Baseline, Meetings, and Camping...intense!

Somewhere between the usual on the go attitude I hold and my lack of internet in my room, I forgot to update y'all on what's been going on in my life.

On Monday of last week we had our first "Baseline" testing. This testing consists of 1 minute of pushups, 1 minute of crunches, and a 1.5mile run. I debated whether I should slack off to show major improvement by the end of the year, but I couldn't let myself lose a run to some random kid from god-knows-where, USA. So I struggled through the pushups and cranked out some crunches and prepared myself to prove my dominance.
The group got together at the start and I snuck my toe on the line. We started and the usual rabbits took off in their basketball shorts and shoes. I decided to bid my time with them and when we hit the first hill 300m in I was alone. My friend Matt stuck close behind for a good while (he's been one of my running buddies in the mornings before it breaks 95 for the day) but faded back by the half way. On the way back I settled in and started handing out high fives and heckled a few friends. I realized on the way back that I was making a name for myself on campus as the running kid. I can live with that. I finished in a whopping 8:44 which to anyone else's standards would be hauling.

As for the rest of the week, we had our "PT" that consisted of activities we played in 4th grade gym class and a joke of a volleyball game, and the meetings were the same as usual. We did however get our permanent teams!!! I am now a proud member of Delta 6 and I lucked out and got an awesome team. We all get along great and I'm looking forward to this year!

Our first project is a split SPIKE (name of the trips). The first half is in Vicksburg, MS at the Military Park and the second half is Project Homecoming in New Orleans. We will be removing brush and repainting some signs in the park and then rebuilding homes in NOLA.

Last weekend consisted of being the DD for a bunch of the of age members and then working on my first ISP (independent service project). We worked at the southern heritage center where "O, Brother Where Art Thou?" was filmed (the concert hall scene), where we scraped and repainted in the 112degree afternoon for 12hrs total. All in all that was a good first project to start with.

The last two days were spent at the YMCA camp about an hour drive from campus. We woke up at 5am and hit the road only to arrive in a torrential downpour. The rain continued all day while we cleared trails, scraped paint and got some low-ropes team building in. They called the day short when the lightning started and then after the rain stopped we set up tents and watched Ferris Bueller's Day Off. Camping was fun but the humidity was extremely difficult to fall asleep in. This morning we woke up to a hot humid day but no sign of rain. We spent the morning painting and then took all the tents down. We hit the High-Ropes after that and then worked at the construction site (fixing the pool house) until it was time to come home.

I'm truly hoping I'm not covered in Poison Ivy and also that I can sleep in on Saturday and Sunday to finally catch up on some sleep. All in all it's been a great week!