I am glad to be back in a place where I'm not sitting down for 9 hours a day. I have a gym I have access to as well, I've really taken for granted the ability to have one on campus and I made sure not to do it again this transition. Before this past project, I was starting to see some real progress physically. But after living such a sedentary lifestyle, eating so unhealthy, it almost feels like starting over. However, I am determined to not let myself slip again.
The rest of transition week went normally. With the government job scares and everything many campus staff have either resigned or been fired, a cut of about 22%. I'm not sure how the budget proposals on march 14th will affect me, all I know is that if there's a shutdown I have the option to keep working here until something is approved. In the event that my program is cut, well- I don't know how much longer they'll let me keep working, but it sounds like I will have pre-partitioned travel money to get back to Philadelphia.
Trainings went well, we had our project debriefings/briefings for the past and upcoming rounds. I received a "Corps Member of the Round" accolade, which made me feel very appreciated as a teammate and friend to all of the people I've met here in AmeriCorps. I don't know any other way to say it, but I'm glad I'm on this team and I'm honored to have the privilege of working with such motivated people. We gained 3 new members on the team in place of some leaving for various reasons. They are all nice and I'm sure we'll get along just fine on the worksite.
As for exploring, me and two other teammates drove into Louisiana during the week to a small farm town in the middle of nowhere. Mound, LA has quite a few farms, a small casino, a daquiri bar and a large levee between it and the Mississippi River. The levee, or "Mound", had a road leading up to it, allowing us to drive along it, seeing the vast marshland on one side, and "winterized" farms on the other. I haven't really had the opportunity to explore places like that before, rivers aren't common in Nevada. Old, abandoned, destroyed, and overgrown homes litter the hamlet. It felt like a ghost town to drive through- Nevada. What once might've been a boiling business heart of river economy, is now a crumbling and decomposing carcass of history, shielded from the world by an immense, forgotten Mound.
We had a career fair on campus, with different sessions having expert presentations on their fields of work. I attended an K-12 education one, just to see what it might be like. Only to determine, I would not be cut out for that kind of work, let alone the education required to be even considered for work. If there is a single field I know I would not excel in, it would be education. Another session covered the power of LinkedIn. I had never considered how useful of a professional tool it is, and was a very informative presentation. Another covered serving on non-profit boards, and made me realize how little I knew about the non-profit world.
The only one I did not find of use that I attended was about NOLS expeditions. Expensive, and not very useful in terms of professional development. I already get to camp in remote places, I kill two birds with one stone by serving a community AND developing various skills while getting to travel. The only unique tangible benefit being that some expeditions count for college credit, but while in this program the same time commitment gets me a scholarship I can use ANYWHERE, not just college.
I didn't cook much at camp, trying to not make a mess and all. I did however attempt to make Pozole, a Mexican pork stew of sorts. VERY delicious. The last meat I had before lent, and very worth the effort it took to make it. Made with hominy, pork shoulder, radish and some other vegetables, I will definitely be making this again to perfect it. It is mostly a crockpot meal and can be left alone for many hours for the best flavor, if you want the recipe I used feel free to text me.
Pozole (Or What's Left of It)
We left campus on Saturday for BSA Camp Barstow in South Carolina, I'm very excited for this project in particular. After a few stops and an almost 11 hour drive, we made it to our spike housing only to find our sponsors still up, working on a fixing a few things in the cabin. First off, it's very spacious. We have 2 full bathrooms, a HUGE common room, a big kitchen, lots of extra beds and 2 pullout couches. Some of the team opted for sleeping in a few other cabins down a trail, so we have even MORE space with fewer people in here. There is a front porch AND a back porch, with a beautiful view of the camp. This is probably the nicest housing I've had on any project here.
There is a lot to do, hiking and boating and fishing and tent camping and shooting, we have all of the amenities of the camp to pretty much to ourselves save for weekends when the scouts are here. In addition, they are letting us use their industrial kitchen at the dining hall for cooking if we so choose. They have a fully stocked freezer with a basically endless supply of meat (unfortunately for me), and they have some meat substitute options as well. I don't have much experience with big kitchens like that, but I'm going to try my best to learn as much as can.
Around the camp itself, we have our work cut out for us. Lots of trees that need to be felled, trails to clear buildings to fix up etc. We start work Tuesday, and I can't wait. Our sponsors are nice people, they came up and fixed the plumbing in our housing while we were just rolling into camp.
As for music this week, I've really been slacking. On the van ride I tried picking up a few new artists. While browsing on Spotify, I came across what I can only assume to be the Spanish versions of American 80's rock ballads. They seem to be quite popular too, many artists with millions upon millions of monthly listeners. Groups like Liberación, and Los Bukis have many musical similarities with the likes of Whitesnake and Journey. Ones that you only hear on a dying radio station. I'm sure there's a radio station in Mexico blasting the oldie favorites "Enamorado De Un Fantasma" and "Ese Loco Soy Yo". One thing I will say as a Spanish learner, these older rock ballads are much easier to understand because they speak very slow, and with very simple words.
On the same car trip, I decided to look back to Aphex Twin once more, this time at the ambient works I didn't pay attention to as much. This was a mistake. We arrived at the camp late, so much of the ride was spent in the dark. The particular album I was listening to was "Selected Ambient Works Volume II". Mr. Twin has a very particular way of writing his music that I akin to my younger years of music exploration. He will start with a small motif, and run with it for a whole 8 minutes. Layering on samples and ideas and new sounds as it goes on, but usually one small collection of 3-4 notes carries most of his ambient work. I find it fascinating how his small ideas can be embellished into a larger product, like you can almost hear how his mind works as the song goes on, moving from point to point to point to make things interesting with unique rhythms and soundscapes.
Anyways, driving in the dark, this specific album is on. Some of these songs creep me out. Driving through the dark on a lone road, thinking about how he gets his samples, how he got to a final projects. It almost feels like when I listen to some of them, specifically "#10", like it was engineered to make me feel unpleasant. So with that I went back to the Spanish rock.
Next post hopefully I'll cook a bit more and I'll have more to talk about.
Ok thank you for reading until next time bye bye
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