Days 3 through 5 - SNOW!

Day 3 – February 10, 2010

I’m rather tired right now.  I think it’s the post-lunch lull of us sitting on couches reading, writing, and typing on a snowy afternoon.  Our first in-house meals have been delicious.  I enjoyed oatmeal with blueberries and a side of vanilla yogurt for breakfast.  For lunch, I sautéed spinach and onions, added some black beans, and had the mixture on a tortilla with salsa and cheese.  Jordanna, Rachel, and Jamie all had some too; it’s nice that we can just share whatever we make and thus share the cooking and eat fresh more often.  I know we’ll probably pack lunches most days during training so it’s nice to enjoy a warm lunch on our snow day.

I was up pretty late yesterday with our late-night exploration of the Wolf Den.  This common space, which fills one of the houses, has internet access, a few computers, a games cupboard, a library, some couches in a room, a pantry (which we raided for extra supplies left by the last Village occupants when they moved out in November), and a few rooms with chairs and couches for meeting up or relaxing.  The front room has an intense-looking schedule of all of CTI until we head out on our first spike March 12^th, but we’re already off schedule due to the major snowstorms sweeping through the region.  As for last night, Jamie, Rachel, and I found Apples to Apples in the games cupboard upstairs so we started a game which grew from five people to well over ten in the course of an hour.  We all played almost until the Wolf Den closed at midnight.

This morning, I woke up to a very snowy day.  I texted Melissa before nine, as we each had to do with our pod leaders, to confirm my continued existence and safety.  After a warm shower and hot breakfast, I headed outside with Jordanna for some good old-fashioned snow shoveling.  Each house group had to clear its front walk before noon and Jordanna, Cali girl that she is, cleared ours with enthusiasm.  She then headed off to make pancakes for one of the boys’ houses while I took over the shovel to clear the steps and porch then headed across the street to help find and dig out the sidewalk.  That was fun and included a shovel-off which Josh challenged me to as we shoveled towards each other to clear the sidewalk.  It was a tie and we both felt good about the work we’d done.  This afternoon, Melissa stopped by the house and chatted with us about spikes, schedules, and snow shoveling.  A few of us then headed over to the Wolf Den for internet, good company, and a change of scene (it opened early since it may need to close later due to snow).  Rene, Jamie, and I also picked up a couple more pots, bowls, and odds and ends (e.g. a cheese grater and a tea kettle) for our kitchen.  Mmm, good times in the Maryland snow.

Day 4 – Thursday February 11, 2010

It’s become harder to write interesting things about AmeriCorps.  I feel like I’m becoming rather repetitive in professing my everlasting love for this program and how it is indeed absolutely the perfect fit for me right now.  I’m sure our second straight snow day hasn’t helped – later I’ll be able to talk about all of our trainings and such – but it’s still just a complete love of this program that comes to mind when I sit down to write.

It was indeed our second straight snow day.  Melissa stopped by this morning to check in and give us the schedule at 10 AM.  When she did, she told us that Maryland and Delaware were both in a state of emergency because of the snow.  Only emergency vehicles and public transportation were allowed out on the roads; all AC vehicles continued to be grounded (until the state of emergency was lifted at one this afternoon).   Melissa told us that we’d be meeting further up Fourth Street at 10:30 to go shovel out the AC vans in front of B-15 (the administrative building).  She also asked us to choose a point person whom she could contact to pass information along to our house.  Three fingers immediately pointed in my direction, which was pretty cool.  Thus I’m now our official house contact for anything that comes up.

At 10:30, after taking two house pictures outside, we grabbed our shovel and headed up to B-15 with the rest of the Fourth Streeters.  We spent about two hours shoveling out the vans with shovels (one missing its handle, which was accordingly dubbed the ice cream scoop) and buckets.  I made new friends, including bubbly Traci who said I remind her of her friend Becca who was in Class XIV of AC (two years ago), and hung out with my fellow house members when I wasn’t reveling in being able to actually do something active for the first time in a couple of snow-filled days. 

We walked back in time for lunch before Rene and I headed over to the Wolf Den for a pod meeting.  Melissa told us that we’re meeting up at 6:40 AM tomorrow for our pod trip up to Delaware to get physicals since she’s the Wolf 1 leader so we’re pod 1.  After our 8 AM physicals, we’ll head out for a health and wellness run (at Target or somewhere similarly classy) then come back to the Village for a free afternoon.  I look forward to picking up a sweet pair of aviators then hopefully taking a pod trip to the on-campus YMCA in the afternoon to get some energy out.

I proceeded to hang out at the Wolf Den until 4 writing a letter and talking to Traci and her housemate Krystal (both of whom live three houses up the street) and my housemate Jamie in the library.  Let’s be honest: there was far more talking then writing.  I returned to 1103 for a snack but quickly felt like I’d been sitting in our living room for far too many hours so went back to the Den with Jamie to see if we could borrow a game to play.  We weren’t able to take one out, but we stayed anyway because we found Jordanna sitting in the library.  Rene and Maria soon walked over from the house and joined us so we all hung out for perhaps 45 minutes, doing calisthenics and talking about life.

We returned home for dinner – rice, beans, peas, carrots, and tomato sauce or salsa – then sat around the table talking and chilling for the past two hours.  Marissa and Jamie have both gone to bed (Rachel has been out and Casey sleeping all evening), while Jordanna puts a dreadlock in Maria’s hair (Rene added one earlier; this is the third), I write this, and Rene sits and chats with all of us.  I explained the pillars of Outward Bound and the amazingness of the Congressional Award program (in which we’ll all be enrolled by AC as long as we stay younger than 24 the whole term), both of which were fun to share.

