AmeriCorps/FEMA

AmeriCorps/FEMA

Monday, March 14, 2016

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.


3 comments:

Unknown said...

Pokey

Unknown said...

You can pee on wounds. Urine is sterile.

Unknown said...

Good job applying for jobs early. One less thing for me to nag you about :)