ISP’s for Days

Yes I realize that it has been a while since I’ve posted anything. The past week wasn’t that great for me, but petty excuses aside I have a brand new post for you all. Are you excited? Yes? No? You better be!

*(If you’re not, just remember that google maps is a thing that exists, and I could find where you live easily if I was really dedicated…but I wouldn’t worry about that. I’d much rather get what we in Atlanta call a cake-shake. That’s a milkshake with an entire cupcake blended up in it. An entire cupcake. Sounds amazing right? Of course it is! Far more worth my time than hunting you down. It’s not all about you you know.)

But anyway, on to the post! Since FEMA work has been very meh lately, I will be talking about all my recent ISP’s. If you are new to this establishment or you just really don’t like paying attention to me, ISP stands for individual service project. Got it down? Gonna remember it this time? You better! (If not refer to the previous threat*)

We shall begin a long long time ago. Last Wednesday to be exact. We we’re “given the day off at the office” because someone’s retirement party was going on in our workspace, so really we were just kind of pushed out of the way. Still wanting something to do for the day, we volunteered at a local community garden. It was located down the street from the community center we volunteered for, wrapping around a soccer field so torn up it made me regret ever saying that the ones back home were shitty.

We worked for an incredibly nice woman named Mariam who instructed us in all our work and even stepped in to help from time to time. While we worked she shared with us bits of her life story, growing up in the city but spending time at her grandparents farm in New York caused her to get a degree in agriculture and work to educate inner city kids about clothe benefits of growing your own food. She had us working to build a special kind of compost garden that I forget the name of (something German). It involved a lot of piled logs, mulch, compost and soil. It was good hard work and not all too complicated, and besides a few ant bites it was pretty fun. While digging up some Georgia clay for the garden I joked with my roommate David that we were all digging his grave, and that it would be rude of him not to help (it was for him after all).

ISP #2 was, yet again, Habitat for Humanity! I was very excited for the chance to work with habitat once again. My first experience working with them was so fulfilling and fun that I would gladly do it 100 times. This time was a little different than the last.

For one it was a day one build as opposed to day two, so we had different work to do. This time our jobs consisted of building and putting up the frame of the house. Part of it was already constructed (it was like the organization’a 800,000th house…or something. It was already partly built for some event) so it resulted in a serious lack of work to do. So many people had shown up to volunteer that there just weren’t enough jobs for everyone. You would feel like you weren’t really helping if you did nothing, but you felt like you were in the way if you stepped in on a job. I ended up wandering around trying to snag any job I could before someone else took it. When I couldn’t do that I just had to look busy. Other than that the only thing I have to say is that the contractor in
charge was annoyingly good looking. The girls on my team wouldn’t stop talking about him. I didn’t see what the big deal was, I’ve seen way hotter guys. Overall my second habitat session wasn’t as good as my first, so as a result my after-habitat nap wasn’t nearly as blissful, but I was still ok.

My last ISP was on Veterans Day. My team took the day off from our FEMA work and joined up with that other team staying with us to honor the veterans the best way we knew how, cleaning soap. We volunteered at the Global Soap project for the day, it’s an organization that takes in nasty old soap from hotels, cleans it up, grinds it together to make new soap and then gives that new soap away to third world countries and government organizations (the cdc gets a lot of their soap from them). After touring the plant we set to work cleaning off the old nasty soap for the day. Mostly it was pretty disgusting. I can’t tell you how many big clumps of hair I had to get off that soap (don’t worry we wore gloves, didn’t keep me from gagging though). It was a pretty nice ISP though, we were helping out a seriously nice cause, and I got to throw soap at my roommate David. Afterward we took some pictures, said our goodbyes, and then got some Taco Bell (I still stand in my belief that Doritos Locos tacos are the greatest things on earth).

*a note from the dumbass writer:
This is pertaining as to why this blog post took weeks to write. I’m sitting in the FEMA office, my normal work all finished and my energy from the 12 cups of coffee from this morning dissipating. I’m reflecting on my horrid bout of procrastination and eager to put this phone down to watch some more Doctor Who (which I now just remember that I watch on my phone…). I believe I owe it to you all who have been asking for the next post to apologize. It seems that every time I manage to put out a new post it has to start with me giving excuse after excuse for being late.

I don’t exactly know why it’s been so hard for me to keep up with this blog. Originally the idea was to have a post almost every other day, and I think that’s part of the problem. I have this bad habit of piling on too many projects or trying to do too much work at once, and instead of doing it all I make myself flustered and I dont end up doing any of it, instead all I want to do at the end of my day is sink into my bed and shut out everything else. I think that’s been the problem here, so to give myself a bit of a deadline that I can better handle, I am going to aim for one post a week from now on (I know I have a bad track record, but just bare with me). If specific things happen that I want to write about then there may be more. I always did have back up things to write on so if I have a boring week I’ll try to fall back on that (this blog was originally going to involve more than just Americorps stuff, I’d like to bring in some of the other elements).

