Parting Words

Well, this is it. This is where this particular chapter comes to an end. On April 21, 2016, I alongside with my team, friends, and fellow corps members have completed our 10 month of national service in AmeriCorps NCCC FEMA Corps and have successfully graduated from the program. I can say that through all the ups and downs that this program has provided me, I regret nothing.

This program supplied me with one of the hardest years that I have ever encountered. It was extremely challenging at times, but what I got in return was more than I could have asked for. AmeriCorps NCCC throws you into situations that you may never have been exposed to and you have to find a way to quickly adapt or you'll find yourself struggling to keep up. Through this method of never knowing where you might end up or what you may do, I have gained much along the way. Besides gaining office, communication, and leadership skills, I have gotten to know more about myself. I learned more about the kind of person I was, how I tend to react in certain situations, and the ability to gain more empathy and compassion for others.

Looking back to the summer before I joined AmeriCorps, I was in a totally different world. I had a different mentality, a different mindset about life, narrow minded perspective, impatient, and at times, I was an unlikeable person. I am humiliated at who I was. AmeriCorps NCCC has taught me much about myself. I have been in situations that I have never wanted to be put in because, in some cases, I knew that it wouldn't showcase me in the best light to my teammates and others around me. But, through those scenarios, I have learned how to better adjust my behaviors and actions. I have better learned to adapt to others around me. To make the improved version of who I am now, I had to be put into those situations or I never would have learned, found out what I needed to fix, and then fix it. This whole entire 10 months was a chapter about self-development, one thing that the AmeriCorps NCCC Southern Region Campus focuses on the most. Not only do they care about all the good things that each member has done for our nation, but their main focus is on you, something in which I didn't realize until I reflected upon these last 10 months. All the classes, trainings, activities, they were tools to help each individual corps member grow. During CTI, it was an evaluation month. During the rounds and transitions, you learn about yourself, you adjust, and you grow. And at graduation/closure week, you reflect and you celebrate. But it doesn't just stop there. The Southern Region makes sure they give you the tools to keep growing and to keep developing yourself.

I am truly thankful for the time I have spent on the Southern Region Campus. They are by far the best campus out of the total five campuses across the nation. They have the most supportive and caring staff in addition to the largest campus with acres of grounds to play and roam around. I am also extremely thankful for the people that I have met and made friends with. AmeriCorps NCCC FEMA Corps, the Southern Region Campus, and the Class of XXII have supplied with the memories and experience of a lifetime that I will never forget. I am proud to be an AmeriCorps member and proud to now be an AmeriCorps Alum.


**I also really want to thank all of you that have stuck around and read my blogs in addition to watching a couple of them also. Thank you for all of your support!


For something a little bit more fun, below, I have vlogged a little bit of my last week on campus and my travels back home. Enjoy!

https://youtu.be/elITq62nugU

-KR

Spring Break!!

Day 245 - Monday (14), Today we were able to get a little bit of lie in. We didn't have to go to work in the morning due to the fact that we were visiting the Alabama Emergency Operations Center (EOC) in Clanton, Al. We left the hotel around 10 am and drove north for about 40 minutes before arriving.

We were able to get a tour of the facilities including a visit to their security room which had monitors full of camera footage, lots of wires and blinking lights. They also let us down to their operation floor which hadn't been in full use since the 2011 tornadoes. It was cool to see all of that and listen to a couple speeches given by the director of the Alabama EMA and the State Coordinating Officer (SCO).

We returned back to work after our EOC tour and worked in the office for a few hours. I worked on the portfolio and prepped for my iPhone class.

The night was was pretty eventful except for working on my essays.

I had to drive Kristina to the ER because she has appendicitis. Thankfully it didn't explore on her yet or she would have gotten surgery. The doctors recommended she get surgery anyways, not she refused so they gave her antibiotics and prescribed her painkiller for her stomach pain. She stayed at the ER for quite a while until... (to be continued.)

Summit 1 and Hickory 4

Out on the Operation Floor

Day 246 - Tuesday (15), My morning started way too early. I fell asleep for about an hourish before Madeleine woke me up around 1:45 am to go pick up Kristina from the ER. Thankfully the drive from our hotel to the hospital wasn't that long so we were back within 30 minutes. I went straight back to bed when we got back.

At work, I taught an afternoon iPhone class. I really enjoy teaching these classes because I get to play with iPhone and teach people cool things. Plus teaching gives me a little bit more of self confidence because I know that I can stand up in front of people and teach it successfully.

I started cooking dinner when we got back to the hotel. I had finished boiling my pasta and was about finished with the broccoli before I was summoned elsewhere.

I had to chauffeur a few people today. I dropped Kodiak off to get a haircut and I took Sean and Kristina to Walgreens so they could get prescriptions from the pharmacy. I also drove them to Walmart.

After a little bit over an hour of galavanting around, we returned back to the hotel where I finished making dinner. I thought it was pretty good and apparently Madeleine and Kristina liked it. After the boys and I got some, they ate the entire pot aka 3-4 bowls each. Well, looks like I'll be making that dish again. I still have extras of the ingredients to make the sauce which is the key ingredient :).

After dinner, I finished and submitted my essays. Yay, I'm finally done writing essays! Or at least for now. A few more may pop up here or there for scholarships and etc.

Day 247 - Wednesday (16), This morning when I was going through my morning routine of checking all my social media, I ran across something really cool! Its similar to the freerice.com where you raise rice by matching the correct words and definitions together. This one is called the UNICEF Tap Water Project. It's super cool. The objective is to raise clean water for children in countries that don't have access to clean water or have to walk miles after miles to obtain it. This is all you have to do - for every five minutes that you go without using your phone, it raises a day's worth of water for a child. I did it while I was at work, because I don't use my phone that often. And because I have two phones, I did it on both of them too. Here's the website to get started and to learn more. I really would love if you guys gave it a shot!


https://tap.unicefusa.org/mobile


Tip: make sure you are connected to Wi-Fi because I am unaware of how much data this may take if you are connected on LTE and connect to a power source! It may drain your phone quickly if you don't have it set on the right settings and/or your phone is slightly old.

But moving on with the rest of the day, I caught up on some writing at work and worked on the portfolio for the rest of the day. I also picked up Kristina around lunch time and drove her to pick up her meds for her stomach pain. Dropped her back off at the hotel and returned to work.

