This morning, we had Mass Care training by the Red Cross. It wasn't really that interesting. They just gave us a few scenarios and we had to figure out how we would handle it.
This afternoon, we had Motor Stables. Every week or so we have to do a full check on the AmeriVans, so we had to learn to check tire pressure, fluids, electrical stuff, change a tire, and put on snow chains. Not much stuff I didn't already know, but it didn't take too long.
And after that was the part everyone was waiting for. Teams! Sun unit all met out on the soccer fields. The leaders taped cards to our backs, and were told that what was written on our cards were groups of objects that went together. Without talking or looking at our own card, we were supposed to find our group. I saw three that probably went together (Chuck Norris, Mike Tyson, and Bruce Lee or something), but every single other one I saw was completely random. Teddy bear, the year 1933, rocketship, toilet paper, "Bears. Beets. Battlestar Galactica." (that's a quote from The Office), blueberry, etc. Mine was band aid. While we were in the middle of this, with no one but the three fighters finding a group, Vaughn the unit leader came into the middle of the group and said, in all seriousness, that he knew we were all excited for our teams, but there was a situation and we all need to go back to our rooms. As we were walking away, I looked back and saw him standing with the team leaders and laughing. Obviously, this was part of the game. Sarah, a team leader, was in the lobby of the dorm telling people that they found "something" in someone's room and needed to check all the rooms. She was very convincing. When we got back to our rooms, there were cards on our door with our name and a clue. My clue said to find a guy in my unit named Rob and put our clues together. When I found him, our clue said to go to the cafeteria. There, we found an envelope with our names on it. It sent us to the auditorium. The envelope there sent us to the third floor lounge of our dorm. Which sent us back to the first floor. Our envelope there had three other names on it (Lindsey, Tomm, and Jessica). It said to go to the parking lot outside of the NCCC office and get in the van. Which van? No one knows. We figured we should wait for the other three, but they kept not showing up. I even tried calling Lindsey, but she didn't answer. Finally, we wrote a note on the clue that we had already been there, left the clue where it was, and went to the parking lot. When Rob and I got there, team leader Sarah told us we couldn't do the van thing till they got there. There were four vans with TLs in the driver's seat. When the others joined us, Sarah told us to get in any van with a driver. We piled in, buckled our seat belts, and were told just to go back to Sarah. Sarah gave us an envelope that said to go to the laundry room in the basement of our dorm, but we had to wait for 6 other people. The 5 of us waited and waited and waited. Finally, we got one of their numbers and called them. They were at the soccer field. They finally joined us, and we all had clues that sent us to the laundry room. Right after we left, team leader Sarah called one of us and told us to come back. She took the 11 of us into the office and gave us a song lyric. She said taped on one of the doors was another lyric from the same song. We had to stand outside the door and sing the song, then we were allowed to open it. It was the women's restroom, and our song was Thriller. So we sang it a little, then opened it, and there was Christina our team leader! We found our team!
Christina took us to Chipotle for dinner, where she had another little game to reveal our first round project. We all got envelopes with our name and a number, 1-11. Going in order by the numbers, we had to act out the clue inside the envelope. The first two were DVDs and books, but then we had snow, mountains, wilderness, sleeping bags, steel toed boots, coats, etc. The last clue said that we would be in Colorado. I was disappointed for a second because I was hoping to travel somewhere, but then I heard about the project. We'll be up in the mountains at about 8,000 feet above sea level, half an hour outside of Boulder. We'll be building trails, digging ditches, cutting down trees, etc. Christina said we would pretty much be lumberjacks. I guess I'll be pretty strong after a month of being a lumberjack, so that'll be nice. And we won't be camping in tents, like the clues suggested. We'll be in a lodge for the first half, then cabins the second. Since we'll be in the remote wilderness, we won't have any cell phone signal, but we'll have some super slow wireless internet. That's why we had clues of DVDs and books, because we'll need to entertain ourselves out in the middle of nowhere.
Another team, led by Jordan who is hilarious, has a project IN Boulder. I asked someone on that team where they were staying, and she said the AmeriMansion. Apparently, NCCC has done this project before, and they stay in some super nice 5 bedroom, 3 bathroom house that's right on the edge of downtown Boulder. Three miles from Pearl Street, but they have trails in their backyard. They'll find out what their project is on Saturday. Christina told us that we'll probably go into Boulder like once a week or so, so it'll be nice to have another team there that we can visit. Also, Thanksgiving is coming up, and I don't think anyone is going anywhere for it. My friend said that Jordan was telling his team about another team being nearby (that's us), and we can all have Thanksgiving together at the mansion. Two other Sun teams are doing Habitat for Humanity in New Orleans, and the 5th Sun team is doing something at a children's hospital in Arkansas. Christina and Jordan both said that since we're local-ish for our first project, we'll probably get to go to the gulf for our next projects.
And here's one of the best parts: My two-week winter break starts Dec. 19. My brother Carl's graduation in Louisiana is Dec. 19. The first flights out of Denver that day are at 6am. Even leaving at 6am, I wouldn't land there until about noon, so that probably wouldn't work. The last flights to Louisiana on the 18th leave at 8:30pm-ish, but when I didn't know where I would be, I didn't know if I'd be back in time to make a flight at 8:30. Since we're so close to campus, we're coming back on the 17th. Apparently we're doing stuff on the 18th, so we can't leave until after the workday, but I am 99% sure I'd be able to make it to the airport for one of those 8:30ish flights. So I think I get to go to his graduation! I would have been SO disappointed if I couldn't go.
