#12 "And suddenly you know... It's time to start something new and trust the magic of beginnings."

              Saturday morning my team met up around 8:30 to go to our independent service project. The service project was held at Soil Born Farms which is a farm that they grow everything organic. We had to weed for the few hours that we were there. We were also able to pick carrots and try a whole different vegetable that I had never heard of before called kohlrabi, that tasted like a combination between celery and a radish. We got one 30 minute break and within that time we were able to go to the marketstand and try different recipee samples made from the organic vegetables such as ginger sesame dragon tonged beans and they had organic chocolate. They also had home made pastries and organic coffee you could buy. I decided to buy a blueberry lemon poppie seed muffin and coffee which were absolutly delicious; and listen to the harpest that they had playing in one of the barns. Most defiantly the most relaxing break I've ever had! Once we were finished we bought some of their produce and left to go back to the campus.
           When we returned we had to stay in our uniform because we had duty in the main building where the Halloween bash was taking place. The dance felt like some 6th grade Halloween dance with different games and streamers. Once we were done I was pretty tired and I knew that it was going to be our last week of CTI before we leave for our first official spike, so went right to bed.
          On Sunday I went to church in the morning with a few new people. It was raining in th morning and around mid afternoon it was on and off rain.  When we were picked up, the TL asked us if we had heard what was going on at the campus. None of us knew and found out that because of the rain, the power went out at campus and in surrounding towns. Thankfully because it effected many towns surrounding us, the power came back once we returned to campus. The rest of the day was relatively lazy so I did loads of laundry, cleaned, went to the base exchange and by the time I was finished doing that we had dinner.
       The rest of the week seemed to go by relatively quick so I'll just do a quick recap.
Monday we didn't have much to do in the morning but research the place that we were going for our first spike and type up the section that we had to present for our project briefing. Then in the afternoon we had tool training which consisted of learning how to use and certain tools and at the end your team had to build a wooden box. All was going great until we had to put the box together. You see, on my team I have many vocal people who believe that they know the correct way to do everything.  My team started to get very agitated with one another, and me being a lot more laid back and taking everything in I started to think to myself, "guys this a simple box and many of you are getting angry at each other. What are you all going to do when we have a house to build?" At the end of the training one team mate and I were the only ones who helped our TL clean up. Only problem was, when I start a project like that I want to finish it. So I asked my TL if that was alright and she had no problem with it; so my team mate and I finished building the box in 15 minutes... I can understand that because it was a simple box, and there were so many people everyone wanted to put their input on how to build it.. But at the same time they need to understand that we are a team, and need to work together to get something done. So sometimes the best option is to just keep quiet and let one or two people lead. Once we were done my team ordered pizza and I realized after eating the pizza that I really cant handle greasy food like that anymore because I felt absolutely awful that night.
      Tuesday was a very mixed up kind of day. We each had different meetings for our specialty roles. Aisya and I had Peer Helper training in the morning at a McClellan Conference Center. The Peer helper training was so fun! They had bubbles, scrap paper with crayons, mints and play dough to keep us from dozing off. One of the most relaxed meeting settings for sure. Our role as peer helpers are actually pretty important. We are sort of like the counselors of the group. Our role is basically to listen and help people figure out any problems that they be having. In the afternoon we had to rush back to campus because we were having lunch with the deputy director for AmeriCorps NCCC, Gina Cross. Meeting her and having lunch with her was really neat because we learned about her experience in AmeriCorps NCCC and her journey from being a Corps member to where she is now. After lunch Aisya and I had to run (and I mean literally run) back to the Conference center (which by the way is because the times got mixed up and we didn't want to be late for the second part to our training). After the training we walked back and had to quickly change for PT. After PT we went straight to dinner, then shine our boots and go over our presentation.
     Wednesday we practiced the project briefing presentation that we had to present to some of the staff and Unit Leaders (UL). We got ready in our Ameritux and presented our project. I was pretty nervous about it but we all did a great job.
      Thursday we had a meeting for emotional Intelligence which took up most of the day. The meeting consisted of a movie and then we had to talk about the different scenarios that each person had and how they overcame them. At night I finished packing and went to bed.
       Friday was induction day! Early in the morning we had PT baselines. for baselines we had to run a 1 1/2 miles, do as many push-ups and sit-ups as we can and at the end do a sit and reach test. I was pretty average for all the tests which in my eyes is pretty good. After that we had baselines I took a shower, had breakfast and got ready in my Ameritux. In the afternoon we had the induction rehearsal which reminded me a lot of graduation practice. After that we had a room inspection and then went right to the induction ceremony. The ceremony was really nice and we had two guest speakers, one in which was a corp member in class 12. The other one the community service award for delivering bottled water everyday to families in California that have no water because of the drought. After that we took a all crops picture and then that was it for the day. All we had left was finishing packing the van.

My next blog will start on Saturday about our adventure for our first spike!

                                                                                                                                ~Savannah