To a place called Schoharie,NY (which is a county). We will be doing disaster recovery from last year's storm damage. We are working with An organization named SALT (Schoharie Area Long Term) we will be helping to renovate homes and make them livable to homeowners. \
This will be an intensly cool project, but at the same time, I'll admit that I'm worried about being so far from just about everything. This is a very rural project, which means no internet on site, limited cell service (which for me, means no service since I have lame Metro PCS) and also limited transportation. I am interested to see however if this area is one of those cutesy small towns with a main street, which if that's the case, it'll be a really neat area. We will be staying in a church in the area.
I'm definitely looking foward to the clear meaning in the project and since we're doing disaster recovery I'll get to see this side of things before getting into 9(hopefully) FEMA Corps.
Well, that's it for now! I'll update later as it is pretty late!
Until Then,
<3 Heather G
Wednesday, August 15, 2012
Back in the Americorps life!
Well technically I've been back since last Tuesday night (such a long plane ride). It was definitely good to be home and be with family for the week, now I'm ready to get back into the swing of all things AmeriCorps NCCC.
Currently, I am in Baltimore, Maryland (yes, again) working with City Neighbors Charter School. We've been on this project for almost 3 weeks now with mostly a lot of painting, and, as I am a bit hesitant to say, moving a TON of heavy furniture (this may or may not get me an unwanted leg up in helping people move.... haha)
For this project, we are staying in what's known as the Annex building of the school. It's huge compared to the places we've been living! A couple of my teammates share a room, a couple have there own room, one chose to sleep in the closet, and another teammate and I are sleeping out in the open area, which happens to have about 20 or so sofa chairs of which we combined two to makeshift a bed instead of using cots. (which happen to be quite comfy)
The charter school in itself is a huge facility! It's got the feel of a private school than a public school (which makes me a bit jealous from my own elementary/high school facilities) One reason for this is that there is a TON of furniture such as couchers, sofa chairs, coffee table, etc. in a building that has a total of FIVE floors.
My team has started up a game called Assasin, we drew names today and then declared a 'weapon' to 'assassinate' our person, no one knows who the other has and the object of the game is to 'asssassinate your person without anyone (player or random bystander) seeing, if you succeed, you then move on to 'assassinate' whoever's name you got from the person you just 'assassinated'. This goes on until you are eventually the last one left standing. As of right now, I'm still in the game , we'll see how long that lasts though....
Football game on Friday! I'm pretty excited, still trying to decide if any use of face paint should be involved on this day.
Also, it's about that time again, we should know where our final project is in the next few days. I'm nervouse yet excited at the same time. We're all really hoping for a big city project.
I still can't believe that there's just three short months until this service year is up, it's crazy how fast it's gone by! I filled out my FEMA Corps application for February of next year, just need to add a few more things and send it in. Apparently I can't get enough of this volunteer life. Crossing fingers that I'll get in!
Anyways, sorry about how random this blog post is! I'll update again when we know where we're going!
Until Then,
<3 Heather G
Currently, I am in Baltimore, Maryland (yes, again) working with City Neighbors Charter School. We've been on this project for almost 3 weeks now with mostly a lot of painting, and, as I am a bit hesitant to say, moving a TON of heavy furniture (this may or may not get me an unwanted leg up in helping people move.... haha)
For this project, we are staying in what's known as the Annex building of the school. It's huge compared to the places we've been living! A couple of my teammates share a room, a couple have there own room, one chose to sleep in the closet, and another teammate and I are sleeping out in the open area, which happens to have about 20 or so sofa chairs of which we combined two to makeshift a bed instead of using cots. (which happen to be quite comfy)
The charter school in itself is a huge facility! It's got the feel of a private school than a public school (which makes me a bit jealous from my own elementary/high school facilities) One reason for this is that there is a TON of furniture such as couchers, sofa chairs, coffee table, etc. in a building that has a total of FIVE floors.
