Thanksgiving Break

Day 134 - Tuesday (24), Today was a pretty good start to Thanksgiving Break! I woke up early this morning because I am one of the shuttle drivers responsible for taking other corps members to the airport. It's about a hour drive to Jackson and another hour back. But one of the perks of driving to Jackson is that there is a Starbucks which I will definitely made a stop on the way back.

After arriving back on campus, I hung out with TL Alex for a while before she left for Jackson to board her flight back home. An hour after that, as ATL of the Summit Unit, I went grocery shopping at Krogers to purchase food for this week. It was a little difficult and stressful at first trying to find all the stuff without taking too long but I managed to get almost everything my unit had asked for.

We arrived back on campus and started unloading our groceries. One thing we failed to realized is that we didn't know that Class 21 Team Leaders had left a bunch of food that they didn't eat so now we have a ton of food. Almost too much that we had freeze some bread and other stuff because we had an absurd amount. We rearranged the shelves and refrigerators in a more organized fashion. So we now have a dairy, vegetables, and meat/deli fridges. We also have an frozen foods/ice cream freezer. So we have more than enough food to feed an entire building plus more for the rest of the break. Extremely thankful for that.

After we reorganized the kitchen, I ate dinner with some other members. They had made a quinoa and vegetable dish, which was very delicious by the way. I hung out with a couple of them and watched Mockingjay Part 1 because we are planning on seeing Part 2 in theaters tomorrow!

I got to bed somewhat late, around 1:30 am. It felt weird to have the room to myself, something that I have not had since I left home in July. I can't believe that I have almost been gone from California and in this program for over 5 months. It's a little bit hard for me to wrap my head around it. But majority of the hard part is over. We finished CTI and Round 1, which is the longest round. Round 2 is only 2 months and is the shortest round. It will go extremely quick with Christmas in the middle of the round and then, Round 3 will be done before we know it also. And that leads us to graduation. I'm really going to miss some of the people I have met. But we will most likely keep in touch.

The night is passing by quickly and I have another van to drive tomorrow so I now need adequate sleep!


Day 135 - Wednesday (25), Had to do another shuttle run to Jackson today to drop off some TLs. On the way home, we stopped off at Starbucks again. :)

Since Thanksgiving is tomorrow, a few people that stayed behind are planning a Thanksgiving meal for all of us. We used our budget money to purchase more Thanksgiving foods. So far we have green beans, mash potatoes, yams, stuffing, chicken, ham, and lots of dessert. So no going hungry tomorrow! I'm quite excited and everyone that stayed behind on campus was welcomed to our Thanksgiving feast.

After grocery shopping and doing prep work for tomorrow's meal, a few of us went out tonight to see Mockingjay Part 2. I thought it was a good movie overall, but there would have been some scenes that I would have done differently. I also kind of forgot some of the more minor details of the movie because I didn't have a chance to read the Mockingjay book because I left that at home.


Day 136 - Thursday (26 - Thanksgiving), Today was an early start. I woke up at 6:20 am to get ready for the Salvation Army ISP. I left with a few others and drove to Jackson to help out with the Salvation Army's Thanksgiving day meal. We first started with helping cut pies and boxing them. Another corps member, Laura, and I decided we wanted to help with delivering meals to people because they were short on drivers.

We loaded 88 Thanksgiving meals plus dessert into our 15 passenger van and drove off. We went to two different apartment complexes knocking on doors and dropping off meals. The first location was a little difficult because no one was answering their doors, but luckily there was a lady that helped us with "knocking" on doors. It was more of a persistent bang than knock. At our second location, another lady let us use one of their grocery cart in which we piled a bunch of food in and delivered it through multiple floors. This is the first time I used a stolen object to do a good deed! It took is approximately 3 hours to deliver all the food. About an hour out of the 3 was driving. When we finished, we went to pick up the other two girls from the Salvation Army and drove back to Vicksburg.

I was extremely tired from having a late night in addition to waking up early so I took a nap. I woke up for our Thanksgiving meal at 5. There was a ton of food and I didn't know which end to start. There was ham, chicken, mashed potatoes, stuffing, green beans, mac n cheese, sweet potatoes, a corn and jalapeño dish, and a lot more I couldn't remember. We also had a multitude of deserts - pumpkin pie, muffins, cupcakes, brownies, pecan pie, lemon bars, and much more. Everything was delicious. My favorites was the corn and jalapeño dish and the pumpkin pie. I was very full at the end.


Day 137 - Friday (27), I got a good sleep in today before I was woken up by a piano and a speaker blasting music.