We hit the gym after work and that really nice. Back at the hotel, housekeeping cleaned our rooms, but didn't give us new towels so I went downstairs to request new ones. That took a couple hours since they had to wash and dry them. I took a shower once we got the towels.

I then packed for the weekend in which I'm spending with my Grandma and her husband, Jon. So that should be really fun!

I actually did a little more than this today, I just didn't screenshot every time I did it. But it's super cool. You can do it when you sleep, but just make sure you plug in your phone!

Day 248 - Thursday (17), Since today was the last workday this week for our team, I had to do all my weekly reports. I did a weekly report for my team and did another one for my media role. With those combined, it took a good chunk of time out of my day.

The other half of the day, I spent that working on the portfolio and some time researching what to do in Montgomery and Birmingham when my Grandma arrives later this evening.

The rest of the day went by smoothly. Grandma and Jon picked me up at the hotel and I went over to theirs. We went out to dinner at a sushi restaurant. It was delicious! I ordered a side salad and a veggie sushi roll. Both were amazing and I loved it.


Day 249 - Friday (18), The hotel we were staying at had a continental breakfast so we ate breakfast here.

We then drove into downtown Montgomery, and did a lot of walking and tourist stuff. We first stopped of at the Civil Rights Memorial Center and learned about the history of the movement, MLK Jr., and 40 others that had died. We then took a stroll up to the capital before crossing the street to visit the the First Confederate White House. It was tiny. In other words, it was just a house that was used as the White House. Jefferson Davis and his wife lived in the house so we got to see the bedrooms, parlors, dining room, artifacts that he used and clothing he wore.

The Department of Archives and History were located right next to the White House so we took a peek inside. Apparently today was a field trip day for elementary school kids so there were a bunch of kids from several different schools milling around in masses.

We stopped at for lunch at a Irish Pub. I ordered a salad and that was good, but you can't go too wrong with a house salad.

After lunch we walked around some more, exploring the Alley, a small area with a few restaurants, looked at the churches, walked down to the Riverwalk, and just browsed around. Like last time when I went downtown, excluding the kids, downtown was pretty empty. There wasn't many people present.

It started to sprinkle a bit so we headed back to the car and drove back to the hotel. After a hour or so, we got hungry and drove to Carrabba's, an Italian restaurant. I ordered spaghetti with pomodoro sauce and minestrone soup as a side. The minestrone was very good and I now wished I ordered that as the main dish. The pasta was good as well, but I think I enjoyed the soup a bit more.


Day 250 - Saturday (19), We woke up a bit earlier this morning so we could arrive at Birmingham at a decent time.

We are breakfast downstairs, packed the car, and started our trip to Birmingham. We arrived around 10:30 am and our first stop was the Civil Rights Institute. The museum was a lot bigger than I anticipated and pretty cool. It had multiple sections, which were corresponded by years, and each section covered the major events that took place that year. It took us through MLK Jr., his letter from the jailhouse, the church bombings that killed 4 girls and the investigations, the KKK, and a lot more. It was a lot of information to absorb. It also felt weird to me that we were so close and were standing on the exact places that some events took place just about 50 years ago.

After the museum, we went out to lunch at Eli's Jerusalem Grill, a Middle Eastern cuisine. Best meal besides the sushi so far. I order the vegetarian plate and it was really good! The plate contained falafel (really good), rice, couscous, red cabbage, tomato salsa, hummus, quinoa, and pita bread. It was a lot of food, but all really tasty!

After lunch, we stopped at Vulcan Park to see the skyline and the largest cast iron statue. It was a bit windy and foggy so we didn't stay outside too long. We also went into the information center and checked that out. It was about how they built the statue.

There was a wedding practice going on while we were at the park. I don't know how the bride and her bridesmaid didn't freeze to death because it was pretty windy. I had about two jackets on and I was still slightly chilled out.

We also went up the tower that the statue was built on. There was an elevator, but Grandma wanted to take the stair to get more steps in (she has a Fitbit). There was about 20 short flights of stairs or you could say 10 flights of stairs for each landing. The view from the top was still beautiful. It was a little foggy, but it was still worth the stairs. We took the elevator on the way down though.

After the park and at my Dad's request, we stopped at the jailhouse where MLK Jr. wrote his letter that contained about 7,000 words. The jailhouse was a bit creepy and old, so we took our pictures for proof that we actually were here, read the historic placard, and jumped back into the car and headed out.

Jon's cousin actually lives in Birmingham so we paid a visit to him, his wife, and kids. We went out for dinner at a really good Chinese restaurant. I ordered a tofu dish because I don't eat tofu that often in this program and wanted something else besides my own tofu cooking. I am the only one that cooks tofu/knows how do it properly without making it taste bland. The dish was very good, but at first they messed up my order. I ordered Sizzling Tofu, but they accidentally brought out Sizzling Beef. No thank you! They took it back and remade it.

After dinner, we made our way back to Montgomery.

Day 251 - Sunday (20), Today we woke up and ate breakfast downstairs. We were looking at things to do and when stores opened and realized that nothing opened until noon due to church. So we hung around the table for a bit longer than usual trying to pass some time.

We left our hotel around 10 am, stopped for some gas, Coke (the soda), some snickers, and headed back to Birmingham!

We stopped at the Barber MotorSports Museum. It was one of the coolest museums I have ever seen - it was full of motorcycles from all different eras and race cars. It had 5 floors of race cars and the whole back side of the building was glass so we could see the racetrack. It had people racing motorbikes on it. I think they were practicing because they weren't really bunched up in a group like you see in NASCAR races and it didn't look like they were trying to beat each other. We stayed for about 2.5 hours.

After the museum, we went to another sushi place to grab some "lunch". It was like 3:15 pm. We then headed back to Birmingham. It took us about a hour and a half to get back to our hotel in Montgomery. Grandma really wanted to go back to Sushi Yama for our last dinner so we hung out in our hotel room for a few hours emptying our stomachs before we went out again for sushi. I ordered the same veggie roll again and it was just as good as last time. Way better than the roll I ate earlier today in Birmingham. We also ordered some mochi ice cream for dessert because that's one of Grandma's favorite dessert! I was extremely full from dinner on top of all the green tea I drank with dinner.