My team has started up a game called Assasin, we drew names today and then declared a 'weapon' to 'assassinate' our person, no one knows who the other has and the object of the game is to 'asssassinate your person without anyone (player or random bystander) seeing, if you succeed, you then move on to 'assassinate' whoever's name you got from the person you just 'assassinated'. This goes on until you are eventually the last one left standing. As of right now, I'm still in the game , we'll see how long that lasts though....
Football game on Friday! I'm pretty excited, still trying to decide if any use of face paint should be involved on this day.
Also, it's about that time again, we should know where our final project is in the next few days. I'm nervouse yet excited at the same time. We're all really hoping for a big city project.
I still can't believe that there's just three short months until this service year is up, it's crazy how fast it's gone by! I filled out my FEMA Corps application for February of next year, just need to add a few more things and send it in. Apparently I can't get enough of this volunteer life. Crossing fingers that I'll get in!
Anyways, sorry about how random this blog post is! I'll update again when we know where we're going!
Until Then,
<3 Heather G
Thursday, August 2, 2012
Back to California
So I arrived in Sacramento on Tuesday, longest morning of my life! I had my cousin Amanda pick me up from the airport so that I would have the chance to surprise my family since they thought I would be coming in on Wednesday. Success! I'm really glad I get to spend this week with my family, even if the reason of me being home isn't the best of circumstances. I'm definite;y keeping busy trying to put off the weirdness of family stuff.
One thing for sure, I absolutely do NOT miss my team, I NEVER EVER want to see them again!!!!.......... dangit.... ok maybe I might, just a bit.....
The weather here is definitely nice, supposedly its been in the 100s the past couple days, to me it feels nice! It's not humid, I'm not soaking in sweat. I'm definitely finding it difficult to just sit around doing nothing for a long period of time, which isn't a bad thing I suppose.
I find myself feeling so much different than when I first came into AmeriCorps, I feel older, more sure of myself, more appreciative (it's a bit odd when I realize there aren't 7 other people in the house with me).
I bought football tickets today! My teammate are going to see the Lions vs. the Ravens on the 17th in B'more (we're rooting for the Lions).
My teammate has got me on a 'try at least two new foods a week' thing, so far I've tried mango (good), kiwi (also good), grapefruit(too bitter), pickled beets (pretty good), and the other day I tried crab soup which I enjoyed, surprisingly as usually I don't go near seafood.
When I got back to my Mom's place I went through and tried on alll my clothes, I fit into things that I haven't been able to for a few years! Definitely motivation to get on track to being even healthier!
I'm trying to get my new healthy eating habits into my family, but I don't think they're having much of it (I'll keep trying it though haha!)
That's all for now! I'm doing so horribly at this lately but I'll try to stay more consistent with this now that things are a bit less hectic!
Until then,
<3 Heather G
One thing for sure, I absolutely do NOT miss my team, I NEVER EVER want to see them again!!!!.......... dangit.... ok maybe I might, just a bit.....
The weather here is definitely nice, supposedly its been in the 100s the past couple days, to me it feels nice! It's not humid, I'm not soaking in sweat. I'm definitely finding it difficult to just sit around doing nothing for a long period of time, which isn't a bad thing I suppose.
I find myself feeling so much different than when I first came into AmeriCorps, I feel older, more sure of myself, more appreciative (it's a bit odd when I realize there aren't 7 other people in the house with me).
I bought football tickets today! My teammate are going to see the Lions vs. the Ravens on the 17th in B'more (we're rooting for the Lions).
My teammate has got me on a 'try at least two new foods a week' thing, so far I've tried mango (good), kiwi (also good), grapefruit(too bitter), pickled beets (pretty good), and the other day I tried crab soup which I enjoyed, surprisingly as usually I don't go near seafood.
When I got back to my Mom's place I went through and tried on alll my clothes, I fit into things that I haven't been able to for a few years! Definitely motivation to get on track to being even healthier!
I'm trying to get my new healthy eating habits into my family, but I don't think they're having much of it (I'll keep trying it though haha!)
