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.