|
trusting_desire
|
read my profile
sign my guestbook
Name: trusting_desire
Birthday: 8/21/1983
Gender: Female
Interests: I love Jesus, bright colors, music, musicals, singing, dancing, kids, the Patriots, and the Red Sox. Wanna know anything else? Just ask!
Message: message me
AIM:  susieqt83
Member Since:
4/9/2006
|
|
| I got to Ireland last Saturday (the 25th), and so far, I’ve loved every minute of it! I got in at about 3:30pm (10:30am “my time”), but since I’d been flying since 8:30 the night before, I was pretty wrecked. I really wanted to go out and explore, but all that ended up happening was some unpacking and then a LOT of sleeping! I actually ended up sleeping for 12 hours!
The next day, I woke up refreshed, and met up with Jason, who is the Global Exchange coach from our office in St. John, Canada. Our site sponsors picked us up and took us for a tour around Cork, including some historical sites, and of course, a pub. J After a lot of touring, we headed over to the airport to pick up Javier, the Global Exchange guide from our Mexico City office, and Lucia, the Global Guide from our Uruguay office. Our 5th and final Global Exchange participant is Niki, who is a coach from my office in Indianapolis, but she didn’t get in until the next day. I spent some time getting to know the others that night, and I’m really looking forward to getting to know them better over the upcoming weeks - we’ve got a great group here, and I know we’re going to have a great time!
We started work on Monday, and it’s been awesome so far. Everyone has been really welcoming, and I just loved meeting everyone! The set up of the office is really cool - our Ireland office is split into two sections - UK and Continental Europe. I’ll be working in the UK section when I’m taking calls, and servicing RCI’s UK members. The Continental Europe section is really cool to observe though - they service a variety of markets all over Europe in a ton of different languages. If you walk through that side of the call center, you’ll hear different languages coming at you from all sides. We spent most of the week doing quick meetings and introductions with all the different departments, such as Customer Care, travel team, learning and development, revenue management, and many more. I think this opportunity is going to be great for all of us - it’s giving us all a much larger scope of how RCI works outside of just a call center.
Outside of work, we’ve had a blast. They rented 2 cars for us, and I’m one of the lucky two drivers. It’s been an experience, that’s for sure, getting used to driving on the other side of the car and the other side of the road! The first couple of days were a little rough, and we had a few scary moments (oops), but so far, so good, and I’m feeling way more comfortable. Most nights last week we went into Douglas, which is the town right near the hotel we’re staying in. There’s a lot of shopping, restaurants, and pubs there. I had a Guinness (of course) right after we arrived, but since then I’ve been sticking to Bulmer’s cider - it’s delicious! But Douglas is a fun little place to explore around, so I like that it’s so close. We also had an RCI night out on Wednesday night to an entertainment complex called the Mardyke, which was tons of fun. We had lots of food, drinks, and did some bowling, and got to know some people from the office better. It was so much fun!
Saturday morning, we got up bright and early (too early!) for our weekend trip to London. I was so freaking excited for this weekend, since I had never been to London before! Johnny and Jaro from the Cork office were our hosts for the weekend, and they did a great job making sure we had a blast! We spent Saturday getting around London and seeing some sights like Big Ben and Parliament, grabbed some dinner, and then at night went out to a club called The Zoo. We didn’t get back in until about 3am, which may not have been the best idea since we had another full day of sightseeing the next morning!
The next morning I got up at 9:30 - I was soooo tried, but I couldn’t justify being in London and sleeping in any longer. Niki and Lucia wanted to stay in bed, so it ended up being a morning of sightseeing with the boys for me. We saw Buckingham Palace, and got there to see the changing of the guards. We also saw the Tower of London, and then got on the tube and went to King’s Cross station. King’s Cross is the train station in the Harry Potter books, and they even have a Platform 9 and ¾ complete with a cart halfway through the wall! I geeked out over that for awhile and took lots of pictures. After that we met back up with the other girls and went for a trip on the London Eye. The views of London from the top were spectacular! We had some dinner, and then decided to call it a night pretty early since we were all pretty exhausted by that point.
Yesterday we got up, checked out of the hotel, and went to the London Natural History Museum. It was pretty cool, and the building was soooo beautiful, inside and out! We spent a few hours in there, grabbed some lunch, and then had to head back to the hotel to pick up our luggage and get ready to leave. We then took the tube/train to the Stanstead airport, and got a bit lost on the way. Actually, getting lost was kind of the theme of the weekend - we were constantly getting on wrong trains, or getting on the right trains, just in the wrong direction. Oops. But we finally figured it out, made it to the airport, and unfortunately, had to say goodbye to London.
