Sunny California

I hoped to only blog on my own computer, to relax with some music, clear my head, and try my hand at this blogging stuff. But it has yet to arrive, so for now I'll do a short post in the computer lab at McClellan Air Force Base. In all honesty, it's not fair writing my first post at this time. So much has happened that trying to sum it up in one sitting can't be justified. In this way I've failed in my first blog attempt, but hopefully future posts will fill you in. Eh fuck it i'll try and do it now:

It's boring to list off the activities completed day by day, mostly because said activites were more boring than Home Ec class. So assume that by day (roughly 8 - 4), I was sitting in a drab, grey, mess hall type-room, sitting in drab, grey chairs, leaning over (you guessed it) drab, grey tables staring at a projector screen and listening to a lecture that could have been cut down by a quarter of the time in which it was given. Diversity training does not take 8 hours. I refuse to believe it. Anyways, much time was spent playing 4-person scrabble on iphones and trying to figure out how to sneak a headphone into one ear without the team leaders noticing.

I will, however, start you off at the beginning. I took a 5:40 AM flight to Sacramento Airport, stopping in Philly and Las Vegas. I met 3 other kids from Albany somewhere along the way (who knew Albany was a hotbed for Americorps NCCC members?), and we played the let's-make-awkward-conversation-as-we-size-each-other-up-in-our-anti-sunday-best-comfort-clothes-while-hoping-that-everyone-else-in-the-program-does-not-look-as-bedraggled-and-dishevelled-as-these-shmucks-look game. A laborious game with very few winners. Naturally, I became good friends with them and remain so to this moment. I hope they don't consider me a shmuck.

Arriving on campus (jetlagged and tired), we were thrust into the pandemonium that was the administering of uniforms and gear. It was a similar sitaution to the game played with the Albany kids at airports, but multiplied by about 75. Instead of 4 kids sizing each other up, there's 300. And it's much, much louder and more chaotic. There's 9 stations to get to, and you can go in order, but there's a twist. If one station looks too crowded, you can skip it and move on to the next one, or just hop around at random if you are so inclined. Either way, you can see where the chaos comes from. Some questions I inevitably overheard at this time: "Wait, we can go to ANY station we want?", "But I don't have my boots yet... Can I get my shirt first?" and "Is this station 2, 3 or 4?" What they didn't tell us was that stations 4, 5 and 6 had to be consecutive. Anyways, you can see how frustrating this could be with a temporarily deaf left ear (from jetlag), sleep deprivation, and the always overzealous try-to-meet-everyone-kid shaking your hand twice in the span of 10 minutes. However, I got all my gear, a room and a roommate in a little under 2 hours. Not terrible I guess. Perhaps time for a hot shower...

We learned later on that evening that half of the team leaders that would normally be there were in American Samoa helping that area get back on its feet after a hurricane or tsunami or something hit the area a month or two ago. So the team leaders left at campus were overworked and very stressed. We were separated into 12-person pods by alphabetical order. So, in my pod, was a Dixon, Drago, Duff, Dye... you get the idea. These pods, in normal circumstances, woudl last 4 days, as they sorted out who would be in what team. But this year they kept us in them for 2 weeks, leading inevitably to all-consuming infatuation with the members of ones pod and pure spite and anger when we were separated 2 weeks later. Seriously, people cried. But I'm really tired now, so I will finish this tomorrow...

Things to look forward to in tomorrow's post: Physical Training Starts, Trips to Downtown Sacramento and San Francisco, The local nightlife scene, campus dynamics and kitchen chaos.