New Teams, New Jobs

Sorry for not posting for the last five days or so, this place is a time-sink. Days seem like they take forever but the weeks seem to fly by. There are a bunch of things to catch up on so I’ll jump right into it.

Last Wednesday (September 5^th) we had team reveal, at which we learned who our new, permanent team members and what our jobs in FEMA Corps would be. It started with a meeting in the auditorium and a little pump up session, then they sent us out on a scavenger hunt. First we were given envelopes with pictures on them, and we had to find the other 9 or 10 people that had the same picture. Once our whole group was together, they gave us another envelope with a Dr. Seuess poem/riddle that led us to another clue, which then led us to another, which led us to another etc. We finally arrived at our final destination and met our new team leader (who happened to be the same TL I had while we were in temporary groups), and found out what our roles were. After that we toured our kitchen and made a short-term meal plan and that was it.

Our group’s official job is Community Relations Specialist. This means that we are basically the face of FEMA and the first on the ground in a disaster area. We have to be at a disaster within 12 – 24 hours of it happening and meet with the locals/survivors to offer counsel, advice, guidance and counseling. I’m really excited because this job will let me get outside and meet with people and make me feel like I’m really making a difference in their lives. This job was one of the most sought-after positions within FEMA Corps, and I’m glad I was able to get it.

Aside from our FEMA jobs, we have NCCC “rep roles,” which are basically mini-jobs or duties that each team member has to perform for their team. I was assigned the roles of CAP and media. CAP reps are basically recruiters, and go around to high school education and job fairs to promote Americorps and NCCC. We will also be speaking to schools in auditoriums and stuff, which I’m a little nervous about since I’ve never done public speaking on that large of a scale, but hopefully it will be a good learning experience and eventually another skill that I will have. As for the media role, I will essentially be one of two official media spokespeople for our team, and will be able to do interviews with media outlets. I might be mentioned in the paper, on the radio, and might even be on TV if I’m lucky enough, so I’m pretty excited about that.

I almost forgot to mention the tornado that almost hit Vinton last week. Woke up at 2:30 or 3:30 to lights flashing and the tornado alarm going off, along with tons of lightning and rain going on outside. We all had to get out of bed and (kind of) dressed and head down into the tunnels that connect the dorms underground. It got hot and stuffy really fast, and really uncomfortable sitting on the tile floor against a stone wall with no room my legs and team leaders walking up and down trying to locate all of their team members. After about a half hour we got the all-clear and were able to go back to bed, but everyone was pretty riled up after that and not many people got much sleep the rest of the night.

Tomorrow we start physical training, which takes place at 5:30 in the morning. It’s supposed to be one hour of physical activity, but that could be anything from running to ultimate frisbee to volleyball, so I guess I’ll find out what we’re doing when it happens.

Also, I think I have shin splints. The second or third night here I played soccer with a bunch of people and afterwards I thought that I had gotten kicked in the shin at some point because it hurt and it was all swollen. But then the pain never really went away and 2 weeks later it’s still nagging and acting weird. I’m resting it when I can, avoiding basketball and such (for now), but I have to go to PT so we’ll see how it goes.

That’s it for now, I’ll try to keep updating regularly.