Job Fair

It's good to be back here in Vicksburg, catching up with friends and whatnot. We had a busy first day, as soon as we got back on campus we had to clean our van, turn our tools in, and then have our debrief of round 3. After doing all that, we had lots of free time yesterday and today we had the option of either going to work in the cemetery or to a job fair in Memphis...I chose the latter, no big surprise haha. The only bad thing was that we had to wake up at 4:15 to get there by 10am! When we got there, we were expecting a really big event, but there were only 15 tables at most, and none of the businesses appealed to us, so we basically stood around for a little over an hour and chatted with other AmeriCorps people. We then were set free to go anywhere in Memphis, as long as we were back on the road by 2pm, so my van went to the National Civil Rights Museum so some people could check out the free outdoor part, and then we went to Central BBQ. Overall, it was a great day, because we just hung out and I spent the 8 hours in the van snoozing, so I was really glad that I didn't have to work in the cemetery all day! Now I am currently in the computer lab, having a "blogging party" with Colin, who I also tricked into helping me out with my taxes online, because part of his last round was helping people with taxes, how perfect! Haha, I got them done and owe $0 as well as will get $0 back haha. I'm probably going to head to bed soon, because we have PT baseline tomorrow at 6am...blahhh, but Mollie, John and I have already decided that we are not going to make ourselves sick and nervous about our times, and instead we are going to jog at a pace that will keep us warm on the predicted 45 degree morning, while also not breaking a sweat haha I'll let you know how that goes...
In other news, Nate has booked his flight, rental car, and hotel to come visit me my first weekend in Greensboro, NC!! Woohoo! I'm so excited! He is so amazing for being so kind to come and visit me 3/4 rounds! Hopefully his visit will help cure some of my homesickness!
Love and miss you all!

Wrapping up the Memphis Experience

Today we are cleaning and packing up our humble abode in preparation for heading back to Vicksburg bright and early tomorrow morning. It’s mostly sweet and only a little bit bitter this round, but we did have a wonderful send-off thank-you dinner last night put on by the 5 board members of ArkWings, and they also gave us free t-shirts, which made me happy to end on a good note J I haven’t been blogging much lately, so let me fill you in on what exciting events I haven’t shared yet: last weekend the team and I went to the National Civil Rights and Rock ‘N Soul Museums, which were really interesting and also kinda sad. We got to walk through the Lorraine Motel, where MLK Jr. was shot and killed, and see the hotel room he stayed in, and also another part across the street where the shooter was…and the most interesting part is that they don't actually know who the shooter was! 

It is still an ongoing investigation with a lot of conspiracy theories. There are a lot of “coincidences” that seem like if even one of them was different, MLK wouldn’t have been shot and killed on that day. For example, they changed his room to one on the balcony, when his original room number wouldn't have been visible from the shooter’s window across the street, and that morning, extra security teams were randomly called off…among other strange things, that I had never really known about. My team and I couldn't stop thinking about what had really happened and why, was it the FBI? The Military?

The weekend before last, we went to Elvis’ home, Graceland, and got to see his amazing house, the Jungle Room, collection of extravagant cars, his private planes, and his gravesite. I hadn’t realized just how huge of a star Elvis really was until I got the full experience at Graceland. He came from a poor family and worked really hard to give his mom and family money and nice things, because he knew they deserved them. He also gave a ton of money to charities and one day bought 24 Caddys and gave away 23 of them! I gained a huge appreciation for Elvis and the extravagant, intense, and charitable life he lived.

As far as work has gone, I planted a lot of flowers and flower bulbs over the past week…it was fun! I was never the gardener of the family (that was Aleena), so I really had no idea how to do any of it at first, but Neva and Mollie taught me well!

For our last day of work with the Wolf River Conservancy, one of our sponsors, Keith, took us out for a day-long canoe trip along the Ghost River portion of the Wolf River. 

