Right now, Maddy, Carly and Kayla are in Ladder Canyon on a hike, and I decided not to go with them because I've got a bunch of things to take care of. E-mails, paperwork, uploading pictures, blogging, and so on and so on. The rest of the team is back at the apartment just relaxing.
Whenever I come here to Starbucks, I get the same tall Salted Caramel Hot Chocolate for $2.95 and sit in the same chair in the corner of the cafe. I've become such a regular the people here pretty much all recognize me (it might also have to do with the fact that I'm probably the only person who walks in with a buff on my head all the time). Here's a picture of me right now:
My hair is getting pretty out of control long! I think I'll need a haircut sometime soon. Actually, I really need one right now but it's a chore to drive to someplace to get my hair cut since everywhere is pretty far!
The girls will probably be back from their hike in an hour or so and will pick me up here on their way back to the apartment. Then I need to drive to Indio to drop off our SPIKE mail at the UPS store there before 4pm. Then the team and I will drive to the WinCo in Indio to go grocery shopping for the week, then we'll come back, make dinner, and then tonight have our team meeting.
Then tomorrow it's back to work again. Jeanine, my supervisor is coming tomorrow and will be visiting us tomorrow and Wednesday. Oh, which reminds me, we need to do midsite evaluations of our project tonight! There's a form for this, much like there's a form for everything in NCCC.
I gotta say, I'm not particularly excited to get back to work again tomorrow. I guess my life can be viewed in one of two ways:
It can be AWESOME because I am Team Leading a group of eight 19-24 year olds who come from all different backgrounds... we're in Southern California helping to construct 30+ houses for low-income families... we don't have to pay any rent or pay any money for food... we get to travel a bit and experience a lifestyle we've never experienced before (at least I haven't, haha)... we get to meet lots of cool people and see lots of new places... and at the end of the day, what we do is helping people.
It can be TEDIOUS because I spend 40+ hours each work hammering in nails, drilling in screws, rolling paint on walls... I come back to the apartment and still have to spend every waking minute of every day with the same 8 people... my life is pretty much dictated to me by AmeriCorps NCCC because there are so many policies and so much paperwork... I don't really meet that many new people on projects and only see my friends during the few days we are back on campus for transition... yeah I'm helping people, but I'm not really changing anybody's life in this program... and probably worst of all, I am ALWAYS emotionally drained, grumpy, moody and not really all that happy with day to day life.
So depending on which side of the bed I wake up on, my days can be great or they can be awful. Lately they've been more of the latter, unfortunately, and I struggle with the fact that I'm not even halfway through the experience yet!! So we'll see how life continues from here.
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