Drumroll please....

Ladies and Gentleman, we have a project. From March 11-May 19th, we will be working in Louisiana in Baton Rouge for Habitat for Humanity doing a Blitz build, (building an entire neighborhood). We will be staying in lovely "tent city" outside of New Orleans, a couple of hours from Baton Rouge. My mom is trying to plan a trip to come see me, and if you guys are in the area....Jeremy, come on over to my circus tent.

From now on when you see Sebastian, it means Happy Birthday.

Happy Birthday Johnny Cash

Nothing says I love you like too many weird pictures of my face

Sooooooooo.....I ask David to take some pictures so I can see what he looks like for my Valentines day present. I open up my package to find 2 rolls of undeveloped film, a gift card, a sticker, an in style magazine, and chocolate covered blueberries. I rush to get the film developed, knowing that my real present, is only an hour away. I open up the envelope to find these. This is only a fraction of the 48 pictures I recieved. Please rate, on a scale of 1-10 how good these photos are. And don't forget that this is how David Carpenter says, "Happy Valentines Day, Baby!"

The BIRDS!!!!!!!!

So picture this, you go to take out the trash only to realize there is a swarm of seagulls diving down at the ground waiting to peck someone's eye out in the middle of Southeast DC. Needless to say, the trash can wait. If you cannot see the severity of the gulls, go ahead and click on the picture to make it bigger. It was terrifying. Tomorrow I'm picking up trash on the beach. I can only hope a similar calamity does not ensue.

Well, Team 5 will be in DC for one more week. We are working with a Non-profit here, SINGA, and are supposed to know our gulf project on Tuesday. Keep your fingers crossed.

I watched RENT tonight. An interesting film. Be sure to check out the performance piece by Maureen in the middle. It's....well....it just sums up the whole film. In the movie they talk about a newspaper called the village voice,( our NCCC paper) and a homeless shelter called tent city (the name of our most likely housing in the gulf). If I jumped up and sang songs in a dress made from a shower curtain with my friends with chronic illness RENT would practically be my life. NO, really... it was pretty good.

I would also like to recommend listening to the Replacments. Rolling Stone once said that Lucero was what the Replacments country album would have sounded like. Especially the song, If Only You Were Lonely.

AND NOW FOR...... when we were fun and skinny and didn't post on our blog on Saturday night:

I see uncertainty in your future...

Today they told us that there is a possibility that we will all (800) be stationed at a tent in Algeirs, LA (New Orleans). They don't know what we're doing, or for sure where we're going. We might not even be leaving on Monday. There is also talk of not coming back to DC, which means transitions happening somewhere else, possibly the Charleston campus. Basically this is all a cluster-you-know-what. Hopefully I'll know where I'm headed by the time we leave. We haven't been very busy because we are just waiting for some actual information. We can't prepare, because we don't know anything. So for now, I'll just look at toothpaste for dinner and laugh.

Why does this make me laugh so hard?

Thanks for being so straight

There is definitely a kink in my plan. Remember how we were going to Cleveland? Well now, surprise surprise, we have no idea where we’re going. Headquarters is freaking out because our funding is cut for next year so 80% of the entire NCCC Corps is being shipped back down to the gulf for the remainder of our term of service. Rumors are surfacing about a tent in fema tent city, New Orleans to house 500 various AmeriCorps members. Basically, we don’t know where we’re going, who we’re going to be working with, what we are doing, or for how long. In fact, spring break could be changed or cancelled. I might not get to see David. I really can’t bare the thought of it.
Talk about becoming more flexible. I am sad about not going to Cleveland and not getting to work with Habitat, but if this is really where we’re needed I’ll go; I’ll be more flexible and learn to accept change and by the end of this year, I won’t be phased if a bomb lands on my house and everything I own is destroyed resulting in me quitting graduate school, dating a hobo, and becoming a tattoo artist who sells hats I’ve made on the side. I’ll try to keep you posted with various uncertain information.
Today I had one of those "I can't believe I'm actually in AmeriCorps" moments. I worked at a black history month swim meet in DC timing kids swimming relay races. Hundreds of little children in bathing suits, speedos, and aquaman suits swimming with shake that laffy taffy in the background, and me with a stopwatch and really long khaki shorts on. It was surreal

On a funny note, we all went out to eat the other day, and the waitress was handing us our drinks. Christina, meaning to say “thanks for being so sweet” says “thanks for being so straight,” and then gives the waitress the thumbs up. What? On top of everything the poor woman had really short hair.

P.S. grey's anatomy is my favorite show, and I want to marry George. Why doesn't Meredith just get it together and see what a handsome wonderful man he really is?

Jennifer Beales anyone? Come on guys....flashdance? Anyone?

Kelly Mgillis anyone?

Crawfish hunting...the bottom one is my face when he told me about eels with legs

Reasons why I don’t want to leave Louisiana:

1.The indoor track has up a sign that says “DO NOT SPIT ON TRACK”
2. The classroom we worked in had books like “swine production, artificial insemination in dairy and beef cattle, and small animal care and management”
3. Every radio station plays that Toby Keith song “let’s get drunk and be somebody”
4. We have a bar…….n by our house.
5. I broke (okay, hurt severely) Kat’s arm, wrestling outside a huge triple wide “schoolroom” trailer.
6. They pronounce Lafayette… Laughayette
7. They have jalapeño ice cream, and boondin (DON’T EAT BOONDIN)
8. In one day, we went to the Tabasco factory, Nick’s pants fell down and he made a noise like Marilyn Monroe on a street vent, and Ben hit baby in the forehead in his sleep.
9.There is a cage fighting competition at the Cajun Dome two days after we leave.
10. Taco bell, burger king, McDonalds, the coffee shop, a grocery store and several gas stations are in walking distance from our swanky house with a screen in porch and our very own rooster cogburn. We have been fed jambalaya, gumbo, king cake, crackling, hamburgers, shrimp and cupcakes: I love you Louisiana!

