Soon to Mendacino (sp?)

So nothing really exciting is happening right now. So, I’m gonna do a self-indulgent blog, so I can actually remember the little bits and pieces of this year thirty years from now.
Currently sitting in my 18’x10’ room at the fold-down desk, laptoping away. No internet, so this is just a word doc, I’ll hop over to the other dorm tomorrow to upload it. My roommate is lying in bed (trying to sleep? The lights are still on), and the movie that was playing in the lounge (Austin Powers) ended while I was in the shower. I love that
The only person left in the lounge was one of my former podmates, Dustin. Someone evidently tried to volunteer at the nearby Planned Parenthood recently, because there were a couple of PP condoms lying on the table. They expire in 2014.
When I look back at long periods of my life, one of the things that really connects me to the past is remembering the almost-unnoticeable elements of my everyday routine that I take for granted in the moment.
The way I keep track of my parachute-chord lanyard keychain. My electronic passcard that opens the doors on campus, my Americorps ID, and the key to my room. All strung up on a length of parachute cord I brought and mini-carabineers that rode my backpack for years waiting for moments of use like this. I clip it to my belt loop during the day, and hang it on the end of my bed when I’m in dorm. I know I’d lose it.
I stick my laptop inside the box my steel-toed boots came in whenever I leave the room for a while. Then I push it under the bed and it’s just another piece of teenage organization.
By nine every night I’m exhausted. Combine 5 am wakeup with non-adjustment to west coast time, and you get Sam. Night-owl energy will kick in if I stay up past 11.
Slowly I add produce stickers to my nalgene whenever I find a new one. Apples, bananas, tomatoes, anything with one of those little stickers, as long as it’s new and unique.
The things that I bring with me everywhere: 1 nalgene, 1 cell phone, 1 wallet, 2 pens (one writing, one flow for doodling), 1 handkerchief, 1 lanyard, 1 slip of paper to draw on, and sometimes The Three Musketeers, which I am reading slowly and steadily.
I wear my crocs to shower. Water tends to puddle in the soles, but it can be drained my doing toe-stands before getting out. I’ve never owned a pair of flip-flops.
Tomorrow I’m going to get Google Sketchup and make a model of my room and possibly surroundings. If I have time. Maybe I can even post the file online.
I think my roommate is getting sick. I was sick while he was gone last week, so I hope I already got it and he’s not bringing something new back from the east coast (he went back on emergency leave for family). But hurry care package, which I hope contains vitamin C supplements. My backpack stash (which were probably a few years old anyway) dried up four days ago.
Wooow. Little to long possibly. Bedtime, up at 5:15 for PT

In the beginning, there was Wi-fi. Then, the world was plunged into darkness and connectivity was no more.

Well, I used to get wifi in my room, but now the wifi for my entire building is crazy, so insert mandatory GRUMP here. Sheesh. Who do they think they are, letting internet lapse like this? It's like the networks mate and die overnight. Each time I try to connect there are three new networks and the one that I was using last night is dead. Then again, the new ones never work either.

Other than that, Americorps CTI is becoming routine. Waking up at 5:15 to do physical training is not something I will ever enjoy, but it really makes me appreciate the days when I can sleep until 7:30. To add insult to injury, I already wake up at 5:15 on weekends too.

So I am officially on my permanent team now. I have nine teammates with me on Silver 4, the last of the fuel reduction teams in Silver Unit. We will be spending most of our time outside doing what fires do naturally and slightly more dangerously: removing brush. If we get lucky, we will be doing prescribed burns in areas that we personally dig firebreaks around. A good time in general.

I am excited because on Sunday my entire Unit (8-10 people per team, 6-7 teams per unit) is heading to Camp Mendicino, a Boys and Girls Club camp in a redwood forest, where we will camp out and do service work.

We were issued sleeping bags a while ago, but I hadn’t taken mine out of the (scarily large) stuff sack until this evening. I was confused for a bit, and then I realized that I have never slept in a sleeping bag that wasn’t a mummy bag. I did not recognize this rectangular cut of insulating material for what it was. That said, it seems pretty wimpy, and I think I am going to be very happy that I brought my own bag, which (not to brag or anythang) weighs and takes up half the space of my Ameribag.

The only thing that makes me sad right now is that

a) I don’t have a hammock for this trip

b) Even if I did, I don’t have the rope to tie one around a redwood

But, FTR, I strung a laundry line up in my room today. Fire hazards be damned.