For breakfast, I had desert from yesterday's Thanksgiving meal. :) The pumpkin pie was my favorite so I dived for that first. After "breakfast", I drove the boys to do some Black Friday shopping. It wasn't really Black Friday shopping though. The deals weren't that great and the mall wasn't crowded. I think it's due to the fact that Vicksburg is too small of a town, so it doesn't have many stores, and it's isolated so they also don't get people from surrounding areas. I didn't see much of anything I really liked and online, there wasn't anything I really needed either.

I mostly kept to myself in the evening. I did laundry and worked on some college stuff. Deadlines are lurking around the corner so applications have to start cranking in.


Day 138 - Saturday (28), Slept in as late as I could today before I had an ISP to do. For this ISP, I went to the Humane Society and cleaned two fields full of manure. It took a lot of raking, shoveling, and wheelbarrowing, but we finally got it done.

After the ISP, I took a shower upon arriving back on campus and started the washer. I took a couple friends with me to the National Military Park to see the U.S.S Cairo Museum. There was a huge ironclad ship that we were able to walk onto and a museum full of artifacts recovered from the ship. After that and since it was getting dark, we drove around the rest of the military park visiting the bigger monuments. Some of the sites were quite stunning to see.

After our trip to the park, we stopped off at a Chinese buffet to have dinner. It was pretty good! Not as many vegetarian options as the Thai place we went in Houston, but still enough. We also stopped off at Redbox to rent a couple movies in which we had a movie night in our lounge tonight. Quite a few people stopped by and hung out to watch, which was cool.


Day 139 - Sunday (29), Got a late start to today. I usually sleep in accordance with the weather. Since it was cloudy and foggy outside and not sunny, I slept in.

I woke up to a corps member phone call wanting me to take them to downtown Vicksburg. So I got got dressed, brushed, and drove them downtown and to a couple other places. After that I dropped the boys off at Waffle House and I went to the Tomato Place and got myself some fried green tomatoes! It was really delicious and happy to be back. I really enjoy supporting small business such as the tomato place and the coffee shop.

Kristina got back late tonight so it was nice to see her again and I'm glad that she got a nice break because she deserves it. As much as she loves our team, we do drive her crazy sometime. But I'm glad to have her back.

I've been listening to a lot of Christmas music lately. As matter of fact, I'm listening to it as I write. It's officially after Thanksgiving so I can start without anyone yelling at me that it's not Christmas yet! Christmas music just puts me in a really good mood. I usually associate it with family, friends, warmth, laughter, and happiness so it really makes me happy and excited. And I only get to listen to it for 1 month out of the 12 so I do get excited when that time comes along. I hope my team likes Christmas music because they will be listening to a lot of it soon!


Day 140 - Monday (30), Enjoyed my last day of sleeping in before work resumes tomorrow. The afternoon was very relaxed as corps members started trickling back in. I did quite a bit of driving today. I had to take some corps member downtown and to other errands.

I spent majority of the afternoon and evening socializing with other people. I spent a while hanging out TL Alex and and a couple hours in Kaitlynn's room chatting about break and where we might end up for Round 2. It felt pretty nice to have everybody back on campus and excited that things will start to get rolling again.

Salvation Army ISP

Thanksgiving Meal

U.S.S Cairo (Ironclad Ship)

View of the Military Park

Almost got locked in!

End of Round 1

Day 126 - Monday (16), Today started off right! Liz brought us bagels again for breakfast so it was a good start to a Monday morning!

I spent my morning preparing my portion of the team's de-brief that we will be presenting when we arrive back on campus. It wasn't too hard to do. Majority of it was what was already in the portfolio that I made last week. We just had to take the important parts, put it in a slideshow, and present it.

After work, we had our team meeting discussing fall break and a few other agenda items. We also had an ice cream party. Our team had quite a bit of money leftover from our budget so that's why we've been going out to eat recently and we also had enough leftover to buy ice cream. For those of you wondering why we don't save it, well, at the end of this round which is Nov. 20, all of our money goes away and we start a clean slate for round 2. So our team is trying to use as much of the money possible that we saved in our budget by buying non-perishable items for next round and going out to eat.


Day 127 - Tuesday (17), We had some not so nice weather today for part of the late morning and early afternoon. Some of our team went to Subway for lunch and we got caught in some pretty heavy rain so we waited our time out in Subway. As soon as it started to pour less, we made our way back to work. Probably about 25 yards away from the door to our office, it started to pour again so I ran those last yards. Didn't help me much for trying to stay dry.

After work, we headed to the gym and did PT. As usual, I did my weights in the gym for a bit, then went outside to play some basketball. It's was a little chilly outside due to the rain earlier, but it was still enjoyable.