So that's what happened today. Tomorrow, we have to go to various trainings for various team roles we're interested in. I'm going to training for Media Representative and Yearbook Representative. All next week is training for our specific projects, then I leave for the wilderness on Nov. 16!
Thursday, November 5, 2009
Wednesday, November 4, 2009
AmeriHike...Part 2
Again, sorry for no posts in so long. Our internet has been down since Sunday night and it just came back tonight. Not the whole building, just my entire floor. I don't know why.
All day Monday was training with American Red Cross to become First Aid/CPR/AED certified. There was a lot of lecture, but the lecturing lady was hilarious. I'm not really sure how you can manage to be funny while talking about horrible things that can happen to people, but she managed it. We got to practice CPR rescue breaths and chest compressions on the mannequins, and I think I managed to hurt my hand somehow. You have to put one hand on top of the other to use both hands for chest compressions, and I guess I was pushing really hard. It's not a big deal, it just feels like a bruise. AEDs are surprisingly easy to use. That's definitely a good thing. If you're trying to help someone who's heart just stopped, you probably don't want to use a really complicated machine. You just turn the thing on, stick the pads on the rights spots on the person's chest, and do what the machine tells you to do. At the end of the day, we had a test. I only missed one! So I guess I know what to do, but I SO hope I never have to use any of it. (The one I missed was about how to do a splint, so no one had better ever need me to do that.)
Yesterday was diversity training. All day. The two guys leading it were kind of funny, and there were a lot of activities instead of just sitting in a lecture the whole time, but it was still just being in one room for 7 hours talking about how great diversity is and how we shouldn't judge people. I agree that diversity is fantastic, and things would be terribly boring without it, but I really don't feel a need to talk about it for 7 hours. One of the guys leading it was pretty familiar with AmeriCorps and NCCC because he's done these workshops for a lot of our groups. He said that some professor or something somewhere wrote an AmeriPedia of all the terms and acronyms we use, and offered to email it to any of us who were interested. Um, YES I'm interested. I'm sure I'll let you know if I get it and if it's any good.
Since I like blogs and stuff with pictures, I like putting pictures on mine. Slim pickins with pictures for this post, so this is what you're getting:
One of our Diversity Day activities was where everyone got four pipe cleaners. We were supposed to assign to each one an aspect of ourselves that makes us who we are and make some kind of sculpture with it, then explain it to the small groups we were in. I kind of did it wrong. I was concentrating on making something more interesting than just twisting them together or making a circle like everyone else did, so I forgot to think of what they meant until after I was done and needed to figure out how to justify my creation. The yellow one was my family and the pink one was my gender. The blue one I decided to make my geographic location, and I told them about how I grew up in the Midwest, but my family is all from the south so I have southern values and stuff, so basically my geographic location is all crazy. (Family, gender, and geographic location were all on a list they gave us of aspects of our culture we could use for this activity.) I decided to make the squiggly green one my theatre life, since it's something that has shaped me a lot. I think a green sparkly squiggle is a good representation of theatre, don't you? Christina, the team leader who quarantined me for suspicion of having swine flu, was in my small group. She looked at it upside down of how I was looking at it and thought it looked like a pig. Hardy har, Christina, hardy har.
Last night, I went to a nearby bar with people for trivia. We had two teams of sun unit people having a little friendly competition. The other team came in third, and my team was tied for first with another team of people we didn't know. Fact of the Day (taken from the tie breaker question): When hockey first started, there was a rule that no player or goalie could pass the puck forward. (Which I completely don't understand. How did they get it to the other end to score?) When was this rule changed? It was not 1908, as my team randomly guessed. (Actually, a guy on my team from Chicago picked that year because it's when the Cubs won the World Series. But I digress.) It was 1929. But we won, because our guess was closer than the other team's. Woo!
All day today, we had our last Unit Time. We drove about an hour away to Boulder, which was nice because I'd been wanting to go there. What did we do first? You guessed it. We drove up into a mountain and went hiking. Apparently we love hiking. This one was not nearly as bad as the Death Hike. The whole thing took about 25 minutes and most of it was not composed of horrible steep rocky hills, like the Death Hike. The alternating mud and ice on the trail posed a bit of a challenge, but not too bad. Since I knew we were going to Boulder, I made sure to bring my camera. The view at the top of the trail on Bald Mountain was fantastic, so I pulled out the camera. And...the battery was dead. I'm having really bad camera luck. (I just looked for some Google Images, but didn't find any that were even close to what I saw. Sorry!)
After the Non-Death Hike, we went to the Pearl Street Mall. Remember the pedestrian 16th Street Mall in Denver that I've been to several times? It was like that, only cuter. I guess Colorado really likes its pedestrian streets. Boulder is really a pretty cute little city. Judging, of course, only by Pearl Street and what I saw on our way in and out of the city. Oh, hey, Google Images IS good for something!
I had lunch at a place called the Boulder Cafe with a few other people. It looked pretty nice, and the menu looked decent. I got fish and chips, which I usually enjoy, but it was pretty disappointing. There was some weird flavor that I did NOT enjoy in the fish. Oh well. We didn't have a lot of time in the Pearl Street area, so we just walked around a little after lunch. Right when our time was almost up and we needed to head back, we found an Army Surplus Store. We went in for a few minutes, but I bet I could have found some pretty cool stuff if I had more time. Too bad I don't know when I'll get to Boulder again.
