NOLA, Ike Relief, Camp Orange, Round Two Reveal and More!

A long title for a long entry. I haven't written for a while, so I have a lot to talk about. Oh yeah, and I've gotten my assignment for my second round! However, I'm saving that for the end. Don't you cheat and scroll to the bottom - I'll find out.

So... Camp Orange... It's less than ideal. I think I can speak for everyone on my team when I say that we're pretty tired of tents, port-o-potties and shower trailers. There have also been some harassment issues with some of the non-AmeriCorps guys who live here. Not to mention, it's pretty obvious that security targets me and my teammates in a disciminatory manner when they enforce their policies. I don't know if it's because we're young or because we're not from around here, but they do it.

Still, things aren't terrible. We've got a (plastic) roof over our heads and food on our table, which is much more than I can say about most of the people that we're trying to help down here. As for work, sometimes it's boring and sometimes it's exciting. It's a lot of office work (phone calls and such), but when we get to actually meet the residents of southeast Texas, it's totally worth it. Even though we're not giving them tons of aid or anything, most people are extremely grateful, which eludes to the fact that they are in a lot of need. Here are some pictures of my teammates at work:

Above: Ryan, lethargic from too much telephone-ness.

Above: Lindsey, who couldn't be lethargic if she tried!

Above: Lawrence attempting to be Model-Lawrence.

But regardless of my job or my living situation, we only have one week left here in Orange, TX! Next weekend we are driving back up to Sacramento and that will be the end of Round One! I will be flying home to Chicago on December 21st and I will report back to Sacramento on January 3rd.

I'm definitely looking forward to being home for a bit. It'll be nice to eat some good food and see everyone whom I've missed so much. It's funny though - once I get back to Sacramento, it's going to feel like I've been away from Silver One for ages. That's how it felt when I went to New Orleans for Thanksgiving (hey, what a convenient transition...).

I went to New Orleans, LA (or NOLA) for Thanksgiving break! It was a great time. I went with Sarah and Katie L. from my team and Ryan and the two Kristens from Silver Two. We rented a van to get there and stayed at the Olivier House, which was incredible. The Olivier is an old house that's located in the French Quarter of NOLA about a half-block from Bourbon Street. It was very pretty and we got a great discount for being in AmeriCorps (actually, I've gotten quite a few discounts and free things for "wearing the A").

The room was really interesting and definitely had a lot more character than other hotels that I've seen. I've never seen a loft in a hotel before, that's for sure! I stayed with Sarah and Katie up in the lofted bed and the Silver-Two-ers pulled out the couch downstairs. Here - I'll post a video and a picture from the hotel:

Above: The view from the outdoor hallway. We tried the pool but it was way too cold that night.

Above: A short video tour of our room.

Since it was such an ideal place, it turned out that tons of AmeriCorps members were staying there for break! We even met some people from the Denver and Iowa campuses. It was a lot of fun to reconnect with a bunch of my friends from CTI and explore NOLA with them.

So while plenty of people did the Bourbon Street thing, I decided to explore on my own for most of the break. Obviously, I met up with them later at night, but I spent the vast majority of the weekend simply walking around New Orleans. I found some really incredible neighborhoods and architecture around the city, so I'm really glad I got away from the whole touristy thing.

Also, on our way back from NOLA, we stopped in Baton Rouge to meet up with my friend, Arrielle. She brought us to this great Latin restaurant. It was really nice to see Arrielle again, since the last time I saw her was up in Madison. We also got to drive through the LSU campus, which was interesting to see. Overall, it was an excellent trip!

And lastly, my new assignment for Round Two. I'll preface this by saying that this is only going to be for three weeks. You see, this first project in Texas was a disaster project and it ended up being shorter than the other non-disaster projects that teams have. Thus, they are giving many of the disaster teams short, three-week projects in order to allow the other teams to catch up to the schedule. This means that I am going to have a five-project year, which is atypical and pretty much awesome! I like it because it means I get to see more of the country and live in more places throughout my year of service.

