It has been awhile since I have written a blog, don't worry I am alive and kicking, although we have a lot of down time, it seems like I never really use it for productive purposes. So I am sure you people are curious just what is taking up my valuable time and what a day in the life of Emily is now.
A DAY IN THE LIFE
We do PT 4 days a week...PT starts at 5:30 AM, we do it for an hour, then we eat breakfast and have a little bit of downtime, at 8 AM we go to work, we work till noon, have lunch then work till 5. Come home, some days I shower then eat dinner at 5:30. Now, after work we often visit the local watering hole Clydes or we visit the Mockingbird Cafe which has been described as the living room of Bay St. Louis. The Mockingbird has live music on Thursday nights and is basically a coffee shop with perhaps the best vibe of any coffee shop I have ever visited. So, that is a day in the life of moi! Oh sometimes I lay in the hammock and often go to bed around 1o:30ish.
THE WORK
Our team has been separated into 3 mini teams of 4. We each had our own house that we were working on with a site supervisor telling us what to do. My team was lucky and got the best supervisor ever with a lot of knowledge who also happens to be our age. So we have had the opportunity to use many power tools, plumb, do instillation, lay down lament flooring, tyvek, paint, work on the deck, and a lot more. So, basically I am learning how to do a little of everything. The other two teams have had a more frustrating experience of painting and fixing other volunteers mistakes...but now our houses are done and we are working on the interior of a new house, so my other teammates are soon to experience lots of new things!
LAGNIAPPE PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH
Our site is Lagniappe, Lagniappe was founded after Katrina in order to help with the rebuilding efforts. www.prayforthebay.com is their website if any of you are interested. Lagniappe is an amazing organization with a great staff, the staff are mainly made of people who came down to help out for a weekend or so and decided to commit this time of their lives to the rebuilding efforts. Everyone is very welcoming, laid back, and extremely friendly. Immediately we felt a sense of joining a family. Our accommodations are great, we are very comfortable and living in the lapse of luxury compared to other Americorps teams. Many of the staff members are also young and in addition there are Habitat staff and Americorps state members who are also our age, so we have a lot of people to talk to other than one another. In addition, multiple groups come in and out of Lagniappe to volunteer for weekends or week times, so there are people around always.
THE TEAM
Our team is the best. That is basically all there is to say. We get along very well with each other and seem to understand when someone just needs their quiet time (which is really important when you are living and working with the same 13 people). We tend to do just about everything together and there is not a single person on the team who cannot talk to anyone else on the team. Everyone is fairly laid back and loves to laugh and have fun! We may still be in our "honeymoon" stage but I think that this bond will follow us throughout the year and forever... We also are a bit exclusive, we already don't want to make friends with anyone else but each other...
BAY ST. LOUIS
Words cannot describe this town. I am confident that not a single teammate can put in words the way we feel in Bay St. Louis. My teammate Jill was trying to describe how much we love this team and found herself saying that everyday is a good day in Bay St. Louis. It seems that even when we have a rough day at work, we end the day happy. Bay St. Louis has this feel to it, this sense of calming. Rather than feeling like I am working in a town, making a difference, helping people, I feel like I am visiting a family at their house and simply helping them get some things done. There is still quite a bit of destruction in the town and many people are still living in FEMA trailers, but you rarely meet a person who complains or is upset. Everyone is happy to be there, loves their town, and is very welcoming of volunteers. When we return from break we have been invited over to a man's house for dinner that we met while volunteering. We have made friends with many people from here. I really do not think I can describe to all of you just how wonderful this town is. Everyone on my team is different, yet we all love this town and are all very nervous about leaving. People are already considering coming back here after our term of service is over. Bay St. Louis is a gem that hasn't been discovered yet...
THE STORM
Since being in Bay St. Louis, I have heard numerous storm stories. Just about everyone is willing to share their story, and every story is different and just as inspiring as the next. People tell stories of holding onto tree branches for hours as the water viscously flowed, others tell stories about refusing to evacuate because they did not want to leave their pets, and still others tell stories about what they returned to after evacuating. The town was torn apart by Katrina, Bay St. Louis once had restaurants and stores all along the water, they no longer exist. There are still numerous houses that have roofs caved in and buildings without any sides. The rebuilding effort is slow but progressive. Many people are still living in their FEMA trailers, but many are finally moving into houses. There is so much to learn down here, so much to learn about perseverance, hope, and love. There is so much beauty in the people and the town. There is also a lot of red tape and a lot of issues that go unnoticed. Had I not joined Americorps and been sent to the Gulf I would still be ignorant to so much of what is happening down here. Many people feel forgotten about, there is still so much to do, so much rebuilding and healing left to do.
Some of my teammates and I went out to breakfast the other day at one of the local cafes and our waitress was thanking us for all the work we are doing in Bay St. Louis and she said one of the most touching things I've heard since we've been down here..
"Before the storm, looking at the mass media you'd think that nothing good ever happened on the planet...Katrina changed my mind about that. I really feel blessed by the storm, I really do, because of y'all."
