Halloween!!!

So I don't really have Halloween plans but I did have a fun day yesterday. Right after I slept in I went to a mall with some of my pod friends. I got some Coldstone while we were out and it was delicious!!! Then I had to be back for a meeting with my team and afterwards a few of us hung out. We went to a place called skyhigh. It's just a big building with a bunch of trampoline areas set up that even the sides are trampolines. I wish I took some pictures but we were too busy jumping. It was tons of fun and very exhausting. But unfortunately I don't feel very good right now....I think I need some food.

We're basically done with training! YAY! I have a Save the Children course on Monday. I'll learn about working with kids in a disaster relief place.
But currently there is a situation. While hanging out with my pod a fluorescent light broke.....we're still dealing with that. Later today I'm going to a trampoline fun place! I'm stoked!

Rhymes with "Cow Paw"

So in just over a week my team will leave for Alpaugh, CA. I highly doubt where you know where that is so....it will be a 4 hour drive south from Sacramento. It is also 3 ish hours north of LA. The area of the town is .99 sq. miles and just over half of the population is Hipanic.


But onto the fun stuff. We will be working for the Bureau of Land Management. We will mostly be doing an environmental project for wetlands restoration. But while we are there we will also be working with the school and doing after school programs. Even though we'll be so isolated my team is very excited to be out there. We will definitely be getting lots of team bonding time! Which will probably occur in what has been nicknamed the Ameri-mansion. Since multiples team work at this site each year there is a house that they always stay at. It is a 3 bedroom, 2 1/2 bath ranch. I'll put the address up when I know! That's just about all of the info I know right now but I'll keep posting about it.
Lots of other things have also been going on. We got assigned our team positions a few days ago. Me along with another member on my team (Sam) are going to be Peer Helpers. Our job is to always be there to listen whenever needed. We also get to plan team bonding activities and do our best to keep morale high throughout the year. This wasn't a position I put in my top 3 (it was 4) but either way I'm really excited about it and I think Sam and I will do an awesome job!
Another thing about today....we had a "class" about interpersonal relationships. For part of it we described good and bad qualities of different animals and then decided which one was most like ourselves. The options were ant, lion, owl, chameleon, lamb, weasel, dolphin, and fox. When we first talked about the qualtites I identified with many different bits of each so I was having a hard time choosing. Then I saw nobody was at the ant station so I decided to wander over there. Then each station had to describe their good and bad qualities and I realized the ant wans't too bad of a choice for me. I feel like I'm a pretty hard worker, I tend to "conform" to different situations, I respect hierarchies(random). A few of the down sides are that I get upset if people are goofing around in a serious situation and that I don't always voice my own opinion. But anyways, after that we got back together and discussed what the other people on our team thought we were like. When it got to me every said they could've seen me as any of them. I took that as a compliment :)
Well, long day so I might go to bed pretty soon. Goodnight!

Make a difference day!

If you didn't already know, Staurady October 23rd was make a difference day. For this all of the Americorps NCCC members here were sent to different community gardens and school yards to help with gardening/cleaning up.
My team (silver 1) along with silver 2 were sent about 30 minutes from campus to the Mather Community Campus. It's a place for homeless to go. They can stay for 2 years while they get different trainging and counceling to get them back on their feet. There is a community garden there where they had all kinds of vegetables like tomatoes, peppers, pumpkins, along with sunflowers and marigolds. In the center there was even a chicken coop along with a turkey.
Most of the plants were no longer useable as far as food goes, and they were also covered with weeds. So our job was to clear out all unwanted plants as well as build a fenced area for composting. We got most of the garden looking quite nice and definitely prepared for planting in the spring. It was a fairly long day but I enjoyed it more than expected. It was nice to meet members of the other team and just play games with everyone all day.
Saturday was also a teammates birthday(Kyle). He really didn't want a fuss made about it but everyone else decided otherwise. Later that night we all headed to Chilis and it was lots of fun! Of course we made them sing to him and they brought a brownie with ice cream on top. Delicious! It was the first real outing with my new team and it was fun to see everyone get dressed up for the occasion.
On Saturday we also found out where our first spike (project) will be! We are heading to Alpaugh, Ca on Nov. 4th. In hopes of not rambling forever on this blog I will save more info about that for a later time. Can't wait to start the project! I'll check back in soon...

So much to say!