That's all for now! I'm doing so horribly at this lately but I'll try to stay more consistent with this now that things are a bit less hectic!
Until then,
<3 Heather G
Saturday, July 21, 2012
Adventures!
This past time was quite a hectic one! Last Friday we had tool training with Habitat For Humanity (I did use power tools, however I'm still pretty nervous of them!) Working with Habitat, we work on Saturdays, so our duties for the day includes a bunch of landscaping jobs. Sunday and Monday was our weekend, which was unusually laid back, definitely good to have every now and then. My teammate had me watch The Matrix, as I had never seen it before, no lie! I apparently have just not lived life yet!On Tuesday, we worked at a different habitat site, where we helped to frame some on a home. This Habitat (Habitat For Humanity New Castle County) is one of the more active Habitats in the region because they build what are known as 'row homes' which i suppose on the West Coast you could relate it to city town home. The humidy and heat over hear tends to get a bit unbearable for construction, so for the last part of the day we worked on clean up jobs. On Wednesday, the team and I headed back to Perry Point to prepare for a presentation that was to be on Thursday in Washington DC. Thursday, we headed to DC to present our team to the NCCC advisory board at the CNCS (Center for National Community Service) headquarters. It was quite a whirlwind of an experience, meeting all these CEOs who wanted to know more about the team, where we were from, what we planned to do. I imagine it must be quite a thrill to get to see the effects of all the behind the scenes work put in to get people involved in service. I also came face to face with the selections placement person who had been the one to call all the latecomers to the Perry Point region, meaning I got to put a face to a voice on the phone the morning of the day I had been accepted which was pretty cool. On Thursday afternoon we headed back to Delaware, where we relaxed until the next work day. Yesterday, we worked back with Habitat For Humanity, where we learned how to put up firewall, which are walls installed on these homes which would give the next house a 2 hour evacuation time before a fire in the house next to it would come in contact with their home. Which brings me to today, where we worked on cleaning up and putting finishing touches on homes that are just about to be moved into.
Tomorrow we will be volunteering in Dover, Delaware, serving food at a booth at the Firefly music festival which has artists like, The Killers, the Flaming Lips and Girltalk among many others. Though we will be working the whole time (with drive time, a total of about 14 hours) I hope to at least hear some pretty cool music.
Monday, we will be doing a volunteer project working on trails. No laid back weekend this time!
We're in Delaware until Saturday, then we head to Baltimore. About a week and a half I'll be flying home for a week, which will be good but at the same time pretty emotional. I can't wait to see my family though and tell them of my travels and the things I forget or don't make sense to put in a blog post.
I'm currently on a track to eat even more healthy and lose some more weight, I'm easing back into running after a 3 week hiatus of consistently running. I definitely and feeling healthier now that I'm adding a ton more fruits and veggies into my eating habits (so watch out family I'll be trying to fill up your fridges with the stuff heehee)
I know that I haven't been going into detail too much, there's so much to tell and not enough time to write it all! (or too much to write, which means too long to read)
My teammate is wanting to get me to broaden my tastes in food, so I've agreed that every time we go grocery shopping, that I'll get at least two foods that I've never tried before, Maybe I shall put that as an in-between blog post. Who knows? This life is too crazy/
I definitely feel myself getting older, it's weird to think that the person I was before Americorps won;t be the same person coming back (don't worry, I'm still the same person in the most important ways) I've never changed so much in such a short span of time, it's odd but good. My team is a major factor in broadening what I know, see, sense, taste, all that good stuff. As many times as I get frustrated, no matter how many times I may fall (figuratively and literally, I tend to trip more than the average person), I know my team will be there to pick me back up (in the figurative way, in the literal way it's mostly laughing which is fine because I laugh too tripping is just a part of my life that will never go away, if you know me you understand fully). It's definitely comforting to have that support, being so far from home.
Well, that's all I have for now! Like I always say, I'll try to stay more updated, more detailed, but I can't promise anything! Life is crazy and unexpected but I'll stay in touch!