We walked back to our hotel and settled down for night. This weekend has been extremely fun and I always love visiting family. So thank you to my Grandma and Jon for driving all the way out here and spending the weekend with me. I had a blast! And also thanks for feeding me! It was all very delicious! Much love! - KR


Below are the pictures from the weekend. Like usual, you can click the little "i" button to view my comments. Thanks guys!


https://goo.gl/photos/rkT65bDaa6AVsEwX9

The Time A Branch Got the Best of Me

Day 238 - Monday (7), Today was a busy day!

At work, I kept fairly busy. I started working on my team's portfolio early so I wouldn't exactly have to cram everything into the last week.

I also had a meeting with our training manager today. We're setting up a few more classes for me to teach and hopefully some iPhone classes because I love iPhones. I also helped her personally with her iPhone for about 2 hours.

After work, we changed out of work clothes and into normal clothes and went grocery shopping. I had no clue what I was going to cook by the time I walked into the store, but I figured something out.

We went to the gym after we finished unpacking the groceries. We stayed for about an hour until we returned home for dinner.

I got some rather good news tonight! SinIce I've been gone from home, my mom has been doing me a favor by opening my mail. Tonight my mom texted me asking if she could open some college mail. She texted back that I got accepted into my first choice school, which is Cal Lutheran! It's located just a little bit north of central LA.

Cal Lutheran was the 5th and final university to respond back so I've finished hearing back from all my other colleges and I've got quite a variety to choose from, especially location wise. My locations are Minnesota (Concordia University- St. Paul), Pennsylvania (Slippery Rock University), Ohio (Ohio University - Athens), California (California Lutheran University), and Florida (University of Tampa). So I got two opposite end of the spectrum here for weather. Hot vs. cold. I'm not any closer to deciding where I'll end up in August/September yet. I still have to research all of my facts for each school, but for the moment, I am leaning towards Cal Lutheran.


Day 239 - Tuesday (8),  I continued where I left off yesterday - the portfolio. This will the fourth and final portfolio that I will have to make. As much as I love coming up with new ideas in my head and turning them into real life, these portfolios are extremely time consuming and tedious. Luckily, I have a mediator that proof-reads all work before they get sent to me so I don't have to read and edit them all. I can just focus on the designing aspect for now and then proof-read everything at the end.

Our team decided to take today off and not do PT so I took some time to myself and worked on a few essays. We had our weekly team meeting today and discussed a few things on our agenda. We're taking a field trip to Clanton, Alabama on Monday to visit the Emergency Operation Center. We're getting a tour of their facilities and meeting a few people. Clanton was originally where we stationed at the beginning of Round 3.


Day 340 - Wednesday (9), Like usual, I spent majority of the day working on the portfolio. It's more technical and precise than I originally made it out to be. It's a slow process, but hopefully it'll look good when I print it out later early next month. I get pretty excited when an idea of mine turns out pretty well when I see it printed out on paper.

After work, we played soccer with Hickory 4. We finally found the right balance that made the teams pretty even so it's a little bit more competitive now.

I made dinner tonight - pita wraps. I almost had to change my meal because I could not find any pita bread. I looked for a good 10 minutes. It's been a little difficult for me to find all the ingredients that I want to use when I cook. The variety of bakery, produce, international foods, and the vegetarian/vegan selection is very limited. I learned a quite a while ago that the south is not very friendly to vegetarians/vegan people.

After dinner, I worked on a couple essays for a college honors program. Whether or not if I get in, it might sway my decision a bit.


Day 341 - Thursday (10), Today was a pretty good day at work. I spent majority of today working on my team's portfolio. Some really good ideas have started popping up in my head so it's been fun trying to create what I'm trying to envision. I also spent about a couple hours in the training department getting notices set up for future classes I will be teaching. I also taught an iPhone class today, which was pretty fun.

After work, we returned back to our hotel and I did a little catching up on writing. I also spent some time Google-searching things to do in Birmingham. My grandma is visiting next weekend so I'm trying to look up some fun things to do and we're going to Birmingham for a couple days. Yes Dad, we will visit the jailhouse! I didn't forget! (This time...)


Day 342 - Friday (11), Today went by pretty smoothly. It was Hickory 4's last day at work in the the JFO. They're wrapping up Round 2 and heading back to campus for transition. We had a good-bye party/lunch for them. There was lots of food - pizza, veggie and fruit platters, sandwiches, wraps, and a lot more.

After work, we went to the gym. I went pretty hard on the elliptical, abs, and arms today. It felt pretty nice to burn off a few calories especially since I ate a piece of pizza earlier today.

I took a shower when we got back to the hotel, ate some dinner and settled down for the night and watched a movie. It was called Room and it was nominated for best picture at the Oscars. My best friend, Kira, recommend it to me and it was a really good movie! It's been such a while since I've actually seen really good movie.


Day 343 - Saturday (12), Started off this morning by playing some disc golf with Kodiak and Drew. It was cloudy outside, but still in the 70s. My least favorite part of the disc golf course is the woods section. There are sections of the woods carved out for disc golf, but you still have to throw your disc very on target because if not, you will be digging your disc out of bushes, branches, thorns, and pokie (is that how you spell it?) things. For example, my disc flew into a bunch of branches and it was hard to extract. I got a nice little cut from a branch sticking out of the ground that I did not see. It was not very fun. I couldn't clean the blood from the scratch because my hands were dirty and I didn't want to touch it. And I also didn't have anything to wipe it with, so I just let the blood dry out.

Since the blood was dry by the time I got back to the hotel, it took a few tries to get majority of the dried blood off. It helped that I took a shower, which got more of the blood off. Thanks to my parents who bought me calendula earlier in the year for mosquito bites, I used some of that to put on my leg. After a few layers and several hours later, the less shallow end of cut showed signs of improvements. I'm just hoping that I don't get a scar!


Day 244 - Sunday (13), Got a super good lie in today with daylight savings. Since the mornings are now dark, I slept right through the morning. 

I started my day by applying for jobs! I applied to a couple - Starbucks and Apple. I also wanted to apply to Barnes and Noble, but they didn't have the positions I wanted so I'm going to wait on that one. I also made a curriculum vitae. I didn't know what that was but I google searched it and made one. So it's basically my resume, but with added areas of interest, honors/awards, education, references, and etc. 