CPR, Mongolian food, and the glories of the internet

First, let me note that I got called by a red cross trolling program when I moped about boredom. I love the internet. Day one: Sam complains. Day two: red cross weber tells Sam he best do something if he's so dang whiny. Very nice.

I am now officially certified for CPR and the use of AED's. Thas right, I can zap people back to life if their heart ever goes funky. Learning CPR was ok, it wasn't a blast, because my respect for the instructor had gone a small ways downhill after his first appearance. He tended to make slightly silly jokes that made me, in my "gosh why can't they just feed me pure data" bitterness, annoyed. But he got better towards the end, and their was a woman who had been a medic for a firefighting department for 20+ years who had loads of experiences to offer, and plus she brought CANDY. She knew very well how to win me over.

I'd say the main issue I have with the lessons is that almost all of what they are teaching is stuff I will a) forget soon, and then b) if any problem occurs, will think of on my own. (i.e.= someone bleeding? check it. Treatable? Treat it. Not? Call 9-1-1 and do what I can, like compression, tourniquet). The only really handy stuff was CPR and what not to do in the event of a poisonous snake bite (DO NOT ice it, snakes are cold blooded and their venom does just fine, thanks). But even then, in the event that someone is bitten by, say, a coral snake (deadly numero uno), Sam has been told to call 9-1-1 and put a bandaid over it. Thanks, lesson, I might not have thought of putting a bandaid on a poisonous snake bite.

Whining and pining aside, one of my podmates had his birthday on the 22, and we all went out to a really cheap mongolian/chinese/vietnamese place where, for $6, you can fill a large bowl to overflowing with meats and veggies and sauces and then have them fry it up on a huge hot stone. It was really delicious, and, budget permitting, I'll be heading there again.

Today in Sacramento (actually yesterday at this point) was Make a Difference Day, part of the city-wide initiative for getting individuals active in serving the community. So Americorps was out there doing varieties of projects. I have heard: helping plant/play with kids at disadvantaged schools, picking nuts and apples to help clear government land, and for me and my pod, working in a massive food warehouse. This warehouse, run by Senior Gleaners, takes food from supermarkets that don't meet the wicked stringent quality standards of the food industry (like one broken packaging=entire batch trashed, day old bread, etc) and redistributes all that would-be waste to the homeless and poor. They service over 400 (I think) organizations that provide for impoverished people DAILY. Their facilities were enormous, and I was really cool to see how large such an organization, for such a cause, can get. Granted, I spend the entire day wiping rejected soda cans down with bleach and a cloth to be reshelved (and I don't consider providing soft drinks to the homeless a really earthshaking bit), but I was still doing my part to help them save man-hours. We repackaged ~2426 soda cans, and threw out ~400 that were unsalvageable. It was pretty sticky work.

But tomorrow I finally get to sleep a bit, so I'm psyched. And, I had thought I lost my plate today (we have to provide our own dishware) but I found it three kitchens over on top of a fridge.

Pack test agogo (is that how you spell agogo? I don't think so.)

Okay. So. The pack test for the Fuel Reduction Team ("FRT") was deeefinitely harder than I expected. Since FRT corpsmembers must be able to haul copious amounts of brush, dirt, and rock, to even get your name into the acceptance process for FRT teams you must complete a 3-mile trek wearing a 45lb weight vest, and you must complete said trek in under 45 minutes. Except, there's this catch: if you run, you're disqualified.

Now, I will valiantly save you from having to do any sort of math in your head, unless you've jumped the gun and already figured out that I would have to walk at a brisk 4mph in order to make the time cut. And they were strict, some people finished at 45:03 and they did not pass the test.

The good news is that I passed the test, speedwalker that I am. The bad news is that my butt still hurts, four days later, from having to vamanos my legs so fast. I think I was moving as fast as I physically can without breaking contact with the ground.

Recently (say like yesterday and monday), all the corpsmembers have been going through the various courses we need before we can become official NCCC personnel. This means approximately 6-9 hours a day in a chair, being talked to. The worst so far was our Red Cross Introduction to Disaster Response course, which unfortunately consisted of common sense and videos of people driving around and delivering food to disaster victims. I'm pretty sure it's a well-known fact that if you try to teach people common sense, they will either have a revelation as their entire common-sense foundation is ripped apart, or they will fall asleep. My POD leader took some funny pictures of me and two podmates snoozing, fun guy that he is.

Fortunately we get CPR training on friday. Hopefully I'll never use it but it will be great to know it. Today was not quite as enlightening, but I learned two very important things:

I am not a volunteer. I am an NCCC member.

