Volunteering

It's been over a month since I last posted here. My 1-year anniversary at my workplace has come and gone and I had plans for a grand 1-year retrospective entry, but never got it together. Rather than procrastinating my next entry by failing at putting that entry together, I thought I'd just post now that I have something relevant on my mind. Maybe I'll do an 18-month retrospective later on instead. No matter, here's the entry.....

I've lived in a small town for over a year now. Actually 13 months and 1 day (not that I'm counting). I can't remember if I've named the town before, so I'll just leave it nameless. Anyway, this town doesn't offer a lot to me aside from a fantastic workplace. I love what I do, so I do it 40 hours out of every week, and then I spend weeknights willing away the time before bed, and weekends in Toronto, enjoying what a metropolis has to offer - friends, action, things to do.

However, all work and no fun (weekends excluded) make me a dull girl. More than that, after 13 months, it's really taken its toll. It's hard to see the joy in life when you go from 8 hours at work to 8 hours at home to 8 hours of sleep - rinse, repeat. It sounds pretty depressing, right? And I'm not depressed! I'm a positive, optimistic person, but that is deteriorating with this small town life. And it's not the small town's fault - it's mine!

Back at Laurier (this is Life After WLU after all), activity was easy to find. You could find it with your friends (who were everywhere), in your student house/apartment, in the pubs and bars, and most definitely on campus. There were dozens of opportunities to do stuff - whether it was being holed up in the library "studying" while actually catching up on mtv.ca, hanging out in the Terrace, working at your on-campus student job, or - my favourite pastime - volunteering. I can't remember what the exact statistic is, but isn't it true that Laurier has one of the highest student involvement rates out of Canada's universities? And isn't Laurier one of the only universities that actually interviews for its volunteer positions because they are in such high demand? I held 5+ volunteer positions while at WLU. In fact, I was doing volunteer work more than I was in class, I'm pretty sure. I loved it!!! It wasn't just to pad my resume, it was my social life and where I learned and experienced all sorts of new stuff.

I lived, worked, ate, hung out, volunteered, and went to class all on one city block. Now that I've transported to another city town, I realize that the plethora of easy-access volunteer opportunities doesn't exist here. They don't just jump out at you. It's not that they're not there, but you have to look. I took that for granted while at Laurier, but that doesn't mean that it's not worth looking for now that I'm here.

So - did I waste 13 months? Maybe in some ways, but not entirely. Plus, I can't look back and get frustrated with myself over what I haven't done. What I can do is look forward and see what I can do now. So - I'm going to volunteer! I've found my first opportunity and I'm dropping my application off today. I'll keep you posted!