Happy Belated Thanksgiving

Not to much new stuff has been going on... I was very thankful and happy that i made it home for thanksgiving... it was a really good week... I ate a lot of good food and hung out with my boyfriend and his family and mine... it was overall a good week... Now im back in the wonderful Moss Bluff with only 2 weeks of work left.... Lots of ups and downs about the work we have been doin... Thankfully this week my team and I get to go and work with a great group of guys on completing a house in Cameron Parish. Im pretty excited about that. We also have to complete 6,000 closed files by Thursday...fun stuff... Also on Thursday the fire Marshall is comming to inspect our housing situation... They will decide whether we have to move out or we get to stay until Dec. 13... i hope all goes well and we get to stay...

Only 18 more days til i get to go home for Christmas!!! Yay!!! Im really excited.. i still have a ton a shopping to do. Not much else to say so good night for now i had a long day of travels...

Moss Bluff

So I havent updated in a while and i finally have the chance...
I have started my first spike and im staying in the wonderful Moss Bluff, Louisiana... (note to everyone, There is nothing around, and nothing to do) but anyway my project is doing disaster relief or at least thats what its suppose to be... So far we have picked up a few piles of trash and shingled one roof.... the rest of the time is spent sitting around or driving. Our wonderful sponsor has pretty much just been giving us busy work cuz he cant think of anything else to have us do. Its a pretty boring work day we sit around for about an hour in the office every morning and wait for him to show up then he tells us to drive about an hour to pick up trash and then we are pretty much done for the day.... but besides that he is a really nice guy and has a great sense of humor... i just wish we actually did work. i feel so unproductive everyday and i dont like it. The only cool thing about the project is we get weekends off and we get a long weekend for the Thanksgiving Holiday.. Which if you dont already know i will be comming home for the holiday from 11/25 to 12/02 im excited my wonderful mother found me some cheap tickets to fly home... Another plus about being here is this amazing weather. For my Birthday it was about 85 degrees and that never happens back in good ole Niagara Falls.... it was great... I thats all i got for now dont really have pictures cuz i havent been taking any but im excited to see my family and boyfriend for thanksgiving I cant wait!!!!


"Trying to get things done"

OBAMA BABY!!!!!!!!

OKAY SO IM GOING TO TYPE IN ALL CAPS TO SHOW MY EXCITEMENT!!.. I JUST WANT TO SAY THAT IM VERY HAPPY RIGHT NOW..... I WAS VERY SCARED THAT THE OLD BALD GUY WAS ACTUALLY GOIN TO WIN.... BUT TO BAD FOR HIM HE DIDNT WIN AND KNOW I DONT HAVE TO MOVE TO CANADA!!!!! I KNOW THIS IS MY AMERICORPS BLOG AND I SHOULDNT BE WRITING ABOUT POLITICS BUT I REALLY DONT CARE AT THIS POINT!!!! RIGHT NOW IM SITTING IN TYLER, TEXAS AND ITS VERY HARD TO HOLD IN THE EXCITEMENT SO I DONT GET SHOT BY ONE OF THE MCCAIN LOVERS!!! ANYWHO IM SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
HAPPY IM REALLY EXCITED TO SEE THE CHANGE FOR THE BETTER, I CANT WAIT


P.S THIS IS THE BEST BIRTHDAY PRESENT EVER!!!! OH YEA

"GETTING THINGS DONE FOR AMERICA"

Offical Americorps member!!!!

Today was Induction.... Im done with CTI.... no more training....Come monday we will be heading out on our first spike... its exciting.... The picture on the top is of my Team SUN1!!!!! My teamleader is MaryHellen.... she is awesome......im really tired right now and dont have much else to say ill write more when i get to Louisiana...

"getting things done"

one more week

So im in the final week of training and i've had a good time during CTI. In one week we leave ( oh yea im in SUN 1!!!) for our first spike.... and we are going to ........ Lake Charles, LA YAY!!!!! its about a half and hour from texas and only 3 hrs from New Orleans... We will be staying at a volunteer center... ( i forgot the name ill post it later) pretty much our job will be doing construction... we will be mucking houses and building house and pretty much everything to do with either building or taring down houses.... So im very excited... I will post the address of the place when i get it.... that way you wonderful people can send me packages lol jk.....

Oh yes my duties or roles that i have in the team are: CAPer which stands for Corps Ambassador Program.... what that involves is putting on events in the community to let the youth know about our program and we try to get them to join.... so im a recruiter....... The next role i have is an ISP coordinator... What this involves is trying to find volunteer opportunities for myself and the rest of the team...... We need to complete of a total of 80 individual hrs.... so we have to do volunteer work for non-profits thats is outside of the work we do for our sponsor.....hopefully that makes sense. so those are two of the jobs i have.

Im sorry if my blog posts are all over the place... i just type down what i can remember....in no order...

What else is there to talk about.... well yesterday my whole class went to the air force base in Colorado Springs for the day and we split up into our teams and we went through many different courses.... there was 2 different kinds there was a confidence course where we had to climb,jump,balance, on a bunch of different things...( i didnt bring my camera so i dont have pics sry).... and the next one was a leadership course where as a team we had to work through a punch of different problems.... It was a fun day but im feeling pretty sore today... On saturday is the day where we " graduate" from CTI...... its our induction ceremony... i will take lots of pics...

