Back in the burg

So after an amazing trip to New Orleans I am back in Vicksburg Mississippi.  Tomorrow (Tuesday) we have our official induction and become recognized as AmeriCorps members wooo!  There is already a disaster project happening and 2 teams (River 2 and River 5) will be heading out right after induction to prep food in a church.  I will greatly miss my River 5 buddies mucho! Tonight is our last night with them so we'll have to do something magical before they depart and we go a month and a half without seeing them again. Anyways Sunday was our last day in New Orleans and we had to led Tulson University volunteers around and plant trees. I had a group of 3 students and we planted 15 trees in about an hour.  Most of my New Orleans experience it was pouring rain (hurricane season ahhh) and I have some good pics of us soaking wet.  I also met up with some AmeriCorps members from other campuses and different programs like Vista.  Although we had a 10pm curfew all weekend I was able to head down to bourbon street and check out what the hype was all about, overall had a great time! I was unable to make it to the famous cafe that my Aunt Barbara was telling me about however I doubt I would have appreciated it much anyways considering it is known for its world renown desserts!  Upon returning back to Vicksburg I received a package from my amazing Godmother and uncle! Kashi bars and cereal and cashews and almonds, I could not ask for anything more amazing. My family has supported me so much through this experience so far with constantly sending me packages with fun items and reminding me how much family is important, love you all!! Alright I'm going to get some pictures up because I have a lot of them from New Orleans. I really hope I get stationed there at some point throughout this year, just spending a weekend there was such a tease...

Nawlins!

After a long and exhausting day of traveling and blasting disney songs, River 7 finally made it to New Orleans.  We are staying on church property, fortunately not in the church but on apartments located to the side of them. By the time we arrived it was too late to do any work so we had dinner (made by the church) and headed over to the musicians village where Anderson Coopers 360 News show was shot live.  Throughout the entire duration of his hour news show AmeriCorps NCCC members were displayed in the backround and shown periodically during the show. I was behind the drummer and even got to rock the fist pump on national TV (I can die happy now). The Coopster was a cool guy and very professional, you could tell he was genuine in thanking us for coming to help out and stayed long after the show for pictures and all that jazz.  By the time we got back it was late so we passed out for a few hours awaking around 6am for breakfast and assignments for the day.  Today was the first day we actually did hands on work that was not training! Myself and 4 other members from our team went to a house that was being rebuilt and we worked with fifty in five which is an organization that builds 50 houses in 5 days in memorial of Katrina.  Our job was to build a fence around the perimeter of this lady's property whose house was destroyed.  It was hard work but felt good to finally do something. After lunch it started to downpour and our project was called off for the day (rain + power tools = ack!) So we headed back to the church and had a pretty awesome gumbo bowl for dinner. Finally we were able to have some time off and explore New Orleans. Fortunately Sarah, an experienced New Orleans tourist was able to show us around and we checked out Bourbon street and some pretty cool shops (pics to come). We had a 10pm curfew so didn't stay out long but we were so tired it didn't matter anyways. I'm exhausted after a long day and I'm passing out (and its 10:20pm!) Nite Y'all!

New Orleans Tomorrow!

Alright so last day of classroom training today.  My team and I have to present our project briefing for our first service project to Mobile Alabama today to prove we know what we're doing before we head out there. I also have my peer helper training today which is one of my team specialty roles.  On top of this I have also been assigned Media Representative for our team along with Jacquie, so we had to write up a press release today and look up local tv and news stations in Mobile to let the media know about our cause and project intentions.  It's insane how fast training has gone by, these last 3+ weeks have gone by so quick and right when I'm feeling adjusted to this campus and ready to call it my new home we'll be heading out soon!  I am excited to embark upon this new adventure with my team (River 7 wooooooo) and head out around the dirty south! Hopefully I'll get to head to Virginia at some point this year, that would be nice with family there and a colder environment.  Our team took some sweet pics together that I'll throw up on here for "y'all" to see. Also, our team has decided to go for the gold and aim for the super duper Presidential Volunteering award which requires 250 Independent Service Hours aside from the standard volunteer hours we have during the week.  This first project we will be working Tuesday to Saturday so hopefully we will find some open volunteering opportunities on Monday when the kiddies are in school.  The year has really just begun, and our Induction ceremony to "officially" become AmeriCorps members is on tuesday August 31rst. The next day I head out to Alabama with my team and bmetegin working with Habitat (we already got a sweet mix tape for the ride).  Time to head out to this project briefing, adios!