Until Then,
<3 Heather G
(PS, I found that, after years of avoiding the stuff, I actually like yogurt! As pushed by said teammate who also got me to watch the Matrix and also is trying to broaden my food tastes, some jerk, right? haha)
Tomorrow we will be volunteering in Dover, Delaware, serving food at a booth at the Firefly music festival which has artists like, The Killers, the Flaming Lips and Girltalk among many others. Though we will be working the whole time (with drive time, a total of about 14 hours) I hope to at least hear some pretty cool music.
Monday, we will be doing a volunteer project working on trails. No laid back weekend this time!
We're in Delaware until Saturday, then we head to Baltimore. About a week and a half I'll be flying home for a week, which will be good but at the same time pretty emotional. I can't wait to see my family though and tell them of my travels and the things I forget or don't make sense to put in a blog post.
I'm currently on a track to eat even more healthy and lose some more weight, I'm easing back into running after a 3 week hiatus of consistently running. I definitely and feeling healthier now that I'm adding a ton more fruits and veggies into my eating habits (so watch out family I'll be trying to fill up your fridges with the stuff heehee)
I know that I haven't been going into detail too much, there's so much to tell and not enough time to write it all! (or too much to write, which means too long to read)
My teammate is wanting to get me to broaden my tastes in food, so I've agreed that every time we go grocery shopping, that I'll get at least two foods that I've never tried before, Maybe I shall put that as an in-between blog post. Who knows? This life is too crazy/
I definitely feel myself getting older, it's weird to think that the person I was before Americorps won;t be the same person coming back (don't worry, I'm still the same person in the most important ways) I've never changed so much in such a short span of time, it's odd but good. My team is a major factor in broadening what I know, see, sense, taste, all that good stuff. As many times as I get frustrated, no matter how many times I may fall (figuratively and literally, I tend to trip more than the average person), I know my team will be there to pick me back up (in the figurative way, in the literal way it's mostly laughing which is fine because I laugh too tripping is just a part of my life that will never go away, if you know me you understand fully). It's definitely comforting to have that support, being so far from home.
Well, that's all I have for now! Like I always say, I'll try to stay more updated, more detailed, but I can't promise anything! Life is crazy and unexpected but I'll stay in touch!
Until Then,
<3 Heather G
(PS, I found that, after years of avoiding the stuff, I actually like yogurt! As pushed by said teammate who also got me to watch the Matrix and also is trying to broaden my food tastes, some jerk, right? haha)
Thursday, July 12, 2012
Sorry it's been so long
I've been really busy in the past few weeks and haven't had constant internet in awhile! We finished up in Hamden, woodchipped and mulched quite a bit towards the end as well as dealt with intense heat and humidoty towards our last week. The last night with the YMCA staff turned disasterous (but laghable) as we had our celebration night, which was to include swimming in the pool that had just been repaired, a pipe burst! My team and the YMCA staff worked side by side dumping out water by many many buckets in order to get to the pipe to see what the problem was. All in all we still had fun and the YMCA was very appreciative of our work which was really nice to hear after all the tensions and challenges our team had faced during the round. My camera also broke mid round! It was bound to happen though, as my electronics tend to not last in Americorps. But now I have my video camera that also takes pictures so I can once again record my journey.
After our Connecticut proiject, we returned to Perry Point, MD to transition into our next project. Last week was our summer break, however, I was on a composite team I had volunteered for. I spent a week in the Adirondack mountains in Upstate New York, near the towns of Newcomb and Long Lake with ten other people, helping restore trails and beautify sites around the ecological centers' buildings. We camped in tents up in their restricted areas that are only used by their field researchers. We were on a beautiful lake, however there were a TON of bugs that seemed to bite on every part with or without bugspray. My bites are stil currently healing. Our sponsor was pretty awesome as he knew of Americorps and had had teams in the past. The area was very remote in that our campsite was about 25 minutes away from the main lodge building where we were provided breakfast and items to make lunch. The town of Newcomb and Long Lake had only specific buildings where there was cell service and only either AT&T or Verizon worked there. Since the towns are actually within a prtected state park, it is impossible to get any frachises or big businesses in so theses towns are very stuck in the times lookwise.
