Gold 1 baby!

Since it has been a week now since i've updated on here, i have a lot to tell. For your sake, however, I will try to summarize.
First off, let me give ya'll my address. We finally got our team unit names.

Sarah Daigle
Americorps NCCC,
Winter class, Team: Gold 1
3427 Laurel St
McClellan, CA 95652

So send me mail, i like mail! Plus, when we leave for our projects we will still get the mail that is sent to the above address. Again, i repeat.. . send me mail! =)
Ok so this past week. . . hmm. . . where to begin
Well, last saturday night we had our first optional ISP (independent service project) opportunity. During our 10 month stay here we have to get 80 ISP hours on top of our regular hours with our teams. These hours can be in projects we create, or we can find some that are already set up by other corps members, etc. So myself, and about 30 others took advantage of getting 6 hours out of the way and particpated. We helped serve the food at a big fundraiser for a program called Project Ride here in Sacramento. This program gives handicapped kids and adults the opportunity to ride and work with horses. It was a fun night, a little crazy running around in a horse coral in a barn, with a TON of other people there, but overall it was fun. Plus, at the end of the night the live band was playing and we had a dance party for a bit.
Sunday, a few of us tried another church. Another dissapointment. . . but i won't go too much into that. We have managed to find some crazy churches here.
This week, mon-today was full of more trainings, like before. I honestly can't remember what all of them were, but there were a couple good ones. I'll share one good and one bad. The good one was Wednesday when we did the Hands on Peace training. This training is a team building, communication workshop. Some of the activities were just with our individual teams, and then others were with 2 other teams as well. Overall, i really enjoyed it, because it allowed me to spend time actually talking to my team, and being somewhat serious (we are quite a funny team), but also a time to joke around and be silly. My team is definitly growing on me.
Thursday my team worked on a Habitat for Humanity site. Each team did some kind of project this week, either on a habitat site, in a boys and girls club, or in a food bank. I have had so many great experiences on mission trips doing construction based projects that i found myself comparing this time to that, and it did not even come close. Then i realized that that is not fair for me to do. This is a totally different situation. Of course it's going to be different on mission trips with the youth. So i decided that it was a good day, even though we did boring things in the house. The highlight for me was using a miter (sp?) saw again. Always a good time with one of those!
The bad training experience was actually today. Overall, today was my worst day here so far. During the day we all sat through the most boring Red Cross mass casualty training seminar. The team leaders even said itw as horrible. It was poorly organized, repetitive, and dry. So most of us were pretty figity, and moody by the time that was over. We then had the Ameri-olympics, which was a bunch of corny games. Fun, but that fun was cut short when we thought we were going to be told where we were going to be in a week for our first projects. Right before most of our team leaders could tell us they were told thye were not allowed to tell use for another hour. You see, the motto for Americorps is be flexible. Things are always changing, and they don't tell us things till right before it happens. For example they said they could not tell us right then because there was still one final proposal for a project that had to come in. Hello. . . we leave in a week!! Anyways, most of us were extremely frustrated by the time they told us we had to wait LONGER. (Our Team leaders have known most of the week, but were not allowed to tell us)
Anyways, my bad mood changed around when i finaly found out what I will be doing, and where I will be going.
On Feb 5th we are all being sent out on our first projects. My team will be doing an education project in an elementary school. We will be in the classrooms (yay!) during the day, and then running the afterschool program in the afternoons. There's a little more to this, but i'll include that later, when i have more info, and can be more detailed. While being in a school again was exciting, the part that really made my bad day a little better was WHERE I was going. . . . Hollywood! (Los Angeles!!) Which means I will be with KATHERINE! (Who is my old roommate from UNCG, and one of my closest friends!) I am looking forward to being able to see her some during the month I will be there!

So there ya have it, a super condensed version of my week. Overall, a good one, other than this cold I have had, that is really starting to get old. We had PT (workouts) 4 days this week. It was so nice to be able to sleep till 6:30 AM on wednesday, the day we had off. Running hasn't been fun with not feeling good, but luckily they don't force me to kill myself.

Tomorrow myself and some of my wonderful friends are going to San Francisco. So you can look forward to another posting soon! Most of us are being split up here in a week for our projects, so we are looking forward to this trip to hang out with each other!

Later! =)

We're bringing sexy back!

I Thought I would take a few minutes here to fill ya'll in on something we've been doing here called PT. Here on base we live in what we call an Ameribubble. . . meaning we use acronyms for all kinds of things. So allow me to explain to you what PT stands for. . . Physical Training.

Since tuesday our mornings have begun at the lovely hour of 5:00Am, having to be in building 943 by 5:29AM. There are 3 buildings here that we use for the most part, 1 is a dorm where we live, another is the administrative building where all the staff can be found, and then the third is building 943 where we eat, have most of our trainings, and do whatever else we wanna do. For those of you that know me fairly well, know that I can be quite grumpy and quiet in the mornings. So 5:00AM is not my idea of a good time to get up. Once my roommate and i drag ourselves out of bed and throw on workout clothes and briefly walk outside to the next building in the 30 degree weather, we are greeted inside building 943 with fairly loud music. . . rock/pop/techno, whatever the leaders decide to play.

