{"id":12551,"date":"2014-05-27T20:48:59","date_gmt":"2014-05-27T20:48:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/challengedetroit.org\/blog\/melissacampbell\/?p=40"},"modified":"2014-05-27T20:48:59","modified_gmt":"2014-05-27T20:48:59","slug":"40-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/challengedetroit.builtrare.com\/blog\/40-2\/","title":{"rendered":"May"},"content":{"rendered":"

In my role with my Host company, Rock Ventures, I have been extended the opportunity to be a blog contributor. I write for Opportunity Detroit, our blog<\/a> featuring city wide coverage. Surprisingly I haven\u2019t been bitten by the bloggers bug and suffered blog fatigue but can I admit something\u2026..I\u2019m having a bit of writer\u2019s block for Challenge Detroit. Every day I am on the edge of amazing things occurring in the city. When it comes to my personal blog I realize that my life isn\u2019t as fascinating as the City of Detroit. I mean how can I compare to a place that within the last week alone just received a bid for $100 million in investment<\/a>, just wrapped up a fabulous party with tens of thousands in attendance<\/a>, a sold out football game<\/a> at a local high school, and created a plan to solve its biggest problem\u2026..blight<\/a>. See I\u2019m competing with all of that but hey I\u2019m excited to share the little victories and happenings that occurred this month.<\/p>\n

I kicked my case of the winter blues in the Kahunas. As a transplant, I was having a really hard time adjusting to the winter climate in Michigan. Winter in the Midwest was really tough on this girl originally born on a Caribbean island<\/a> and raised in the mid-Atlantic as wells as the south. I believe I had a serious case of the Winter Blues<\/a>, undiagnosed, but very much impacted my normally upbeat moods. For the life of me I could not understand why I was so down, withdrawn and lacked energy. After a regular check up at the doctor, I found out my Vitamin D levels were critically low. Like to the point I had to get an emergency prescription for Vitamin D. My mother, a nurse practitioner, and doctor explained that my lack of exposure to the sun probably had a major impact on my levels. It also doesn\u2019t help that I\u2019m not a big fan of milk, cheese, and other forms of diary. So yes I\u2019m pill popping and my mood is no longer dropping. Now that is Spring-Summerish in the city I can see a total difference with how I\u2019m approaching the day and more importantly my mood. I\u2019m normally not an emotional or moody person but this winter I learned how the climate and lack of sun can really alter one\u2019s mood.<\/p>\n

I overcame my fear of what\u2019s next. Since I\u2019m being honest here I don\u2019t mind sharing a little fear and insecurity that I\u2019ve been carrying for the past few months. I was really scared for a few months because I just really didn\u2019t know or understand what\u2019s next for me here in Detroit. I didn\u2019t feel like I was quite fitting in. I felt I came with a mission to tackle Detroit\u2019s challenges as well as pursue my personal career interest. Challenges are very real, resources very limited, red tape very existent, willing and able spirits wide spread, talent opportunities in my area of interest very few. That in itself was a hard pill for me to swallow. I had no idea where to start as a change agent as well as move up my career path. Participating in Challenge Detroit really helps but I feared how I can be a part of the social change network outside of the fellowship. What happens when the year ends? Will I have a job? Where am I going to live? Will I move back to the south? During the past month I\u2019ve come to realize my personal strengths and learned the importance of building connections. Now over the past few months I have learned the importance of fostering and developing relationships rather than just network in vain. I now have a new outlook in developing relationships with people. Through blog writing as well as engaging with city residents as wells as outside residents I\u2019ve learned everyone has a voice and perspective to be shared. Even my small voice needs to be heard. I now thrive in conversations about social change and have now identified ample opportunities in Detroit, even within my host company. I no longer fear not having a bright future in Detroit. I am now taking my first steps in being an effective change agent.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In my role with my Host company, Rock Ventures, I have been extended the opportunity to be a blog contributor. I write for Opportunity Detroit, our blog featuring city wide coverage. Surprisingly I haven\u2019t been bitten by the bloggers bug and suffered blog fatigue but can I admit something\u2026..I\u2019m having a bit of writer\u2019s block […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":262,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12551","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/challengedetroit.builtrare.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12551","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/challengedetroit.builtrare.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/challengedetroit.builtrare.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/challengedetroit.builtrare.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/262"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/challengedetroit.builtrare.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12551"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/challengedetroit.builtrare.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12551\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/challengedetroit.builtrare.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12551"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/challengedetroit.builtrare.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12551"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/challengedetroit.builtrare.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12551"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}