Talent Show

So for the Talent show we decided to dance to Ice Ice Baby and Brittany was awesome enough to record it for us. For your viewing entertainment: http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=1369130987842&ref=mf
(Must have facebook account to view... it's free)

Manic Monday

Another fun day of training, today we learned about infectious diseases and healthy lifestyles. I got some mail today which was pretty sweet! Thanks to my amazing twin sister and Grandparents. Only a few more days until we leave for New Orleans (Thursday, not Wednesday) which means physical training 6:30am for the next 3 days straight since we won't be able to do it there. Hopefully it will be something fun like soccer and not just indian runs and doing taebo like we've been doing... Saturday night I went to a locals house and he showed me around Vicksburg.  Paul owns his own landscaping company and is acquiring a good amount of property along the Mississippi river (see pics of sunset from his backyard). My boy Colin who is on another team came with me and we saw an amazing sunset for the first time along the Mississippi river, truly astounding. It's funny how different yet similiar we are to each other even though we're from across the country.  Paul showed us some true southern hospitality and openly invited us to check out his house which was a sight to see. He plans on buying out the rest of the houses on his block (eventually) and renting them out, meanwhile he is only 25 years old, quite an inspiration. I can't get over how cheap the houses are here in Vicksburg (standard houses running 20-50k and that's with water view along the Mississippi). There is a pretty enormous mansion type house right along side our campus which sold for 100k during the recession (pics to come). Houses are beyond undervalued over here! Going to throw up some pics.

Week 3 completed

Another week of AmeriCorps is completed and week 4 is about to begin. Each member of our team has a unique specialty role which they will responsible for the next 9 and a half months, mine being the peer helper. I should begin training sometime this week, I can only assume it's like peer mediators that we had back in junior high, which we never used... So hopefully it will be a nice drama free year on my team, ha.  Oh I also have a "news and weather" role in which I will keep the team posted on SPIKE's what current events are going on and other crucial events such as Lindsay Lohans jail status.

Back to the classroom

After arriving back from an amazing camping adventure, it was time to head back to the classroom and get my learn on to become CPR certified by the Red Cross.  Essentially, if you are choking, having a heart attack, or stroke, I MAY be able to save you now. Fret not, I practiced numerous times on a plastic dummy and dummy doug made it through the whole training with getting injured. Oh and my first Project that I'll be heading down to Mobile, Alabama for I have the project app for it, so if you're curious as to what I'll be doing for a month and a half check this out... http://omploader.org/vNWFvYQ It explains where I'll be living, what I'll be doing... and much more fun information (20+ pages worth, Ma I know you'll read every word)
In other more recent news, I will be heading out to New Orleans this Wednesday for some training for 3 days which I will be looking forward to as this will be my first time in "Who Dat Nation". Drew Breeeeeeeees! Which reminds me, I watched ESPN for the first time in 3 weeks yesterday. Truly amazing. Alright I'm going to try and get some more pics up, so far so good, looking forward to an amazing experience.

