Hazelhurst to New Orleans...all in one week!

Welcome to another rousing blog about a boy and his fellow team green members on a journey deep, deep in the south. To be more exact, Vicksburg, MS!

This is my 3rd update in 14 days and I am quite proud of being able to keep all of ya’ll informed on what is happening to me in my Team Leader quest! I will be explaining fully in detail what has occurred and try to keep you on the edge of your seat asking questions and wanting more. By far it was a very tiring week and LOTS of things got accomplished! Overall, it was a very rewarding week for all 20 of us team green, 2 unit leaders, and the numerous staff members.

What I (we) did…

MONDAY; July 13th

- 1st group PT in the morning…woke up at 5:45 AM to begin at 6 AM
o Led by UL, Neal, we did some calisthenics, stretches, tossed a Frisbee around in 2 lines and got penalized for dropping (so close to playing my favorite PT event= ultimate Frisbee)
- 1st TL community meeting where the whole staff go tto speak about upcoming week, schedule changes, and various trainings
- Before lunch we had our mini group policies and Protocols presentation
o My group talked about Leave and Sick Calls as well as Housing; we diverted the Housing segment into a rousing game of Jeopardy (a.k.a. Ameripardy!)
- after lunch we had and spent a couple hours discussing Service Learning and what it entails; SL is HUGE in NCCC! (I learned that last year and got refreshed this year)
- around 4:30 PM we loaded our packed bags in the 15 passenger vans and headed to Hazelhurst, MS.
- Each unit rode together jamming out to Disney songs and olides hits on route to the Boys and Girls Club for a day and a half of serving and learning…TIME TO GET THE HANDS DIRTY!
- Arrive at camp; project brief, met Billy the sponsor, played hand/group games with the campers (age ranges from 6-13) and pitched tents (even ate camp food!! YUMMY!)
- Geoff and I tented together because we are brothers from another mother in the humid, muggy, uncomfy nights sky
- Went swimming to cool off in the evening, had a team green bonfire, and shared stories; finally hit the hay preparing for a big day tomorrow

TUESDAY; July 14th

- woke at 5:45 AM in aches and pains hoping to go canoeing with fellow TLs, but no one was awake, so I fell back asleep
- to my mistakings, I later found out that they went out on the lake to canoe later that morning around 6:15 AM and watched the sun rise
- re-woke back up at 7 AM for campsite clean up
o it was a very uncomfy sleeping night and it felt like I received 3 hours of sleep in the end
o I even have battle scars such as bug bites (guess I should have brought a couple dry sheets Mom J), neck aches, and upper back pains from laying on the hard ground (next time make sure to pack a pad of some sort…*note to self*)
- ate breakfast and broke off into our 4 service groups for the day
o groups included: Learning about power tools, trail maintaining, dock building, and roofing lessons
- it rained most of the day slowing down progress and cutting the time at each station
- all in all, it was exhausting when the day was over but Billy was very pleased and thankfull for all our help; Assistant Program Director, Jen Prall, announced that the B & G Clubs of Hazelhurst will be receiving a team 1st round
o myself and the other field TL’s were super stoked because one of the tasks could be fixing up the 10 stationed ropes course
o PLUS he is such a great sponsor, it would awesome to get the project because you want to establish a good, solid relationship with your sponsor and then the round will be great…our Raven 3 team last year found out that is the best way
- rallied everyone up and headed back to campus and called it a night after a long, tiresome 2 days

WEDNESDAY; July 15th

- 2nd group PT in the morning starting at 6 AM
o Warm-up run, stretching, relay race card game…turn over a black card and do crunches…turn a red one over and do pushups
o Swating PROFUSELY! (good ol’ southern morning…bright and early…UP AND AT ‘EM!)
- supervisory training Day 1 with Drew Carberry
o 2 day training discussing effective ways to manage a team and gearing towards being a successful TL\
- performed numerous activities, received a helpful booklet and the presenter was very lively and happy
- 2nd unit meeting with my fellow River mates
- Cleaning night (our group of 5 had bathrooms); all 20 of us are broken into 4 stationed cleaning locations; finally got around to cleaning my own room for room inspections tomorrow
- Busted out the NCCC karaoke machine and some of us jammed out to the late 1990’s greatest hits all the way to Celine Dion!
- We then had a TL meeting talking about who will be going to New Orleans trip this weekend, sorting out the drivers and what people are going into what car; my squad will be leaving Saturday morning!

