Scott in AmeriCorps NCCC

Timeless Wyoming

2009-06-08T15:45:00.010-05:00

I posted recently, but in an attempt to be more responsible with this blog, here’s another one! Pictures are all at the end of the post. I’m pretty rushed while writing this because I don’t have much time, but here it goes…

I’ve settled into my new home in Wyoming and I’m loving it here. The owners of a ranch here in Parkman, Wyoming were kind enough to host my entire team in some of the houses they have. The amenities are very nice! We have plenty of space, electricity and running water. We have satellite internet, but it’s VERY slow (slow enough that I can’t update my blog or check my e-mail). As far as I’ve seen, I get no phone reception. We’re about 40 minutes out of Sheridan, so it’s tough to keep up with friends or get groceries.

The nature here is really amazing. This is a grazing industry, so most of the land is used for cattle and such. However, the land is very hilly and green (except for recently - it snowed here, which was pretty strange). It’s great for running, which I’ve been doing every day since I arrived. Hopefully, the hilly, high-altitude conditions that I’m running in now will set me up for a great time in the AmeriCorps 5K that I’ll be running at the end of the year! I typically run when I get home from work, and then at night I sit on a bridge over a small river and play guitar until I’m tired enough to go to bed. Not bad, right?

Work has been pretty good, too. Our team typically splits, with some people going even farther down south to Buffalo, WY to work on constructing a house. The rest of the team stays in Sheridan, working at the Habitat for Humanity ReStore, which is a surplus store that sends all of its revenue back into Habitat for Humanity. I’ve worked at both sites, and the supervisors at both of them are extremely approachable and appreciative. Habitat has a nice little community going on here in Wyoming.

This weekend I went hiking, which was amazing! We live right near Bighorn National Forest, which includes great canyon and mountain sights! Ryan, Lawrence and I went with Beth, an AmeriCorps VISTA from Virginia who will be working for Habitat for two months (pretty much like us). We hiked from the forested bottom of the canyon all the way up over the snow line and into the mountains! I don’t think I’ve ever had a snowball fight in June… On our way, we also checked out a really cool cave. I think it would be fun to spend the night in there one time.

That’s all I’ve got, for now. Hopefully these more frequent posts will eliminate the very long updates that I’ve been otherwise providing. Thanks so much for reading and remember to ask me questions!

-Scott

Above: Ryan under a porch clearing out dirt. Sometimes I call him Silver One's Ferret.

Above: Our dining room on the ranch.

Above: Horses on the ranch.

Above: Bridge with one of our houses in the background. If the weather's OK, I sit on the railing and play guitar at night.

Above: Hills near our ranch.

Above: Me falling off of a cliff. I survived.

Above: Beth, Lawrence and Ryan.

Above: The Black Canyon. At least that's what a Wyoming resident called it...

Above: Ryan exploring the cave that we found!

From The Boolest Guy In Sactowne

2009-05-31T19:10:00.017-05:00

Alright, alright... So it's been a while. I'd argue that I didn't have the internet in Los Angeles, but I've been here in Sacramento for nearly a week and I've only gotten around to updating this blog now. I should have done it much earlier, especially since a whole lot of people have been visiting recently! I should make it known at this point that there are PICTURES, A VIDEO and my NEXT PROJECT later in the post. I know that's the only way I can get you to stay! I recommend reading it too, however. There are some interesting things written in this one...

Working with the Children, Youth and Family Collaborative was a great experience. I spent about five weeks tutoring and mentoring students, mainly at Dorsey High School in Inglewood and Carver Elementary School in Compton.

I'm not really sure how to sum up the whole project. I guess there were two aspects: The first aspect of the project was the experience I had learning about the culture of young people in South L.A. The second aspect was my experience actually teaching the students.

There is a lot to South L.A. that I didn't know. Actually there is a lot to South L.A. that shocked me. I'll continue my commentary on the "bad neighborhoods" that we lived and worked in from my last post. These neighborhoods did not look nearly as bad as they were and Silver One had no serious conflicts with the residents of the area whatsoever! I would have thought South L.A. was just fine if it weren't for its educational systems and the stories told by the students there.

One student of mine at the high school was very quiet and very well-behaved. We worked on his math day after day. Then, one day, he decided to tell me a bit about his past life. For his sake, I won't include the details, but the stories included his "tagging crew", which is basically a gang that doesn't call itself a gang and is based on graffiti. I learned about how they'd go tag in a different crew's neighborhood and then they'd camp out and see who crosses out their tag. By crossing out their tag, that person is assumed to be in the rival gang and is suspect to being "jumped", or ambushed and beaten up. This student told me stories about drugs, friends in prison, and violence involving wielded metal pipes and thrown bricks, among other things.

Another student got into tons of fights at school. It nearly happened on a daily basis. The fights were based off of a rivalry she had with one of her ex-friends, and they often brought male friends to come fight with them. Essentially, they would take turns catching each other "slippin'" and jumping each other.

A third student of mine was pretty open about being in the Bloods (Dorsey is more of a Bloods school, while nearby Crenshaw is more of a Crips school, apparently). She didn't tell me many stories, but she called me "Bool" (which is Blood for "cool"). I don't think I'll ever be called "Bool" again for the rest of my life...

These were all high school students, but even the middle school students aren't safe. We spent a day or two at Bunche Middle School in Compton, where I found an interesting school assignment tacked up to the wall. It was a small booklet made out of construction paper, which was meant to be an information document about the school. Sure, there were sections about the teaching staff and sports and things of that nature... There were also sections about twelve-year-olds at the school getting pregnant and students getting in knife fights (yes, actually stabbing each other...) in the bathroom. Shocking? It was for me, too.

So now that I've gotten the depressing material out of the way, I can talk about the other things. The truth is, many of the students at these schools are completely decent people who don't get into any trouble. Even the "bad" ones had the capability to be very kind and interesting people. Many of the "bad" ones were also really intelligent. The vast majority of the students that I encountered wanted to succeed, but they simply didn't believe that they could anymore.

