True Life: I'm in Americorps

To disabuse you of the notion that we only go on scavenger hunts here at NCCC, this blog entry is dedicated to the other stuff that we corps members do. (I realized that I've really only reported back on the fun stuff so far.) We wake up early in the mornings for PT (physical training, which I constantly want to call FT), have numerous trainings on topics from CPR and first aid to community relations and conflict resolution, and have short service projects that teach us how to work together as a Siamese dozen and help out the community at the same time.
PT is the first thing that comes to mind because it's the way we start out every day. It's cold and dark at 5:30 in the morning, but regardless, we're all gathered up on Holmes Field to do calisthenics, running, stretching, and the occasional singing of silly songs. Myself, I like the running part best, but my knees are not appreciative of the courses that are laid out on roads and other concrete surfaces. I'm not sure how anyone could miss a herd of us running down the street, but just in case 75 sleepy kids are hard to spot, we all wear reflective orange vests for safety (and embarassment). After PT, there's a mad rush towards the kitchens and the showers. Things get a bit hectic and crowded in the kitchens... there's about 60 hungry and/or stinky corpsmembers trying to get some breakfast in a skinny little kitchen space. On a day like today, when our leaders have stocked up our kitchen over the weekend, there's food like kiwis and pineapple to go with the cereal and milk, but towards the end of the week, there's only Lucky Charms and Coco Puffs left on the shelf. You'd be suprised how many kids shape up their breakfast habits after a former Navy Seal (that's Willie, our PT coordinator) leads your morning run.
Our trainings take up the biggest portion of our time here. Our leaders try to make the trainings valuable and mostly interesting, but some topics are plain boring... for instance, the rules and regulations training. All I really need to know about life, I learned in this training... no kittens, no waterbeds, no porn in Americorps. On the other hand, some of the trainings have been really valuable. We had a good training called Hands of Peace, which teaches conflict resolution skills. When 12 people are pretty much attached at the hip for the next 10 months, there's bound to be conflict. We talked about ways to resolve some of these issues and set up team charters which list rules and qualities that are important to us as a group. I thought that some of the fun activities that we did were almost as important as the "serious" stuff, though. When you get people laughing and being silly during a game like 'Psychiatrist', you get to know your team and become more cohesive. So this Psychiatrist game...here's how it works. Everyone forms a big circle and one person is chosen to be the psychiatrist. The psychiatrist leaves the room and while they are gone, everyone else decides what sort of issue the group collectively has. For example, when my teammate Kara was the psychiatrist, we decided that the group was going to be her overbearing parents. So when psychiatrist Kara gets back in the room, she starts asking us questions. They could be as simple 'How was your dinner last night?' or 'Did you have a good weekend?' But here's the important part. We have the answer the psychiatrist's questions that somehow give hints as to who we are (her cranky parents.) So if the psychiatrist says, 'How was your weekend?', we'd say things like, 'Well if you weren't making me stay up all night worrying where you were, it could have been fine!' It's fun... I recommend it for your next party.
More about our community service projects next time....