The Adventure Begins

Monday February 8, 2010 – Day 1

My house is fabulous.  We (Maria, Rachel, Casey, and I thus far) live in number 1103 on Fourth Street.  We are, as our unit leader Chris has already begun calling us, The Village People.  We are also proud members of the Wolf Unit (though anything in NCCC can change at any moment, including our units up until official teams are assigned next week) of AmeriCorps NCCC Class XVI.  (Don’t you love that they use Roman numerals?  As an admitted Classics nerd, I sure do.)  The reason the house is fabulous, however, apart from it being a World War remnant (military families used to live on these streets) with cracks in the ceiling paint and questionable plumbing, is its location.  Specifically, the view out the river-facing windows.  I can watch the sun set over the Susquehanna River from my bedroom.  (I do, admittedly, need to open the window to fully appreciate the view as it’s rather cloudy and hard to see out of otherwise.)  I saw it go down tonight (shortly after five PM) and it sure was beautiful.  This and the constant view of the water from my room and from our front porch (yes, we have a porch) make me very happy.

The amazing people also make me happy.  I showed up in the Baltimore airport at 8 AM after waking up at 4:45 for my flight and proceeded to meet fellow corps member Chris at baggage claim.  Chris and I soon met Amanda and Alexa, then Michelle and Peyton and Van.  Soon, ten of us were standing in a circle in the middle of baggage claim (which was incredibly quiet due to snow and other such flight affectors).  Shortly thereafter, twenty of us had taken over a big alcove across from baggage claim eleven, where we were meant to meet our team leaders.  Four hours after we arrived at the airport, with forty Corps members gathered around, the first van arrived with a couple of team leaders.  Due to traffic, the 45-minute drive down from the Point had taken 2 hours.  They had left late since BWI had announced no flights would arrive or depart before noon due to weather.  The bonding time, however, was great.  I left knowing about 35 new names (everyone I’d met which was most everyone) and having made a number of new friends.  I like these AmeriCorps people.

After we arrived, we started in-processing.  We had a lunch of sub sandwiches then filled out masses of paperwork.  This consisted largely of writing name, address, and social security on form after form and signing away lots of rights to things.  It took us until 4:30, but then we got to head to our housing.

Housing is split by unit.  Perry Point will have 212 Corps members this season and 28 TLs.  We’re split into three units: Raven, Badger, and Wolf.  The Ravens and Badgers both live in dorms about a mile up the road - the VA campus on which we reside is quite large and apparently teeming with bored cops so we need to be careful not to break any rules; we share it with a VA medical hospital.  While the dorm units share a building with the hospital, the Wolves live down in the village, two streets lined with simple houses.  Teams are generated within each unit.  While we’ll get our official teams next week (the 8 or 9 fellow CMs with whom we’ll share food, spikes, and almost everything else over the next ten months), we begin tomorrow with temporary pods.  Chris, the Wolf leader, has already told us that he generated these pods in ten minutes this morning going alphabetically and by village address.  Our team assignments, he has promised, will garner much more attention and care. 

All told, it’s been a wonderful first day at the Point.

Tuesday February 9, 2010 – Day 2

I’m sitting on a couch in our common area with Rachel and Maria watching Dirty Dancing: Havana Nights.  It’s mid-afternoon and we’ve been given the rare two hours off (though we may also have all of tomorrow off due to the impending snowstorm) so we’re taking advantage with movie time and some journal-writing.  It’s already been a full day and a half, so it’s fun to just sit and chill in the Village.

