Resume

Cayla Vichot

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QUALIFICATION SUMMARY

Highly self-motivated individual with excellent communication skills is team oriented and works well in high paced environments.

EXPERIENCE

Chapel Hill Presbyterian Church - 2008-2011

Barista and Culinary Assistant

                                                                       

·      Opening and closing coffee stand for a 1,400 congregation church.  Duties also include working the cash register, running the espresso machine and taking care of the customers.

                                                                       

·      Working special events at the church, duties include working the cash register, waitressing, working with guests/co-workers, cooking, cleaning dishes/kitchen, working the ice cream machine and working all areas of the diner.

Appearances Hair Salon - 2007-2008

·      Duties included cleaning all areas salon, restocking shelves, assisting hair stylist when needed.

EDUCATION

Northwest University (Fall of 2011)

Tacoma Baptist High School (Graduating June 2011)

ACHEIVMENTS / ACTVITIES

Presidential Education Award (June 2011)

Daughters of the American Revolution Good Citizen Award (2011)

Tacoma Baptist Track Team (MVP Award 2009, 2010, 2011)

Youth Group Leader

REFERENCES

Available upon request

Summary of Personal Strengths Transferable Skills. Personal Strengths Worksheet one:

Strengths that people attributed to me repeatedly:

hard worker
physical coordination
competitor
goal oriented
persevere
determined
motivated / motivator
lead by example

Good Experience--Number Three

Being a Teacher’s Assistant (T.A.) in high school is one of the easiest classes that you could take. A majority of the time a teacher will run out of work for you to do and release you from class early. Depending on the teach and the class, said work often consists of grading papers, cutting shapes and designs out, or helping kids. I T.A.ed for my science teacher, Mr. Newton, during my junior and senior years of high school. Mr. Newton was also my youth pastor, so we had a comfortable role with one another. I enjoyed going to the class; talking to him about God and what I was learning with Him was always what I looked forward to during my school days. But, since Mr. Newton taught classes such as AP Biology, AP Physics, and the harder science classes at my high school, grading his papers and entering every single grade and extra credit assignment and the like was not always the easiest task for an unscientific high school student to accomplish.

To understand why this is significant in my life, you would have to have a basic understanding of Mr. Newton’s schedule. He held more than one job aside from being a full-time teacher, was a youth pastor for my youth group, and had a family to take care of. Unfortunately, because of his multiple jobs, he was often unable to spend as much time with his family as he could have. Being a teacher, he would often find himself staying after school to finish grading papers and entering them into the grade book. This is where I came in.

Nearly every day after school before track practice I would stay in Mr. Newton’s classroom with his spare laptop grading his papers and entering them into the online grade book, allowing Mr. Newton to go right home after school to be with his family—to utilize the precious time with them that he didn’t get a lot of. 

I bring this circumstance up simply to convey the aspect of me that longs to help people. One day about a month ago I was sitting in church listening to a sermon about following God’s will for your life. Thinking about that, I questioned, “What am I to do for God with my life?” A few strings of words came back to me:

What was Christ’s mission?

Luke 2:49 (NKJV) “And He said to them, “Why did you seek Me? Did you not know that I must be about My Father’s business?”

What is my mission?

1 Peter 2:21 (NIV) “To this you were called, because Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example, that you should follow in His steps.”

Thus, perhaps my mission of emulating Christ will play into what I am to do. If Christ was about His Father’s business, then so should I be.

And what was God’s business?

“And there you have a proof that he was about his Father's business. It was his Father's business made him sweat great drops of blood; his Father's business ploughed his back with many gory furrows; his Father's business pricked his temple with the thorn crown; his Father's business made him mocked and spit upon; his Father's business made him go about bearing his cross; his Father's business made him despise the shame when, naked, he hung upon the tree; his Father's business made him yield himself to death, though he needed not to die if so he had not pleased; his Father's business made him tread the gloomy shades of Gehenna, and descend into the abodes of death; his Father's business made him preach to the spirits in prison; and his Father's business took him up to heaven, where he sitteth on the right hand of God, doing his Father's business still! His Father's business makes him plead day and night for Sion; the same business shall make him come as the Judge of quick and dead, to divide the sheep from the goats; the same business shall make him gather together in one, all people who dwell on the face of the earth! Oh, glory to thee, Jesus; thou hast done it! Thou hast done thy Father's business well."

–C. H. Spurgeon, “Christ About His Father’s Business” Sermon No. 122

In that same sermon, Spurgeon urges us to imitate Christ. I take this as a person call to be about the people of my Father—and that’s everybody.

