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