A Fall of Firsts

It’s officially fall.

If the changing tree colours weren’t enough to tip off everybody here in Chicago, the highs of about 10 degrees C this week should do it (50 F for all you Yankees). And as I started to pull out all of my sweaters to deal with the new chill, it finally hit me – I’m really not at school this year. I know, I know, for most people that realization would have come back in September, but I guess it took the important changes that come with the fall season – the weather, the acceptability of eating pumpkin pie, and the start of the hockey season, of course – to really enforce the fact that I’m starting my post-college life. It’s the first fall I’ve worked full-time, the first fall in 4 years that I haven’t had a mid-term menacingly creeping up on me, and the first fall in about 15 years that I haven’t been training for hockey season. Needless to say, a lot of changes at once.

That being said, those changes have already brought about some great experiences. I’m on my third month of work at the Better Boys Foundation, an out-of-school program that works with youth in the North Lawndale area of Chicago. We provide typical after-school services such as mentoring and tutoring, but are also home to an awesome and unique apprenticeship program for the older participants. To avoid an epically long and detailed post I think I’ll leave the full explanation of the program for next time, but suffice to say the kids are happy and actually eager to work in their apprenticeship field. It’s nice to see. My official job title is ‘Volunteer Coordinator’, but in the last month or so I’ve been segueing into the development side of things to work in Agency Marketing and Communications. There’s been somewhat of a learning curve that has come with the transition, but it’s good to have a few challenges thrown my way from time to time. The most frustrating part so far has been mastering the waiting game, since a lot of my tasks seem to depend on outside processing. In particular, the processing times for our volunteer’s background checks have been less than reliable (aka extremely long), and it's left most of my volunteer recruitment efforts at a standstill. I guess that would be a lesson in itself – I’m here for a whole year, and I need to resist the urge to get instant results and satisfaction. The impact I want to make may take a while.

Outside of work, the city itself has been great. Really. I love it. Now that I feel more settled with work and my apartment I’m trying to take more time to explore, to find my favourite places before it gets too snowy, and to work on remembering how to find and make new friends (yes, after college you have to go out and make friends, they don’t magically live next to you anymore. Very tragic). Will I eventually hang out with more than just my roommate? Will I find my token “spot” in a coffee shop or bar that I frequent like all cool movie and tv character seem to do? Will I be able to survive not just the fall but a whole year of firsts?

I guess I'll let you know!