The End of a very fun 10 months of my life

Well AmeriCorps is now over, we graduated yesterday and i was home late last night. Its definitely weird not being with everyone anymore and its only the first day. It was a great part of my life and it is sad to be away from everyone knowing that i most likely wont see many people ever again. I don't know what else to write, so here is the year in numbers.

The year in #’s

Sickness:

5 cases of poison ivy

1 case of poison oak

1 random rash on abs

1 random splotchy rash on arms

1 rash covering entire left bicep

4 colds

5 shots of cortisone

3 pill packs

2 tubes of anti-rash cream

Useless Costs:

3.5 TV series watched

(Freaks & Geeks, Always Sunny in Philadelphia, How I Met Your Mother, Pushing Daisies)

Broken Stuff:

1 laptop screen

1.5 cameras

1 USB

1 pair of flip-flops

AmeriCorps:

15 States Visited

350 Starting AmeriCorps Members

280 Finishing AmeriCorps Members

130 projects supported

325,000 hours completed on projects

$6.3 million value of projects worked on

10,000 volunteers coordinated

40,000 people assisted in disaster areas

6,500 students tutored or mentored

50,000 meals served

330 tons of debris removed

58 tons of invasive plant species and underbrush removed

This is my last post for awhile, but whenever i do something fun, exciting, or interesting i will either write about it or post some pictures. If you want to get an email every time i post a new entry tell me.

Prom Night with all of my non-dates

I am Rocky

The awesome guys of 1084

My amazingly awesome sweet team

On fire this last week

PS. I went on my second fire and first Prescribed burn this last tuesday, it was so awesome to see fire and feel the heat.

Almost to the End

This last project has been long and the end can’t come any sooner. The housing has been very nice and Toledo is a pretty good city. I can’t say the project has really been my favorite but at least it has been organized and the sponsors have always had some sort of work for us. We were originally supposed to head back to the Point on the 28^th of October but we got extended three days and won’t be heading back until the 31^st (Halloween), their reasoning behind that was so all of the teams including the teams in the Gulf will all get back at the same time instead of everyone coming in at different times of the week.

During the last two weeks back at the point we will be doing final inspections of houses, vans, and all equipment. There is a lot of scheduled team times for all of the time they couldn’t think of another meeting to add to the schedule. I am definitely ready to start something new and be done with AmeriCorps. I have applied to seven Fire Crews around the country and hopefully I will get accepted onto one of those crews which will last 3-6 months. Those jobs all start around the beginning of January so I have applied to a couple places around Vancouver and Portland for the month or so that I am home. Hopefully I will have a couple jobs while I am home, Well that’s it for now, there will probably be only one more post while I am in AmeriCorps, but when ever I do something new I will tell you guys something about it.

Some More Pics

resting on some bushes that we have been pulling out for the last two days

Kelsey and I sealing the Shade Gardens paths

a picture of all the SOS kids

Long Time No Post

MY COMPUTER IS BACK TOGETHER AND WORKING AMAZINGLY!!!!!

Some Pictures from my project in Toledo

Our backyard pool

our kitchen

the living room

my room

the field we work in for The Nature Conservancy

Toledo, OH

Just so everyone knows my next and sadly my last project will be in Toledo, OH working for the Toledo Botanical Gardens and The Nature Conservancy of Ohio. We will be helping the garden out with starting a community garden and will be helping the Nature Conservancy with keeping the Oak Savannas alive. They are a more rare eco-system then the rain forests. I hope everyone is doing well and i will update more often once i get my computer back to a working condition. My new power cord came in today and now i am just waiting for my new laptop screen. It should arrive towards the end of next week. Love yall.

One More Project To Go

This is an old post i didn't finish, it was while i was at home. Here are some pictures from the fire in Virginia

I found out my next and last project, it will be in Toledo, OH working for a Botanical Garden. Thats all i really know about the project and hope to find out more next week during transition. I have been home on break this past week and will be heading back east sunday morning. Its been a good week overall, I saw some friends, played some golf and basketball, applied for 5 jobs, and got rid of a lot of extra stuff i didn't need from Maryland. Well i don't feel like writing anymore so here are some pictures.

Fire Crew

Fire has been really rough so far. We are being forced to stay in the Hilton for two weeks. It sucks, we get breakfast at the kitchen downstairs every morning and they make us what ever we want while we watch them do it, we have only five choices of drink to choose from, aaaannnndddd we have to have waitresses take away our dirty dishes when we are done. On top of that we are only given $21 for dinner every day, I mean.... who is able to spend that little of an amount on one dinner. Its not like our entire dinner budget for the two weeks is more then we get a month for our stipend. (if you didn't get my sarcasm, we have very posh living quarters and a very nice food budget) The only downside to that $21 is we can only eat at: a fairly "nice" buffet, a mexican restaruant, and Ruby Tuesday's.

The fire that I am on is at The Great Dismal Swamp in Suffolk, VA. There are lots of peanut plantations surrounding everything and the town is "fairly" small. The team and I most likely won't see much fire if any, but we get to learn how pumping water into a very out-of-the-way fire works and possibly working with a machine called a Marsh Master to remove about 800 ft. of 8 in. piping through out the forest.