater is an artform. It seems silly that I didn't realize this until now, but it is. As he was showing us all of the props, and explaining all the optical illusions, I realized that the magic of theater is all in my head. Because I want to escape into the world of the Lion King so badly, I don't see the feathers falling off the costume, or notice how the lights make the optical illusions so I believe that Mufasa really has come down from the sky to talk to Simba.

It definitely changed how I view theater.

I had the next day off, so I decided to treat myself to The Last Five Years. I love the music, and I was so excited to see it! You can listen to my favorite song, The Schmuel Song, here. I loved it. I was surprised at how it was produced. It was literally just the sound track, only acted out. It was still wonderful :)

I decided since I was in Times Square anyway, I would try for the Book of Mormon lottery. I had tried over 10 times already, and I was completely indifferent to winning. I think my indifference made the difference. I won!!!!

Katie and I went together, and for the first act, we were in the box seats. For the second half, we sat in THE FRONT ROW!! We  had saved up our educational / recreational money to see the show, so we saw it for free :) My favorite song, Turn It Off, can be found here. We were so close, we could see the sweat falling from their faces!

It was especially interesting to watch it after seeing the Lion King backstage tour. I couldn't believe that for the actors, that was work. It looked exhausting! But after the show, all of them were genuinely joyful. I was glad it wasn't my job!

It was great week!

Christ is risen indeed!

Hello dear friends,

I hope you all had a blessed Easter holiday. My Easter was full. Full of reflection, of food, of reconnecting, of setting-up, or tearing down...the list goes on. I am thankful for the wonderful time I had with gathered friends, and am thankful for the rest that comes with the end of a holiday :)

I took Good Friday off, so that I could participate in the Pax Christi Stations of the Cross. Each year Manhattan Mennonite Fellowship leads a station in the prayer walk, and the MVSers provide the reflection and prayers. Our Good Friday reflections and prayer were featured in the April 1st issue of The Mennonite.

It was an interesting experience. I'm still not quite sure how I feel about it. Katie and I arrived about half an hour before our scheduled station, so we took part in the march. As we were marching from one station to the next in midtown, we passed a woman who appeared to be homeless arguing with who appeared to be her pimp. I want to be clear that this is my perception of the exchange. It very well may have been something completely different. I walked past her. I didn't offer to help. I felt very strange about that decision. As a collection of 100 followers of Christ, isn't it our job to stop and ensure her safety and well-being? Yet I didn't see anyone stop to offer assistance. Again, my eyes were just one pair of many. Maybe someone did help, and I missed it. I felt like the Levite or the Pharisee in Jesus' Good Samaritan story. This is something I continue to struggle with in the city: responding to the destitute need I see on the streets. Reconciling my own wealth and privilege, to that of my friends, co-workers, clients, and passerbys. 

Our station was number 11, Jesus is nailed to the cross. We were asked to reflect on nonviolence. The location for the station was Times Square, right next to the Recruitment post, in the heart of Times Square. It was very odd. Katie and I stood on top of a flat-bed pick-up truck, and addressed a crowd of about 100 people. Because it was Times Square, tourists were everywhere. I am sure my picture was taken at least 100 times, and I made it into several videos. I felt more like a spectacle than a speaker.

Katie and I at the station

MMF folks came out to support us!

I spent the rest of Friday and all of Saturday reconnecting with friends I haven't seen in a while. I have been very lucky to make strong friendships in the city both within Menno House and outside it. I am thankful for a job where I work the expected 40 a week, and then have evenings and weekends free to spend time with friends.

On Sunday, I woke up to Katie and her boy friend Josh making Easter breakfast: waffles, fruit, and coffee. It was wonderful.

After an hour or so, Sara and Laura got back from church, and they made their own Easter brunch. Yay me for getting second breakfast :)

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They made deeeee-licious eggs benedict, mimosas, and a berry salad. Leah read us the story of resurrection from the Gospel according to John, and we had a wonderful celebration of the day, and each other's company and phenomenal cooking abilities :)

I signed up to decorate the church for Easter. During Lent, "Longing for Light" was our theme song. We purposefully had no candles. It was my job to light up the worship space for Easter to celebrate. How do you think I did?