I had never thought or heard of the storm as a blessing before, that quote illustrates how so many people who have returned to the gulf have found such positive ways to view Katrina. These people are truly amazing individuals with such beautiful spirits.
HAPPY HOLIDAY'S! I hope everyone enjoys their time with family and friends and sees the beauty in their own lives.
p.s. i apologize for typos...i am not proofreading today.
Saturday, December 22, 2007
Sunday, December 2, 2007
Bay St. Louis, Mississippi
I bet you people are all very curious about my living conditions out here and how I feel about Bay St. Louis. Well I would say we are being spoiled by our living conditions. They are simply glorious. We are living in double wide trailers, basically refer to the pictures to understand…
the most important thing you guys need to know is we are allowed to write on the walls, yes, leave our mark…so I put the famous bunny up there, nice and big, for those of you who do not know the glory of the famous bunny you are simply missing out on a very important part of your lives. There are 9 girls living in our double wide, so far so good. We have a lovely deck and a hammock. We also have bikes that we may use when we would like, wireless internet in our houses, meals provided for us, showers that are publicish but not bad at all, games, a tv room, beach volleyball, basketball court, and computers if you need them. The beach is a mile down the road, a very nice walk I might add. The town is very small, very little to do, but it seems nice, I have not done a ton of exploring quite yet (I have heard there is not a whole lot to explore).
I’m sure many of you are wondering about the devastation of the area. As you may or may not know, Bay St. Louis was hit by the eye of Katrina, so Bay St. Louis went from being a beautiful beach town to completely destroyed. They have done a very nice job building it back up, but everywhere you go you can see destruction and feel it. Trees are not whole, the actual sand area of the beach is very much smaller than it once was, there are still buildings with sunken in roofs, and foundations with a bit of the infrastructure left. It is quite sad and although I can empathize with the people, I will never understand what they saw and how they feel. I am very much looking forward to meeting people and hearing their stories and learning about what has kept them here in Bay St. Louis. Everyone is very friendly and welcoming and it really feels nice to be in the south. I have very high hopes for our project. We start work tomorrow, so I will have a much better idea of what is going on.
How is the weather you ask? Well I went swimming in the ocean yesterday. It is warm here…and it felt awesome to swim in the ocean on December 1st. Enjoy your snow, and look for more posts…
15 passenger van
There is quite a bit to share…so this is why you may notice multiple posts on the same day…
The road trip…it was quite a road trip, it was difficult at times to keep a positive attitude, being shut into a 15 passenger van with 12 other people and driving for 8-10 hours in a day is rough. However, we made it through; the first day was really the hardest. We stopped in
Next we visited
Finally, we arrived at Bay St. Louis! Woo was I glad to reach our destination. Please proceed up to the next entry if you would like to learn more.
Wednesday, November 28, 2007
Turkey day
I hope everyone had a fantastic turkey day, it has been quite hectic since I have returned from my turkey day break, I literally got back and packed up my entire room and packed for Bay St. Louis, MS. We are currently on our adventure down there, this is my first time haveing interent, we are in San Antonia and have one more stop in Houston before we arrive at our final destination. There will be a blog entry all about the travels down some time later, but for now I will simply report on thanksgiving.
For those of you who do not know I went to Mr. Dave Hall's apartment in LA for Thanksgiving. We made quite the amazing feast with more food than anyone could every expect. Everything was delicious and we had great bottles of wine to compliment the food which was nice, seeing as on base we are not allowed to drink alcohol with our meals. We went to Rodeo drive, hiked to the Hollywood sign, went to downtown Hollywood and saw the hand prints (which were not exciting at all), we saw a nice view of the city all lit up and had some fun at one of dave's favorite bars. We ended our thanksgivings in Santa Barbara. It was gorgeous! It's water and mountains everywhere...i absolutely loved it and never wanted to leave. It was a great way to end Turkey day. So in a nut shell that was my thanksgiving break...simply fabulous thanks to the amazing host Dave Hall and beautiful sites.
Now I have to see what San Antonio has to offer us! Have a fantastic evening people.
Thursday, November 22, 2007
photos posted
enjoy!
That is me dirty, at Camp Mendocino
Follow link to pictures!
http://www2.snapfish.com/share/p=455231195833645007/l=332666505/g=106539251/otsc=SYE/otsi=SALB
Tuesday, November 20, 2007
Answer to your questions
are there rebels in the group?
yes i guess, not too bad...no one on my team has gotten in trouble. It depends how you define rebels, I think all of us are a little rebellious...we are going against the typical norm of what society deems we should be doing right now...
are people obeying the rules?
not really...kind of. people are conoodiling and drinking underage. but this is a public blog...so that is as far as this goes.
how do you wake up at 5 AM?
with the alarm on my cell phone.
Do you have a 6 pack?