So my next project... Erin, my TL, made us go on a scavenger hunt around camp to find out. We found a clue in the Christmas tree, which led us to a clue taped onto the side of a port-o-potty, which led us to a clue taped onto the towel lockers, which led us to the final envelope in the driver's seat of our van. Each envelope also hinted about our project. We figured out that we would not be going to California or Texas (which I was very thankful for), that we would be doing construction and that we would be working with Habitat for Humanity. Then, we completed our hunt and the reveal was complete:

My next project is in Lafayette, LA! We're working with Habitat for Humanity building houses. This project isn't perfect, but it's excellent and I'm happy with it. It should be better than my current project in a variety of ways (not to say my current one is horrible, or anything):

First of all, we're be living in a building (a church, to be precise). That's a good start. We'll have more space to ourselves, indoor plumbing (ooooh, aaaah), a full kitchen and other goodies like that. Here at Camp Orange we have a cooking staff that usually prepares the type of food you'd expect construction contractors to want (tonight we're having hamburgers, hot dogs, fries, etc.), so I am really looking forward to being able to eat healthily without spending my own cash at the grocery store.

The next project should also be better because I'll be able to get outside and do some work with my hands, for once. I spend too much time indoors here - I can even notice my skin getting lighter. I'm glad that I'll be able to get back outside and do something more tangible. Also, I really can't wait to learn about construction since I'm sure one of my remaining three projects will be construction oriented.

Lastly, I hear Habitat for Humanity is great to work with. Obviously, it depends on your specific sponsor, but a Habitat project is essentially the standard AmeriCorps project that all other projects are measured against. I do admit, however, that my current sponsors at Catholic Charities are super-nice and I think my whole team will miss them once we're gone.

I'm pretty sure that sums it all up. NOLA trip, new assignment, but currently just more Orange. I know I threw a lot at ya this time, so if you have any questions or comments PLEASE let me know. I may be horrible at keeping in touch with people at the moment, but that doesn't mean I don't want to!

Thank you so much for reading. I'm not sure if I'll be posting over the holidays (I'm considering a special in-depth team info post, though), so if I don't speak to you until I get back to Sacramento, have a good holiday season!

-Scott

Hurricane Ike

Alright, I've been on the job for a week now. Before I get to that, however, I'm going to talk about my team's trip to Oak Island, TX (which is not an island...). We drove over there with our project sponsor so that we could fill out some intake forms in person as well as see some hurricane devastation first-hand. It was really crazy to see what the hurricane did to this small town... There were tons of homes that were completely destroyed. Often you'd simply see a FEMA trailer sitting at the end of a driveway. At first you don't make the connection... Usually when you see that, it means the entire house was ripped up and taken elsewhere by either wind or water.

So yeah, it was pretty sad to see the scattered remnants of an entire zip code... Here are some pictures of Oak Island and (finally) a movie for you as well. Don't expect premium entertainment though. It's 45 seconds of wreckage. I let it go that long simply to try to capture the amount of debris that used to be "house" and is now "stuff". Of course this is just one short stretch of road among many...


Above: Here is the video.

Above: Not really comfortable anymore.

Above: Not really livable anymore.

Above: Not really there anymore. Yes, that was a house.

Above: That's pretty straightforward.

Above: My TL Erin getting mobbed by dogs. There are tons of pets and stray dogs just roaming around the gulf.

According to Wikipedia, 90% of Oak Island's homes were left inhabitable (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oak_Island,_Texas). Here is an article about Oak Island too: http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/latestnews/stories/092108dntexoakislandike.187ff9a.html

Needless to say, there is a lot to be done down here. My team, Silver One, is working with Catholic Charities of Southeast Texas. I mentioned this before, but keep in mind that we don't do religious work and we aren't allowed to fundraise or anything. Basically, we're providing the administrative work needed to run the hurricane aid programs that they provide. They work with thousands of people, assessing their needs and giving them money to keep them going. We don't just serve Oak Island - we serve several counties!

We get tons of calls every day (and about 30-40 voicemails overnight) and we have to call each household back and fill out forms about those families. I've also been doing a lot of database work to keep all of the information organized. The work is definitely not the outdoor, physical work that I had hoped for, but it's worth it. It's really interesting to hear the families' stories about what happened to them and it makes the monotonous work worthwhile. Also, our sponsors are very nice people and they are definitely grateful for our work. Considering many teams work 60 hours per week, we're lucky that we're only working a simple 8-5. So yeah, this is my job until December 15 (I think). As we progress through the project, however, we'll probably get more and more opportunities to actually go out to the communities and talk with people, which should be more interesting. Here are some teamies "in action", if you can call it that:

Above: Katie making the phones look a lot more fun than they really are.

Above: Sarah making databasing look a lot more fun than it really is.

