Thanksgiving, Turkey Trot, and Tahoe

Last week was Thanksgiving and school was out, so my team worked with Sacramento Parks and Recreation cleaning up local parks. On Monday we raked and trimmed hedges, Tuesday we raked and cut down trees, and Wednesday we raked 6 trucks worth of leaves, by Thursday I was so happy to do something besides raking I got excited over picking up the trash from the over 30,000 people who were at the Sacramento Turkey Trot. The Turkey Trot was probably my favorite part of the work week. We woke up early and cheered on over 30,000 people as they raced to feed the hungry. I danced for and high-fived as many people as possible.

Thursday night we had a very AmeriCorps Thanksgiving. It was nice to have traditional food, but I missed my mom’s green bean casserole. Afterward we hung out on campus and enjoyed our break, and talked of our plans for Tahoe.

We left Friday morning, with the intentions of going straight to Tahoe. Unfortunately, no plan goes off without a hitch and we managed to spend an hour running errands including buying snow chains. The drive up was beautiful, I’ve never ridden in a car while it was snowing so I was in awe with the way it fell against the trees and landed on my hands as we drove up the winding roads. My ears popped continually from the increasing elevation. The pictures I have are beautiful but they weren’t able to fully capture the essence of it all.

As soon as I had the opportunity I loaded my hands up with snow and started packing and throwing at all of my unsuspecting friends. Each hit was accompanied with a cry of delight, and fortunately my friends were more amused by my ear to ear grin and ignored the fact that I just pelted them with a huge ball of ice. Most of Friday and all of Saturday I played in the snow. I even made my very first snowman with the help of my friends Harmony, Chewie and the other Sarah. We also managed to find a hill that was just steep enough to sled down. I was overjoyed with the miracle of snow. As a born and raised Floridian my encounters with snow have been few and far between, and I have never really had the opportunity to play in it.

It was great to be able to kick back with friends and enjoy our time out of uniform and away from campus, before starting back to our regular workweek once again. Now we’re back to work as usual. Although, the kids don’t seem to be re-energized and focused after their week off as they are still in the same mindset of there is no point to school. My team seems to be in good spirits in spite of being surrounded by people without ambition, and the other misfortune that has recently affected the way my team is running.

Our team is down by 1, as our team leader had to return to Virginia for personal reasons. She will return soon and we will function as close to normal as possible in the mean time. Our thoughts are with her and her family at this time.

In other news there is talk of a possible writers group to form on campus in the near future and I find myself very excited by the prospect, as I have been slacking off recently. For now though, I shall finish watching the Sand Lot as James Earl Jones is about to grace the screen.

incomprehensible....

Amerikus about tutoring:

Inadequate me
tutoring you in things I
just don't understand

Back to High School Fun
Joking with kids all day long
what could be better?

Un-enthused kids
force them to try problems now
That's if im lucky

All in all I love
Tutoring students its fun
but sometimes so hard

It's an up and down roller coaster, and I'm sure I have an extra syllable somewhere.

I'm tutoring students at Woodland High School. The majority of the kids are really cool, they just don't want to be in high school. I can't blame them. I didn't want to be in high school either, but I got through it by focusing on what I wanted to do after. These kids can't seem to think about the future. It's like their parents never told them the things mine did. Growing up my parents always encouraged me to do my best, and to try different things. They always told me that I could do anything I set my heart too. I don't think these kids have that, and it sucks. They seem to be okay with mediocrity and even worst, failure. It's incomprehensible.

On top of the majority of my students not having motivation, I have had feelings of inadequacy in my abilities to teach. I keep asking other tutors questions, and I'm always unsure if I caught the mistakes when I'm editing their papers. Then I feel like they're not learning, and that I'm doing all their work. Also, I feel like when I have to edit papers, I don't know what to do. Their papers need so much work, but apparently we only need to get them to pass. The problem is they're not improving at all, because with each essay they only do enough to pass. They don't learn.

BUT!!! The kids are funny, interesting, and amusing. They have this naivety about life that is refreshing. I am surprised at what I remembered from Algebra 1 and Geometry. I also never thought that I'd be at a point in my life where I'd rather solve math problems than work on English papers. It's weird.

In other news, I am going to be a Weed Warrior again tomorrow with Frank! He's a PeaceCorps alum that loves working with NCCC. To top it off he's so knowledgeable and friendly. I'm really excited about our day project. It will be a nice change of pace from being inside all day.

Our Projects Started today!

Today was our first day on the Job. My team Blue 4ious is working at Pioneer and Woodland High Schools in Woodland, Ca. We are tutoring and mentoring students throughout the day. The learning center where we're working was established 16 years ago by this lad Irma who took it from one room and one tutor at Woodland to over 80 tutors at Woodland High School alone, not to mention she's opened several sister programs in High Schools in Woodland, and the surrounding counties. She partners with UC Davis Students who tutor several times a week at the school. She is a very passionate woman, and I hope that if I ever accomplish my dream of opening a non-profit, I have the same passion and pride in my creation 16 years down the line. I'm kind of surprised Irma isn't an National Civilian Conservation Corps member as her main focus was getting things done, and we were thrusted into tutoring first thing. It was stressful, but cool. I feel better about my abilities to get involved straight away. I'm excited to watch myself grow over the next year.