Today we just arrived in in New Castle, Deleware getting ready to work with Habitat for Humanity for a couple of weeks working with volunteers to help stick frame (lay out) where houses will go and also insulate some home. On July 27th we will be going back to Baltimore, MD to work at a charter school called City Neighbors and while we won't be working with kids (which is a project I really hope we get next round), we will be building on floors so that the charter school can add more high school grade classrooms.
On the 18th my team will be going to DC to present a debrief/brief to the NCCC Advisory Board on our last and now current round.
It may be hard to keep these posts consistent in the coming few weeks. A few weeks from now I will be going back to California to attend to some family stuff so I've been focused on that mostly. I will try to update when possible though.
Until Then,
<3 Heather G
After our Connecticut proiject, we returned to Perry Point, MD to transition into our next project. Last week was our summer break, however, I was on a composite team I had volunteered for. I spent a week in the Adirondack mountains in Upstate New York, near the towns of Newcomb and Long Lake with ten other people, helping restore trails and beautify sites around the ecological centers' buildings. We camped in tents up in their restricted areas that are only used by their field researchers. We were on a beautiful lake, however there were a TON of bugs that seemed to bite on every part with or without bugspray. My bites are stil currently healing. Our sponsor was pretty awesome as he knew of Americorps and had had teams in the past. The area was very remote in that our campsite was about 25 minutes away from the main lodge building where we were provided breakfast and items to make lunch. The town of Newcomb and Long Lake had only specific buildings where there was cell service and only either AT&T or Verizon worked there. Since the towns are actually within a prtected state park, it is impossible to get any frachises or big businesses in so theses towns are very stuck in the times lookwise.
Today we just arrived in in New Castle, Deleware getting ready to work with Habitat for Humanity for a couple of weeks working with volunteers to help stick frame (lay out) where houses will go and also insulate some home. On July 27th we will be going back to Baltimore, MD to work at a charter school called City Neighbors and while we won't be working with kids (which is a project I really hope we get next round), we will be building on floors so that the charter school can add more high school grade classrooms.
On the 18th my team will be going to DC to present a debrief/brief to the NCCC Advisory Board on our last and now current round.
It may be hard to keep these posts consistent in the coming few weeks. A few weeks from now I will be going back to California to attend to some family stuff so I've been focused on that mostly. I will try to update when possible though.
Until Then,
<3 Heather G
Friday, June 1, 2012
A not-so-average week on our second round!
So occasionally in Americorps NCCC you get these events that come up out of the blue that disrupt your normal work schedule. This week was weird to begin with since we had Memorial day off making this a four day work week. Tuesday was really the only normal day of brush clearing and hard trail work we had for the week.
About a week or so ago, a member of another Americorps program discovered we were in the area and invited us to an Americorps appreciation day. Now at first, our team thought this would be some fancy dancy awards ceremony we'd get to sit on, cool, this is what we bring our formal black and white uniforms for! But we soon discovered that we wouldn't need to wear our formals at all! Why? well Wednesday our team went to a place called Lake Compounce in Hartford, Connecticut. Ah, but despite the name, lake it is not! It is an amusement park! We were able to go expenses already paid to this event! We sat in and listened to some speeches which were really cool and got to learn about and meet some people from other Americorps programs that we hadn't known about. After that we were fed lunch and for a few hours got to ride roller coasters ( I think I speak for the team when I say a big wooden roller coaster called Boulder Dash was our favorite) Quite an exciting day! It was definitely a nice break from our normal routine.
