Redwoods here we come.

We choose to create our own freedom and our own world, because freedom is not available without effort

-Eugene Hutz

Today is Thursday and in three days I will be going with my entire Silver Unit (about sixty Corps members) way up north to the Redwoods to Mendocino! I am so excited to get away from this Area. The weather might be nice but from what I have seen of Sacramento It is not a gorgeous area. It is just really flat and all of the trees look like they were they were imported and put there on purpose instead of just growing naturally.

The redwoods are going to be a fantastic change of pace. We are going for 4 days and we will fix up a Boys and Girls camp. The camp takes children from cities like San Diego and San Francisco, children that might never get a chance to attend a summer camp otherwise (or even leave the city) and brings them by the Skunk Train, a huge snaking Steam Engine complete with singing conductors that winds its way up north through the forest. It's all a big secret what exactly we will be doing up there but they were very quick to tell us that YES, PT (physical training) will still be going on every day. WAHOO!

I bet Ya'll are wondering why I haven't talked about my new team yet, seeing that I just got them and they are going to be such an integral part of my corps experience? Well I actually have been wicked sick for the last threeish days. I think that in the that time I have slept about 45ish hours AHH. I'm feeling a lot better seeing that my 100 and some odd temperature is gone but I am still hacking up a lung about every 5 minutes. In order to take time off from my NCCC duties I had to go to Sick call and get a doctor's note. Even though there was 5 of us (all my neighbors) who had the exact same sickness and all of us had gotten sick the same time, for some reason I was the only one tested for swine flu.. I don't know why.

Sorry I know I said I would tell you guys about my Birthday But I'll have to push that onto next post. THANKS FOR READING!!!!!!!!

My Amazing Pod

Josh Cleaning a garage door at the Senior Gleaners

My Halloween Costume. Mostly all my uniform with some other pieces added in.

The Uniform.

So Much to tell so little time!

First off I just wanted to say that I'VE BEEN EXCEPTED INTO FRT! I'm going to be a Category 2 Forest Firefighter! And Also Cody got accepted too so this is very exciting. Also we had another daylong project the other day that consisted cleaning cans off at a food pantry for about 5 hours so that confirmed my choice to join FRT. I would much rather be chillen in the woods and doing Physical Labour than doing monotonous work like that. Even though both types of jobs are really really important.


Two and a half weeks into Americorps and It already seems like I have been gone for months... I might have said that in one of the Blogs before but I just can't stress enough, how quickly everyone became friends and how tight of friends we have become!



I'm pretty bummed out right now though. We have been in our temporary Pods for the last couple weeks and yesterday we got broken up into our permenant teams yesterday and I am just sooo sad to leave my podmates. Usually pods are only together a couple of days but because over half of the team leaders were deployed to American Samoa the last few weeks to aid in the tsunami they only just got back yesterday so that is when we were split up into Teams. I dunno why but all of us just clicked and we literally hung out all day, from PT, to the trainings, to afterhours and dinner. I am goining to miss them all so much. The sweet thing is that I still have the same Team Lader as before. Paul, he is the man. I am so pumped to be working with him for the next 9 months.

Ah I have so much to say about my birthday and my first deployment and the fact that I might have gotten swine flu But ya'll will have to tune in tomorro or something when I have more time to writ.e

PACK TEST and fast food.

Today is Sunday and it was suppose to be our first day off but I actually had my pack test today. That was our test that determined whether we are qualified to be on the FRT (Fuel Reduction Team).

It was nice to be able to sleep in, I slept all the way to nine-thirty which was amazing but then Josh (one of my hall mates) knocked on our door and woke s up (hah great) We ended up going to In And Out for breakfast. They are this big famous burger joint out here I got fries, which sucked, an AMAZING strawberry/ Chocolate shake and a burger.

Then a couple hours later we had the test. It was pretty hot out and we had to do three large loops around the base parking lot wearing this really huge uncomfortable 45 pound vest. I brought my ipod and blasted Girl Talk while speed-walking. It was tough I had to push myself to keep up this ridiculously fast pace. I was sweating buckets. We had to come in under 45 minutes. I ended up coming in at 41 minutes and 31 seconds!!!!