The Continuation of CTI

I'm exhausted. I think it was because I've spent the last few weeks getting little to no sleep, and so here I am at 4pm dying for a nap. This past weekend I went camping with my friends in Marin. It's just across the Golden Gate Bridge. It was awesome, and free. We spent the day in San Fran and slept in the woods. I had entirely too much fun.
I'm back and we're in our last week of CTI. Only four more days and I'm officially inducted as a true and proper corps member. Next week we start our first project. I'm really excited about it.

Like I said before, I'm exhausted and I see my friends outside. So I'm gonna go there.

Hopefully I'll find more time to write after CTI. Especially since I'll be on campus.

Phase 1 Project Revealed!

Despite all the challenges that life can bring right now it seems simply perfect. It’s not always sunshine and happiness; in fact, I spent the two previous days fuming about the little things. About not getting any position that I had requested, and griping about someone in the program I’m not particularly fond of. Complaining about it didn’t really make the situation any better, in fact for the most part, everything felt worst. For whatever reason I woke up the other morning and was like this is going to be a good day. And it was a great day, the sun was shining, I did well in PT, I hung out with friends, and I found out my first project. We’re working at two high schools in Woodland, CA mentoring and tutoring High School kids. We’re trying to encourage them to stay in school. I’m so stoked about this. I wanted a youth project so bad. Just one, and I’d be fine and I got my one youth project first round.

I’m happy I get to stay on campus first round two because more than likely I’ll be going off base for 2^nd, 3^rd and 4^th rounds. So I have the added bonus of knowing my surroundings. Staying in one place longer than 6 weeks, I haven’t stayed in one place since I moved out of Tallahassee. I also get to have Internet, cable, and the benefit of hanging out with the other teams on campus.

Today I only had Project Outreach Liaison training; it’s my only specialty role. It’s a good role for me because I’ll get to network with Nonprofits all year, and I was seriously thinking about either going into nonprofit management or child psychology. So I think my career path was just kind of decided for me. My heart has been racing after this dream job for about two years now, so I might as well just dive head first into it and worry about the messy stuff later.

Tomorrow our project is Weed Warriors, where we will spend the day removing invasive species from a creek. I’m hoping I get to wear one of those rubber suits. I think it will make it way better. Pulling weeds is one of my least favourite activities, but I’ll find fun it somehow. I always seem to manage to find joy in the little things.

The weather here is gorgeous. If I were to pick somewhere too live solely based on climate this would be the place. It’s warm but not hot, with a nice breeze every now and again. It hardly rains and the leaves change colors, so there are seasons! I love seasons. Weather should change; it’s unnatural to maintain a state of hot or cold. I enjoy sunshine, but sweltering heat in November is not fun for me. So this place is perfect. I need to upload pictures but it doesn’t seem like that will happen any time soon.

Back to CTI

Mendocino was a nice break from traditional CTI. I miss being surrounded by red woods, and I wish that it were a little bit chillier here. I had my first bad day in Americorps yesterday, but today seems to be going much better. I just have to remind myself that I can change my happiness, not others. We're finding out our Project within the next couple of days, rumor has it I should know it today, but it maybe different for every team. I'm hoping we find out, today. I want to know what we're doing. With each new training new possible projects our mentioned and I become more and more excited about each of them.

I have lots of pictures to put up but I haven't found the time. I do have some up on Facebook, and I may open a flickr account. But I will try and add some pictures to here soon.

I'll report back with my first project as soon as I know it.

My Address

Here is my address if you would like to post mail.

Sara Pennington Class XVI Blue 4
3427 Laurel St
McClellan, Ca 95652

4 days of Cold and The Return to Sunshine.

When they said Camp Mendocino was going to be cold they meant it. I woke up frozen to the core underneath all my layers, until I learned the beauty of a mummy sleeping bag. The trick is wear fewer layers and zip your sleeping bag all the way, by my third night there I slept in a sweat shirt, and pajama pants. I was happy to get back to Sunny Sacramento, although I do miss the peace and quiet of Camp Mendocino. I have mixed feelings about my experience there as I feel it was a lot like summer camp, where you have your good and bad moments. At summer camp, and in live/work environments a day is never all good or all bad. The days are too long and the experiences too diverse for anyone’s mood to be consistent.

When we got there I was wearing shorts and already freezing. I had packed all my long BDU’s (Battle Dress Uniform, they’re cargo pants) so that they would be clean. Long story short, there was enough time for me to put my bag in a cabin and get a bottom bunk and change into shorts, but I wasn’t allowed to utilize that time, so I ended up on a top bunk, and in shorts and a sweatshirt in 58 degree weather. In the end it worked out, I didn’t mind sleeping on the top bunk, and I felt tough in my shorts, being from Florida and watching all my of my friends in plenty of layers. I also had time to change after our first meeting.

