Upcoming for Green 2: Round 2 Project Reveal

Decoding the Clues

Summed up in just a few words...I will be spending January and February:

In Agua Caliente Park

(named for the Hot Springs!)

camping

outdoors

trail building

maintaining

desert

San Diego County

Super Excited!

Check it out:

http://www.co.san-diego.ca.us/parks/Camping/agua_caliente.html

The closest town: 30 minutes away (http://www.julianca.com/)

Closest groceries: 1.5 hours away (oh boy)

Laundry facilities: one washer and one dryer (oh boy)

More info to come as I find out more!

For now, I am really focusing on my current work. I only have a week and a half left at School and I can't imagine leaving the kids so soon! On a more exciting note, ending the project soon does mean that Christmas Break (and my return to the East) is rapidly approaching!

Hugs for my Birthday!

In My Classroom

With Feonna, One of My 5th Grade Students

The Boys and Girls Club After School

While Maya is certainly the focal point of this picture, please note Anthony to the far left.

The "Hallway" Outside My Classroom

Knockout at 5th Grade Recess

The Yard

Second Graders (Photo By: Katie Curtiss)

Learning About California Public Schools

Mrs. Wirz's Fifth Grade Class:

I have now spent 2 weeks with Mrs. Wirz's Fifth Grade class and I am very happy that I am in her classroom. The kids are great, though occasionally rambunctious, and the class is very organized. I have found myself settling into my role, monitoring the class and working with kids one on one. Most of the time I walk the room during her lessons to make sure everyone is paying attention and doing as they should, then when they are working I go from one raised hand to the next to assist as needed. A lot of the kids need a whole lot of help. I have been stunned by the lack of reading skills and how far behind many students are for their grade level in both reading and math. Many of my students read picture books or very short chapter books. I have one student who I have been working with a lot during reading groups. She is in one of the lowest levels for the class. She is a new student to the school and has only been there a few weeks longer than I have. When I help her, I have her read aloud to me and I have noticed that a lot of the time she is guessing at what a word might be, judging by the first letter, instead of taking the time to sound it out. She stumbles over the simplest words and lacks the vocabulary necessary to understand what she is reading. When she reads out loud and rushes past words and reads others out of order, I think that a part of her has given. But I know that deep down she does believe in herself, at least slightly. Or perhaps a better description is that she wants to believe in herself. This same student came up to my on the playground one morning, really upset after her cousin has called her "mental." The other kids can see how far behind she is, but I am guessing that in her case it is a lack of proper education rather than inferior intellect that is holding her back. She went on and on to me about how she is not "mental" because if she was she would be in a special school. She has a point too. Not only is she at the school, but she does not even qualify for the resource room. Despite how far behind she is, she cannot get the extra help some students receive in special ed. Too many students fall into this category. It seems impossible to help them all and it is sad to see them struggle. But then there are the moments when they get something, just one small thing, and you see the pride radiate across their face. The other day this same girl walked me through the math problem she was working in. She had done the problem correctly and found two equivalent fractions. When I told her she was right, she could not have been happier. It is moments like that that make this first round project so gratifying.

Staff Development:

Our first week at FC Joyce was a short week for the students. Thursday was veterans day and the friday was a staff development day. As Americorps members we had Thursday off and then headed to school with all of the teachers on Friday. If we hadn't already felt we were part of the staff, we were now certainly on the other side of the education system from our days as students. The day was broken up into two sessions with lunch in the middle. In the morning there was one presenter who came. He was wonderful. His topic was "Reaching 'Hard to Reach' Students." He talked about behavior vs. Interpretation, how we can support or control, who are these hard to reach students (including some explanation or neurological matters involved), and the fight or flight reactions that we all experience and children cannot control. He shared many great example stories from his years working as a school psychologist and behavior analyst. Overall it was a very helpful, engaging, and worth while morning. The afternoon did not prove quite as fruitful. The presenter had been to the school before and had more workshops planned with the FC Joyce staff to work on Active Participation strategies to get students involved in class. Many of the strategies he talked about were good ideas and the teachers discussed what had been working so far, and maybe what didn't work as well. But the presenter was disorganized and not particularly captivating.

