I've been preparing for major transitions in my life, I bought a camera, and I'm no longer a V.I.B.E. officer.
Transitions I sold my share of my house to my brother and I'm heading to law school at University at Buffalo. I move Aug. 15 and start orientation and classes Aug. 21. I'll be keeping several clients in Tioga County, but not accepting new projects. Why law school? I need the skills to match my vision for community and economic development in Tioga County and the region. I love the community development work I do with V.I.B.E. and other nonprofit organizations and UB has an awesome community development law program. I received excellent scholarship offers from University of Pittsburgh and University at Buffalo - it worked out that even with out-of-state tuition the first year at UB, the cost of attending would have been the same at either school. So I visited each campus. I immediately felt comfortable at UB, met with professors and other students and wandered around the city some (Albright-Knox! Elmwood! Allentown! Falafel Bar!) . Visiting Pitt was pleasant, but the atmosphere was significantly more corporate and less progressive, and their community development clinic, while very good, is not nearly as well integrated into the core academics as UB's. The city is a lot larger than Buffalo. As I was sitting in the admissions office at Pitt waiting to speak with an admissions officer, I perused a copy of their law school alumni magazine. The cover featured NASCAR, the story was about an alum who works on corporate advertising/sponsorship of NASCAR cars. In comparison, the UB alumni mag cover featured human rights interns in Tanzania. Hmmmm... which school do you think Heidi would be more comfortable at? Then Buffalo offered me more money and the decision was obvious... The plan is that in three years I'll be back.
New address beginning 8/15/08:
Heidi I. Jones
131 Allen St., Apt. 15
Buffalo, NY 14201
Telephone: I'll probably keep 570-638-2486 (that whole local # portability thing might be useful)
V.I.B.E. and Blossburg Improvement Association will continue to use PO Box 126, Blossburg, PA 16912-0126.
Email: heidi.i.jones@gmail.com
Camera I've been lusting after a digital single-lens reflex camera since they first came out at the consumer level a few years ago. I finally bought an Olympus E-520. With a little adapter ring, I can use all my old Olympus OM lenses that I used to use on my Olympus OM-G SLR. I took pictures at the Blossburg Memorial Library's annual garden party fundraiser on Sunday. If you want prints, email me!
V.I.B.E. Kelly Rossell, a recent transplant to Blossburg from the Philadelphia suburbs, has taken over as treasurer.
I'll still be working with V.I.B.E. but just not as actively.
Left to right: Jackie Smith, secretary; Tonya McNamara, president; Jill Nickerson, vice president; Kelly Rossell, treasurer.
Here's a nice photo of the reusable grocery bags and water bottles V.I.B.E. produced:
My friend Ken Cooper of Covington says he monitors this blog. We'll see :-)
