My Words Biloxi Bluez

STONY POINT

Bawo,
Katie P

NYC 4

Bawo,

Katie P

NYC Day 3

Pretty chill day. Kind of did my solo thing and walked and thought after training. Today our US-2 executive mad me feel more easy about my placement she may not know but she did. It was made more clear that although we may plan our lives God laughs and directs you where you need to go. Along my walk i decided to just hit record on my camera and blindly record just for fun New York is full of different people. I think I'm becoming more ready for my journey to Biloxi

Bawo,

Katie P

NYC NightZ

    So i really don't know how to feel about this tonight i left my Hostel around 10:30pm to go to the corner store to get something to drink. As I walked up 101st Street to the store I saw 5 kids playing on the stoop  lil 3yr old maybe jumping off the stairs....my first thoughts were aww, then wait where there parents? why are they out at almost 11pm? I guess maybe working nights and big sister maybe 11-12yrs old was in charge of here 3 toddler siblings and 8-9yr old brother. As the girl called out " Come on kids lets go!"..... So young and much responsibility.

I walk further down and there's a group of people shaking their hair dancing and laughing.... few steps to the next stoop all i hear is a woman say "Really on my F@*!king white shirt" I could only assume the woman on the stoop with her placed her foot on her back due to the fact she had her leg up when I was walking by.

    Now as I returned walking down 101st Street towards Broadway I see a ways  down the block a young girl has a boy by his collar and is throwing blow after blow after blow....I pick up my pace to go attempt to break it up but by the time i got a little close the girl had dropped him and took off running with the other 6 kids who were there. Now a women who was dressed in a suggestive way showing more than enough of her chest gives the boy a hug he smiles and takes off like nothing happened. I get closer to see there are two grown women standing by what just occurred and they did nothing they're concern was more on lighting their cigs half wondering where their kids where.

    My thoughts were WTH....are they running some type of kids fight club? Is this how African-Amricans  choose to display themselves? We want Justice but don't care to demonstrate peace. Is this how people see me? Back to my "Where are their Parents?"They may not know parents if they are the people i saw today too many kids are forced into being their own example and mimic the violence and lack of common sense they see. Do Better ! Do Better! because I'm tired of being seen by media and society as Black, Loud, and Ignorant and the actions I saw tonight don't help me

     I admit my thoughts going through my head as I picked up the pace to break up the kids wait there's a lot of them if they are fighting just to fight they could fight me, if their parents see me separating them they may think i'm laying hands on their kids and try to lay hands on me.... I thank God, He broke it up before I got there because I surely would have hated to be on NYC New in the morning. NYC people of a different breed but please Do Better because you're a reflection of me.

Bawo,

Katie P

"I Am" Immigration

We took our pics for the site today hopefully mine came out ok. Ran into Tom Cruise too jk it was just Our Suave US-2 Jack
We were asked in the Immigration portion of training to write a poem about where we were from/ who we are

I AM

I Am from the driest sand of the mountains

I Am from the love of man and woman

I Am from the land of the presumed free side of the border

I Am from double standards

I Am from Chocolate Irish

I Am from struggle and pain

I Am from triumph and joy

I Am from unexpected but much anticipated

I Am from privilege I am from you and from me

But most importantly 

I Am from God and there will never be another Me

I Am

Amen Bawo,

Katie

NYC Day 2

Today was a much better day still a little slow in trainings I think sitting in the same room for so long sucksa lot of my energy...And a tad said housekeeping stole my SUNNY D smh i was looking forward to it too.. I know I'm not as bad as the west coast people but im still adjusting with my Texas hour behind NYC bc when my alarm went off at 6am it def felt like 5am....but at night I feel like it still early when in reality I need to be in the bed. At times I still feel unqualified but the people here are welcoming and starting to make me feel more qualified.....

Today after training I kind of wanted to walk by myself and do my loner thing but by one of the people's body language and tone she seemed like she didn't want to ride the train alone so I rode with her. She turned out to be pretty cool. This program is allowing to connect and mingle with people I normally wouldn't and im grateful for that. Im also grateful the Mediterranean Dinner was delightfully better than last nights nasty Ethiopian dinner... I had falafel for the first time it wasnt the best I would preferred a sweeter dipping sauce it really just tasted like a eclectic hush puppy.