Thursday was back to work, but this day we went to Bridgeport to help with an organization called Kaboom! To shortly describe it, what they do is build playgrounds in various cities around our country as well as several other countries. The actual whole building of the playground takes place in just one day Our team was there to help prep for the actual build day, (which is Saturday) doing work that they can't do around kids on the actual build day. We worked alongside several other volunteers digging holes and cutting wood as well as organizing hardware. While digging in this empty lot, we discovered many things! Such as, pieces to a truck, a seat to a car, a shopping cart, and also a fridge. Quite interesting to say the least! It did make work a bit more complicated, but the volunteers were able to get the machines necessary to take it out of the lot.
Today, we helped finish the rest of the prep work in preparation for tomorrow. Our team definitely wishes we could be there for the actual playground build, but Kaboom! already has over 200 community volunteers that will be working in this small lot so it was decided that having an an extra ten people wasn't necessary.
However, tomorrow........
Our YMCA sponsors are taking us to BOSTON!!!
I'm definitely excited (Even though I'm completely broke! But there are plenty of free things to do there!) I hopefully will be able to make it to the Fire Museum since it is one of the oldest ones, other than that I'll probably just wander and see what I find, that's always a good way to do it!
I definitely know I'm not hitting everything in these blog posts! But if you have any specific questions I'd be happy to answer them! Just email me at hgorman93@yahoo.com!
Until then,
<3 Heather G
About a week or so ago, a member of another Americorps program discovered we were in the area and invited us to an Americorps appreciation day. Now at first, our team thought this would be some fancy dancy awards ceremony we'd get to sit on, cool, this is what we bring our formal black and white uniforms for! But we soon discovered that we wouldn't need to wear our formals at all! Why? well Wednesday our team went to a place called Lake Compounce in Hartford, Connecticut. Ah, but despite the name, lake it is not! It is an amusement park! We were able to go expenses already paid to this event! We sat in and listened to some speeches which were really cool and got to learn about and meet some people from other Americorps programs that we hadn't known about. After that we were fed lunch and for a few hours got to ride roller coasters ( I think I speak for the team when I say a big wooden roller coaster called Boulder Dash was our favorite) Quite an exciting day! It was definitely a nice break from our normal routine.
Thursday was back to work, but this day we went to Bridgeport to help with an organization called Kaboom! To shortly describe it, what they do is build playgrounds in various cities around our country as well as several other countries. The actual whole building of the playground takes place in just one day Our team was there to help prep for the actual build day, (which is Saturday) doing work that they can't do around kids on the actual build day. We worked alongside several other volunteers digging holes and cutting wood as well as organizing hardware. While digging in this empty lot, we discovered many things! Such as, pieces to a truck, a seat to a car, a shopping cart, and also a fridge. Quite interesting to say the least! It did make work a bit more complicated, but the volunteers were able to get the machines necessary to take it out of the lot.
Today, we helped finish the rest of the prep work in preparation for tomorrow. Our team definitely wishes we could be there for the actual playground build, but Kaboom! already has over 200 community volunteers that will be working in this small lot so it was decided that having an an extra ten people wasn't necessary.
However, tomorrow........
Our YMCA sponsors are taking us to BOSTON!!!
I'm definitely excited (Even though I'm completely broke! But there are plenty of free things to do there!) I hopefully will be able to make it to the Fire Museum since it is one of the oldest ones, other than that I'll probably just wander and see what I find, that's always a good way to do it!
I definitely know I'm not hitting everything in these blog posts! But if you have any specific questions I'd be happy to answer them! Just email me at hgorman93@yahoo.com!
Until then,
<3 Heather G
Monday, May 28, 2012
A bit about becoming older and being away from home (and of course a project update!)
Yes I realize I'm only 19! I'm not saying I feel old, just that I feel like I'm becoming a bit more of an adult. To me, it's a good feeling. On Thursday, since my phone had broken earlier in the week, I went to Metro PCS to finally just pay for my own phone entirely. My first type of any formal type of bill payment and while it may be small, it gives me that sense of responsibility, and being able to hold myself accountable. I feel myself becoming a bit more confident in my actions, though I still have a lot to work on as I tend to revert back to my habit of going into my shy little shell around new people.
