1st Transition Week: Back to Vicksburg

Rebuilding in the beautiful Ocean Springs, Mississippi

Umitilla, Florida

First Week of Training

Hello from Mississippi! I got here last Sunday and have been in training for a week now. The week in review:
Sunday: Arrived with knots in my stomach and the look of a deer in the headlights. I parked halfway across the campus (not that big) and followed the signs reading "registration" to the gym. It's hot here, although I have to say there isn't much difference between the North Carolina 102 and the Mississippi 105. I met some team leaders, signed some stuff, and then was on my own to unpack my room. As you can see here the rooms are quite nice, we have a sink in our room, along with a little closet, a desk and a bit of shelf space:

I'm keeping a bin of clothes under my bed as well. All of the floors in Johnson, my dorm, have a shared hall bathroom, a laundry room, and a very well equipped kitchen (5 refrigerators on this floor!) Anyway, I spent the rest of the day much like I spent the first day of freshman year.
Monday: Met my team. Very nervous. Orientations.

Tuesday: Uniforms!! Sizes are"one-size"... aka "Man size". Pretty cool, right?

So the rest of the week also consisted of orientations and team bonding exercises, but here are my thoughts. Right now I'm on my "temporary team," so basically what happens is for the first week and a half the team leaders scope out everyone on the team--strengths, weaknesses, introvert or extrovert, etc, and then write up a little report about us. Then the head of "Delta" goes through them and tries to create well-balanced, healthy teams. I'm really curious to see if this is a productive way of creating teams and pairing CMs (corps members) with TLs (team leaders). I like my team and team leader now, and they all live on the hall with me, so it will be sad to say goodbye. I'll let you know my thoughts on the balance of the next "permanent" (or hopefully permanent!) team.

I have a feeling this is going to be a really amazing year.

I'm planning on taking pictures of campus soon so I'll post them as well, along with my thoughts about PT (physical training), which starts tomorrow. All 160 CMs are headed out to the local historical military park to run a mile and a half and do some pushups. During training we work out 5 days a week, and then during spikes, when we are away from campus on projects for weeks at a time, PT is only 3 times a week. I'm excited.

Food has been fine, we take epic Wal-Mart trips to grocery shop as a team (12 people on mine), then cook. Each night a member of my team will be "head chef" for the team, last night was some delicous veggie lasagna and tonight is pizza.

More to come. Right now I'm trying to enjoy the relaxed pace of training before things start getting busier.

I'm off to eat some cookies.