Still, many of his techniques are techniques that I have seen being used successfully in my classroom. The one I find the most effective of things I have not seen before is the use of personal student whiteboards. Each student in my class has their own small whiteboard and whiteboard pen that they keep in their desks. At certain points in class Mrs. Wirz will ask the students to pull out the boards and direct them when to answer certain questions on their board. When they have written their answer they are to put their boards in the "ready position," up against their chest so as to shield their response, and then when she says, they raise their boards into the air to reveal their answers. Instead of having the same kids who always raise their hands as the only kids answering questions in class, the white board time insures that every student in engaged, focused on the task at hand, and participating to provide an answer. I think it is great and I am glad that Mrs. Wirz uses it as much as she does. The kids love it too and are always eager to show what they have on their boards, some raising them up before the appropriate time.

SLI Documentary:

One of the team positions for Americorps NCCC teams is the Service Learning Initiator (SLI). Last week the SLIs from another team on campus invited us to their service learning event. They are working in another elementary school in our district, Larchmont Elementary. Their school has the same type of demographics as ours, but they have much fewer students because there school is headed towards closing. This is the last year it will be open and then most of their students will be moving over to our school, FC Joyce, adding to the overcrowding there. It was great to be able to talk with another group about some of their experiences in the schools. The main portion of the event was dedicated to watching a documentary entitled, California Public Schools: First to Worst. The documentary is rather focused on blaming the downfall of the California education system on a particular proposition that lower tax money, which is possible a bit limited and unfair in perspective. But either way it was a very interesting video to watch and showed some really truly unbelievable conditions at these schools.

Click Here to watch the documentary

Every month one of my jobs as my team's Photojournalist (along with my friend and team member Allison) is to submit to the Pacific Campus's monthly newsletter, the Common Ground. Here was our submission this month:

Kids Say the Darndest Things

Brought to you by Green 2 and the wonderfully entertaining children of FC Joyce Elementary School

Danny has a pink lunch box. When one student ridiculed this color choice, another jumped to Danny’s defense: “It’s okay, Dude. Real men wear pink.”

One fourth grade boy asked Catherine, “Are you a boy or a girl?” A fellow fourth grader came to her aid, "She's a girl!"

Compliment or Insult? Carly was asked one day, “Not to be rude, but are you a hippie?”

Green Two’s first day on the yard of FC Joyce Elementary, one student spotted Brett and called out, “I want to play with the large one.”

Carly: “How do you catch a squirrel?” Fourth Grade Girl: “You climb a tree and act like a nut.”

Carly: “What’s your favorite planet?” Student: “Not Jupiter” Carly: “Why not?” Student: “Because they sent my brother here.”

One of Taylor’s students wanted to get to know him: “Do you have kids?” “Do you live with your mom?” “Do you believe in God?”

During his specialty class in the Pre-K classroom, one child asked to sit on Brett’s lap. Once settled, the student announced, “I need to go to the bathroom.”

Every child at FC Joyce when seeing any Green 2 member: “Americorps! Americorps! Americorps!”

“You can’t talk to my Americorps like that!”

“I’m going to do Americorps when I get big.”

Americorps! Americorps! Welcome to FC Joyce Elementary School

Since returning from Camp Mendocino, I have been trained in Shelter Operations, been officially inducted as a corps member, and have begun working with my team at F. C. Joyce Elementary School.

After induction on Thursday morning, 3/4 of the teams headed off in various directions to different locations and different projects. Since we are staying in Sacramento, we could get right to work. We pulled out of the parking lot ahead of many teams and headed just down the street to our first day of school. The first two days (Thursday and Friday) were really orientation days for us at FC Joyce. We will start working in the classroom tomorrow (Monday) but our first two days proved to be very full and exhausting days of work.