What grinds my gears

One point I touched on in my last post was the lack of quality food we are able to consume due to the food budget granted to us.  Although this is not always the case (I made some delicious burritos last night), most of the time it stands true.  Aside from breakfast food I have found it hard to maintain a healthy diet throughout the rest of the day.  As much as I would love to eat a turkey sandwich or wrap for lunch everyday (like I did in college) this has proven to be impossible with our teams food budget.  I find this ironic seeing as I am currently in the most obese state in America (blamed often believed to be caused by poor socioeconomics).  Now this is essentially occurring on a smaller scale by a federal funded program, AmeriCorps.  Now don't get me wrong, the government wants us to stay fit, with mandatory physical training 3x a week and mandatory conditioning tests (1.5 mile run, timed sit ups and push-ups), however the food we are in taking after preforming these exercises is not benefiting us, or being efficient to our bodies growth development.  This last camping trip is a prime example of that, working and sweating from 8am to 5pm while eating a peanut butter and jelly sandwich for lunch on a loaf of bread that costs 79 cents, followed by plain pasta with cheap pasta sauce for dinner.  The AmeriCorps program costs the government a pretty penny; I find it absurd they jip out on being able to feed us properly.  Logically, the only argument that could be used to defend these ridiculous budget is by claiming most members actually lose weight and end up in better shape than when they started the program.  While this may be true I would love to compare their results to if the same routine was done on a healthier diet.  Realistically most people were not exercising this much before AmeriCorps so it's no surprise they are getting into better shape regardless of what they eat.  The food we consume for the most part is made to fill us, not to nourish us.  Of course they encourage buying a water bottle and having it filled at all times to stay hydrated, which is the healthiest thing I've heard so far.  But of course water costs them little to nothing so why not?  Each team of 10 breaks into cooking teams of 2 and they decide what will be made for dinner on their day to make food.  Because our budget is so depleted we are forced to pool our money which means everybody has to agree on what is made for dinner.  From my experience, most people enjoy "yummy" food as compared to "healthy" food, which makes healthy people the minority.  I find it funny that people who eat healthy are categorized as "health nuts" while people who eat shit everyday are normal? Really America?
/end rant

Hands on training, finally!

After a 2 day camping excursion to the YMCA Warner Tully camp I have finally made it back to campus.  It felt good to finally get outdoors and not sit in a classroom all day. Day 1 we hit up 4 stations, Trail blazing, painting, power tools, and roofing.  It was hottttt, hit 100 with a heat index of 115, couple kids couldn't take it and had to head to the infirmary.  The day started with our van pulling away from campus at 6:30 and heading to the YMCA bright and early.. upon arrival we unloaded and reached the trail clearing station around 9am.  Trail blazing was very strenuous and we exerted the most energy and sweat clearing trails and chopping down tree's.  My tool of choice was an axe with a picket type thing on the back.  I got to chop down about 2 trees with it and it was by far the most badass tool out there.  After filling up on water over and over we headed to power tools next where we instructed the basics on how most the of power tools we would be using.  Cain (a fellow river 7 teamate) and I ended up doing some demolition work (awesome) and put up a roof foundation in the blazing heat.  After we completed this and had lunch the next station was roofing, and was it hot as the dickens on top of that roof.  We worked in teams of 2 up there because the heat was so bad and rotated taking breaks in the shade.  Finally after 2 hours of this we moved onto our last station of the day... painting! Now as an experienced painter (Working at Damon's Painting Co for 2 years) I had to bite my tongue at a lot of the instructions and just proceed to do whatever I was told. Needless to say there was no scraping, sanding, or priming, but just painting, and sloppy painting at that! I decided to head up on the ladder and brush out the trim with a dark grey paint for the majority of the time following the three "P's" I learned at Damon's Painting! Professional, Personable, and Precision! Painting was enjoyable although we did have to wear huge coveralls to protect our uniforms from getting paint on them which meant we were burning alive in those things! Fortunately it started raining (not so good for the painting) and we had to stop.  Eventually it started to thunder and downpour and we called it a day and head in for dinner where we were fed minuscule portions of pasta for dinner with salad.  Due to our ridiculously small food budget (4.50 a day per person) we usually have to eat pretty unhealthy which irritates me but I try to make the best of it (thank god eggs are so cheap). By the time dinner was done most of us were exhausted from the long day and just wanted to sleep, we had a mini camp fire going for a little and some of us played cards in the cafeteria before I headed to the tent around 10ish for some sleep.  Now this was my first camping experience and fortunately I had Cain who is a camping master to help me setup the tent and learn the ways of the wild.  He probably found it pretty humorous when I arrived back at the tent and pulled out my laptop and signed in disgust at the lack of phone reception and no 3g internet available.  Now being completely bored I attempted to sleep which was not east at all. The heat was ridiculous and even with sleeping in only boxers and on top of my sleeping bag I found myself sticking to it and decided to just sleep on the tent floor instead.  Around 4am I awoke because it was a little frigid for my likings (Did not see that one coming in MS) and from around then until 6am I was waking up constantly...  Finally around 7 we ate breakfast (ghetto brand honey nut cheerios) and started day #2.  Now this was a lot more fun than the prior as our only stations left were low ropes, high ropes, and low ropes again. Mainly team building exercises which were interesting and cool since we were able to stay in the shade.  Low ropes exercises required strategy and teamwork to succeed (Teamwork makes the dream work!). However the most fun I had was on the high ropes!  I never zip-lined on trees before and I finally had the opportunity to do so which was amazing.  I actually went through the course 3 times I had so much fun and conquered the rock wall as well. My first zipline was amazing, I decided to do a faith fall which is when you stand with your back to the ground from the tree and put your arms out and just fall so you plummet to the ground upside down and backwards. Without a doubt one of the most fun experiences I've had (hence the reason why I did it twice again). The rest of the day we had to cleanup our campsite and pack up the tents, and finally around 4 we headed back to campus which felt amazing to sleep in a bed again.