Tomorrow is a day we've all been looking forward to for a long time. We find out our permanent teams! Well, mostly permanent. There are four rounds of projects we'll be doing. We will be with the same team for first, second, and fourth round projects. The third is what they call Shuffle Round. They said we'll get a list of what projects will be happening that round, and we rank our individual preferences. We'll get put on teams based on our rankings, so we won't be with our regular team. I think that's a good idea, because they all say we'll probably be sick of our team by then and we'll want a break from them.
Anyway, we find out our "permanent" teams tomorrow. Yay! I'm sure it will be fine. The sun unit seems to be pretty good. I really like most people in our unit. I just want to know!
All day Monday was training with American Red Cross to become First Aid/CPR/AED certified. There was a lot of lecture, but the lecturing lady was hilarious. I'm not really sure how you can manage to be funny while talking about horrible things that can happen to people, but she managed it. We got to practice CPR rescue breaths and chest compressions on the mannequins, and I think I managed to hurt my hand somehow. You have to put one hand on top of the other to use both hands for chest compressions, and I guess I was pushing really hard. It's not a big deal, it just feels like a bruise. AEDs are surprisingly easy to use. That's definitely a good thing. If you're trying to help someone who's heart just stopped, you probably don't want to use a really complicated machine. You just turn the thing on, stick the pads on the rights spots on the person's chest, and do what the machine tells you to do. At the end of the day, we had a test. I only missed one! So I guess I know what to do, but I SO hope I never have to use any of it. (The one I missed was about how to do a splint, so no one had better ever need me to do that.)
Yesterday was diversity training. All day. The two guys leading it were kind of funny, and there were a lot of activities instead of just sitting in a lecture the whole time, but it was still just being in one room for 7 hours talking about how great diversity is and how we shouldn't judge people. I agree that diversity is fantastic, and things would be terribly boring without it, but I really don't feel a need to talk about it for 7 hours. One of the guys leading it was pretty familiar with AmeriCorps and NCCC because he's done these workshops for a lot of our groups. He said that some professor or something somewhere wrote an AmeriPedia of all the terms and acronyms we use, and offered to email it to any of us who were interested. Um, YES I'm interested. I'm sure I'll let you know if I get it and if it's any good.
Since I like blogs and stuff with pictures, I like putting pictures on mine. Slim pickins with pictures for this post, so this is what you're getting:
One of our Diversity Day activities was where everyone got four pipe cleaners. We were supposed to assign to each one an aspect of ourselves that makes us who we are and make some kind of sculpture with it, then explain it to the small groups we were in. I kind of did it wrong. I was concentrating on making something more interesting than just twisting them together or making a circle like everyone else did, so I forgot to think of what they meant until after I was done and needed to figure out how to justify my creation. The yellow one was my family and the pink one was my gender. The blue one I decided to make my geographic location, and I told them about how I grew up in the Midwest, but my family is all from the south so I have southern values and stuff, so basically my geographic location is all crazy. (Family, gender, and geographic location were all on a list they gave us of aspects of our culture we could use for this activity.) I decided to make the squiggly green one my theatre life, since it's something that has shaped me a lot. I think a green sparkly squiggle is a good representation of theatre, don't you? Christina, the team leader who quarantined me for suspicion of having swine flu, was in my small group. She looked at it upside down of how I was looking at it and thought it looked like a pig. Hardy har, Christina, hardy har.Last night, I went to a nearby bar with people for trivia. We had two teams of sun unit people having a little friendly competition. The other team came in third, and my team was tied for first with another team of people we didn't know. Fact of the Day (taken from the tie breaker question): When hockey first started, there was a rule that no player or goalie could pass the puck forward. (Which I completely don't understand. How did they get it to the other end to score?) When was this rule changed? It was not 1908, as my team randomly guessed. (Actually, a guy on my team from Chicago picked that year because it's when the Cubs won the World Series. But I digress.) It was 1929. But we won, because our guess was closer than the other team's. Woo!
All day today, we had our last Unit Time. We drove about an hour away to Boulder, which was nice because I'd been wanting to go there. What did we do first? You guessed it. We drove up into a mountain and went hiking. Apparently we love hiking. This one was not nearly as bad as the Death Hike. The whole thing took about 25 minutes and most of it was not composed of horrible steep rocky hills, like the Death Hike. The alternating mud and ice on the trail posed a bit of a challenge, but not too bad. Since I knew we were going to Boulder, I made sure to bring my camera. The view at the top of the trail on Bald Mountain was fantastic, so I pulled out the camera. And...the battery was dead. I'm having really bad camera luck. (I just looked for some Google Images, but didn't find any that were even close to what I saw. Sorry!)
After the Non-Death Hike, we went to the Pearl Street Mall. Remember the pedestrian 16th Street Mall in Denver that I've been to several times? It was like that, only cuter. I guess Colorado really likes its pedestrian streets. Boulder is really a pretty cute little city. Judging, of course, only by Pearl Street and what I saw on our way in and out of the city. Oh, hey, Google Images IS good for something!
I had lunch at a place called the Boulder Cafe with a few other people. It looked pretty nice, and the menu looked decent. I got fish and chips, which I usually enjoy, but it was pretty disappointing. There was some weird flavor that I did NOT enjoy in the fish. Oh well. We didn't have a lot of time in the Pearl Street area, so we just walked around a little after lunch. Right when our time was almost up and we needed to head back, we found an Army Surplus Store. We went in for a few minutes, but I bet I could have found some pretty cool stuff if I had more time. Too bad I don't know when I'll get to Boulder again.Tomorrow is a day we've all been looking forward to for a long time. We find out our permanent teams! Well, mostly permanent. There are four rounds of projects we'll be doing. We will be with the same team for first, second, and fourth round projects. The third is what they call Shuffle Round. They said we'll get a list of what projects will be happening that round, and we rank our individual preferences. We'll get put on teams based on our rankings, so we won't be with our regular team. I think that's a good idea, because they all say we'll probably be sick of our team by then and we'll want a break from them.
