Spelling correction: Thibodaux - and moving right along with 'the spring breakers'!

In my last post, turns out I was spelling 'Thibodaux' incorrectly - so my apologies for that :) And our busy week in Thibodaux ended swimmingly with a dinner for international students at my host Raj and Leena's house. Good food, good people and fun times. We played "Big Booty" for the longest period of time in the history of the game I think...we played so much that I had a bruise on my thigh from keeping the beat...oops! And Saturday morning on our way out to Florida I stopped by New Orleans to pick up my two hooligan children Makly and Teele before continuing on the journey. hehe

We are at that point in our journey - the point where homesickness creeps up on you. If you think about it...for six months, we sleep in a different bed every 2 or 3 nights, every time we want to take a shower or get dressed we must dig through a suitcase, you never know how long it will take to rinse your hair in the shower because of the differences in water pressure, each house has it's own noises at night wether it's the water heater or air conditioner or the ghosts of previous residents...There are just so many things you never think about at home, but become very noticeable when you are away from home for long enough. We discussed this as a group and realized we need to be there for each other more now than ever...

One helpful thing! We are now in Valparaiso, FL where the sun is shining, it's warm, and our week here is relatively free! We get to go to the beach and to a nature conservancy tomorrow...and we've been invited to go out on a boat to celebrate St. Patricks Day on Wednesday so that should be fun!

I find it amusing that the residents here in Florida use the term "spring breakers" to describe college kids here on vacation from other states. I have heard the phrase "They come in droves" or "the spring breakers are crazy" and it's just funny to hear kids basically my age described as a sort of different species. This is actually something working in our favor though because since we have almost the whole week off, we are looking for fun things to do, and because it is spring break for many universities, there is a lot going on down here in the sunshine state!

Boo on you American Health Care system. I am currently uninsured because I am no longer a student, I am not employed sull time, and I don't make nearly enough money to purchase insurance. I went to fill a perscription today and 28 pills cost me $44.00. If that isn't rediciulous, then I must be the only person out there who isn't a millionaire...and I know that is not true, therefore I have come to the justified conclusion that it is indeed rediculous. There were also two people in front of me in line who left their perscription at the counter because they were shocked by a price they just couldn't afford. Yes Obama, it is time for a change...so where is the change??, we have seen nothing yet. I know that the President is no where near soley responsible for dealing with our corrupted health care system - that is just something else that has been on my mind a lot lately...politicians who make promises they can't keep! ANYWAY....

As I mentioned before my friend Kareem (Kirky's boyfriend!) is safely home from being overseas with the Army Reserves! I am very happy and thankful for that...Welcome home Kareem!

I have another interesting story...that I'm afraid must remain an inside joke...but let's just say that I had an experience with the team the other day on our way to Florida that as Zuly would say, has proven angel's do exist...haha! Good for me!

Sunday was awesome here in Valparaiso...We perfomed at the Unitarian Church and then had a beautiful lunch at our new friend Elaina's house which is right on a bayou of the Gulf of Mexico!! It was gorgeous...and after that we went to a marina where there is restaraunt/bar. We spent the evening there...watched the sunset on the Gulf...ate good food...I tasted raw oysters, and they were gross (to me)...and we listened to some great, live rock and oldies music and we also performed including myself! I played drums and even sung a little bit :) As my momma would say "Go on with your bad self!". It was a great tropical night off complete with Landshark...Thank you Makly for driving! :) I would also like to thank my mom and dad. When the band was taking a break a woman came up to me and said "Young lady, I have been watching you and wondering, how do you know the words to every single one of these songs? I know some of them are 40 or more years old..." My musical knowledge can be attributed largely in part to the exposure to music my parents have given me from a very young age!! Plus, I LOVE oldies...let the good times roll!

The singers are performing right now...as I type...at the Mary Esther Library in Florida and I must go now because they are almost finished and we are going for dinner after this at Chilli's!

Best! Jackie

ps. I love the fact that my dad can text now - and the other day he sent me a text that said "love you JJ". I love this for a couple reasons...JJ are my initials and a nickname my Grandpa Dolan gave to me which I loved being called! That text just made me smile :-D

<3 JJ

Cajun Country

Life does exist south of New Orleans in Louisiana for those who thought otherwise - and a life rich with southern hospitality and history if I do say so myself. I did enjoy my two days off getting some personal stuff done - still didn't manage to get everything done though...like laundry, dun dun dunnnn - I'm afraid I may 'tomorrow' my way to no clean underwear. Eh, I'll do it tomorrow.

