Life as a NCCC Team Leader! (the First REAL Post)

Okay, so where do I even start?? Well, maybe I can start off by saying that I am finally in California! Well, I have actually been here for the past 25 days, and let me tell you, they have been 25 SUPER-packed days. It's hard to believe that I only arrived here 3 and a half weeks ago!

I'm one of 35 Team Leaders (TLs) here at the Pacific Region Campus of AmeriCorps National Civilian Community Corps (NCCC). All of us left our pre-NCCC lives to come spend 11 months leading a team of 18-24 year olds in some life-changing service work! We'll be doing projects in areas such as Infrastructure Improvement, Environmental and Energy Conservation, Urban and Rural Development, and Disaster Relief (that's the biggie). Each project is about 6 to 8 weeks long, and our projects will be in CA, OR, WA, ID, MT, WY, UT, NV, AK and HI (those last two are more rare though!). We'll be traveling to our project sites via 15-passenger van (or plane for AK and HI) and while on each project, we'll be living in the community in an apartment, community center, church basement, etc. If you've ever been on an Alternative Break (for those of you who are college students), it's pretty similar. Except NCCC is a 10-month experience!

Right now, we're in the latter half of our month of Team Leader Training (TLT). It's a pretty intense process... it's similar to RA Training (which I've been through 4 years of) except it's a bit more hardcore. Here's a typical day for me:

5:30am - Wake up bright and early (well, at least the early part!)
6am - 7am - PT (physical training)
7am - 8am - Shower, eat breakfast, get ready for the day
8am - Noon - Training sessions
Noon - 1pm - Lunch
1pm - 5pm - Training sessions
5pm - 6pm - Change out of uniform into regular clothes and relax a bit (oh yeah, we have to wear uniforms!)
6pm - 7pm - Dinner
7pm - 10pm - Hang out time (which usually means watching a movie, playing board/card games, checking Facebook, reading, or sitting around and chatting... this time is also often used to take care of homework and various TL assignments)
10pm - 5:30am - SLEEP!!

So days are pretty busy, and because I rarely make it to bed right at 10 (it's usually closer to 11 because I like to have a late night snack), my nights tend to be pretty short, but all in all it's been a pretty great experience so far. The other TLs are a pretty awesome bunch, and I've thoroughly enjoyed getting to know them the past 3 and a half weeks. Even though 5:30 is pretty early, and despite the fact that I never really liked running in the morning, I absolutely LOVE getting up before the sun rises to do PT because it energizes me for the day! Plus I get to watch a beautiful sunrise every single day!

Well, I'm going to bring this post to a close by saying that life out here in California is busy but good right now. There is a TON of stuff I still want to write about, but I'm trying to avoid making this into a book, so I'll just put that stuff in other posts. ;-)