My Americorps *NCCC 2008 Journal

Friday, March 28, 2008

Working hard....

My team and the hike we took in a local national park in Ocean's Springs.

News about our second round project, we will be in the GULF, which means we will be transitioning in the Gulf as well rather than driving all the way back to our Denver Campus. Also, as of now, we still do not know if we will be moving to New Orleans for the second half of the project...either way I like what I'm doing and where I am, so it doesn't matter. But I really would love to be closer to the city! This week was probably the hardest week for a lot of us. With lack of sleep, and drilling in screws for the last week, I've become pretty lethargic, but still pulling through. I think Andrea and I screwed in about 800 screws..or something. We will have this Sunday off and I am looking forward to that. I'm about to watch Into the Wild for the second time, but until then...Love to all! Thanks Mom and Dad for the mail I received today, a pleasant surprise! :)

Andrea

Julia driving the cargo van

Jess using the rotozip

Wednesday, March 26, 2008

Symposium Work Out Video (my team at our table)

"Your enthusiasm for life is inspiring, and your hip flexer stretches always let me know "It's going to be a good day!" -Julie Hay

Our next project/house

That was written by Julie, one of my teammates during our team building activity we had this evening. My face hurts from smiling and laughing so hard. Julia had the idea to pass the sheet of paper around with each of our names on it and to have everyone write one positive comment about their other teammates. I'm not kidding, it really helped, especially after a long day. We are always so busy and running from one thing to the next. This really enabled us to let loose and have some quality time together....because we all work so hard that by the end of the day, everyone just wants to eat, shower, do their computer stuff and head to bed....and or play table tennis....haha..Jer and Ari are playing right now and of course I have an itch to play, but I feel like I really need to blog this out before I forget it all. At the end of our positive comment activity, all of us read aloud one that we thought stood out or really liked. I felt especially touched when Ben, my TL read my comment toward him aloud....:) I LOVE MY TEAM! Anyways, I really don't mean to be obsessive about it, but it's honestly crazy that we live, eat, work, and socialize with each other every minute of the day and still manage to be sane. We also played another funny activity, where we each wrote in a short sentence something we wanted to do in our lives before we died. I wrote that I wanted to go sky diving. Each time we would fold it, and pass it to the next person.....and it would go from drawing to sentence to drawing..etc....So of course by the last sentence, the "dream" everyone had ended up being totally changed! I'm sure I sound like such a dork trying to explain this, but it really was quite humorous. Oh I also went out to our favorite little sushi restaurant with Julia right after work today and stuffed my belly! I can't get enough of it. Did I tell you I had sushi on Easter Sunday as well?

Back to the Project...Last week and yesterday, to make ourselves useful since there wasn't as much work to do in the house, a bunch of us went to a local school (or what used to be a school) and did some evasive species removal on all sides of the building. This included a ton of vine pulling, cutting, trimming, and moving huge meshes of leaves from one pile to the next. Basically busy work, but the yard in front of the school looks a whole lot better! I also started installing insulation into a new house that our team is working on yesterday and this morning. Needless to say, yesterday I did not wear gloves or goggles and totally didn't know that insulation is made out of fiber glass and got it all over me. My skin felt like little needles were inside it and it just was NOT comfortable at all, so by the end of the day I was a bit crabby, but this morning I totally rocked the insulation, cut and stapled the rest of the rooms that needed to be done with one other person and felt very accomplished. It didn't feel like it went through my clothing this time either, AND I haven't even showered yet and I feel fine! The rest of my day for our team included laying sheet rock/dry wall on all the boards in the house and screwing them in with a gun. I screwed in screws with a gun all day long, and felt pretty hard core about it. My hands are a little sore, but what's new. I feel like I've gained a ton of arm and shoulder muscle already and it's only been three weeks. The rest of the week is going to be pretty busy, we might not even get a day off this week because we are really aiming to get this house done so we can head on over to New Orleans, start a new project and have some decent work cut out for us. We are going to do some ISP this Saturday in Biloxi, work on the house Saturday afternoon, and hopefully just work the morning of Sunday and potentially get Sunday afternoon off! Craziness! I can't wait to rock this house with all of our hard work!! To everyone that I've talked to on the phone recently--it has been wonderful hearing your voices! I miss you all! Congrats to everyone who turned in their IS and I hope you had fabulous IS Mondays!!

The beginning of sheet rocking

Julia displaying her "A" gear

Me using the screw gun

Sunday, March 23, 2008

Spring Break in a nut shell...

I've started to write in my blog a little less formal just because it's easier for me to get my words out....

SO......I have been in New Orleans for the past few days staying with family friends of mine, Kat and Ryan....newly weds as of last year. It truly has been one relaxing, but eventful weekends and Kat and Ryan have been TOO good to me, treating me out to all these fabulous restaurants, taking me around the city, and just being really good company. Ryan works about an hour from me in Mississippi and was so kind to come pick me up and abduct me for the weekend. We went out to a cute hole in the wall Italian restaurant the first night I was here, followed by a relaxing Friday and my first time trying OYSTERS! They were delish! I died and went to heaven, basically. Ryan and Kat had a bunch of their friends and kids come over for the fish fry...Ryan slaved away at the grill all night and made really good food..including about 8 pounds of potato salad and cole slaw..yuuuum. Okay, so I may be exaggerating a little bit about the amount. Saturday I went into the city and tried turtle soup, craw fish, and a meat pie! Again...delish. Turtle soup was especially amazing! I apologize for so much food ranting, but ya'll know how much I like food! And yes I'll be saying ya'll now...I mean I am in the South you know. Last night we also met up with a bunch of my other Americorps friends and had a night in town on Bourbon....'til about 6 a.m. Happy Easter to everyone by the way! Today Nate, Jen and I walked around the Quarter all day and got tons of beads from two small Easter parades that circled on Bourbon..followed by an amazing sushi Easter dinner with Kat, Ryan and their friends Stacey, Chris, and baby Keenedy...who is absolutely adorable! I'm quite sad to leave tomorrow, but I know I'll be back because.......

***Project news: We will be leaving for New Orleans around the first of April to start a new project the second half of our first round! Yaay! But it hasn't been spoken to the public yet..TOP SECRET!

To my family, I missed the cabbage today.....ok and of course you all! Many hugs and kisses and love you all! Mom and Dad, sorry it's snowing at home and in the 70's here, you'll just have to come visit soon!