I'm working on a mini-keg.
yes i guess, not too bad...no one on my team has gotten in trouble. It depends how you define rebels, I think all of us are a little rebellious...we are going against the typical norm of what society deems we should be doing right now...
are people obeying the rules?
not really...kind of. people are conoodiling and drinking underage. but this is a public blog...so that is as far as this goes.
how do you wake up at 5 AM?
with the alarm on my cell phone.
Do you have a 6 pack?
I'm working on a mini-keg.
Mendocino - Red Wood Forest and life
Hello people,
I apologize for being so lazy and not writing for awhile. I honestly do not have much of an excuse, although life has been a little busy, I have been doing a lot of laying around. So basically, I just suck at life.
Last Tuesday - Thursday we went on a little trip to Camp Mendocino a camp for the Boys and Girls Club of San Francisco. The trip was basically a "mini spike." It was practice for living in sub standard places and living with your team. Although many people seemed to enjoy this trip, to me it was just like being at a cold, wet, camp with very little to do. As usual we had quite a bit of downtime with very little to do. However, when we were working, we had a great time. We spent our one main work day doing a ropes course with the team and then clearing brush from a foresty area to prevent forest fires. If I had a picture of what I looked like by the end I would post it, because I was dirty from head to toe...disgusting, covered in dirt and really sweaty. It was a really good day, we got a lot accomplished. The ropes course was also amazing, we were really able to connect more as a team and were able to work on some of our team weaknesses. Perhaps the best day was watching my teammates overcome their fears on the high ropes course.
So that's basically Mendocino in a nut shell. I will gladly answer more questions about it if you'd like...but really there wasn't that much more there. Oh, the redwood trees...freakin awesome! They were huge and so different than any trees I have ever seen before. I will be in LA tomorrow, so I will work on putting all my pictures online for all to see!
So besides that, there hasn't been that much going on. I am getting really excited about it! We leave in 6 days for the gulf, stopping in CA, NM, San Antonio,TX, and Baton Rouge, LA! We had another baseline today...where were saw where we were at in terms of physical fitness, I improved my running time by about 1 1/2 minutes! woo. umm...tomorrow we get inducted and then its thanksgiving break! I'm very excited to see LA!
sorry this is so all over the place, I'm in between meetings and have quite a bit to do...must begin packing! hooray.
I apologize for being so lazy and not writing for awhile. I honestly do not have much of an excuse, although life has been a little busy, I have been doing a lot of laying around. So basically, I just suck at life.
Last Tuesday - Thursday we went on a little trip to Camp Mendocino a camp for the Boys and Girls Club of San Francisco. The trip was basically a "mini spike." It was practice for living in sub standard places and living with your team. Although many people seemed to enjoy this trip, to me it was just like being at a cold, wet, camp with very little to do. As usual we had quite a bit of downtime with very little to do. However, when we were working, we had a great time. We spent our one main work day doing a ropes course with the team and then clearing brush from a foresty area to prevent forest fires. If I had a picture of what I looked like by the end I would post it, because I was dirty from head to toe...disgusting, covered in dirt and really sweaty. It was a really good day, we got a lot accomplished. The ropes course was also amazing, we were really able to connect more as a team and were able to work on some of our team weaknesses. Perhaps the best day was watching my teammates overcome their fears on the high ropes course.
So that's basically Mendocino in a nut shell. I will gladly answer more questions about it if you'd like...but really there wasn't that much more there. Oh, the redwood trees...freakin awesome! They were huge and so different than any trees I have ever seen before. I will be in LA tomorrow, so I will work on putting all my pictures online for all to see!
So besides that, there hasn't been that much going on. I am getting really excited about it! We leave in 6 days for the gulf, stopping in CA, NM, San Antonio,TX, and Baton Rouge, LA! We had another baseline today...where were saw where we were at in terms of physical fitness, I improved my running time by about 1 1/2 minutes! woo. umm...tomorrow we get inducted and then its thanksgiving break! I'm very excited to see LA!
sorry this is so all over the place, I'm in between meetings and have quite a bit to do...must begin packing! hooray.
Thursday, November 8, 2007
Service Project Numero Dos
Hello all! I have some good news, I have found a quick internet connection which means more pictures on the blog and I will be uploading my photos to my snapfish account and will have give you all that link. Don’t get yourselves all excited…it may take a few days…I am lazy and a busy girl.
Yesterday we had our second service project. We spent 8 hours at the boys and girls club. I cannot even begin to explain to you all how shocked I was with this place. It was a 5 star boys and girls club. It is huge, a nice building, big cafeteria, good gym, large game room, library, teen room, computer room, art room, and rooms for each age group. It also has its own soccer field…but no playground L. I’m sure you can all guess that that bothered me a bit…but oh well, they have so much more than any boys and girls club I have ever seen.
We spent the first half of our day doing maintenancey stuff around for them, however, I don’t think they knew how awesome the Blue Anacondas (formerly known as Blue 3) are. We finished up that stuff fairly quickly and had some downtime before the kiddies arrived. So, we ate our lunch and then played games! When the kids arrived we did power hour with them (homework time) and then played with them. It was a tiring day for sure, but also very fun. As many of you know, working at the boys and girls club is always a good time. The kids love having you around and don’t want you to leave.