Later in the afternoon, I dropped one of my teammates off at the airport. He took a few days off and went home. The Montgomery airport, similar to the one in Columbia, people are almost non-existent there besides security. It's very unlikely that you'll see another car there when arriving at the airport. I bet TSA is a breeze and there's no sprinting to a gate because the airport is so small. I find it funny because I've never seen anything like that. But after all, I live in a place that has a lot more people and a lot bigger airport. 

After dropping him off, Kristina and I went to Target. The Target in Montgomery is always super crowded and the lines are always full. I just needed to get one thing - a toothbrush - and luckily I got in line at the right time to avoid the longer wait times.  

Shortly after we finished our Target run, we picked up the boys and went grocery shopping. I'm going to making a broccoli pasta salad this week or as my family calls it 'Corey noodles'. Luckily the store had sesame oil, which was the only thing I was worried that the stores here may not carry. Everything else, I found relatively at ease. 

After we unpacked the groceries, Kristina and I made another run to a different grocery store to pick up a couple things that the first groceries store didn't have. Being tax exempt is pretty nice since we don't have to pay taxes, but also at the same time it is a hassle. Stores are reluctant to take our tax ID and we always have to fill out a form and talk with the manager. Then they ask what who we are and AmeriCorps isn't something you can explain in a couple words. It's just a long process.

Lunch with Kodiak last week. Veggie burger. It was one of the couple choices on the menu besides a veggie quesadilla and a caesar salad.

Kodiak, Drew and I out on the AUM disc golf course

My lovely cut. I look so tan in the second pic.

We Love Natural Disasters

Hi everyone,

Sorry for the long absence. It's the final stretch to the end of this round, to graduation, and to the end of our term. I've been taking a break to enjoy my last couple months in this program. 

I just want to give you all a heads up. I will still be doing the blogs, but a little more sporadically. I want to put my main focus, like I said above, to enjoy the end and to finish out this term with some amazing memories.

Thank you all for your support and understanding.

- KR

Day 224 - Monday (22), Today was a fresh start to begin this week. It was cloudy outside for majority of the day due to thunderstorm and bad weather that will be rolling in tomorrow.

We left for work like usual around 7:40 am. I took a couple hours today prepping for my Excel classes that I'm teaching tomorrow. I'm not sure if I told you yet, but FEMA wanted me to teach a few Excel classes to the staff here because Excel is extremely handy if you know how to use it and what you are doing.

After work, we returned back to the hotel to change before we left for grocery shopping. Kristina is gone and has been for the last few days, so this is the first time we went grocery shopping without her and I was in charge of the credit card and responsible for not going over our budget. Gulp. No pressure there! We did fine though.


We drove back to the hotel, and it started raining hard. We unloaded the groceries as quick as we could, parked the van and ran back into the hotel.

We had pizza for dinner...again. For one of the few times, it wasn't burned. I have never eaten so much pizza in my entire life. Throughout this program, I have eaten more pizza in the last 8 months than I have in my 18 years of existence. I definitely need to go on a greasy pizza cleanse when I return home.

Around 10:30 pm, Sean and I went to go pick up Kristina from the airport so she didn't have to take a taxi. The airport is only about 20 minutes from our hotel so it didn't take too long to pick her up and return back to bed at a decent time.


Day 225 - Tuesday (23), Today, I taught my first ever class. Well, that's not actually accurate. I interned for several teaches in high school and taught the class when our teacher was absent. But I taught my first ever Excel class to FEMA staff. I taught 2 today - a beginners/refresher and an intermediate one. I thought both of them went relatively well. My intermediate class was cut short by 10 minutes due to a tornado warning and were requested by our commanding staff to leave early so we could make it home safely.

On that note, there has been another PDS for a tornado watch issued. We had another a couple weeks ago also. It was raining at night pretty hard, and lighted up a little. I fell asleep just before the tornado was suppose to hit/start, but it never came, thank God. We managed to escape all of the tornado but other areas in Mississippi and Louisiana was not so lucky.

Natural disasters have just been following our team! They have never striked on us yet, and hopefully they never will. In Houston, we had really bad rains which caused flooding but it didn't reached us. It stopped just shy of where we were staying. Round 2 in Columbia, we had more flash flooding in addition to a tornado warning where we had to take shelter. And third, we had a tornado that just missed us. Who knows what's next!

Since we in in danger of a possible tornado, we were all grounded in the hotel. It didn't make much difference to us if we could go out or not because we had dinner and our weekly meeting. After that, I watched a couple episodes of Law & Order to keep myself entertained until I went to bed.


Day 226 - Wednesday (24), Today is the day after the tornado. Like I said, we're thankful that none of us got hurt or had to proceed down to the bottom level during the middle of the night.

I slept pretty soundly during the night and only woke up a couple times. We woke up when my alarm went off in the morning and left for work at our usual time. It was chilly and quite a bit windy when we walked outside.

I didn't do too much at work today besides keeping up with my media role and catching up on some writing that I was behind on.

After work, we were going to play soccer but the fields were closed due to weather so we went to the gym instead. I got a decent workout in. Did some core, arms, and cardio before getting in a hydro massage bed to loosen some muscles and kinks.

The night was pretty laid back. We had our team dinner, I took a shower, and got to bed early.


Day 227 - Thursday (25), Today was just another day at work. Nothing going on. The section where I'm working in is External Affairs, and they're de-mobbing next week so there is no work to be done. So to make use of the empty time, I spent a couple hours working on essays.

After work, we had a quick dinner. I made chili tonight, which worked perfectly because it's a relatively quick meal to make. Takes around 20 minutes.

We went to the gym after dinner. Had a pretty good workout and finished it out by sitting in their massage chair for a few minutes.


Day 228 - Friday (26), Finished another week at work! I really enjoy Fridays because it's the day before the weekend and I usually have a good time on the weekends. We've been here for about a month and it's been going by a lot slower than I anticipated. It's probably due to the lack of work our team has been assigned to, but everything has been going smoothly. This round will be over, we'll be graduating, saying goodbyes, and flying home before we know it! But I made quite a few friends so wherever I end of for college next year, I'll know a few in the area!