We’ve been talking tonight about how it already feels like we’ve been here forever.  It’s been four days – four DAYS! – and we don’t even get our teams or begin PT for another four days, but we’re super-close and have already talked about hobbies, religion, why we’re here, what we want to do with our lives, food preferences (we frequently add to our shopping-ideas list), and a hundred other topics.  Ten months will pass in both one second and an eternity.

Tomorrow we’ll get into CTI (having our physicals) before really buckling down with a make-up day on Saturday.  We’ll have about 9 hours of training to make up for all that we missed today (Wednesday had been a scheduled ‘Corps Acclimation Day’ for the Wolves so we weren’t supposed to do anything yesterday but settle in even before the snow hit).  We’ll learn about the plans for CTI and PT, start some basic trainings, and generally get into the swing of things.  Even with a full Saturday, we’ll still have a two-day weekend with President’s Day next Monday (one advantage of participating in a government program is that there’s a particularly high observance rate of national holidays).  Hopefully, sitting around not in the snow will be better than sitting around stuck by the snow.  We might even have another Y workout run, which would be phenomenal.

As for days off, it will definitely be an adjustment to have free time.  If we’re of legal drinking age, we can go out to the local bar in the evenings and we all have the weekends completely free (though this, as with anything in NTrip, is subject to change).  I’ve spent so many summers at camp with only one much-needed day off each week that this idea of free time in evenings and on weekends is still hard for me to understand.  I think it’ll begin to reconcile better with my current understanding of full-time programs, however, when we actually get into the full training schedule so need the rest time a bit more.  Once we head out on spikes, we’ll often do Independent Service Projects (ISPs) on at least one weekend day so we’ll have many six-day weeks in all likelihood.  Each of us needs to complete at least 80 independent hours (‘independent’ being anything not directly related to our spike project) in the course of the year and I look forward to some super-awesome ones in the months ahead.  It will be a phenomenal ten months.

Day 5 – Friday February 12, 2010

For the record, I’m the only person I know of who refers to NCCC as NTrip (and I usually only do so in writing).  It just seemed to work as an abbreviation when I began to write this four long days ago.

Speaking of long days, today certainly is one.  Pod 1 had the first physical appointments of the day – at 8 AM – so Rene and I woke up at 6 to be at the van by 6:40.  Melissa drove our eight pod members up to the Omega Clinic in Delaware for our physicals.  She was super-sweet and stopped at Dunkin Donuts on the way to buy us a morning treat of a dozen donuts to share.  Once at the clinic, we proceeded through five different stations with lots of waiting in between each.  We each began with a urine sample for drug tests (and various other tests, including pregnancy, which hopefully all should easily pass).  My next call was for hearing.  The hearing test involved sitting in a tiny windowed box-room wearing headphones and holding the type of handheld buzzer swim officials use to start a race.  One ear at a time, series of two to three beeps would be played at varying frequencies.  My job was to push the buzzer each time I heard a beep.  Apparently, the hearing in my right ear is mildly below the normal range in the 6000 frequency, but everything was otherwise completely normal.  The TB/tetanus station was next for me.  The nurse had a tetanus shot all set up to give me, but I explained I’d had one the previous month.  Fortunately, I was able to avoid a second dose since AmeriCorps only requires that we’ve had the shot within the past four years.  (Everyone else in my pod got an updated shot today.)  For the TB test, a small injection was made just under the skin on my forearm to which I should apparently not react within the next three days.  Our injection spots will be checked early next week here on campus. 

The vision test came next, a very standard eye chart to read down to the bottom (seventh) line and a color blindness test.  After having height and weight taken, I proceeded to the final station: the physical exam.  The doctor and I chatted about swimming (her son is in his senior season at the collegiate level) while she reviewed the results of my various tests and checked heart, lungs, range of motion, and the like.  Overall, all went very smoothly.  It did take almost two hours start to finish (though I was the last in my pod to finish), but we were glad to get done first before the rest of the pods descended onto the clinic.  By the time we headed out, there were already about 30 CMs in the waiting room; we had been the only 8 there when we arrived.  I was glad that the clinic people seemed generally quite upbeat about seeing us all on what was for them a very hectic schedule.

After our physicals, Melissa took us on a health and wellness run to Walmart.  I got a $5 pair of aviators and was good to go.  Rene, on a sugar rush from eating lots of candy, got a golf-ball-sized rubber bouncy ball which and three of the guys played with for a bit while we waited for the rest of the pod.  When we were all set, we hopped back in the van and returned to the Point.  We were back in the Village just after 1 and I came home, had a delicious leftover-rice&beans-with-frozen-veggies combo, and proceeded to settle down on the couch to write.  Seven hours after wakeup on my fifth day of activity, this was the first time I’ve actually slowed down long enough to feel tired since I’ve gotten here.  We’ve had lots of snow-day sitting, but Rene was over at B-15 dealing with paperwork so the house was silent (well, it creaks a lot and the heating system is loud so it was really fairly noisy, but all my housemates were still off at their physicals).  Since Rene has returned, I’ve had a restorative sit, and any post-lunch food coma has subsided, I’ve already begun to feel energy returning.  It’s hard not to in such a great program as AmeriCorps NTrip.