Go Forth To Serve: Getting to know each other, and getting to know myself

Again, sorry about the lapse between posts. I feel like I've been so so busy, but I promise to try and find more time to do this more often. I know no one wants to read super long posts.

We had a great past week, which mostly entailed learning lots about ourselves and each other. We did get to finally get our hands dirty a little out at the Central Mississippi Boys and Girls Club camp in Hazlehurst, MS. We made it out to the camp on Monday evening in time to play some games with the kids before dinner (I taught everyone WAH! and we played some Big Booty, too--lots of fun). We had a bonfire at night and made some s'mores, to much laughter from our hosts, who couldn't imagine that we would make a fire when it was so damn hot out. We camped out (I learned how to put up a tent!) and went canoeing around the pond at sunrise. After breakfast, we engaged in some service and learning--cycling through stations around the camp and learning safety and skills while getting some work done.

Our tent city as seen from the pond

The rest of the week, we had supervisory skills training (conflict management, facilitation, etc) and then diversity training (which was really just learning that we all have differences, but it's our similarities that bind us--I know, cheesy but poignant). All in all, three really intense days which were focused on learning about ourselves and sharing those auto-observations with the group. A little hard, emotionally, but we were definitely all closer by the end of it.

Friday night we saw the 6th Harry Potter movie, which I thought was good, but not great. 15 of the team leaders (including me) went to New Orleans on Saturday for a fun weekend away from campus. We went to the Abita brewery for a free tour and tasting and then had some rockin' barbeque for lunch. The girls who worked there even gave us free ribs and a free boulin (jambalaya in a sausage casing = delicious) just because we were being so boisterous and friendly with them! We checked into our hotel in the French Quarter (15 of us in 2 rooms at AmeriCorps rates = $10 each!) and everyone got ready to go out. Unfortunately, I missed the frolicking on the town because I wasn't feeling well, but it seemed like everyone had a really great night. On Sunday, I got up early and explored a little and then we all went to one of the team leader's houses for some homemade jambalaya and a tour of where Katrina left 5 feet of water in their basement. It was great to be treated to some family time and some great cooking.

On Friday morning, we did our baseline test for PT (1 min of situps/crunches, 1 min of pushups, 1.5 mi run/walk). I feel like I did about how I thought I could, but I definitely have room for improvement throughout the year, which is the whole point of doing it.

Today starts our third week already of Team Leader Training, which is really hard for me to believe. I definitely am feeling comfortable here but I can't believe that the Corps Members will be here in 11 days already!! We got to finally tour Vicksburg a little bit today--we went and saw the twin bridges over the Mighty Mississippi and saw a cannon shot off in a reenactment at the National Military Park (wow, was that loud!).