Anyway, we find out our "permanent" teams tomorrow. Yay! I'm sure it will be fine. The sun unit seems to be pretty good. I really like most people in our unit. I just want to know!
Sunday, November 1, 2009
AmeriClimb
Last Friday, we were supposed to go to the Air Force Base in Colorado Springs to do their obstacle course. I knew this was coming, I had heard that Denver AmeriCorps people do it, it was on the schedule, etc. I was pretty scared of this, but also excited. Before I came here, I had found a blog of a girl who did this last year, and she wrote about the course and how that had to jump walls and lift themselves over and under things and do all sorts of stuff. After the course, they had to do group problem solving stuff like figure out how to get the team over a 12-foot wall. It seemed like one of those things where I would hate it while I was there and never want to do it again, but later say "Yeah, that was fun." But...remember all that snow last week? When the powers that be knew the snow was coming, they said they were canceling the obstacle course part, but we would still do the problem solving. Then they said no, never mind, we're going to an indoor rock climbing place instead. So off we went on Friday morning. Well, off we went after taking 45 minutes to dig 15-passenger vans out of two feet of snow.
It doesn't look all that bad, but under the plowed part of the parking lot was a sheet of ice.
Team Leaders Jordan and Dani trying to dig the vans out.
Dangerous? Probably.
I was definitely nervous for the climbing also. I've never done it before, I'm kind of afraid of heights, and I have no upper body strength. Obviously we would use harnesses and ropes, but they were manned by other AmeriCorps people who went early to get trained how to do it. (Word of the Day: Belay [v.] the action of keeping someone attached to a rope while rock climbing.) So they weren't even the climbing gym's belayers, they were our peers.
The different sections of wall are labeled with numbers to show difficulty, with lower numbers being easier. The lowest number was 5.5. (They were all 5.something.) The belayer for the 5.5 part was someone from a different unit, so I didn't know him. There was a 5.8 part that people seemed to be doing pretty well on, and the belayer was a guy in my unit who I knew and trusted (he was wearing his own rock climbing shoes), so I decided to try that one first. Bad idea. The rock things were on the small side, which makes it hard. Also, I never remembered the part where you're supposed to push up with your legs, so I kept trying to just pull myself up from these tiny little handholds. Again, no upper body strength. I only got maybe 10 feet up on that one. It was pretty pathetic. Later, I decided that the 5.5 belayer guy was probably trustworthy and tried that one. The rock things were a lot bigger on that one, so it was much easier. I think I got about halfway up the 40 or 50 foot wall on that one. Not bad for a first try, I guess. I stopped not because my strength ran out (I remembered to use my legs more this time) but because I accidentally veered into the 5.8 section next to me, and also looked down and got a little freaked out at the height. Picture time!
Pathetic attempt at the 5.8
Gathering determination for the 5.5
Away I go!
That's me about in the center of the picture. I think I might have gone a few feet higher than that.
This guy made it pretty far up this 5.11 or 12 part. No, the camera isn't angled, that's the angle of the wall. Crazy!
Mom, Dad, this is for you. See how much I love you?
It doesn't look all that bad, but under the plowed part of the parking lot was a sheet of ice.
Team Leaders Jordan and Dani trying to dig the vans out.
Dangerous? Probably.I was definitely nervous for the climbing also. I've never done it before, I'm kind of afraid of heights, and I have no upper body strength. Obviously we would use harnesses and ropes, but they were manned by other AmeriCorps people who went early to get trained how to do it. (Word of the Day: Belay [v.] the action of keeping someone attached to a rope while rock climbing.) So they weren't even the climbing gym's belayers, they were our peers.
The different sections of wall are labeled with numbers to show difficulty, with lower numbers being easier. The lowest number was 5.5. (They were all 5.something.) The belayer for the 5.5 part was someone from a different unit, so I didn't know him. There was a 5.8 part that people seemed to be doing pretty well on, and the belayer was a guy in my unit who I knew and trusted (he was wearing his own rock climbing shoes), so I decided to try that one first. Bad idea. The rock things were on the small side, which makes it hard. Also, I never remembered the part where you're supposed to push up with your legs, so I kept trying to just pull myself up from these tiny little handholds. Again, no upper body strength. I only got maybe 10 feet up on that one. It was pretty pathetic. Later, I decided that the 5.5 belayer guy was probably trustworthy and tried that one. The rock things were a lot bigger on that one, so it was much easier. I think I got about halfway up the 40 or 50 foot wall on that one. Not bad for a first try, I guess. I stopped not because my strength ran out (I remembered to use my legs more this time) but because I accidentally veered into the 5.8 section next to me, and also looked down and got a little freaked out at the height. Picture time!
Pathetic attempt at the 5.8
Gathering determination for the 5.5
Away I go!
That's me about in the center of the picture. I think I might have gone a few feet higher than that.
This guy made it pretty far up this 5.11 or 12 part. No, the camera isn't angled, that's the angle of the wall. Crazy!
Mom, Dad, this is for you. See how much I love you?Friday night, there was a Halloween party for us on campus. A group of us decided to go see what it was like for a few minutes, but ended up staying till the end because it was more fun than we were expecting. Loud music with one speaker that occasionally goes out, way too much fog machine action, and a never ending strobe light? What could be better than that? But seriously, it was fun. Once you turn off your eyes from noticing the strobe light, anyway.
