Round One

Today's the first day since we've gotten to Los Angeles that I've had a few hours to myself, so I decided to walk to the local library and sit with my laptop so I could write, check my email, and try to acquire the newest episodes of Dexter. Living and working here has been a major lifestyle shift for me, but for the most part I've been able to adapt and am enjoying this new world I find myself in.

Our housing situation is about the exact opposite of what I'd become accustomed to my last year at RIT. We're staying in a small house attached to a church that consists of a living room, kitchen, three bedrooms, and a single bathroom. I'm sharing a room with the other three guys on the team which we've dubbed "the man cave". Each of us has a standard issue cot and a sleeping bag (well, except Mike, who somehow lost his when we did laundry last week). We put together shelving by stacking folding tables in one corner of the room. I have the space under my cot, half a table, and a drawer in the bathroom to store my stuff in. For the first few days we didn't have a stove, but our sponsor managed to find us one. We're pretty sure it leaks, so when we aren't cooking we turn the gas off and have to manually light it every time we use it. We've also got a microwave and a fridge, both of work well. Our bathroom is decent, although the toilet leaks large quantities of water every time we flush. Also, since we only have a single bathroom we pretty much don't have any personal space anymore. Showers are timed on work days, five minute max, and while showering someone else is usually in the bathroom using the toilet or the sink. The second day we were here Scott found a secondhand shop where the owner agreed to find a couch for us. It seemed a bit sketchy, but the guy really came through for us and got a nice black leather couch for only $80 (we gave him $100 to thank him). That, with another folding table on top of two storage crates for a coffee table, make up our living room. It's large enough for all ten of us to be in there at once, and we usually have about four people on the couch at any given time. For privacy we have a back stoop that's surrounded by maybe 100 square feet of grass that makes up our yard, most people sit out there while on the phone. We have no TV or internet, but I find that I don't miss it all that much, so long as I can occasionally come here to check my email.

The team is still doing well together, although our housing situation has led to a few tensions. A few of us have been sick this week, myself included, the worst of which was Fayanna vomiting all night on Tuesday. She's home with her family in San Diego this weekend though, and hopefully she'll return healthy. Megan is also visiting her family around here this weekend, who were kind enough to invite us over for Thanksgiving dinner. They provided us with an awesome meal and were really nice to talk to. Her mom bought us a few bags of cleaning supplies and I ended up talking with her dad for quite a while while they prepared dinner. I was really sad that this was my first Thanksgiving away from my family, but being with my team and her family was still a good time. Since we have a long weekend all of us have been splitting into smaller groups and checking out various things around town (last night we drove to see the Hollywood sign up close), which has been great for morale. It's usually hard for all ten of us to make a decision quickly, but if we break into smaller groups it's much more relaxed.

And while it's been nice exploring the area and seeing what L.A. has to offer, our real objective here is to work with the CYFC program at two schools. Our team was broken into two groups, with Scott, Cassie, Megan, Mike, and myself working at Dorsey High and Melissa, Steve, Emily, Aine, and Fayanna working at 61st Elementary. Us working at the high school have been assigned to provide tutoring support in Algebra, Geometry, and CAHSEE (California state exams) math review courses during the day and providing homework assistance and playing games with kids after school. We're on block scheduling, so we have a total of eight classes, four each day. The teacher I'm working with the most, Mrs. Gay, is fantastic with her students and commands enough respect to convince them to learn the material. The student population is 50% Black and 50% Latino. There's a girl in one of my classes that I think might be white, but I'm not sure. The teachers are a little more diverse, I work with a few Asian teachers and two have strong African accents. The kids occasionally make jokes about our presence (the first day one kid shouted that he was going to give his "white milk to the white kids", and on Wednesday one kid shouted "white power!" at me), but they're good natured about it and I haven't seen any hostility from any of them. They're also pretty smart, and almost always pick up on how to do the work after a few examples. I think one of the largest parts of my job is just walking up to kids and pointedly asking, "are you planning on doing any work today?" The typical response to which is usually a sheepish grin and an admission that they just don't get it. However, there's almost always an "oh yeah, I remember this, this is easy!" moment after I get them about halfway through a problem. After school we usually just end up chatting over games. They're all just normal kids, although some of them have gone through things I can't really imagine going through. I'm starting to pick out a few that I really like and get along well with, I hope I'm making a positive impact on their lives.