Specifically, I remember one student in an English class that I had. He was the class clown and he never did his work. I'm certain he was failing the class. I had decided that he was pretty much hopeless, until I started working with him a bit. He was very nice and pretty bright. Once he concentrated on his work (as opposed to his friends) he did very well. I also found out that he lived on his own, away from his parents. He affords it by working at a mainstream toy store every night from when he gets out of school until about 11:30 PM. At the toy store, his boss treats him very poorly and screams at him constantly.

So I've concluded that there is no single answer for why the students in South Central L.A. fail to graduate high school and end up on the streets. It's different for every one of them. Maybe the students were told that their schools were substandard too many times. Maybe their parents tell them that they don't need a high school diploma and that there's easy money in gangs and drugs instead. However, I do think that we taught the students a lot. We sifted through piles of overdue math homework sheets, teaching each and everyone one of them. We brought tons of students from failing to passing. Most importantly, we served as windows to the world outside of South L.A. Most of our students had never been outside of L.A. (unless they were Mexican, in which case they had probably been to Mexico to visit family). They really don't know how much there is out there, just waiting for them to see.

Lastly, I'm just going to explain my work at the elementary school. My elementary students were still, for the most part, unaffected by their neighborhood. Sure, they had sub-par test scores, but they were very playful, funny kids, just as they are supposed to be. I had a blast teaching them. They're really cute too! He are some pictures. Most of them are of Katie L. and Sarah because those are the two that were working at the elementary school on the day that I decided to take the most pictures.

Above: Sarah and Katie in a huddle.

Above: Sarah sitting in line.

Above: Armando and Gloria admiring Katie.

Above: Sarah with some kindergartners and a 1st grader.

Above: Dayna with an attached high schooler.

Above: Katie in a pileup of first graders!

Above: Katie playing with first graders. They're almost seated - amazing.

And now here's a dance video with the first graders! They were done with their homework, so instead of coloring or playing musical chairs, I figured I'd do this:

And for my next project, I'll be in... WYOMING! I'll be living near Sheridan, WY and working with Habitat for Humanity (again). I'm really looking forward to being out in nature (apparently the area we'll be in is beautiful) and I'm looking forward to being able to leave and walk or go for a run whenever I want. We'll be living in guest cabins on a ranch owned by someone affiliated with Habitat! Yes, there are horses and everything. From the pictures, it looks really nice! It sounds like an ideal final round project, doesn't it?

Well, I think that's all I have to write. I tried to cram a whole lot of experiences into a tiny little blog post, which feels really inadequate, but it'll have to do. Please let me know if you have any questions and I'll be glad to talk to you!

-Scott

Los Angeles: Graffiti and Hamburgers

2009-04-18T15:21:00.015-05:00

Hey, a lot has happened since my last post! Plus, I'm including a lot of pictures for this one. My computer is fixed, for the most part. Thanks to my family for sending my XP disk and to Chris from Lafayette for offering his help.

First, I should inform everyone that Lindsey resigned from the program recently. She appreciated NCCC, she just had to leave. She's a very family oriented person and she had a lot of exciting events happening back home! Our team certainly doesn't blame her for leaving but we miss her dearly! Still, we've functioned surprisingly well since she left, in my opinion.

Here are some pictures from our project with Camp Coast Care in Mississippi:

Above: Me with my Bowser House crew from Kent State.

Above: Me with my Fournier House crew from Lafayette (and assorted other locations).

Above: Me with my city crew from Southwestern Minnesota and the Mayor of Pass Christian.

Above: Letter from the Lafayette kids. Nice, right?

Above: Letter continued.

And then here are some pictures of the Grand Canyon, which we visited on our trip back from Mississippi:

Above: Katie L. and Sarah walking.

Above: Ryan and Lawrence.

Once we got back to Sacramento, we had some days off and a few debriefings and such. Also, Life After AmeriCorps Day was nice. It's a day where our staff prepares speakers and presentations about our options for life after our term of service. It was a bit disorganized, which resulted in my inability to see in on some of the presentations that I wanted to see, but that's ok. My favorite presentation that I saw was probably by Bike and Build:

http://bikeandbuild.org/cms/

This is a really cool program that I'm seriously considering for the summer of 2010. I'd be biking across the entire country, stopping to help building homes (usually with Habitat for Humanity). It would require that I raise $4,000 beforehand, which pays for my bike and other expenses, and then the rest of it (most of it) gets donated to non-profits (which is where the main point of the program - to donate to non-profits, primarily ones that concentrate on affordable housing).

Right after LAA Day, I left for Lake Tahoe with nine friends. The trip was great. I went snowboarding, hiking and took a lot of pictures. Ryan (not to be confused with the Ryan on my team) found an amazing place for us to stay, but unfortunately I don't have any pictures of that. It was just a private loft that the owner rented out. It was really well-decorated, well-maintained and, especially when ten people are chipping in, it was inexpensive. Also, I stopped at a casino for about a half hour, got lucky and won enough to pay for my share of the car rental, gas and lodging for the whole trip! To the pictures...

Above: Lisa, Sarah and Jen jumping off of rocks.

Above: Me and Sarah. I know, I'm scruffy. I've since shaved. It took a while.

Above: Jen, Sarah and Lisa.

Above: Lisa, Jen and Sarah in front of the mountain and Lake Tahoe.

Above: Stuff.

Above: I think houses on extreme slopes are really cool.

Above: Lake Tahoe.

Now I'm in Los Angeles, which is obviously entirely different from everywhere else I've been in AmeriCorps! We arrived in the afternoon and found our house. It's kind of run down, but I'll take it. There's plenty of space and it's secure, so those are the most important things, right? We didn't have electricity for the first night, but by next day we had it up and running. We have a refrigerator, we brought a microwave and if we want a stove we can use the one in the church next door. There's a preschool that runs at the church, so during the day we get to look out of our windows and watch the kids run around and play! We were thinking about volunteering for them, but it won't fit into our schedule once we start work.