First thing we did was meet with the principle of the school, Dr. Tori England. She is wonderful and it is very encouraging to see how engaged she is in the school, how well she knows the student body, and how in control she is. She told us a lot about the school, the students, and the work we would be doing. We had already heard the basic stats and demographics about the students before starting the project, but Tori and the school counselor, Kimmy, further enforced the realities of these kids home lives. I had known that about 93% of the students live at or below the poverty line. What is didn't know is that poverty is considered $9,000 a year for a family of four. I can not even comprehend how a family of four could live off of so little. That number shocked me. Kimmy also explained that there are some children at the school who are homeless. One family, understanding potential dangers of sleeping outdoors in rough areas, sleeps each night in a tree. The parents tie the kids into the tree. This was another shocking story. Dr. England also explained more to us about Serna Village. Serna Village is transitional housing for people recovering from drug addiction. Many kids at the school live here and some have just recently been reunited with their parents who are now trying to get their lives and their families back on track. Serna Village is rent free and families can stay there until their youngest child is 18 years old, so many families that move in, stay for a long time.

After hearing this sobering data, Tori showed us around the school and then we had some free time to eat our lunches. We headed out to the playground and sat together on the blacktop with our matching lunch boxes that Abby had bought as part of our project reveal. Almost immediately when we came out in front of the kids we started hearing "Americorps! Americorps!" They were so excited to see us there. Americorps NCCC teams have been working at FC Joyce for several years, so the kids are very used to our rotation schedule and they know what to expect from corps members. The main thing that want from us is attention. The kids are all so friendly and affectionate. It was incredible. Within seconds of being on the playground, kids were coming up to us and giving us hugs before we had even introduced ourselves.

After lunch, we helped with the school's recent cookie dough sale. The kids had submitted order forms and now we were sorting out all of their sales and labeling the names, then once classes were dismissed we helped distributing the filled orders to the kids and their parents. In between the sorting process and the end of the school day we headed out in pairs to quickly drop in on all the classrooms to get a feel for each of the teachers and grades and figure out where we might want to be placed for the remainder of the project term. We continued this process the next morning and then once everyone had been to every class we met with Dr. England in the teacher's lounge to sort out our positions. I had decided that I wanted to work in 4th or 5th grade. I was leaning towards 4th and ended up with 5th. I will be working in Mrs. Wirz's 5th grade class. I am feeling a little nervous about it, because Mrs. Wirz seems a little intense, but she is clearly a well organized teacher which is a quality I definitely look for. We also selected our specialty class, where we will work 1 hour each day. I will be working in the library!

Standing on our home states on the FC Joyce Yard

After selecting our classes we spent about 2 and a half hours with the kids out on the yard. They rotated through their various lunch periods and we stayed playing with the kids and then heading into lunch whenever our grade level was scheduled to eat. In the cafeteria it was a special lunch day for an achievement program, "Reach for the Stars." The program was created to motivate students and I believe it was started last year. Scores are looked at each month and if a student goes up even just one point from the previous testing, they get a bracelet. It continues throughout the year, so they can end up with quite the bracelet collection.

Here is an article and slideshow that I found about the beginning of this program from last year: http://www.twinriversusd.org/newsroom/spotlight/?q=34

The slideshow also includes a picture of last year's NCCC team. It seems the program started off with quite a bang and excitement. The kids are still very jazzed about it. The scores have risen from the start of the program and the school is aiming to reach the score of 800 goal this academic year. The main challenges facing FC Joyce right now lie in the budget for the district. Schools are closing and Joyce is being forced to expand. The school has grown considerably since last year and will be growing more to include 8th grade next year.

After lunch was over, our team headed back to the cafeteria to prepare the room for an all school assembly. We were to be welcomed to the school. How better to make an entrance then wearing some super cool gold star costumes (see below). Once the whole school was in the cafeteria, Dr. England introduced us, music came on (the cupid shuffle to be exact), and we ran down the center aisle. Then we did the cupid shuffle and Dr. England called us up one at a time to tell the school whose classes we would be placed with. Later in the assembly there were some technical difficulties, and to fill up time the teacher who was running the event called us back up to play a game. "The game" was that we each had to do our best horse impression. This was a surprise and potentially embarrassing, but really nothing is embarrassing in front of elementary school kids. They seemed to get a real kick out of the whole affair.

