I am way overdue to be posting this blog since its been nearly 10 days since my last one, but I finally got around to writing one because I can't sleep AND my buddy is lending me his laptop for a couple days since our town house is right next to the computer lab with the wireless internet...so definately a double bonus.
Last time I left off I was briefly talking about the breakdown on how each day went this past 2nd week of AmeriCorps. This 3rd full week was a little of the same but we had disaster training instead. Disaster training consisted of Red Cross representatives coming into the University of Delaware and speaking to us and training us for the possible call down to TN and the tornadoes...and simply preparing us for our duties down in the gulf. My group is not stationed in the gulf quite yet...but our time and chance will come. Instead, my Raven 3 team will be driving down to the coast of Georgia to live on an island for our 1st spike location. The island is called, Skidaway, and is located roughly 15-20 mins from Savannah, GA. We are assigned to live on this island in what was described as, "incredible housing", so we will see what that means :) We are all stoked because we will be on the ocean, in the warm weather, working with the ocean and restoration of clams and other organisms on the Atlantic Ocean coast. Super ready for it and get out of BORING Perry Point. There really is nothing to do here...you either hang out with friends and each other's houses OR go to the bar that is about .5 miles away from the houses. I do not go to the bar that often which is good because I have lost 9 lbs since being here. I weighed myself and I am down to 204 lbs. I just need to keep it up, watch what I eat and drink, and work out daily. PT will be consisted of possibly scuba diving and other water activities which you all are jealous...right? :) This Georgia location is not considered a gulf trip, so that means the next 2 out of 3 Spike locations we could potentially be down in New Orleans or Mississippi or down there. Preferably I would want to be down in New Orleans around June because I hear that Jazz Fest goes on during that month and past teams in AmeriCorps got a lot of their ISP hours helping and aiding with the Festival. AWESOME!
My team that was assigned is getting more and more comfortable with each other. We have 2 that are sort of shy and need to become more social, but there are others that are definately fun to be around. We are going to try to avoid all drama at all costs. We all seem to share similiar interests and tastes for music which makes the van rides much fun when we all can agree upon the proper songs to play at the correct time. We had our first 1 on 1 with our TL the other day for 15 mins and it went just fine. She is such an awesome person and very out-going. I do not see myself disagreeing with her or anything. All love her dearly. Our team is super tight in terms of having a slogan, we are thinking of a song to relate, I made a team word search the other day, another girl put together a collage of all of us 'irish kicking' out of the van...turned out GREAT! (If you want I can email it to you...just let me know). I hope this continues and we all can get along just wonderfully. The fear or being put in a group with non-motivated people is gone and I know all of us will be doing a great job as a cohesive unit.
It is insane how many people are 'hooking' up or having their Ameri-crushes (we have started this phase where we start everything with 'Ameri" and end it with any word). Love is swiftering around and its nuts. I have made a lot of great friends so far which is awesome...I am close to alot of people. These people are excited to be here and help. Tons of reminders of people I went to high school and college with. I have a bff (best friends forever) friend that we met the 2nd day and have this secret hand-shake and everything. It is cool, her name is Gwen and we relate a lot in things. Nothing more than strictly a friend.
As my eyes are fading as I look at the clock and it reads 2:45 AM, I will try and speed through this next story. We had a 3 day weekend this past weekend because since we are a federal organization, we received President's Day off...so what a couple friends and I did was traveled and road-tripped to New York City for the 4 days and 3 nights and hung out in the Big Apple. My friend Mike, Jared, and I went together to stay with Mike's uncle who lived in East Village (over in Manhattan). Tons and loads of fun hanging in the city and the uncle showed us around to everything. We did the tourist thing and got some pictures. We stopped at many places, for examples: Empire St. Building, Rockafeller ice skating rink, Times Square, Harlem, Central Park, and many, many more. I picked up some sweet postcards as souvenirs. Boy...those I Love New York shirts are SUPER expensive...i said no can do. Over the 4 days we visited so many restaurants, tourist locations, and bars...INSANE! Overall a great weekend and I hope the lack of sleep (considering I was on the floor in a sleeping bag the whole time and my left and right hip hurt like the dickens) does not catch up on me the remainder of this week :(
As I end this ever-so-long blog, coming up this week we are doing more training and possibly chain saw training. We shall see where this week takes us as it is a shortened one for sure. We get our first pay this friday, a whopping 300 dollars will be direct deposited...a lot of people are stoked and are getting piercings and tattooes with their first check. I am saving mine for a possibly plane ticket home during the time period June 30-July 4 where we get some time off. I am debating coming that time because Kristin and I have talked about going to Summerfest since it begins June 30. I have to look up plane tickets though. Couple people here are from Wisc and have also talked about going back to see it. We shall see and play it by ear.
Other than what has been mentioned above...that is all I got. If you want to know more about the NYC trip, i surely have plenty more stories to tell :) I begin week 3 with a tired look on my face because of the time...but surely will get alot of it. I will try and try to keep you all posted more frequently and not every 10 days as some of you are eager to find out more. So I sign off for tonight by leaving you with this quote: "Dang it feels good to be a RAVEN!"
