My baby brother, Eric
First note: upon looking for a picture for this blog, I realized we have absolutely no recent pictures of just the two of us. We will remedy that once I move back home. It is also next to impossible to find a picture of this boy without a fish or a beer or several women in his hands. Geez, boy!
OK, enough about that. I am proud of Eric for several reasons. As anyone who has known either of us for any serious length of time may know, we didn't exactly see eye to eye as we were growing up. I may have tried to kill him on a few occasions. He may have tried to kill me. You could say it was all done in love, but I'm not completely convinced of that. We had a stereotypical sibling rivalry. In the end we always loved each other, I'm sure, but neither of us really liked the other one very much most of the time.
But, I've discovered a few things as I've grown up. First, is that (contrary to popular belief) I'm not in fact always right. (Please don't let this get around. It'll totally ruin my rep). And I know that by admitting this on the internet for all the world to see, Eric will choose to rub it in my face for the rest of my life, but I guess that's the risk I have to take. The other thing I've discovered is that when we both remove the rather large chips from our shoulders we have far more in common than we ever chose to admit as kids/teens/young adults.
So, all that being said, I just wanted to put it out there that I'm proud of the person my brother is becoming. While he made some stupid choices in his day, he's set a pretty good path for himself and is growing into a pretty cool guy. He's smart and kind and a lot of fun when he wants to be. All that AND he gets a discount at Whole Foods which I fully intend of taking advantage of very soon!
Now, on to the something I'm proud of.
This begins to invade the narcissist/shy conundrum I mentioned in my first blog. But, I will overcome that because I am quite proud of it, and it's my blog so I can choose to share it if I want to.
In just over 3 months, I will be leaving my job at St. Teresa's which I've had for almost 3 years. I have loved the community at St. T's so much, and am quite heartbroken to leave them. If I could pick them all up and move them to South LA, I would do it in a heartbeat.
While I've known for quite some time that this would be my last year here, I chose to wait until January to break the news. I gathered my catechists for a meeting and discussed it with them, and then sent an email to the remaining catechists and parents. In this email, I requested from them some major qualities they would be looking for in a future DRE. This will help me as we begin the search for my replacement. Of the many responses I received, an overwhelming majority simply said they wanted my clone. Truth be told, it was kind of crazy how many people used that exact phrase.
I would say I've worked hard to fulfill the greatest needs of the catechesis program at St. T's in my time there. I've been a visible presence in the community, been open in my communication with catechists and parents, and been as organized as possible. Apparently, it worked!
But, while I am humbled to have such great appreciation shown for the work I've done, I know better than to look for my clone. I met many needs of the program in my 3 years here, but there are many other needs that must be met that I was unable to address. It is my hope that we find the perfect candidate to bring this program forward to be better and stronger than ever!
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