Oh and lastly, I have a fun story. We're in eastern Texas, which is not the Texas that you Yankees are probably imagining. There are no Tumbleweeds (though we did see plenty on the way here). I'm basically right on the border of Louisiana so the climate here is more like that. It's been raining a lot. In fact, it rained so much that we got stuck in the mud on our way out of the parking lot the other day. We tried all sorts of techniques but could not move. Finally we got help from a truck full of other Camp Orange residents. We tethered onto their truck and their back wheels sprayed mud all over the front of our treasured 15P as it pulled it out. This is what it looked like after a bit of cleaning:

Above: Our beloved 15P. At least it's intimidating now. If you see this baby on the road, you're probably going to get out of the way.

Alright, time for sleep. It's super late for me already. I don't have work tomorrow, but most of my team is planning to do an Independent Service Project (ISP) at a charity concert in Beaumont (the "bigger city" nearby).

Good night and thanks for reading!

-Scott

Orange County (Texas...)

That's right, I'm now living in Orange County, Texas. So much has happened... Originally we thought we were going to be living at Camp Tarmac in Galveston, but now we're here at Camp Orange instead. Orange County borders Louisiana and has many of registered hurricane victims as well. In contrast to Camp Tarmac, which has lots of AmeriCorps teams, this one is a bit new and doesn't have many. At first I was a bit unhappy about that, but I'm definitely happy with Camp Orange now that I'm here.

But first I'll tell you where I've been the past few days. The first day of our road trip brought us to Kingman, Arizona where I got sick and felt horrible. Our next stop was in Las Cruses, New Mexico, which was probably a lot more fun. Then we settled in Austin, Texas for two nights where we registered with FEMA and trained with them for a bit. At night we went out on 6th street, which was a blast. There's so much really good free music in Austin... It was basically a bunch of really talented people performing just for me. I don't have any pictures of that, unfortunately, because I didn't want to bother lugging my camera all around downtown Austin. Most of the driving was through desert, which was cool and boring at the same time (figure that)... Here's a map of our trip (though we took a more sensible route between Austin and Houston):



This whole road trip was taken with Silver Two. We drove in a convoy and we stayed in the same hotel rooms. We went out with them at night and went swimming in the hotel pools. All in all, Silver Two was awesome and we had lots of fun together. It was great waking up in new and interesting places all the time. Too bad they're going to Camp Tarmac (or at least for now)... We actually saw a lot of friends from CTI in Austin. Many of them are working at the FEMA Joint Field Office (which is a huge office in a converted J.C. Penny) talking on the phone with hurricane victims and figuring out what the government can give them. It was really interesting to see the JFO - it was amazing in certain unexpected ways. Speaking to my friends from CTI, I've gathered that this is a pretty boring job and they work ten-hour days, six days a week! Still, the upside, for them, is that they get to live in Austin in really nice extended stay hotels for the whole round.

So back to Camp Orange... Things are pretty awesome here, despite that fact that it's just a volunteer camp set up in huge tents. The camp is set up for far more people than there are actually here, so we have tons of room and we can each take up as many cots and as much space as we want. There's laundry, good food, supplies, electricity, wireless internet and much more. The MWR (Morale, Wellness and Recreation) Tent is pretty awesome too. It has really nice couches and big TVs. Here are some pictures from the camp that I just took tonight:

Above: My monster of a tent

Above: The MWR Tent

Above: The MWR Tent again

Above: Teamies in the MWR Tent

Also, Gold Six is staying here! Some of my friends from CTI are on that team, which is great. Until we arrived, they were the only younger group of people around, so they were pretty excited tonight. They even made us this saweeet welcome poster:

I suppose it's possible that other AmeriCorps teams show up here later, but there's been no word of that so I'm assuming it's just going to be us two. It'll be nice getting to know Gold Six for the time that we're here. We should be here for about 5-6 weeks which will bring us right up to our winter break, where we'll transition back in Sacramento.

I have tomorrow off, so hopefully I'll just be relaxing and having some fun with my team. On Monday we finally meet our round one sponsors! They're a faith-based community organization, but they are not allowed to make AmeriCorps members do anything religious. So although they're Christian, they cannot make us participate in religious ceremonies, nor can they assign us work that progresses Christianity. In other words, though I'm not sure of my exact job description, I know that I will be working toward helping Texas families get back on their feet after the hurricane. My whole team is quite excited about this and we can't wait to get out there and start. We're prepared for some tough work and some long hours.