This week is going to be pretty cool - and easy! Since yesterday was a bank holiday in the UK, we didn’t have to work (and of course, we were still in London!). We work a full day today and Thursday, and tomorrow we work a half day, and during the other half of the day we will be going to Blarney Castle! Friday morning we leave for our next weekend trip, which is to Portugal! I’m soooo excited about that, so there will be more blogs to come! | | |
| Hi, all! I know it's been awhile...I really need to be better about updating this thing. Anyways, I just wanted to share some exciting news for those of you who haven't heard it from me yet. I was accepted into my company's Global Exchange program. Basically, every spring, RCI takes a couple of guides out of each of their offices (covering about 10 different countries), and "swaps" them out for 6 weeks. The guides get to experience living and working in another country, and also get to share best practices for the company amongst the other offices. I applied for this postion last year, and didn't get it, but I applied again this year and got it! I'm sooooo ecstatic. So what this means for me is that I will be spending six weeks in Cork, Ireland, beginning on April 24th. I'm so excited - this is going to be unbelievable. Not only to I get to learn more about RCI and see how it operates globally, but I also get to go to Europe for the first time! There are going to be 4 other global guides there as well, so I'll get to learn about their countries and offices as well. They have a lot planned for us as well - during those six weeks, we will also be going to London, Portugal, and Paris! Anyways, I just wanted to update everyone with my exciting news - I really can't wait! I promise to try and update this more often while I'm there, so you can all keep up with my adventures!  | | |
| September has been an interesting month, to say the least. I don't think I can think of any months in my own recent history that has had quite as many ups and downs as this past one. The month started off fantastic - I went out to LA the first week of September, and had a blast. I got to spend some quality time with my friend Jo, who I miss soooooo much, went to the beach, saw one of my good friends from high school, and overall, just had a wonderful vacation. I came back to uber amounts of drama, unfortunately, and to be honest, it's drama that I shouldn't have had to deal with. I wish I could go into more details, because I really need to vent, but I don't know who all reads this, so that makes me nervous. And unfortunately, the drama continued throughout a lot of the month. I wish certain family members could understand that their problems are between each other and leave me out of it. I also with that they would stop making ME feel like the bad guy when all I'm trying to do is keep myself out of the middle and retain relationships with everybody. The month picked back up though over the past two weeks. First of, I went on vacation again, this time to the East Coast. I spent a week with my mom and her husband in Vermont, which was BEAUTIFUL, and very relaxing. I loved waking up and seeing mountains out of every window in our condo. I also got to see my friend Jess who moved there recently, and had so much fun. I miss her a lot too, so it was great to see her! After I left Vermont, I took a bus to Wilmington, DE, and spent the weekend with my sister. We didn't do too much over the weekend, aside from seeing the final performance of RENT in theaters (which was really good, btw), but it was just great to be able to spend some time with my sister. Finally, this past week, things really brightened up at work. Before going on the Vermont vacation, I applied for an on-loan position in the training department as a facilitator. The day after I returned from vacation, I had a HUGE interview for the position. I not only had to go throught the "traditional" question and answer interview, but also had to do a 15 minute presentation to some of the Learning and Development managers. Last Wednesday, I was offered the position, and I accepted! I begin on Monday officially, and I am soooooo excited! In addition, I learned just how much of a fantastic company I work for. Throughout the whole interview process, my department managers were behind me 100%, and were excited for me when I was offered the position - even though it meant that they would be losing me. In addition, all of the current facilitators in the training department (who I've worked with before) individually came up to me and told me that they were so excited that I was coming to the department, and that they could not think of anyone better for the position. All in all, it's been a heck of a month. It's had it's ups and downs, but it ended with a bang, and I'm excited to go forward and see what happends! | | |
| I am not your secret-keeper, nor am I your informant. If I decide to keep myself out of the middle and either 1) refuse to keep your secret or 2) refuse to give you information, do not give me every guilt trip in the book to try and swing me your way. Leave me out of your twisted divorce land. K, thanks, bye. | | |
| A little less than a year ago, my Aunt Connie was in a terrible car accident. She was driving home from church when she was hit head-on by a kid who was racing with another car. Her leg ended up going through the floor of her car, and as a result, among other serious injuries, her leg was amputated below her right knew. She has been AMAZING over the past several months recovering from her accident (she even got herself strong enough to attend my cousin - her daughter's - wedding just a few short weeks after the accident), and has shown us all how strong of a person she truly is. This week, she showed us a new and amazing side of her strength. Last Thursday was the sentencing for the kid in the car who hit her. They basically had two options: he could spend 10 months in a juvenile hall sort of setting, get his GED, and get a second chance at life, or he could be charged as an adult with assault with a deadly weapon, and spend a good portion of his young life in jail. I'd go on more, but rather than do that, I'll just post the email that my cousin Dianne had on her blog - it's better than I could ever word it. "Hey, guys, I was in court last Thursday for the sentencing of the kid, Antonio Davis, who ran into me and I thought I'd just tell you all at once. Antonio pled guilty to Assault & Battery of a real and aggravated nature (!). The other boy involved hasn't been issued the warrants because they couldn't find him. I knew his mother knew where he was but on the day of the accident she couldn't see why her son should have been arrested since he wasn't the one who hit me. Obviously