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
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!