I think that's all I've got for you tonight. I feel like I've explained a lot with this post. Let me know if you've got any questions! Also, I'd like to know what all of you have been up to this past month, so don't be afraid to comment or e-mail me.

Thanks for reading!

-Scott

Bye Bye, CTI

EDIT: I forgot to post these pictures, so now I'm going to put them in before the rest of the entry:

Above: Silver One at Camp Mendocino in front of a huge redwood!

Above: Team stuff at camp Mendocino.

Above: More team stuff.

Above: Kelsey and me after a bunch of us played in the mud!

Settle in for a long one. First I'm going to write a bit about what I've been doing since my last post (I know some of you have been nagging me to update) and then I'm going to write a bit about my upcoming spike (a spike is a project away from campus). So I've been quite busy. My team, Silver One, has been doing all sorts of things to prepare for Induction, which is the end of Corps Training Institute (CTI), when we become full AmeriCorps members. Before each project, teams have to prepare a briefing presentation to give to staff that explains in detail what they'll be doing and what preparations they've made. Silver One doesn't know exactly what we'll be doing, but I'll get to that later. My job for this briefing was to talk about my team position (Photojournalist) for a bit and provide a team brochure which will be given to project sponsors in order to introduce our team to them and highlight our experience and strengths.

Aside from that, we've still had trainings nearly every day. Some of these trainings were with the Red Cross, and now I'm First Aid and CPR trained by them. We also did Disaster Relief training with them, which we will probably put to good use shortly. And lastly, we've been doing service. We've been working alongside other teams to help construct community gardens around Sacramento. These gardens are primarily made for the Sacramento youth and elderly. Specifically, school children get to grow their own plants. This is used as an alternate form of education and it also teaches the Sacramento kids about healthy eating and provides some of that food to them.

I have also been doing some Independent Service Projects (ISPs). The first one I did was right in front of the California State Capitol Building. They had a Family Fun Day there (where they had thousands more guests than they expected) and I and several friends went to help with the clean-up and take-down of the whole event. Afterwards, we walked around downtown Sacramento a bit and watched some crazy guy yell random things at the top of his lungs on the sidewalk.

The second ISP that I did happened just last night. McClellan Air Force Base is right within a neighborhood outside of Sacramento called North Highlands. The community center here had a halloween event where they made up a big haunted house for the kids. They also had a bunch of games with candy prizes set up. I went with about twenty others to go and help with the clean-up and take-down again. We got there a bit early, so I got to help run the event too. It was fun - I mean, where else can you watch a little kid reach into what he thinks is a bowl of human eyeballs?

Here are some more pictures from CTI:

Above: Silver 1 and Green 5 working on the garden.

Above: Katie and Lawrence picking weeds.

Above: Finishing up.

Above: Lindsey.

Above: Katie.

Above: Sarah and Katie.

Above: Family Fun Day.

Above: Hanging around after work.


Above: Us in front of the capitol.

Above: At the nearby Thai place. Erin, Lindsey, Dayna, Me, Zack.

So that's what I've been up to. Now for my upcoming spike. Let me try to get this straight... First, we were told that we would be going to Austin, TX in order to work for FEMA, and that they might send us elsewhere in Texas. Since then, we were told that we would be working for Impact Ministries, a non-denominational organization that helps the hurricane victims get back on their feet. Working for them would have been interesting. We would have most likely been in the Galveston area working outdoors. Just as Silver One was prepared for that project, we were informed that we're no longer working for Impact Ministries. Now we're working for someone else, but we don't know whom. We still know we won't be in Austin with the other teams (a bunch of teams from all campuses are working office jobs at the FEMA headquarters in Austin. They're living in extended stay hotels the entire time, which is pretty nice). So, again, it's up in the air and we don't know where we'll be. It seems like we're simply waiting for FEMA to allocate us. I, personally, like the uncertainty. I think it's fun. We leave Tuesday, and once I know what I'm doing I'll let you know.

The first teams are leaving for their spikes today and teams will be leaving for the next week. As excited as I am to leave, I am pretty sad that CTI is ending. I had such a great time here and I've made so many friends who are now scattering around the map. I'm very thankful that I like my team, at least. It's becoming clear that from now on, they're going to be the only thing in my life that will remain relatively constant.

So that's all for now. Thanks for reading!
-Scott

P.S. It rained for the first time here the other night. Oh, and tomorrow I'm doing an ISP - I'm helping to run a 8.5 mi./3.5 mi. race.

