A little bt of this... A little bit of that...A lot of Laundry!!!

I find it funny and weird how I feel so close to my AmeriFriends here in Vinton, Iowa. My six other roommates are from different backgrounds, yet we always seem to gravitate to each other by the end of the day. On Friday and Saturday night we all went to the Benton county fair grounds for BoomTown. I bet no one reading this has ever heard about this event and if you have please do comment! Anyhoo BoomTown is a yearly event for the Iowa Pyro Institute... which means they make some SICK fire works displays. They were better then Epcot!!!!

On Saturday all the teams had to go and explore our surroundings aka Vinton and Cedar Rapids. It really wasn't interesting, there's very little in Vinton and we just went to a generic mall in Cedar
Rapids. But none the less we had fun driving around in our big red mobile and getting lost.

Sunday was my day off... Halleluiah! it was fantastic, I got to sleep in until 830, take my time in the shower, wear comfy clothes, and eat my fancy jam on a bagel in silence as I read my book. After I was done eating I decided to check the time and I was surprised that it was only 930... I was lost without my schedule. I had no idea what to do with myself for the day. I found myself sitting in our dining room just talking with my team mates and truly getting to know them. We sat there for about 5 hours. We had breakfast, talked, lunch, and talked some more. Our conversations went from serial killers to our favorite cartoons to politics. Though I did realize half way through dinner that I had yet to do my laundry...which meant I had no uniform to wear the next day, so I spent about 3 hours doing laundry, folding, organizing my locker, and cleaning the room.

It was a weirdly perfect day.

Monday started at 6 for me. We had one of the most earliest starts out of all the teams and the latest ending... It was blazing out here and we helped the office set up all the class rooms across the campus all I need to say is thank god for the tunnels we have!!! Plus my turn was up for making dinner. I made homemade pizza. It started out on the wrong foot though! Someone had gotten pizza mix for the dough and it did not work out well... So thanks to one of the girls from the other team I made dough from scratch... I made a pepperoni, veggie white, and cheese.... There were no complaints and no left overs! My team deemed me as the team's official pizza maker.

The last two days have been over whelming! We started our FEMA basic training, which is a class from 8-4 and it kills us all. The material is very dry for the most part, but there's a bit that's interesting and new to me. We did find out what our teams' specialty (drumroll!!!!!!) Disaster Survivor Assistance!!! Which from what I know, means that I will be assisting and listening to the survivors in person and trying to find out how to help them!!!!!

I'm very happy about this choice that I've made. Though I do miss my friends, family, puppies, bed, shower, and my instruments I don't think I would trade any of it for what I am doing! It's only been a week and a day... it blows my mind, it truly does. Everything here feels right, even the itchy baggy uniforms, This is something that will help me throughout my life and will help me be a good person and spread my help!!!

So thank you all for reading and sticking through my awful jokes and writing, I truly appreciate it and if you ever want to send me a letter or something my address is...
Annaliese Schmiel/Pine 5
AmeriCorps NCCC
1004 G Ave
Vinton, Iowa 52349
Love you guys and I will be writing again soon!!!!! p.s. don't forget to comment I would love to hear them!!!!

 

 My Pizza

 On my way to Cedar Rapids