During Marcus' visit the singers and I had the pleasure of going on a tour of an old creole plantation here in Thibedoux, "The Laura Plantation". It is one of the oldest and best preserved creole plantations still standing and the tour was amazing! It is so eerie and interesting at the same time to know that you are standing in the bedroom for example of someone who lived such a such different life a couple hundred years ago. It makes me wonder "Is Laura herself listening right now and critiquing the way the tour guide describes her life?" The experience was extremely worthwhile and interesting! And being as many of these old plantations are right along the Mississippi River we also went on top of one of the levy's to take some photos of the river and watch some of the ships go by :) Each day it gets warmer and warmer for us...tomorrow the high is supposed to be 78, woo hoo!! It's really nice to be able to do these touristy, outdoor activities...makes me smile!

Today the singers did a performance at a music club meeting in a church and I took some time while I was waiting for them to look around at some of the old graves in a cemetery next door. I know what you're thinking..."depressing" - but in  Louisiana the cemeteries are above ground and I find them intriguing and quite frankly absolutely gorgeous. As I was walking around in there today I felt a wave of emotions. It's kind of comforting to see that families planned for their burial sites to be together and some grave sites have such inspirational quotes on them I love to read. This particular cemetery was especially interesting - some of the graves dated back to the 17 and 18 hundreds and we are in Thibedoux, LA and today I stumbled upon the resting place of THE Thibedoux family. For some reason this gave me chills - I am amazed and in love with preservation of history...I think that's why.  I also saw many graves of children who died in the 1800's...3, 6,7,12,16...very young children and it made me really sad. I saw one headstone of a 3 year old girl who died in 1980 whose parents are still alive and still visit her grave...how do I know? There were fresh flowers with a note card from them... Is it weird that I am completely intrigued by this cemetery? I don't know why, I was just drawn to it for some reason. I love the random things like this I get to experience and see because of having this job - these moments and experiences are irreplaceable and unforgettable and I am truly thankful for them!!

My favorite quote this week (so far) was from one of our hosts Angela. After the singers performed at a Rotary Club luncheon she commented after that she "loved the way Makly was keepin' the beat on his booty." Haha shake it boy, shake it like a Polaroid picture!!

I also ate real Indian food with my hosts Raj and Leena tonight, and it was delicious! I have been so good on the tour about trying foods I've never had before and I am glad because I have tried a lot of new things that I really like :) Yay...and we call that expansion of horizons...always a plus.

Another looong day for my team tomorrow so time for some shut eye now.

Peace, Love, and warm weather in March for the Michigan girl! ~Jackie

Jumpin' Jesus, hustlin' hunnies everywhere!

As our time in New Orleans has come to an end, we now have yet another experience under our belts we will never forget. We had such a busy schedule for the week, in the beginning we were worried we may not have a chance to see any of the city, but by the end of this last weekend, all was well ;)

The SOUL singers worked with the Symphony Chorus of New Orleans all week as well as area schools and a retirement home. Due I think partially to a packed schedule and partially to horrendous traffic and bad roads we were gone everyday of the week from 8am or earlier until 9pm or later aside from a couple breaks where we walked around town for a little while. The weather is now officially warmer for us!! Aside from one night where there was a huge rain storm with hurricane force winds....we had days in the 60's or higher and sun!! My point there is that although we didn't have a lot of time, it was nice to walk around outside a couple of times :) One of the days we had a break Teele and I were walking down the famed Bourbon Street when a guy from the doorway of a club shouted across the street "Ladies! Come on in, you know we love the hustlin' hunnies here..." WHAT does that even mean?! We found out later that apparently auditions for gentlemen's clubs take place in the afternoon and club employees try to recruit random people off the streets....oh dear. Aside from random outbursts downtown New Orleans is a beautiful place to walk around. The architecture is rich with history and detail, there are people everywhere out and about, everything is colorful, there are street performers and artists everywhere, and it seems there is a beautiful church or cathedral on every corner! I think this is one of those places you could visit 30 times and still find something new and unique every time you go. I personally am amazed the most I think by the street performers who are human statues...I could never be completely still in those contorted positions for hours at a time...hats off to you human statues!

There is a store in Jackson Square (basically the center of downtown) called Jackie's! I have a business card from there because it was all I could afford. I can't say I saw a single item in the store I did not like or wouldn't buy, and I can say that I also could not afford a single thing...$85 for a t-shirt is a little out of my recent graduate budget. Oh well. By Thursday night the whole team was ready to have a chance to go out on the town! I think this was partly the case because we discovered there are a lot of good people in New Orleans. Hence our new slogan: "We are Singles of United Lands developing international and cultural relationships through vOcal music from around the world!" Don't panic people - it's just an inside joke...that's not an inside joke anymore because I just told you.

