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.