After work, we hit the gym again. This was definitely the best gym membership that I have signed up for. It's the massage chairs and bed that sealed the deal. Getting out of them makes it feel like your walking on air!

Didn't do too much Friday night. We had our team dinner and watched a few shows together.


Day 229 - Saturday (27), Today we drove to Downtown Montgomery. We walked around for quite a bit. It was a very beautiful day. The sun was shining with a breeze - uppers 60s today. I stopped at a couple historical buildings and passed plenty more on the way. Unfortunately, the capital wasn't open today, but I took a nice walk around the exterior.

I also walked across the street to the Montgomery Department of Archives and History and was able to go in and look around for a few minutes. It was full of history. Since Alabama was a confederate state it made me slightly uncomfortable to be in the building.

After the archives, I took a nice walk back to the van and we then drove to the mall. I was able to pick up a couple things at Target, stopped inside of Ross and World Market before crossing the street to a book store. I spent about 45 minutes in the bookstore looking for new books and reading a bit. If anyone has any book suggestion, I'll take a look into it! I'll enjoy anything as long as it has a good plot, happy ending, books that make you think and I'm always fascinated by war stories. I'm still reading Unbroken, I got sidetracked for a while so gave up reading it. But I'm going to try to finish before I head home.


Day 230 - Sunday (28), Got a good lie in this morning. It was beautiful weather outside today - high was 72 degrees - so I couldn't let a day like today go to waste!

Kodiak, Kristina, and I went on a little outing by ourselves. We first went out to the driving range to hit a few golf balls. This was my first time out on the range so I did remarkably well - NOT. I missed quite a few times and also took out a couple patches of dirt. I am also relatively terrible at mini-golf so it definitely translated over to the driving range.

After the range, we stopped at a coffee shop. I had coffee a couple days ago, so I opted out for a smoothie and bought a couple cookies. Everything was relatively cheap there and tasted good, so hopefully I will go back. They had gelato, plenty of sandwiches, bagel, paninis, and other baked goods.

We had a few hours to ourself when we got back so the cafe so I was able to relax for a bit. We then went grocery shopping and we were able to do it quick enough before the Oscars started, which I watched before I went to bed.

Downtown Montgomery

Out on the golfing range!

Update

Hey guys,

Sorry I've haven't been posting lately. I've been a little occupied with some other activities so I'm taking a short hiatus from these blogs and focusing on my last couple months here. 

I am hoping to resume next weekend. 

Thanks everyone!

-KR

Vlog #2

Hey guys!

Here is this week's post but in vlog form. Sorry that it's late, but I wanted to finish out the end of transition week before I uploaded anything and Wi-Fi was a bit slow in the hotel so it took a lot longer to upload and process than I thought. I hope you guys like it and let me know what you think!

Thanks!


- KR

Here's the link if the video above doesn't work.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jM5SHcn2Clw

Last Week of Round 2

Day 189 - Monday (18), We got today off from FEMA, but that didn't allow us to sleep in though. It's MLK Day meaning that it's a National Day of Service (NDOS) for us.

We left the hotel around 8:45 am. We are doing our NDOS at Harbison State Forest working on some trail maintenance - parts of the trail got affected by the flood so we helped build some new paths and covered/destroyed the pre-existing trails that were affected by the flooding.

We worked on the trails for a few hours before heading back to housing and getting cleaned up.

I spent the rest of my night watching TV in the background while working on the portfolio which was due at midnight. I took a short break to go work out to relieve some stress and pressure that had been weighing on my chest for the past couple days.


Day 190 - Tuesday (19), Today is the first day of our last week at work in SC. South Carolina has treated is very well, but I'm excited for a new change of pace. Excited to head back to campus, see friends, and find out where our last round location will be. As long as it somewhere new, I'm fine with it. I'm either hoping for Washington DC or NYC. I've hear DC is not the best place for FEMA Corps members because HQ staff apparently doesn't seem to like FEMA Corps very much, but it'll be fun to explore DC, which I have always wanted to go. I wrote a persuasive paper and even made a brochure in 6th grade on why I wanted to visit DC. It hasn't happened yet! Maybe later this year depending on where I end up choosing to go to college.

I finished some media stuff at work today - deadlines were due this Friday. I submitted a report and designed a yearbook page for our team. After work, we did ultimate frisbee with Gulf 3 for PT. It was slightly cold outside making it difficult for me to catch the disc at some moments. I missed so many easy catches and I couldn't believe that I didn't get.

I took a shower when I got back to the hotel and started my laundry. We went out to dinner tonight - Olive Garden. We had quite a bit do leftover money from our budget so we're trying to spend as much of it as we can before it expires. I haven't been at Olive Garden for quite some time so I ordered my usual eggplant parmesan. I forgot how good it all was with the salad and breadsticks. We also stopped at Starbucks which was across the lot from Olive Garden. I got a coffee and put that in the fridge to save it for tomorrow.


Day 191 - Wednesday (20), Today was a slightly shorter day for me at work. One of my teammates wanted to go the post office so I took him to the post office that was located in downtown Columbia. Little did I know that it would take him roughly around 3 hours for him to complete it.

After work, we played soccer with Gulf 3. It started to hail (really tiny though) and rain. It was cold, but refreshing to play outside although it was a little muddy.

After PT, we went out to dinner at Smashburger with our leftover budget money. I got a black bean burger, sweet potatoes fries, and a vanilla shake. It was all very delicious!


Day 192 - Thursday (21), At work today, I had a couple meetings to attend. I thought they went relatively well and they made some forward progress. We had a conference meeting with campus today - they just wanted to know what we were working on so we gave them an update.

Work went by relatively quick. After work, we made an trip to CVS so Kristina could pick up her epi pen. Hope she never had to use it, but just in case she runs amok into mold, we have it as a precautionary measure. Took a lot longer to obtain the epi pen than we anticipated, but she got it nonetheless.

The evening was low-key. I watched some TV, ate dinner, and relaxed. We been having some not so nice weather lately.


Day 193 - Friday (22), This morning was a good start to today! I woke up at 6:40 am to get ready for work until I learned that it was a "snow day" so I turned off my alarm, rolled over and fell back into deep sleep for the next 4 hours. It felt so nice to sleep in.

When I woke up, I looked outside and it wasn't even snowing! FEMA might had been worried about the bad weather so they made it a half day for us. I for one actually got to eat breakfast in our hotel and not at my desk at work.

