Week 1

Today marks the end of week 1.  On Monday when I finally got to Mississippi y'all we were placed on temporary teams.  I was on River 10 for the week.  The teams are divided by the River Unit and the Delta Unit.  Our team leader was great and made the transition easy. Our team got along all week really well.  We find out new temporary teams today.  Our team went from session to session learning the ropes of AmeriCorps everyday.  We had training in just about everything.  We learned about safety in Vicksburg (the city my campus is in), issue resolution within a team, disability training, and my favorite, tool training.  On Friday we went to an old cemetery in Vicksburg to do some beautification.  We went into the cemetery where there were trees that needed to be chopped down, brush needed to be piled, and everything needed to be cleared out.  We were there from 1-4:30 on a day when it was 85 degrees.  We had to wear our long pants, long sleeved shirts, and steel toe boots.  Needless to say I was HOT.  However, I successfully used an ax to cut down 2 trees.  My favorite part of the week was definitely yesterday.  Every team had to go around Mississippi and do a scavenger hunt to locate useful places around the city.  We had to go to downtown Vicksburg and find different places there.  My favorite place was the Welcome to Mississippi sign.  Right behind it is the Mississippi river and the whole scene is beautiful.  Some of us Corps Members enjoyed the Vicksburg life on Saturday night so the day off today is much needed.  The whole week was draining, but I couldn't be happier that I am here.

Our campus is a beautiful little gem in Mississippi y'all.  When you drive into our campus you see Green Hall that is pretty much a picture perfect building.  There is what is referred to as a "chapatorium" that is where we had a lot of meetings.  It is called a "chapatorium" because it was originally a chapel because this previously an Episcopal school, but since we are a government organization we can't discriminate religions.  There fore the chapel which turned into an auditorium became the portmanteau of "chapatorium."  There are three dorms on campus Ann which I live in, Mary, and Catherine.  I like to call the other two dorms Mary Catherine together, little shout out to MK.  I live with two girls and we share a bathroom with three other girls.  So the 6 of us share one bathroom, which actually isn't too bad.  We are going to be moving rooms next week when we find out our permanent teams if your team dorm is located in one of the other two.  I am not so excited about moving because the 6 of us that share a nice little bathroom are getting along really well.  It is nice to jump into a new program and new life and find friends right away. 

I can honestly say I am very happy.  I was nervous about a few things on the plane ride, but the nerves settled the second I got to campus.  The diversity on campus is amazing and I can feel myself really changing the way I view a lot of things.  Everyone seems like one big family already and I am very thankful I got accepted to AmeriCorps and that I am lucky enough to be serving others.

The computers here are wicked slow so I will download pictures when I have more time on my hands!