While I was enjoying my second round team, the staff of Habitat for Humanity Saint Vrain, the city of Longmont, and being in Colorado, I was also ready for a change.  I'm not sure what's wrong with me and routine, but they don't last.  I knew half my team would have loved to stay in Longmont working on these homes until completion, that's not how the program works, we had other places to be.  While I was mostly tired of the construction work, waking up and putting on my boots, I wasn't really ready to leave the new friends we had made at each site, both staff and other volunteers.  

My first few weeks in Colorado, back during the long hours of training, I wasn't quite sold on the attraction of Colorado. Sure, the mountains in the distance were pretty to look at, but I had also been surrounded by that for my four years in South Korea. Longmont though had a little more appeal, a quaint downtown, free buses, multiple breweries, good restaurants and a few parks, I was cool with living there for a few weeks.  The town, the project, the staff, it was all going pretty swell, so I guess it makes sense that our departure came before some were ready.  Me being me though, I was ready to go , six weeks and I was growing stir crazy, ready for a new city, new routine and new friends.  I often wonder how I'll ever settle down somewhere, but that's not really necessary, is it? ​

After spending six weeks in Texas working with the Fuller Center, one would think that I picked up a slew of construction skills and knowledge, however one would be wrong.  Sure, I learned a bit about drywall installation, tiling and floors, but I somehow didn't feel that I learned that much.  That could also just be my discrediting my own abilities, who knows.  Like I said, I wasn't initially excited to be building homes in the cold, but I kept my fingers crossed and hoped for the best.  Compared to the Fuller Center, I knew that our work with Habitat would be vastly different in one key regard, organization.  While in Texas, I often wondered what the team would be doing on a  day to day basis, I knew that this time around I'd have a little more direction.  Every week our first day of work would start with an all staff construction meeting, discussing the progress from the prior week and a rough layout of plans for the week to come.  This was like music to my (Type A)  ears, actual organisation and plans, things were looking up for this project.  

After the whirlwind that was round 1 everyone was given a break, 10 days to do with as they pleased.  While I would have been perfectly content staying on campus, enjoying the quiet, I was overdue for a holiday at home, after being away for so many.  It was nice to be home, I caught up on a lot of sleep and spent time with family, but after a few days I began to grow bored.  The longer I sat around 'relaxing' the less I wanted to head back to NCCC, instead I started looking up flights to Europe and Asia, despite knowing that I would go back to Colorado. The day I left campus I decided to change my return flight, combing back on New Years Eve to hang out with a few new pals, rather than scrambling to find plans at home.  My flight arrived late, so our plans were also a bit ad hoc, but I was happy to be back in my element.  I relished the two days I had on campus with only a few others back, but that quiet quickly disappeared.