I do not get paid. I get a living allowance.

What this makes me tax-wise, I'm not entirely sure.

First bits of community service stuff accomplished

Quick Acorps glossarying: Pod=the temporary teams that volunteers are put in while everyone is processed through the system (i.e. drug tested/generally tested). They are usually say 10-12 people.

So my Pod (a very cool bunch of people if I don't say so myself) had our first service project on friday. We went to an adult school--school for mentally handicapped adults--and worked in their nature area. The primary thing on the agenda was the "pruning" (read:culling) of their massively overgrown blackberry bushes. We spent a good three hours hacking down about 80 sq ft of wickedly thorny bushes, a process which claimed one pole saw, one rake, and a large amount of skin from our collective forearms. Later we worked around lugging cinderblocks to help build a raised garden and then we did some invasive species removal.

A very productive day overall, but it made me realize one of the main reasons I want to try for the firefighting team is that while tending gardens in adult schools is an excellent thing to do, it is not the difference I want to make in the world. Or at least not the difference I want to make during my time in Americorps. I would love to be on the front lines during natural disasters handing out care packages. But I can't ensure that a disaster will happen. So I would love to do firefighting since it almost guarantees that I will at least be camping somewhere, and possibly fighting GIANT FOREST-EATING FIRES.

In other news, today was the first day we cooked for ourselves. With the schedule, my partner and I will be cooking on friday (I think she wants to do pasta with Bolognaise sauce, which sounds good to me). Tonight our group leader cooked some delicious potatoes and a turkey soup that was kind of like turkey meatballs with herbs suspended in hot. Definitely filling and nutritious, but leaving something to be desired. But our budget for breakfast/lunch/dinner is $4.50 per person per day (yeah you read that right, everybody get to eat $4.50 worth of food each day), so I guess if shoestrings fill me up than that's where I'll go.

Tomorrow is free except for the firefighter (actually it's called the fuel reduction team, since we do brushhauling if there isn't any fire. P.C. and all that) 3-mile weighted pack test, which should be cool.

Short disclaimer: I just realized reading this that I have an inability to write without being kind of sarcastic/cynical. Rest assured it is all a sham. Americorps rocks. I mean, come on.

It's volunteer service you get paid for.

Settled in ish

So, as usual on this kind of thing, everyone noticed the high density of 18-24 year olds in the waiting area at chicago and thus I got to meet some other corps members early. Long flight, etc, got to old air force base around 2:00. I'm currently all unpacked, possibly may need more shelf space, but maybe not.

Worst things about today:

-first flight was rather cramped

-the banana I packed got skooshed before I got to eat it

-I was really beginning to enjoy New England fallish weather

-do not yet own a shower caddy and/or collapsing hamper and/or laundry detergent. Cleanliness will be strenuous

-room is on the bottom floor: it is "highly suggested" that we not leave our window open at night

Best things about today:

-Apparently we do not have to wake up at 5:30 until next week

-Wifi reaches my room

-It is only my roommate and I in a three-person room. One of the bigger ones, too. And a team leader just stopped by and is going to take the extra bed off our hands. Eeeeexcellent

-My winter break may start on December 18th

-I currently own some steel-toed boots that would be adequate defense if a statue came to life in a threatening way nearby

All is well and good in Acorps land. I need some snacks

Live!

Well, hay-rah, I now have a blog. Since it looks so darn lonely right now, and I'm just so proud of being able to beat some aspects of the HTML template into submission (yeah, I'm that bad with HTML), I think there needs to be a champagne bottle broken across the bow right about here. Also, my gato favorito, Rusty, is currently snoozing across me chest, and I'd feel a bit guilty moving him.

Six months ago, I found out that I had completely botched my application to Americorps. Essentially, there was a big button online that read "click here to submit application." I did everything except click that button.

Five months ago I made it back into the Americorps system via the grace of one of the applicant coordinators, albeit as an alternate. My only shot at getting in was as a filler for someone else who dropped out.

Two months ago Americorps was dead to me. Various sources on the internet reported that the five regional campuses had been filled and the alternates had been chosen. I had not. If I still checked the mail, it was for the same reasons that some people play the lottery; somewhere, sometime, somehow, someone will win.

Two weeks ago I got accepted to the Pacific Region Campus in Sacremento. I don't usually celebrate things, but a good image would be Sam attempting to punch holes in the ceiling with his head.

Now I have about 56 hours until my flight leaves.

Methinks I will go pack