Despite the fact that our house is located close to Inglewood and is in a pretty rough area it isn't nearly as terrifying as media stereotypes make it out to be. Our neighborhood is a pretty quiet suburb, where most of the folk seem to just be working to get by. According to some of the kids at Dorsey we're located in Blood territory, specifically the Rolling 60s gang, but I have yet to see any gangbangers anywhere or anything else to make me feel unsafe (Dorsey itself is right in the middle of the dividing line between Blood and Crip territory). We're smart about it and usually travel in groups, but we can walk to the library (about 10 blocks from our house) in small groups at night or alone during the day without feeling scared. Also, according to the kids a lot of the gang warzone image portrayed in most media is a relic of the 80s. Granted, the gangs are still dangerous, but a lot of the old hostilities have died down somewhat. Case in point, one of the girls we work with had a Blood father and Crip mother. She doesn't have the nicest life, her mom is dead and her dad can't support her so she's in a group home, but has ambitions and is smart enough to go places. Also, one of the kids told us that some of the rival gangs around here regularly play football against one another. It seems to me that the gangs tend to be more fraternal in nature, so I think if these kids can find another group to identify with they won't fall into that lifestyle. I really hope that our influence on the kids we're working with will help them go farther in life and that we can actively demonstrate that there are alternatives to ignorance and just doing whatever is needed to get by.

End of training

I, Adam Bosen, do solemnly pledge that as a member of the AmeriCorps National Civilian Community Corps, I will serve as a leader and active citizen of my community and my country and will accept equally the opportunities and responsibilities of citizenship.
I will support and uphold the mission of AmeriCorps National Civilian Community Corps to strengthen communities and develop leaders through team-based national and community service and commit to my role as a full participant of the AmeriCorps National Civilian Community Corps. Sacramento Campus. agreeing to abide by the guidelines established to ensure a healthy and productive community experience for all Corps Members.
I will participate as a self-governing member of our nation. I will inform myself about the problems of my community and my country, and I will work with other citizens to solve these problems.
Further, I agree to continue to serve my country as a leader and citizen, not only through my involvement in the AmeriCorps National Civilian Community Corps, but throughout my life. I make this pledge freely and without promise of personal gain.

So, training is over and we're getting ready to ship out on Monday. Yesterday our team gave our first official briefing to our unit leader and the pacific region director, which went off without a hitch. I think the briefing was the first time we've completed a stressful task as a group. I was a little nervous about us at first, but after seeing how well it went yesterday I think we're going to do well together.
This is a picture that was taken of our group together at Camp Mendocino. From left to right: Steve, Aine, Emily, Scott, Megan, Mike, Me, Melissa, Cassie, and Fayanna

Yesterday morning we had our second PT baseline. I managed 49 pushups, 69 situps, a 1.5 mile time of 10:57, and 13.5" on the sit and reach test. I'm really happy about my running speed, although I think that can mostly be attributed to starting at the front of the group this time.

Team Formation

I feel like I'm finally starting to get a good handle on what the people on my team are like, so I wanted to give a brief introduction to the nine people I'm going to be spending the significant majority of my time with for the next year. I'm going to try to get photos/video up soon so everyone can attach faces to names. The ten of us that make up Blue 3 (or Blü3, as I've taken to writing it) are:

Melissa is our fearless team leader, also known as 'mom' or 'boss'. Melissa has her masters degree in social work and hails from New Jersey. She's pretty low key but still has the energy to lead our team, and definitely has the New England sarcastic sense of humor. She's a bit older than the rest of us, but can still operate on our level.