The highlight of my day: I learned how to play bumper pool, a 7 year old was my fantastic teacher and kicked my butt just about every time (I won once).
Since that is all I have to say I thought I would throw another little part in to this entry. I’m sure many of you are interested in what a normal day in the life of Emily is right now.
We are still in training and will be until we get inducted on Nov. 20 or 21. So our day goes like this:
5:30 AM PT
6:30 – 7:45 AM Breakfast
8:00-8:30 AM Check-in (we go with another group and have announcements basically)
8:30-12:00PM Trainings (trainings are stuff like tools, redcross, healthy lifestyles, conflict resolution, projects, etc.).
12:00-1:00 PM LUNCH! J
1:00-4:30/5 PM more trainings
Then we are free for the rest of the night…we take turns w/ 3 other teams making dinner…which is around 6 or 6:30. Thursday is our night this week, we are making chicken, veggie, pesto tortellini.
Also the trainings are not exactly that entertaining so we tend to write stories, draw pictures, and play hangman. Goodtimes.
For those of you who are just dying to know something that I have yet to write about, let me know. I will write about it next time.
Woooo goodbye
Yesterday we had our second service project. We spent 8 hours at the boys and girls club. I cannot even begin to explain to you all how shocked I was with this place. It was a 5 star boys and girls club. It is huge, a nice building, big cafeteria, good gym, large game room, library, teen room, computer room, art room, and rooms for each age group. It also has its own soccer field…but no playground L. I’m sure you can all guess that that bothered me a bit…but oh well, they have so much more than any boys and girls club I have ever seen.
We spent the first half of our day doing maintenancey stuff around for them, however, I don’t think they knew how awesome the Blue Anacondas (formerly known as Blue 3) are. We finished up that stuff fairly quickly and had some downtime before the kiddies arrived. So, we ate our lunch and then played games! When the kids arrived we did power hour with them (homework time) and then played with them. It was a tiring day for sure, but also very fun. As many of you know, working at the boys and girls club is always a good time. The kids love having you around and don’t want you to leave.
The highlight of my day: I learned how to play bumper pool, a 7 year old was my fantastic teacher and kicked my butt just about every time (I won once).
Since that is all I have to say I thought I would throw another little part in to this entry. I’m sure many of you are interested in what a normal day in the life of Emily is right now.
We are still in training and will be until we get inducted on Nov. 20 or 21. So our day goes like this:
5:30 AM PT
6:30 – 7:45 AM Breakfast
8:00-8:30 AM Check-in (we go with another group and have announcements basically)
8:30-12:00PM Trainings (trainings are stuff like tools, redcross, healthy lifestyles, conflict resolution, projects, etc.).
12:00-1:00 PM LUNCH! J
1:00-4:30/5 PM more trainings
Then we are free for the rest of the night…we take turns w/ 3 other teams making dinner…which is around 6 or 6:30. Thursday is our night this week, we are making chicken, veggie, pesto tortellini.
Also the trainings are not exactly that entertaining so we tend to write stories, draw pictures, and play hangman. Goodtimes.
For those of you who are just dying to know something that I have yet to write about, let me know. I will write about it next time.
Woooo goodbye
Sunday, November 4, 2007
Service Project and Sonoma/ Napa Valley
So for the most part the week was uneventful. Same old stuff. PT each morning at 5:30 then classes till 4:30. It works out to be a pretty long day. Normally it is then naptime afterwards and then dinner around 6 and cards or TV afterwards. However, on Friday afternoon we were finally told our first project! We had to wait all day long to find out where we were going and what we were doing…deal with PT, sit through a 4 hour class on emotional intelligence, then run around downtown Sacramento doing a scavenger hunt…but when we were finished at 4:30 we were told we are spending the next 2 months in Bay St. Louis, Mississippi!!! Thank god I learned how to spell that in 5th grade.
Ok so here is what I know about my project so far. We are doing interior house work, cabinets, plumbing, molding, etc. Very exciting. We will be living in bunk houses with wireless internet, 12 common bathrooms and showers. All of our meals are provided for us, and we are right on the water. Water means I get to go sea kayaking! Which is something I’ve really wanted to do for awhile now…so that’s really exciting for me. Bay St. Louis is apparently a very small town, about 2,000 people. It is an artsy town with a lot of coffee shops and galleries. The people there are very welcoming and are likely to invite us into their homes for dinners and what not…we are an hour from New Orleans, less than 25 miles from Biloxi, MI, and about an hour to Mobile, Al! The other exciting thing is that we get weekends off! We are working a normal work week, which leaves a lot of time for exploration! That is about all I know about the project and area so far…
Ok and now for the weekend adventures…Friday night 4 of my friends and I made plans to spend the night outside of Napa Valley and spend Saturday exploring it. So, we took a cab to the airport where our rental car is. Being the dummies/ cheap poor children that we are we decided to go without the care insurance on the car…two of our drivers have insurance so no big deal. We walked out to our car and had a lovely white Pontiac Grand Prix. It was actually quite roomy and we had a nice 1 hr drive to Napa Valley. Now on our way to the hotel we were discussing what they hotel would be like…it’s called the Deluxe Inn and it was very inexpensive. So we are following the directions and all of sudden one of the guys starts shrieking…there is our hotel the Deluxe Inn, it is basically on top of a highway in what is similar to a Spanish Harlem. Basically we were checking into a murder hotel. We checked in, went and got our booze, and then went to the room…there were stains on the walls in the hallway and the doors were a mess. However, the room was large and had a porch, pretty nice...no alarm clock, no bible, and no hotel information, but beds and a lot of space…we were good. We played card games all night and had a fantastic time. I even sang rent…whohoo. We woke up the next morning to find nasty, brown stains all over the box spring, lovely. Now began our visit to Sonoma.