At 5:30 we begin stretching, as a big group (there's about 100 of us, plus like 12 leaders and some of the staff joins us as well. We have been split up into A, B, and C teams based on what we did on Tuesday during our baseline testing (the running, sit ups and pushups). I am in B group, which is just fine with me. The A group has run 3 miles the last 3 days then did about 15 minutes of workouts, like crunches, squats, etc. Wednesday my group did the inside workouts for about 45 minutes (ugh! but i enjoyed it), but yesterday and today we ran 2 miles each day and came back inside to do the other workouts for about 20 minutes. Then we stretch again a the end.

I am really not a big runner. I enjoy my stop and go sports such as tennis and softball. I have done alright running, the last two days. Today I jogged all but about a combined 50 yards of walking just to get a good breath. Stupid asthma. I am not too sore either, which is nice.

From now on we will be working out 4 days a week, unless you are late then you do all 5. So I am definitly not planning on being late.

I gotta get going to another fun afternoon of training. This morning I drove the big ol' van around parts of Sacramento. . . and passed my drivers test. So I can now drive a 15 passenger van! YESSS!! haha.

Till next week. . . .

I was finally able to load some pictures on a computer. So here's a few for ya'll to enjoy!
http://uncg.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2059566&l=22fc0&id=25000446

Arnold the Govenator

Many of you are hopefully aware of the fact that Arnold Swartzeneger (sp??) is the Governor of California. To honor him we have now watched all three of the Terminator movies. I actually missed the first one, because my team had duty that night but i definitly did not miss the last two. I do believe the 2nd one is my favorite, it was hillarious. Especially his thumbs up at the very end as he was submerged in the molten hot steele. . . where do they come up w/ these ideas??? Moving on. . .

Tonight I tried to load some pictures on the computer but apparently we are not authorized to do that on here. So i will see what I can do about that.

I guess I will just pick up where I left off my last posting. Saturday about a dozen of us decided to venture out into downtown Sacramento. We set off late morning on the 2 mile trek to the light rail station. We were pointed in the direction of the station and told to walk and we'd find it. Whichever leader told us this forgot to mention that the sidewalk ended and we would have to walk down this sketchy path and then into a tunnel that went under the railroad tracks. . . minor details i suppose. Once we figured out we were suppose to go through this tunnel (that I would never think about going through except during the middle of the day w/ plenty of other people with me), we continued walking. We successfully purchased our tickets for the light rail and figured out which stop we wanted to get off in downtown.

Once in downtown we ate lunch in the food court (cheap food sine we havn't gotten our first living allowance stiepend), of this outdoor mall. This outdoor mall concept was strange to me, because it was a nice regular looking mall, except for the fact that it was quite chilly, so as most of you know, I don't like chilly! We even saw a cop on a horse patrolling the mall. It's quite funny seeing a horse infront of Gap. After lunch most of us headed to Old Sacramento, which convienently was on the other side of the mall. Old Sacramento, for those of you who have never been here, is a renovated section of downtown that is on the Sacramento River. It looks like it would have back in the 1850s during the Gold Rush. Me, being the super cool history teacher that I am, thought it was a cool place. Imagine an old western movie, and that's what it looked like! Of course there were plenty of touristy shops there, and a few smaller museums and restarants. We spent a couple hours walking around, checking out the shops, and taking pictures. . .you know, all the touristy things! By the time we got back to the stop we boarded the light rail on, it was late afternoon, so it was beginning to get a little cooler outside. We decided to start walking but call a team leader to come pick us up in a van so we didn't have to walk the whole way back! It was a fun day, seeing new places and getting to know new friends better!

On Sunday 14 of us decided to venture to a church that was listed in our Places of Interest booklet. It said it was an nondenominational church, but it turned out to be quite the experience. Lets just say that the speaker that day for the sermon turned out to be a televangelist and the service lasted 2 1/2 hours!! We all decided to try a different place this Sunday, we'll see how that goes!

Sunday evening we were also placed on our permanent teams. Overall I am happy with my team. I really liked my temporary team, and it was sad to say bye to them. I mean I do still see them, but just not as often. They divide training stuff by sending half of us to do certain trainings one day the other half to a different training, then the next day we switch. Of course I am in G1 (team 1) and my roommate is in G12 (team 12) so I pretty much see her at night. We were talking the other night about how sad it is going to be in a couple weeks when we are all sent on our own projects and only see the 8 people in our group. My roommate, Heather, and I still continue to find things that we have in common. We have nicknamed our room "The South" because we both hate to be cold, so the heat stays on a lot =) One of our favorite evening activities that some friends and I play are the Cranium games! Hoopla, Whoonu, and many more! I love hanging out w/ people as cool as I am =)

This is getting a little long, so go grab some sweet tea, or any of the other wonderful foods that do not exist out here, and I will try to finish up soon! Since Monday was Martin Luther King Day we had a day on of service instead of taking a day off. We participated in the projects set up by Hands on Sacramento, there were over 500 other volunteers from Sacramento helping out with verious projects as well. My team helped pass out disaster preparedness packets to a community in north Sacramento. I learned that about 20 years ago that area flooded pretty badly because the levies broke. We really didn't get to talk to too many people since itwas mid morning, but i got plenty of exercise walking around the streets! They fed us downtown afterwords, which is always nice!