Aine (pronounced Anya) is also from New York, although just north of the city (Westchester is definitely not upstate, despite everyone's opinion otherwise). She's funny and laid back. Her degree is in architecture, although she's not sure she wants to do that kind of work. Aine's role on our team is service learning initiator.

Emily is one of our two youngins, straight out of high school, but fits well with the older members of our team. She's quick witted and has a funny, sarcastic sense of humor, which is boosted by her somewhat monotone way of speaking (which she occasionally gets jokingly teased about). She's trying to figure out what she wants to do with the rest of her life while in Americorps, which is no small undertaking. She's our physical training coordinator.

Scott is really chill and relaxed, the kind of guy you can easily sit down and watch football with. He has a degree in communications and wants to work as a sports writer. I'm sharing a room with him and a guy from another team for the rest of the year. Scott is our project outreach liason.

Fayanna is pretty intense about being here. She's already been trying to schedule several independent service projects and seems to feel like she needs to prove her worth here. Still, she's generally pretty friendly and has a really diverse taste in music (I've never met anyone my generation that claimed the 40s as their favorite musical decade before). She was home schooled all through high school, and I think she's had to do a lot of adjusting since she got here. Fayanna has half of the roles of corps representative and photojournalist.

Steve is energetic and really funny (and was voted by our team to be most likely to wear nothing under his jumpsuit). He also likes comics, including Transmetropolitan and Watchmen (two of my favorites), and all kinds of beer. We've got plans to go brewery hopping in Sacramento next weekend before we leave for our first project. Steve is our media representative.

Cassie has her degree in psychology and is from Kentucky. She's really quiet and generally prefers to sit back and watch everyone, which makes the slight twang of her accent a little unexpected. She's pretty smart, and will happily talk with anyone that engages her directly. She's the first peer helper on our team.

Mike is from the glorious state of Texas, although you probably wouldn't be able to tell it from talking to him. He's into a lot of the more obscure things on the Internet (He quoted back random Homestarrunner lines when I once yelled "Hey, Steve!"). I think he's still figuring out how he really fits into our team, but I imagine he'll find his niche soon. He's our vehicle, safety, and tools coordinator.

Megan almost fits the Southern Cali girl stereotype at first glance, but is really friendly and enthusiastic about helping people. She's definitely one of the most outgoing people on our team, which is really cool. She's also straight out of high school and, like Emily, is working on figuring out exactly what she wants to do with herself after Americorps. Megan is our other corps ambassador/photojournalist

And I'm the last member of our team. I don't really know what I can say about myself, aside from the fact that I'm serving as our team's second peer helper. It'll be my job (along with Cassie) to keep the peace and make sure everyone's getting along well.

Our first project is going to be in Los Angeles, mentoring at risk high school kids. We're going to be living in South Central in a house attached to a Methodist church, so it'll definitely be a shift from my normal living arrangements. I'm excited for the opportunity to experience a new lifestyle, even if there's a bit of danger associated with being in that area. I've had some experience through FIRST robotics mentoring inner city kids before, but I think this program will require a whole new level of effort.

Last Friday we, along with three other teams from blue and gold unit, spent the day removing giant reeds from near a waterway in a suburb outside of Sacramento. All morning I got to work with loppers cutting down these reeds, which were like bamboo but a little smaller and not as tough. Some of them were easily 20 feet long, which was really fun when we were all cutting and they were falling around (and occasionally on) us. Once the reeds were cut the project sponsor came around with a herbicide that would hopefully be absorbed into the roots to ensure that they didn't grow back. It was good hard work, which felt really rewarding. We managed to get the whole project done and hour faster than the sponsor thought we would, which made me feel really good about our work together.

Mendocino

Yesterday afternoon I got back from Camp Mendocino, which was a lot of fun. Our four hour drive out there on Wednesday was uneventful aside from the last half hour, which was a narrow dirt road through the middle of the forest that left me rather nauseous and at a few points fearing for my life. The camp itself is very secluded in the middle of a redwood forest, and aside from train tracks and a helipad is pretty much isolated from the outside world. Absolutely beautiful, but rather cold. Being a New Yorker, I dealt with it just fine, but a few people were having trouble dealing with it. The worst was our first night there, when it got into the 40s, but the rest of the time wasn't that bad.