Day 128 - Wednesday (18), Although we have one more day left, our team is starting to wrap up our first round. Liz took our team out to lunch with a couple other POCs. We went to a Thai buffet which was pretty good for a smaller scaled restaurant. The restaurant itself was small so we got some surprised looks when a group of 11 walked in all at once.

After work, we went to the gym one last time to do our PT. After PT and showers, I drove Kristina around town to do a few errands. Since we had food that we didn't have room to take back with us on campus, we donated those. After dinner, I started to pack my bags because we are loading up the van tomorrow night. I didn't get to bed until midnight and we have a busy Thursday ahead of us.


Day 129 - Thursday (19), Can't believe that today is our last day in Houston and also the last day of Round 1! I'm really looking forward to heading back to campus and finding out where Round 2 location will be!

Work dragged on a bit slowly today. In the morning we took some pictures with our POCs and bosses. As the afternoon wore on, we slowly started to pack up our desk area, clean up and say good-bye to the other FEMA staff that we had worked with. I had an incredible time having the honor to work with the staff and some were the nicest and sweetest people. I hope the Round 2 FEMA staff will be just as good as they are.

We headed back to the hotel and I packed a little bit more of my miscellaneous stuff. The fridge got cleaned out, pots and pans were separated and packed into a box, drawers were emptied and we loaded everything we had into the van except for a personal bag that we will keep with us during the ride back to campus.

After we packed the van, we headed one last time to downtown Houston. We had quite a bit of money leftover from our budget still, so we treated ourself to the Cheesecake Factory. It was very delicious. I ordered a veggie pasta dish (Evelyn's Pasta) and the Kahula Cocoa Coffee Cheesecake which both were very delicious. The Cheesecake Factory always reminds me of winter season and Christmas with my family because we usually eat out at the Cheesecake Factory on Christmas Eve.

We are leaving bright and early tomorrow at 6:00 am to return back to campus. It should be pretty fun! And the next time I write, I will be back in Vicksburg, Mississippi!


Day 130 - Friday (20), Early start to today. I woke up at 5:40 am to get ready and pack the rest of my stuff. We left the hotel around 6 and I slept for a couple hours here and there. We made a stop for lunch and switched drives a few times. I took the last shift back to Vicksburg.

We arrived on campus at 2:45 pm and were one of the first to arrive. We got our dorm keys and started unpacking the van and unloading things into our dorms. As we were unpacking the van, other teams started to arrive followed by lots of laughter and hugs. It was so great to see the other teams again! I spent a good amount of time chatting with other people and catching up before I returned to my dorm to started unpacking some clothes. The black box that we left behind with all of our misc. things we didn't want to take with us for Round 1, well we can't get that until Monday. So it made it a little bit difficult to unpack and organize because I have hangers and other things I need from that black box.

For dinner, our team ordered pizza from Dominos. Since we were all really hungry, it tasted really good. I took a few boys to Walmart so they could pick up batteries to play X-box. I had to get a couple things myself - hand soap and an air freshener for our room. I spent the rest of the night going to different people's dorms and hanging out in the hallway just chatting and talking how their first round went.

I stayed up pretty late and it was a long day for me. I'm heading to the gym early tomorrow to get a workout in so I'm going to get to bed! It feels a little refreshing to be back in Vicksburg for transition and Thanksgiving Break.


Day 131 - Saturday (21), First full day back on campus! This morning was a productive day for me. I did an early run to the gym this morning to get my morning workout out of the way. When I returned, I took a shower, and did my laundry. It felt nice to not have to put coins into a laundry machine to wash clothes.

I ate a quick lunch and drove a couple people to Downtown Vicksburg to get some coffee at Highway 61. Since the weather here is starting to get cold and windy, I order my usual caramel macchiato, but hot instead of my usual iced macchiato. I also got Kristina an ice tea. I made a quick stop by the library to get a few movies for movie nights.

When we returned back onto campus, I went down to the soccer field with a few friends to watch the soccer tournament that was taking place. It was cold and windy outside so all of us were bundled in sweatshirts and jackets and we even had a blanket wrapped around us. The games were pretty fun to watch and I think the championship game is taking place tomorrow so I will probably head down for that also.

While part of my team went grocery shopping, I spent a couple hours talking to Alex, who is the team leader for Summit 2. When my team finally returned home, I ate a canned lentil soup they had purchased. It wasn't bad, but definitely not close to home. I spent the rest of the night hanging out in peoples' dorms.

I also started watching Mockingjay Part 1 with Kaitlynn as a refresher because Mockingjay Part 2 is out and I wanted to see that in theaters, but we ended up getting tired while watching it so we'll finish that tomorrow.