THURSDAY; July 16th

- at 7:00 AM we had our very first room inspections and I passed with flying colors!
- Went to the 2nd half of Supervisory Training with Drew in which we did more small group activities (it was in a way very overwhelming to do so many small group things back to back to back)
- Drew talked to us until around 5 PM and we reflected on the training as a group
- Cleaned up and went to the Kroger grocery store to get a weeks worth of food; Geoff and I tagged team up once again

FRIDAY; July 17th

- wake up for 3rd group PT session in which we did the baseline test AND sets of pushups and crunches
- I ended up getting 71 crunches done in a minute, 33 pushups in a minute, and ran the 1.5 mile run in 10 minutes and 27 seconds; I really surprised myself with the run as I was expecting my time to be around 12 minutes
- The idea with the baseline test to improve your score each and every time we have it; we will be re-tested at the end of 1st round during transition to keep up with who is doing PT and who isn’t J
- On the schedule for today was Diversity training with Craig Bowman
o I already had the training with Summer of Service so it might seem that I was uninterested, but in actuality it was very good
- Craig had different activities both fun and serious in talking about diversity
- All of us learned more and more about each other in this session
- After Diversity we had a reflection hour in which we really spilled our emotions on the training
- We concluded the week with Unit time and preparing for next weeks events; especially planning Unit time for Monday the 20th (we had some very good ideas in mind, for example: hopping in the van and getting a tour of Vicksburg while getting out of the van every stop and doing a team building exercise!)
- Later on that night majority of the team green went out to either see Harry Potter or Public Enemies
- I decided to call it a night early and prepare myself for a wonderful trip to New Orleans!!

SATURDAY; July 18th

- awake at 7:20 in the morning and get ready to go with the first group to NOLA; thanks to Patrick for driving 4 of us!
- Arrive in NOLA and check into the hotel at 12 noon; drop our things off into the room and walk to the nearest Po Boy shop….MMMM MMM! DELICIOUS!
- After eating some tasty lunch and awaiting the arrival of the other team green groups, we hopped over to the cigar shop and book store; browsed around in each for a little bit and then went back to the hotel to clean up and wait for the others
- Once they arrived we went out; the other groups pit stopped and took the Abita beer free tour
- Met up and walked around Bourbon trying to find good live music; stopped at several places and stepped in to rock out!
- Ended up going to Frenchmen street later to hang out there and socialized with fellow mates and then walked to Mimi’s to play pool and dance to soul/disco/funk!
- All of us congregated back to the hotel in which 7 of us wanted to swim in the pool, we forgot our suits so we decided to jump in anyways…great times and great bonding
- Hopped into bed and called it a night


So as you can see this was a very eventful and busy week! Long days that led to tiring nights and sometimes even getting 4 hours asleep based on whether or not PT was in the morning. But in conclusion it was a very productive week to say the least. A lot was accomplished, learned, and many things will be soaking in. I started getting a rough idea down on scratch paper on how I want to tackle the idea of introducing my corps members when they arrive. The CM’s come to the campus in T minus 11 days and we are all anticipating for it as several of us are in teams planning the “perfect” registration and Corps Member Training. We are wanting to begin a legacy and get things off to the right start. This week ahead of us will consist of more trainings, unit times, reflecting, and possibly more crazy things the Unit Leaders have up their sleeves. All the staff is so incredibly nice and it is always wonderful to go down to their offices and chat with them in between breaks.

Until next time my fellow readers…great updating you on what is happening down here in hot and sticky Mississippi or as Casey Mccue likes to call it, “The ‘Sip!” More to come later on this week. ENJOY! I leave you with this quote said by Unit Leader, Neal Oliver, “Our job is to make each other look good” (Totally using that for my team’s motto!)