SOUL had a concert Friday night with the Symphony Chorus of New Orleans and area school choirs that went really really well! The audience enjoyed themselves, SOUL received a standing ovation, the choirs sounded amazing together and I sold out of CD's! Woo Hoo...afterward was party time!! Let's just keep it at, we danced the night away...live music everywhere!! Salsa, reggae, jazz, rock, hip hop, anything you want!! We experienced people watching from the balcony's and the freedom of no such thing as open intox and no bar closing time :) (Ahem ahem attention Michigan law enforcement, please take note people can have fun without causing trouble even without ridiculous restrictions :)) We went out Friday night and didn't get home to our new friend Rehema's house until 6am on Saturday! We slept, woke up around 11, went home to eat and shower, and then headed back downtown for round two!! We saw some awesome street performers in Jackson Square and then ate dinner at Hard Rock Cafe...because well, how can you not? And as we spent most of Friday night on Frenchmen Street we decided to spend Saturday night on the Bourbon Street that everyone talks about, and I'm so glad we did!! We got to see a traditional New Orleans parade complete with TONS of people partying in the street, beads and flowers flying everywhere, loud music and lot's of dancing!! We then spent the rest of the night at a bar where a band was playing 80's rock which everyone loved being as we were all mostly children of the 80's :) we called it an early night at about 3am since we had to pack and drive the next day.

So in short, New Orleans was amazing however I have been a little frustrated lately. It amazes me that no matter how much you go above and beyond the call of duty people still don't appreciate you. My BIGGEST pet peeve throughout this tour has become people referring to me as "the driver". Driving is about one millionth of what I do as a Manager for this organization. When I hear those words it makes me want to bust out a spiel about how I graduated from two intense programs with a degree in two fields, with honors, in just 3 1/2 years and if I wanted to be "a driver" I wouldn't have busted my ass with two or three jobs at a time and more than a full course load at all times to put myself through college...I would just go work for a taxi company. My second pet peeve is people assuming that this job is easy, or that they could easily do it themselves...I would love to see anyone try. It's times like this where I have to keep one of my favorite quotes in mind:

"People are unreasonable, illogical, and self-centered..LOVE THEM ANYWAY, If you do good people will accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives..DO GOOD ANYWAY, If you are successful, you win false friends and true enemies..SUCCEED ANYWAY, The good you do will be forgotten tomorrow..DO GOOD ANYWAY, Honesty and frankness make you vulnerable..BE HONEST AND FRANK ANYWAY, What you spent years building may be destroyed overnight..BUILD ANYWAY, People really need help but may attack you if you help them..HELP PEOPLE ANYWAY, Give the world the best you have and you'll get kicked in the teeth..GIVE THE WORLD THE BEST YOU'VE GOT!"
+Mother Teresa+

SO on that note it's time for another "Kudos to Jackie session". The Michigan Association of Broadcasters award ceremony was held last week in Michigan and although I could not attend to receive my radio journalism award I am still happy, because I was informed that Moore Hall Television (the station where I was a news anchor this past year) was awarded Television Station of the Year! I now have two prestigious awards to be proud of and add to my resume! It's this kind of recognition that keeps me going in life and reminds me that hard work does pay off.

On a lighter note! I have been using the expression "Jumpin' Jesus!" a lot lately...especially in heavy traffic and one day Makly said "Mom, you should never use his name that way!" and I said "Even if he's jumping?!" *Uncontrollable Laughter*. So I decided I should share the story of where this expression comes from: I was in Las Vegas with my Grandpa and my parents...Dad is driving 70mph on the highway when Grandpa yells "JUMPIN' JESUS!! Pull over! Stop the car!" Dad swerves to the side of the road like a stunt man and everyone turns towards Grandpa to see whats wrong as he leaps out of the car...when he says "Get the camera!! LOOK at THAT moon!!! It's beautiful!". Oh dear. This was my Grandpa, and my very best friend, who passed away in August who I miss and think about every single day and I think using some of his famous expressions helps remind me of how happy he made me with his craziness! 

Speaking of family, I found out my cousin Emmy got a job as a packaging engineer at the Kellogg Company in K-Zoo, MI so congrats to you cuzzo!! So proud and happy for you! :) Annnnnd to my very dear friend Kristen whose boyfriend Kareem has been overseas with the Army Reserves for the past year...the wait is over girlie!!! I'm happy to announce that Kareem is scheduled to be coming home sometime this week - so happy for you Kirky, you did it and now your wait that seemed like it would be forever is almost over!!

As for me, I am feeling a lot better about things today because our boss Marcus showed up this morning in Thibedoux, LA to meet us and offer me two days off! He also thanked me and told me he knows I am doing an outstanding job with the team this year, so that made me feel good and I plan to spend my time off job searching for after the tour!

Peace, love, Chavista.   ~Jackie