Green 2 in our star costumes with Principle Dr. England and Kimmy the School Counselor

After the assembly, we cleaned up and then set up for the Boys and Girls Club after school program that we also work at. We spent two more hours playing with the kids until 5pm when we quickly scooted back to campus to change and eat dinner before returning to the school at 6pm for a special event hosted by the 7th grade class and inspired by the Toy Story theme to this year's reach for the stars campaign. It was movie night and we watched Toy Story 3 with students and their parents. I love that movie!

It was a wonderful and exhausting first two days at FC Joyce. The teachers all warned us that we should really try to prepare ourselves for Monday in the classrooms. We thought we were exhausted after the first two days, but I guess we don't really know yet what we are in for. We shall see how this week goes. Oh boy!

If I have the energy, I will update again soon. In the meantime, I hope all is well with everyone. Update me on your lives too!

Also, if you are interested, check out the School's website: http://joyce-trusd-ca.schoolloop.com/

Four Days at Camp

It is a rainy Sunday in Sacramento. I am currently sitting in Temple Café (a great little coffee shop Maggie Thomas introduced me to), sipping hot chocolate and eating a delicious croissant, safe from the wet and windy outdoors. There could not possibly be a better opportunity to take a few minutes and update everyone on the goings on the past week. A week ago was our first day back on campus after spending four days in the redwood forest at Camp Mendocino. It is unreal to me that it has only been a week since then. So much has happened in between. But really, that belongs in a different post, and I will get to it soon.

First…Mendocino.

Similar to the rain today, it was raining our entire time at Mendocino. Groups that went ahead of us had beautiful weather, so our bad luck with weather was definitely a bit of a downer, but we did not let it ruin our time in the woods. I was so excited to be going to a summer camp. As most of you surely know, I have been a summer camp enthusiast ever since my first summer on the shores of Lake Ossipee at Camp Nellie Huckins. Mendocino is definitely a different place than Huckins. It is a camp for the Boys and Girls Club of San Francisco and many of the campers that attend the summer camp are there either for free or at a discounted price. It is a in a rather remote location, only accessible by excessively windy and narrow mountain roads which caused some discomfort for those on my team who experience motion sickness (not me, thank God).

It was wet upon our arrival, but no currently raining. The air was crisp and it felt amazing to be outdoors. We moved our stuff into our cabins and then explored and killed some time before our official tour of camp. Then it was time to go see the big tree! We had heard of the biggest tree at the camp and were eager to witness its grandeur, so we headed down the train tracks. We did end up finding a tree that was quite impressive, but later found out it was not actually “the” big tree. It was a fun adventure nonetheless and a better work out seeing as we ended up walking probably at least a mile more than necessary. We did end up going to see the real big tree our last night at camp with Abby to show us the way. It was dark when we went, so I could not get good pictures, but it was really a breathtaking sight.

After our adventure, it was time for dinner followed by a Green Unit game time where we played “The Newly Team Game,” a fun spin off of the newlywed game.

The next day we woke up and headed out to PT at the normal time of 5:30am, just to find out that the rain pouring down meant PT had to be canceled. They held an optional PT in the cafeteria which I decided to attend (I was up anyway). The remainder of the morning, my team had 1 on 1 meetings with our team leader, giving us a great deal of free time/ nap time. I snuggled up in my sleeping bag, drifting in and out of sleep while listening to the rainfall on the cabin and the music of Jack Johnson playing from my friend’s ipod. It was a much-needed break. Then I met with Abby and it was time for team building to begin. We were scheduled to go out on the ropes course, but we started out with the team building exercises indoors, hopeful that the rain would calm down by the afternoon when we were going to head out to the high ropes course and zip line. The indoor activities went very well. Our team works well together and we were able to really see improvement throughout the day. A lot of the trainings that we have had as part of CTI (Corps Training Institute) have had to do with knowing yourself and knowing how to work with others. It sounded a bit corny to me at first, but I really do feel like I am learning a lot about myself that I did not previously know. I won’t go into details, but I can definitely tell that this year will be a tremendous growing and learning experience for me and I am so happy that I am doing this.