We visited three winery’s/vineyards. Two were in Sonoma and were very enjoyable. We asked a lot of questions about wine and learned quite a bit. There were Alpaca’s at the first place we went to and the second place we had a special tour in the barrel room…we also received our tasting for free. We found a fantastic deli for lunch and then wandered around in the little town of Sonoma. There were celebrations for the Day of the Dead along with galleries, wine stores, book stores, and much more. We finished our day at a Napa winery where we had a bubbly brut rose wine, looking out over the vines and ponds. It was really beautiful and extremely relaxing to get off campus and really just take our time enjoying another time.
That’s the end. I came home and was supposed to go out to the bar and fell asleep instead.
Ok so here is what I know about my project so far. We are doing interior house work, cabinets, plumbing, molding, etc. Very exciting. We will be living in bunk houses with wireless internet, 12 common bathrooms and showers. All of our meals are provided for us, and we are right on the water. Water means I get to go sea kayaking! Which is something I’ve really wanted to do for awhile now…so that’s really exciting for me. Bay St. Louis is apparently a very small town, about 2,000 people. It is an artsy town with a lot of coffee shops and galleries. The people there are very welcoming and are likely to invite us into their homes for dinners and what not…we are an hour from New Orleans, less than 25 miles from Biloxi, MI, and about an hour to Mobile, Al! The other exciting thing is that we get weekends off! We are working a normal work week, which leaves a lot of time for exploration! That is about all I know about the project and area so far…
Ok and now for the weekend adventures…Friday night 4 of my friends and I made plans to spend the night outside of Napa Valley and spend Saturday exploring it. So, we took a cab to the airport where our rental car is. Being the dummies/ cheap poor children that we are we decided to go without the care insurance on the car…two of our drivers have insurance so no big deal. We walked out to our car and had a lovely white Pontiac Grand Prix. It was actually quite roomy and we had a nice 1 hr drive to Napa Valley. Now on our way to the hotel we were discussing what they hotel would be like…it’s called the Deluxe Inn and it was very inexpensive. So we are following the directions and all of sudden one of the guys starts shrieking…there is our hotel the Deluxe Inn, it is basically on top of a highway in what is similar to a Spanish Harlem. Basically we were checking into a murder hotel. We checked in, went and got our booze, and then went to the room…there were stains on the walls in the hallway and the doors were a mess. However, the room was large and had a porch, pretty nice...no alarm clock, no bible, and no hotel information, but beds and a lot of space…we were good. We played card games all night and had a fantastic time. I even sang rent…whohoo. We woke up the next morning to find nasty, brown stains all over the box spring, lovely. Now began our visit to Sonoma.
We visited three winery’s/vineyards. Two were in Sonoma and were very enjoyable. We asked a lot of questions about wine and learned quite a bit. There were Alpaca’s at the first place we went to and the second place we had a special tour in the barrel room…we also received our tasting for free. We found a fantastic deli for lunch and then wandered around in the little town of Sonoma. There were celebrations for the Day of the Dead along with galleries, wine stores, book stores, and much more. We finished our day at a Napa winery where we had a bubbly brut rose wine, looking out over the vines and ponds. It was really beautiful and extremely relaxing to get off campus and really just take our time enjoying another time.
That’s the end. I came home and was supposed to go out to the bar and fell asleep instead.
Sunday, October 28, 2007
my first service project!
Hello people!
Yesterday was Make a difference day, meaning it was my first day of actually going out there and doing service! It was a really great day. We started bright and early and worked a full day. Each team was paired with one other team and went to various places around Sacramento to help clean up! My team went to a community garden and cleaned the whole thing up by weeding, planting trees, and laying down a ton of mulch. It was a lot of work but felt really great, especially seeing how much better the garden looked when we were done. It was also a great day for getting to know my team! Each time we hang out the group dynmaics just get better! Hooray.
I went to downtown sac last night. It was fun, but cab fare is expensive! So I think that's the end of that nonsense. I can't make believe I'm rich anymore! :0
I think that's all I have to say.
