CTI

Me and my fellow CM (Corps Members) have been here for 2.5 days, but it feels like months. Right now we are in CTI (corps member training institute). There are a lot of abbreviations if you can't tell. Here is a summary of whats happened during the days...

Day 1) There were about 30 people on my flight from Chicago to Sacramento. Our plane got in 30 minutes early and we even left 2 minutes late. After we checked in and got our baggage, we loaded onto the passenger vans and drove to campus. The campus is on a retired air force base. There are 5 main buildings, 3 of which are dorms. After we arrived at campus we went through in-processing. We got our government IDs, our name tags, our dorm keys, and our awesome uniform!!!! The uniforms are, well they are uniforms. Pretty much they are cargo pants or shorts and t-shirts or pollos. Everything has the A on it (A for AmeriCorps). I met my roommates (there are 3 of us). Both are around my age. We have so much room for all of the stuff we brought (which wasn't a lot).
After dinner, we had a floor meeting, where they discussed basic rules, what they expect from us, and how we are going to have an awesome time. They also told us that they didn't expect us to remember anything they said, which is good because I didn't.

Day 2) PAPERWORK and pods (temporary teams). We met our pods and our temporary TLs (team leaders). My TL is RoShawn. The rest of the day was devoted to paper work. We filled out Red Cross papers, papers for our physical, we signed a lot of stuff, and read a lot of stuff. Then a group of us went to the BX (base exchange), where we don't have to pay any taxes!!! The BX is like a smaller version of Target.
After dinner, I joined in an ultimate frisbee game. It was dark, there were about 50 of us playing, and well disaster struck. I collided with another CM and broke his wrist. I broke the wrist of a 6 ft guy. I felt awful, but he said it was neither of our faults, which is true. He left a nice bruise covering several of my ribs, but he has it a lot worse. My new nickname is now Bulldozer.

Day 3) MEETINGS!!! 8 hours of being lectured to about everything from AmeriCorps policies to which snakes are poisonous in the Gulf of Mexico area to the names of tools to how to eat a balanced meal. We did make a trip to WalMart and the TLs went grocery shopping. Tomorrow we start cooking!!

PT (physical training) doesn't start until Monday, so a bunch of us get up to go running every morning at 5:30ish AM.

The weather is beautiful, the sky is clear, and the people are great!!!

Peace, Love, Happiness,
Catherine aka Bulldozer