This is New Hampshire

So a lot has changed since last week’s post. A lot, and it feels like lifetime already since I first got here in New Hampshire. It took 3 days of driving up the East Coast, moving into a new space, 3 trips into Boston, and setting up in a brand new office to get here. So I would hope it’s needless to say that this has been a hectic week, but I’m actually love it here. Nashua is a great place filled with people who are suspiciously polite. I like our hotel, our office, being so close to Boston, and our new team leader.

I don’t expect too many people that are unfamiliar with the program to know that changing team leaders halfway through your year of service is a pretty big deal. That’s a soft serve. It’s actually a huge deal. I made sure not to talk about it here, but a lot of people on my team had problems with our team leader. Admittedly, I was one of them, but I didn’t have nearly as many problems with him as some of my other teammates. Long story short we had a meeting with the campus councilor during transition that brought a lot of these issues to light. Afterward management decided that he be switched to a different position and that we get a new team leader. This was sprung on all of us very suddenly, as is the MO of this organization, but I think we have all dealt with the change very well.

We’ve had a brand new TL for just over a week now. Her name is Samantha and she’s, how do I put this, awesome! She’s from Seattle and has a degree in emergency preparedness. On top of that she is incredibly funny, quirky, sarcastic, and se has excellent taste in music. With her as team leader I have seen a noticeable change among my teammates and I. I think a big issue with the previous TL was that he thought very differently from the rest of the team, but now, with a leader who is very likeminded to us, we are able to be ourselves, do work, and have fun at the same time. I am really glad that she is my team leader, and I am excited to be here this round.

Nashua is great! Not only does it contain all my favorite food options (Chipotle, 5 Guys Burgers and Fries, Taco Bell, Ruby Tuesdays, Chile’s, Subway, Chinese Food, Sushi, the list could go on but I swear it will never, ever, stop) but our office is great and the living arrangement is definitely a step up from last time. As I’ve mentioned it took 3 days of driving to get here. II don’t know if you’ve ever done that or not, but it sucks. There was nothing interesting about the first few travel days, other than driving on the highway past DC. I swear, when you are driving in that traffic, you are waist deep in pure insanity. On the last day we had the great opportunity to hop into NYC for a few hours and have lunch in Harlem. What sucks about that is for once I’m close enough to visit my sister in Brooklyn and she doesn’t come back from vacation until the day after, also I got pooped on by a pigeon.

What is incredible about this program is that in the span of 2 days I can be in Harlem having lunch and then take a day trip into Boston, which just so happens to be one of my favorite places in the US despite the horrid wind chill (it’s bad). Of course my golden luck gets me sent to New England in the dead of winter, but other than the cold, the ice, and random Yeti attacks it’s absolutely lovely up here. We are staying out of an extended stay hotel this time as opposed to a leaky old church, and while the church got much more of a bad rep than it deserved, I would definitely call this a step up. Each room has it’s own kitchen and bathroom, and while the space is small, we have heating, tv, outlets, and wifi, so I am very grateful to be here.

We technically have two offices this round, one in Boston with FEMA, and one here in Nashua with the Red Cross. We’re primarily working with the Red Cross so we stay here most of the time. Our office here in town is out of an old Victorian house with plenty of hidden staircases and dark, claustrophobic hallways. I love it. The workspace is cool, the people we’re working with are great, and our project is pretty sweet. Our job is to help evaluate businesses in the area on their disaster preparedness and their plans on how to get things back up and running if they were hit by a disaster. This means we actually get to go out to the businesses themselves, and that means we get vehicles, big ones apparently, I’ll let you know when we get them. It’s possible we could be going all throughout New England, and more than once has a plan to escape to Canada been suggested, so don’t be surprised if I disappear and change my name to something French.

Things are going well, and I’m feeling really good about his round. Sure it’s as cold as the ninth circle of hell up here, but I’ve always been a northerner, and we don’t fear the winter. I hope to really accomplish things this round, both personally and professionally. I’m excited to be so close to a place that I want to be going to school at and that I have the opportunity to learn more about it. It has been a pretty crazy week, and I don’t expect it to stop. Thanks for reading. Until next time.