No one that I know of got in faster than 40 minutes. Cody, she is one of my Suit-mates and in my Pod also tried out and she passed too! Now I'm just waiting to hear if I'll be accepted. eeesh

OH and here is my address

Finley Janes, Class 16, Pod 10 Americorps NCCC Pacific Campus 3427 Laurel St. McClellan, Ca, 95652

First Project and FRT????

Well most of training consists of boring lectures on swine flu protection, sitting on the floor watching 4 hour presentations on Corps Policy and mustering up with our pods to get filled in on scheduling stuff. But we actually had a project yesterday. Apparently it was community gardening day yesterday so half of the troops went out into the Sacramento area and helped in public gardens. We went to the sickest public elementary school ever! I don't even feel like anyone at home will believe that a place like the exists. I mean I thought my school was pretty good but this place! They had a little garden outside every classroom, and since it is Cali, the kids get to walk outside to other parts of campus. They also had an orchard, a vegetable garden and a green house... what??? I felt like this school really didn't need 11 members helping them out seeing that they had everything running so smoothly but never the less we helped weed, make a compost pile holder and mulch. It was amazing seeing how happy and productive the kids were working in the gardens. They were so focused and driven. I have never seen so many kids that age with that much work ethic.

Other than training and projects I am making pretty big decision right now that will determine what I will be doing over the next year. Normal NCCC members just get assigned projects at random. They might be making trails in national forests all over the west coast. they could be helping re-build houses in the hurricane areas or aiding at a disaster. That is why i joined Americorps cause I want to work hard, work outside and learn some new skills, as well as the travel aspect of it. The only thing is that I also could be helping people with their taxes, answering phones in an office or tutoring little kids after school... these things don't thrill me as much. I wouldn't mind doing them BUT I have a little alternative I might be able to do. FRT- Fuel Reduction Team. These are the teams that only focus on forest fires and reducing the fuel near communities to help control the fires. Pros- I get my CHAINSAW certification, I am guaranteed to spend most of my time outside, i get to work with fire, I get wildfire fighter certification and I am gunna get it killer shape. Cons- I probably won't leave California, IF there is a disaster down south I probably won't get shipped out (but I guess it is not likely we will get shipped there anyway because usually Mississippi campus gets those) and I will mostly be doing the same projects the whole time.

Well either way I can't get onto FRT without passing the Pack test which is tomorrow. The Pack test is a 3 mile hike on under 45 minutes wearing a 45 pounds pack... I REALLY wanna pass. But I figure that I will let this test make my choice of whether I do FRT also it depends on if I even get selected because there is only 44 slots...

ok well I'll try to post some photos soon.

California, CALIFORNIA! (In-processing)

I don't even know what to start with because soooo many things have changed in the last few days... I guess I'll start with at the beginning (its a very good place to start). Welly well well, Mom drove me to the airport in the morning, we left at 3:45am in order to get there in time and I demanded we bring Maggie (my German shepherd) in the car with us. Before I had even made it past security I ran into another Boston Americorps. Apparently the Boston NCCC members are taking over because sitting in the waiting area before the flight I looked around and realized that all the young people were probably going to Sacramento too, they were (I asked them). We had about a 15 minute layover when we landed in Phoenix and when we got on the PHX-SAC flight the ENTIRE back of the plane with inundated with members, all asking the same questions (age, location, school), swapping roomers about the program or sharing nostalgia about the last time they smoked (drug test on Sat.).

IN-processing was just a a chaotic-ly organized mess of paperwork, fitting for the uniforms and getting little orientation pep talks. EVERYONE WAS NICE. Group leaders, staff, members. Literally there was no one, and still has been no one, that has been mean or majorly annoying.

The campus is small, only three building; 2 dorms, 1 multi-purpose room, 1 office building. Everything is decently nice. Nothing is spectacular. The rooms are all different. Some have a nice wardrobe for both roommates, some have no storage furniture at all, some have one set of furniture. Some people have three people in 1 room hahah. Josh, one of my friends down the hall, somehow lucked out because his roommate was a girl so they moved her to a triple and he has a single now with TONS of storage furniture.