It's a bit of culture shock to be living here, but I definitely don't mind it at all. It's a common occurrence to see a car peel out in the supermarket parking lot with its bass blaring. There's a ton of graffiti all over the place, but it's actually really artistic and amazing stuff (LA is known for its graffiti). There are also probably at least two burger shops on every block. We're not talking McDonalds or Burger King (but those are around too), I mean really random ones with funny names, sketchy-looking buildings and C grades from the Department of Sanitation proudly displayed on their windows. On a side note, there are Vegan restaurants within driving distance (but definitely not in our neighborhood) and the one I went to so far was amazing.

It's also really interesting to see the differences in neighborhoods here. We've done quite a bit of driving around LA and I'm surprised to see how neighborhoods change from bad to good so quickly. I pay a lot of attention to the windows of buildings - it's the primary way that I can tell a good neighborhood from a bad one. In our neighborhood (which is bad, though it definitely isn't even close to being the worst), every home and business has cast iron bars of every single first-floor window, with almost zero exceptions. Drive several miles out in certain directions, and the bars are almost non-existent. So it seems like there is a lot of segregation here, which is typical of any very large city. Our sponsors were talking about how the LA Unified School District is one of largest (if not the largest) school district in the nation, with 168,915 students just in high school! They said that certain local school districts have very distinct advantages over others depending on their location and reputation, and I look forward to learning more about that while I'm here.

I guess we live in a bad neighborhood. It's hard to tell. It's called the "Blood Triangle" and we've been warned by AmeriCorps staff, our CYFC sponsors and even the Dorsey High School kids that we live in a very bad place. Yet, there are plenty of nice-looking houses and cars around, too. It's just confusing because it had some indicators of a "bad neighborhood" but not others. Still, I'll take the advice of the people who have lived here their whole lives and be careful.

Aside from those first impressions, people here are really friendly when you speak to them. The school systems here really need help and our sponsoring organization, The Child, Youth and Family Collaborative, has already done absolutely incredible work here. We've just met our staff and they are really funny and interesting. Our main assignment will be to work at Dorsey High School, providing assistance to teachers during the day and tutoring in and conducting their after-school program in the evening. The team that had this project last worked at Dorsey, and they said that they were really appreciated there.

So far, things have been going well. Dorsey High School isn't the high school for the area that we're living in, but its area has similar demographics. The graduation rate at the school is less than 50%. The area is called "The Jungle" and it's not considered a great neighborhood either. In fact, last week, before we got here, one of the students was stabbed and killed about five blocks from the school. She was apparently one of the stars of the girl's basketball team. It's definitely sad to hear.

The kids at Dorsey are obviously very different from what I'm used to, but they're not terrible at all. Most of them respect me and other staff a lot, they just have a lot of trouble keeping attention. They often say "I'm done with this for now, my head hurts." I, personally, find it difficult to believe that the incidence of headaches is so much higher with inner-city kids compared to kids from other areas! I supposed teachers just haven't dealt with excuses like that correctly in the past, so they're used more often... Anyway, the students I'm working with are really nice, especially when you get their undivided attention and I think things are only going to get better once they get used to having me around.

That's all I've got so far. I'd like to remind any new readers that if you e-mail me, I'll put you on my update list so that you'll always know when I make a new post. Additionally, if anyone wants off the list, please just let me know!

Thanks for reading,
Scott

Back To Base, Again

2009-04-01T20:08:00.007-05:00

First thing's first. Shoutout to my friends from Kent State! A group of 65 of them came from Ohio. They were the only volunteers that week, so they got the whole place to themselves (aside from Silver One, of course). I know I always rant about the people who visit Camp Coast Care, so I'll try to restrain myself from doing it this time. I don't know what it is - maybe it's just that I tend to get along with the types of people who are willing to volunteer their spring break to help others?

And now I'm leaving Camp Coast Care. We got a lot done while we were there. My last week was spent co-supervising the work on the Bowser house with Ryan, which was an experience... It seemed like the volunteers who worked under us were really frustrated at first because they must have expected something else. Sometimes, the homeowners can't afford the materials and there is less work to do. Sometimes there aren't enough site supervisors to go around, so people like Ryan and I do it (even though we have little experience with the work). The volunteer work is different from typical construction. Once the volunteers got used to the idea, though, things became better. Toward the end of the week we started getting all of our materials, too. We ended up doing a lot of painting and we nearly floored the entire house (laminent wood and tile)! Our week was extremely productive and I can only imagine the Bowser family shocked at the progress next time they come to check up on their home.

Here's an article about the Kent State group. Be sure to watch the video. I'm in a picture on that front page and I also appear in the video a lot. Much of the video is of my crew working on the Bowser house! Also, if you see people painting, they're working on the Fournier house, which I did a lot of work on last week. I must admit - I never thought I'd show up on the news in Kent, Ohio.

http://www.wkyc.com/news/local/news_article.aspx?storyid=110418&catid=45

So now I'm on my way back to Sacramento. It's obviously a good thing - how excited I am for Sacramento, Lake Tahoe and Los Angeles - but I think it's making this road trip seem uncharacteristically long. This is the last time (as far as we know...) that we'll have such a long trek. This time our stops along the way aren't very interesting: we're hitting up Tyler, Texas, Amarillo, Texas, Winslow, Arizona and Barstow, California.

Oh, and I know, I know... I haven't posted anything terribly interesting and I haven't posted pictures or video (aside from the link). Rest assured that once I get my computer back up, things will be better. On that note, if anyone has a Windows XP Home CD, please let me know! I have one lost somewhere at home, but I need it here so I can work on my computer (I don't want to pay lots of money for maneuvers I can do on my own...).