Day 132 - Sunday (22), Today was a very slow and relaxing day. The morning started off slow. I slept in until about 9 am and just wandered around chatting with other people from different teams.

At 1:30, a couple of my friends and I went down to the soccer field to watch the championship game. Thankfully it wasn't as cold and windy as yesterday. The sun was out, but there was still that chill.

I spent about 2 hours in my dorm finishing watching Mockingjay Part 1 with Kaitlynn and then I attended a two hour team meeting. We have our debrief presentation first thing tomorrow morning so we had to practice our parts for that. Based off of tonight's practice run, I think it will go alright tomorrow. We still needed some more practice. I stayed up until midnight just talking to myself practicing my lines over and over again until I got the majority of it down.

After our meeting, I ate dinner and spent a few more solid hours hanging out with Summit 2 just chatting and telling stories. We were joined by 2 members of Gulf 2 so that wass also nice because we got to hear about their team and what they did.

It's getting pretty late tonight and we have one day of work tomorrow before we go on break!


Day 133 - Monday (23),  I know today is Monday, and this blog entry is a day late and I apologize, but Sunday night was a little busy for me with the preparation for my team's debrief presentation and all. Here's the start for today -

We had to present our debriefing presentation this morning to Chris, our Unit Leader. The presentation went much better than I had anticipated. A lot smoother than it went last night and I'm proud of my team for pulling it together. I know it wasn't quite as easy for some members. We also had the ability to sit in for Summit 2's debriefing presentation so it was really interesting to hear all the great work they did in South Carolina for the flooding.

After presenting our debrief and sitting through Summit 2's debrief, we picked up our black box that contained all the things we left behind. The box was much lighter than I had remembered. It didn't take to long for me to unpack the box as I only left behind a few things and shared the other half of my box with another one of my teammates because I had extra room. I was finally able to hang up my clothes and retrieve my bed sheets.

In the afternoon, we had a quick meeting to attend to and then a nice break. After break, we had a community meeting with the entire corps. We had a really fun relay race in which the unit leader(s) of the losing teams got slimed with neon yellow goo.

After the community meeting, I had my specialty role meeting for media. We went over positives, negatives, and even better ifs of Round 1. The specialty role meeting was quick and short. I then attended another meeting after that because I am staying on campus for Thanksgiving Break. I was chosen to be the Assistant Team Leader for my unit, which is Summit and one of the larger units. So I am responsible for helping with the food, making sure everyone get fed, in charge of the van keys and delegation, and the main point of contact for my unit. So it was pretty cool that I was chosen to lead my unit over break

The night went by pretty fast. I hung in in Kaitlynn and Ashley's room for a couple hours and then I moved onto Kristina's room for another couple hours. It was nice to be able to chat with Kristina since she's been really busy  and I don't see her as often as I did when we were in Houston living in the same hotel room.

It's about 12:30 as I'm wrapping up this last entry. I am responsible for being a shuttle driver and taking a group of people to the airport tomorrow so I need to be functioning tomorrow not only as a driver, but a responsible ATL for my unit!

My coffee cheesecake from the Cheesecake Factory

A really cool bathroom sink I found during a bathroom stop in Louisiana

Really beautiful fall weather view from my dorm room. Although it looks sunny, it was chilly. It's definitely sweater and blanket weather.

Last Week of Round 1

Day 119 - Monday (9), Still don't like waking up for work on a Monday morning. Almost forgot my badge today so I had to sprint upstairs to retrieve it. Good way to get myself moving and awake.

Part of the office is getting set up for our Thanksgiving meal tomorrow. There are tables covered in tablecloths already set up in the next room. So I'm pretty excited for tomorrow!

We had our usual Monday team meeting today with tacos for dinner. They were delicious and for the last learning activity, we learned about tacos and part of its origins.

After our team meeting, a few of us took a little trip to IKEA out of sheer boredom. My favorite sections were the beds, bathroom counter tops and tiles, kitchen, and the office area. I could probably have slept in the beds if I didn't feel like they were dirty.


Day 120 - Tuesday (10), Today we had our Thanksgiving feast at work. I left with Kristina and Kodiak to pick up all the food from HEB, the main grocery store chain the south. It took approximately 1.5 hours to get all the food and back to the office.

There was a lot of food, but not as much leftovers as I thought. There was 2 turkeys, 4 chickens, 2 hams, 2 pans of mash potatoes and stuffing each, sweet potatoes, cranberry sauce, green bean/chicken casserole, gravy, pumpkin and apple pies, etc. It was all very good and it was nice because there were tables set up for everyone to sit down, eat, and relax for a bit.