After the indoor activities, the rain had not calmed down, but it was time to head out to the ropes course anyway. It was completely worth it to go out in the rain. I had never done a high ropes course before. A few aspects of it were definitely a bit frightening, especially with the slippery and cold conditions, but it was hugely satisfying to accomplish. And then we each ended with the zip line! Another first for me, I love love loved the zip line! Despite the rain, the day had been a huge success. We were soaking wet and cold, but happy. Abby collected our wet clothes to dry in the laundry room and we changed into dry and warm clothes, our coveralls. Because of my height I had to get large coveralls, but I swim in them and look rather ridiculous. Oh well, they were warmer than just pants.

After dinner that night, each team got up in front of the unit and did a skit of some sort. Our teams skit was very well received. The 1 on 1 meetings we had the day before had been dedicated to going over our ILPs (Individual learning plans) that we had filled out about our goals for the year and beyond. A big portion of the ILPs was dedicated to Life After Americorps goals. This is what our skit was about. We had three different people go to the team leader in the skit and when the team leader asked “what do you want to do with your life after Americorps” we went into dream sequences. The final dream sequence involved Dominique performing a rap that she wrote when she was 12. In one word: amazing.

The following day, we knew the rain was predicted and we did not have to get up for PT! We got to sleep in until 6am and then after breakfast we were prepped and ready to go for our service day. Now, the day before, as we were doing the team building exercises, several teams were doing their service days in the rain digging trenches along the road that leads to the camp. What unpleasant work. Well, lucky for us, we did not end up continuing their project the next day. One of the men who runs the camp has a sister who works at a community center in Fort Bragg, about 45 minutes from camp. The community center needed a considerable amount of help setting up for their Halloween carnival and haunted house, so we headed back to civilization and spent the day setting up for Halloween at the Starr Community Center.

That night was our last night at Mendocino. We had a fire in the fireplace of the cafeteria and did some reflections lead by our unit leader. Then we played games and made s’mores.

Saturday, before leaving, we had PT in the morning, running ladder runs back and forth throughout camp, we cleaned the cabins and bathrooms, and then we had Amer-Olympics for some friendly competition between teams. Then after a unit photo and team photos, it was time to hit the road and head back to Sacramento, where I immediately took one of the most satisfying showers ever and settled back in to life on campus.

Make a Difference Day and Project Reveal

This past Saturday was Make a Difference Day, with many service projects taking place in Community Gardens all over the city. Every NCCC team headed out to different locations to lend a helping hand (similar to Trinity’s annual Do It Day). My team started the day at Luther Burbank High School. The school had a great garden program years ago until the teacher who had been running it retired and the program disintegrated. Now they are starting the garden up again. This Saturday was their kick off event. We helped out by building raised flowerbeds and got to work on our great new construction skills. By the end of the morning we had something tangible to show for our time, which was a very satisfying feeling. We also got to meet some very enthusiastic and dedicated students who had all come out to work on the garden as well. The other NCCC team worked more with the kids than we did, but it was clear that the garden had a lot of student support.

At lunchtime we had a bit of a picnic and then came back over to the garden area just in time to see Dr. Oz arrive at the work site and do a press conference with the kids. It was rather unexpected and slightly hilarious to see Dr. Oz walk by.

For the afternoon we went off to a different site. This time we were at a community garden in a neighborhood close to our campus. Part of the garden was well cared for, but the rest needed a lot of work. We grabbed shovels and rakes and started marking out new plots. The soil was hard and rocky and this was hard work. As other teams finished at their various worksites, many others came to work with us as well. The garden was crawling with corps members by the end of the day. It was raining and cold, but overall a satisfying day of outdoor work. It was great to finally get some work done!

Saturday night we went out to dinner as a team. After dinner there was one more stop to make. Abby drove us to a Barnes and Noble. She gave us 15 minutes and told us to go to the children’s section and pick out of favorite childhood storybook. It took some serious searching, but I finally found my favorite: Corduroy. I had also picked up Runaway Bunny and an American Girl book. We all went around sharing our books and explaining why we picked it and then it was time for the big reveal! Abby had taken us there to learn of our first project. We will be working in an Elementary School in Sacramento, in the area where we are currently and will continue to be living in. We will each shadow a classroom teacher during the day, acting as a classroom assistant. We will also each have a specialty class and then as a team we will be running the after school program at the school. It will be challenging and exhausting work, but I am very excited to be working with kids! And these kids definitely need our help. The kids come from rough backgrounds. Abby told us some statistics about the student body. There is a 44% drop out rate in elementary school and 93% of the students live at or below the poverty line. We start working there November 4^th and will be there through December 14^th. I am both nervous and very excited to get started!

