After Zumba, we attended Day 2 of FEMA Basic Training. Today went much faster than yesterday. We got out 3 hours early because we finished all our units and took our test. Training was pretty entertaining today due to our TL, Kristina. She sprained her ankle yesterday (Tuesday), so she went to ER this morning (Wednesday). They gave her a brace and crutches, but they also gave her some meds. One of the med she took made her really drowsy. She started acting really funny and saying random funny lines, chewing on her hair, and kept thinking that she was drooling but in reality, she wasn't. The whole classroom started laughing and I was laughing so hard that I had tears in my eyes! Eventually she became too entertaining and delusional that we had to take her to a room upstairs to get some rest and sleep because she was just out of it. But as of right now she's doing fine. We moved her into another dorm for the moment being so she can rest and be looked after by another TL.
Day 10 - Thursday (23), Today we started the morning with quite a few meetings that plowed on until 4:30. We had some more meetings preparing us for our Round 1 project, a Life After AmeriCorps (LAA) meeting, and lastly one about what role we would play on our team. There are 8 different roles for our team and as usual I wanted to be the Media Rep. But all the positions will be figured out later. So we had a little fair in the gym where we went around to each table seeing what the responsibilities of each role are. The Media Rep was different than I anticipated. Besides taking pictures and designing some presentations, there's quite a bit of journalism involved and talking to the media. I haven't always been the strongest writer for a journalist nor the best public speaker when it comes to doing interviews or talking to the media, but I'm excited to try out this position.
Day 11 - Friday (24), Today was a pretty good day for me. It was short and sweet! We had a few more classes/meetings in the morning but we ended early so meaning we got a longer lunch time! :) After lunch we had our road test for driving our 15 vehicle passenger van! I was slightly nervous so I went first. I felt really tiny in that car! One thing I noticed while driving was that people here are really polite when driving. Since we're in a government vehicle, we have to drive pretty slow and people here don't tailgate when you drive slowly! Or maybe they do but when they see government vehicles, they drive better. Who knows? They also don't do all the extra cutting and swerving! But the people that live in Vicksburg are pretty used to AmeriCorps people and vans all over the place.
Day 12 - Saturday (25), It was a bright and early morning. I woke up at 7 to make breakfast and then I had to leave for an Independent Service Project (ISP) at 8. For our ISP, we partnered with the local American Red Cross. We went around some poorer, rural housing areas installing fire/smoke alarms. We went door to door installing smoke detectors for those who wanted them. It was a weird project but people were very nice, polite and grateful for everything we did for them. Even though we were at each house for only 15-20 minutes, they were extremely grateful for our service.
After ISP, I went to work out at the gym with some other corps members. It's slightly difficult to eat healthy here because buying better quality food is a little more expensive than the stuff in boxes sometimes, but I've been trying to eat slightly healthier along with working out. It's also difficult because I'm constantly exposed to chips, cookies, oreos, and junk food and sometimes when I'm really hungry, I crave fatty foods. So I need to work better on getting more sleep, exercising, eating the right foods and portions, and if those factors line up correctly, I should be okay.
Since it was Saturday night and I didn't want to sit around and do nothing, I got some of my team to come with me to the Vicksburg Mall. The mall is really tiny. It took us less than 10 minutes to walk from one end to another. It's similar shape to the Sunrise Mall in Citrus Heights. It's a narrow, but short building. There wasn't much stores or places to eat so we walked down the street for like 10 minutes and found a nice, causal place to eat. The cheapest thing on the menu was a margherita pizza so I got that. The pizza looked like a cheese pizza with a couple tomatoes, but it tasted pretty good! After dinner, we headed back to the mall and saw a movie, Self/Less. I've never heard of it or seen the trailers before and the reviews were decent so we decided to take a shot at it anyways. I actually really enjoyed the movie! It was about an old, rich guy who was dying and he tries to transfer his thoughts/brain/conscience into another, but younger human being so he could live longer. It was another one of those movies where it's confusing but at the end it all ties together and it was like "wow, oh I get this now" and I really enjoy watching those movies.