Our house is now complete, as of about 10:30 last night.  I went to bed about 9:15, shortly after Rachel, Maria, and Casey, but ended up getting up again fifteen minutes later to go downstairs in response to the mild commotion outside the front door.  I had locked it with the small sliding bolt for the night, figuring we were all in and secure, but that didn’t account for Jordana, Jamie, and Rene arriving from their flight super-late.  They were joined by Wolf TL Debra, who came in to give us grocery guidelines (two people from the house go, money can’t be spent on candy or personal items, etc.) and TL phone numbers and generally check in and make sure we were settled.  She was there for about 15 minutes then as she left her roommate Melissa, another TL and our House Mom (as we call her, at least), came in, having just gotten back from the airport.  We met Melissa and she sat for a few minutes.  As she was preparing to leave, our final housemate Marissa came in from her flight.  She had been assigned to another house, but it turned out to have a single room so only seven beds, all of which were taken.  We have two beds in each room so she joined our humble abode.  I like that each of us have a roommate and that we’re all starting to get somewhat settled.  Rene is my wonderful roommate.  She’s from Connecticut, enjoys painting, and was called up four days ago so is still technically enrolled in college and packed by throwing tons of things in a couple of bags.  We’re both morning people.

Speaking of mornings, we spent this morning getting as many people as possible through all stages of paperwork and other in-processing.  I was in the large group of people who had finished all of our paperwork but had yet to get uniforms and IDs.  I was among the first selected to try on uniforms, so five of us headed into a bathroom where they’d laid out all the uniform items in each of the sizes.  I was happy to be allowed to get small t-shirts – we had to get shirt and pants sizes approved for fit – and we had fun trying everything on and helping each other judge the best fit.

After we had had our selected size for each item of clothing recorded on a form, we each headed downstairs to be issued our uniforms.  So exciting!  I picked out a red bag and a cold-weather jacket then headed across the hall and handed in my sizing form.  While I tried on various sizes of coveralls, one of the TLs filled my bag full of the various elements of my uniform.  Though I almost went for a paint-splattered pair of coveralls (which we’ll spend tons of time wearing when we paint and do other messy work) marked by a previous CM, I opted ultimately for a brand new pair of black coveralls which I can mark up myself for the next generation.  It’s incredibly easy to determine which pairs have been worn since they’re covered with splotches and streaks of paint – mostly white with the occasional red or blue – across the front and seat of the pants.  Mine will look like that by the end of the year, so I’ll look real legit too : )  The TL who packed my bag suggested coveralls and aviators as a fantastic look.  I’m highly anticipating rocking that one in the future.

We proceeded to wait for about half an hour in the gymnasium for our final step, going to building 15H – the administrative building – to have photos taken for our new IDs.  We got lunch before the ID process (yummy sandwiches like the day before) and I ate in a circle with lots of airport friends from the previous day (yes, we were already happy to reunite).  After lunch, we headed over to 15H, had our pictures taken, and got our ID badges.  I like that it says ‘Civilian Identification’ under the photo, which was taken in front of an American flag so we’re all backed by stars and stripes.  Before leaving 15H, we each stuck a pin color-coded to our unit into a map of the USA to show where we’re from.  (There were already green pins for the TLs and silver for admin, plus a plethora of red, white, and blue pins for other CMs.)  I was extremely psyched to find out that my city was actually shown by name on the map.  I proceeded to carefully press my blue pushpin into the center of the tiny circle marking my hometown’s whereabouts.  It was a good experience.  At this point, we had finished all the stages of in-processing so Wolf TL Suzanne drove us back to the gymnasium for a bit more sitting and waiting.  Upon arrival, we worked together to add a back row of seats to her van so, as she described it, she’d be able to fit her ‘full wolfpack’.  We then sat and chilled in the gym before returning to the village for our free time.

This afternoon, we get a full 2 ½ hours off before we head to the Wolf unit pick-up point for our ride to dinner.  Shopping will take place after dinner (Rachel and Maria are going, which I think will be great – I had been nominated due to my involvement in list-making but love having as many of us as possible involved in the process and enjoy sharing the house responsibilities amongst ourselves.  Those of us not shopping can either go on a ‘health + wellness’ trip (many people still need pillows or toiletries) or come back here to campus for what may well turn into another early night.  Since we may be grounded tomorrow due to snow and each unit gets a day off later in the week for “Corps adjustment,” it looks like we’ll have a fair amount of time this week to settle, get to know lots of new people, and generally enjoy life before we get into the heavy work of training.