This will be the last post for this year. I will be flying home for Christmas, so starting today, I am going to be taking a short hiatus so I can spend more time with my family and friends. I will still be writing, but pen and paper style, a little bit over Christmas so if I have the time, I will write a brief overview of my break for you guys when I return.
With that, stay safe and warm over the holidays, and I wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Years from the Ruder Family!!
Day 154 - Monday (14), Today was a stressful day at work. I have a huge report due tomorrow and I'm quite behind right now. I have 8 pages and each page takes approx. one hour to complete. So it's really slow and tedious work.
After work, I drove around Columbia for two hours dropping people off because we have two hours to kill before we can return back to housing.
When we returned to housing, I took a short break and headed back to finish my report for tomorrow. It took about 5 hours until I was somewhat satisfied with the report. After that, I went straight to bed.
Day 155 - Tuesday (15), I finished my report today and presented to the branch director for PA. He wasn't happy about how many financial discrepancies there were between the two set of data I was given and told to compare. So he had me go back and make updates to the data and make them match.
After work, we drove around Five Points, which is a neat little outside outlet full of stores near our housing. It's already decked out in lights and ribbons for Christmas, which I really like.
When we got home, we had dinner. After that, I took advantage of church's gym and played basketball for about an hour and a half.
Day 156- Wednesday (16), Today I spent majority of the day working on updating data to make sure finances match. Like before, it's slow and tedious. It requires much patience and not much room to screw up because we're playing around with large sums of money.
For PT today, we played soccer with our sister team - Gulf 3. When I first got to this program, I was really bad at soccer because it was a sport I never played growing up. I still am really bad at soccer and I mean really bad, but not as bad as when I first got here. So a slight improvement.
After PT, I took a shower and tried to watch the US Women's Soccer game, but it wasn't on any of our channels so I gave up trying to watch it and instead I did online Christmas shopping. Or more like Christmas researching. If you don't remember from one of my previous blogs, my family and I are doing a non-stuff Christmas this year.
Day 157 - Thursday (17), Today at work was mainly the same. I spent majority of the day updating finances so they match our online database.
After work, we did an ISP at the Salvation Army. The Salvation Army does an event where families can apply on their website to receive Christmas gifts for their kids due to them being in a financial crisis or at or below the poverty line. So we helped with retrieving gifts from the back of their warehouse and bringing them up to the front.
Half of the team went to see the opening premiere of the new Star Wars today. I originally was going to go with them, but I decided to hold it off until I got home to see it with my Dad. We've been seeing quite few movies together over these past couple of years and since I've been gone, I've haven't been able to see any with him. So I wanted to do that with him.
I did more Christmas researching today. I've probably changed everyone's gifts at least a few times, except for my Mom's. Her's was the easiest, but it did take me a few days to think of it. I think she's going to like it. It's been fun trying to brainstorm for gifts. It really tested my knowledge of how well I know my family and their interests in addition to what they like to do instead of setting a physical object in front of them and saying "Merry Christmas!" I'm trying to do stuff meaningful for them and actually put thought, time, and effort into these gifts. I really hope they all like it.
Day 158 - Friday (18), Today I finished fixing/updating my financial data and it's looking pretty good so far. But since one data is an electronic database, it needs to checked on a constant basis since numbers can change at anytime.
After work, we dropped off a couple members around town and then a few of us went to a mall. I spent majority of my time in Barnes and Nobles rifling through books.
We got home around 6 pm and I made dinner tonight, which was my Mom's chili. I really enjoyed it and it was warming since the last few days have been muggy and rainy. It's definitely starting to get a little colder here.
I spent part of the night talking to the other AmeriCorps teams stationed in Sacramento. I also just sat in the stairwell listening to Christmas music and making plans with friends for when I got home. One of my all time favorite Christmas songs of all time is Grown-Up Christmas List. I could just listen to it over and over again.
Day 159 - Saturday (19), Well, I had quite the day today! We had a Stafford ISP with the St. Bernard Project in which we cleaned out insulation from the ceiling. The house was flooded by the flood so there was mold damage on the ceiling. And since the ceiling was scheduled to be replaced, we had to take out the insulation before they could tear the ceiling down.
A few of us got to climb in the attic while half of us stayed below. We cut a square hole in the ceiling, taped a trash bag under the hole and swept all the insulation into the bag.
We were in the final stages of cleaning out the last of the insulation, when there was an emergency. We found out that Kristina didn't tell us she was allergic to mold so she had an allergic reaction to it. She was breaking out into hives and couldn't talk or swallow very well due to her throat, so Kodiak and I took her to the ER. As we were driving to the ER, there was a funeral procession going on and I felt kind of bad cutting through it, but I needed the exit that was coming up. The one time that a government licensed vehicle actually came in handy!
We arrived to the ER, got her checked in and they took her to the back and gave her an IV line and some shots. We made it to the ER just in the nick of time. The doctor said that within another five minute, it would have gotten way worse with way more severe consequences. Within an hour after the shots and IV line, she started to look much better and was returning slowly back to her normal self. We got her discharged, picked up the rest of the crew, headed back to housing and told everyone to take showers. We dumped all our clothes that were exposed to mold downstairs so she didn't have any contact with them and then put her to bed.
