Sunday Reflection

Hello All,

I know I haven't posted in a week, but this week has been hectic. Lots of planning and moving and doing. I'm gonna go through and recap the days as well as give a little background on why the delay in posts.

So, when I first arrived in New Orleans, I had nowhere to call home. The apartment complex I was going to live in cancelled my application because I wasn't going to be meeting their income requirements. Fantastic. So, when I arrived in New Orleans last Friday, I had nowhere to go. So, I went on Priceline.com and was able to snag an unbeatable deal. 30 bucks a night at a Super 8. I gave myself until Wednesday to find a place so my stress and motivation levels were at constant highs. And to make a rather long story short, myself, Lily (an SBP volunteer), Christian (another SBP volunteer), and Vanessa (an AmeriCorps volunteer) were able to find a sweet place off of Magazine Street. So I really didn't have a place to call my own where I could focus my thoughts into tangible ideas. But now I can. Recap time.

MONDAY.
Met the other volunteers at a Park next door to the St. Bernard Project (SBP). Very awesome people with very similar goals and ideals. I could already tell that I was going to love my work and love the people I work with. The day was an orientation day. Lots of paperwork and seminars on how things run. Nothing too exciting. That night I grabbed dinner with Christian (my roommate and all around awesome guy). We went to Pita Pit. I've never had a pita before so I was interested to see how this would be. I got a buffalo chicken pita. Amazing. Really delicious and really cheap.

TUESDAY.
The day was split into half. Half was orientation and the other half was out in the field. The morning orientation was about the office side of things. How to conduct yourselves, protocols, etc. Since I'm going to be the Warehouse Mechanic/IT Support for the project, i'll spend more time at the office and warehouse then out on the field. That afternoon I went and did some mold remediation at a home. Spent hours and hours scrubbing wood with a wire brush to "activate" the mold so we could use chemical wipe to disperse it. Needless to say my arm was tired haha.

WEDNESDAY.
Much like tuesday, a majority of the day was at a site until that afternoon when we returned to the office to fill out paperwork and such. We sanded and mudded a home in south St. Bernard. Luckily for me, I was doing that to my Uncle's garage two weeks before I left so I had plenty of experience. That night after we had moved our belongings in myself and Christian hit up a "Circle K" which is a basic 7-11/Royal Farms/whatever. We just got a few things to get us started. Christian played it smart and got some bread, soups, and tea. Me? I got a pizza Lunchable, milk, and beer. Such a smart decision.

THURSDAY.
It was my first day in the warehouse. I met Joe (Head Runner), Mike (Runner), and James (Warehouse Manager). They refer to themselves as Team War Horse and they were very glad I have a beard. That and flannel is one of the unofficial requirements of working in the warehouse. They are very awesome dudes. When you talk to James, and you close your eyes, you'd think you were talking to Jason Segel. It's awesome. They gave me my own table to work on projects and things. My first project was to fix and adjust the safety guard on a chop saw. Mission Accomplished. Fixed it within minutes and felt very confident. The rest of the day was spent cleaning my new work area and fixing computer problems. Some networking, printing, and file share issues. Rather standard. That night, me and Christian went to Wal-Mart for some household items and groceries. We then went out to Slice, a really really delicious pizza place on Magazine Street. I got an all meat Calzone. Delicious. The dough they use isnt your standard pizza dough. It's garlic bread. Sooo good. Christian got a side salad. It looked tasty. I got a pizza to go so I would have lunch for the next two days.

FRIDAY.
Much like thursday, fixed this, repaired that. I had planned on going out but ended up falling asleep early. Lame.

SATURDAY.
Decided to work a Saturday and see how it goes. Very slow. Lot of time on our hands to fix and repair whatever needs to be fixed or repaired. Fixed some computers and diagnosed some lawn mowers that i'm going to attempt to fix on Monday. Got out of work Early and got ready to go to Hammers and Heels at the New Orleans Fine Arts Theatre. This past week was Women's Build week. A majority of the volunteers were Women. A big dinner and auction was held at the Theatre and I swung by to help with clean up. I was starting to feel kind of homesick so instead of going out with everyone I went back home. I stopped at Ms. Mae's ( a popular local bar) and had a drink. Took in the surroundings and enjoyed a little me time. It slowly started to hit me that I'm in New Orleans making a difference. It's funny to think that all of this was just a dream I had back in May.

Since I'm "home" now, I'll be posting more and I will be taking more and more pictures to post as well.