Oh yea i almost forgot... On sunday i had the chance to do something really cool that i never thought i would get to do.... I got to go downtown and try to attend the Obama Rally in civic park.... It was alot of fun and very interesting.... I said try because we never made it inside the park... the line was extremely long to get in but we stood on the outside and was still able to hear him speak.... pretty frickin awesome.... It was really cool to see so many people come together and celebrate.... there were a ton of people there all decked out in obama clothes and they had there face painted it felt like i was at a football game or something.... And since we didnt get the chance to go in a group of us went around talking to protesters and other people that were for and not for obama....(just so you know we were NOT in our A's) i alsso took some pics of people holding up some interesting signs... (pics up later)

So that was my week... i will try to update before i leave but if not i will post again when i get to the spike site

P.S my 20th bday is next Thursday( DONT FORGET LOL) :)

P.S.S
I forgot to mention that on my myspace page i do have pics up from when i went to Rocky Mt National Park, and of the service project that i did at the Denver Indian Center.... heres the site.. it will take you to my albums and you can look at them in the Americorps album.....

http://viewmorepics.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewAlbums&friendID
=292918237

"GETTING THINGS DONE"

finally sunday

What a weekend.... thats all i have to say.... yesterday was the service project at the Denver city park.... we were building a running trial... it was a long hot day of shoveling dirt and tamping it down.... luck for me, the group of volunteers that i was in charge of were 11 highschool freshmen girls... yay!!!! No it was a good time.... they were hard workers and i was pretty happy with them.... around noon was when we finished the trail and then the real fun started.... it was like one huge party... the mayor came and said some words and thanked the NCCC for all of our help and they had live music so everyone was dancing and having a good time..... they had a lot of different things going on at the park... they had yoga classes and ti chi and different organic food stands.... and a free day at the zoo but the wait to get in was 2 hours so we didnt go in.....
Today a group of us went back to the Denver Indian Center to do some more work... there wasnt much to do so we ended up staying about 4hrs so now im just sitting here relaxing under a tree admiring the view and the hot sunny day.... the weather here is great....
On friday i will be finding out my official team.... im a little nervous but also excited at the same time... in about 2 weeks we will be heading down to texas for our first spike.... i cant wait!!

"getting things done"

one long week

Well, two weeks have already gone by...... it feels like ive been here much longer though.... lots of learning and long days just sitting in one class room.... Today was our first aid/ CPR training class.... and just so everyone knows.... i am know certified to save your life lol..... Um what else.... theres soo much that goes on here its really hard to remember it all..... yesterday was unit building time and healthy lifestyles class.... that was a pretty good class.... they pretty much teach you how to deal with stress in a disaster relief project.... which is what our first "spike" is..... so thats a good thing to know.... oh yea yesterday was also baselines which sucked soo bad.... lots of running and push up and sit ups.... not fun, tomorrow is our service project where we get to build a running trial.... so that should be fun... and sunday i will be goin back to the Denver Indian Center to help out some more with sorting through boxes and painting.... on wensday my team Sun 2 went to there to clean out the stage area... they were using the stage for storage and wanted to get use of the stage so we cleared over 3000 boxes 2000 of which were boxes of hand cream that was donated to them back in 2005.... so we got to take some and the rest was i guess getting thrown away.... so im goin back on sunday to do some ISP hours cuz i need 80 hrs to complete.... so yea theres not really much else to say so im goin for now i have an early 5am start so good night to everyone.....

"getting things done"

Pics

the sink in the room.........my roommates bed... and Walsh hall( the corps members dorm), and the view from the campus ( amazing huh?)

1 week through......

here are some pics of my dorm room
Sry everyone if im not updating it everyday.... its very hard to do that.... but my first week of CTI is done with and it went pretty well..... lots of classes to sit through and a lot of information to take in but overall a good experience..... let me just say that the weather here is pretty crazy.... it changes like every five minutes.... Hmmm what else to talk about.... its really hard to remember the week and what i did.... oh i just want to throw in that the campus has a pool with a hot tub and sauna in it so ive been hittin that a lot.... very relaxing....

I have my first service project on saturday.... today was the project briefing, what we are going to be doing is building a 5K running trail city park.... we are working with this organization- outdoor Colorado( im pretty sure that the name) but I will be leading a group of volunteers about 10-15 per group in building this trial.... lots of shoveling and pounding the dirt in.... so my job is to make sure that everyone is safe and having a good time.... and sit around lol jk. then after thats all done with we have a health fair going on and a free day at the zoo which i will be going too.... im excited to actually get my hands dirty.... all week we've been in classes and it does get very boring but now we get to do actually work.....