Green 2 Takes on Sacramento

This past week has been full of more trainings, many of them based off working as a team and getting to know the people we will be spending the year with. Community mapping. The trainings have definitely been more interactive and interesting since we have been in teams and the long days, though still exhausting, are not as snooze inducing. One day our task was to spend the afternoon getting to know Sacramento. The training was called Community Mapping. We had a photo scavenger hunt and got to go all over the city taking photos with specific numbers of team members doing specific things in each different location.

We had to be done by 5pm and we managed to take the last photo at exactly 4:59pm, with enough time to take a photo of the clock as proof of our perfect timing. We were one of two teams (out of the seven in our unit) to finish with every assigned photo taken!

In Other news: I had my first experience driving the 15 passenger vans we use to drive everywhere. These things are enormous and I must admit I was a little nervous to drive this tank of a vehicle. It went perfectly fine though and I know I will get used to it. By the time I drive my little Toyota Camry again it will feel so small and wonderful!

Also, in another training, I had by first Americorps training in construction. We learned about tools and then as a team built a box to put in our van. We also got to wear our super cool hard hats, boots, gloves, and protective eyewear (all of these items make up our PPE- Personal Protective Equipment).

A Weekend in San Francisco

After the big move on Friday, we had the weekend off. As soon as we had been assigned to teams on Wednesday night and found out of schedules for the coming days, my pod-mates and I had decided to take the days off as a wonderful opportunity to travel down to San Francisco. All eight of us left around midday on Saturday. We got off in San Francisco at the Ferry building and starting walking down along the piers. Then Alyssa Simpson came to pick me up! She was easy to spot coming down the street in an enormous silver pickup truck with a mattress in the flatbed. Alyssa, Greg, and Dan had just gained access to their new apartment and were starting to move in a few items before for the big move in the following weekend. Alyssa and I picked up Greg and Dan and then headed off to see the apartment. The apartment is in the Castro and is a first floor of a well-kept house. It is a great space, complete with dining room, kitchen, living room, and the best room, the sunroom.

I was originally going to meet back up with the pod for the evening, but I ended up spending the night with Alyssa, Greg, and Dan, and it was really wonderful to have that time with them. We went to dinner that the home of the good family friend of Alyssa’s, Carolyn and Jim. It was a great dinner with great company and I was happy to included in the event.

The next morning, Alyssa and I woke up before the boys and walked to a nearby farmer’s market, before strengthening rain pushed us back indoors and Alyssa’s Dad came over to cook a wonderful Sunday morning breakfast. Alyssa’s friends Annessa and Tamara also joined us for breakfast. Alyssa had to keep working on things for the apartment, so I went to a coffee shop with Annessa and Tamara until it was time for me to meet up with my Americorps friends (who were on a bus tour of the city).

To meet them, I took an old-fashioned streetcar downtown. It was certainly not he most efficient mode of transportation and it took forever, but the driver of the car was incredibly entertaining. He talked both to people inside the increasingly crowded car and to the passers by on the street. An Australian family next to me was endlessly entertained by his antics and I was in turn entertained by their delight.

Now reunited with my Americorps friends, we had a great dinner and then got on the greyhound to head home to Sacramento. It was a very relaxing and fun weekend. Thanks to Alyssa for hosting me! It was so nice to be reunited with some Trinity friends!

Welcome to Green 2!

