Get it Together

Hey everyone, finally throwing up the first post with some real content on here. Below many questions you may have will be answered, but if I miss anything or if something is unclear, let me know.

So.

I leave for Americorps, more specifically FEMAcorps, in roughly 48 hours, and, naturally, I have yet to pack a single thing. "What is Americorps?" you may ask (as many people have already). It's like the Peace Corps but it's in 'Murica, and it's only for one year instead of two. If you don't know the Peace Corps, they essentially volunteer to go live with villagers in third world countries for two years and help teach them sustainable farming techniques and how to get fresh water and whatnot. Anyways, that was a tangent, because I'm not doing Peace Corps. This blog is already going to hell. Essentially what I'll be doing is working with FEMA (as an official employee of the Dept. of Homeland Security, whatup) helping communities with various forms of disaster relief, preparedness and counseling. Tornado, wildfire, flood stuff, etc.

This is FEMAcorps' inaugural year. Historically, plain old regular Americorps would do one or two disaster relief projects in their year of service, but apparently mother nature is being a huge Debbie downer lately (climate change, anyone?) so they decided to hitch up with FEMA to create FEMAcorps: a full time disaster relief corps. And that's where I'm headed.

Speaking of where I'm headed, the main headquarters for Americorps: North Central is in Vinton, IA, on the campus of the Iowa Braille & Sight Saving School, which shares their campus with Americorps I guess. I guess I'll find out more details when I get there, but I think I'm going to be living very close to a bunch of blind kids for a while.

Vinton, IA. The North Central Region covers pretty much all the area you can see on this map, from the Dakotas to Ohio, from the Upper Peninsula down to Missouri.

Back to the story. Today I need to acquire my driving record along with my immunization records so that I can get certified to drive the Americorps vans and, depending on when tetanus shots expire, I may need another one of those. I also need to pack my duffel. Let me tell you about it. It's an old military duffel bag/backpack. Classic olive drab, with two back straps, 12" wide x 12" tall x 36" deep, so about 3 cubic feet of space. And it smells like an aquatic center. And all I can bring to campus is what fits in this bag. My task today is going to be to go through all of my stuff and decide what I want to bring with me.

My trusty military bag

Well that's pretty much it for now I guess, if I think of anything else I'll put it in another post.