Christ came to bring us back into that holy communion with the Father, the God of all living things, that we fell out of near the beginning of creation. The Fall drew us away, disobedience kept us there, and Christ brought us back—shined a light where there was no light and which the darkness did not understand—called His children to His side, His bride into His courts.

Being about His people can look like a lot of different things; some people pick up the cross of a missionary. Some are teachers, some lawyers, some doctors, some businessmen, but all are about other people. Missionaries to bring the Gospel, teachers to impart knowledge to the simpler, lawyers to defend others’ causes, doctors to preserve lives, businessmen to get people what they need… the list goes on. I simply long to love others with the love of God—the love that is not of myself, but from Him, by Him, and by the grace of God, through me.

I stayed after class because I wanted to bless my teacher by allowing him to go home to his family. Asking God for opportunities like that are awesome ways to have God give you people to love on. I pray that, in my life, it hasn’t ended with Mr. Newton. I pray that His love will continue on through me every day.

Good Experience--Number Two

Weight lifting isn’t something that a person can just get good at overnight, and it also isn’t defined by a definite, “If you can lift a certain amount of pounds at this certain exercise then you are good.” Rather, it is something that requires time to develop and a person’s own personal standards to judge by.

Half way through my sophomore year of high school I transferred to Tacoma Baptist High School in Tacoma, Washington. I had never had a weight lifting elective available for me to take, and, coming from a family where my mother was a body builder and my dad was in the army and is now a fireman, I jumped at the opportunity to work out as they did. Mrs. Brown was my “trainer,” and every day during second period I found myself in the weight room, working out my muscles.

I am an athlete—a competitor, and as such, since there were more boys in the class than girls, I found myself working twice as hard around all of the guys, trying to prove to myself (and sure, maybe them, too) that I wasn’t “just a girl in the weight room who was just working out because it was a required elective.” I can attribute a lot of my character traits as having been learned from my mother, and a few of them definitely come out in the gym. My mom never outright had a conversation with me about not being a wimp and et cetera, but by her actions I grew to be somebody who does not like to take the easy way out.

My mother is strong. I’ve watched her be a single mom until I was eight, endure a year of separation from my new father when he was deployed to Iraq, work hard to provide for her family, support my dad’s mother financially, allow me to be able to do all of the things that I’ve ever wanted to do, and, of course, work out in the weight room (she was able to rep 165 pounds on bench once upon a time). Due to this, her and I both don’t like the typical excuses that most girls make “just because they are girls” and should not be expected to physically perform as well as a male in the weight room.

So, I worked hard. Every day was a different muscle workout. Some days were chest, other days I would work out my back, then legs, and so on and so forth in a continued cycle. We were required to fill out forms of the weight we did at what repetition for how long we did it every day to make sure that we did the work out for that day. Most of the girls in my class detested it; I welcomed the challenge (as did my partner, who I may have rubbed off on).

As aforementioned, you don’t get “good” at lifting weights overnight. It takes a long time for your muscles to build up for you to be able to move up in weight and reps. Eventually I got to the point where I could rep 125 pounds on the bench press, which was good “for a girl,” or so I was told. And yet, it wasn’t about being “good for a girl.” It was not about proving myself to the guys in my class or even about being strong. Rather, it was the determination and perseverance that I learned through the experience of lifting weights every day for 4 months straight that gave me the satisfaction.

I didn’t give up. I didn’t slow down when things got hard. And, most of all, I didn’t COMPLAIN. Rather, in the words of my mom, “I just sucked it up and did it.”

“Just suck it up,” my mom would say—but not in a coldhearted way, but in a way that expressed, “Don’t give into the pain, Cayla. Just finish what you started.”

And that’s exactly what I did.

Maybe that’s why I like the “Just Do It” Nike commercials so much, because it expresses what I think about when I am faced with a challenge. Don’t think about the obstacles in your way—don’t think about how much it hurts—don’t think about the pain—don’t complain—just do it.

A few months into the summer before my junior year of high school I ended up breaking my arm at the joint, thus rendering me unable to workout my junior year and most of my senior year; too, the summer before my freshman year of college (July 2011) I ended up breaking my other arm. Now, my arms make it difficult to work out because they constantly feel weird, click, and do other weird things. It got me down a little bit during my senior year of high school. I wasn’t working out as much, rather, just running and doing core and a few pushups here and there. But I missed the strengths in my arms—in being able to lift after all of that hard work that I had put into my body (you loose muscle a lot quicker than you gain it, I’ve found). Recently, though, the lessons of determination and perseverance that I learned my sophomore year of high school have returned. I am in the weight room every day for Track and Field, lifting, and I’ve found my muscle in my arms coming back—getting stronger.