Thanks for reading. Maybe I'll give a couple of pictures/videos to people who keep in touch with me personally, as incentive. That's right, I'll use it as leverage...

-Scott

EDIT: I should have posted something ridiculous as an April Fools joke, but it didn't occur to me until now. Maybe just pretend that I did? Thanks.

CCC, LA and CYB

2009-03-24T00:44:00.006-05:00

It's late for me (I have to wake up at 6 AM every day) but I'm going to update. I know I'll fall behind if I don't. However, my computer is broken yet again. This means no photos and videos. Yeah yeah, I know. The lack of these elements makes my blog boring. Good thing you're all just SO interested in my life that you'll read anyway! No, but really... I'm revealing some big news in this post!

But before the big news, I'll talk about CCC (Camp Coast Care). Last week we had the most people in the camp that I've seen. Many of them were from Lafayette College in Pennsylvania and I want to say hi to them, if they're reading! The Lafayette kids were amazing. We got along really well and I got to know many of them. I'm going to miss them a lot and I wish I had more than a week to spend with them! Of everything, we probably spent the most time playing Spades (I won, of course). So yeah - hi, Lafayette! Come back. No, really.

This week has been good. The one and only group here is a huge group from Kent State in Ohio. I was a site supervisor today and once we got all of our materials together, I think we did good work. We've been priming the walls and putting in hardwood flooring (we'll be tiling on Wednesday, most likely). This work is being done at the "Bowser House", the location that I worked on for my first day with Camp Coast Care. The house has come a long was since then and it's been amazing to see! The family has suffered a lot of misfortune, so I really care about doing a good job and getting a lot of work done before I leave.

Aside from Camp Coast Care, we found out our next project!!! I'm REALLY pumped about this one. We're going to Los Angeles to do education work! I'm so excited to be living in the midst of a real city and doing education. Most of the team seems decently enthusiastic about it too. From what I've heard, we're working with an organization that provides educational support to children who need it and has a special concentration on foster children. I think this project will be perfect for me.

So we'll be leaving Camp Coast Care one week from today and we'll be driving to Sacramento for transition. There we'll also have our spring break. I plan on going to Lake Tahoe with a bunch of friends, which should be a blast. We head down to LA once our transition is over.

And then I have even bigger news. I officially know what I'm doing next year! I applied to a program called City Year Boston and got accepted! City Year is an educational program that has branches all over the United States. I applied to the Boston one because they have a large corps there and the City Year headquarters is located there. Also, I hear great things about Boston and I love the prospect of moving to a city that I've never been to before.

Most of the City Year members do mentoring and tutoring work for substandard school systems. They work on lesson plans and things like that and are quite similar to teachers. I would definitely enjoy a job like that, but I'm hoping for something a little different. City Year Boston has a special program call City Heroes, where they take students and they provide community service programs for them to participate in. I really believe in the effects community service can have on both the community and on the people who perform the service, so I think this is a brilliant program. Ideally, City Heroes is where I'll be placed. However, I don't find out until I've started the program.

On that note, City Year Boston starts in early September. AmeriCorps NCCC ends July 22. That means I'll have a little over a month to hang out at home in Chicago. I'll probably be studying for a test or two, but otherwise I'll be free.

Well, those are my main news items. If anyone has any questions about City Year or AmeriCorps (of course), please let me know. I'm really excited about all of the things in my future and it feels great to have things planned so far ahead.

If you made it all the way through without pictures, thank you!

-Scott

Monomedia! Think you can handle it?

2009-03-15T10:12:00.008-05:00

That's right, no pictures in this one. So for those of you who just scroll down looking for eye candy, you may just have to fire some synapses this time (you know who you are)!

I had a very good week, despite the fact that I made an emergency trip to Chicago that lasted most of Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. Actually, the trip to Chicago was rewarding, considering its circumstances. I got to see a lot of family and some good friends as well.

Camp Coast Care has been a lot of fun. I've been doing a lot of drywall, mudding and sanding recently. Basically, I've making the walls of a home and preparing them to be primed and painted. On Friday, I was even the supervisor of my site (technically). People knew what to do by then, however, so I wasn't asked many questions and it wasn't a big deal.

We had two main groups of volunteers this week: a group of nearly 40 came from Virginia Tech and a group of nearly 20 came from Penn College. These groups were amazing to have around! While we weren't working, we played football or sat around the campfire.

Every week I look forward to the new volunteers coming in. Last week we had about 90 of them and this upcoming week it looks like we'll have around 120! So far, most of the people who have moved in are older and are extremely friendly. Then, at about 1 AM last night (err... this morning...) a group got in from Lafayette College in Pennsylvania. I was the only volunteer awake, so I helped show them around and such. They seem like a good group of people, so I'm excited to get to know them more.

We have one more week after this one (which should have more volunteers coming in than any other). Following that, Silver One heads back to Sacramento for Life After AmeriCorps Day and our "spring break", which is a couple of days attached to a weekend. I'm thinking that I'll go to Lake Tahoe with some friends for the break, which should be a lot of fun. At that time, I will also know where my next project will be! I'm especially excited because it will almost definitely be on the west coast.

Last piece of information - some of you know that my computer was totally screwed by a virus recently. Well I spent many long hours working on it and finally got rid of that. Peace of mind ensues. Also, if you ever have a virus problem, I'd be a good person to come to!

La fin.

-Scott

NCCC + CCC = Awesome

2009-03-05T23:20:00.010-06:00

Alright, so I haven't updated in a while. Notice my last post, which explained that I didn't have internet where I lived (I didn't send an e-mail update for it because it was a short post). Also, I have recently gotten a very bad virus on my laptop, so that complicated things even more. Nevertheless, I've managed to update tonight compliments of Sarah and her laptop (thanks Sarah)!

