The start of a busy week

eck. I have been meaning to upload.

There are quite a few things happening in the next few weeks here.

Tomorrow I leave to help lead Quest, the Mitty junior retreat. I am very much looking forward to this. For a third time in my life, this retreat is coming at an excellent time. I am paired with a student senior leader from the campus ministry group. He sent me an email yesterday with a little bit about himself and a "Motroni was never clear on how I should address you... Ms. Bevilacqua? Lauren? A Nickname?"

Lauren works, but I told him he could call me anything but ma'am. :)

He sounds like a great kid and reminds me of a couple of kids that I went to school with.

I'm giving the Introduction and "what is a retreat" talk like right after the students get there and get settled. I'm excited. I've had many retreat experiences although none were like my first retreat. I'm going to talk about that and a little about my life when I was at Mitty and a little bit of my life now. At the end, I'm giving them two challenges for the weekend-- you know ways that could choose to use their time.

1. Listen. I think truly listening can be a difficult task. I'm always thinking about 27 different things and am prone to missing important details or waiting for the entire story. Listening is an important part of my work too as a therapist. But I think its important in a retreat environment too.

2. Get real. There's this show on MTV (and I'm embarrassed to admit that I've watched numerous episodes) where these people go to high schools and facilitate Challenge days. The point of challenge day is to challenge the students to see beyond the labels they give each other and the labels they take on personally. And in 30 minutes, the kids realize they have more similarities than differences despite the roles they play and the masks they wear. The challenge for the retreat is to take the risk to get a little real over the weekend.

I've been thinking a lot about what I am going to say and what points I absolutely need to make. But I think that these two sum it up.

And they are going to help me move forward next week too.

I'm taking a risk and I'm going out to Las Vegas for a job interview next week. I get to observe some sessions and interact with one of the therapists there to demonstrate my skill-set and see if this place is a good fit for me.

Dad is coming too. He's excited. He got a deal on one night at a hotel on the strip plus 2 show tickets. It was a great deal. I'm coming home the next day (after sitting in on a class that the executive director of the agency is teaching). I guess I'll know if LV is the kind of move I want to make as soon as I get there. We will see.

So I better look alive, listen and maybe take a few risks.

Now I have to get out of bed and eat something. I'm thinking Los Pericos. Its been awhile since I've had a burrito. I can actually open my mouth wide enough to take medium sized bites. Its definite progress. Oh Yeah- Wisdom teeth-- everything is fine. I'm feeling 0 pain now and can chew food even! Its been very exciting.

Gearing up for ravioli season.... Holly... that's your invitation!

Oh yeah... and Go Giants!