After work, I took a 2 hour nap because I was tired from not getting enough sleep from the previous two nights. I woke up at 6:30 pm with a start, thinking I slept the night away because it was super dark outside. So glad we get tomorrow off, Veteran's Day, so I can sleep in and relax!


Day 121 - Wednesday (11), It was really nice to have a day off today! I slept for around 10 hours and it felt really good.

This morning was a slow one. Just hung out in bed for a bit, then I got up and did a workout downstairs. I took some time to myself and went through and organize my picture folders for AmeriCorps. Looking through pictures that were taken a few months ago made me realize how much time has actually passed even though it seemed like just yesterday. I can't believe all the things we have done in Round 1 and I'm excited for the other two rounds to come. Round 1 is definitely the longest round, 3 months, so I'm really thankful that the other two rounds will be much shorter because 3 months for us is a long time to stay in one place. Plus our team really enjoys traveling and living on the go. It brings a sense of excitement while our lives here in Houston have become a little sedentary. So I'm really looking forward to returning back to campus, catch up with friends, share stories and figure out where we're heading to for Round 2!


Day 122 - Thursday (12), Today was a pretty good day considering that we all knew tomorrow was going to be Friday. The morning went by quickly and we then had to attend a class in the afternoon. It was interesting went by quicker than I thought.

After work, we drove to the gym to do PT. After PT, we showered and went out as a team we to eat. We had leftover money from our budget this week so we were able to go out and have a good time with everyone. It was really fun to chat outside of the office and it was a good time for bonding.

After dinner and back in our room, Kodiak introduced us to a new TV show called Quantico. We only saw the first episode and as confused as it left me, it was a really good show and I enjoyed it. I then packed lunch for tomorrow and got ready for bed.


Day 123 - Friday (13), It's Friday the 13th! Today really dragged on. It was like if someone bewitched the clock to move extra slow.

We did PT today after work. I spent an hour playing basketball outside with some of the boys. It was pretty fun. The weather right now is the perfect condition to play basketball outdoors. It's a cloudy overcasting, not exactly cold, but that refreshing weather with a nice breeze. That's my perfect weather I like to play outside in.

After PT, I took a shower and did laundry. Kristina and I went to get dinner at a place called Salata, which is a salad bar. It was really good and well worth the money spent. There were a lot of toppings in which Kristina and I loaded our salads up. We spent the rest of the night relaxing in our room watching TV shows on our laptop.


Day 124 - Saturday (14), Did not enjoy waking up early, but I drove Kristina to the gym so she could do her classes and I worked out for a little bit also.

Afterwards, I took Kristina with me on a mission assigned by my Dad. I was suppose to find this red button that made a bubble in the bayou and push it. So I drove all the way to downtown Houston, more specially by the bayou area, in search for this big red button. Apparently I passed it and didn't notice it. So we spent a good 10 minutes scouring the entire park for this button before I went onto Yelp to get some pictures as visual cues. Finally I was able to decipher the pictures as to where the location of the red button was. I pushed the red button and ran to get a better view. Guess what I saw? Nothing in the waters. The couple next to me said they pushed it also and thought it was turned off because they saw nothing also. After they said that, then I thought to myself,  "I did not drive all the way downtown to not see this bubble in the bayou." So I had Kristina push it a few more times and suddenly we finally saw the bubble. I took my pictures and videos as visual evidence of proof for my Dad, then we left to start heading back to the hotel and to also get coffee because I have wanted to get Kristina tea for dragging her on this mission.

We got back to the hotel and hung around for a few hours before we headed out for another team dinner. We went to this Thai buffet place and I was pleasantly surprised that they had several vegetarian dishes. It was all very tasty and I really enjoyed it. We ate until we were all stuffed.


Day 125 - Sunday (15), Today was a very lazy and chill day for our last Sunday here in Houston. I mainly stayed in our room just relaxing, watching some videos and working a little bit on an essay. We also cleaned our kitchen trying to organize non-perishable items that we can take with us back to campus and for Round 2. Everything else that we didn't store in our black bin will either have to get eaten or will get thrown out on Thursday. So Kristina and I are trying to get the boys to eat as much as possible so we don't have to throw away much of the food.

Thanksgiving Meal

My delicious salad from Salata

Found this violin sculpture in Downtown Houston

Found the red button!

The Most Uneventful Week (Seriously)

Day 112 - Monday (2), Another rough Monday start waking up. Everyday I tell myself to get to bed earlier, it just simply doesn't happen. I need to fix this issue.

