Fogo with Isabella, Kortney, Kiyara, Alysen and Lynn at Open Door

Feb. 14, 2023: Well today was exciting. First of all I got myself up and drove myself to my first volunteering appointment at Open Door serving as a translator. I drove there on the highway, which Papa said was fine because it was daytime. I did take a photo with Lynn, who I worked with and helped train me. I even showed her yesterday's photo and told her about this project. I’ve still got Fogo tonight and I’ll take another photo for that. Just gonna write up what I have so far. Today was my first day volunteering at Open Door as a translator. Tragically I have mostly sedentary job, so no steps. I did manage to get 1000 even right before I left, walking in though. I also did some Duolingo Portuguese this morning. I’m also writing double sided in my notebook now. I learned this morning that my background check for Lunds went through and I got a copy of it. It says no reportable records found, so I’m sure I passed. For breakfast I had red berry special K and I opened up a new cranberry juice to have some of that. I also wrote down “thank God I kept some limeade in my car.” On the drive into Open Door I listened to Hannah’s December 2022 playlist. When I got there I called Veronica and she told me how to get in. I also told her that I learned Spanish at Valleyfair and dated an Ecuadorian for a year. I asked about moving around and walking, since the position I did today is mostly seated. She said volunteering in the pantry includes more moving around. I also told the volunteer Lynn about this project and took a photo with her. Also took some notes on how I was supposed to check people in. Basically I just have to find their name and change their status from pending to arrived. Today for Valentine’s Day they had Dunn Bros coffee and some food. I had a chocolate covered strawberry and four cups of coffee, the last of which is still in my car. I translated one message that was just asking for a new appointment, and then also checked someone in named Mirabel in Spanish, and also Sidaly, who made a new appointment too. I told Lynn and Veonica I wanted to walk a bit more, and Veronica said that in the back in the pantry there’s a bit more walking. I also told them that I take a lot of notes because the TBI has affected my memory. I also told Lynn about this project and even showed her yesterday’s photo, since I now saved the website to my home screen. I also told Veronica how many people were coming into Fogo tonight, and said today was my last day. When I was leaving, a little after 12:30, I grabbed an Open Door sticker and put it on my car. Even texted Papa a picture of it. On the way back is listened to Liam’s XX23 playlist. Still have some space for my last Fogo day tonight. I realized at home that I left my coffee from this morning in my thermos on the counter. I’ll drink it later. I’m at 3k steps now, which isn’t a good time to go to Fogo except it is because it’s freaking Valentine’s Day. I think I’ll run to the store and get more pocket size notebooks too. Already wearing Fogo clothes, which is the red shirt I actually had been planning to wear on my first day back, aka my only red shirt. I just drove into Walgreens to check if they had more of the small notebooks. They didn’t, but I asked them to order more. They said it’ll be a week probably. I’m at 4k now. Well for Fogo. I actually had an amazing night not because of anything that happened during work but because after I was cut at 10:51, I went around to a lot of people and gave them all my number and told them it was my last day. I was trying to write down all the people I talked to but missed a bunch. I had an actually longer conversation with Pedro, who is someone I like a lot. I even told him that I had felt like I’d never make a new friend post TBI and he and Trevor proved that wrong. He said he barely remembered Trevor. Tonight we had like 2100 people with reservations. I didn’t write down the excact number and won’t be back to check either. I wrote down “thank God I came before 5.” Maggie said she liked my shirt, which was actually the shirt I had wanted to wear my first day back at Fogo. I didn’t take a pic with all the hostesses just the ones who were around at the end. Tonight something good also happened where table 104 asked me a bunch of questions and I basically greeted them because a server never had. I told Julio that I told them how it worked because no one had greeted, and Matt actually heard me and said good job. I also took Julio’s tray later so he could greet table 7. I did a lot of bussing tonight. Only had time to write a bit in the bathroom not gonna lie. I also had a redbull which I had at 14 and 15k steps. I was also randomly waiting for 20k before I would let myself get a glass of ice water just because I was thinking I’d enjoy it more then. My one mistake of the night was clearing a table that had the people up at salad bar. When they came back I was able to get them the waters and breads and tell their server to have somone remake the drink, a paratise spritz. I even told the table it was easily my biggest mistake of the night. Tonight Rahmona was also in, and she said that she remembered me from when I was a server. Honestly I wouldn’t have recognized her but it was cool. She was on books the whole night and her mother Pyra was on phones/pagers. The other cool thing that happened is that there was a table who I could tell spoke Spanish and I even said to them “es nuestro día más ocupado del año,” and then told Carlos “hablan español.” So that was cool. I also told Pedro I was leaving and he said, “no way, why?” I explained a bit just like I explained to everyone. I also gave my number on Fogo sheets to at least 5 or 10 people, so that was a success. It included Leo, Nicole, Sheldon, Carlos, Greyson, Christina, Rubi. Greyson also said that after work today he was gonna put in his two weeks. I never would have guessed that but I guess that most people wouldn’t guess that I would leave either. The other notable thing was that today there was a new coffee machine because Stella had bought it the other day. I also told the gauchos a couple times when tables complained about not getting meats, including table 55 and 56. The meats did come out after I did that. Made the font smaller to fit all of this, lol.