Oh yes, my whole body is sore today, I feel like and old lady...all the work, PT starts tomorrow for real!
one other thing, for those of you hoping for really good juicy stories about whatever, I can't do anything like that, this is a public blog, which means I'm reflecting on Americorps...so only positive!
Yesterday was Make a difference day, meaning it was my first day of actually going out there and doing service! It was a really great day. We started bright and early and worked a full day. Each team was paired with one other team and went to various places around Sacramento to help clean up! My team went to a community garden and cleaned the whole thing up by weeding, planting trees, and laying down a ton of mulch. It was a lot of work but felt really great, especially seeing how much better the garden looked when we were done. It was also a great day for getting to know my team! Each time we hang out the group dynmaics just get better! Hooray.
I went to downtown sac last night. It was fun, but cab fare is expensive! So I think that's the end of that nonsense. I can't make believe I'm rich anymore! :0
I think that's all I have to say.
Oh yes, my whole body is sore today, I feel like and old lady...all the work, PT starts tomorrow for real!
one other thing, for those of you hoping for really good juicy stories about whatever, I can't do anything like that, this is a public blog, which means I'm reflecting on Americorps...so only positive!
Friday, October 26, 2007
Blue 3
Hello people, yesterday I finally met my team. It was very exciting. There are 12 of us and so far so good. Everyone is welcoming and ready to just jump in. So for those of you who have no idea what I’m talking about, my team is the group of people who I will go on spikes with, who I will do everything with, they are basically going to be my family. For the next 10 months we will eat meals together, we will travel together, we will live together, and we will work together. So basically, we are going to have a pretty intense relationship. And good news, there are musicians on my team! I’m looking forward to campfire songs…
Today we had our PT baseline…this was basically the PT test to see where we fell in terms of physical fitness so we could be grouped accordingly. I have to say I was pretty proud of myself, I did 25 pushups in a row! That’s crazy for me. I ran my mile and half without stopping right around the time I expected, and I did well on my sit-ups. Now, I have PT to look forward to four days a week at 5 AM! Woooo!
I’m pretty sure I don’t have much else to share...we still have a good amount of downtime, but when the downtime comes you feel like you need it. Saturday is Make a Difference Day so I will be making a difference somewhere…I believe we will me making community gardens. Sunday we have the day off, so expect to hear of some adventure we went on that day, we still haven’t decided where to go yet, but will be deciding soon!
I have really enjoyed hearing from everyone through texts, the phone, emails, facebook, and messages on the board! Keep it up, I want to know what is going on with everyone else just as much as you guys want to know what is going on with me.
For those of you who did not receive a picture of me in my “suit” enjoy!!
P.S. I was supposed to put this up last night, but I got lazy…so now here it is a day late. My bad. Also, I think many of you will be interested to know that my roommate and I walked 30 minutes today mainly for a dollar general.
Today we had our PT baseline…this was basically the PT test to see where we fell in terms of physical fitness so we could be grouped accordingly. I have to say I was pretty proud of myself, I did 25 pushups in a row! That’s crazy for me. I ran my mile and half without stopping right around the time I expected, and I did well on my sit-ups. Now, I have PT to look forward to four days a week at 5 AM! Woooo!
I’m pretty sure I don’t have much else to share...we still have a good amount of downtime, but when the downtime comes you feel like you need it. Saturday is Make a Difference Day so I will be making a difference somewhere…I believe we will me making community gardens. Sunday we have the day off, so expect to hear of some adventure we went on that day, we still haven’t decided where to go yet, but will be deciding soon!
I have really enjoyed hearing from everyone through texts, the phone, emails, facebook, and messages on the board! Keep it up, I want to know what is going on with everyone else just as much as you guys want to know what is going on with me.
For those of you who did not receive a picture of me in my “suit” enjoy!!
P.S. I was supposed to put this up last night, but I got lazy…so now here it is a day late. My bad. Also, I think many of you will be interested to know that my roommate and I walked 30 minutes today mainly for a dollar general.
Tuesday, October 23, 2007
pictures
this was a real pain in the butt to do, so i hope you guys like it.
this is us on top of san fran. and the goats.
no pics of old. sac...too much time and people waiting...maybe you'll get some more if i ever figure out how to do this efficently.
Life in Americorps and San Fransisco
So we still haven’t started hardcore stuff, I still have quite a bit of downtime, it still feels like freshman orientation here, just with a lot less drinking…however I did visit the bar twice this weekend. So the cool way of talking here is "ameri _______ fill in the blank. There are Amerisins, Amerilove, Amerifun. My opinion is its very ameriLAME. Basically it sounds ridiculous, but these people are really into it, I’m pretty sure I have made a few enemies by making fun of some of the ridiculousness out loud…but that’s okay because I only have room for a certain amount of friends and I think I have already found too many...
There aren’t as many people who just sit around and play instruments as I expected. I was hoping that just about everyone would be jamming and what not, but today was the first time I heard any whole made music. Maybe I have made the wrong friends…
Some of you, especially the young adults reading this, may be interested to know that you are not allowed to candoole on government property. No form of sexual contact...if you are caught you get written up and a $75 fine! However, my roommate overheard people talking about sleeping over in a boys bedroom…so I’m pretty sure there are some sneaky kiddies here.