Story of the day- Our cab ride back to campus was pretty entertaining! A white (red flag), unmarked (red flag) truck pulled up and the driver told us to get in. I looked at him funny because I didn't know who he was and his car was white and unmarked. He then spotted our confusion and said "AmeriCorps?". He was our taxi driver! Duh! Like I totally knew that! So, stupidly I guess, we got into the truck because for all we know he could have been lying and was actually a kidnapper. Who knows!? But I had 4 boys with me for protection! The truck technically should only seat 4 passengers and the driver, but we had 5 people including the driver so we squeezed in. If anyone of us would been any bigger, we would not have fitted and no one in the back wore seat belts because it doesn't work when you have 4 people in the back and only 3 seat belts. I was in the back. Shhh! And man! He knew how to drive! Our driver was the owner of the cab company and he's been picking up AmeriCorps kids for 5 years. So as the owner, he was getting all the calls from other people to come and pick them up and plus he really knew how to drive at high speeds on those windy roads. He could have done it in his sleep! So it was a good combination of driving really fast on a windy and narrow roads, checking and talking on his cell phone in his white, unmarked truck! But for those of you who were worried, we made it back safely in one piece! :)
Day 13 - Sunday (26), A pretty slow start to the day. I slept in until like 10. It felt pretty good to finally sleep in! We then went did our weekly grocery shopping. It felt way less hectic than last week, but still hectic and lots of fast walking. We got a lot of healthier foods and fruits that I can snack on, which made me happy. And we were way under our budget which was great! For dinner this week, I'm making a quick, easy and cheap dinner. Spring rolls! And they're also great for lunch or snacks! Our TL (team leader) made dinner today, which was curry on rice.
After dinner we had to clean the whole entire kitchen and our rooms because we have inspections tomorrow and it very hard to pass. So we wiped everything in the kitchen down! So from all the appliances inside and out to the wall and the floors, everything got scrubbed. It probably took like a little less than 2 hours to clean which wasn't bad considering we had 8 bodies. And my room wasn't that bad, so we just had to tidy some things up and wipe the room down.
Day 14 - Monday (27), We had PT this morning, which was soccer. As much as I dislike waking up in the early hours of the morning, I really enjoy working out in the mornings because it gets me going and I feel better about myself as the day progresses.
We had a day long class this morning, which I really enjoyed because I really enjoyed the interactive activities that were planned and the ability to split up into smaller groups and just talk. We had the ability to express our feelings/emotions, what characteristics/traits we like about ourselves, our favorite memories, etc. and it was a good class because the layout and topics we talked about were well laid out and really interesting. This class was all about positivity about ourselves because sometime we need to realize how amazing we are and can be. And it was nice to listen to other people talk because it really opened my mind to the different situations and scenarios that people have experienced and some of it got really personal which makes the conversation a lot more relatable and interesting.
After dinner, I winded down the night finishing my resume and tackling my 2 hour online class for First Aid/CPR/AED with the American Red Cross.
After ISP, I went to work out at the gym with some other corps members. It's slightly difficult to eat healthy here because buying better quality food is a little more expensive than the stuff in boxes sometimes, but I've been trying to eat slightly healthier along with working out. It's also difficult because I'm constantly exposed to chips, cookies, oreos, and junk food and sometimes when I'm really hungry, I crave fatty foods. So I need to work better on getting more sleep, exercising, eating the right foods and portions, and if those factors line up correctly, I should be okay.
