Last Day!

This saturday was my last day. The whole week went by really fast. We roofed a house. I got to take a ride in our best volunteer's Corvette when he took us to lunch. And on that last day, there were two dedications. The second one was for the Belarussian guy with 7 kids, I don't know if I've mentioned him yet. His youngest son has cerebral palsy, and his wife left because she didn't want to take care of the son.
And he is the most appreciative homeowner of them all. So anyways, he had a lot of family members at the ceremony, and a lot of good food! It was a good end to the experience.

Yesterday, the other construction assistants, Justin, and I had a celebratory bbq together. D gave us little books about friendship. Our favorite memories mostly involved D getting yelled at (these were D's favorite too), or D having an upset stomach and no toilet paper in the portapotty after some volunteers brought bad Togo's. My favorites were with B, the "logistics supervisor," who was really just in charge of getting stuff from Home Depot and collecting trash from the sites. He had a lot of good war stories and silly jokes.

Thank you everyone for reading!

We are coming close to finishing three houses right now. Unfortunately, I can't get a clear answer of when the deadlines are, so it's harder to stay motivated than if I did.
Last week, I thought the deadline was the third week of June, so it was easier for me to keep going. "Sense of urgency" is how Ikea referred to it.

the end is near

Sorry it has been a while. believe it or not, my term is wrapping up. a little sooner than i expected though. after i finish my term, i only have to work the last week. in between that, and when i finish my hours, i can take time off.
i'm thinking of things to do.
1. sleep
2. camp
justin has wanted to since his birthday. i think it be fun, too. to see more (or see for the first time) of norcal.
3. practice some japanese

This week I did a lot more trim stuff. I used a jigsaw to cut sink holes. Hung cabinets. I learned a lot. Today was just cleaning and landscaping. I think the preschool thing made it a long week, ready for the weekend.

We have been doing our individual project- a garden for a preschool. It was fun, but exhausting, working with 150 little kids (not all at once). It's just one of our americorps fullfilments for the year.

All the americorps have been doing interior trim this week. Matt and I are professional closet-installers now. Some baseboard.
We went on a Habitour today. For potential donors, telling the homeowners stories.
Saturday I just found out I have off, so Justin and I are driving down to LA.

Today was a huge letdown. It's raining here, and there's still a storm watch, so we are still at the hotel. Unfortunately we still had to get up at the usual time, 5:30, and go down to the buses. They were making last minute decisions, we ended up going to another casino to take a big group picture with the Carters. That took an hour and a half. Then we went to a baseball stadium with a big tent and ate breakfast. They finally decided the sites were closed and we had to go back.
But I just won $7 on slots!
I found a litte blurb about the family we were rehabing for-
The water from Katrina "messed up everything we had." Eugene and Patricia tried to ride
out the storm in their house, but the water got so high they had to leave. The water was up to
his neck when he tired to walk outside. They made their way to the railroad tracks, which were
on higher groud, and followed them to a school where they took shelter.
He was really nice, always smiling, and made the work a lot easier to do. The hardwood floors we put in looked really nice with the off-white paint we used. Everyday, he'd come over to help a little, and he looked really pleased with all the stuff being done.
Next year, the build is in Indonesia. It has been a great trip, a little bit of nccc again.