It has been quite the busy week. I'm going to start off by saying this would be a lot easier to update if the wi-fi was ever available with my darn computer. But anyways...

Last Tuesday all of the Silver teams headed to Camp Mendocino. It is a Boys and Girls club in northern California in a redwood forest. Very cool! Guys and girls we split into different cabins which had cots and nothing but cloth for the windows and doors which made for chilly housing. Although my sleeping bag did the job of keeping me warm.
After arriving Tuesday we had free time to roam around. I headed over to the playground and had fun on the tire swing. My team also had to help with dinner that night so we prepared the tables and served the food. Which was DELICIOUS along with the rest of the meals they served us there! That night all of the silver teams played "Newly Teams"...or something like that. It was similar to the newly weds but your team was split into two and each side had to choose who on their team was "most likely to...." Some examples were bake cookies, be on jeopardy, be excited for physical trainging in the morning, etc... Silver 1 did an awesome job and was tied for first during some of it. We ended up in 4th.
The next day each team was sent to do some sort of project for the camp. Some worked on a garden or maintained hiking trails while my team bleached buildings. Sounds like fun huh? It wasn't too bad though my team got to interact while working. We simply "painted" on bleach to get rid of dirt and mold on the outsides of buildings. And they looked quite nice when we were done with them.
That night we all had to perform skits. My team did a funny rendition of our CPR training. It went well considering the amount of preperation. Then we all gathered around a campfire and cooked delicious s'mores.
The next day was the real fun day. It began with some team building games. We had to cross a "lava river" with a few "stones" to walk across. There were lots of tough rules and we never fully succeded but learned a lot. Then we got to climb a rock wall! Tons of fun. After that was the high ropes course. I will have to steal a picture from another teammate that she took while on the ground. Mostly we had to walk across tight wires or manuver through crazy ropes. Then I got to RIDE A ZIPLINE! I'm super stoked cuz it's another item I get to cross of my list.

Ummm after that it wasn't anything too excited. ALTHOUGH! my team also won the ameri-lympics. We won the boot toss and wheelbarrow race, which was enough to put us in first :) YAY for free frostys.

Well that raps up Tuesday-Friday. The weekend will be posted soon!

This was an awesome swinging bridge we crossed

Wild turkey!

Hanging out in a tree



Sitting next to a random carving!



They also had 2 awesome pigs!

Silver 1

So I have officially been seperated from my pod (temporary team) and been moved to my permanent team which is called Silver 1. I like everyone on the new team and I think we will all get along really well...but it's still so sad that I'm not with my pod all the time. Although we do hang out most of the time that we aren't in training. Like yesterday. We had the day off so my four pod members and I went to panera for lunch and then to a 2 story walmart! It was pretty awesome. Then last night we all went to delicious In n Out for dinner and then went bowling. It was quite a fun day and it was extremely nice to sleep in.
Speaking of not sleeping in....we officially have physical training 4 days a week now starting at 530 am. On Friday I had ran 2 1/2 miles before the sun was even up. What a fun day.....
Currently I am attempting to plan ahead 10 months. This is going fairly well considering I usually have a hard time just planning for the next day. We had a little class on Life After Americorps. They talked a lot about the different ways we can use our education awards and warning us that the next 10 months will be done before we know it. So I'm looking up colleges hoping to come across the perfect plan for me. (although CU still looks like a good option as well).
I hope everyone back home is doing well. If I haven't talked to you recently you can always call or text!
Oh and btw, it's actually been cloudy the past two days! Nice change of pace.

Two story Wal-Mart. Check out the escalator just for the shopping cart.

Check it out

I got some recent pitures up for everyone to see. There are more on my Facebook if you're interested. Check out the nice California weather!

Showing off the "A"
Most of Pod 7, first day in uniform

Pod 7 with out pod leader, Ameri-Murph

Group playing telestrations outside of the dorms.

More Posting!