Since it was Saturday night and I didn't want to sit around and do nothing, I got some of my team to come with me to the Vicksburg Mall. The mall is really tiny. It took us less than 10 minutes to walk from one end to another. It's similar shape to the Sunrise Mall in Citrus Heights. It's a narrow, but short building. There wasn't much stores or places to eat so we walked down the street for like 10 minutes and found a nice, causal place to eat. The cheapest thing on the menu was a margherita pizza so I got that. The pizza looked like a cheese pizza with a couple tomatoes, but it tasted pretty good! After dinner, we headed back to the mall and saw a movie, Self/Less. I've never heard of it or seen the trailers before and the reviews were decent so we decided to take a shot at it anyways. I actually really enjoyed the movie! It was about an old, rich guy who was dying and he tries to transfer his thoughts/brain/conscience into another, but younger human being so he could live longer. It was another one of those movies where it's confusing but at the end it all ties together and it was like "wow, oh I get this now" and I really enjoy watching those movies.
Story of the day- Our cab ride back to campus was pretty entertaining! A white (red flag), unmarked (red flag) truck pulled up and the driver told us to get in. I looked at him funny because I didn't know who he was and his car was white and unmarked. He then spotted our confusion and said "AmeriCorps?". He was our taxi driver! Duh! Like I totally knew that! So, stupidly I guess, we got into the truck because for all we know he could have been lying and was actually a kidnapper. Who knows!? But I had 4 boys with me for protection! The truck technically should only seat 4 passengers and the driver, but we had 5 people including the driver so we squeezed in. If anyone of us would been any bigger, we would not have fitted and no one in the back wore seat belts because it doesn't work when you have 4 people in the back and only 3 seat belts. I was in the back. Shhh! And man! He knew how to drive! Our driver was the owner of the cab company and he's been picking up AmeriCorps kids for 5 years. So as the owner, he was getting all the calls from other people to come and pick them up and plus he really knew how to drive at high speeds on those windy roads. He could have done it in his sleep! So it was a good combination of driving really fast on a windy and narrow roads, checking and talking on his cell phone in his white, unmarked truck! But for those of you who were worried, we made it back safely in one piece! :)
Day 13 - Sunday (26), A pretty slow start to the day. I slept in until like 10. It felt pretty good to finally sleep in! We then went did our weekly grocery shopping. It felt way less hectic than last week, but still hectic and lots of fast walking. We got a lot of healthier foods and fruits that I can snack on, which made me happy. And we were way under our budget which was great! For dinner this week, I'm making a quick, easy and cheap dinner. Spring rolls! And they're also great for lunch or snacks! Our TL (team leader) made dinner today, which was curry on rice.
After dinner we had to clean the whole entire kitchen and our rooms because we have inspections tomorrow and it very hard to pass. So we wiped everything in the kitchen down! So from all the appliances inside and out to the wall and the floors, everything got scrubbed. It probably took like a little less than 2 hours to clean which wasn't bad considering we had 8 bodies. And my room wasn't that bad, so we just had to tidy some things up and wipe the room down.
Day 14 - Monday (27), We had PT this morning, which was soccer. As much as I dislike waking up in the early hours of the morning, I really enjoy working out in the mornings because it gets me going and I feel better about myself as the day progresses.
We had a day long class this morning, which I really enjoyed because I really enjoyed the interactive activities that were planned and the ability to split up into smaller groups and just talk. We had the ability to express our feelings/emotions, what characteristics/traits we like about ourselves, our favorite memories, etc. and it was a good class because the layout and topics we talked about were well laid out and really interesting. This class was all about positivity about ourselves because sometime we need to realize how amazing we are and can be. And it was nice to listen to other people talk because it really opened my mind to the different situations and scenarios that people have experienced and some of it got really personal which makes the conversation a lot more relatable and interesting.
After dinner, I winded down the night finishing my resume and tackling my 2 hour online class for First Aid/CPR/AED with the American Red Cross.
Our TL, Kristina, getting a piggy-back ride because of her sprained ankle and using crutches took to long to get our meeting.
Vicksburg Mall - really small with few stores and places to eat.
Vicksburg Mall - really small with few stores and places to eat.
The ISP we did with the local Mississippi American Red Cross installing fire/smoke detectors in low-income housing homes. (Ex. mobile trailer homes)