We had Saturday off, but I had a busy day. We have to do 80 hours of Independent Service Projects (ISPs) to complete the program, and most of us had some ISPs lined up for the weekend. I went with a group to the Denver Boys and Girls Club in the morning. No kids were there at that time, but the guy who runs it had a lot of little projects that needed to get done. I helped shampoo the carpet and cleaned windows most of the time. Is it weird that I find cleaning really dirty windows oddly satisfying? Probably. But I find dirty windows really depressing, and cleaning them makes a big difference. Other people changed bulletin board decorations, inventoried sports equipment, and did other random things.
I went straight from there to the Denver Children's Museum. They were having this big Halloween event that several AmeriCorps people went to help with. When I first got there, I was assigned to the game area. My first game was at the sandwich board with a picture of a monster on it that had holes cut out. Kids had to throw bean bags through the holes, and I had to repeatedly squat and bend to pick them up and hand them to the next kid. My next game was bowling. There were little 8-inch plastic pins that fall over when you look at them wrong. Over and over and over, they would go flying, and I had to gather them and set them back up. My legs are VERY sore today. Luckily, after only a couple hours of that, I got sent into the office to stuff bags that kids got when they first arrive. Then a friend and I got sent to the fire truck they had in the museum to give kids fire truck temporary tattoos. Little kids REALLY like temporary tattoos. It was pretty adorable how excited some of them would get. I would have been perfectly fine doing that the rest of the time, but I got sent to be the Critter Handler. Remember the children's books about Little Critter? Neither do I. I have been informed that I had a deprived childhood. There was a costumed Critter character walking around who apparently couldn't really see out of the costume, so someone had to stick with it and make sure it didn't bump into stuff. Seriously. Google Images says Little Critter looks like this (I guess this looks familiar, now that I see the real thing):
The Children's Museum says Little Critter looks like this:
Some kids started crying when they saw it. Some parents told their kids "Look! It's a monster from Where the Wild Things Are!" Some parents asked me what it was supposed to be, and I never knew how to answer. When the event was over, we helped break it down, then left. In all, I had a 12-hour day.
Today, I did more ISP. The Denver Police Department also had a Halloween event last night, and some of us went over there to help clean it up. They said they had almost 2,000 kids there last night! I can't even imagine. Apparently they also spent $4,000 on candy and almost ran out. The people were really nice, and I got to see the bowels of a police department. When Jordan, the Team Leader who drove us, came to pick us up, we got him to take us to Target. We can take a bus to Wal-Mart, which I hate, but really the only way to get to Target is to drive. There are also some food places nearby, and I got to go to SUBWAY! I was so excited! The cafeteria is not very good and they apparently don't believe in serving chicken, so I got to have my favorite Oven Roasted Chicken Breast Subway sandwich. I haven't been to Subway in a long time. Laugh all you want, but it was a big deal.
Alright, longest post ever, but it was an eventful weekend. Good night!
We had Saturday off, but I had a busy day. We have to do 80 hours of Independent Service Projects (ISPs) to complete the program, and most of us had some ISPs lined up for the weekend. I went with a group to the Denver Boys and Girls Club in the morning. No kids were there at that time, but the guy who runs it had a lot of little projects that needed to get done. I helped shampoo the carpet and cleaned windows most of the time. Is it weird that I find cleaning really dirty windows oddly satisfying? Probably. But I find dirty windows really depressing, and cleaning them makes a big difference. Other people changed bulletin board decorations, inventoried sports equipment, and did other random things.
I went straight from there to the Denver Children's Museum. They were having this big Halloween event that several AmeriCorps people went to help with. When I first got there, I was assigned to the game area. My first game was at the sandwich board with a picture of a monster on it that had holes cut out. Kids had to throw bean bags through the holes, and I had to repeatedly squat and bend to pick them up and hand them to the next kid. My next game was bowling. There were little 8-inch plastic pins that fall over when you look at them wrong. Over and over and over, they would go flying, and I had to gather them and set them back up. My legs are VERY sore today. Luckily, after only a couple hours of that, I got sent into the office to stuff bags that kids got when they first arrive. Then a friend and I got sent to the fire truck they had in the museum to give kids fire truck temporary tattoos. Little kids REALLY like temporary tattoos. It was pretty adorable how excited some of them would get. I would have been perfectly fine doing that the rest of the time, but I got sent to be the Critter Handler. Remember the children's books about Little Critter? Neither do I. I have been informed that I had a deprived childhood. There was a costumed Critter character walking around who apparently couldn't really see out of the costume, so someone had to stick with it and make sure it didn't bump into stuff. Seriously. Google Images says Little Critter looks like this (I guess this looks familiar, now that I see the real thing):
The Children's Museum says Little Critter looks like this:
Some kids started crying when they saw it. Some parents told their kids "Look! It's a monster from Where the Wild Things Are!" Some parents asked me what it was supposed to be, and I never knew how to answer. When the event was over, we helped break it down, then left. In all, I had a 12-hour day.
Today, I did more ISP. The Denver Police Department also had a Halloween event last night, and some of us went over there to help clean it up. They said they had almost 2,000 kids there last night! I can't even imagine. Apparently they also spent $4,000 on candy and almost ran out. The people were really nice, and I got to see the bowels of a police department. When Jordan, the Team Leader who drove us, came to pick us up, we got him to take us to Target. We can take a bus to Wal-Mart, which I hate, but really the only way to get to Target is to drive. There are also some food places nearby, and I got to go to SUBWAY! I was so excited! The cafeteria is not very good and they apparently don't believe in serving chicken, so I got to have my favorite Oven Roasted Chicken Breast Subway sandwich. I haven't been to Subway in a long time. Laugh all you want, but it was a big deal.