There were 9 of us and 4 canoes, so I was the lucky one who got to ride in the middle of the canoe and not have to paddle! Keith was steering in the back, and Norah was paddling in the front. I felt safe until Keith kept having us stop so he could cut down tree limbs that where kind of in the way of the river trail…he was standing up for like 15 minutes at each tree, sawing limbs down right over my head! I was pretty nervous that they would hit me, but he said “they won’t hurt that bad if they hit you” so I then got even more nervous! Haha, none of them ended up hitting me, thank goodness! We also found a lot of floating trash and bottles along the way, so we stopped to pick them out of the water, almost tipping over a few times, and successfully filling our canoe to the brim with garbage…it was really gross sitting there, trying to enjoy the nature, but being surrounded by trash! A lot of the bottles had Bible verses in them, like it was a church group that purposely threw the bottles down the river! That’s crazy and pretty hypocritical, claiming to love God and your neighbors, and destroying His creation at the same time…Anyways, since we were picking up so much trash (it ended up being 5 garbage bags full/250lbs!!), we didn't get to stop to have lunch until 2:30, so everyone was starving! And of course, there were no bathrooms, so I was the only one who was anti-peeing in the wilderness, so I held my pee all day long…quite impressive, considering I probably have the smallest bladder on my team! And pretty unhealthy probably, but I think I’ll be okay! So we finished the 8 mile canoe trip around 6:30pm, and none of us fell out or even really got that wet, so it was quite a successful adventure! And we even got work hours for it since we cleaned up the river as we went J

Snake Sighting=Office Work!

Lately all we have been doing was cutting down privet here at ArkWings and with the Wolf River Conservancy at a place called the “Lovitt Woods,” which I have re-named the “hatitt woods” because I despise that place! First of all, it is 45 minutes away from where we live and behind a Lowes hardware store, so we have to park behind Lowes and walk 15 minutes on a slanted, muddy path to even get to the privet area! (This is the same area that was flooded last week and made my feet soaking wet all day). Second, there is so much privet (way more than the people in charge thought there was) that it is completely overwhelming just being there, and third…there are copperhead SNAKES that live there and we have spotted one out sunning itself one day…needless to say I was so freaked out I could hardly move and was no help the rest of the day, being so paranoid that I now have a new job working in the Wolf River office with Neva while the rest of the team is so brave to continue on with the snakes. Nothing much exciting has been going on other than that, except that we got our assignment for next round and we will be doing Habitat for Humanity in Greensboro, North Carolina! I am really excited for our next round and love working with Habitat so it should be awesome! Another cool thing is that Nate’s cousin who I have never met and he rarely sees, also lives in Greensboro, NC, so if Nate is able to plan a trip down to visit me, we can also hopefully visit with his cousin! Basically where I’m at these days is being excited…excited for this round to end soon, excited to see my other AmeriCorps friends from different teams back in Vicksburg for a week before we head to NC, and excited for our final round! I am really thankful for AmeriCorps and the experiences I have had, finding out the jobs I love (construction) and the jobs I could do without (cutting privet), getting to experience living in different states, and making connections with so many amazing non-profits. Although I am still kinda scared to enter “the real world” when I return to Maine, I am also excited because I have had some real experiences, training, and have developed so many helpful new skills to prepare me for a future job. 

Written on March 9th (Aleena's Birthday!)

This past weekend my team and I went to the Memphis Zoo! It was fun, even though I had been there before with Lynelle and it was absolutely freezing! I was wearing two sweatshirts and mittens and was still cold…so some of the animals weren’t really out, but we got to see the giraffes so it was all good J

Work has been very “blah” lately. We have been ripping numerous amounts of newspapers and magazines to make papercrete while we have been at ArkWings, and then when we work with Wolf River Conservancy lately we have been cutting down privet, the world’s most annoying overtaking plant there is! To while we were on our way to the little island/peninsula place where we cut the privet down, there was a huge river flowing through our path! There is usually a small stream with a makeshift bridge made out of brush to cross on, but since it had rained a lot this weekend, it was flooded…which was so bad until I realized that my rubber boots that are made large enough to wear sneakers in, had a hole in them so my foot, sock, and sneakers got SOAKED! It was so annoying! All morning I had to work with a wet foot and then go through the whole process again on the way to lunch, on the way back from lunch, and when we were done working, so needless to say, but feet were freezing by the end of the day and all I wanted to do was buy a new pair of sneakers and take a hot hot shower to make me feel better! But we had to do PT first…and then I showered, and as far as my sneakers go, hopefully they will dry out eventually (probably not anytime soon though!) and then maybe I can wash them? My only saving grace was that on my way back from lunch I found a dollar on the ground! There was no one else around who it might have belonged to, and it was just $1, so I pocketed it and took it as a small blessing from God, letting me know that He doesn't completely hate me! Haha. Oh, and speaking of God, today was the first day of lent, so most of my teammates and I have chosen to give up junk food of some kind. I am giving up sweets, which includes all candies, ice creams, desserts, etc. EXCEPT for fruity things that can also be considered semi-healthy. Oh and I am not giving up flavored coffees…that would just be too much, considering it’s how I stay warm at this chilly Starbucks while I get internet!

