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

First Week Of CTI

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