Things you all have missed in my long absence:
I have lost yet another teammate, though this time they didn’t leave the program, they just switched teams. I did gain two teammates recently however, and so far they’re fitting in just fine. I did go visit the CDC headquarters and toured the museum, that was cool. One team moved out of the church and one from our campus just moved in, so I have people around that I should remember but didn’t exactly know all their names (the key is to wait and listen carefully for someone else to say it (winky face)). Oh and I found out today that there’s a leak in my room, so that’s fun.

It was just Catherine’s birthday! (I know she’ll probably be reading this, and she is always so excited when she gets attention. Yes, hello Catherine). Happy birthday!

My dad was just visiting last week and we had a great time. I’ll make a nice Thanksgiving post about it since I missed the Halloween one.

That’s all folks. I hope you enjoyed this long awaited/long delayed/oh dear god why blog post! I’m glad to be mostly caught up and I hope that I can keep a better handle on it from now on, but hey, I’m slightly human. Until next time.

Habitat for Humanity

At the FEMA office my team works for 4 out of the 5 work days in the week. For those 4 days we work diligently reading courses and updating files ( 😀 ), so what do we do on the fifth? Is every weekend a 3 day weekend? Do we spend the day meditating or practicing our spells for defense against the dark arts class? Nope. We do ISP’s.

Now for those of you who may be new or just forgetful, ISP stands for Independent Service Project. They are the extra work projects that my team has to seek out and do in our own time, and they count towards our hours. Basically we call up volunteer and nonprofit organizations and ask, “hey, want some free labor for a day?” Of course they say yes, because who doesn’t love free labor?

This past weekend we did something that I have always wanted to do. We volunteered with Habitat For Humanity. If you are unfamiliar with “Habitat” just know that it is a volunteer program where people get together and build houses for those less fortunate than themselves. It’s a great idea and a great progam, and I’m so glad I finally got a chance to work with them.

We showed up at the build site earlier in the morning than I was used to. The air was incredibly cold that morning (for Atlanta at least) and my team shivered quietly in the back of our van, waiting for the others to arrive. I felt awful from the lack of sleep and, more importantly, the lack of coffee. Luckily the Habitat people showed up shortly, with breakfast, with coffee (score). The breakfast was from Chic fil A, a famous fried chicks chain that is all over here in the south. Now I’ve tried to stay away from buying Chic fil A as best as I can since the company is fairly evil (they’ve been known to fund anti gay groups all over the world. It’s fair to say I don’t agree with that). Unfortunately for my morals, I had not had breakfast that morning, and I was pretty damn hungry. So I begrudgingly ate a chicken biscuit sandwich. It was delicious, and I hated it.

We were on a day 2 build, meaning that the frame of the house was already built. The jobs to be done on day 2 involved roofing, siding, window, and door installment. I like being up high, so I did roofing. After a quick overview of what had been done, what needed to be done, and how we were going to do it by Jason, the very nice, very friendly build director who always (ALWAYS) had a cigarillo hanging out of his mouth, we got to work. I climbed up into the rafters and started nailing plywood in for the roof. I felt perfectly safe up high on the roof, but that changed slightly after I was told by the contractors that the safety catches on the sides were really just for show (thanks for that btw). It didn’t stop me though.

The work that day felt really good. There’s something satisfying about hammering a roof all day (that is, when you aren’t hitting your damn thumb!). We got plenty of water breaks (which was good because that cold morning weather disappeared FAST) and even lunch (not from Chic fil A thankfully).

After lunch things wound down a bit. We nailed in the last of the plywood on the roof and I enjoyed sliding up and down it like a fool (inadvertently making my pants filthy for the whole rest of the week, limited laundry trips and all). By the time we started putting the tar paper down my fingers killed from hammering all day and the sun was starting to get to me a bit. I kept going just fine and we got the tarpaper down, but soon it was time for us to go, and I was glad for it. Before we left they had me sign my name on the tarpaper, showing that I was a part of it all. We then said goodbye to the homeowner whom we were building for, grabbed some soda and headed back to base. It felt incredible to have done a full day of labor building a home for someone who really needed it, and to see the look of gratitude on her face as we left, but what felt even better was the nap that I took later that afternoon. That nap. Oh man that nap. I could write beautiful poetry about that.

