Road Trippin to New Orleans

Today began the real journey of AmeriCorps. We left this morning at 8:30 for Knoxville, TN. It took us 13 hours to get here. We got lost along the way and I had a minor bout of car sickness, but we made it. We leave tomorrow at 7:30, (bright and early!) for New Orleans. I just want to get there already. All 11 of my team members and I are going to be staying in a 3 bedroom house with 1 bathroom which should make for an interesting shower situation. We're going to be working on Habitat for Humanity which builds houses for Hurricane Katrina victims as well as other disadvantaged families in the area. I'm really excited for this project. It will really remind me why I signed up for this program in the first place which was to experience new exciting places and help people in need.

Induction into AmeriCorps

 

This is at our Induction ceremony into AmeriCorps. It's all the girls and Rick who happens to be one of the most funniest and random guys in AmeriCorps. We're all doing the "Riiiick" wave.

AmeriLife

I am going to do my best at explaining the last month of my life here in AmeriCorps, but so much has gone on it's hard to sum up in a few sentences. For the first three weeks we went through a lot of different trainings having to do with diversity, CPR, power tools certification and "child friendly spaces." (whatever that means) The good that came out of this is that I am now officially certified to use power tools, give CPR and use an AED (automatic external defibrillator, the electric shock thing that gets people's hearts to beat again). I won't lie training could be pretty brutal sometimes considering it was 8 hours of sitting in back to back lectures, but it's over now!





Well as usual I ran out of time to write, but there's an update.
I'm going to New Orleans for 6 weeks! I'm so excited!!!!

Don't have much time to write a full blog report, but I just want to send out an update to my friends and family. I've been in Perry Point for about 2 weeks and I'm still alive! It's a really really small town, with nothing interesting in walking distance. Fortunately, I'm super busy during the week so the only time I have to worry about filling up free time is on the weekends. So far, I've been doing A LOT of different trainings and preparations for our projects. I got my team assigned to me, a few of the members are going to be challenging to live with for 9 months, but overall I love my team. There is 1 girl who actually went to college in California at San Jose who majored in Psychology who will be on it.

I'm going to Philadelphia tomorrow with my roommate who has a car here. I'm so excited to get out of Maryland!

This has to be quick, but hopefully I'll have more updates and pictures soon. Miss you guys!