They have warned us early on that drinking on campus (for anyone) is strictly prohibited and apparently has dire consequences. But there are some bars in walking distance for people of legal age. Apparently there are basically two bars nearby. One is for team leaders and the other for members and they DON't cross paths, haha.

Uniforms are hideous but amazing. They are huge baggy shirts with Americorps Labels, long sleeve, short sleeve or polo. We also got sweatshirts and vests and bandanna all with americoprs labels. We got big floppy sunhats and hard-helmets and big SICK steel toed boots. The pants are baggy high waisted extra long and COMFY haha. When you are on duty you where you're uniform as instructed NO EXCEPTIONS.

AHH I have so much more to say but no time to say it!

I'll write agian soon to tell you guys past the first day.

Packing List and such and such

When Packing I took a lot of Care with how I configure my clothes and belongings into my suitcase.... and by that I mean I just tried to shove as much stuff into my suitcases as possible without really knowing exactly what I packed. I have a sort of Safari going on in my room and car, so I have had to do some major bushwhacking to to get through the mountains of dirty Laundry(actually it might even be clean I wouldn't know), and had to do some gold panning to find the very few pieces of things worth taking in the mess on my sewing table and bureau. I ended up doing ten thousand hours of laundry and resulting in a packing list that must look something like this, but of course we all know that the exact contents within the suitcases won't be revealed until I start unpacking in Cali.

FIRST SUITCASE

5 pairs of pants (one khaki/nice just in case)

probably about ten shortsleeve (some just tees, some cuter tees, some tank tops

4 long sleeve shirts (black white and gray) to wear under my uniform when its cold

5ish workout shorts and shirts and spandexs

about 5 or six sportbras

Probable about 5 regular bras and undies

4 pairs of shortish

a thin little exercise sweatshirt

a fleecy sweatshirt

a cardigan

one nice little black dress

my Red Sox cap (obviously wouldn't leave that behind, need to rep my boys)

winter cap

a couple cute scarves

my fish mittens

four pairs of wool socks

4 pairs of tall socks to wear with boots

normal socks

My toiletries case

-toothbrush, shampoo, make-ups, hairbrush, ect

SMALLER SUITCASE (this one I was REALLY just tossing things in)

Running sneakers

Hiking shoes

birkenstocks

mockasins

cute flats

flannel booties

flippyflops

headbands

toe warmers

a bunch of DVDs

a bunch of pictures

all my chords and chargers for my computer and cellphone and ipod

ipod speakers

first aid kit

a little pouch of writting supplies

my journal

a little pouch of my jewelries

my other purse

batteries

some belts

2 pocket knives

(um probs more stuff but i can't think right now)

CARRY ON

All my documents they say I have to bring

a pair of wool socks

some movies

my laptop

a book

a little journal

my cellphone and ipod

AND THEN I also shipped a box

2 plates

2 mugs

1 cup

2 bowls

little floor rug

bed pad

comforter

2 sets of sheets

blanket

silverware

winter and fall jacket

pillow

SO WELL thats all I think. I guess we'll discover the rest when I unpack in TWO DAYS!!!!!

Less than a Week!!!! WATCH OUT

It is Thursday night right now and I leave on Wednesday Morning!!! Its real soon. I've been wicked pumped to forget to this time of year (packing and prep) but now that it is here it is a little sad. Fall in Mass is the shit. Everything smells clean and fresh and homey, like leaves and wood stoves and the ocean. Suddenly everything I have been so stoked to venture away from has come into focus and I realize that all my friends and my area are wicked sweet, BUT all the same I am sooo ready to get a move on out to California.

I am basically done with packing. I have squeezed SO MUCH CRAP into my suitcases. I'm pretty sure that I packed way too much but whatever I can always send some home if I want.

I got my plane tickets by email a couple days ago. We got them a week before we are to take off. Mine leaves at 6:20 from Logan then flies to Phoenix and then Finally boots me over to Sacramento where some Americorps person will pick me up. YAYYYRRR