We arrived to our last day of work at noon. It was an extremely short day for us since it was only 4 hours. I worked on the finishing touches of the portfolio for a couple hours, had to get a check out sheet filled and signed by multiple supervisors, said our goodbyes and we then departed.

After work, we had so many errands to do and I drove around more than I anticipated. We first dropped a couple people off at the hotel, I went to change quickly, and then I drove the boys to drop off some bikes, dropped Sean off at his game store, and then stopped by our old housing (the church) to pick up some papers. Everybody decided to get a haircut all on the same day around the same time so I dropped Drew off at his, then Alex and Madeleine at their hair appointments. Kodiak and I popped over to Moe's, a Mexican restaurant, to grab some food. We stayed and ate for about a half an hour before we had to go pick everybody up. By the time that we finally returned back to the hotel, we had been running around for 4 hours! It felt extremely nice to take a shower and fall into bed.


Day 194 - Saturday (23), Got a late start to today. I was hoping it was going to snow today and it "snowed". It was more like a flurry. I was hoping for a white blanket but that didn't happen. DC, NYC, and the northeastern states got hit really hard by this weather.

Today was a relaxing day. I kept to myself mostly. Madeleine was on her side of the room, and Kristina was gone so I mainly got the room to myself. I watched my usual Saturday's Law and Order and worked on my team's debrief for when we got back to campus.

I also had to pick up Alex tonight at the bus station at 1:40 am. He went to visit his family for a day trip in Charleston.


Day 195 - Sunday (23), Slept in for a little bit today. I was a little tired from being up so late last night.

Today is our last day in Columbia. I have really enjoyed Columbia so far and it's been a lot of fun, but I'm ready to head back to campus!

I spent a little under an hour packing my red spike bag. I managed to fit all my work and personal clothes in that bag along with soap, shoes, and miscellaneous stuff. I have gotten a lot better at packing that bag. I'm able to cram more stuff in a fashionably timely manner For next round, I will definitely be leaving some more clothes behind. After I finished, I looked at my bag and I realized that all my belonging that I really needed to get by was in this red bag. It's quite something to realize that I can fit all the things I need in one bag and survive off of it. It really puts things into perspective for me. At the beginning of the year, I didn't think I was going to be able to live without a few things and/or not have options of a wardrobe selection. Now, I realized that is like a luxury and I just don't care as much anymore. I have found that my standard of living has decreased quite considerably.

After I finished packing the bag, we went out to dinner at iHop. Drew has been begging since Day 1 to go to iHop so we finally gave in. I ordered some chocolate chip pancakes with a side of hash browns. All the boys ordered unlimited pancakes (no surprise there!). Drew and Kodiak had a pancake eating contest - Drew won by 2 but just the two alone ate a total of 22 pancakes. I ate 3 and was done after that! I had to give away my last one! We stopped by Starbucks after iHop and a few of us ordered some drinks with our leftover budget money on the card.

After our outing, I worked on our team's debrief presentation on making it look "pretty". Apparently making presentations and portfolios look "pretty" is now my thing/area of expertise to my team. I prefer the terms of making it look cool, modern or sophisticated.

I finished packing my personal bag for the trip. My personal bag is my overnight bag. So it has a change of clothes for tomorrow night, soap, toothbrush, toothpaste, etc.

I got to bed quite late after making sure everything was in order before we left tomorrow morning. Didn't hit the pillow until about 2 am.

My future (is going to look like this I think)

Our NDOS at Harbison State Forest with Gulf 3

Tryin' Somethin' New

Hey everyone! I thought I would try something new today! Read my latest blog to see what I did today! Hope you guys like it!

Day 182 - Monday (11), Deadlines are this week for the portfolio! Kind of excited knowing that I'll be finished with it by the beginning of next week and more than ready to see the finished product. Also excited that transition is just around the corner, we get to travel again and see friends in just a couple weeks!

I worked more on the portfolio today. I finally got a draft sent to me of everything that needs to be put into the portfolio. Designing wise, it's been pretty good so far. I've been Google searching layouts to spark my creativity in right brain lobe.

We did our usual Monday after work routine of doing laundry and grocery shopping. Last week, they found a new laundromat that was next to a Food Lion (grocery store). So while the clothes were drying, we would leave one person behind to watch the clothes while the others grocery shop for dinner and other foods.

Since we didn't get back until 7 pm, we had frozen pizzas for dinner because they were quick and easy. After that, I took Drew to Target so he could get some hair products. It wasn't until we arrived back at housing that we realized neither one of us had grabbed the house key on our way out and that no on else on our team had grabbed the key either. We assumed that there were still others inside the housing but in fact everyone left and we all didn't know that each one of us left.

So after trying to "break" in or in other works, jiggle bobbi pins in the lock, using a credit card, trying to force a window open so one of us could squeeze in, we finally ran out of options and came to the conclusion that we were locked out of our housing. Luckily we had the van keys, which was still warm inside because it was freezing outside especially for me because I had shorts on.

We made a few calls to Holly (Gulf 3) and Kate's (Gulf 1) teams asking if we could crash for the night. They were fine with it so we drove over to their housing; the boys stayed with Gulf 3 and the girls with Gulf 1.

Luckily, we had emergency blankets in the van for if the van wouldn't start and/or we were stranded, so I grabbed one of those blankets and cuddled with that. It wasn't the softest blanket, but it did keep me really warm and I'm incredibly thankful that campus issued those blankets out to us because it saved my butt and toes from freezing.


Day 183 - Tuesday (12), Today we woke up early to travel back to our housing so we would arrive at the same time as the staff personnel that arrives on site at 7 am. After sitting in the car for a while and anxiously craning my neck to face the window, we finally saw a woman walk towards us. Hallelujah! We were saved! She unlocked the door for us and we bolted inside and up the stairs to get dressed and to brush our teeth so we could leave for work.

We left around 7:30 am, twenty-five minutes after we usually leave, so we weren't late to work by a lot. The office is really slow right now so it's not like we have a lot of work to do, besides the portfolio for me, and they don't get on us if we're late.

We did PT with Gulf 3 today - soccer. We originally didn't have a soccer ball and were going to play football instead until a guy showed up with a soccer ball and decided to play with us. It's been a little too cold outside for me to keep wearing shorts especially to do PT in them. I'm going to need to start wearing some soccer sweats for PT.