Disaster Relief: Texas

So tonight we got our first project. Silver 1 is going to Texas to do disaster relief for Hurricane Ike! This is not my 100% ideal project, but I'm definitely happy with it. We'll be starting in Austin, but we'll be assigned to specific housing and specific work after we get there. Most likely, however, I will be doing office work for FEMA and helping evacuated residents come back home (or help them deal with not being able to do so). There are rumors of ten-hour work days and six-day work weeks, which I'm totally OK with. Of course, it's possible that I won't even be doing that office work and I'll be doing something entirely different instead. I may even end up in a different state. All I really know is that I'll be set up in Austin, TX until I'm specifically assigned. Once I have my main job, I should be doing that for the whole round, or nearly two months. However, since this is a disaster reflief project, it doesn't fall into the realm of ordinary projects, so all bets are off.

So I'm really glad to be able to help with the disaster relief, though I would have liked to avoid office work. I'm also really glad I'm going to Austin because there are loads of other teams doing the same thing as me (I've heard that over half of the corps is going to Texas). I've been dreading saying goodbye to a lot of people around here, so it's a relief that many of them will actually be serving near me for the first round. I will probably be leaving for Texas right at the beginning of November. In other news, I have been assigned my team position. Each team member gets assigned a position (or multiple ones, sometimes). My position is Photojournalist, which was my first choice. Basically I get to take a ton of photos and try to make some creative things with them. I'm in charge of providing information about our team to The Common Ground, the monthly news letter that gets sent to the entire campus. I also design my team's page in the campus yearbook that's made at the end of the year.

So that's about it for now. Until we leave we are going to be doing more PT, more trainings and debriefings for our trip down south. No additional pictures at the moment, but I'm working on it!!

Thanks for reading,
Scott

Camp Mendocino

So Camp Mendocino was great. We had a short day after we arrived, a long second day and then a short third day before leaving to come back here to McClellan Air Force Base. The camp is about a four-hour drive from base through some mountains and some amazing small lake-side towns. On the first day we mostly just got used to the camp, unpacked our stuff and ate a good dinner. A bunch of us had a great game of soccer too. At night we had a campfire and people (including myself) played guitar.

For the second day, we began with PT at 5:30 in the morning. Then we spent the morning doing team-building activities. They had prepared a bunch of different challenges that we could attempt as a team. My favorite one was where we all had to balance on a small square plank and then rope-swing to another square and balance on that one. Another challenge involved balance our entire team on a huge, wide see-saw. There were also ropes games that needed harnesses like a climbing wall and a rope-walk through the trees.

In the afternoon we went out in our coveralls, goggles and hard-hats and cut down a whole lot of excess bush that needed to be trimmed near the camp. Then I turned my coveralls inside-out in order to prevent any poison ivy that got on them from rubbing off onto my other clothes. That night each Silver team prepared skits and cheers and performed for each other at the amphitheatre. Most teams' skits were absolutely hilarious and it was a great time. Then we had yet another campfire. I had no trouble going to sleep that night.

The morning of the final day, we did PT again. Then, after packing up, we had Ameri-lympics where we competed in events such as the Steel-Toed-Boot Toss, the Four-Legged-Three-Person Race (which I competed in and won) and the PPE (personal protection equipment) Race. And now I'm back here and glad to have a bed again. Here are come pictures of camp. I didn't bring my camera around everywhere, however, and there were a lot of other great places I should have captured. Some of my friends took some good pictures, so maybe I'll get my hands on those.

Above: A cool tree.

Above: The guys' side of camp.

Above: The Amphitheatre

Above: Trees. Duh.

Above: Volleyball

Above: Ultimate Frisbee

Above: A rickety bridge.

Above: Climbing Wall.

Above: Silver Unit picture

Above (from left to right): Sarah (Silver 1), Kelsey (Silver 4), Lindsey (Silver 1), Me (Silver 1) and Megan (Silver 2)

Stepping Out For A Few...

Hey, short entry here. I'm not going to send out reminders to people for this one.

Tomorrow morning I'm leaving for Camp Mendocino, which is in the Redwood Forest and is supposed to be very beautiful. I won't have any internet or phonage. The entirety of Silver Unit is leaving tomorrow and then the other units each come in the days following, so the whole schedule is staggered. While we're there we will be doing teambuilding activities, trail service and other activities. The cabins and showers are all open-air and it is supposed to get very cold at night. Those of you who know me well know that I am looking forward to that...