Tonight me and some of the candidates went down to TIME SQUARE it was cool crowded but still fun still mad at the almost $6 ice cream cone at Scoop R Us that looked like a sample. Little sad I forgot to get my CHEESECAKE like diddy but I do have 3wks.

Bawo,

Katie P.

Day 1 NYC Training

 Day started off low everyone knows how i am about my time and my flight was delayed, but due to plane crashing into bridge in NYC yesterday and flight traffic. I must say I felt slightly unqualified to be here seeing that most of the people here are in or finished Seminary or have traveled overseas for other missions already. I wanted to pack my stuff and roll out ..... But it helped that I found another US-2 that understood where i was coming from with my concerns about my placement. Because every time I tell someone what i was placed for they're like "Oh Cool" and in my head I'm like "Wanna Trade?" Because now it's not so much Biloxi because I've accepted it not to be such a bad place. It is truly POLICY and LEGISLATIVE work. I've never been the pencil pusher, research thus and that type of worker I'm more Kinetic and action based. And I'm afraid since I bore quickly and am already not excited about my position i don't want to grow resentful especially with this being a 2 year commitment. I definitely don't want to appear ungrateful for what doors have been opened for me, but I do wish I was more excited about my placement maybe time will help. I do feel this job and mission will put a high stressor on my relationship for my time will be primarily consumed with research seeing that it takes me several reads to fully comprehend the subject. We talked about letting go of some things that may limit your service and oddly i had a similar dream. Although I do not want to let go, I'm gonna have to pray and really figure out what will be best because I like my comfort zones but am working on becoming comfortable with the uncomfortable

Bawo,

Katie P

My dude got me to the Hotel after my frustrations of  not being  able to find my group

Tried something different Ethiopian food not my favorite  but it was free so I'm thankful for that

Where I will be residing for the next 4 days.....Everything is small i realized how "privileged" I may be....Elevator small , beds small, community bathroom small, ect

Just missed statue of liberty in this pic but I realized in my head i thought i was a lot larger actually its pretty small to me and we weren't even that high in the sky and it still looked smaller

Duke!

Rolling Thunder

Biloxi Sky is pretty dope

Bawo,

Katie P

As I Prepare To Get MY Life

I'm sitting here at Lakeview Conference Center with Perkins Youth School Theology and my thoughts are WOW this is the last year of PYST before it transforms into FAITH CALLS. But more on my mind is next week I start my journey, July 23, 2013 I will be leaving for NYC for 3wks of training to be commissioned as a MISSIONARY (like official as a whistle I'll be Katie the Missionary)...... Ask me 5yrs ago would I have ever ever ever saw myself as a missionary I'd say "HECK NO" I just knew I'd be working for some athletic department or professional team utilizing my degree. And I believe that is what truly scares the CRAP out of me I'm leaving TEXAS, friends, LOVES and my life behind to go embark on this new journey and come to find out it in POLICY and LEGISLATIVE work the subjects and things I avoided with a passion I really was like WTH were they thinking when they picked my placement honestly I'm still working on embracing it because I don't want to be ungrateful for the doors that have been opened for me. I will definitely miss my ANSC CF family because i love the community we built together but as well who will I have way in Biloxi, MS to push me to embrace the suck , God knows I still am on this weight loss journey and don't want to get stuck in lazy ( which I have been this last week)....I'll definitely miss the people and opportunities PYST has given me over the past 10yrs. Without PYST I would have never met the AMAZINGLY GREAT DEVASTATING DIVA Tonya B! who is truly blessed and gifted in all she does and without Tonya B I would not have met my long lost sister LAcie Presidential Jefferson.....anyways back to my new journey hopefully everything works out and these 2yrs fly by I'll probaly love it and not want to leave come July 2015, we shall see.

    So I'll be in prayer, in hope, in faith, and in the moment so that I may get whatever blessings are in store for me as i embark on this journey

Bawo,

Katie P