Alright, longest post ever, but it was an eventful weekend. Good night!
Thursday, October 29, 2009
Snow snow and more snow
So...Wednesday morning when we woke up, it had apparently been snowing all night. And...it hasn't stopped since then. On Wednesday morning, one of the team leaders came to our dorm to tell us we had a snow day. Then, about 10 minutes later, we found out they took it back and said we still had to go to Unit Time at 8:00. When we got there, we got new teams again. This time, there was a little activity to find out the new teams. They passed out little pieces of paper with our names and a line from a song on them. You had to find who else had a line from your song, and that was your team. When they finished passing out the papers, I hadn't gotten one. I went up to the front where the team leaders were to ask about it, and found 11 other people who hadn't gotten papers. Guess who my team was? The team leaders didn't know why they had lost one whole team of little papers. After that, we had free time, so my new team and I all went back to our dorm and watched The Sandlot in the lounge. What a great movie.
After The Sandlot we had to go to Media Training. They said AmeriCorps people get interviewed a lot so we need to be prepared with how to talk to the media. And something that has already happened to most of us is that people see us in public with the uniform on and ask what we're doing, so really everyone needs to know how to explain the program. Also, something I haven't mentioned before: Once we get our permanent teams (10-12 people), there are about 12 team roles that need to be filled. Heather, who was leading the Media Training, is in charge of Media Representatives, Corps Ambassador Program Representatives ("Cappers"), and Yearbook Representatives. Yes, we will get a yearbook at the end of the year. They also like to give the previous year's yearbook to Cappers to use as a recruitment tool. I had already seen a list of the team roles before I came and had thought that Media Rep might be fun, and now I'm more sure of that. At the end of the training, Heather gave us a little quiz with prizes for people who answered questions first. I won a handy dandy little NCCC flashlight key chain.
After Media Training was lunch and after lunch was...nothing. Snow canceled the rest of our day, which was supposed to be some PT (physical training) and something about Service Learning.
Today was probably the most important day of training so far, but we had a snow day because it just won't stop snowing. Disaster relief is the main focus of NCCC, and today was supposed to be disaster relief training from the Red Cross. I really don't understand why everything shuts down because of snow. We're in DENVER. Denver natives say this much snow is unusual, but still. Public transportation was still working, so several of us went downtown and had lunch at Noodles and Company, which was fantastic. Fact of the Day: Steel-toed work boots can also be used as snow boots. Very few people brought snow boots with them here, so most people have been wearing their warm, waterproof steel toes everywhere. It works surprisingly well. The snow is probably close to two feet deep by now, and my feet stayed nice and toasty all day. I had been thinking of having my parents send me my snow boots, but now I'm not sure I take up my already small amount of space with them. Going downtown and getting off campus was nice, especially after being in exile all weekend, but it was really cold. I think the high today was like 24 degrees but it was definitely worth it for eating non-cafeteria food.
After The Sandlot we had to go to Media Training. They said AmeriCorps people get interviewed a lot so we need to be prepared with how to talk to the media. And something that has already happened to most of us is that people see us in public with the uniform on and ask what we're doing, so really everyone needs to know how to explain the program. Also, something I haven't mentioned before: Once we get our permanent teams (10-12 people), there are about 12 team roles that need to be filled. Heather, who was leading the Media Training, is in charge of Media Representatives, Corps Ambassador Program Representatives ("Cappers"), and Yearbook Representatives. Yes, we will get a yearbook at the end of the year. They also like to give the previous year's yearbook to Cappers to use as a recruitment tool. I had already seen a list of the team roles before I came and had thought that Media Rep might be fun, and now I'm more sure of that. At the end of the training, Heather gave us a little quiz with prizes for people who answered questions first. I won a handy dandy little NCCC flashlight key chain.
After Media Training was lunch and after lunch was...nothing. Snow canceled the rest of our day, which was supposed to be some PT (physical training) and something about Service Learning.
Today was probably the most important day of training so far, but we had a snow day because it just won't stop snowing. Disaster relief is the main focus of NCCC, and today was supposed to be disaster relief training from the Red Cross. I really don't understand why everything shuts down because of snow. We're in DENVER. Denver natives say this much snow is unusual, but still. Public transportation was still working, so several of us went downtown and had lunch at Noodles and Company, which was fantastic. Fact of the Day: Steel-toed work boots can also be used as snow boots. Very few people brought snow boots with them here, so most people have been wearing their warm, waterproof steel toes everywhere. It works surprisingly well. The snow is probably close to two feet deep by now, and my feet stayed nice and toasty all day. I had been thinking of having my parents send me my snow boots, but now I'm not sure I take up my already small amount of space with them. Going downtown and getting off campus was nice, especially after being in exile all weekend, but it was really cold. I think the high today was like 24 degrees but it was definitely worth it for eating non-cafeteria food.
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
Freedom!
Monday morning, my other quarantined friend found out that she was free even though it had not yet been 10 days. I had to see the doctor who comes to campus for us before I was allowed out. The doctor said she didn't think I had any kind of flu, swine or otherwise. She even checked my lung function, and it was fine. So basically, I was quarantined for a cold. Oh well. The rest of my unit was starting their baseline tests right as I was going in to see the doctor, so I guess I'll have to make that up at some point.
