A month in purgatory

As some of you know I'm applying for a volunteer job in San Diego working as an advocate for victims of sexual assualt and/or domestic violence. Sounds like a party doesn't it? Since I wasn't one of those over-acheiver types at BYU I need to get all the extra stuff I can to bulk up my grad school applications. This was one of the things BYU specifically cited as impressive experience. I couldn't find anything like it in Orange County, except for a suicide hotline, but that was through some born again church that wanted me to make a statement about the nature of the Godhead being some strange mass or some other abstract concept. So obviously that wasn't going to work. Then I found this place in San Diego, and though to be perfectly honest my desire to go with a transgender, or prison inmate to have a forensic evaluation conducted following a rape is somewhat limited, I figure if it's not a good time, it's a good story. The other option is that I can go on a six hour ride-along with a police officer, to assist with any domestic violence cases he gets called out on, and go to whatever other crime scene he gets assigned to. It's a toss up which one is more tempting. Either way though, I really want to go to grad school, and if I could ever convince BYU to take me back...well, I wouldn't mind that so much either. I BRTed with the lady in charge for a bit, and she pretty much told me that I'm good to go. I just have to complete the training, pass the background test, and then I can get started.

Let me rewind for a moment. I feel like I'm leaving out an interesting story in here. Tonight was the volunteer information night. The woman in charge had us all go around introduce ourselves, and share some irrelevant information about why we're interested in volunteering. It was all kind of dull until we got to a lady in the back who launched into her life story. She told us all that she's looking to volunteer as a way to forgive herself for creating domestic violence in her home, and now her 19 year old daughter refuses to speak to her. She understands why, but it's been four years since she was a substance abuser, and now she's totally clean... she went on like that for quite a while. I really have a lot of admiration for people who can get clean, overcome their demons, and make something of themselves. I'm just not sure why we all needed to be privy to that information only 2 seconds after she introduced herself. Fascinating what long-term drug use can do to a person's inhibitions, or at least I think that's what I causes it. Based on the speech that immediately followed from the lady in charge, about how we shouldn't be volunteering as a means of healing from some personal trauma of our own...well should be interesting to see if they keep that one around...

So here's the part where the rubber kind of meets the road, and I had to have a little chat with myself on the way home about this. I am going to have to be in San Diego from 5:30pm-9:30pm, every Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday (except memorial day), and Saturday from 8:30am-5pm for the entire month of May. I decided that this is the point where I have to decide if I'm in or out, and determine how committed to this little plan I really am. How bad do I want to go to grad school, and how bad do I want to have an even half-decent shot at getting back into the Y By the time I got home I'd already made up my mind, I have to do what it takes to make this happen. It's one month of my life. I can do this, right?