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!