Pictures!

Back again. Found some pictures. Decided to post a bunch from the last few weeks so you can get a better idea of what I have been up to.




A game of cards with some unusual consequences for losing. You will notice that I have both my mouth and my wrists taped:



My first game of ultimate frisbee. I shall have you know that I knocked one of those boys to the ground:

Birthday cards that I found taped to my door the morning of my 19th:



Christina and I monkeying around in our onesies:



Learning how to use a chainsaw:

The team:

One morning, instead of going to work right away, Jim decided that we should make smores:

The ladies of Water 3:

It may not look like much, but this tree was so ridiculously hard to get out of the ground, we just had to get a picture of it. Ashley has bruises to serve as evidence of our struggle:

Thanksgiving in Little Rock

It's Thanksgiving! I am sitting at the breakfast table with a few early risers here at the Water 2 house in Little Rock. We drove here last night to spend turkey day with one of the other teams from our unit that we haven't seen in a couple weeks. I expect this will be a good time, but possibly a little hectic.

It's been a long time since I have written. I don't even know what I need to catch up on. I guess all there is to do is talk about the project. We leave our trailers at 6:30 every morning and drive about a half hour on the bumpiest road imaginable to get to our worksite. Then, we get to work cutting down trees, pulling up stumps and boulders, and picking and raking the ground into a two-foot wide hiking trail. For the most part, it's a lot of fun, when it's not killing my back. We bury our tools at around 2:00 and arrive back home at about 3:00, then most people pass out until dinner.

Pros and Cons of the project:

Pros:
-Jim, our project sponser, is awesome. He looks like an older, more adorable George Bush. He fought in Vietnam, survived a plane crash, and listens to Kanye West.
-Our team, for the most part, is getting along with eachother very well.
-We have toilets. (One team got stuck camping and has to poop in bags.)

Cons:
-Our trailer does not have a very big water heater, which means that the showers are cold more often than not.
-Our dining table is in the garage and fits about half of the team.
-I have to wake up at 5:30 A.M.
-Cell phone service is not good enough to actually have a vocal conversation with anybody.
-While working, we have to wear bright orange vests to avoid being shot at by hunters. (The vests aren't really a con, I just wanted to throw it in to further divulge to you exactly what kind of town we are living in.)
-Anything worth going to, like the grocery store, laundromat, movie theater, etc. is in the next town over, which is 45 mintues away.

Well, that's all I can think of to talk about right now. I'm sure there's more, but I don't really feel like writing any longer.
Also, I know that many people on my team have taken post-worthy pictures, but until they unpload them onto Facebook or something, I have no way of getting them. But I will do my best to get them soon. I know I haven't put any up here in a while.

Happy Turkey Day!

Move Over Paul Bunyan!

This entry may be lacking in cheesy witicisms. Just a forewarning. I'm a little unprepared. I didn't expect to have internet access til this weekend, but lucky for you, we decided to take a trip down to the library today.

I had quite the interesting experience at the hotel after I signed off last time. I ended up getting locked out of my room because I forgot to grab the key when I left and all of my roommates had fallen asleep by the time I got back. Rather than sleeping out in the hallway, I followed Avi back to his room and snuck into bed with Texas Steve. Creepy much? Needless to say he was very surprised and confused when he saw me there the next morning.

After a very long drive through the rain, we reached our final destination! Suddenly, I found myself in Wickes, Arkansas. I had a bit of a nervous breakdown when I first saw the camper trailer I was going to be sharing with two other girls, but I think I have since warmed up to the idea. Even if the trailer has yet to warm up for me. It has been so cold here! I didn't pack for this! I really hope the sun decides to resurface sometime soon.

Monday was pretty much spent exploring the town with our poject sponser, Jim. Let me just take a second to tell you how much I love Jim. Ok, I'm done. After we got back we had a little classroom lesson about chainsaws. Today, we got to use them! I can officially say that I have cut down a tree!

Well, I suppose that's it for now. I expect to be able to write again this weekend. We are going to run to Walmart and then head back. I am so excited for dinner tonight. It's Taco Tuesday!

Signed,
Your Friendly Neighborhood Lumberjack

Salina, Kansas

Kansas is certainly one place I never expected to be, but here I am. Serving as a waypoint of our trip to Arkansas, Kansas has a lot to offer. A lot of nothing that is. Except the sulfer smell that lingers in a cloud around Applebee's. It's been a fairly long day seeing as we drove for about 9 hours total after spending 45 minutes loading up the car. This morning was a hectic race to the finish as I ran downstairs with my luggage only to discover that out of about 200 people, I was the last one. At least it's comforting to know that some things never change.

