I'm glad I'm in tent 1

Last night in New Orleans there were tornado warnings. If you remember, I seem to be living in a tent, surrounded by port-a-potties. Kat, Steph, Amar and I hid out at Barnes and Noble as long as we could, until we were forced to come back to tent city, and hope we didn't die. Every door on our tent was slamming shut and opening again because of the wind, but there was nothing to do, so we just went to sleep. I awoke to find tent 4 in this beautiful state. Thank goodness no one was sleeping there, because they are trying to close this place down. New housing in Baton Rouge? How about it AmeriCorps?

New Projects, Old Projects, why are my girls such bada$$es?

Ah the Baton Rouge schools, where the fun never ends. I work with a wild bunch of children no amount of "What on earth do you think you are doing?" and "Why would you do that?" stops crazy behavior like taking your shoes off while throwing a chair and flipping the teacher assistant off at the same time.
We found out that we are not leaving on May 20th as expected, but working with Habitat again until June 10th to help with the blitz build. This will be fun because we get to work on the best project of the year, with my favorite capitol region team House 1!
Here are some fun pictures of some Thick as Thieves girls, looking cool.

Someone looks like his aunt Chandle, look at that nose

Waveland, MS and gnats

So we all went to Waveland, MS this weekend and attended the all Corps meeting. There were 54 AmeriCorps teams there and 5 bazillion gnats, that bite. It rained that day, harder and longer than any rain we have had in months. Red mud filled the entrance to the 4-person tent and then water filled the floor. At one point there was an actual crab. We picked up a lot of trash while other teams cleaned the beach, painted trashcans, and cleared ditches. We had a good time seeing all the other teams and managed to all catch a weird, itchy rash (possible gnat bites). I have a picture from the tent, but I can't upload it right now, so instead, you get us all going out to dinner afterwards, and Amar happens to look like a total tool. Enjoy!

HA

So I tried out the face recognition thing on Elizabeth's Blog at www.myheritage.com. I apparently look like Chaka Khan. Pretty clever if you asked me. Also Anne Hathaway and Sophia Coppola. Who knew? I know I would definitely mistake us all for sisters.

more pictures

1. David's so sad that I'm leaving. This one's at the airport.

2. This is taken in Taylor's Falls, MN, the day before I got sick.

3. This is inside David's latest sculpture, can you tell the only reason I'm concious is the marvel of modern medicine?

pictures of the house

It had to be you.....and your inevitable bad luck

So I flew into Minneapolis with a smile on my face. David picked me up at the airport and I instantly did not want to return to New Orleans. We went and picked out the most perfect, gorgeous ring at the third place we stopped. We stayed at the new sculpture park, which is the most beautiful house in the world. We had Thai food and watched "Brick" (great movie by the way), perfect so far, and then it happened. I woke up Monday feeling like crap, a sinus infection. I had my mom get the doctor to call me in antibiotics and I was relieved we'd taken care of it so early, that we could do stuff on Tuesday. I was quite wrong. I wake up at 5 a.m. and my stomach feels like an overcrowded fishbowl at walmart. I spent the next 12 hours with my head in the toilet ( or the opposite) Finally David decides we should go to the hospital and I am diagnosed with Gastritous, aka the worst freakin stomach flu ever! I was instructed to only drink gatorade for 24 hours. I was out of commission up until my plane took off. Then I land in New Orleans sick and tired and my bag does not appear. I'm home sick today and still waiting for my bag, which happens to contain my medicine. David and I picked a date by the way: April 14th! It's in honor of the wonderful/miserable reuniting that could only be us.

A pictorial progression of the strawberry festival in 3 parts

A very long engagement

So yesterday, David called. He said he had a suit on, a haircut, and a cheap ring in his pocket and he couldn't wait 5 more days to ask me to be his wife. That I was the best woman he's ever known, or ever would, and that he didn't want to live this life if I wasn't in it. I think I finally realized that we love each other a lot, and that we might actually be able to make this work, despite being apart for a whole year. It took awhile, and it wasn't expected, but I guess we're getting married. That's all I know, not when or where or how, just that eventually, it's happening. It's been a weird week in New Orleans and Baton Rouge, but it ended on a pretty good note.

What do I want to be when I grow up?

So I'm just gonna put it out there. I did not get into the
Clinton School, and it's the only school I applied to so grad. school is out next year. In light of this news, I can't seem to decide what to do with my life. Stephanie wants to start a shed building business called, "shed a little light." Kat wants to start a landscaping company called "WEed love to." I think I should be a plus-size model/ food critic cause I'm pretty and I have a blog. Give me your insights.

p.s. the other day Nick threw a roast beef sandwich and it his Steph in the face. Now that's funny. Also, I sat down on the sidewalk only to feel a sharp pain. I then realize I literally have ants in my pants and I start to dance.

This Mess We're In

St. Bernard Parish after Katrina

Today 5 members of my team did an independent service project gutting houses in St. Bernard Parish, or should I say part of a house? We successfully removed all the mud, debris, and rotting drywall from the garage and part of the kitchen. We also took off all the doors and busted out a couple of windows for ventilation. We made a 5' X 20' pile of gutted house and we barely made a dent. Mud, broken toys, dishes, rusted tools, photo paper with the pictures washed off, rotten wood, toothpaste, paint, and everything was ruined. The water line went partway up the roof and all the insulation had fallen in causing things that were stored in the attic to fall into the water. The house was littered with pieces of Mardi gras beads and Christmas decorations, everything caked with a foot of mud. I had to go to the bathroom, and as I walked up the block to the port-a-potty, I had this eerie feeling. House, after house, after house, empty with 30 feet of garbage in front of it, broken windows, doll parts, ice chests and clothes hanging from the limbs of trees all cloaked with this dead silence in the middle of the day. It was like a scene from Dawn of the Dead, but it's real. So many parts of New Orleans are uninhabitable until gutting and inspection are completed, and no matter how many times I say it, people don't realize how bad it is here. It looks like zombies took over the city and left it for 20 AmeriCorps members to pick up. I wish I had a solution, or the power to implement it. For now, I'll just approach it like I did the house: one house, one room, one square foot, one shovel-full at a time.