AmeriCorps has been EXCELLENT. Where to start... Maynor Creek in Waynesboro was great. We worked on environmental projects the whole time; we did a lot of trail-building, painting and raking up leaf litter (to prevent wildfires). We worked a four-day work week (ten hours per day). Each day was spent outside, which was really refreshing. In our leisure, we were able to just leave our cabins and take hikes or go for nature runs.

What was probably most memorable about Maynor Creek, however, was the support we recieved from our sponsor and the community. Pat Harrison Waterway District was kind enough to allow us to stay in their guest cabins which were very nice! Here's a video tour of one of them:

Also, our site supervisor, Stuart, was a really fantastic guy. He was really laid-back and wanted to make sure we enjoyed our time there. We also got to meet his family. Additionally, the Waynesboro community was incredibly hospitable! I'd say about every other day we were treated to dinner or lunch. These came from various organizations in Wayne County such as the Lions Club or the fire department. Some even came from individual households who simply were inspired by our work there. It was amazing to meet everyone!

Here are several pictures of Maynor Creek:

Above: The Ampitheatre and a pavilion in the background. We worked on both of these.

Above: A controlled burn. Burning the leaf litter prevents wildfires in the long run.

Above: Ryan using the fireplace in our cabin!

Above: Lindsey working hard in a pavilion.

Above: More working.

Above: Picture of the sky during a controlled burn.

Silver One was sad to leave Maynor Creek, but it's become clear that things are going to continue to be great! From Maynor Creek we moved to the Pearlington Recovery Center on the Mississippi coast where we lived with four other Sacramento NCCC teams and a Denver NCCC team. These were teams already working in the Mississippi area. We gathered to help out with the Great American Cleanup, a national day of service run by Keep America Beautiful.

So we worked side-by-side with hundreds of volunteers from around the country. We worked in Waveland, Misssissippi where we cleaned up and improved five different parks and a cemetary in one day. There I met some non-AmeriCorps people, including a group of students from Loyola College in Maryland. Also, I know I say this every time it happens, but it was again great to meet up with friends from Sacramento. The PRC was NOT the ideal place to live, but it was fun to live in close quarters with so many AmeriCorps kids (we slept in one large room together where everyone socialized and had fun). The Denver team, Sun Two, was also really incredible and I'm so glad I got to meet them! The only negative thing was that at the PRC we were back to port-o-potties and sulfur-water showers. There were also gnats all over and I got bitten up really badly. My arms and legs are still covered with bites of various sizes.

We lived at the PRC for five days and then moved to my current home, Camp Coast Care in Long Beach, Mississippi. We expected something reminiscent of Camp Orange, but what we found was infinitely better. We live in close quarters like in the PRC, but aside from that, it's really nice. We have beautiful, clean bathrooms along with other facilities. We have a nice volunteer room with a TV, computer and games.

Camp Coast Care has an interesting history. It went up right after Hurricane Katrina and began by handing out immediate goods like food and water. Back then, all of the volunteers only lived in a huge warehouse. Since then, Camp Coast Care went to case management, home rehabilitation and construction. I've only worked a day with Camp Coast Care so far, but it's been very good. I put up sheet rock in a home all day, which kept me interested.

However, my favorite part of Camp Coast Care has been meeting people. Volunteers move in on Sundays and leave on Saturdays, almost all of them staying for just a week. Since we're going to be here for a few weeks, we'll be the veterans at the end of it, able to supervise volunteers. Everyone here is from all over the country, and it's so much fun to just talk to them and exchange stories. The groups from College of Charleston and Lock Haven University have been great to have around this week. I hung out at the bonfire with the Charleston kids and Silver One challenged the LHU kids to an intense game of soccer tonight. Also, there are some people from Connecticut who are really nice.

Tonight Silver One and the LHU kids went to a great cafe called Mockingbird Cafe in Bay St. Louis, Mississippi. They have live music there every Thursday. We met up with Green One, who's staying at the PRC permanently. It actually turned out to be a huge AmeriCorps hangout. A bunch of AmeriCorps Direct people were also there, so we got to see a bunch of them and meet some new ones. It's amazing to discover the AmeriCorps community down here. Everyone is doing their unique work, and it all adds up to a huge effect here on the coast!

So that's where I am right now. I'm meeting new interesting people, old and young, every single day. I can only hope that my later projects are as amazing as these have been. Shout out to the Sacramento kids, Sun Two, Loyola College in Maryland, College of Charleston and Lock Haven University. Due to my lack of internet and power for my phone, I haven't really been able to keep up with people as much as I would like to. I'll try harder.

Sorry about the huge delay and hopefully I'll post more frequently from now on (though my computer is still down). Good night!

-Scott

How I Miss You, Dear Internet...

2009-02-06T14:56:00.003-06:00

That's correct - I don't have the internet here in Mississippi. I'm currently at the Waynesboro Public Library, but they block certain sites and other functions, so I can't make a proper update. I have lots to say about my spike in Mississippi so far and I have plenty of media to share with you too, but I guess that will have to wait!

I'm simply posting to reassure anyone who may be distressed; I will be thoroughly describing this spike once I am again securely connected to the rest of the universe! Nevertheless, here's a summary... This project has been amazing. We work 10-hour days, four days per week, which can be pretty tiring. Still, our living situation is incredible. We live in a beautiful state park and we were given amazing cabins that they typically rent out for over $100 per night. Basically, the staff has done all that they can to make sure that we enjoy ourselves during our month-long stay here.

The community is also incredible. People continuously offer us free meals, groceries and any other opportunities they can think of. We were also featured front and center in this week's issue of The Wayne County News! There are a couple of pictures of us accompanied by a description of our program and the work we're doing here. I've been on the lookout for the paparazzi, but luckily it seems I've managed to evade them so far. I'm sneaky - what else can I say?

That's all for now. I've got limited time and resources when it comes to the internet. Hopefully my next spike (which will begin in early March) will allow me to access the internet more reliably, at which point I will go into greater detail about this spike and provide pictures and videos.