Wednesday night we spent playing the "newly team game", which involved trying to agree on which of our team members was most likely to do certain things. Our team bombed miserably, but we still had fun playing. Thursday we spent the morning in training and then went to a ropes course in the afternoon. The low elements they had were nothing new to me, but they had an awesome high ropes course with several things I'd never tried before, including a zipline that sent you flying over a river. They also had a nice rock wall, which about half of my team managed to complete. Friday we spent the first half of the day staining the awning of one of their buildings, which was fairly uneventful except for when Fayanna somehow managed to cover her face in stain. I had to lead her blind to the bathroom and help her wash up, good thing we had just done blindfolded trust activities the day before! She cleaned up and was fine, which I'm really grateful for. The rest of Friday was spent developing Individual Learning Plans and in one on one meetings with Melissa. That night there was a huge blue unit bonfire, including, skits, s'mores, dancing, and more of the Blue Unit Mythology, which is this kind of ridiculous, campy story the team leaders have been working on. Finally, yesterday morning we had the Amerilympics, a competition between all the teams in Blue Unit. Myself, Megan, and Emily won the four legged race (which was kinda tricky because I had to be facing the opposite direction as they were the whole time) for our team, but we didn't take any other event. However, no team ended up winning two events, so the winner was decided by a massive rock-paper-scissors game, which was rather anticlimactic. After the winning photos were taken all of us packed up and headed home, and I've been just relaxing since.

Blue Three

Last night I got my team assignment: I'm officially part of Blue Unit Team 3. My team leader, Melissa, hails from New Jersey and has her master's degree in social work. She's quiet, laid back, and very friendly; I'm very excited she's my team leader. The rest of the team seems pretty cool too, although I'm still learning what everyone is like. Today's training helped me get to know my team, it was called something like "hands of peace", although I kept referring to it as friendship training because I could never seem to remember the name. For the most part it was pretty basic communication skills training, total rehash for me, but the community building activities and the development of a set of team guidelines and mission statement helped me get a good sense of the people I'm going to be working with. Tomorrow we'll be shipping out to Mendocino together and won't be back until Saturday, so I'll be completely out of touch from now until then. Unfortunately, I'm not permitted to drive the van due to my driving record, but once I get an updated record with my defensive driving credit on it I should be okay. I'm a little disappointed I can't help, we currently only have three drivers. Oh well.

Oh, and just for reference, my assignment to my team makes my new address here:
Adam Bosen, Class 16, Blue Unit, Team 3
Americorps NCCC
3427 Laurel Street
McClellan, CA

The Homeless in Sacramento

Today was our second day of service. Our entire campus met up in downtown Sacramento in the theater district for a presentation by the mayor, a member of his cabinet, and a few regional experts on homelessness, including one man that had been homeless and addicted to drugs for twelve years. It was a very enlightening experience; I hadn't really contemplated the issue of homelessness before. Also, it was very inspiring to hear the presenters repeatedly state how much they felt motivated by seeing all of us eager to do some good, it made me really want to live up to their expectations. After that we went to Loaves and Fishes, a nonprofit that specialized in providing food, shelter, and counseling/job resources to the homeless population here. We got a comprehensive tour of the complex and got to talk to a few members of the homeless community. One man in particular was very well spoken despite the raggedy beard and slight odor and gave us a lot of information about his community. Apparently there are a total of about 1200 homeless in Sacramento, although they aren't immediately apparent to the public eye because of well enforced no camping/blocking the sidewalk laws, so they end up continually wandering the city in a very transient lifestyle. They're working on developing a center with shower and basic housing facilities to give them a large space to gather in, but that project sounds like it's still in early development. Additionally, the vast majority of them are addicted to either drugs, alcohol, or both, and a large number have mental disorders. I think the most disturbing statistic I heard today though was that about one in six are former veterans. I think it's a great disservice to the men and women that helped protect our country that so many of them have no access to counseling or any real support and are forced to live that kind of lifestyle. The work we ended up actually doing today was the sanitization of shower, kitchen, and living facilities for a part of the complex that housed 13 homeless mentally handicapped women. It was very rewarding, I definitely plan on going back when I get the chance.