Weekend wind down

Although I should be packing for the YMCA overnight training I think I'll update my blog instead.  After a fun night out with my Ameripeeps today has been a day of relaxing, and laundry.  Tomorrow we have to be up at 6 for our departure to the YMCA, sweeeet.  Only about 2 more weeks of training left before the SPIKE trip to Alabama, double sweet. 

End of the week, almost?

So another week of Amerifun has been completed.  Did a little Salvation Army and Servesafe training for 8 hours today which was a blast, so exciting that the instructor fell asleep during a training video! (picture of that to come soon) Oh and saw the Expendables tonight which was amazing.  We rolled 11 deep to the local mall theater and payed only 7 bucks to see a movie! One girl was expecting it to be a comedy and boy was she in for a surprise. Lots of killing and explosions and a sweet cameo by Arnold, the governator. So it's not really the weekend yet though because we have 3 more hours of Salvation training tomorrow @ 8am until 11. Then the weekend finally begins! Until YMCA training on monday when I get to sleep in a sweet tent and do some rope courses, awesome.  Just got more details about my First project which I'll try and post a link too, but it's in Mobile, Alabama working with Habitat for Humanity building houses. Time to get some rest before I wake up for more training, gnite y'all!

Let the fun begin

Alright so I finally decided to make a blog about my AmeriCorps NCCC experience after arriving here in Vicksburg, Mississippi last week. The first week flew by and I was assigned on a temporary team (River 6) who I miss dearly (Mike, Jeremy, Rich, Momma J, Amber, Mollie, Kaitlin)! Now I have been assigned to my permanent team (River 7) who I will be working with for the next 10 months, oh boy.  So far my experience in Mississippi has been one to remember. This is the deepest south I've ever been and wow is the culture different, y'all know? The bars down here have been pretty fun, mostly thanks to the townies! The first one I went to (The Poor House) with my temp team and good friends ran out of beer which was pretty humorous. We went to the Upper Deck (Technically, Upper End) after and a selected few of us got our first pump on for about the next 2-3 hours haha. But back to AmeriCorps official business... our group has been assigned our first project of the year.  From September 4th to October 16th I will be in Alabama building houses for habitat for humanity! Craziness I'll be leaving campus for the first time to head out on a "SPIKE" as we call them. Pretty anxious about this first project and not really sure what to expect... The people here have been pretty cool thus far. Mad diversity, and people from all over the country which has been interesting. My long island accent has been getting picked to pieces, apparently "cawfee" is not how it's pronounced? Yes, I'm just as shocked as you are. In other news I received my first care package today from the rents, thanks mom and dad! Nothing like getting a 50 lb package to show the other kids how much you love me haha. Alright I'm going to try and figure out how to customize this blog thing and try and add some pics. Adios for now!