That's all, folks. Hopefully I'll post again soon!

-Scott

Lafayette H4H and Round III Reveal

2009-01-18T16:38:00.015-06:00

Working with Habitat for Humanity was excellent! Every day I got to work with my hands, which is what I've really been looking forward to doing. Most of my work days involve moving large pieces of lumber, painting, cleaning and hammering lots and lots of nails.

On our second-to-last night we had dinner with our sponsors and the other volunteers. They made some incredible food for us and we had good conversation around the campfire. I believe that this was when our team completely realized how great of a project we had.

My favorite thing about Habitat for Humanity is that they have the future homeowners work side-by-side with the volunteers and staff. This means we get to see the people who will own the homes that we're working on. As I'm hammering or putting up trusses, I think about how a family's entire life will be contained within the house that I'm building and that's a really great thing to be a part of. Here are a bunch of pictures of Silver One working:

Above: Ryan, Katie and Rebecca up in the trusses.

Above: Katie enjoying painting.

Above: Erin painting. I really like this picture.

Above: Ryan working in a cabinet; apparently, this kid is like a ferret. The bandana is for dust.

Above: Sarah painting.

Above: Rebecca and Lindsey with Dayna waving in the background.

Above: Erin holding Katie's ladder.

Above: Katie up on the trusses with our site supervisor, Bob.

Above: Katie and the rest of the team hammering.

The staff and volunteers at our site are very kind and interesting people as well. Most of them are older (in their 50's or 60's) and they are all a part of a network of people who simply enjoy travelling around building together. It's a really incredible lifestyle, and I'm glad that I got to experience it first-hand.

Above: Silver One with Doris, Bob, Ron, Sue, Bill and Al.

In other news, my living situation has been interesting, to say the least. Let's see... First of all, our roof leaks. The cold of the night makes water condensate on the metal beams of the roof and causes them to drip on us while we sleep... So that's awesome. Also, there are a bunch of community basketball practices and games that get played. For example, on Tuesday we came home from a long day of work to a basketball game - loud fans, refs and all. Actually, it turned out that they were holding four basketball games that night. So we dealt with very loud noise in our home from the second we got back to past when we typically go to sleep. I personally didn't mind much; I only wish that they warned us that something like that would happen. They felt really bad about it though, and since then there have only been minor incidents.

Still, the Lafayette area was really cool. We were basically in the heart of cajun country, which was interesting. Here's a video of some of us at a really great hostel/saloon in Lafayette. They're playing and dancing to zydeco music. I had particular difficulty trying to understand the creole lyrics that they used from time to time...

Oh, so a story about our living situation... I was shooting some hoops the other day when we heard an urgent knocking on our doors. I opened up and there was Green 3! Apparently they were told to move in with us? No one on our team (even the team leader) was aware of this... That's AmeriCorps for you, I guess. Well I'm glad they're here anyway - it's more fun with more people around. So lots of unexpected things happened to us back at the community center, but we just had to deal with them, I guess!

And in more important news, I got my next project assignment! The first thing to note is that this is a four-week project. We were expecting an eight-week project (which most other teams got) but we were an exception. Personally, I like this a lot. With the news, I now have a six-round year, which is amazing! This means I get to see and live in six places as opposed to the four places that I was expecting.

The year is probably going to be split in half, with Gold and Blue units at the region projects for the first half and Green and Silver (I'm Silver) units on the gulf for the first half. Then we'll all switch. This switch was going to happen at the end of my eight-week project, but now I'll have two four-week projects in there instead. My team leader knows what our second four-week project will be, but she's not allowed to tell us yet. So now that I've bored you, I guess it's time to tell you where I'll be headed:

I'm going to Waynesboro, Mississippi! We'll be on the southern part of the state but not along the coast, and we'll be quite close to Alabama. My team will be living and working with The Pat Harrison Waterway District, which is basically the managing agency for a variety of Mississippi state parks. Our work will be environmental, but it looks like we may be doing some construction-related work as well.

I'm really quite pumped for this one. Again, I get to be outside, which is a huge plus. Also, I've seen some pictures of the place and it looks pretty amazing! We'll have plenty of space outdoors to go hiking, play games and have campfires (of course, this if weather permits those things...). Also, I've seen some pictures of the cabins they have there and they look REALLY nice. It hasn't been verified that those are the ones we'll be staying but I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

Right now I'm sitting in Camp Hope, the nation's largest volunteer housing complex. It's a converted elementary school in St. Bernard, LA, which is near New Orleans. Obviously, it's not elegant by any means, but it's fun to be here. I've gotten to see tons of my friends from CTI that I've missed so much! Both the Silver and Green units are here, so that's half of the entire corps!

In a way, I wish that I had a project where I would get to stay at Camp Hope. It becomes such a lively and bustling place during the upcoming season because of all of the collegiate volunteer groups that come down for alternative spring breaks. I feel like it would be an amazing experience to be around here. Also, I'm obviously not looking forward to saying goodbye to my friends all over again.

Still, leaving won't be so bad. If our place in Mississippi has warm showers, it's already got something over Camp Hope! So yes, I am very excited to leave as well. I leave tomorrow morning. I've never been in Mississippi, so it should be interesting!

That's all I've got for you, I think... Again, thanks for reading! I miss everyone from home and UW and I hope you're all doing very well! Lastly, here is the video that I presented at my debriefing. You'll see lots of the photos that I already posted above, but there are some other things too.

-Scott

All Over The Place

2009-01-10T22:53:00.011-06:00

One might say "Scott, you have really been slacking with your blog." Well in response, I would say "Yeah, you're completely correct." I want to thank those of you who have, nevertheless, checked back to see if I've updated. Feel free to badger me about updating more frequently because I really, really want to.