Oh, and family, this is your warning: I'm dragging you along for community service work when I come home for break. Not sure what or where, but we're doing it.

On a minor side note, some point next week we'll be going to camp Mendocino for four days, although I don't know exactly when I'll be leaving or returning, so I'll be out of touch for a while.

Training and whatnot

The past three days have been kind of intense, long training days in various topics. Monday we had a lot of little courses, yesterday was first aid and CPR training, and today was disaster relief training. The first aid course was good, I really learned a lot, but the woman teaching it was very strange. At one point while pretending to be unconscious victims she wandered about checking shoe size, so, you know, if we died she could have a new pair. Other than that the material was good, I'm actually a little surprised I never had the chance to receive CPR training previously. Today's presenters were better, although the overview of the Red Cross seemed to go a little longer than necessary. The rest of the session focused on mass relief and shelter setup, which was good information. It's strange to think that we're going to be likely to need this information; it wasn't something that popped up in everyday thought for me before.

Backing up a bit, on Sunday most of the people in my pod (temporary teams, I'm on pod 2) and a few of our other friends went to Sacramento to explore. We wandered around midtown, went to this great mall outside of the city, and went to Old Sacramento for a little bit. We walked for miles and miles and got on the wrong light rail train twice, but it was a good way to learn the city and figure out what's around to see. I highly recommend Old Sacramento, it's cool old fashioned touristy stuff, I wanna go back there to explore some more. It's only $6 for an all day rail/bus pass, which isn't bad for public transportation.

Our physical fitness baselines were this morning, which made today really exhausting. I had to get up at 5:20 and do two minutes of pushups, situps, a 1.5 mile run, and a sit and reach test. I got 45 pushups, 50 situps, 11 minutes 44 seconds for the run, and 12.5 inches for the sit and reach. I'm really happy about all of those aside from the flexibility, which is kind of crap. The only way I got the running time I did is because I was following Mae. I decided to just keep pace with her, and we both ended up tying for the top time in our pod. However, one guy got 9 minutes 2 seconds for the run, which I think is a little ridiculous. Not sure that I could ever do that, but it's a nice goal to reach for. I'm a little annoyed that they made us do warmups and the first two tests in the grass, it was very wet and my pants got covered in dirt. Ah well, I'll get used to it, and it's not like I'll need them for Aikido any time soon.

I am rather dirty

I'm still having so much fun here, I'm really glad there are so many awesome people on campus. Yesterday was pretty slow, all we had were physicals and one meeting. All my bits seem to be in order, although the Tetanus shot they gave me is starting to sting. Last night me, Ross (one of my roommates), Mae, and my pod leader Nelson all went grocery shopping for meals for us and the pod we're sharing a kitchen with. I volunteered to cook one night, I'm gonna make that simple chicken, spinach, mushroom, feta sautee I like with some rice pilaf. It was rather daunting trying to shop for 26 people; I ended up buying five packages of mushrooms and spinach and about ten pounds of chicken. Our total grocery bill for both pods came to about $900, which was kinda crazy. I was planning on going to check out the local dive, Harvey's, but since shopping took us so long I ended up just turning in early, which turned out to be a pretty good idea since we had a pretty intense day today.

Our first community service project was today, working outside the California state agriculture building on the development of a demonstration garden. Yesterday another Americorps team went through and cleared most of the ivy growing on the land they wanted, so today we dug moats to control water flow, removed the last few patches of ivy, and started aerating and planting various edible crops. I mostly did digging and root removal. At one point got a little overzealous with a shovel and ended up cracking one of the buried sprinkler heads, which resulted in the sidewalk flooding when they turned on the sprinkler system for the new plants. Oops. I helped them dig up and clear out the pipe though, and they'll replace the head soon. It was good hard work, and I'm considering doing some of my individual service project hours working on finishing that garden. Afterward we went and toured the Capitol building, which was pretty cool. Nice summaries of each area of California (apparently there's a place just called "Lake") and artwork, including this huge bronze bear that Schwarzenegger recently bought. It was a cool way to see downtown Sacramento, which was actually really quiet all day. Tomorrow we have the day off aside from TB test results, so I think I'm going to go exploring the city a little more, see what's around. I gotta go shower now, I'm covered in dirt from digging all day.