Seeing as I had the weekend off and the majority of today, I have some adventures to share. Before I do, I’m sure many of you are wondering what I actually do. So far, we just sit in classroom situations all day long and learn about rules, regulations, the American red cross, what to expect out of projects, and service. It’s not too bad. We get our teams on Wednesday and start PT soon after…so that when hell begins.
BUT, until then I will play. On Saturday I visited Old Sacramento, what I learned: Sacramento does not have much to offer. On Sunday a group of friends and I went to San Francisco. We went down to the wharf, had a nice time eating at in and out and of course visited the sea lions (there was a dead one L). One of the girls we were with had a great book about the west coast, and we used to go on a fantastic hike. We started off in the Castro (the gay district, where a rainbow flag hangs instead of an American flag). While there I used a public restroom on the street and the door didn’t close all the way, so that was an experience… We walked up a huge hill then up the side of an enormous mountain. It was really awesome, at the top besides seeing a lot of goats, we were standing on top of San Francisco. We had a phenomenal view. Then the hike took us down into Haigh Ashbury where we strolled around in book stores and thrift stores and all that good stuff. It was a very nice way for us to spend our Sunday.
This morning we had to muster (meet the group) at 7:45 and then had the day free till our 2:30 muster, so two other people in my group and I decided to walk down the street a bit to see if there was anything to explore. As we walked we decided to just hop on the lite rail which took us into down town Sacramento where the Capital building is. We were able to take a nice little tour of the capital building and see Arnold’s office. The boys I was with were very excited about seeing the "governators" office. I basically just enjoyed the entire building, there are old rooms on exhibit and the senate room too…and a lot of people who wanted to give us helpful information. We were also in our uniforms and someone thought we worked there!
I know a lot of people have been asking for me to send pictures of me in my uniform. I promise that next entry I will have the pictures, we always talk about it, its just that at 6:30 AM that’s the last thing we are thinking of, and when we return it’s the first thing we want to take off….plus I don’t have the full ensemble yet…the boots or on special order still.
ok so i had 3 pictures i was going to post...but i can't figure out how to do it, and I have to go get lunch...so I'm just going to have a friend do it for me later...sorry people
There aren’t as many people who just sit around and play instruments as I expected. I was hoping that just about everyone would be jamming and what not, but today was the first time I heard any whole made music. Maybe I have made the wrong friends…
Some of you, especially the young adults reading this, may be interested to know that you are not allowed to candoole on government property. No form of sexual contact...if you are caught you get written up and a $75 fine! However, my roommate overheard people talking about sleeping over in a boys bedroom…so I’m pretty sure there are some sneaky kiddies here.
Seeing as I had the weekend off and the majority of today, I have some adventures to share. Before I do, I’m sure many of you are wondering what I actually do. So far, we just sit in classroom situations all day long and learn about rules, regulations, the American red cross, what to expect out of projects, and service. It’s not too bad. We get our teams on Wednesday and start PT soon after…so that when hell begins.
BUT, until then I will play. On Saturday I visited Old Sacramento, what I learned: Sacramento does not have much to offer. On Sunday a group of friends and I went to San Francisco. We went down to the wharf, had a nice time eating at in and out and of course visited the sea lions (there was a dead one L). One of the girls we were with had a great book about the west coast, and we used to go on a fantastic hike. We started off in the Castro (the gay district, where a rainbow flag hangs instead of an American flag). While there I used a public restroom on the street and the door didn’t close all the way, so that was an experience… We walked up a huge hill then up the side of an enormous mountain. It was really awesome, at the top besides seeing a lot of goats, we were standing on top of San Francisco. We had a phenomenal view. Then the hike took us down into Haigh Ashbury where we strolled around in book stores and thrift stores and all that good stuff. It was a very nice way for us to spend our Sunday.
This morning we had to muster (meet the group) at 7:45 and then had the day free till our 2:30 muster, so two other people in my group and I decided to walk down the street a bit to see if there was anything to explore. As we walked we decided to just hop on the lite rail which took us into down town Sacramento where the Capital building is. We were able to take a nice little tour of the capital building and see Arnold’s office. The boys I was with were very excited about seeing the "governators" office. I basically just enjoyed the entire building, there are old rooms on exhibit and the senate room too…and a lot of people who wanted to give us helpful information. We were also in our uniforms and someone thought we worked there!
I know a lot of people have been asking for me to send pictures of me in my uniform. I promise that next entry I will have the pictures, we always talk about it, its just that at 6:30 AM that’s the last thing we are thinking of, and when we return it’s the first thing we want to take off….plus I don’t have the full ensemble yet…the boots or on special order still.
ok so i had 3 pictures i was going to post...but i can't figure out how to do it, and I have to go get lunch...so I'm just going to have a friend do it for me later...sorry people
Thursday, October 18, 2007
I made it here alive
I made it to Sacramento!