Now a few months ago, I would've told you that I wasn't homesick at all, that I never would be in this entire program. But that's a lie. Of course I get a little homesick every now and then over here, I think just about everyone does. Everyone here in Americorps gets stuck in this weird thing we like to call the Ameribubble. It's easy to get caught up in but every now and then when you're able to pop out of it, it's a bit stressful to think that there's so much going on that you're missing back home. What brings me back though is I think of aall the reasons of why I wanted do this in the first place. I wanted to help people, even though in some instances it feels like we're really indirectly helping people, when you look at the bigger picture, we've helped a lot. I always think that if I wasn't doing this, then I wouldn't be broke, but if I was still back home I'd still be working in a job where I was consistently doing the same eat,work,sleep routine, waiting for the next big thing to come along. Being in Americorps gives me that extra push I need, as well as the life experiences that are priceless. When I look at my team, it always amazes me how close you can become to people who were only strangers a few short months ago, and how big of an impact they can already make on you.
Alright, enough of that, a bit of an update on our project!
The past week we have been continuing on brush clearing near trails to minimize fire hazards around the camp, we also keep finding new trails! So we've been clearing those as well. Also, our team has been continuing to dig out ground for pits for the game called Gaga, which is an Israeli form of kickball, they installed one of the Gaga pits, but the dimensions of the pit turned out to be bigger than initially thought, so our team must dig out more ground to accommodate the pit. This upcoming week we will hopefully be spray painting roots and large rocks that we weren't able to get out of the ground on the trails in order to clearly mark them as to minimize tripping hazards.
Things are moving along quickly! I can't believe that we're already halfway into our round!
Oh! Almost forgot! The first week of July (which is summer break for Americorps) I'll be on a trail crew, my team leader is leading it. It'll be in upstate New York and we'll be there for seven days. It'll definitely be an interesting project but it'll be fun teaming up with new people!
Well, that's all for now! I'll try to update again on Friday!
Until then,
<3 Heather G
Now a few months ago, I would've told you that I wasn't homesick at all, that I never would be in this entire program. But that's a lie. Of course I get a little homesick every now and then over here, I think just about everyone does. Everyone here in Americorps gets stuck in this weird thing we like to call the Ameribubble. It's easy to get caught up in but every now and then when you're able to pop out of it, it's a bit stressful to think that there's so much going on that you're missing back home. What brings me back though is I think of aall the reasons of why I wanted do this in the first place. I wanted to help people, even though in some instances it feels like we're really indirectly helping people, when you look at the bigger picture, we've helped a lot. I always think that if I wasn't doing this, then I wouldn't be broke, but if I was still back home I'd still be working in a job where I was consistently doing the same eat,work,sleep routine, waiting for the next big thing to come along. Being in Americorps gives me that extra push I need, as well as the life experiences that are priceless. When I look at my team, it always amazes me how close you can become to people who were only strangers a few short months ago, and how big of an impact they can already make on you.
Alright, enough of that, a bit of an update on our project!
The past week we have been continuing on brush clearing near trails to minimize fire hazards around the camp, we also keep finding new trails! So we've been clearing those as well. Also, our team has been continuing to dig out ground for pits for the game called Gaga, which is an Israeli form of kickball, they installed one of the Gaga pits, but the dimensions of the pit turned out to be bigger than initially thought, so our team must dig out more ground to accommodate the pit. This upcoming week we will hopefully be spray painting roots and large rocks that we weren't able to get out of the ground on the trails in order to clearly mark them as to minimize tripping hazards.
Things are moving along quickly! I can't believe that we're already halfway into our round!
Oh! Almost forgot! The first week of July (which is summer break for Americorps) I'll be on a trail crew, my team leader is leading it. It'll be in upstate New York and we'll be there for seven days. It'll definitely be an interesting project but it'll be fun teaming up with new people!
Well, that's all for now! I'll try to update again on Friday!
Until then,
<3 Heather G
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