We had another pizza party at work today. Totally out of the blue. Our boss, Liz, decided that since it was too quiet at work today (well it's a Monday), she said "ok guys, we're having pizza today." She's just a genuinely nice person and she's fed us so much food already. Plus she's planning a Thanksgiving dinner for the entire office next week. No, not a potluck, she's going to buy Thanksgiving dinner for the entire staff! Turkey, stuffing, green beans, mash potatoes, thanksgiving food. What kind of person thinks of this stuff?! But thanks Liz!

Low key evening when we got home from work. I helped Kristina cooked dinner and we had our team meeting today. We went over a few things from our agenda and then for the learning activities, I learned about the solar system and art therapy. I really enjoyed the art therapy; it was an interesting and enjoyable subject. We had to chose 6 of our favorite colors and then write down six things that was important to us. I put down family, friends, traveling, basketball, food, and my background/heritage. Then we had an outline of the human body where we colored in our six things that was important to us. We then had a discussion on why we colored where we colored. (See pic below)

I'm also trying to finish up the wraps on the Houston portfolio and slowly attacking some of my college essays at the same time. I haven't heard back from some schools if they'll waive my application fee yet, but I think I'm just going to start and apply anyways. Especially to the schools I that I could see myself at.


Day 113 - Tuesday (3), Another busy, busy day at the office for me! I can't wait until I am done with this portfolio. The Houston one is almost done. About a page and a half to go! But that will get finished tomorrow since I haven't received all the information yet.

After work, majority of the team went to the zoo. I found out later that they went to the mall instead because they didn't make it to the zoo in time before they closed the booths for admission entry. I stayed behind so I could finish up some final touches on the Houston portfolio and start the Austin one. We're on a pretty good track right now as to getting in done if there are no unforeseen circumstances tomorrow at work.

I finally was able to get to bed early tonight! We had dinner, then I watched the newest episode of Blindspot, packed lunch, showered, and got into bed by 9:30. I checked my social media, wrote in my blog, then went to bed. Can't believe tomorrow is already Wednesday. This week so going so fast. And on Thursday, that marks two weeks remaining here in Houston.

Day 114 - Wednesday (4), After a long day at work, I finally finished the Houston portfolio and have one small section left of the Austin one which I'm waiting for the rest of the info to finish it. I still have to go through and proofread all of it, but for the most part, the designing of the portfolio should be finished.

After work, we went to the gym for PT. I went outside with a few others to play soccer on the field. It was kind of a bad idea. As much fun as I had playing soccer, I got bit by so many mosquitoes. I have approximately 21 mosquitoes bites. You can bet that I took a shower as soon as I got back at the hotel to wash off. I then put some calendula on it to help with the itching. When these Texas mosquitoes bite, they don't leave a little welt like the one in CA does, they leave a huge welt. I've had some as big as my entire palm. The bites are a pain in the butt. Some don't itch, but some of the welts will itch like crazy to the point that if even the slightest amount of air brushes by it, it will itch like crazy.

I have a scholarship deadline coming up just around the corner so I worked on the the essay before dinner. I also watched the Country Music Awards (CMAs) on TV.

Day 115 - Thursday (5), Today since the portfolios are for the most part 100% completed, I got the chance to work on some college essays and scholarships. Like I may have mentioned before, I have one due on Monday so I have to get a rough draft done by Friday night, have it reviewed and edit it on Saturday and Sunday. Hopefully it will get submitted Sunday evening.

After work, we did PT at the gym. I did some weights in the gym first, then played basketball outside. I got bit by a half dozen more mosquitoes so I'm not to happy about having big, red, itchy welts right now.

I made dinner tonight which was Pad Thai. It was a quick and easy dish. It tasted alright - I felt like I added too much rice vinegar although I did add as much as the recipe asked for. I don't have that magical touch my parents have whenever they touch food and it turns into something spectacular.

Today also marks two weeks left of Round 1. I can't believe we're a more than 1/3 of the ways done with this program. I think it's like 167 more days left!

Day 116 - Friday (6), Today was a quick Friday at work. I had a write a few paragraphs summarizing Round 1, then I worked on the scholarship essay that was due on Monday. A little bit behind on the essay, but with a few good hour tonight and plenty of it tomorrow, we should be good.

After work, majority of the team went to go rock climbing. I chose to stay behind to take that quiet time to work more on my essay. It was quite nice to finally have some quiet time where I was able to work undisturbed for the most part.

Day 117 - Saturday (7), Woke up a bit earlier than I wanted to today, but I wanted to go to the gym. I always enjoy working out in the morning because you can just get it out of the way and have the afternoon free. In addition to that, it increases your metabolism and just makes me feel better when I work out in the mornings.

Today was another one of those cloudy and rainy Saturdays, but I didn't mind much. I dedicated most of the afternoon to writing my essay and its seems almost done for the most part. And thanks to my parents for helping me out with it.

