Green 5!

Sunday and Monday were full of anticipation and excitement! On Sunday night we found out our units and Monday night we were told our teams. We said bye to our pods and it was really emotional for most of us. We've been living, eating, and working with the same 12 people for almost 2 weeks and it's hard to realize that we won't be seeing each other anymore from now on. The corps is divided into four units (Silver, Gold, Blue and Green). We learned our unit cheer and played some ice breaker games. I was really excited that a few of my good friends were in my unit since until we go on our first spike we'll be participating in programming with our units. We found out then that we had the day off on Monday. It takes some getting used to realizing that every day is spontaneous and we don't find out what we're doing until the day before.

The whole corps had a pizza party Monday night and then it was time for the teams to be revealed. We broke up into our units and were each given an envelope with our name on it. Inside the envelope was a puzzle piece and we had to run around finding the other people to complete the puzzle. Once we found our other team members, we went on a scavenger hunt to find out who our team leader is. As a team we had to drink a gallon of apple juice as fast as we could and then head over to the nearby hotel. At the bottom of the pool was a clue and one team member volunteered to dive to the bottom to get the clue.

There was so much anticipation during this whole process. It was really strange standing in a circle with the 10 other people that I would be living with for the next 10 months. I got really lucky, my team leader is awesome. As you can tell from the scavenger hunt he made us go on, he has a great sense of humor and I'm excited to get to know him better. We have a smaller team, there are 9 of us, 3 guys, 6 girls, not including our team leader. I'm surprised that only 3 people are younger than me. I'm the only one from California and the south is well represented (Florida, North Carolina, Virginia, Alabama).

The last two days have been diversity training and other ice breakers to get to know our team members better. I'm really looking forward to this weekend. We're going to Camp Mendocino, a Boys and Girls Club Camp in the redwoods from Saturday to Tuesday. It's supposed to be in the 30s at night and we're sleeping in open air cabins, but I'm excited for the possibility of snow.

I know I've been horrible at returning phone calls lately, but that doesn't mean I don't want to talk to you!

alex :)

Thursday was a crazy day. About 20 minutes into our first training session of the morning I noticed that I had a swollen bug bite with a red line spreading up my arm. I got scared and showed my pod leader and he freaked out. Luckily in the next room over, there were CPR instructors from Red Cross who told me I needed to go to the doctor immediately. I was very impressed with how fast AmeriCorps took care of the situation. They drove me to a nearby doctor and within an hour I received a shot and a prescription for antibiotics and steroids. The doctor was not very friendly and when I asked her what she thought bit me, she said there's no way to know unless she saw the animal. Most of my friends think it was black widow though. I was back on campus by lunch and received way too much attention. People I had never met before asked if they could see my arm and took pictures.

I had to return to the doctor yesterday morning for another shot. There were 8 people that attended sick call and since none of us had appointments, we spent about 4 hours at the doctor's office. Normally I wouldn't mind skipping some of the boring lectures, but apparently I missed an interesting one about the history of national service.

I've been enjoying PT a lot more than I thought I would. It is definitely hard to wake up at 500am but when I realize that by 630 am I have already worked out, it's a good feeling.

Today was National Make a Difference Day. This is the first year that Sacramento participated so there was a ceremony downtown with many motivational speakers. Each pod spent the day volunteering for a different non-profit combating homelessness around Sacramento. The speakers were really inspirational and gave more meaning to our service project today. My pod volunteered for the Habitat for Humanity Restore. It's a huge warehouse like Home Depot that sells donated building materials for cheap. We cleared out a storage room and moved metal shelves for the majority of the day. It was tiring work but it was nice to be outside and get stuff done.




Pod 1 at Make A difference Day









There is speculation that we will receive our permanent team assignments tomorrow night since the Team Leaders serving in American Samoa returned last night. I'm really excited/nervous to find out who will be on my team, but less excited to change rooms. I really like my roommate and am going to miss talking to her every night.

We have the day off tomorrow and I'm planning on going to the zoo with some friends. No this was not my idea, but it should still be fun! Here are some pictures from the last week.





Me, Iris (roommate), Diana, Maura out to sushi last week.















Diana, Iris, me














Pod 1 harvesting apples last Saturday.

I know I've been slacking on updating this, but since I never sleep for more than 5 or 6 hours each night, I feel like I've done a lot so far. Friday night I went grocery shopping with 3 others from my pod. It was hilarious buying a week's worth of groceries for 26 people on a budget of $5 a day per person. Almost all of the pods had a few members at the grocery store that night and it was so easy to spot other AmeriCorps members. I mean, how often do you purchase $600 worth of groceries?