We learned about the roles of team leader and support team leader and we watched a movie about the Fish Philosophy. It’s based on the Seattle Fish Market, where those guys don’t have the most appetizing job, but they do have the most fun. There are four principles: Play, Make Their Day, Be There, and Choose Your Attitude. I am trying to utilize that philosophy in my own life, and have been pretty successful at it, thus far. Although, I have a little more experience as I’ve been adapting 3 of the four principles marginally successfully for the last few years of my life. Although, I do have to admit, I’m not the best at being present with people, and I’m trying to get better at actually engaging with people.

The next day, I had a pretty awful morning I woke up early and couldn’t get back to sleep, I felt sick during PT, and I tripped and fell twice, I cried twice before 6am, which is not the best way to start off a day. About half way through PT I decided that I could either be miserable or do my best, so I kept that in mind and had as much fun as possible. It worked pretty well, although throughout the day I had moments of negativity. After PT, we had a class on Service Learning Initiatives and how it fits in with the NCCC program. I really like how NCCC incorporates service learning into the projects we do, it makes everything come together, and over all we get more out of the experience. The rest of the day we did team building exercises on the low and high ropes courses.

As a former Camper, I have completed plenty of both low and high ropes so they come second nature to me. So at this point it becomes unfair for me to take charge and add my comments and ideas of how to do it. During my last couple of years at Camp Wewa, I was not allowed to speak when doing these activities, so I tried to do the same thing, I gave few suggestions and just tried to follow. The best part of the day for me was the high ropes. I don’t know what happened but I just kind of let go and I climbed all over the challenge course. Everyone else was done and just wanted to go down the zip line, and I wanted to try all of the different ropes out. So after some convincing the ropes instructor let me go out on the course while everyone else waited in line. I really enjoyed it. Although I did have some moments of insecurity, and so I called back with questions about the stability of the cables, how much weight they can hold on, so on and so forth. My team leader seemed to think that I was letting my weight hold me back, because she commented about it later. The people that know me best, would probably say that I rarely let anything hold me back, and that my weight has never held me back from participating in activities. It’s funny that after two days, someone can make quick and completely off the mark judgments about a person. It’s going to be an interesting and challenging 9 months, and I expect I will be pushed and pulled in directions I’ve never been pulled in before.

The next day we completed a service project for the camp, our team sanded one of the buildings and the other teams will paint it. It was great to get our hands dirty, so I was pretty happy about once again being put to work. I took pictures of me sanding, because I know my brother will never believe half of the things that I’ll do this year. In the afternoon we worked on our Individual Learning Plans (ILP’s). It is basically a piece of paper where you organize your thoughts and lay out a plan of how you are going to accomplish your goals. Although, I liked utilizing the ILP but I didn’t feel comfortable enough with my team leader to talk to her about those goals and plans. I know she has great qualities, but she seems very stand offish and unhappy with the fact that she couldn’t keep her pod. I think a lot of us feel that way, considering at this point we’ve still spent more time with our pod than we have with our team. I hope over time I’ll feel more comfortable talking to her about these things.

After ILP’s and dinner we performed a skit for the rest of our unit. It was a lot of fun seeing each team’s skit, and getting to have more bonding time with out unit as a whole. I really like the Unit I’m in and Blue has the best Unit Leader for sure. Overall, I feel like although challenging the next 9 months will totally be worth it.

Day 1 on Blue 4

So today was the first day I was on my permanent team. I think that we have a solid group of individuals. I feel a lot better about the people I will be spending the majority of my time with, although I still have a longing to hand pick my own team, but I am happy with the people that I ended up on a team with. I’m trying really hard not to make quick judgments. Today we had more conflict resolution training. So that was great, it was interesting to get to know everyone on my team. We established a team charter, it’s basically a list of house rules. I’m all for ground rules, in a live/work environment, they become necessary. I look forward to going on adventures and traveling the country in a 15 passenger van. Tomorrow we’re off to Mendocino. I’m going to bring my journal and try and force myself to write in it while I’m there.

My team went for Frozen Yogurt (Fro Yo) at the Big Scoop in the Arden mall, which is by far the best idea for a fro yo ever! It’s a self serve station, with at least 30 different toppings to choose from and 9 flavors, as long as you count swirls as a new flavor. They charge by the weight instead of by topping so you can come up with some pretty crazy creations. Mine didn’t work out as I had planned but the top half was still delicious. If you ever get a chance to try it, I recommend it.

I feel exhausted right now. I think I’m starting to get sick which is highly unfortunate. I’m trying to up my vitamin intake and decrease my sugar intake, but I don’t know if that will really do any good. Hopefully, it will help a little bit as I will be at Camp Mendocino for the next couple of days and I can’t really be sick while I’m out there. It’s really cold there, and I packed all of my warm clothes, so I will be cold for the majority of the day tomorrow until the cargo van gets there and I can grab a hold of my bag.