Wherever You Go, Go With All Your Heart
In 2005, my little brother, Josh, and I were placed in foster care. My mother relinquished her parental rights shortly thereafter and now lives in Texas. She has struggled with alcoholism for many years and even though I no longer speak to her, I do still love her.
Josh was adopted in 2010 and he now lives in a small town in New York. Since I was older, I was never adopted and I moved to Georgia in 2009 to attend college.
Click the “Placement Timeline” link above for a detailed assessment of where we have lived.
Contact me: rebeka.geer@gmail.com
I tell my story to inform, to inspire, and to show other foster children that they’re not alone.
now if I can just make it through the rest of the week alive :(
As is true with finals time every semester, I’ve been slacking when it comes to keeping up with my blog. Hold in there everyone, I’ll have some juicy updates soon!!
Starting May 10, I’ll be living at WestMar student lofts- a convenient 1.3 miles from Coca-Cola
Everything is officially in order :)
Tonight was elections for 2012-2013 Executive Board members of PRSSA and unfortunately, I wasn’t elected as President or Vice President. Even though it’s not the end of the world since I didn’t win (I did get the Coca-Cola internship which is an incredible opportunity both professionally and networking wise), I can’t help but wish the outcome was different. I keep thinking about the little things I could have done differently to collect those last few votes…but hey, the decisions have been made.
I sent an email to the PRSSA advisor right after elections saying that even though I didn’t win, I’m very excited about the diverse crowd represented in next year’s E-board. I also expressed my interest in pursuing other leadership opportunities within PRSSA, such as co-directing our largest career fair of the year, ADPR connection. I genuinely care about how the organization runs and even though I’m not President, that doesn’t mean I’m not willing to commit myself to the success of the program. This was her response:
Rebeka,
My greatest regret this evening was that you were not elected to the board. I’ll certainly keep you in mind for ADPR Connection co-director. The mark of a true professional is how he/she handles defeat. You did well tonight and I’m proud of you.
You win some and you lose some
And I’m also happy that I finished it before midnight…helloooo bedtime!
We just finished up at Coke and everything went great. We’ll be notified by Friday who the two interns will be so let the waiting game begin!
I love this woman to death. Dr. Jones has been an incredible point of support and encouragement in everything I’ve done, and she always knows the right thing to say.
Tomorrow’s the big day!
Instead of going home after the 3AM showing of The Hunger Games and sleeping like a normal person, I headed to Starbucks to get some work done. Here’s what I hope to accomplish by the end of the day:
1. Complete two news articles for Journalism class - I attended a few guest speaker events the other day and I have to write an article summing everything up. This shouldn’t be too hard.
2. Call back my Guardian Ad Litem - I mentioned a little while back that I wanted to get in touch with my GAL from when my father terminated his parental rights, so I called yesterday and left a message with his secretary. He returned my call a few hours later, but I was out to dinner with a friend so I wasn’t in a good environment to answer - I’m going to give him a call back later today. I’m definitely excited and anxious to hear what he has to say (or if he even remembers me and my siblings).
3. Begin my Coca-Cola Assignment - I got the date for my final interview!! It’s going to be this coming Wednesday, March 28 from 11:30 - 3:00 at the Coke Headquarters in Atlanta. All four of the finalist received an email yesterday explaining the assignment we have to complete prior to the interview so I’m going to begin working on it this afternoon!
But the good news is the semester is all down-hill from here! I can’t believe I’m going to start my final year of college in the fall – time goes by so, so fast.
My roommate Shelli (we do fun stuff together) and I spent this entire week sleeping in till two in the afternoon, pretending to buy things at Anthropologie shopping, and eating pizza in bed while watching Netflix and Hulu. All in all, this week was awesome.
Somewhere in all that unproductiveness I’ve managed to get the majority of my homework done which is such a relief. There’s nothing worse than coming back from a break and realizing you have boatloads of school work to complete.
And while everyone was away on amazing spring break excursions, I also experienced some excitement! Justin Timberlake, Amy Adams, and Clint Eastwood were in Athens’s little corner of the south shooting a high-budget film so take that, Key West beach visitors!
(photo courtesy The Red Dress Boutique)
For the most part, I didn’t mind raising myself. I remember filling out my 1040EZ form freshman year of high school and when my teacher asked me what I was doing, I answered matter-of-factly “my taxes.” I knew that there were certain things that had to get done and if I didn’t have parents to do it, then it was up to me. I’ve never been audited so I’d say I’ve been doing pretty well.
Even though I’ve gotten used to it, there are still times when I really wish the outcome of everything had been different and now that I’ve gotten older, certain things have become more of an issue….like college graduation and my future wedding.
My mom came to my high school graduation and it was incredibly awkward - we spent the day with fake smiles plastered on our faces, pretending like we knew each other. It was in that moment that I realized that I didn’t have a family, I just had a mom and siblings - there was nothing unified or “family-like” about us. (My high school graduation is still very special to me)
(I couldn’t get Josh to come)
I do not want my college graduation to be like this - the last thing I want to do is spend the day stressing over making sure my family looks like a family. I have 4 tickets to my graduation ceremony and I honestly have no idea who’s going to fill those seats: maybe Josh (though I doubt he’d come), my sister Danielle and her boyfriend (I went to her college graduation last year so I’m sure they’d consider coming to mine), my older sister Mindy (if Danielle also came this would be awkward because Danielle and Mindy never talk)….I want it to be stress-free which is definitely too much to ask
Like a typical girl, I want my wedding day to be magical - but all I can think about is how I’m going to have no one to walk me down the aisle, no father-daughter dance, and only a handful of family members in attendance. I should probably be in a stable relationship and have a groom in mind before I start worrying about this stuff, but that would be too logical for my taste.
My mind’s in a gloomy place today….I blame the weather.
Such a great way to start spring break.
I was laying on the couch watching Netflix and I reached up to tilt the screen down (right where the black line is) and now the screen looks like this.
It’s a good thing in not going on spring break because now I may have to buy a new computer.
check out the end of this post to see what happens from here.
My really good friend Julie (we like to paint and go to football games) posted this picture on my facebook with the caption: Yay!!!! (this is actually a real coke hat but the logo is on the back) i’m so proud of you!
Who needs parents to share good news with when you’ve got friends like this?
I MADE IT, I MADE IT, I MADE IT!
I wasn’t expecting an email till much later so I’ve been trying to avoid checking it-but good thing I did!!!
