Final Michigan Thoughts

This weekend was amazing for me.  While graduating in May officially ended my four year odyssey at Central Michigan University, I feel this weekend was the true ending to my college career.  Four days visiting some, but by no means all, of the people and places I care for that culminated in a perfect moment sitting with one of my best friends in his family’s northern Michigan cabin, watching a river flow through a tranquil corner of the world, allowing me the opportunity to reflect upon what my experiences have added up to.  I feel ready to move forward with few regrets and countless memories.

But, the weekend is over, and I am less than two days away from being in California.  I have my travel plans all set, although I had to wait until the last minute for them to arrive.  For a few tense days, I didn’t know if they had remembered to book my flight or not.  But like most worries, these too turned out to be of the silly variety.  How could anyone forget me?  (*cough*)

I will be leaving on said jet plane at 8 o’clock on Wednesday.  My packing is almost complete (it only took me three attempts to fit everything!), and there is little more I can do except wait.  I’d like to be able to write here that I am sitting anxiously, nervously watching the seconds tick away, excited to be a day and a half, mere hours, away from beginning this adventure…but in all honesty, it still hasn’t occurred to my body that October 17th is fast approaching.  I am fully cogent of the fact and prepared for it in every way I should be, but I probably won’t feel the excitement until I head for bed tomorrow.  And it will only be excitement I feel, because I know this is exactly what I want to be doing at this point in my life.  I am not nervous or hesitant about what I am about to do.  It just feels right, which makes me all the more excited.

So now I wait.  And I wonder, will anyone realize that I’ve updated this thing?  It’s been so long.  Even if I am the only one who gets any use out of this blog, I think it will be worthwhile.

What I know so far…

The AmeriCorps (AC) program that I signed myself up for begins on October 17, so I still have a month to go before I will really know what I’ve gotten myself into.  I have gained some insight through all of the paperwork that has been sent my way over the last six months, so I thought I would post what I think I know and then compare that to the reality I experience when I get out there.  Just to see how far off I really was.

I’ll be flying out to Sacramento where I’ll be picked up and shuttled to the main campus, which is a former military base just north of the city.  The first day will be like going back to college; check-in, room assignment, orientation meetings and speakers, and all-around exhaustion.  They won’t throw us into any long-term assignments immediately, but will have us go through a three week training program, where I will be certified in First-Aid/ First-Response, CPR, and any other potentially useful certification process sanctioned by the Red Cross.  I am looking forward to this, because I’ve always wanted to get these certifications, but never had the chance.  And, since we will likely be doing fairly rigorous labor throughout the year, we will also be given a regular dose of Physical Training (PT) to get us into shape.  This will continue for the duration of the program and, again, I am looking forward to it.

After completing these first three weeks, we’ll be divided into teams of about 15-20, and these people will become my extended family for the next 10 months.  With them, I’ll be traveling around completing various long-term projects that last on average 6-8 weeks.  Of course, nothing is guaranteed, and if there is a national or natural disaster that requires evacuation, clean-up, recovery, etc, we are removed from the project we were working on and used as auxiliary help for whatever purpose necessary. 

In all, it will be quasi-militaristic in structure, but I am excited to get out and see what I can see.  I am going with few expectations.  I hope only to see some of the country that I haven’t before, meet some new and interesting people, use the time to determine what is next for my life, and hopefully do some good along the way.  Anything else that happens along the way will only add to the adventure of it. 

For now, however, it is a waiting game.  So, if anyone has some odd jobs they need done, I am for hire until the middle of October… 

Test Run

How did people ever communicate with one another in the days before the Blog? 

This is my first post, it may or may not remain over the course of time, because the purpose of this blog is not to announce to the world that, yes, I too am blogging now.  It seems to be the general trend with my friends to keep each other informed of our lives through this medium, and who am I to buck a trend?  I am no author, however, and so until I get the hang of this format, what I post here will probably be pretty boring.

 So get to the point already, will you?

I am going to begin a ten month adventure next month.  I will be out on the opposite side of the country serving that time with the AmeriCorps NCCC, and I hope it will provide me with enough worthwhile tales to weave here in cyberspace for all to see.  Besides, like my friend Lisa said, it will be easier to post here than to send out mass e-mails.  And, it will give all my friends something to look at in between clicks to Facebook and MySpace.

 Because we all need another excuse to waste more of our lives with the internet.