Today we had classes on awards we can earn while in the program and college credits we can get so theres a lot we can be doing..... my goal is to get the presidential award and the congressional award... so i can come home with some medals to show off :) Ive been trying to get pictures up but ive been having a hard time so i will find some way to do that.

what else is there to talk about....... um im not too sure but if anyone has questions i would love to get them and answer them as best as i can.... Oh yea and i can say that our first project(spike) will Be working with fema somewhere in texas...doing what? i have no idea but thats about all i know.... so i just want to say that im really excited and happy that i actually have people following my blog which is great.... I miss all of you guys and i cant wait to get in my own bed :)

Day 3 of CTI

Well...... there has been soo much that has been going on since i got here..... lets start with monday

First Day: okay so i had a really early flight which completely suck because i got really sick.... i mean really sick.... the worst head cold ever..... i ended up losing my voice..... not cool.... but that was pretty much the worst part..... so anyway i arrived at the denver airport around 9:30( which is mountain time) and checked in with a bunch of people..... then a huge group of us waited around for a charter bus to take us to the campus..... awesome views btw....... so we got to the campus and got are room key... im on the second floor which isnt that much fun.... cuz i was hauling huge luggage up stairs with a major cold..... but anyway got my room which is really nice and the beds are pretty comfy. then we had to go hand in our paperwork and take a picture for our ids...... i looked like crap which wasnt cool. then we had lunch and just started the day with unpacking and getting things organized..... thats pretty much day 1

Day 2: second day we had a meeting with all the staff and went over rules n stuff..... wow its really hard for me to remember what i did cuz its just soo much.... Oh and i will be posting pictures on here and myspace soon so please check them out..... this is when we got our very fashionable uniforms lol... not flaturing at all.....


Day 3: today we did driving training all day long we pretty much went sight seeing which was awesome.... pics will be up soon..... we went to littleton,Co which is home of the columbine school and memoral... that was a great sight to see very touching..... then we went to red rocks amphitheater..... which probably so far is the best view ever.... i really want to go to a concert there..... then after we got back we got issued our boots which are really nice and comfy..... then dinner.... the food is really good actually which is surprising.... there are giant picture windows you can look out and see the mountains its sooooo beautiful.... and then later my team which is SUN 3( for now anyway,they change the teams every couple days) is goin shoppin and then out for some yummy coldstone creamery icecream!!!!



that pretty much sums up the last three days.... ive met a lot of really cool people that i feel like ive known for a long time.... it really is a lot of fun and im happy to be here and not in niagara falls lol jk i love you mom!!!! well im goin to try really hard to keep up with this blog but i can do it.... internet is really scarce here and the only place you can find it is in front of a jesus statue in front of the main blding...... thats all for now i miss all you guys i hope everyone is doing good and not missing me too much.... ill update later

"GETTING THINGS DONE"

the new one is

"LEAVE YOUR MARK"

2 days away!!

After a long and stressful week of waiting, i finally found out that im leaving for denver on monday... If you didnt know, On tuesday Americorps NCCC was planning on postponing the start dates for the Sacramento and Denver campuses, it had to do with budgets.... but after a week of not knowing if i was going or not.... the verdict is they will still remain open and the start dates are the same....
So many things are going through my head and its really crazy to think that im goin to be leaving in just 2 days. Im going to miss a lot of things and people.... but this is going to be the best experience of my life.... so one of my goals while im gone is to lose at least 20 pounds if i lose more that would be great..... everything is about to change..... my sleep schedule, my eating habits, ill be exercising more and learning to live with a group of people in close quarters.... ahh everything is goin to change and its goin to be for the better... this really is a life changing experience and im ready for it.... I cant wait to start CTI and find out who my roommate is.... I also cant wait to be posting useful information for people to read lol. As for right now im goin to finish packing and doin last minute things... tommorrow is my goin away/ girls night and i cant wait!!! Good bye for now ill update when i get into Denver!!!

Getting ready to " get things done"
Cass

2 weeks notice....

So im sitting here in my big comfy bed realizing that in two weeks i will not be doing the things that im doin.... i havent really prepared myself as good as i should of.... i've been sleeping in and not working out.... Man Americorps is going to kick my butt.... Im still excited though... everything is just happening so fast and its all settling in..... One thing im very happy about is that my boyfriend and I have decided to stay together and work it out through the 10 months... he is absolutely amazing.... Packing is another thing that has been stressing me out... they say not to over pack but its really hard to know what to pack because i dont even know where i will be through these next 10 months so im bringing two suitcases which i will probably regret doin but then that will i can ease my stress a little..... Im really excited to get out there and get things started...... thats all for now much more to come though.....

17 days and counting..... life right now is pretty stressful and crazy....... im packing like crazy and its really hard not to over pack.... thats a big thing too.... they really dont want you to over pack. I really cant wait to start training... oh the long hour days.... im going to miss sleeping in......I still havent gotten my flight information but it should be here any day now.... not really sure what else to write about but i will keep it updated once i have a life lol....

First blog

Hey everyone..... Im going to use this site for my americorps experience..... I plan and will try to keep up and maintain this blog while im gone. If you don't know by now i leave on Oct. 6th to begin a awesome experience. I will be moving out to Denver to "get things done"... you will probably hear me say that a lot. Only 33 days til i leave and i cant wait.... In about 2 days i will being going on a well needed vacation in the Bahamas... I hope everyone will enjoy reading about the experiences and i will try to keep in touch with as many as you as i can.... I cant wait to start!!!!