Oregon Trail, VISTA style

Hello from Corvallis! After over a week of traveling, we are finally back in Corvallis, Oregon and starting to set up shop. I'm Allison, one of two Americorps*VISTA members serving at Corvallis Neighborhood Housing Services. The other is Aaron, who will introduce himself later, I guess. This first post should give you some background about who we are and what the hell we're doing as college graduates moving across the country for endless toil and poverty-level wages.

We both graduated from the University of Michigan in April of 2006. Allison graduated with an interesting but unemployable degree in American Culture (I didn't want to be employed anyway, so it doesn't matter.) Aaron graduated with a degree in Business Administration, intending to go to law school. We've been dating for almost four years, both love cycling and other outdoor sports, read voraciously, and bleed maize and blue.

I was, and am still, planning to go to graduate school for a PhD in American History. However, I knew a few people who had "taken a year off" before grad school - my friend Sally in Lutheran Volunteer Corps , a professor in Jesuit Volunteer Corps. A lot of my professors told me it would be a good idea to take a break from school, with the added benefit of "real world experience" and maturity contributing to a stronger application when I decided to go to grad school later. I looked into a few programs and eventually stumbled on a few Americorps*VISTA postions through the Americorps website. Aaron also started looking at this, even while interviewing for corporate soul-sucking jobs (hey, if I'm writing it, I can insert my editorial comments.) Eventually we both found positions all over the country that we applied for, him having long been convinced of the moral benefits but not necessarily sold on the practical ones. Long story short, we were both accepted at amazing positions in Corvallis, Oregon, and a week and a half ago we made the trek from Michigan to Oregon in a Volkswagen Golf with three bikes strapped on the back. If you saw us and we were going 40 miles an hour through the mountains, it's because I am afraid of mountains. Sorry for holding you up, but I can't believe road engineers actually think you can drive safely on those curvy roads. Can you tell I'm from the flat Midwest?

I'll stop here; soon we'll post a retrospective of our cross-country trip, hijinks from our preservice orientation, and highlights from our shiny, new, unfurnished digs.

Peace out friends.

~Allison