When we got home, I started cooking dinner. I made my Dad's Asian Lentils and Brown Rice Soup! It was pretty easy to make - there wasn't any rice vinegar at the store so I had to make my own rice vinegar. I used regular vinegar, added a bunch of sugar and some water to get rid of the pungent taste. The soup actually came out pretty well without me having to play around by adding things here and there.

I ate dinner with the team. After, I cleaned the kitchen and washed all the dishes. It's really nice to have three sinks and three faucets to do dishes in unlike Houston where there was only one. It makes the process go so much faster and easier.

I also just leaned that today marks 100 days left in this program. I can't believe I have been in this program for 183 days and there's only 100 days left! Time is just flying by so quick!


Day 184 - Wednesday (13), Today was our last day at work for the rest of the week. Like usual, I spent my time working on the portfolio and doing my media role. I'm about halfway done so still a bit behind, but majority of the "groveling and shoveling" pages are completed.

We played ultimate frisbee with Gulf 3 for PT today. My throw still needs practice. Short distance, I can do, long distance is a complete flop.

We returned to housing around six and my night consisted of dinner with the team, a shower, and working on the portfolio for a couple hours before heading off to bed. Nothing too exciting!

Day 185- Thursday (14), Today, instead of work, we did another ISP with the St. Bernard Project. We went back to the same house that had the mold and sent Kristina to the ER. They said it was mold free, but we made her stay behind just in case.

Since the last time we were at the house, they took out the ceiling and replaced the ceilings and walls with drywall in all the rooms. So while we were there, we made mud (construction) in which we used that to cover the screws so the surface would be flat, we put mesh tape in the gap where the drywall met, and covered the mesh tape with a different type of mud. By the time I was done, I was covered with white strips of mud. It's not a very clean or easy process.

We got done around five so I dropped people across town depending on where they wanted to go. I returned to housing at 6 pm and immediately took a shower. It was really easy to wash all of the mud off. After showering, we had dinner and I worked on the portfolio for a couple hours after that.


Day 186 - Friday (15), We returned back to the same house today to continue with what we were working on yesterday. Today, we finished covering the mesh seams, filled in the gaps between the ceiling and wall and put more mud there to make sure the seal was tight. It was a rainy day today which made the house a little bit chilly but it was nice to see some rain again.

After work and since it was Friday, we did our usual drop off around Downtown Columbia. We parked in Five Points and hung around for 20 minutes before we could return to housing. The night was very much like yesterday - shower, dinner and working on the portfolio until bed.

Oh and I also forgot. We learned out that we are moving today. There were some spots open at an ESA so they told us to move there. I spent the night packing and getting my things together so we are ready to go tomorrow morning.


Day 187 - Saturday (16), Today I woke up at 8 am to start getting ready for our move. It took a little bit of time to load up the van. Our stuff took up quite some room since none of us really "packed". We just threw stuff in a bag because we knew we would be unpacking shortly.

We are now staying in Irmo, South Carolina which is about a 30 minutes drive from Downtown Columbia. But close to where we are staying at, there is a huge shopping center with literally everything in it - Starbucks, Target, Chipotle, Ross, yogurt and much. So it's not that bad. Plus we know have our own bathroom and bed, which is extremely nice. It felt so nice to be able to sleep in a bed again and I probably was so deep asleep that I could have slept through a Class 5 Hurricane.

We made 3 trips to get everything to the ESA. The first trip was to move all our belongings and clothes, the second trip was to get our two large boxes of food and kitchen silverware, and the third one was to get two bikes that a company loaned us temporarily while we are in town. 

After we finished unloading everything into the hotel, we dropped Sean off at his game store and went to go get frozen yogurt. Getting fro yo was much more difficult than I anticipated. The first store we went to was closed. The second one didn't have any parking space available and traffic was bad so we decided to get out before it got worse, and finally we arrived at the third place near housing, but it was really congested in traffic there so it took forever to get in. And it took forever to get out - I was finished with my frozen yogurt by the time I got out of the shopping center.

I worked a little bit on the portfolio and mainly watched a Law and Order: SVU marathon. 

Trying to "break" into our housing!

Lentil soup!

My roomies!

Glass artwork - Chihuly glass

More glass work - this one is not Chihuly. (Don't remember exactly what it was.)

Day 188 - Sunday (17), Today I thought I would try something new! Hope you guys like it! Let me know in the comments down below!

Link below if you can't access it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=II0kq4iuutw

If it's blurry or skipping, you might want to check to make sure your video quality is on the right selection.

New Year! Settling Back into Daily AmeriCorps Rountine

Day 175 - Monday (4), I had a fantastic time over Christmas break. It felt extremely nice to sleep in my own bed, have my own room/privacy, shower whenever I wanted, a car that I could drive without needing extra passengers, and WiFi. Home was a luxury and it wasn't until I got into this program that I needed to appreciate all the little things just a little bit more.

I took a red-eye flight out of Sacramento, had a 3 hour layover in Chicago and landed in Columbia around 11 am ET. Getting to the east coast was 5000x times easier than it was getting home on the west coast. I didn't have any delayed or cancelled flights and I like to say that everything went rather smoothly.

Kristina and Kodiak picked me up from the airport. Since I didn't get much sleep even though I slept on all the flights, I asked them to drop me off at housing so I could get a few more hours of peaceful sleep. It was extremely nice to have housing to myself and silence that was until the kids from the day care started storming through the building around 4 pm and it wasn't so quiet then.

I eventually got out of bed around 5:30 after making sure all the kids left, watched some TV until the crew returned home from laundry and grocery shopping at 7 pm. I had dinner and I went straight back to bed so I would be ready for tomorrow's day of work.


Day 176 - Tuesday (5), Today at work was a little rough especially after taking a nice break away from work. I continued where I last left off before I went on break - Round 2 portfolio. I haven't really gotten around to designing it. I'm in the brainstorming stages where I think of page layouts, colors, and some cool effects that would give a little bit of life to the portfolio, 

We did PT after work, which we played soccer. I really like the PTs where we play team sports. In Houston, it was just going to the gym everyday and do your own stuff whether that was lifting weights or biking  Here we do PT as a team with other teams that are near where we're staying such as Gulf 3 and Gulf 1. It also makes doing PT less dreaded and more fun all equaling in the time flying by faster. An upside is that we also don't have to pay for gym memberships.

