February is filled with LOVE!!

  I officially now feel like I am doing some awesome stuff in my program.  I am totally in my element and doing exactly what I want to be doing job wise.  I truly cannot tell you how amazing I've been feeling lately, especially with all of awesome turns outs that have been happening in my classes!!!!
  I am now teaching 7 fitness classes a week!!  All with 10 or more women in each class!  Which for Boonville and the population being all Mexican women, is pretty amazing.  Three mornings a week I lead a power walking group, we are now up to 3 miles, with the goal to either walk or run in the Boontling Classic (a 5k race) in May.  I also teach 3 Boot Camp classes (one of which is during 7th period at the high school, so its not a full class) and that class has now got me quite a reputation in town as being an awesome ass kicker!  Literally every where I go now, people know who I am and say "oh my god so and so told me they took your class and was sore for 3 days!!"  It feels pretty good :-)  I also am teaching a fitness for over 50 class, which is more of a low impact type of workout.
  Also, with my nutrition class, I now have over 10 women in that class, and all of them are super motivated to lose weight.  So with that, I have now changed my passion project to fit more along the lines of the nutrition class and my fitness classes.  I am doing a 90 day program with the women, with the goal of reaching their own goal weights or at least close to them.  I started out last week with having 30 minute one on one session with each of them to talk about their goals, take measurements, weigh them and give them some guidelines on what they should be eating and shouldn't be eating.  Then on going, every week I will meet with them one on on for about 15 minutes to check in, see how they are doing, weigh in and if they have any questions they can ask me then.  I've made up some food journals and fitness journals for them to write in every day to keep track, which I will also be checking in on each week and giving them helpful pointers.

  So!!! as you can see, I'M IN LOVE WITH WHAT I'M DOING!!!! :-)  Also, I am over the moon excited for how this is building up my resume in the most amazing way possible.  I have an interview next Sunday with a Boot Camp business that is specifically focused on Women.  Quite excited about it, my only issue is that I am not officially certified yet as a personal trainer, I'm hoping to get that taken care of before July so that if I get hired I can transition smoothly and not have any hiccups. 

   That's all the news from Boonville!  Good things are happening! YAY!!

2012 Bring it on!!

  Happy New Year everyone!!

 This year is already proving to be quite an exciting year!!  I have so much going on and a few job prospects for when I finish with AmeriCorps... I've been quite giddy the past week with it all!

   So... my boot camp is going very well and we have now opened up the after school class (which follows the 7th period class) on Thursdays to the community.  I've started getting a few teachers coming to the class and they loved it!   Then starting in February I am going to be teaching a Saturday morning boot camp class for the community!  We will be accepting donations, which will be nice since it will go right to me, so a few extra dollars in my pocket will be quite nice to have.
  Also starting in February will be my walking club 3 mornings a week, plus my over 50 exercise class, as well as starting up my passion project!

  The Passion Project is this big project that we are required to do for the program, and it is supposed to be sustainable for after we leave.  My project entails stretching dollars and food stamps.  I am going to be setting up a transportation van which will take 8 women over to Ukiah (the next  big town over) and teach them how to shop efficiently at Safeway and other big grocery stores.  The goal is to make their money go further and learn to shop in a healthier way.
  I also set up a Facebook page for the AV B Well (the program that is sponsoring my classes) to help reach more people and advertise when classes will be!  Here it is: https://www.facebook.com/pages/AV-B-Well/193921137372885  be sure to "Like" it to follow whats going on!

  I have also been sending out my resume to several fitness organizations in and around San Francisco and have gotten many positive responses.  I do however need to get my personal training certification which is a bit pricey.  So here is me putting it out there to anyone who is reading, if you would like to contribute some money so that I can do this and therefore land a job I would very much appreciate it!!

  Much love to you all!! And thank you for following me on my journey towards finally getting into the professional world!!! :-)

Christmas Time

To catch you up on whats been going on the past few weeks:

 The past few weeks have been a bit crazy.  I have started teaching a fitness class at the high school on Thursday afternoons, which I am really enjoying!  I am finding that I really love teaching high school students.  They are receptive and engaged and since I am young I come off as being the "cool" teacher hahah which I also really enjoy.
  I have put together a rather tough work out routine which they have been very receptive to.  After my first class they were all smiles and laughing and saying how cool that was.  Even the teacher that brought me in was saying "that was SOOOO cool!!!!!!!!!!!!!"   So that gave me a bit of a boost and I was on cloud 9 the rest of the day.  So each week I really look forward to that class.
  My nutrition class with the middle school girls has also become a big hit.  I make fun yummy goodies with them, which they enjoy.  One girl in particular has become a teachers pet and is always telling the other girls to stop messing around... she generally says "hey guys!! we are here to learn!! stop playing around!" which always makes me smile.

  As for my ladies in the wednesday nutrition class, that has fallen off the grid... the past few weeks no one has shown up.  But i've also been told that this time of year is hard and most adult classes diminish because a lot of people start gearing up to go back to Mexico for Christmas.

