Everything seems to be happening very fast. The Team Leaders who were in American Samoa working on a tsunami relief project with the American Red Cross finally came back. They have been there since before the corps members got here, and it’s good to have them finally here and see all of Class XVI together. They came back on Friday. Last night we were split into our units and today we were spent into teams and on Wednesday we’re off to Camp Mendocino. It’s a camp run by the Boys and Girls Club, where we will do team building exercises as well as work on projects to maintain and fix the camp. I’m pretty excited to finally know who is on my team for the next 9 ½ months. 
There are four Units Gold, Green, Silver and Blue. Each unit has 7 teams, and I am on Blue 4. I have mixed emotions because of course I would’ve rather hand pick my team, but I’m happy to meet people that I haven’t seen before today. I also lucked out and was put on a team with one of the guys I met from day one. My team as a whole seems pretty great, and individually I feel that I will be able to connect with everyone on some level or another. I can for see the inevitable bad, but I can also for see the inevitable good. I do happen to be older than my Team Leader, which is a little awkward for me although she is younger than a good majority of our team. She seems pretty nice, and hopefully will warm up as she gets to know us all better. All in all everyone seems, excited about going on projects and finally get out and do what we came out here for. 
It will be good to come back and be able to share stories with the people I met during my first 2 weeks of CTI. The past couple of days have been pretty crazy. I completed Disaster Relief training, which unfortunately one of the only positive things I can say about it is that I’m happy to have completed it. I also am recertified for First Aid/CPR and AED. I really like the American Red Cross as a whole, they do really great work for the communities they serve and I’m happy to be able to have a chance to work with them. 
My favorite day this past week was probably Saturday because we spent the morning at the Sacramento Theatre and we listened to a panel that discussed homelessness. It was really interesting; I didn’t know that the mayor of Sacramento, former NBA basketball star, Kevin Johnson had such cool initiatives for his city. His top three issues in no particular order are eliminating/reducing homelessness, emphasis on the arts, and volunteerism. He took a picture with all 300 of us. You can probably find it online somewhere but I have yet to look for it. I was in the way back so you probably can’t even see me. The panel was really awesome, we heard about different aspects of homelessness; there was a guy who told us the story of how he turned his life around. The whole panel was pretty inspiring and it was such a good start, because we went straight from there to our project. 
My pod, or temporary team harvested, Apples, walnuts, persimmons and plums from an abandoned orchard that is about to be turned into a levee. It was really cool because they let us pick trees, and we also harvested like no one’s ever seen before. We were allowed to destroy the trees. That must sound awful, but they’re going to destroy the orchard anyway. The great part was we got so much more fruit than we would’ve been able to normally. We were also allowed to try out the fruit we picked which was a lot of fun. Aside from my intense fear of getting poison oak, the day went really well. We worked with Soil Born farms which is a non profit that focuses on ensuring people have access to more fruit, and also educates people in the area on environmental concerns. I am hoping to go back and do an Independent Service Project with them, and a couple more of the organizations I learned about that day. 
Sunday was pretty chill, I hung around campus with my new found friends and picked up a sweet speakers for my iPod for five dollars from Target. Then Sunday night, I went for a final dinner with my pod, which was separated shortly after into units. I liked the people from my Pod but I am happy to have the chance to work with different people for the rest of my time here. 
Monday was a day of diversity training, which was led by some former NCCC members who were pretty awesome. They really seemed to know what they were talking about it, and did their best to make seven hours of training seem like fun. I also found out today that because of the type of work and projects we do, that I will be able to add some college credits to my degree, even if they are Post-Baccalaureate credits. Diversity training is something nice to have on a resume.
I’m looking forward to Camp Mendocino on Wednesday, but unfortunately I won’t have anyway to contact the outside world until after I return on Saturday. Well, it’s 11pm here and sunny California and I have PT in 6 hours so I’m off to bed. Night world.
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