Here's a picture of some members of my team in the grocery store. This is only a few of our grocery carts, I think we had 5.





Saturday we did our first service project at an abandoned orchard. We harvested 4,000 apples and plums for the Sacramento Food Bank. Any of the apples that the smallest bruise or cut were thrown away and it was really sad to realize that at least half of t



he apples we collected were discarded. Of course I brought home a whole bag of fruit, so I was happy! This project was great since we all had the opportunity to bond with the other members of our pod. Collecting apples all day in the sun is really tiring, but it was great to actually get out and do something meaningful!

Sunday we had the day off so I went with 12 friends to downtown Sacramento. We spent about 8 hours riding the buses and light rail and managed to get on the wrong light rail or going in the wrong direction 3 times (there are only 4 options). Needless to say we spent the majority of the day wandering around, but I was enjoying it.

The last few days have been nothing but training in CPR, First Aid and Disaster Relief. The classes are long and mostly boring, but sitting with your friends makes it tolerable. Last night we were given our jumpsuits. How awesome do we look?














This morning we had the physical training baseline test at 530am. We had to run 1.5 miles and do as many sit ups in 2 minutes as we could. I was impressed with the number of sit ups I did, but I have no doubt I will improve my running since we have PT 4 days a week.

I'm off to make dinner right now, I promise I'll update again soon!

The first few days have been pretty good so far. The electricity went out at LAX Tuesday morning. LA just can't handle the rain, but my flight was fine. The first day was in-processing. We got our uniforms and our room assignments. My roommate's name is Iris (my mom's name) and her last name is one letter different from mine. I was really weirded out when I saw her name on our door. We have 3 suite mates and everyone is really nice, but honestly I haven't met anyone yet that wasn't incredibly friendly and excited to be here. There seems to be an overwhelming number of people from Minnesota and UW-Madison grads. Yesterday we found out our pods (temporary teams until we receive our permanent teams in a few weeks). The pods have 12 members each and are assigned alphabetically, so I'm in pod 1. The rest of the day was mostly paperwork (Red Cross registration) and many general meetings about rules, etc. So far the food has all been catered, but starting tomorrow we wil be cooking with our pods. We have a good amount of free time and since the weather's really nice we play frisbee and hang out outside a lot.

This morning we had physicals and I found out that I'm now 5'0"! I was really excited to hear this until everyone else on my pod told me they found out they were taller than they thought as well. So far I haven't had to wake up before 6am, but that will change come Monday when we have physical training at 530am. Tomorrow we're doing our first service project. We'll be beautifying gardens in Sacramento.

I already feel like I've been here for forever, but that's usually how I feel when I move to a new place. I promise I'll post pictures of my uniform, the dorms etc soon!

Alex

Hey! I’m beginning this blog one week before I fly up to Sacramento, CA to begin training for AmeriCorps NCCC! I’m pretty sure everyone I’ve spoken to over the last 6 months has heard me mention AmeriCorps, at least once, but now I’m finally leaving!

AmeriCorps NCCC is a 10 month volunteer-based program for 18-24 year olds. There are 5 campuses: Sacramento, CA; Denver, CO; Vinto, IA; Perry Point, MD and Vicksburg, MS. I was assigned to the Sacramento, CA campus along with 300 other members. After the first 4-5 weeks of training I will be assigned to a team of 10-12 members and together we will complete 4 different projects in the Pacific region. Projects range from responding to natural disasters, mentoring students or working with Habit for Humanity. The Pacific region serves California, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Oregon, Utah, Wyoming, Washington, Hawaii, Alaska, Guam and American Samoa. After the earthquake and tsunami that occurred in American Samoa last week, it wouldn’t be too surprising if I had a project there! I bet you’re wondering where I’m going to be stationed or what kind of project I’m going to be working on after the training in Sacramento, but at the moment your guess is as good as mine. It is definitely a huge thrill not knowing where I’m going to be living a month from now!

It seems weird to be starting an adventure without even leaving California. Throughout college whenever I told people I was from Southern California, their immediate reaction was, “what made you choose Wisconsin?” I would usually shrug my shoulders and say “I just wanted to live somewhere different. “ I was, and still am after any opportunity I can get my hands on to experience something different and with that I’m sure that the adventure I’m about to embark on will be more spontaneous than anything I’ve experienced thus far!

My next update should be from Sacramento, but until then, feel free to ask me any questions you have about the program! Thanks for reading!