I feel like I have about a week's worth of news to divulge, but unfortunately, I can't seem to remember what exactly it is that we have been doing lately. Obviously it wasn't anything particularly stimulating. All I can seem to think about is how excited I am to finally be on Spike and how sad I am to have left a select few people that I have come to feel like I have known forever.

A bittersweet moment, but I imagine this next month will be filled with those.

I didn't plan on having this entry be so brief, but I suppose I am just not in the mood to write anything else. I pretty much said everything I wanted to say.

My next entry wont be for at least a week. I will have no internet connection in Wickes. Oh, and by the way, our trailers aren't going to be 20 minutes away from everything like I thought, they are going to be 45 minutes away! I guess that means no quick trips to the grocery store when we run out of milk. Oh well.

I'm off to go complete one last crossword puzzle with Avi before I go to bed.

Goodnight!

Permanent Teams!

Oh man. There is so much to catch up on. Let's see...Monday I attended a Shelter Simulation workshop where we learned how to prepare for/deal with a variety of problematic scenarios that are bound to arise when running a disaster shelter. Then we all learned how to properly inspect and care for our vans by doing things like check the oil, change a tire, and attach snow chains. I also played a soccer game! It was so fun! A bit dangerous since nobody was wearing cleats and there was still patches of snow on the ground and we played until it got so dark we could no longer see the ball...but still very fun.

Tuesday was spent learning First Aid. We watched several cheesy, ridiculous videos, listened to a screechy, fast-talking, slightly insane woman, practiced CPR on dummies, bandaged eachother up, and took a test to make sure we remembered it all. I am now oficially certified in CPR and First Aid! Hopefully I will never have to use either one...
After that we had another epic soccer game and then after dinner I went to a belly dancing class taught by a fellow CM (Corps Member) which was something different and fun to do.

On Wednesday, we had a full day of Diversity training, which was definitely one of the better trainings. The speakers were both very good and they had plenty of activities/exercises to keep us engaged.

Yesterday, we spent all day hanging out with our Unit. We went bowling for two hours and then headed to this really big park to basically do whatever we wanted. Some people took naps, read, played card games, etc. I spent just about the whole time there playing my first ever game of Ultimate Frisbee. It was extremely fun. I can't wait to play again. Then we came back to campus to find out what our permanent teams were going to look like. We were all sent on a scavenger hunt with different clues. Each clue lead to a location where there was, presumably, a TL (Team Leader) hidden under a blanket or a big sweatshirt and wearing a really creepy mask along with a staff member to hand out more clues. After 5 clues, and 5 team leaders, we were told by the staff member to wait at the location with what we all assumed was our final team. After waiting for quite some time for a phone call, the staff member gave the OK and the TL popped out of her disquise and yelled, "This is it!" causing us all to give a little cheer, followed by, "I have your final clue!" which lead to sighing and groaning. She handed us a clue to one of the locations we had already visited. We all ran our seperate ways. When I got to my location, I found Terrence, one of the TLs, sitting with his disquise off. After everyone filed in, he announced that this was our final team! I'm not sure everyone really believed him at first. We were all waiting to be tricked again, but he was actually telling the truth. I have to admit, I was disappointed at first. There were some people I really bonded with that I was hoping to get on my team that I did not, but my team is filled with great people that I can't wait to get to know better. Plus Terrence is awesome. I have never seen anyone laugh at their own jokes as much as him.

We had a little team meeting where we were told what our first project is going to be. We are traveling to Wickes, Arkansas to do a little Trail Building. Just so you know, Wickes is a town of 120 people! We will be living in trailers about 20 minutes away from everything...should be quite a change. At the meeting we also picked our team roles, like Yearbook Representative, who is responsible for documenting our experiences with endless pictures, or Media Representative, who is responsible for talking to the media. I chose to be the PT Coordinator, who is responsible for, you guessed it, coordinating PT for the team. 45 minutes a day. 3 days a week. For those of you who forgot, PT stands for Physical Training. Should be fun.

So this morning I went to a brief meeting where we just talked about the requirements of the position and discussed different ideas for PT. Then we went outside and did lots of sit-ups, push-ups, squat thrusts, and jumping jacks. Not sure why exactly, but whatever.

I'm pretty much free the rest of the day. While everybody else is going to their different position meetings, I plan to accomplish some high quality relaxing.

So that's what has happened lately! Quite a bit to take in.
I think I will try to digest it all with some junk food and Desperate Housewives.