Day 177 - Wednesday (6), Today was a relatively slow day at work. Since this a short round, our portfolio right now is our main priority, which I spent majority of the day working on. It's also nice to know that transition is just around the corner so we'll be seeing the other teams in a few weeks.

After work, we played ultimate frisbee for PT. It was really fun to play frisbee again since we haven't played it for quite a while. I'm trying to use the techniques that I was taught to make the frisbee go further, but it's just not quite working out yet. I need more practice.

Today, we lost a member of our team  - Andre. He decided to resign for personal reasons and he's heading back to his hometown which is in Kentucky. A few of us went drop him off at the airport and say goodbye. It was kind of sad that we won't see him everyday and who knows the next time we'll see him again. We are now down to a 7 person team which is still one of the larger teams from campus.

After we dropped Andre off, we proceeded with our night. I took a shower, ate dinner, watched some TV, and got to bed early because I was feeling pretty tired.

Day 178 - Thursday (7), Today, I continued to work more on our team portfolio. Expectations are a little bit high for me because I'm now in charge of the portfolio since Andre left and we also won the portfolio contest for Round 1. Since I designed the entirety of the first portfolio, the designing aspect for this portfolio has to be brought up a notch. I'm kind of in a creative block right now because I can't brainstorm any other page layouts that doesn't match the same layouts from the Round 1 portfolio. I don't want to duplicate any layouts, but it's more important for us to get our info across. But hopefully I'll come up with something and it'll get done on time.

After work, a lady from work invited us over to her apartment to get leftover food. Since she's leaving on Monday and didn't want to throw away the food, she donated it to our team. It was an extremely nice gesture on her behalf and we crossed a few things off of our grocery list for next week. We saved a few dollars for next week's shopping.

Since we couldn't return to housing until 6, we parked the car at Five Points and I took a stroll through the place before ending up at Starbucks. I stayed there for about a half hour before we returned back to housing. We had dinner, I took a shower and went to bed. I've been doing pretty well at getting to bed at a decent time this week. Hopefully I don't jinx it for next week.


Day 179 - Friday (8), I got a little bit more work done on the portfolio today. Still very behind on designing because I'm still waiting for all the info to be sent in to me after they've all been looked over, proofread, and edited.

After work, we did our usual routine of dropping Sean off at a comic book/game store. Madeleine's grandma was also in town so we dropped her off with her. After that, we went to Whole Foods and I just browsed around the store.

When we got back, I shot a few hoops in the gym. It's really nice and convenient to have our own indoor basketball court just a few feet away from our housing. After I got done, I took a shower which was also really convenient since the shower is also located in the gym. Only had to walk a few steps to get there

I got to bed kind of late tonight which might not have been the smartest idea since I have an early morning tomorrow.


Day 180 - Saturday (9), Today, I did an ISP that worked with this really nice couple in tearing apart the inside of their house so they could rebuild it. We cleared out some of their insulation, took a sledgehammer and knocked down a few panels of their walls which was extremely fun, cleaned out their garage, power washed the garage, the outside of their house and their toilets that were sitting in the front yard that were covered in mud and dirt.

It was really fun to be able to work with them and get some hands on work after being cooped up in the office all week. I had a really fun time using the power washer. I just like using power tools in general. They also took us out to lunch at a local pizza place which was pretty good, but they know how to do cheese, a lot of cheese. They even have a salad that is just covered in cheese. Of course I had to try a little bit of it and it was actually pretty good but the Italian dressing was too tangy for my taste.

We wrapped up around 3 pm when it started to drizzle. I got dropped back off at housing and beelined straight for the shower. After, I ate a snack and fell asleep on the couch for about two hours. When I woke up, I watched a few hours of Law and Order: SVU.


Day 181 - Sunday (10), Today I had a little bit of a lie in before the day got started.

We went to the zoo in Columbia called the Riverbanks Zoo. Gulf 1 and Gulf 3 tagged along with us also. We had complimentary passes so all of us got in for free. We arrived at the perfect time because we got to see penguins getting fed, feed and pet a giraffe, and see some other really cool animals. Like usual my favorite parts of the zoo are usually the otters, penguins, lions and tigers. My least favorite part is the reptile house. Creeps me out every time. Especially the alligators and snakes. I keep thinking one of them is going to lunge at me and scare me to death.

We stayed at the zoo for a couple hours before heading back to housing. I made myself some pasta for lunch and took a quick nap before playing basketball. We were originally going to play in the gym but it was already occupied with some other games. Instead, we drove to a park and played on the outside courts which I'm not a huge fan of because the metal rim and backboard just makes the ball bounce more as compared to an indoor gym. But we still had a good time.

I got dropped us back off at housing and took a shower. I ate dinner which was my leftover pasta from lunch with a side of black beans/corn mixed with balsamic vinegar. I also decided to make lunch for tomorrow so I went downstairs to cook some rice and corn with sun-dried tomatoes. Since the light in the kitchen was out, I ended up cooking with the flashlight from my phone. It wasn't that bad cooking one-handed especially since I didn't really have to chop anything. I put all the food into containers, washed the dishes and got everything ready for work tomorrow before I settled in for bed.

Family Christmas Pic

(Left to Right starting at the Bottom: Kate (cousin), Corey, Grandma, me, Mark (Kate's husband), Allan (uncle), Jesse, Cheryl (aunt), Sharon (aunt), Mom, and Dad)

My cousin Kate's baby shower!

My mom and Cheryl love to take pictures so I thought it would be fun to take a picture of them taking pictures of Kate and Mark. 

The couple's house that we helped with. They have the cutest and nicest dog! 

Like with the Houston Zoo, instead of posting all the pictures here on the blog, you can instead click the link below to see all the pictures that I took at the Riverbanks Zoo. If you click on the pictures, they will enlarge and turn into a manual slideshow. Once you are in the manual slideshow, there is an info icon (looks like an "i" in a white circle) on your top-right corner that you can click and there, I have written comments/details. Let me know if you have any questions or can't access them.

https://goo.gl/photos/BDLVojLTXf18zjPd6