I am determined to persevere.

I will just do it.

To God be the glory in all that I do.

Good Experience--Number One

Around the track eight teams went. The crowd was wild that day as the 4x100 meter relay took off. I took a few anxious jumps up and down, up and down—loosened up before the baton would eventually reach my handoff zone, be placed into my hand, and make me the one thing standing between my team and the chance for a first place trophy at Track and Field State 2011.

In Cheney, Washington, the weather was on our side. The winds stayed quiet, and the sun chose not to beat down on us too terribly.

My eyes followed the first leg of our relay team around her 100 meter section of the track before she would hand it off to the second leg. Preliminaries had been easy. Placed in a heat with significantly lesser times than ourselves, it was simply a matter of getting the hand-offs down at the right place at the right time. Now, as finals was occurring right before my eyes, nothing but sheer focus held my gaze steady on the small, metal baton making its way around the track, towards me, bringing with it all of the heaviness that my coach and team had put on it only minutes before.

Never before had our Tacoma Baptist girls Track and Field team won the 4x100 meter dash at State. The year before at Track State 2010, I had participated in the same relay with nearly the same group of girls. We had been slotted to win, and our time would have beaten the winning time for that year. Unfortunately, one of our handoffs slipped, causing our relay team to be disqualified from the event that year.

This was our comeback; this is where it counted—where I was supposed to “leave it all out on the track.”

The baton was in the hand of the second runner now. I could feel my heart hammering against my chest. It felt as if it could jump right out of my being, it was so strong—so filled with the ambition of my team.

Ellie and Paige, the other two original members of the relay team from the previous year, were the first and second legs. Our conversations up until this point for that day had been about one thing and one thing only: the 4x100 meter relay. Our times were neck-and-neck with two other schools’, separated by about .01-.03 seconds each. We were nervous; we were anxious; we were ready. Before lining up at the starting line, our relay team had prayed. I could hear the anticipation in their words—the wonder of how the race would turn out etched into the tones of their voices.

The baton reached our newest relay member, the third leg: Mckenna. For a freshman, she was fast, and it wasn’t whether she’d be faster than the other girls or not that I was fearful over. Rather, it was our handoff. As a freshman, she hadn’t had much experience in handoffs, so the entire season had been laced with some good ones and some not so good ones. Practice before preliminaries at State that year had been shaky as well, so my confidence level was not where it could have been. But, that’s where my lesson came in.

Trust.

I trusted Ellie to have a good start and to get the baton to Paige. I trusted Paige to keep the momentum and to get the baton to Mckenna. I trusted in Mckenna’s speed and determination to pull ahead and get the baton to me. It’d be a straight-shot of my prayers and God-given speed from there-on out, and hopefully it’d be good enough.

Mckenna rounded the corner, owning her 100 meters that she had to run like a champion. I could always count on her to keep us ahead; again, her speed was never a cause of worry to me.

Then the hand-off.

I turned.

She passed the marker.

I took off.

“STICK!” she cried.

My hand flew back.

The baton’s cold body rested in my palm.

My fingers wrapped around the metal.

I ran.

When I run, my mind tends to “turn off” in the sense that I stop thinking about anything apart from what I am doing in that instant: running towards the finish line, and the people beside me who need to be placed behind me.

And by the grace of God, that is how the race finished.

I crossed the finish line a head above everybody else, winning the 4x100 meter dash at Track and Field State 2011.

The thing is, is that I have also won individual events at Track State. Do I feel accomplished and proud of the work paying off? Of course I do. But, for some reason, nothing gives me the satisfaction quite like knowing that my entire team placed first, and not just me. In my single events they called my name, I stepped up on the podium, received a medal, got down, had my picture in the paper, and that was that. “Five minutes of fame” is a phrase that I first-handedly know the meaning of, and know that it doesn’t satisfy. But the look on Ellie and Paige’s faces as they ran to me, finally receiving the state title that could have been ours the previous year… having a freshman feel the victory of what it’s like when an entire team works together, and how a season of hard work can really pay off… seeing them all ecstatic when they get their medals, being able to set a record time for our school… so many accomplishments made by my team and I… that is what I’ve found it to be all about.

At the end of the day, sure, I enjoyed the medal. And yes, who doesn’t like setting a record time for your school—or winning state? But what really made it all worth it in the end was the goal of my team being met by following my coaches’ objectives (via the daily workouts we were required to do). Lessons learned, friendships built, experiencing your teammates coming through for you when you are forced to trust them without even looking…

My team is what it’s all about.