Tuesday and today we sat through boring trainings, so there is not as much to tell you about. Today i got first aid and CPR certified! Oh, and yesterday I went through the first part of the van driver training! I'll get to drive a 15 passenger van before i'm 25!! woo hoo! ok so i'm not that excited, but we need atleast half of our 8 member teams to be certified since we will be driving down to the gulf!

That about sums up my last few days. Physical training started yesterday, and i successfully completed the baseline test, which was a mile and a half run, sit ups and pushups (the last two being as many in 2 minutes as possible). Today we had our first workout, and while it kicked my butt, I enjoyed it. Strange, I know. The only bad thing is that it starts at the wonderful hour of 5:30 AM. . .and ya'll know I don't do mornings. Hopefully it will get easier, or I will get less grumpier!

Ok, this is seriously too long. I'll try to be less wordy in future posts!
Adios!

Week 1 fun

It is official, I am the only Sarah here. What kinda place is this?? =)
I hope you all back in NC are enjoying the nice warm temperatures because it is pretty chilly here. Ok, so i am a little on the cold side usually but it is colder than the average temps are here. I am hoping it warms up soon. This week has gone by pretty fast. Tuesday was crazy with the flight(s) and the inprocessing here on campus. We were also given our uniform clothes that we had to begin wearing on Wednesday. Our uniforms consist of black and kakhi cargo pants, khakhi shorts, short and logsleeve Americorps tshirts and polos (2 of each), a hoodie, a black fleece vest, a big winter jacket, and some super hott black coveralls. With the exception of the pants/shorts everything else has the Americorps logo on them. So anytime we are going through training of any kind and when we will be on project sites we will have to wear the "A" in correct uniform attire. For those of you that were in marching band you understand what I mean when i say the pants are made in different sizes to fit everyone so therefore they fit no one! Atleast none of us girls!
We were assigned temporary teams on tuesday, so those groups are who we have been going through training with all week. Training has been pretty boring for the most part, but it's stuff like safety, policies, how to talk to the media, introduction to where our projects come from, and more. We even had physicals on Thursday, so exciting!
Our meals have been catered all week, we will begin to cook our own meals in each of our teams next week. We are assigned permanent teams on Sunday. Apparently they take many different variables into consideration when they put us on our teams. For those of you MPC folks, the team leaders here remind me a lot of the leaders at Mfuge! This of course makes it feel even more like I am at camp still!
My favorite part so far has been meeting people from so many different places. We all just met 4 days ago but you would never really guess that if you walked around our dorm building. Last night some of us bonded over a new epidose of Greys Anatomy!
Tomorrow some of us are going to attempt to conquer the light rail system and explore downtown Sacramento. I am looking forward to getting off the base here. It hasn't really felt like I am that far away from home since we have stayed in a small section of the base all week. I'm sure getting lost in a strange big city will remind me that I am not in Mebane anymore!
Good luck to those of you starting classes and ya'll that are finishing up exams at EA, Orange, Cedar Ridge, etc. (And to Ms. Weinkle in her last weeks with the 4th block lovelies) I know it will get more difficult but knowing ya'll are praying for me and supporting me from 3000 miles away helps me feel like I am not alone out here.
I'll update more soon! Miss you!

PS: MPC youth (and alums)- Tonight at dinner I played the cup game with some girls, and taught my roommate and another guy =) Good times.

Welcome to Cali!

Here I am, in sunny California. Ok, so it's actually kinda chilly, but the sun was out this afternoon when I finally got my luggage and dragged it outside. There were about 25ish of us that had the flight from Chicago to Sacramento, however we did not realize there were that many of us till we got off in Sacramento and began to congregate together outside our gate looking lost and alone.
Today has actually been a very long day, with the time change and lots of waiting during our inprocessing once we arrived on base. Everyone is in the same boat, not knowing anyone, so there's lots of "What's your name? Where are you from?" It's like freshman year of college all over again, just much farther from home. Surprisingly people have heard of Mebane. . . . and there's only 2 of us NC folks, so far. (the guy I randomly met at CVS gboro the other week!) So far, I have yet to meet another Sarah! Craziness, i know!
Shortly after arriving in my room (lovely dorm life again), and meeting my roommate we realized we have a few things in common. She too looks younger than she is. .. she's from the south (ok, FL, but i'll call it the south). .. and she's a Christian! It's been nice talking to someone who is here for many of the same reasons I am.
Right now there's a lot of information coming in and with the tiredness it's been a little exhausting at times. So, that's about it for now, I'll have more later! Just wanted to check in and let ya'll know i'm here!