Day 118 - Sunday (8), Today was a very quiet day. I had the room to myself for a good 5-6 hours. Part of the team went to the mall to set up an AmeriCorps recruiting table and afterwards, they went shopping. So with that good 6 hours of pure quiet, I was able to complete and submit my essay with the help of my parents.

There was really nothing much more to today. It mainly consisted of me sitting in my bed, typing away. Hopefully, these next few weeks will be more interesting especially that we will have less than two week before arriving back onto campus. There will be plenty of stories to share and listen. I'm quite excited for that.

I threw away the original one I did, but I made another one. This is as close to a replica as it will get. If you click on the picture, it should enlarge so you can read the text.

Found this at the mall. This is for all you wine drinkers at there! 

Disclaimer: this does not apply to my Mom because she already is smart and has all the wisdom in the world.

Pad Thai - didn't look too bad, but it could have tasted better in my opinion.

FARE Walk for Food Allergy - they promised us doughnuts for last Saturday morning, but since the event got cancelled, we never got doughnuts. But on Wednesday, they kept their promise and delivered us doughnuts, which was so nice of them!


Sorry for the lack of pictures this week. It was pretty much an uneventful week for me as you can tell by all the work needed to be done for the portfolios and essays. 

Another Wet Weekend

Day 105 - Monday (26), Today went by pretty quick at work. I spent majority of my time at the office working on designing a portfolio for my team. Our team has to make 2 portfolios this round, one for Austin and one for Houston, that details what we did in each city. So we'll talk about what kind of work we did in the office, what our ISPs were, what could have been better, etc. It's a debrief on Round 1 in which we'll have to present it when we arrive back on campus.

After work, while majority of the people went grocery shopping, I did a Insanity workout. It's similar to P90x where you do what's on the screen but Insanity targets different muscles groups and things along those lines. Insanity almost just about almost killed my legs and my right knee.

Day 106 - Tuesday (27), I was very busy today at work! I had a huge stack of papers that I had to get through. I had to add all the cost calculations, make sure they matched what was given to me, review labor and equipment hours and made sure they matched up. Once all that was sorted through, I had to insert them into an excel sheet. That took majority of the day.

My sister, Corey, called me today which was a pleasant surprise! I haven't spoken/texted my sister in while so it was great to be able to talk to her and hear her voice again. I really miss being able to talk/hang out with my sister and just be able to have her around like I did when we were both back at home in high school. So her phone call was the highlight of my day.

After work, we did the baseline test for PT. The baseline test is the test we did back on campus that consists of 1.5 mile, a timed minute of sit-ups and push-ups. Our team wanted to do it again to see where we stood compared to our original results back at campus. I improved in every category so I was decently satisfied with myself.

I spent the night washing my laundry, working on college applications, and packing for the morning. Tomorrow, we are going to College Station, TX to get a tour of Disaster City, which is a facility full of mock up and simulation on how to do search and rescue for disasters. Since we're not leaving until 8:30 tomorrow morning, we get to sleep in for an extra hour and a half! I'm very excited about that and on that note, I'm going to bed! 

Day 107 - Wednesday (28), Today we drove a hour and a half to College Station. We got there early so we stopped at a coffee shop where I purchased an Arnold Palmer and an apple fritter. Both were very delicious. There were quite a few college students studying at the coffee shop, so it seemed like a popular hang out place. The city was very nice and I really liked the vibe of College Station which is where Texas A&M is located. I could see myself living in that kind of city where it wasn't too crowded with cars and building and I saw people using bikes.

After coffee, we drove a couple miles down the road to Disaster City where we got a tour of the facility with a few other FEMA Corps team. We saw buildings in shambles/destroyed to pieces and other wrecked building that they use for simulation if an actual disaster was to come through and wreck it. Disaster City is a huge practice/operation facility for where people train and learn about disaster. We also saw them practice putting out fires. We were able to get pretty close to see the action, but it came with a consequence. We came out smelling like smoke! :) It was really cool to see all the work that goes on behind the scenes of a fire and the evaluation/thought process that goes on when conducting a search and rescue. There were so many things/strategies to think about especially for search and rescue - how many people were in the building, is it safe to go inside, how to extract people without this part of the building falling down and things along those lines. So it was neat to see what actually goes into this job.

After Disaster City, we went to go hang out with Gulf 2, which is another team from our Vicksburg campus. Some of them went ice skating, while I took the some of the boys on my team to the mall. The mall was decently sized and had a good amount of stores in it. We spent about 3 hours walking around the mall and the only thing I purchase was a smoothie and it was really good, Strawberry Pina-Colada!