Antonio was racing on his own. Plus the witness told Steph that it appeared as though if Joseph could have gotten Antonio out of his car, they would have just taken off. Praise God for the witness or I would have bled to death. More on Joseph later. Anyhow, the solicitor called me the week before the sentencing to talk to me about the options for Antonio. He had a previous burglary offense for which he had not served time but was on PTI at the time of my accident, a type of parole, I think. Anyhow, his cohort in that crime had pled guilty and the solicitor said it was mostly the other guy who planned it all and Antonio had just gone along with it. So Antonio's choices were real jail or the Youthful Offender Program. With YOP the kid is in real jail (but not with the general population) for 10-13 months, has to get his GED there and do a number of other things. Then, if he seems to get it all together, he is on probation for five years. It's supposed to be tougher than regular probation. Has to pass a drug test every month. If they screw up at all, it's back to jail. Well, before I went to the solicitor, I had made my mind up to ask for him to go to YOP because it wasn't as if he had taken a weapon to me, or deliberately beat me or raped me, etc. He had been stupid and I paid for it. But, as I've mentioned before, I've been stupid a lot in my life and luckily never caused physical injury to anyone. But I could have. I explained all this to Joanna McDuffie, the attorney who was in charge of my case and then asked her if she thought I was stupid to ask to keep him out of jail. But after talking with me she agreed with me . . . and then said she had never met a victim who worried about the criminal, even if it was a kid. Can you believe that? Then I told her I'd like an opportunity to talk with Antonio so that he would know why I decided on YOP and what I expected from him. My girls were not too charged about my decision but they knew it was mine to make. Weren't really charged about my talking with Antonio, either, so all three of them were there for that, not exactly with chips on their shoulders but ready to protect me to the nth degree! Anyhow, it was quite a roomful with me and mine, Antonio and his parents and attorney, Joanna and a victim's advocate (for me, the victim) who was very nice but whom I had never met when I really was a victim. Once I met this kid I was so glad I had already decided he shouldn't go to prison. He is a very young now-18 year old. He has a learning disability and reads only at a 3rd-grade level (I learned this later from his mother), has an obviously poor self-esteem issue. He wouldn't have lasted a week with the bad guys. Anyhow, I told him why I had felt I couldn't let him go to prison, told him that as a mother I couldn't just throw a kid away without trying to save him. Told him this was his opportunity to get it together and that I expected him to try to do that. I said he hadn't ruined my life, but only because I was the type of person who wouldn't let that happen and that I didn't want to ruin his life and I didn't want him to let his life be ruined, either. It as a choice we make. Don't let my leg be lost for no reason. Etc. Dianne said it was the same kind of thing they'd heard their whole lives! It was very emotional. EVERYONE in the room was crying. Antonio told us where Joseph is (in NC) and Joanna said extradition procedures had already been started. Antonio promised he would make this work. We all hugged at the end. He is truly sorry for what happened. His mother tried to see me in the hospital. She's a nice woman, single mom with three sons (!) and I think we can be friends. I told her I'd like to go with her when she visits him. The father, who is remarried, I don't think was there a lot with Antonio, but he was there since the accident, everytime he had to speak with the solicitor. He has decided not to move to Texas, but rather to stay here and help Antonio through this. (I told him that was the right thing to do!) Plus I said I wanted Antonio to come to my house every month and do my yard and wash my car. I really wanted him to have to do that for the rest of my life but he is going to have to do so until he is 21. I don't want him to forget what happened due to his stupidity and this is a constant reminder for him. I told him his mother and I would inspect his job and make sure we were happy with it. Told him lucky for him he had gained a second mother! Then I left to use the restroom and my girls went up to him and hugged him and said since I was going to be his second mother he had just gained three sisters. I'm so proud of them and they agree that that kid could not have survived in prison. I found out afterward that they were going to ask for 15 years. As Dianne pointed out, rapists in SC don't get 15 years . . . . And when I told Joanna that Antonio was going to need tutoring in reading if he was going to legitimately get his GED, she promised to talk with someone about that as soon as he gets settled. Dianne says she'll go tutor him if they can't supply that for him. Antonio had no idea what he was in for when he got involved with the Turgeons! Then we went into court. It's very busy and seems to be total chaos to the uninformed (us)! ALL the victims and ALL the defendants and all the attorneys for both and all the witnesses and police involved, etc. mill around the courtroom. After a couple of motions were taken care of, mine was the first case. The attorneys said it was a plea and punishment had been agreed upon but since I was the victim I had to speak to the judge. I told her briefly that I felt it was a stupid judgment call on his part that had ended badly, but I had only lost a limb and that I couldn't throw this kid away. Then his attorney said he wanted it in the official court records that Antonio was going to do my yard and wash my car every month until he was 21. (I think he thought this was a great idea! Allison, it was Mathias Chaplain. I thought he was a good guy.) Well, I was looking at the judge and then negotiating my way back to my seat, but Steph said that when I said I couldn't throw Antonio away, everyone shut up and looked at each other in amazement and when Mr. Chaplain said about the yard and car they looked like, "Who is this woman?" I'm sorry I missed it! Anyhow, I know we did the right thing. So now I just ask that you add Antonio Davis' name to your prayer list. He may never be a leader but he's got to stop thinking he's a loser and so should only follow other losers. Plus he's got a brother two years younger who might learn something, too." The perspective that she has amazes and inspires me. I wish more people in this world (including myself!) had a heart like hers. | | |
|