A lot has happened since I last posted. Camp OJ seems like a very long time ago. The last week there was pretty typical. We finished up our work with Catholic Charities, which was nice. We also did an excellent ISP at the Firefighter Museum in Beaumont. I got to play with kids and make fun of Ryan (no one knew one of us would have to dress up as Santa).

Above: Ryan as Santa. This is where little kids would crawl on him and get their pictures taken.

Above: Ryan as Santa, Dayna as Mrs. Claus and Katie J. as an AmeriElf.

Above: Me rescuing the AmeriElf from immense danger.

Above: Kristina (from Gold Six) in a fake/retired fire truck.

Above: Santa needs to work on his pedestrian skills.

Then we took our long roadtrip up to Sacramento for transition. The final day of driving was about twelve hours long but it was worth it. It was unconventionally cold in the west on our way up so the mountains of northern Arizona were covered in snow and had fog rolling down their sides.

Above: Northern Arizona. Too bad I didn't have my camera for the best parts.

Once in Sacramento, my team and I debriefed with staff. We gave a presentation summing up our entire experience in southeast Texas, from our work to our living conditions. I also made this short video for the debriefing (you may recognize some photos that have already been uploaded to this blog):

After a few days in Sacramento I flew home to Chicago for winter break! It was really good. Most importantly, I got to see tons of friends and family. I also got to play a lot of hockey and eat a lot of good food. New Year's Eve was excellent as well. I saw some college friends early in the night, I saw AmeriCorps friends while the ball dropped and in the early morning and then I went back to see my high school friends and ended up watching Are You Afraid Of The Dark? at 5 AM. The two-week break actually seemed pretty long, but in retrospect it was very short. I returned to Sacramento, did a briefing for my next project and hopped back on the road with my team.

So here I am at my destination - Abbeville, Louisiana. Our road trip took us through Needles, Albuquerque, Oklahoma City and Beaumont. Again, northern Arizona and New Mexico were really pretty and I took a few pictures...

Above: New Mexico with snow.

Above: More New Mexico.

Above: All of my possessions for the next three-ish months. This includes all of my uniform components, my laptop and my sleeping bag. I have learned to pack very lightly.

At the moment, I'm sitting in my new home in Abbeville, Louisiana. We'll only be here for two weeks, as this is a short project. Our sponsor seems really nice. We'll be first training for our work this Monday. We'll be working with Habitat For Humanity doing finishing work (siding, painting, etc.) on houses for displaced victims of Hurricanes Rita and Katrina (yes, people are still displaced from Katrina - many of them). I'll put up a quick video of our living arrangements:

As you can see, we've got it made here. There's a whole room full of balls, roller skates, hockey sticks (score!) and anything else we may desire. What else do we need? Abbeville is a pretty cute little town with a decent amount of shops and restaurants and such. The weather is very warm and humid. It's definitely a much better living situation than Camp Orange was. Also, it's only a half-hour drive from Lafayette, Louisiana, which has even more options for food and entertainment. Overall, our team's spirit is very high. We're really excited to be working outside and living in a fun and convenient place!

So I think that's all for now... I should be updating again soon, once I get a feel for my new job. Also, we should be finding out our next project very soon! This next one is most likely going to be eight weeks long so it's much more substantial news. Stay tuned for this information! Again, I really want to thank everyone who has kept up with me despite my lack of updates. I'll try to be better! Well I should get to sleep. Tomorrow morning we're going to take advantage of our nice neighborhood and go for a run. I'll leave you with a wipeout video:

-Scott

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

2008-12-06T12:33:00.012-06:00

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

2008-11-14T22:56:00.015-06:00

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...)

2008-11-08T21:46:00.014-06:00

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

2008-11-01T20:08:00.023-05:00

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

2008-10-23T23:18:00.006-05:00

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

2008-10-20T22:21:00.004-05:00

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...

2008-10-17T23:17:00.009-05:00

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

2008-10-14T23:44:00.016-05:00

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

First Week Of CTI

2008-10-09T20:15:00.003-05:00

Hey, first I would like to thank everyone for reading. I'm really impressed by the responses I've had from people, and I'm glad there's a lot of interest in this kind of thing.

First, I'm going to start this entry with an acronym lesson:

CM = Corps Member (that's me)
TL = Team Leader
CTI = Corps Training Institute (that's this first month)
PT = Physical Training
BX = Base Exchange (small department store... duty free, I think)
POD = Temporary teams
OIE = Nothing, I made it up

Also, don't pronounce corps with the "s" sound. It sounds like "core".

So as you may have guessed, I've made it to Sacramento. As excited as I was to come out here, I'd have to say it's better even better than I expected...

I started meeting CMs in O'Hare Airport. Many of them were from Chicago, and some were from the east coast and were flying through. We had a great time on the plane ride and probably annoyed the few business people who were unfortunate enough be seated among us. Between introductions, Catch Phrase and The Backstreet Boys, the 4.5-hour flight went very quickly!
Once we arrived on base there was a whole lot of paperwork to be done. That's pretty much the only official business I've had for these first several days. We do have a decent amount of free time, however. Once we're done with the lectures we're pretty much free for the night. During my free time, I've been spending tons of time in the cloudless California outdoors (I honestly haven't seen a single cloud since I've gotten here). I've been playing a lot of frisbee, volleyball, soccer and others. I also run in the morning (5:30 AM) with some people on my floor. We haven't started PT yet, but it won't be as much of a transition for me since I'm already waking up early and running.

The real fun has been meeting all of the people here. Everyone is extremely nice, and since we all go to meetings together, eat meals together and live together we are all getting to know each other very well. I constantly hear people saying "I can't believe we've only known each other for two days," which is exactly the way I feel about a lot of the people here. Each day is packed with so many activities and we're together so much that the few days that we've been here definitely feel like a couple of weeks.