After dinner on Wednesday (Oct. 13^th) all corps members gathered on the field. Our pod leaders had given us each an envelope. Once we were all on the field we were instructed to open our envelopes and discover the color the string that was waiting inside. Then, based off the color we had, we split into four groups in different corners of the field. These were our units! I am on the Green Unit. We met the Unit Leader and the Support Team Leaders (STLs) that work primarily with the Green Unit. We also played a couple of games and learned our call and response Unit Cheer: “Hey Green Unit” “Yeah” “Hey Green Unit” “Yeah” “Show me how to get down” “No way” “Show me how to get down” “Okay” Then all together “Boots on our feet, we hammer to the beat, turn the world around, and we get, get things done, get get, get things done!” Not really the most exciting cheer, but it works. By this point in this event, I was getting nervous. I knew that the team reveal was up coming. Each of the four units are made up of seven teams and your team is who you spend your year with, so it is definitely a plus to get a good team. I was bummed to be separated from my pod and nervous as I looked around at the many unfamiliar faces and other faces I knew and knew I did not want to be paired up with. Then came the moment of truth. The Unit Leader and STLs began to call our names and hand each person another envelope or a bag. I got a bag with a bottle of bubbles in it and then set out to find the others who had the same type of gift. This was my team. This was Green 2.

Now we had a task. Each bottle of bubbles had a word on the top of it. We went under a light to put a sentence in order and the scavenger hunt to find our team leader had begun. Our first clue brought us to our team’s kitchen, where we had to search high and low for twelve green glow-in-the-dark rubber mice. Each mouse had a word on the bottom of it that formed our next clue and brought us to our next clue located at our “muster stop” where we gather each morning. At the muster spot was a puzzle of the United States that we had to assemble and turn over to discover our next clue and be sent to the laundry room. In the laundry room there was a sign that said “Call Sharon” and then a phone number written out across the machines. I was the first one to whip out my phone so I dialed and put my phone on speaker. Sharon (who we at the time thought must have been our team leader, but was actually our TL’s sister) asked us a series of questions, the answers to which were a license plate number. Finally reaching a conclusion to our search, we headed out to the parking lot, found our van, and waited for our Team Leader, Abby, to arrive. I am so happy that Abby is my TL. She is wonderful, dedicated, sweet, and a great leader. Once we were all in the van, Abby started driving. We had no idea where we were going, but we put on some music and starting singing and dancing around in our seats. It became clear that this was a fun group of people. Abby took us to a frozen yogurt store and we gathered in the parking lot with our treats, going around and introducing ourselves before heading back to campus. All around it was a great evening and an exciting start to my time with my team. It was a little hard in the coming days to make the transition from pod to team, but I quickly came to love my team and I am very much looking forward to a year with this fun and exciting group of people. (Also, Brett is Hilarious.)

Two days later, on Friday night, we also switched rooms, to be rooming with people from our team. My new roommate is Maya. She is 18 years old and from Minnesota. She is a lot of fun and I am glad that we are living together.

First Days

Hello Everyone!

It has been five days since I have arrived in Sacramento and I can honestly say this is the first real opportunity I have had to take a moment and write to you all to tell you the goings on in Americorps NCCC. The last few days have been a fantastic mixture of constant activity, meeting people, hanging out, and sitting through unbelievably boring training sessions. From now on, I am going to try to keep updates coming fairly regularly, but can’t make any promises because I don’t really know if I will always have internet over the course of the year.

I suppose it would be best to start at the beginning….

Thursday October 7^th- Day 1 (One of the longest days of my life so far): Knowing that my flight was leaving Laguardia at 6:05am I knew I would have an extremely early morning. The night before I was set to leave (Wednesday Night) I stressfully fussed over every aspect of my preparation, repacking my bags and even changing which duffel bags I was using to properly utilize the space available. I had originally intended on one checked back, a carry on, and a back pack, but when I realized that my one checked bag was frightfully close to being overweight, I was forced to reconsider. Two checked bags it was, and it turns out this was certainly the right decision, as American Airlines does not charge any checked baggage fees to people flying on government purchased tickets (thank you americorps!). Knowing that I had to get up, I slept very little the night before I had to leave and was up and out of bed at 2am. We were on the road to the airport by 3 and easily made it the airport by the deserted highways. Once on the flight I discovered that there were a few other people seated around me on the plane, who were also headed out to Americorps and it was nice to have introductions and travel buddies for the rest of the journey. After a layover in Dallas, just quick enough to grab a sandwich, we took our second flight and landed in Sacramento where Americorps Staff greeted us at baggage claim and we met several other corps members. Then we headed off in vans to the Sacramento Campus. The rest of the day involved all sorts of introductions and check in procedures. This of course included moving into our dorms and meeting roommates. I am in a double, a pretty spacious room which, along with the basic furniture, includes a sink and refrigerator, and is connected to another double with a shared bathroom. My roommate is a recent high school grad from rural Oregon. She is a very nice girl and we definitely work well together as roommates, each very considerate of the other and neat and tidy in our room. For now, for the first few weeks of training, we are all broken up into temporary teams, called pods. Brytnie (my roommate) is not in my pod and as a result we have not spent a huge amount of time getting to know each other, but I am happy to have her as a roommate. After settling into rooms we had several different meetings and we were all walking zombies by the time we were done and could finally head to bed after a slightly overwhelming day. I fell asleep almost immediately once my head hit the pillow at 9pm, a solid 22 hours since I woke up in my bed in Norwalk.