We left College Station around 7 pm and got back at 8:30 in Houston. I took a shower, got lunch ready for the morning, and went to bed.


Day 108 - Thursday (29), Today was a busy day for me at work. I have a few deadlines coming up and there's still so much work to do still. I have less than a week to put together and design my team's two portfolios. Plus I'm trying to do college applications at the same time. So I have a lot of work to do and stressing about the little time left before the deadline.

We left work a little bit late today. We were suppose to do PT today but we had to get the oil change in the van so we're doing it tomorrow instead. I spent the night working on media for my speciality role.


Day 109 - Friday (30), Today was a very long day for us. We had work as usual. I worked on designing and formatting my team's portfolio all day.

After work, we went back to the hotel for a bit and got changed to go to our ISP. We are setting up for a run/walk for an organization called FARE. They are an organization that promotes awareness for food allergy, so nut, gluten free, etc. We hung up a bunch of ribbons and decorated the front entrance of Minute Maid Park. We got done pretty late so we all went to bed upon arrival home because we are also helping them set up in the morning at 6:30.


Day 110 - Saturday (31), Happy Halloween! Today we left our hotel at 6 am to drive downtown to Minute Maid Park to help set up for the run/walk. Before we were about to take off, we got a call that the event had been canceled due got the weather. The weather was very nasty earlier this morning at like 2:30 am. I was woken up by the hard pounding of the rain on the window, the flashes of lightning and the sound of thunder. There were also more flood warnings issued today.

Although the event got cancelled, we drove down to help them take everything down. It was a little heartbreaking to take it all down just after we got it set up last night. There were quite a few pop-up tents that got destroyed by the wind so we had to take those down throw them away. The organization, FARE, gave us a bunch of the food that they were going to hand out to the participants. We received boxes of food such as bananas, oranges, nut free granola bars, sunflower seed "peanut" butter, cookies and cases of water. They wanted to keep giving us more, but we couldn't eat it all before we headed back to campus. Plus the bananas and oranges wouldn't would spoil before we could get to all of them. They were very generous and treated us very nicely! I really enjoyed working with them and wished the event would have been a little more successful.

After taking everything down, we drove back to the hotel. We got caught in a nasty rain cloud and I had drive super slow because I could not see anything in front of me besides a couple car lengths. So it took a little longer than usual to get back, but we got back safely nonetheless.

I took a shower upon arrival back at the hotel because the weather outside was a little humid and sticky. I worked on a college essay for a little bit before I let the boys use my computer to watch a scary movie. While they were watching their movie, I watched some Netflix on my phone.

After the boys finished their movie, us girls went out to the mall and hung out their for a couple hours. It was a pretty nice mall with plenty of well-known stores. It was semi-crowded due to the fact that it was Halloween so there were a bunch of parents and kids trick or treating for candy from store to store. I really didn't buy anything. There are things that I would like to have owned, but I don't need anymore clothes or shoes than I already have with me. It would also present a difficulty for me to lug it back to campus and home. The only thing I bought is Starbucks because I had a 50% off coupon for espresso. So I enjoyed that and it was only my second Starbucks drink since arriving in Houston.


Day 111 - Sunday (November 1), Another rainy and cloudy day in Houston. This morning was a slow start. We stayed in our room for majority of the day due to the weather outside. I worked on the team portfolio for a bit and another page is almost done. The Houston portfolio is almost done(ish). There's around 6 more pages to do from scratch not to mention that we haven't even started on the Austin one. Since we don't have much time left, I don't have enough time to plan and design another portfolio for Austin so the Austin one is just going to be using the same outline and design as the Houston portfolio, but just different content for the body of the portfolio.

We left for the gym around 3 in the afternoon and I got a pretty good workout in. Since I was cooped up in the hotel all day this morning, the gym was somewhere where I could let all of my energy out by doing resistance training, some running and letting loose on the basketball court. It was nice to be able to do that and relax and clear your head for a bit. Let the stress out for a while.

Shortly after we got back from the gym, a few of us went to the grocery to buy food for this week. I'm going to attempt at making my Dad's Pad Thai dish and hopefully that turns out ok. All of the recipes that I have been making for my team, majority of them I have never made before. I've always seen my parents make them, but never really bothered to learn. So that's something that will have to change if I want to learn how to cook and eat healthy. I need to start helping my parents out in the kitchen a little more and hopefully I'll pick up a few hints and tips here and there.

Putting out fires from the train

Houston Astros Baseball Field at Minute Maid Park

All the food that was given to us. We took the out of the boxes and put the inside the blue reusable bag. From bananas to your left, then oranges, granola bars, sunflower "peanut butter", and cases of water.