In other news, I've still been doing a lot of trainings. Today, however, I was pretty much free and I spent all day hanging out with people and playing frisbee and guitar outside. Nice. Also, I'm liking my team, Silver 1, a lot now. To be honest, I wasn't sure if I liked them at first and I was a nervous about spending the next nine months with them. We've hung out a lot since then, however, and now I get really excited to see them every morning. This is a huge relief because they are really going to be like family for the rest of the year. I've actually discussed this with some people here and we've found a general trend. The PODs usually click instantly because everyone knows they're temporary and they let their guard down. For the actual teams, everyone is nervous about their assignments and it usually takes longer for everyone to start being friendly. Makes sense, right?

Oh, and I took my PT baseline (physical training test). I've been placed into the top PT group, which is what I originally wanted, so that was great. We've already done a workout together and I was really happy with it. We work out very early in the morning while the sun is down, it's still cold and the grass is still soaking wet (with dew, not rain). When we have to sit down to stretch everyone else whines and I scoff at them.

That's about it. I get back Monday. Hopefully I'll be bringing my camera around with me at camp and I'll have lots of pictures to share. No guarantees, though!

-Scott

Top Gun Silver One

Maybe you figured it out - I got my team! I'm on Silver 1. The Sacramento corps is divided into four units (Silver, Gold, Blue and Green) and each unit has seven teams. My TL is Erin, and aside from her there are ten members - seven girls and three guys. The girls are Katie, Katie, Katie (yes... we have three), Dayna, Lindsey, Sarah and Rebecca. The two other guys are Lawrence and Ryan. I wasn't really good friends with the people on my team before we were placed together this past Friday, but we have since gotten to know each other quite well and I think I like them a lot.


Aside from team stuff, I been busy with many other things. Every day is completely full with either training or service. The training is pretty boring (although today's training was actually a lot of fun) and usually has to do with NCCC policies and information about the type of work we will be doing.


As for the service, one of the days I served was great and the other was not-so-great. I'll start with the not-so-great one. We worked with three other teams at a warehouse moving and sorting school supplies and other things. The job really wouldn't have been so bad, but the sponsor was a bit under-staffed and the people who we worked with were a bit unfriendly and unhelpful. The other project I worked on was much better. My POD worked alone at the administrative office for the Crocker Art Museum. We made 1800 little scrolls, which are used for their youth programming. We also stuffed, labelled and sorted thousands of informational brochures, among other things. The work wasn't so much fun, but the POD made it fun by joking around and stuff. After work our sponsor gave us a tour of the museum, which was excellent. There were a lot of cool art pieces there, and we had a great time seeing the fun side of the company that we helped. Here are some pictures from the museum project:

Above: POD 11 getting things done.

Above: 1,802 scrolls! Each stack is 50.

Above: This painting was about six feet wide...

Above: Definitely my favorite room in the museum

Above: That painting in the back was freaking huge. It's kind of scary...

Above: An interesting mosaic of Gee Dubs.

Above: Again, my favorite room.

Above: What a cool painting... I want to be like him. Notice the shadow on the bottom-right.

Above: Amazing explosion effects for such an old painting, yeah?

Above: Another painting I liked.

Outside of official NCCC business the corps has been having a lot of fun. We went over to downtown Sacramento for Second Saturday, which is a small party in the city where art galeries open their doors to the public for free. People come from all over for the festivities. There's also a lot of live music and other entertainment. Besides that, we continue to be active on campus. At night we're almost always outside throwing around a frisbee or football or kicking around a soccer ball.


Also, I have my PT baseline tomorrow. This is basically the first physical training test for me, where my performance is recorded so that I can refer to it later and see if I've improved. Also, baseline sorts people into ability levels so that future PT can be done more effectively. I have seen the guidelines for these levels and anticipate being placed into the top one. I've been running on my own lately and am in good shape. Speaking of running, here's a picture I took of my dorm in the morning after I got back from one of my early runs:




Ah yes... and as promised, here is me in uniform. There are lots of variations of uniform, this is just me in my t-shirt, vest and shorts. One day I'll have to put up a picture of myself in my and intimidating black jumpsuit.

Lastly, big thanks to Cristina who came to visit me tonight! She was in town from Portland and came to campus. I showed her around my dorm, introduced her to a few people and we went and ate at a good Thai restaurant nearby! That's it for now. Thanks for reading!

-Scott