she's a bad mama jama

I'm so excited to officially announce that I am part of the Class 18 Atlantic Region Fire Team! 

So while every NCCC member is already apart of a permanent team in which they will complete their term with, there are opportunities to be part of "Composite Teams." This means a member can leave his/her permanent team to temporarily join other composite members to become a new team. Composite teams exist for disaster projects (if a natural disaster hits anywhere in the U.S. a few members from each team will immediately be sent to the affected site and finish off that project round there) and fire teams!  Tuesday morning we found out the 33 people who made the fire team. Of course, the supervisor had to be 25 minutes late. Lots of finger-tapping, nervous-laughing and watch-checking while the minutes crawled by. 

But none-the-less, he came, the letters were passed out, and my day got a little more exciting. So thanks to AmeriCorps, I will be trained to be a Type II Wildland Firefighter. What does that exactly mean? Well, I will be trained in fire mitigation work, getting assignments from the National Park Service and U.S. Fish and Wildlife, and fighting wildland fires.

Pretty cool, huh? 

In two weeks, all fire team members will travel to North Carolina to be adequately trained for this specialty role. We will be there for about seven days while our permanent teams head out on our first project or "Spike." After receiving our red card, the fire team will split up and join their teams, where ever they may be at the time. Every new project round (there are four) about eight fire members will once again meet up and officially become a "composite team" and complete that round as a "Phoenix team." 

Hopefully that made sense. 

It's all very exciting and everyday I'm learning more about the position.

The only downfall... more physical training! We are required to complete FIVE PT's a week. One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Holy hell, that's way too many in my book! If I still can't do a pull-up by the end of my service there is no hope that I will ever get my chin above that "flippin'" bar. 

Anywho, that is the news for now. Plus the library is closing soon. You know there is nothing to do in Perryville when everyone is at the library on a Saturday afternoon. Good thing I have pizza with my friend Chandler to look forward to... and two mile walk home... this town, I tell ya....

Any news in your neck of the woods?

- Liz