I have been assigned to POD 11, which has been nice, but it's pretty inconsequential. PODs are temporary teams that we check in with until we are assigned are permanent teams. Tomorrow we get assigned to our real teams, and I am both excited and nervous for this. Our real teams will determine whom I live with for the next ten months of my life. I'm only hoping that I will be with at least one or two of the people who I really like and have become better friends with. If not, I won't be too upset - I'm sure I'll get along with them eventually.

So yeah, if you want a quick summary: NCCC has been a lot like freshman year of college without the homework and the alcohol and each person here is, obviously, the type of person who would dedicate a year of their life to service. So I like it.

I'll update soon, once I know my permanent team! Also, sorry I don't have any pictures for you yet - I've been taking a few, but I would like to post my uniform for you too, and there's NO way I'm getting back into that thing today!

Well I should probably be going to sleep soon if I'm going to be waking up early in the morning. There's a lot more I could say about all of this... I've been very busy and I've been meeting tons of people whom I could talk about. So if you want to know more, just contact me and I'll tell you about it. It's going to be tough to update constantly (especially since the internet likes to bug out on me) but I'll try my best.

Thanks and good night,
-Scott

Introductory Entry - Leaving Soon!

2008-09-15T20:17:00.004-05:00

This entry is pretty long, but my intention is that at its end, you should be familiar enough with my writing to decide whether or not you would like to continue reading my blog. Future entries should have links, pictures, videos and other fun stuff like that. So be patient, and if you're uninterested by the end, then read no more - no questions asked!

On October 6, I will leave on a 10-month adventure to serve with AmeriCorps NCCC! I will most likely be flying out of O'Hare Airport and making a few stops (where we pick up more members) until I arrive in Sacramento. There I will begin a month-long training program. After that, my team and I, along with all other project teams, will be in full throttle, serving communities all across the United States.

Many members have been talking with each other online; everyone there is EXTREMELY excited to get out west, which is great. I like how fearless everyone is, even though we're preparing to leave our homes and migrate west to do unknown jobs at unknown locations for an entire 10 months. Some members (about 1/3 of them) are just out of high school, so they haven't even experienced going away to college.

So some of you may be wondering why I've chosen to enlist in AmeriCorps NCCC. I suppose I will provide a list of my reasons for joining, in no particular order:

1) Adventure: At Wisconsin - Madison I majored in Engineering Mechanics and Astronautics. I really enjoyed the things I learned at UW, especially once I got into the classes specific to my major. However, I have since decided that, at least at this point, I don't want to be a practicing engineer. During my four years at UW, a very large of my time was devoted to course work. My last year, especially, was pretty overbearing. EMA at UW is clearly a program that, without extensive AP credits, is better fit for a five-year plan. I would estimate, without exaggeration, that I pulled at least 20 all-nighters during my final semester alone. I spent most of my days inside of computer labs. Before the semester, I was involved in as many as eight student organizations. As much as I tried to fight it, that number was decreased to two, just because of time constraints. At least for the next year, I desperately want to escape from the computer labs and power lectures and get outdoors and do some manual work. I'm typically not a quote person, but this one seems too appropriate: "The cure for anything is salt water - sweat, tears, or the sea." -Isak Dinesen

2) Society: This part's simple. I consider myself a pretty lucky person. The vast majority of people don't have what I have. I just want to go ahead and help people for a while.

3) Travel: I guess this goes along with "Adventure". I'm excited to go to live in new, unknown places and become familiar with their people and cultures. The great thing about AmeriCorps NCCC is that when you go on spike (live off-campus for a project) you are not a tourist at your community. You are treated as part of the community because your work and your ambition generate respect (or at least this is the impression I've gotten from reading other AmeriCorps blogs).

4) Experience: So all of these categories are closely-related. Whatever. I think that AmeriCorps NCCC will make me a stronger person. I will need to be very flexible, as I will be living in a variety of living conditions (for example, one team spent two months living in tents and showering in outhouses on the gulf coast, and then they spent another two months living in university apartments in Seattle where they had fireplaces, balconies, and their own rooms). Also, I will be doing tons of manual labor, and I hope that the 14-hour days of construction and 5:30 AM physical training will give me more strength and stamina. I anticipate the most difficult part will be if I get assigned to a project that I don't like. I feel like I would be happy with nearly everything, but I have heard of occasional projects that are entirely office jobs, and that would probably disappoint me.

5) Time: When I'm not working (at night), I will have free time. The work days are very long and I will often be working more than five days per week, but when we're done, we're done (unlike school). I plan on using this time to do creative things that I haven't been able to work on previously.

6) Fun: All of the other AmeriCorps NCCC members will be approximately my age (18-24). I will be assigned to a team of 10-12 people, and will spend most of the time working on projects and living with them. In addition to my team, I will be spending a lot of time with other members during training, transitions, and if we're on spike in the same city. During breaks or weekends, NCCC members tend to take trips together - they like to go everywhere from major cities to remote campsites. Most previous members say that they had a great time with other members.

7) Career: I'm not entirely certain about this, but it seems like AmeriCorps will be a good experience for the specific things I'm trying to accomplish. At the moment, it looks like I will be pursuing law or public policy/service in the future (although who knows - this could change), and I think AmeriCorps will be very applicable in that respect.

8) Influence: Ideally, my experiences in AmeriCorps will inspire other people to work for AmeriCorps or in community service in general. Say I convince three people to join AmeriCorps programs... That's accomplishing three times the amount of work that I'm doing alone, and from much less effort (let's be blissfully ignorant and forget that those people need to be accepted to and funded by the program and complete their year of service, among other things)!

So if any of this sounds intriguing to you, please make sure that you're on my list of people whom I will send updates to. You can do this by e-mailing me or leaving a comment on here with your e-mail address included. Also, feel free to tell other people about my blog if you think they might be interested. I would like to build a good readership (see #8 above).

This will probably be my only entry from Good Ol' Chicago. Until I leave I will be studying for the LSATs. Expect my next one to be from Sunny Sacramento, with incredible and inspiring tales of insurance and direct-deposit forms!

-Scott