Well luckily California’s sunny sun decided to shine again. But somehow winter has settled in. it was 41 degrees during PT this morning! Do you know how much it sucks to sit in a wet field to do leg stretches in the morning when you can see your breath and the sun won’t be up for another 2 hours?!
I had some much needed pod time last night. I’ve really missed how hard I laugh when around Josh and Ashley. I don’t even remember what we were talking about but it was some much needed hilarity. I can’t believe there are only a couple more weeks and my pod people will be scattered. The boys are going to Portland, OR; Ashley’s going to Seattle, WA; and Shea’s going to Alpaugh, CA. After November 4 I won’t see them until December 16!!
So if you were following my Facebook, I said we were going to JR Cowan Elementary. Well… I got that wrong. We’re actually going to F.C. Joyce Elementary. Today we went to the archives to see the debriefing video from last year’s team who was at the same school so we could prepare for our briefing due next week. Basically the briefing is a statement to the NCCC staff that we know where we’re going, what we’re going to try to do, how we might do it, and a little bit about the neighborhood we’ll be in. the debriefing is pretty much the same thing. When we finish this project we’ll have to make one to document our progress in the community, what we achieved/had difficulty with, and what made the experience special.
Tonight we were also informed of how our first days will start. We’ll go in on the 4 or 5, meet with classrooms grades 2-6 and then we can decide which age group or which teacher we clicked with. Right now I’m hoping for grades 2 or 3… but that could always change once I get in there.
We had diversity training today. It was actually pretty interesting. These speakers, Jeff and Gin, have been working with NCCC teams for at least the last 5 years (they mentioned speaking to an NCCC team in Maryland before they were sent to disaster relief for Rita/Katrina… Annie??) They facilitated an activity called the Privilege Walk where everyone participating started in a straight line and he read off statements like “take one step forward if there were more than 50 books in your house growing up” “take one step back if you were ever made fun of for your age, gender, race, socio status, etc” “take one step forward if your parents ever told you that you could be anything you wanted to” “take one step back if you ever tried to change your appearance/ self to gain someone’s approval.” I was very interesting to look around after the 50 or so statements were read off to see where everyone had shifted to from the original straight line.
Tomorrow morning we leave for Mendocino. It’s about a 4 hour drive north but I plan on sleeping for most of it (bonus for not being a driver!). I’m pretty excited about it, but it’s going to be so much colder there than here. I think someone said the high at camp will be 40s! Burr! We went on a Target run to get some thermal under-roos and I got some actual under armor. It’s going to be so cold there that the TLs are telling us it would probably be unwise to shower… so I hope everyone enjoys the musk of dirty hippie! We’re going to have to get used to each other’s natural stink eventually, I guess! I probably should have bought some body spray. We also picked up our Halloween costumes but I won’t ruin the surprise! You’ll just have to wait until I get back from Mendo.
-Signing off until Sunday!
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