The end of the beginning

Hello again!

Things sure have been busy here! The past two weeks have been filled with training, team-bonding and more training. They've covered everything from disaster psychology to food planning so that our time serving will go easier. During our free time we're often coordinating our next meal or catching up on sleep since the 5:45AM PT sessions really wear down on us. The PT has been paying off though because our second baseline was yesterday morning and everyone I talked to did much better than the first time. I managed to add 10 push-ups and 15 sit-ups to the 2 min allotted for each exercise and I dropped 1.5 minutes during my run! My new goals are to improve my push-up form and run 1.5 miles in 13:30 (meaning I'd be running a 9 minute mile which I haven't been able to do since before migraines appeared in my life).

I'm officially in my new team: I am a proud member of Green Machine 3!! How they knew my favorite color was green, I don't know, but I'm loving it ;) My teammates are great and I cannot wait to work with them this year. During my last blog, I lamented the loss of my pod-mates. (Oh, how I wasn't the only one! Our campus director even discussed "the curse of the pods" during a community meeting.) But we're still friends and I'm headed to San Francisco with a few of them tomorrow so that'll be a great reunion and I'm confident that we'll always be there for each other, even if we're not literally in the same state.

With the assignment of our new pods, we were also given our official role as FEMA workers. My team is dedicated toward public assistance; we'll be the ones assessing the damage to public buildings and we'll also have a hand in the coordination of temporary public facilities that are set up to keep things running in the interim of the disaster and the completion of buildings. I don't know much more at the moment, but I expect to in the next couple of weeks.

The reason I'll know more soon is because next Friday we are leaving sunny Sacramento (although I'm technically in McClellan) and driving down a city in New Mexico (I've forgotten the name darn it) for our FEMA training. All I know is that there are a lot of rules there: if we don't have both our IDs upon entrance we're sent home, if we take a picture we're kicked out and we were told that if we open the wrong door (ie one marked "authorized personnel only") then we're never seen again...I'm sure that's just a scare tactic, but it's worked because I'll be sticking to the herd while there! It'll take 3 days to get there (I'll be one of the drivers since I passed my driving test) and we'll be there for 10 days. After that, we'll get sent to help somewhere, possibly straight from New Mexico. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that they tell us where our project is before we leave for FEMA training so I'll have an idea of what weather to pack for, but if not I'll just be FEMA flexible :)

Let's see, what else?! Team positions: I've been selected as the PT coordinator of my team so I'll be responsible (along with my comrade, Jessie) for submitting a work-out plan once a week and leading group exercise. I'm excited for it because I have a lot of knowledge from my swimming and rowing past that I'll get to share plus there's the challenge of always being in a new place and needing to be creative with what we have. I also have another team position as an environmental liaison along with my teammate, Mike. We'll need to make conservation plans before we go on projects and we'll set goals for our team that we'll assess after projects to see how environmentally friendly our team is being. Both jobs require a decent amount of organization and paperwork, but I'm up for the challenge!

Funny story time: my room has some very peculiar plumbing. Last Sunday our shower was dripping at a quick rate and when I went to twist the handle more off, more water started pouring out! Two hours later, the problem mysteriously fixed itself. Then last Monday our toilet decided to keep flushing. It probably flushed for 30 minutes straight before it stopped. A repairman showed up a few days later and said it was a whole-building-shut-down fix so, but I think they're waiting until we all leave so it'll be less inconvenient for everyone. Such trouble my bathroom is causing!

I can't think of much more for the time being. This coming Monday is our official induction in to AmeriCorps NCCC which will be really cool. Our time in CTI (core training institute) is over (along with the mandatory name-tag wearing rule) and we'll be moving on to some more training before I can actually get out there and do some good. In the meantime I'm working as hard as I can to learn everything they teach us so that I'll be ready to serve who-knows what in who-knows-where in less than a month!

Until next time!