After putting her to bed, I myself fell asleep for a hour tired from this morning's activities. When I finally came back to life, Kodiak and I watched a movithat was playing on TV and we also watched some Food Network's Chopped.
Day 160 - Sunday (20), Today was a lazy Sunday. I slept in until about 11 am and took a drive through Five Points dropping people off.
After we got back, I made myself lunch and watched football for a few hours. We were supposed to go grocery shopping and do laundry today, but we left our government credit card card at work so we were unable to do either of those. But we will be grocery shopping and doing laundry tomorrow when we get off of work.
Day 161 - Monday (21), Today was a rather slow day at work. It really dragged on for me because I know that I'm going home this week so it seems like someone bewitched the clock to move extra slow.
Today, Kodiak is leaving for Christmas so we dropped him off at the airport. After that we spent about 2 hours at the laundromat washing and drying our clothes. This laundromat is cheaper that any other ones we have been to.
After laundry, we dropped the boys back at housing and then Kristina, Madeleine and I went grocery shopping. Since people are leaving this week including me, our budget is smaller than usual due to absences. Kristina and I picked up a bunch of frozen food and quick meals for the boys because once Kristina and I leave for break, the boys won't really cook so we just bought them frozen pizzas and frozen meals.
I made dinner for Kristina and I when we returned back from shopping. I made vegetarian fajitas. I used corn tortillas opposed to whole wheat or flour tortillas because it's healthier. I sautéed corn, bell peppers, and onions and mixed that into a refried/black bean mixture. I also added a little dash of spices here and there.
We also rented a redbox movie and had a movie night. After that, I took a shower, downloaded some songs and put them in my phone and went to bed.
Day 162 - Tuesday (22), Today, all the clouds from the sky, just decided that they would spread their joy all over Columbia today. It rained extremely hard that it woke me up from my sleep.
Walking out the door this morning was a lovely surprise. It rained so hard that it made difficult to drive. I was driving so slow because visibility was not optimal. Probably like 35-40 mph on a 70 mph highway if that gives you a better perspective. The windshield wipers were all the way on high and they almost rendered useless in this situation.
Nonetheless, we made it to work. Or I thought we did. One of my team member informed me that he forgot his badge back at lodging so I had to drive all the way back. By the time we made it back to lodging, weather was improving. I made some tea inside before we left to drive to work...again.
Today was the same at work. It went by a little faster than yesterday, but that's probably due to the fact that I missed the first 1.5 hours.
We were going to do PT after work today, but the grass fields were too wet and muddy so we did individual PT today. So for the two hours we had to kill, we drove to downtown Columbia. It was the first real time I had actually been able to explore downtown. I would always drive through it, but it was really nice to walk through it.
At 6, we dropped everyone back at housing, and Alex and I went to go grab dinner at Ramen House, a ramen place I spotted a couple weeks ago and scouted out the menu today when we walking around downtown killing time. The ramen was very delicious and I ate very last bit with no struggle. It reminded me of the ramen house that my family would always go to in downtown Sacramento. As matter of fact, this is the first bowl of ramen I have eaten in this program, and that includes the microwave ramen also!
For my individual PT today, I played basketball in the gym. For the first half and hour, I shot by myself. Then for the last half, I played a game with Drew and Nic, which was extremely fun. But I could not wait to take a shower. I was disgustingly gross and covered in sweat so it felt very satisfying to wash it all off and be clean.
Day 163 - Wednesday (23), My day technically started with me finishing yesterday's blog and me waking up at 2:30 am to drop Kristina off at the bus station so she could catch her ride home back to Virginia.
Today was another one of those rainy days. Only four of us went to work today, two stayed behind sick, and two had already left for break. Today went by extremely slow because we had no work due to our POC being out of office and majority of other FEMA employees were also out.
The only action we got today was a tornado warning. We got the emergency alert on our phones and then we had to go down all the way to the basement and hangout there until the tornado warnings were lifted.
We finally left work at 4. I dropped Sean off at a barbershop and I went with a few others to the mall to hangout there until 6. We dropped a couple people back at home and a few of us went to Starbucks to use their free Wi-Fi.
I spent the evening watching a movie that was running on TV. I also watched the boys sword fight with foam pool noodles - they just saw Star Wars, and then I packed.
For my individual PT today, I played basketball in the gym. For the first half and hour, I shot by myself. Then for the last half, I played a game with Drew and Nic, which was extremely fun. But I could not wait to take a shower. I was disgustingly gross and covered in sweat so it felt very satisfying to wash it all off and be clean.
Day 163 - Wednesday (23), My day technically started with me finishing yesterday's blog and me waking up at 2:30 am to drop Kristina off at the bus station so she could catch her ride home back to Virginia.
Today was another one of those rainy days. Only four of us went to work today, two stayed behind sick, and two had already left for break. Today went by extremely slow because we had no work due to our POC being out of office and majority of other FEMA employees were also out.
The only action we got today was a tornado warning. We got the emergency alert on our phones and then we had to go down all the way to the basement and hangout there until the tornado warnings were lifted.
We finally left work at 4. I dropped Sean off at a barbershop and I went with a few others to the mall to hangout there until 6. We dropped a couple people back at home and a few of us went to Starbucks to use their free Wi-Fi.
I spent the evening watching a movie that was running on TV. I also watched the boys sword fight with foam pool noodles - they just saw Star Wars, and then I packed.
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