And what makes it even better is that we went out for milkshakes, and then Taco Bell, where we had a run in with a sketchy guy, but I was over it by the time that taco hit my lips. I swear, whoever came up with the Doritos Locos Taco should have their own statue somewhere, because they’re a genius.

So that was my second ISP, and my favorite one to date! Thank you to my teammate Genise who put it all together. I’m so glad I did Habitat For Humanity, and I would recommend it to anyone! Thank you all for reading, until next time!

Our First ISP

This past weekend my team set off on our very first ISP. Now I’m sure you must be asking, “Alan, what’s an ISP?” ISP is short for Independent Service Project. Basically what it is is a job that the team arranges to do itself outside of our normal FEMA work. Usually it entails more physical work and quick jobs that can be done in a few hours, and I like it.

Our ISP was in the form of a local theater that needed stage materials moved basically all over Vicksburg. We had met the theater director Jack while getting some drinks at a coffee shop, and he was happy for some help. The theater needed stage pieces moved for their upcoming production of The Rocky Horror Picture Show, and we needed the hours.

We rolled up to the first building early Saturday afternoon, ready to go. Jack met us at the door and directed us inside. Now the only word I can use to describe the interior of this building is swanky, but it was an old timey kind of swanky, the kind that you only see in horror movies involving dead twins in the basement. That aside, I liked the place. Our main work involves getting wood and other set pieces out of a closet and into Jack’s truck. The closet overlooked a small ballroom that had birthday decorations set up for an upcoming party. It was bright white and comforting.

We moved the pieces out of the closet and into the hallway, where they were later carried outside. There were a few big pieces that we had to actually lower over a balcony and into the ballroom in order to get them out. I don’t know how we pulled it off without dying, but it worked. The last few items we some boxes in the basement that had to be moved out. They had costumes and other props that the theater was going to need. Now remember that basement I mentioned earlier with the dead twins? This could have easily been that basement. It had all the qualifications: an old rusty elevator that you had to close manually, a dark interior with a few dim yellow lights spread out just enough to leave big black spaces of hallway, and several claustrophobic halls that lead to God knows where…probably the lair of the twins. A normal person would feel uneasy in a place like this, but I was loving it!

We got the stuff out in less than an hour. We packed it up on the truck and moved on to the next location, a small movie theater 2 blocks down. The street was closed off to vehicles due to a commercial filming, but we were allowed to move the truck in. The movie theater was another kind of cool. I wouldn’t call this one swanky, but it still had horror movie potential. You could tell it was privately owned due to it being so small and how worn in some areas were. Jack explained that they would show old foreign films there sometimes, and it really made me want a place just like it, just so I could invite over a bunch of friends and watch The Empire Strikes Back on its semi big screen. Better yet, I might make it a Star Wars marathon!

We carried out more set pieces from backstage. They weren’t heavy, but the place was pretty narrow and the pieces were awkward to carry. Since it was so hot out Jack treated us with a water break back at the swanky dead twin building. We drank in a sort of mini theater. I can only describe it as a long room with a bar in the back, a group of small dining tables and then stage where people could get dinner and a show. I thought it was really cool. They were having a show that night, and we were invited, but I had other plans.

After our break we finished up at the movie theater and then moved a few more blocks to the storage area. The storage area was yet another basement underneath a brick building. It was dark and clammy but also not very big and pretty open, so I doubt it harbored any dead stuff. We loaded everything inside and got it all situated nicely. Afterward Jack thanked us and we went on our way.

After a long day of work there isn’t much better than a greasy dinner at The Tomato Place. I ordered myself a burger and fries and picked up a glass-bottled root beer. I then sat down in a calm corner of the dining area where there was a nice wicker love seat with a fluffy cushion. There I relaxed, drank my root beer, and read A Clash Of Kings while I waited for my food. I swear it doesn’t get any better than that. The burger tasted like it was fished from the burger lakes of Heaven, because that’s a thing now. I took off the tomato and pickles, but I got halfway through it before I noticed the mustard and mayo. This whole experience has made me less picky about my food, and I love that.

It was the birthday of one of my teammates, so we sang happy birthday to her and inadvertently scored some free cake. I got another root beer and ended up having a nice chat with a thick older gentleman named BB. He welcomed me to the south and shared some nice stories about living in the heat of Mississippi and some of the fun stuff he’s done here. He says he talks to Corps members at the Tomato Place all the time, since he’s friends with the owner, and I’m going to enjoy running into him again when I get back from spikes.

So that was our first ISP, and one of the best days I’ve had down here yet. I got to do some real work while seeing more if Vicksburg and meeting some new people. Plus that burger guys…oh man that burger. Thank you for reading! Until next time.