That pretty much brings us to today, Tuesday. 8am-noon, we had Safety Training. It started outside in the cold with a game that was a metaphor for how our projects would be. We were in a circle, and Kevin, the safety guy, handed out a bunch of random stuffed animals and balls. We had to throw them to people, and if we drop one, we're out. The most important was the Safety Pheasant, which you can imagine was a ridiculous stuffed...something. The Safety Pheasant was never to touch the ground. No matter how many balls you have in the air, safety is always first. Get it? Yep, love those metaphorical games.
Next was hours and hours of safety training which could easily have been gone over in about 10 minutes. "Don't be stupid" is the main gist of all these hours. Although, from some of the pictures he showed, I will now always be paranoid of a nail gun being shot through my hand or getting bitten by one of those pesky brown recluse spiders that like to hide in dark places like OUR BEDS where some of our project housing might be. I don't know how I'll ever sleep again. Thanks Kevin!
After lunch, our schedule said 1:30-5:00 Tool Safety Training. Wouldn't you think this would be for things like chain saws, drills, routers, etc.? Nope, it was for things like shovels, pick axes, and rakes. Good thing it only actually took 45 minutes.
Up for tomorrow: Media training and our first Physical Training session. It is snowing right now and is supposed to continue all night, then a high of like 33 degrees tomorrow, so PT should be interesting. Interesting and super fun for those of us who are still a little sick and can't take deep breaths without coughing.
That pretty much brings us to today, Tuesday. 8am-noon, we had Safety Training. It started outside in the cold with a game that was a metaphor for how our projects would be. We were in a circle, and Kevin, the safety guy, handed out a bunch of random stuffed animals and balls. We had to throw them to people, and if we drop one, we're out. The most important was the Safety Pheasant, which you can imagine was a ridiculous stuffed...something. The Safety Pheasant was never to touch the ground. No matter how many balls you have in the air, safety is always first. Get it? Yep, love those metaphorical games.
Next was hours and hours of safety training which could easily have been gone over in about 10 minutes. "Don't be stupid" is the main gist of all these hours. Although, from some of the pictures he showed, I will now always be paranoid of a nail gun being shot through my hand or getting bitten by one of those pesky brown recluse spiders that like to hide in dark places like OUR BEDS where some of our project housing might be. I don't know how I'll ever sleep again. Thanks Kevin!
After lunch, our schedule said 1:30-5:00 Tool Safety Training. Wouldn't you think this would be for things like chain saws, drills, routers, etc.? Nope, it was for things like shovels, pick axes, and rakes. Good thing it only actually took 45 minutes.
Up for tomorrow: Media training and our first Physical Training session. It is snowing right now and is supposed to continue all night, then a high of like 33 degrees tomorrow, so PT should be interesting. Interesting and super fun for those of us who are still a little sick and can't take deep breaths without coughing.
Sunday, October 25, 2009
Day Three
Day Three of my confinement. The days have started running together now. I have to make marks on the wall to keep track of the time.
...Ok, not really, but I'm pretty tired of this room. I am now 99% sure that it wasn't actually swine flu. I feel much better than I did on Thursday and Friday. I'm still coughing and sneezing a little, but it really seems like a cold. Most likely, I'll feel pretty close to perfect tomorrow and will be let out.
In other news, tomorrow on the schedule for the sun unit are our baseline tests (how fast you can run a mile and a half, how many push-ups you can do in a minute, and how many sit-ups you can do in a minute). There are no minimums for this, it's just to measure our own progress. I think we repeat the test every time we come back to Denver between projects. Since we will have physical training three times a week, AmeriCorps wants us to know if our fitness level is improving. So if I do get out tomorrow and have to do my baseline after sitting and doing nothing for three days, my improvement will be AMAZING when I have to do the test again later.
On the plus side, I have had plenty of time to catch up on every TV show I have ever watched...when the internet works. The internet was totally fine on Friday, but it went out Saturday morning. I called my dad (who has forty-seven hundred Microsoft certifications and always helps me with computer problems), but there was nothing we could do. My other quarantined friend's internet was out also. Luckily, it was only out for a couple hours, but it's been spotty since then.
Guess I might as well end with pictures.
My window. The blinds don't open all the way, so I have to brace them on the open windows to hold them back. I don't think you can see it in the picture, but it's snowing. No, Denver doesn't realize that it's October.
The room from the doorway. Yes, I have bunk beds. This means that when I am sitting on the bed with the computer, like I am right now, I am huddled in a cave.
The room from the window. Don't judge me for the mess!
This squirrel appeared on my 2nd floor window sill yesterday, the only visitor besides team leaders bringing us food. Since we're not allowed out to the cafeteria (obviously, they wouldn't want us spreading The Disease to innocent dinner-eaters), team leaders have to come bring us meals.
...Ok, not really, but I'm pretty tired of this room. I am now 99% sure that it wasn't actually swine flu. I feel much better than I did on Thursday and Friday. I'm still coughing and sneezing a little, but it really seems like a cold. Most likely, I'll feel pretty close to perfect tomorrow and will be let out.
In other news, tomorrow on the schedule for the sun unit are our baseline tests (how fast you can run a mile and a half, how many push-ups you can do in a minute, and how many sit-ups you can do in a minute). There are no minimums for this, it's just to measure our own progress. I think we repeat the test every time we come back to Denver between projects. Since we will have physical training three times a week, AmeriCorps wants us to know if our fitness level is improving. So if I do get out tomorrow and have to do my baseline after sitting and doing nothing for three days, my improvement will be AMAZING when I have to do the test again later.
