So..
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| View from outside the dorms. No this is not photoshopped. This was just my lunch time. |
1. There are roughly 160 corps members (aka people like me) at campus.
2. We are supposed to have wi fi, but with 160 cm (corps members) + team leaders + staff all trying to use the internet at once... basically we don't have internet. I walked to the library to use their internet to write a quick post last time.
3. I spend most of the day in meetings and trainings.
The campus I live on is a VA Medical Center. Meaning that it is a hospital for veterans. It is some peoples' permanent homes, and some peoples' temporary treatment facility. Since it's federal land there are some strict rules that have nothing to do with AmeriCorps, but we have to follow since we share the space (ex. alcohol).
The campus itself was built during WW1 for the purpose of building weapons.
All the corps members are living in one dormitory. I lucked out and have only 3 other roommates, but we have our own bathroom with a shower. Some people have up to 6 people in a room with no bathroom.
Some of the training and meetings that I've completed thus far:
Tool Training/Habitat for Humanity
This day was by far the best so far. It was awesome! I have never used any power tools like a circular saw, power nail gun, 50ft ladder... we built frames for houses, I was painting with kill paint (for mold)... it was a blast! I would love to be assigned a habitat for humanity project for an actual spike. Plus the site we went to (Delaware) is a VERY productive site. If I remember correctly the Wilmington site constructed about 21 houses last year alone, which is more than some of the other larger habitat for humanity sites. If anyone isn't familiar with the organization Habitat for Humanity, you should check it out. Habitat for Humanity
CPR/First aid/AED
Drivers ed (aka 15 passanger van training)
We had to watch a video on winter driving since corps members come from all over the country and many have never even seen snow... ironically the video was made by the minnesota department of transportation.
I've also had to get a TB test... Don't worry everyone. I passed.
I've been doing lots of other things but they aren't as exciting, so I won't mention them.
There is also things like chainsaw training in my future... exciting!
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| laughing can kill you... |
Since there are about 160 of us we are all divided into units, then further into teams. The 3 units are buffalo, moose, and raven. I am in the raven unit. Which is ironic since my Widji mountaineer tattoo has a raven in it. Apparently in past years there has been a lot of weird coincidences between individuals in their unit (like my tattoo being a raven) and characteristics of personalities being similar of past and present unit members.
What I've been told is last year the raven unit was the ravenclaw (harry potter) house.
The moose unit was gryffindor, and the buffalo was hufflepuff.
From there the units are divided into teams who are the people I will be working with for the rest of the year. I just found out my permanent team on friday and I think we are going to be great. 2 of my really good friends from my "pod" (temporary team) are on the same team with me.
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| Raven 2 Pod |
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| Goodbye poddies! |
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| Permanent Raven 4 team. These are the people I am going to travel and work with for the next 10 months! |
I find out if I made the Phoenix team (fire fighting) on Tuesday... fingers crossed! I really hope I did!!
Since I can't post very often, if you have a facebook a good way to keep track of things going on with campus is the Official facebook page.
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