Figuring it out....

Unlike my fellow bloggers, I actually do not yet know where I will be doing my service placement for the next year. Unlike LVC, the discerning of volunteer placements is one of the later steps in ESC and comes after we have picked out a city for the year. As of last night, I have a list of all of the potential work sites and jobs and, within the next couple of weeks, I will be figuring out exactly where I will be working next year.

This part of the discernment process is a little overwhelming, to say the least. In the next two days I have to rate my choices and write a little bit about why I preferenced the top two spots the way I did. I have papers with job descriptions and I've looked at websites of the organizations with which I might be paired; interviews will come next week. I feel a little bit like I did when I was back in high school trying to figure out what my program of study in college would be, with only a course catalog of descriptions to help me pick my future path. Back then, I had the luxury of being able to try things out for fit (and I sure did), but this is a little bit different. When I pick a work site in the next couple of weeks, that is what I'm doing for the next year. As fellow blogger Amanda pointed out to me the other day, this is the first time in our lives that we will ever have done something for a full year. Sure, I've gone through nearly two decades of school, but that's really only about nine months out of the year, and in college we change classes every semester. ESC (and LVC), on the other hand, are both about 52-53 weeks. It's hard to make a decision of what I am going to do every day for the next year when I don't know what the experience will be. While I realize that my life is about to drastically change, I really have no concept of what that will look like.

I have six potential work placements. Two of them are as teacher's aides in a couple of different school settings. One is as an employment specialist, helping clients find jobs. One is as a housing caseworker, helping find affordable low-income housing for a caseload of fifty different families. The last two are as prevention advocates at a HIV community center. Earlier today, I spent about three hours in Cup O Joe, a coffee shop near Capital, working on making pro/con lists and trying to discern if any one of these placements sounds better or worse than the others. Unfortunately, I've made little progress. The pros for one placement often seem to be pros for another, and the same goes for my list of cons. Right now I'm really wishing I was more proficient in Spanish; so many of the jobs list fluency in Spanish as a preferred skill but that is definitely one I do not have.

As I sit here and write this, there is a little bit of that ever present fear of the unknown in the back of my mind. I'm very sure that what I'm doing is the right thing for me. In fact, I don't know if I've ever been more sure of anything in my life, but it's really just a little unnerving to have no concept of what the next year holds. Since I've already taken the plunge, though, I guess it's time to start swimming.


Peace,
Jordan