Day 30 – Tuesday March 9, 2010
Today was super-long and now I’m tired.
It was also full of work and learning and team together time.
My day began with breakfast, uniform putting-on, and meeting my team at the pick-up point at the wonderful hour of 8:40 AM. So luxuriously late, I know. We drove over to the theater behind 9H in our sweet black van for a unit meeting from 9 to 10:30. Chris Quaka and STL Chelsea Rae ran the meeting, which recognized a couple of the TLs for their amazing work in setting up the Wolf Den (Ethan) and the unit (in spite of the snowstorm – Jamie) on the serious side and had games and trivia on the fun side. One of the games involved the TLs trying to get an oreo cookie from forehead to mouth without using their hands or arms. Jeff was out for the day so I stepped in as ATL to place cookies on Melissa’s forehead. She ended up making the semi-finals then was the first to get another cookie so won the game! Our team got three packs of cookies from Chris Quaka as a prize. It was fun times.
After the unit meeting, we learned from Melissa that our Director’s Brief had just been moved up a day to tomorrow morning. It was originally scheduled for Thursday at 11 and we hadn’t started yet. We ended up working on it for many hours tonight. What is a Director’s Brief? It’s an informational presentation about our upcoming spike project. Basically, we make a powerpoint then present it (20 minutes talking, 10 Q&A) to another team and one of the directors – we have Robin Nixon, the Program Director, tomorrow – to share our research and current knowledge about the next round. We discuss the organization’s mission and values, our housing, specialty role plans, and individual and team goals for the round.
Day 31 – Wednesday March 10, 2010
My apologies for the brevity, but it’s time for a real night’s sleep. Today was very smooth – we had our PT test as the sun rose, our Director’s Brief in the morning, a social with other Baltimore-goers at lunch, an all-Corps induction rehearsal in the afternoon, and team dinner with Chris Quaka and STL Chelsea Rae in the evening. I fell asleep on the couch at a very early hour and Marissa woke me up upon nighttime return from the Wolf Den. I plan to head upstairs and sleep more so I’m vaguely well-rested tomorrow. It’ll be awesome.
Day 32 – Thursday March 11, 2010
I had a nice relaxing day today. It was a great wind-down to a long, busy CTI.
We had a late start to the morning, meeting at the Wolf Den at 9:30. My housemates had all left by 9 and I had a leisurely post-jog shower before heading over to the Den. My team met up in the front room and finished up a few straightforward items of paperwork in under an hour. We spent the rest of the morning (until 11:30) doing a teambuilder outside. Sabrina explained the game to us: use plate-sized tin foil “marshmallows” (we didn’t have paper plates) to cross a “hot chocolate river” (marked by tape). The river was roughly 9 large paces across and we had seven “plates”. We passed the seventh up the line from the back to fill in the eighth plate necessary to cross the river. Occasionally, Sabrina would give someone an impediment, such as inability to use one arm or need for two people to stay constantly attached at the wrist. I ended up unable to speak about halfway through; I had expected that and quite enjoyed watching silently as the exercise progressed, gesturing when I had questions or concerns. The game helped us begin to figure out the different leadership and communication styles of team members and gave us an opportunity to start problem-solving together as a team.
We had time to return to our houses for lunch (my wonderful new invention for the day was (un)frozen spinach, salsa, and a veggie burger all mixed together) then walked up to B-15 for an afternoon working for STL Drew Larson. He set us the task of inventorying and organizing a big storage shed so we spent about two hours unloading lots and lots of chairs, desks, and end tables, rearranging couches, counting pillows, and loading side tables, a mini-fridge, and all else back into the shed. Like the teambuilder, the inventory time gave us a chance to work together and learn valuable lessons about group communication.
We had the rest of the afternoon off after inventory since Drew had no more tasks for us. Melissa drove us back to the Village in the newly cleaned black Vanimal (yay, our van has a (hopefully) permanent name!) and we got to hang out for the quiet, chilly afternoon. I spent most of my time either sitting on the porch steps chatting with Maria, Brandon, and other Fourth Street friends Stephanie and Matt as they worked on a project out front or reading my book (yes, actual literacy) for the first time in far too long.
Marissa, Jamie, and I made M&M cookies after they returned home then I went to the Wolf Den at 7 to do our round one CAP representative action plan paperwork (not its actual name, but that’s the idea). Roy was halfway across Perryville, so I ended up finishing it in about half an hour and submitting it just before he showed up. I returned to my house shortly before 8 and walked with Josh to the Vous about 20 minutes later. I had fun dancing with housemates and friends for an hour before Marissa and I walked back to the Village. We tracked down Jamie at the Wolf Den then stopped by her teammate Caleb’s house on Third Street for a few minutes before I returned home, leaving about five minutes after my return to call Kate. We had a most excellent (ha!) conversation in which she offered lots of insightful advice about life, which I plan to take. I returned home, chatted with Jamie, and now plan to sleep. Casey is sick, so Marissa’s sleeping on one of the living room couches and I’ll be sleeping on the other one to keep her company. It’s comfortable and I’m excited about it.
Day 33 – Friday March 12, 2010
Class XVI, Perry Point. It’s official.
This morning, as rain drizzled from a grey sky outside, 208-ish members were inducted into Class XVI of AmeriCorps NCCC. Yeah, we’re pretty legit.
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