A waiting game (no-go on disaster)

   I was super pumped to be able to get to go help with shelters! Myself and another teammate who was going were all packed up to go... but unfortunately American Red Cross' travel agent couldn't book our flights in time before the airports closed down. Definitely a major let-down. There's the possibility of going after the storm hits but I say it won't happen as this storm will be pretty small when it does hit (which is good for everyone who lives there of course). But this is how disaster deployments go, always hurry up and wait (we were waiting all day to go!) and sometimes, no matter what organization you're with, things happen and you won't get to go down and help. Nothing to do about and while a bummer, I will try to focus my energy towards our last project, which is still dealing with disaster, just in a different way. My time will come be it this year or in FemaCorps, and one day I will be able to go down south, whether it be disaster related or not.
   The good thing is that Hurricane Issac will only be a CAT 1 storm and the affected areas seem very prepared which is awesome.
  
    For now, I will be spending two weeks at the Point for fall break (4 days) and transition. We deploy out to our projects on September 12th. A busy couple weeks ahead.


                                                                         Until then,
                                                                     <3 Heather G

A new adventure begins...

  In a few short hours, (or maybe an hour, I literally have no idea) myself and another teammate will be on a flight to Baton Rouge, Louisiana for disaster preparation. I'm not sure at all what I'll be doing, all I know is that I'm going. This is what I've been waiting for all year since joining Americorps, going to the South is a definite plus as I've always wanted to go. Hopefully this storm won't be too bad, I've been reading news articles about how similar the path is to Katrina which is eerie to think about as we are two short days from the anniversary of the catastrophic storm. Luckily predictions seem to be well below the strength of that storm. It'll be interesting to be in the area, my dad was in Mississippi doing search and rescue when Katrina hit which was really the event that sparked my interest in the disaster field.
  Nobody is sure how long this deployment will be, it really depends on the outlook of this storm, it could be from a couple days to a few weeks, depending on if this storm becomes hurricane or not. I'm really looking forward to being able to see disaster preparation and then come back to my team and project to see the disaster recovery projects by helping to fix homes in disaster areas from last year's storms.

That's all for now, I'm told that we'll be flying out today and then staying in a hotel tonight (a hotel? what's that? maybe I should break out the cot to make it feel like home haha) It's all a waiting game right now someone from red cross is supposedly coming to do our paperwork and i think that's what we are waiting on.

                                                         Until Then,
                                                      <3 Heather G

We are going...

 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

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

                                      

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
   

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)

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