Day One

Today was a very long travel day, followed by a longer orientation process. Things are going well though, and I'm quite happy here.

I met up with three people in the Albany airport, Paula, Kyla, and Dan, all headed the same direction as me. We ended up doing three flights, from Albany to Philly, then to Vegas, then to Sacramento. Very cool people, since the shorter two flights were way underfilled I managed to sit next to Paula, got to know her pretty well and I think she's going to be a solid friend here, Kyla as well. In the Vegas airport we played slots, one dollar each (I lost, of course). Traveling was long, but otherwise uneventful.

Once we got to the airport we waited for an Americorps van to show up and were driven to base. Once here we got fitted for all our gear, including PPE and steel toed boots. I signed up for a new Bank of America account to use while i'm out here, although I have yet to go through the details of it. It was interesting really seeing how many people are here, it's more overwhelming than I anticipated. I just wanted to make friends with everyone all at once, but I'm having trouble remembering names and details. Ah well, I'm starting to get a few people. I found out later that I'm in a room with three people, which makes me a bit unhappy, but since we don't use our rooms for much I don't think it'll be a huge issue. I did manage to get to Target and buy all the supplies I needed, so I think I'm all settled in.

After dinner I played some pool with Paula and Kyla; I think I may have been a little over the top with my heckling because apparently they've declared a prank war on me. However, they can't figure out where my room is, so I'm safe for now. They walked right past it at one point too. After that I met some more of the people living around me and figured out the showering schedule with my roommates and other little details. I think I'm gonna like it here.

It's an interesting neighborhood we're in. Across the street from our base is a sketchy run down store with a confederate flag and a Burger King mascot in the front yard with the words "Army Boot Camp Training" on the window. Seems legit to me. Also, there are several orange trees on base, but we're not allowed to eat the fruit because it's contaminated with radioactivity from an old seepage into the local water table.

Breakfast is as six tomorrow, so I gotta get to bed. I'll write more as events warrant.

I'll see y'all later

Today we had a going away brunch at my house. My brother Eric and his girlfriend Christina, my girlfriend Courtney, and several of our good friends came over today to enjoy a meal that mom and I (well, mostly mom) spent all day yesterday preparing. It was a great time, we spent hours sitting around the table laughing. After most of our friends left Eric, mom, Courtney, Christina, and I spent the afternoon playing games (Christina managed one of the best Scrabble plays I've ever seen, 70 something points due to a Q being counted for triple letter and double word) and just hanging out. It was exactly what I was hoping for as a last hurrah before I leave, thanks to everyone that came. It was sad to realize I'm leaving everyone behind, but I know I'll only be gone for a while. The hardest part was saying goodbye to Eric and Courtney, I really love both of them and I'm going to miss having them less than an hour away.

Tomorrow I'm planning on packing, seeing my best friend Chris, and making dinner for my parents one last time. It's odd looking at the packing list, I know I should probably be a little more worried than I am, but it doesn't seem like that big of a deal to shove a few pairs of clothing and miscellaneous extras I need into a suitcase and get ready to go. I think I've got everything in order, and don't feel like I really have much left to do before I head off. I'm actually anxious to get out there and get started, I can't wait to meet everyone and start building a new set of friends and allies.