On the plus side, I have had plenty of time to catch up on every TV show I have ever watched...when the internet works. The internet was totally fine on Friday, but it went out Saturday morning. I called my dad (who has forty-seven hundred Microsoft certifications and always helps me with computer problems), but there was nothing we could do. My other quarantined friend's internet was out also. Luckily, it was only out for a couple hours, but it's been spotty since then.
Guess I might as well end with pictures.
My window. The blinds don't open all the way, so I have to brace them on the open windows to hold them back. I don't think you can see it in the picture, but it's snowing. No, Denver doesn't realize that it's October.
The room from the doorway. Yes, I have bunk beds. This means that when I am sitting on the bed with the computer, like I am right now, I am huddled in a cave.
The room from the window. Don't judge me for the mess!
This squirrel appeared on my 2nd floor window sill yesterday, the only visitor besides team leaders bringing us food. Since we're not allowed out to the cafeteria (obviously, they wouldn't want us spreading The Disease to innocent dinner-eaters), team leaders have to come bring us meals.Friday, October 23, 2009
Ugh...
Hi everyone. I write to you tonight sitting in a room by myself in a different dorm building. Why is that, you ask? Well, that's an interesting story.
Remember when my teammate got diagnosed with swine flu on Wednesday? On Thursday, I woke up with a really sore throat. Even though I had gotten almost 7 hours of sleep, I was also really tired all day. And I was coughing. And I was kind of having chills. I made it through the day, then at about 4:30 I went to Christina, my team leader, and told her that I hadn't been feeling my best today, and that if I felt the same or worse in the morning, I would probably call her and stay in for the day. (On the agenda for today was that everyone in the sun unit was going to a middle school, then each team would do something different. Dig trails, plant flowers, all outdoor physical stuff that I probably shouldn't do if I'm sick.) She said no, I'm going to the doctor. I didn't think it was that bad, but she insisted. She said she had to go to a meeting, but that I should call her at 6:30.
I called at 6:30, and first she said that I wouldn't go to the doctor, but that I should definitely stay in on Friday. Then we started talking about my symptoms, and she said she had to call Vaughn the unit leader then call me back. Well, she called me back and told me to pack a bag with everything that I would need for 10 days because I'm being quarantined. Without a diagnosis. It could just be a cold, and yet - quarantine.
So I had to pack up and wait for Christina to come get me to take me to my new room. She had to bring me a mask to wear in the hall. So, off I go to another dorm. I packed everything I could think of that could possibly entertain me, but it's been less than 24 hours and I'm already tired of it. My day was spent sleeping, eating, sleeping, watching TV on the computer, and sleeping. I also talked to Swine-y #1 a little. She's two doors down from me, and we're allowed to talk from our doorways. I'm only allowed out for the bathroom and shower, which is right across the hall.
I talked to Vaughn a few minutes ago, and he reassured me that it was only precaution, which I totally understand. We all live so close together, and share bathrooms, and spend ALL THE TIME together, so it would be really easy for it to spread really fast. So I understand, but it's no fun. Vaughn said that we could monitor my symptoms, and if I'm not better by Monday, I could go to the doctor. So I guess I definitely have three days of confinement. Or to use the official term, "isolation." I used to word quarantine with Vaughn, and he said they didn't like to use that word. I'm not sure which is worse.
So, that was my day. Comments, emails, phone calls, etc. are more welcome than ever. I can pretty much guarantee I won't be busy. :)
Remember when my teammate got diagnosed with swine flu on Wednesday? On Thursday, I woke up with a really sore throat. Even though I had gotten almost 7 hours of sleep, I was also really tired all day. And I was coughing. And I was kind of having chills. I made it through the day, then at about 4:30 I went to Christina, my team leader, and told her that I hadn't been feeling my best today, and that if I felt the same or worse in the morning, I would probably call her and stay in for the day. (On the agenda for today was that everyone in the sun unit was going to a middle school, then each team would do something different. Dig trails, plant flowers, all outdoor physical stuff that I probably shouldn't do if I'm sick.) She said no, I'm going to the doctor. I didn't think it was that bad, but she insisted. She said she had to go to a meeting, but that I should call her at 6:30.
I called at 6:30, and first she said that I wouldn't go to the doctor, but that I should definitely stay in on Friday. Then we started talking about my symptoms, and she said she had to call Vaughn the unit leader then call me back. Well, she called me back and told me to pack a bag with everything that I would need for 10 days because I'm being quarantined. Without a diagnosis. It could just be a cold, and yet - quarantine.
So I had to pack up and wait for Christina to come get me to take me to my new room. She had to bring me a mask to wear in the hall. So, off I go to another dorm. I packed everything I could think of that could possibly entertain me, but it's been less than 24 hours and I'm already tired of it. My day was spent sleeping, eating, sleeping, watching TV on the computer, and sleeping. I also talked to Swine-y #1 a little. She's two doors down from me, and we're allowed to talk from our doorways. I'm only allowed out for the bathroom and shower, which is right across the hall.
I talked to Vaughn a few minutes ago, and he reassured me that it was only precaution, which I totally understand. We all live so close together, and share bathrooms, and spend ALL THE TIME together, so it would be really easy for it to spread really fast. So I understand, but it's no fun. Vaughn said that we could monitor my symptoms, and if I'm not better by Monday, I could go to the doctor. So I guess I definitely have three days of confinement. Or to use the official term, "isolation." I used to word quarantine with Vaughn, and he said they didn't like to use that word. I'm not sure which is worse.
So, that was my day. Comments, emails, phone calls, etc. are more welcome than ever. I can pretty much guarantee I won't be busy. :)
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