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