   And my venturing girls! Oh how I love them!  All of them high school age, and they are just so great.  They have given me a nick name "Sid" no reason other then they think I look like a Sid.  I take it, its a cute name.

  Here are a few photos of everyone I've been talking about:

Most of the venturing group, a few missing

My nutrition group ladies, (most of them, a few missing) every tuesday after their english class we all have a potluck lunch!

My co-worker/resident Mom, Mitzi

At the Venturing Holiday Dinner, we made pizza's! This is Anna and Adilena

Vicki and Mariela

  MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE!!!

A typical Saturday morning in Boonville

I wanted to share with everyone a lovely Saturday morning here in Boonville via pictures! I tried to upload video but that didn't work :-(

New Program!

 Hello Everyone!

 Well to my surprise it is actually getting cold  here!! I did not plan very well in terms of which clothes to pack... I definitely need more sweaters, long sleeve shirts and my tall Uggs!!
  Anywho! So I recently came up with a new program idea which I developed from listening to the needs of the older women in the Family Resource Center.  I pitched this idea and it was a HUGE hit, major brownie points for me!  So I have begun the planning process and this will begin sometime in late January early February.  The program is going to be a nutrition/fitness class for women ages 60 and over.  No worries I wont have them running sprints and doing military push-ups or anything.  This is going to be a lot of balance training, functional fitness (like squats with a chair, standing push-ups against the wall to give them more arm strength) and stretching.  The nutrition part will be a lot of making sure to drink more water, get more vegetables and fruits into their diet, but nothing too durastic.  Since most of these women have never cared for themselves before, always putting their families before themselves this is super important for them, and I want them to keep coming and not get overwhelmed. 
  I am also going to set a goal for them, and that is to have them all sign up together for the Bootling 5k run/walk on May 5th.  Not to have them run it, but to have them all walk it together as a class!  It'll give them something fun to train for and keep them motivated.
  So I am super psyched for this class to get started.  It will be on Friday afternoons for an hour and a half, and I will leave Friday mornings open for them to be able to make appointments to meet with me one on one if they have any personal questions they would like to talk about.

   Other then that, things are rolling along quite nicely, and oh.... I am now dating someone!  His name is Jason and he's awesome.  It has been quite some time since I've dated anyone I've really been excited about, so this is a nice turn of events.  I guess AmeriCorps really does have a good luck charm to it now doesn't it??

 That's all for now, I hope you all are enjoying the East Coast fall (and the Montreal Fall!)

 XOXOX

Volunteering Gig

 Hello everyone!

   So a part of this whole AmeriCorps gig is that we have to take on a volunteering job, of no more then 10 hours a month.  This officially starts in November, so I've been trying to figure out what I could do.  After my co-chaperoning the field trip I decided that this would be the perfect volunteering gig!
  So I am officially part of the Venturing group!  I am very excited about this, as I loved hanging out with those girls and feel that I could really be a good "cool" adult for them to talk to and perhaps look up to.
  Also, I have joined in helping out with the Garden Club on Thursdays at the Elementary school.  Lets see if I can get those garden skills sharpened!

  That is really all the news for right now.  Other then I am super excited for Thanksgiving!! I am going to be having Thanksgiving in Sonoma with Leslie and Owen and the rest of that side of the family.  Very excited to see everyone! And very glad that I can still have Thanksgiving with Family :-)

  I guess there is one more exciting thing going on.... but I'm going to wait a bit longer before I share that one with you all ;-)  I'll give you a hint though... it has to do with a boy! :-)


  Will fill you all in more soon!

xoxoxo

Field Trip + Zumba!!

 Yesterday I co-chaperoned a field trip to Fort Bragg with the Venturing Girls group.  This is a group that my co-worker Mitzi leads.  It was started by the AmeriCorps worker last year and is like a girls version of Boy Scouts, but not quite.  They meet a few times a month and plan fun day trips like the one yesterday. 
  We first went to MacKerricher State Park and walked around to look at the tide pools, however the tide pools weren't really there since the tide was in.  None the less, it was beautiful!  On the way back to the van we came across two men who had just come in from catching Abalone, they look like ginormous slugs!! Gross.  But the girls were fascinated by them. 

Mitzi, the girls and Zach (mitzis' son)

  After that we went and got lunch, then headed off to the water park. Mitzi and the girls and Zach (Mitzis' son) played around in the water, while I took advantage of the gym!  I then talked Mitzi into taking a Zumba class with me.  She was hesitant at first, but she also used to be a dancer and I knew that this would be a form of exercise that she would actually enjoy.  She is quite out of shape, self proclaimed mind you, but she kept with it, I was quite proud of her.  Afterwards she was just beaming!! The rest of the ride home she couldn't stop reminiscing about her old dancing days, and we both were talking about our favorite musicals.  I was so happy that I convinced her to take a class because she was like a different person afterwards, totally into it!  She even said that she'd be willing to take the one Zumba class that is held here at the high school once a week with me!  Woohoo!!
  The trip was a great trip.  I got to know the girls and they all said that they really wanted me to come into the health class to do some smoothie demonstrations and talk about nutrition.  I need to get that squared away with the health teacher on when I can do it, but super excited about that!