The next day we got to meet our pods and team leaders and I feel this is when our time really started. I love my pod and we are constantly talking about how much we wish we could stay together for the year and not be broken up to be put into other, more permanent teams. My Pod, Pod 29, consists of eight people (five girls and three boys) and our team leader Will. Our first activity together was uniform fitting! We had quite a bit of down time while waiting in lines and were able to talk and start getting to know each other before we explored the wonderful world of coveralls, parkas, fleece vest, khaki cargo pants, cargo shorts, hard hats and other fantastic gear. (I promise I will put up a picture as soon as possible.) The uniform also includes steal toe boots which we got yesterday and what is jokingly referred to as the Ameri-tux which consists of a white Americorps polo shirt and the fancy-shmancy black cargo pants.

But back to Pod 29. That night after dinner we ended up talking at the table until everyone had left and we moved on to a pod member’s room to play apples to apples and later catch phrase. It was a wonderful bonding evening and we have been somewhat inseparable ever since, rather reminiscent to how new friends act at the beginning of college. I would say that this first portion of Americorps is very much like a combination of Freshman fall mixed with summer camp.

Ways CTI (Corps Training Institute) Is like Freshman Orientation:

1) We are all new here and pretty much no one knew each other before arriving, so we are all in the same boat and fully prepared to answer the staple questions of: what is your name? where are you from?

2) We were issued id cards and lanyards and told to always wear them.

3) We travel in packs. At Trinity, each fall you can pick out the new freshman because they travel around campus at all times with at least 4 other Trinity freshman (all wearing their lanyards of course).

Ways CTI is like Summer Camp:

1) Constantly scheduled activities, including evening activities such as capture the flag, movies accompanying themed dinners (we had a baseball themed dinner followed by screening of the Sandlot), and kickball.

2) The Pod functions in a very similar way as the cabin grouping at camp. Our schedule is by Pod and each time we go to a workshop or training, attendance is taken by calling out Pod numbers and having the pod members cheer.

3) Similar to number 2: Pod pride is like cabin pride.

4) Room inspection: Our rooms are checked for cleanliness every Monday and it really brings me back to the days of cabin inspections.

Now, that all being said, I loved both Freshman year and Summer camp, so it makes sense that I am very much enjoying myself here too.

Other possible topics of interest: Yesterday we were trained and certified in CPR, AED, and First Aid. I had unfortunately just taken this all day course this summer, so it was a little frustrating to sit through it again, but of course it is a very worthwhile certification. Today we had Red Cross disaster training. Sounds cool, but this is terribly terribly wrong. It was probably the most boring lecture experience ever. We learned nothing that wasn’t already common sense and it lasted far too long.

Last thing that I will mention now is PT (Physical Training): Today was our first day of PT. We had our baseline test to measure our current personal best. This test places us in our workout groups for PT throughout CTI and will be use as reference for us to be able to track our progress with physical fitness throughout the year. The started with a group warm-up at 5:30am, followed by push-ups, sit-ups, a mile and a half run, and then sit and reach test. I was pretty happy with my performance and felt happily energized at the end of the test. Hopefully this means I will be in a good workout group that will push me in a healthy way.

Alrighty: That is all for now. I hope you are all doing well and that you enjoyed the update. Keep checking back for more!