It hit me today today while talking to everyone about it what a large undertaking this is going to be. I've always tried to help people and improve the way things are around me, although nothing really, even working in Residence Life at RIT, ever gave me the chance to wholly devote myself to that goal. With Americorps I'll be able to focus and push myself to new limits, learning what I can and attempting to broaden that category every day. I've had this vision of who I want to be for a while now, this person worthy of enough trust and respect to be capable of empowering those around me and giving them the hope and energy to make things better. I think being able to treat that goal as a full time job and continually working toward it will allow me to fully realize it. It's a very large idea, and one that I'm still struggling to fully comprehend, but I'm confident I can get there.

Only two full days left before my flight out there. I can't wait to meet my fellow volunteers!

Introduction

Hello, I'm Adam Bosen, although most people I know just call me "Bosen", often at high volume. I'm currently in the process of graduating from Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT) with my combined bachelors/masters degree in computer engineering and am preparing to embark on an exciting adventure on the other end of the country. I normally don't consider my life interesting enough to justify blogging about it but the program I'm joining seems like it will be sufficiently exciting to merit the occasional post. Plus, this is a decent way to keep everyone back home updated about what's going on while I'm out there (hi mom! I know you're reading this).

Now that I've hopefully piqued your curiosity, the program I'm going into is called Americorps National Civilian Community Corps (NCCC). It's a ten month community service program for American citizens ages 18-24. The first month is training, after which we'll spend time traveling our region of the country working on 6-8 week community service projects. I've been assigned to the Pacific campus, which is stationed in Sacramento, CA and covers California, Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, Utah, Nevada, Alaska, Hawaii, and the pacific territories. This campus is home base for about a hundred or so of us, although for projects we're going to be split into 10-12 person teams. Projects can fall in the categories of disaster relief, education, environment, public safety, or unmet human needs, so we'll be doing all manner of work. Additionally, the pacific campus has an option for members to join a fuel reduction team, which works on fire prevention and suppression. I'm scheduled to leave for Sacramento on October 14th.

The reason I'm joining this program is for the chance to see what the rest of the country is really like and do some good on the way. I've lived in New York all my life (raised in Albany, school in Rochester) and I want to see as much of the country as I can before I settle down for graduate work. Also, I know I'm going to learn a bunch of new skills that I would never be able to gain elsewhere. I'm particularly excited for the opportunity to learn some firefighting skills. My whole life has been fairly easy so far; I grew up in a quiet suburb where I never wanted for much, so I think it's only fair that I do my part to give back to the country that allowed for the life I live.

As I mentioned before, I'm an engineer through and through. I'm just wrapping up my masters degree in computer engineering from RIT and I plan on going for my Ph.D. in biomedical engineering with a focus in Neuroengineering after I finish the Americorps program. I'm currently applying to Johns Hopkins, Georgia Tech, Duke, Purdue, University of Rochester, and University of Pittsburgh, with the hope that I'll be accepted into at least one of the first three schools. My interest lies in processing signals from the human nervous system for use in control systems, with the ultimate goal being a brain-computer interface you can use to control anything from a prosthetic limb to a car. I doubt I'll see that final goal in my lifetime, but it's definitely possible to get at least partway there. There's some really cool research going on right now in this area, and I'd love to contribute my fair share.

Outside of academics I spent most of my time at RIT working for Residence Life, and in my rare free time I usually ended up playing games or trying to write music. Music is a big part of my life; I've played cello since I was nine and have started experimenting with the free production software that comes with Ubuntu Studio. My tastes are pretty wide ranging: I listen to pop, rap, techno, and rock pretty equally, although my favorite genre is probably industrial rock, with Nine Inch Nails and KMFDM falling at the top of the list. I'm kind of hoping that I'll meet someone in Americorps with similar musical tastes to collaborate with, creativity is easier when you have someone to bounce ideas off of. I was hoping to create more material over the summer, but the time seemed to just slip away.

Only eight days until I leave! I'm excited and nervous about heading out. It'll be cool to be working with like minded people doing good for the community, although I'm not sure how I'll react to having a roommate again. I've talked with some of the other members via facebook and they all seem like nice people, so this adventure should be pretty fun. I'll probably update again before I leave about the woes of packing and I'll try to update regularly once I get there to keep everyone in the loop.