Also, today I announced to my team that I am finally feeling homesick. I say finally, because I had been doing really well being away from everyone back home, but today is Aleena’s birthday and Zac’s knee surgery for his torn ACL/MCL, Jonny’s birthday is coming up, and Nate’s sister-in-law Lisa is expecting a little baby girl soon, so there is just so much more going on at home that I would like to be around for rather than being here in Memphis where the newness and excitement has warn off from this project and we are all just ready to move on!

On another depressing note, I guess The House has passed the idea to cut all National Service organizations, like AmeriCorps…which would be a total bummer and I hope that it doesn't actually happen, because not only is this an amazing program overall (even though I have been negative lately), but the jobs I am looking into when I get back to Maine are all AmeriCorps State jobs working with nonprofits that wouldn’t exist! I just can’t imagine this program not existing! It is such a good experience and I mean come on, we work for hardly anything! Why would they want to get rid of cheap, well-done labor?! Anyways, hopefully this won’t happen, but it is something we are all kinda worried about now. 

Reading, finally!

The other day we actually got to read to some 4th graders! We went to the school during the school day for once and split up into small groups to read to the kiddos. Mollie, Neva and I were with 3 cute little 4th grade girls and we took turns reading a page then passing it to the next person to read. It was pretty fun to actually read with them and they seemed to really enjoy it too! They even gave us all big hugs afterwards, thanking us :) It was rainy all day today, so we stayed in the house and ripped up newspapers and magazines to make papercrete blocks with and since we were doing this in the house, we decided to watch some movies to help pass the time...it was great! We got to rip paper and watched 3 movies all day...can't complain about that work load! Hopefully we will be done with the outside privet and ivy cutting soon, since it is getting warmer (the trees are already starting to bloom!) and that means that the poison ivy and SNAKES will be coming out soon...ahhhhhh!
Anyways, I am really missing home right now....I am really enjoying my team this round (like all the other rounds) but I feel like I have experienced enough of Memphis and am ready to move on to another project/state to check out some other nonprofits and learn some more skills...but oh well! We listed our projects for next round today and put Florida, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Alabama in our top spots...so hopefully we will get to experience a new state next round! I will let y'all know as soon as we find out!

Brick Factory

Last week was spent experimenting with “papercrete” bricks, which are bricks made out of paper, concrete, and sand. It is supposed to be a more “green” way of building something, but our sponsors are not sure which recipe is the best with the materials we have, so we have been playing around with different amounts of each ingredient. It was pretty fun, and once we find the “perfect mixture” we will make a lot of them and hopefully get to build something with them?! Mollie, Mario and I also did a recruiting event at Briar Crest Christian School yesterday, which was awesome! We found out when we left that it was the school that Michael Ohr (The Blind Side) went to! That area of Tennessee is so nice! It was a really wealthy area with huge mansions all around and there were at least 3 Hummers, 6 new Mustangs, and a whole bunch of other really nice cars parked in the parking lot. We were only there for about 30 minutes, but there were a handful of students who seemed interested, so that was good. Today we planted a bunch of trees all day, and there was a ABC news camera filming us for awhile, so we might be on TV! Over the weekend, since I was actually with my team this time and not with a visitor (bittersweet), we went out to dinner at Olive Garden one night, and to the movies another night, which was really fun! We saw The Eagle, which was super gory and lots of battle scenes, but it was okay, because Channing Tatum was in it! Haha We also got our list of projects for our final round and we will be putting them in order soon…the ones I’m interested in are in North Carolina, Florida, and Virginia…so we shall see what we get!