I just poster a couple days ago but I can hardly remember all that has happened since then. On sunday it was our first day off so I went and got breakfast burritos with my roommate in the morning. Then the 3 roomies headed around town to pick up some items at Wal-Mart and Goodwill. After that I took a very nice nap...for a couple hours longer than I expected.
After the nap I learned about a new board game. It's called tele-strations (a mix between the game telephone and pictionary) and it's quite a blast. If you ever run into it I suggest you try it out.
Since then we've of course been back in trainings. Yesterday they explained specific jobs that each member of the team will have. There are around 8 to choose from but I am most interested in environmental liason and peer mentor. We'll get more info about them soon. We also learned about different awards and things we can earn while in Americorps (plus some college credit!) Today was First Aid and CPR training. Got to work on dummies and I feel like I bruised my hand from doing so much CPR! And of course there were more board games today. Some Scattegories and our first game of Battle of the Sexes. Girls won :)
It's all been fun but I still can't wait for the projects! Still getting to know lots of great people though! I have pictures to post, but the internet is much too slow for that right now, but soon!

We wireless in the lounge now! YAY! So I took these pictures when I first arrived in Sacramento. I was downtown to drop off Maya at the train station. Then I took a picture of the Americorps building before I even got out of my car. It's the building with the offices and mail room but the outside looks similar to the dorms.

So people in my pod were modeling our coveralls while we got our uniforms yesterday. Left to right it's me, Tucker, Katie, and Ashley.

I was taking this picture and in place of me is Josh. Yet apparently both times Katie didn't get the memo that we were being serious. These are all the pictures I have for now. Hope you enjoyed!

Pictures

So here's a couple pictures of my room. I've got the top bunk. This is taking forever so that's all I can put up now. See ya!

First couple of days

I survived my first training sessions. So far they have just been telling us what kind of projects to expect, policy info, insurance info, and an intro to our physical training (which starts Monday). Nothing has been too eventful although we did get our Americorps uniforms today. The coveralls are quite attractive. We've also had a lot of down time. I've been in a few rounds of Apples to Apples. Plus most of the corps participated in capture the flag last night. My roommates and I got decked out in black but unfortunately I didn't get a picture. After playing for an hour or so the game ended although neither team won (but my team actually had the flag, twice!)
Today catered meals ended so we are begining to cook for ourselves. This morning the kitchen was extremely crowded although for dinner there are a few people assigned to cook for a group so that should work out better.
Mostly the weather here has been fantastic and everyone is getting along well so it's all good. I'm going to attempt posting pictures but I apologize if there are none.

I live in California!

So I made it safely to the Sacramento campus yesterday. I arrived around 3 o'clock and went straight into turning in paperwork, getting my i.d. badge, and recieving the key to my room. There was a short tour of campus and then lots of presentations....so we quickly met all of the staff through these presentations but I dont think I remember any of their names. I met my temporary roommates, because we don't move to our permanent rooms until we're divided into our real teams. Currently I have 2 roommates, Jess and Laura. Jess is 22 and also from Colorado. Laura is 24 (or almost 24?) and has moved around a lot, most recently in New Orleans.
This morning we had an awesome catered breakfast and then we met with our pods (or temporary teams). It was a quick meeting and later today we will all be together learning about...stuff. So far I'm pretty excited for things to get rolling. I've met lots of very nice people here but I can't wait til we're traveling for our projects! Unfortunately there is no wi-fi in the dorms so I'm in the computer lab and I won't post any pictures yet but I'll get around to it eventually. I'll update again soon!

I got accepted!!!!!!!!!!!

       So I applied for Americorps sometime in March 2010...I think. After going through all of the interviewing and paperwork I was told I was on the waitlist sometime in May/June. After waiting for a while, (months) I accepted that I would probably not be doing Americorps this year. That is until last Tuesday. I got a call that morning from  an Americorps representative offering me the chance to serve in Sacramento, CA starting on Oct. 7th. That was 9 days away! Since I was in shock at the moment I asked if I could call back with my answer which was fine, but it's first come first serve. Since I wasn't at home at the time I called my family and explained the situation. They were just as surprised as I was but they reminded me how badly I had wanted this. About 5 seconds after hanging up the phone I realized I could not miss this oppurtunity so I immediately called back and accepted the position. I think making that phone call was one of the scariest things I've ever done. After it was official that I'd be moving to California in just over a week I couldn't control myself and just sat in my car and cried. I can't tell you all the different things I was feeling but I was for sure overwhelmed.
       Since then I've been attempting to get organized and plan for my adventure but I still haven't got a phone call from Sacramento so I don't know how I'm getting there yet!
      Well throughout the next ten months I'll be updating this blog with all of the fun stuff I will be doing. I can't wait for it to all begin!