Unfortunately, we are leaving Louisiana on Thursday. I probably won’t update for awhile since I’ll be on the road for a couple of days and then only in DC for a few. We head to Cleveland, land of cleaves on the 23rd. Happy Valentines Day to all of you. I know I didn’t send you a box of chocolates or a dozen roses, but I will leave you with these snippets of ameriworld: “Kat- Whoa…..Chandle- Owwwww…..Christina-Shaaaam?” Chandle-“I am NOT Monica…… yeah well, Amar’s Ross.” Chandle- “Vaginal intercourse is the danger” Ben in his sleep “75 kids are coming to run us over, 75 kids are coming….5 4 3 2 1!” Side note: the older guy that lives with us came home with blood on his cowboy boots. He says he saved a little girl from a car wreck. I only hope this is the truth, and we aren’t murdered in our sleep in the near future.

Because I made you so sad last time....

Baby Jed is so cute.

On a more serious note, the alumni association has been fighting the good fight for NCCC. I have made a link to thier website which includes templates for letters to congressman and what you can do to help. Thanks for being so supportive guys. This is something I really believe in, I would be so diappointed if it was just written off.

What's the world coming to?

It's a sad day in Mudville. President Bush cut AmeriCorps money for the next year. As a result of this, David Eisner decided to cut the NCCC program. We are officially the last AmeriCorps NCCC class. I don't know how we can justify taking away something that has helped so many young people, not to mention everyone affected by the work we do, so much. We bring the people here hope that the government still cares about them. The sad thing is this is probably just one more thing that Bush does that goes virtually unnoticed. 2,210,000 hours of service will be completed by this class of NCCC members in just 10 months. My team has been working on a high school, that, as of yet, has received no money from FEMA. We have been helping them clean out the post-flood classrooms filled with ruined desks, books and computers. Two schools have to be torn down due the extent of the damage. The children are in overcrowded trailers and their grades have taken a drastic drop due to the stress of the disaster and the inability for the teachers to have a decent lesson with 60 kids in one room. My team has been attending a 3 hour after school program where actual "teachers" overview the lessons and homework of the day and the children receive what might be the only meal they'll get all day. Last week we helped a man, who virtually can't walk, rebuild his home with tools and materials donated by the Methodist Church. We took the only surviving material, a roof, off of a 73 year-old woman's house because she wants to rebuild but only received 14,000 dollars from her insurance and cannot afford a new roof, more or less the labor. We're the only federal employees I've seen doing hurricane relief in these small, devastated towns. A bunch of kids who get paid $75 dollars a week and still manage to work their asses off and pour their hearts into every nail, board and piece of tin handed to them, a bunch of kids that become compassionate hard working men and women because of the experience of participating in such a wonderful program. It seems to me that it would be something not that our country couldn't afford, but that it could not afford to lose.

I would hope anyone reading this would be compelled to write either thier congressman, or David Eisner himself a letter. In fact, I'll make it easy for you.
David Eisner
1201 New York Ave. NW Rm. 10201
Washington, DC 20525
202-606-6737


Message on Fiscal Year 2007 Budget from David Eisner, CEO, Corporation for National and Community Service:
The President is committed to national service; he is also committed to controlling spending and reducing the deficit. That entails some hard choices for discretionary spending. The budget proposes elimination or significant reduction of 141 programs across the government, including the AmeriCorps*NCCC program within the Corporation for National and Community Service. In the FY 2007 budget, the Corporation has a reduction of 5.4 percent, which adds up to $48.5 million. More than half of that reduction comes from the proposed shut down of AmeriCorps*NCCC.
For AmeriCorps*NCCC, this budget requests only $4.9 million, which is intended to cover the cost of closing our campuses. This is a difficult decision, given the popularity of the program with our participants and partners, particularly in disaster response. However, the NCCC is costly compared to other AmeriCorps programs and was rated poorly in a recent Federal management assessment. The Corporation is committed to building up the rapid and flexible disaster recovery capacity of the NCCC within the rest of the national service portfolio.

Party hats, sheds, puppies and hammers

I'd say that's about a 5-10 with a hammer

I'm an 8 this week because of the crazy in my head

So This week was pretty eventful. We worked at Doris's house almost everyday trying to assemble a shed without any prior construction knowledge or instictive common sense, hence problems did arise. I think you all will agree that it looks pretty good for a bunch of kids building a shed. I had to climb up on the windowsill and nail at the same time. David would have been proud, climbing and construction work, simultaneously.

Lady had her puppies and they are all precious. It's an absolute sin that we cannot have a dog, especially since Doris's other dog, Girl, likes to stowaway in the van at least once a day. Doris also bought us "boon dan". It was very sweet of him. P.S. DO NOT EAT BOON DAN!

Jed ways 16 pounds! How is that even possible. My mom told PJ that Ashur's but was broken out (skin allergy) and he told her "no it isn't, it just has a crack in it."

Kat accidentially kicked a can of Diet black cherry vanilla coke (which incidentially doesn't taste good)and it stood up on it's corner. It was very exciting.

Jeremy never came down, punk had to work.

How redneck is it to drink beast light in a barn beside your house because you told someone you would beat thier face in? Comments welcome.