After 21 hours of Americorps registration fun, I finally made it to bed, it sure was a lovely day of waiting in lines, making friends, and being delirious.
I suppose you people would like to know about my living situation. This is it, I walked into my bedroom and it was already fully occupied, so I dragged my luggage back down two flights of stairs, got a new room (in temporary housing) and lugged my bags to the other side of campus to that room. Later in the evening, after my roommate and I had already unpacked our things, we find out that our suitemates are males…and that just doesn’t fly for Americorps, so at 9 PM last night people had to move, luckily the guys next door to us lost in rock, paper, scissor, and had to move! So I am all settled in to my room, we don’t have a refrigerator like other rooms but do have a TV unlike other rooms. It’s pretty nice, think hotelish, but twin beds and a little smaller. We share the bathroom with the people next door (but we don’t have neighbors anymore! J). So all in all, it’s pretty nice, especially compared to the other people’s rooms…josh litwin is in a room with 2 other guys that is the size of a closet with an excessive amount of furniture.
So far there’s not too much going on, we don’t start PT till next week. Hooray! We have this weekend off, so I’m gonna try to do something exciting, we’ll see if my new friends want to do something.
Basically I feel like I’m at a summer camp, with a lot of rules, and maybe missing the camp songs (although I have heard a few songs already).
So, I’m going to do a little survey, what would you people like to see in my blog…
Do you want inspirational stories with tons of details about all the good and how much I’m learning, or do you want more narrative of what’s up or perhaps just ridiculous stories.
VOTE in the comment section, I can’t promise I’ll always do one or the other, but I can make attempts.
PS, pics of me in my uniform coming soon! Get excited.
PS again – they didn’t have gloves for my small hands and when I tried on steel toe boots, the guy just looked at my feet, made a sound, and walked away. When he returned, he said, we’ll have to order some boots for your feet, they’re much too small.
After 21 hours of Americorps registration fun, I finally made it to bed, it sure was a lovely day of waiting in lines, making friends, and being delirious.
I suppose you people would like to know about my living situation. This is it, I walked into my bedroom and it was already fully occupied, so I dragged my luggage back down two flights of stairs, got a new room (in temporary housing) and lugged my bags to the other side of campus to that room. Later in the evening, after my roommate and I had already unpacked our things, we find out that our suitemates are males…and that just doesn’t fly for Americorps, so at 9 PM last night people had to move, luckily the guys next door to us lost in rock, paper, scissor, and had to move! So I am all settled in to my room, we don’t have a refrigerator like other rooms but do have a TV unlike other rooms. It’s pretty nice, think hotelish, but twin beds and a little smaller. We share the bathroom with the people next door (but we don’t have neighbors anymore! J). So all in all, it’s pretty nice, especially compared to the other people’s rooms…josh litwin is in a room with 2 other guys that is the size of a closet with an excessive amount of furniture.
So far there’s not too much going on, we don’t start PT till next week. Hooray! We have this weekend off, so I’m gonna try to do something exciting, we’ll see if my new friends want to do something.
Basically I feel like I’m at a summer camp, with a lot of rules, and maybe missing the camp songs (although I have heard a few songs already).
So, I’m going to do a little survey, what would you people like to see in my blog…
Do you want inspirational stories with tons of details about all the good and how much I’m learning, or do you want more narrative of what’s up or perhaps just ridiculous stories.
VOTE in the comment section, I can’t promise I’ll always do one or the other, but I can make attempts.
PS, pics of me in my uniform coming soon! Get excited.
PS again – they didn’t have gloves for my small hands and when I tried on steel toe boots, the guy just looked at my feet, made a sound, and walked away. When he returned, he said, we’ll have to order some boots for your feet, they’re much too small.
Monday, October 1, 2007
DISCLAIMER
I have chosen to take on the task of writing a blog while in Americorps. This is the official disclaimer for this blog:
- I am not an entertaining writer ~ so if you're looking for mere entertainment this is not the blog for you
- I tend to get excited and write spastically ~ so be prepared for jumbled entries
- I have a terrible memory and am incredibly lazy ~ so entries may not come as much as one may hope.
- I have never written a blog, or anything remotely like on ~ so lower your expectations
Now that the disclaimer is out of the way, welcome to my blog. I will try to blog at least once a week to share with all of you my experiences during Americorps! I hope you all enjoy!
P.S. I do not leave until October 17th, so there will not be any posts until then.
- I am not an entertaining writer ~ so if you're looking for mere entertainment this is not the blog for you
- I tend to get excited and write spastically ~ so be prepared for jumbled entries
- I have a terrible memory and am incredibly lazy ~ so entries may not come as much as one may hope.
- I have never written a blog, or anything remotely like on ~ so lower your expectations
Now that the disclaimer is out of the way, welcome to my blog. I will try to blog at least once a week to share with all of you my experiences during Americorps! I hope you all enjoy!
P.S. I do not leave until October 17th, so there will not be any posts until then.
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