The one where I really love naps

HELLO MY LOVELIES!!! Week two of AmeriCorps NCCC has been super swaggy!! So my team has found out where we are going for our first spike (project) buuuuuut I'm mean and I'm not going to tell you until the end of this post. Don't be a poop and skip to the end either! This is how the week went

TRAINING!! I feel like training has been lasting a lifetime but it's all important stuff and we gotta learn it so we shall prevail. We've had training in so many different subjects it's been crazy to keep up. There's been stuff with diversity training, outreach and social media, and even training to drive a 15p van (which I am one on my team that is doing so and it's the only thing I am not Hello beautiful people!!! I finally have an address in case any of you swagsters wanna send me letters and stuff!! PLEASE DO!!!

     I don't take pictures during training, but we do take some pretty great selfies during our breaks!!

Blue 5 gets into some pretty crazy shenanigans and we had some good times this week. Every night two members of the team make a dinner for everyone and we have our cute little team dinners. It's just the cutest thing and I love it. Also everyone on the team (present company excluded) are really good cooks so shout out to them for that.

                                            Seriously though, aren't we just the greatest???
We had the day off on Wednesday, so obviously we went to the mall. Also shout out to myself because I did not buy ANYTHING.... except food but priorities. We then went to go DOMINATE laser tag against another team(blue 4) So you could basically say that blue 5 is the alpha team on campus.

                                                              Our competitors(blue 4)
So yeah we've just been hanging out and having a good time. We will go and do anything together. Even cheer on our team leader when he SLAYS it at the talent show.

    Yesterday was blue 5's first day serving together. It was National make a difference day and we spent it at Martin Luther King Junior community garden. We did a lot of weeding and stuff. We totally KNOCKED IT OUT OF THE PARK!!! It was a good preview of how great we will work together all year.

                                                                          Before

                                                                             After

                                                                      We look so BA
Oh and I know I promised you a picture of the whole team and I don't break promises....................

This is my awesome team and I'm sure you will hear about each and every one of them multiple times and I'm not even sorry about it.
Okay so now the moment you have been waiting for. My team is being sent to..... PIONEERTOWN CALIFORNIA!!! I am super pumped about it! It is about 8 hours from where we are now. We are going to be doing trail work and I seriously couldn't be more excited. Pioneertown is in Southern California and we will be in the desert. It's going to be CRAZY beautiful. Here is the link of the place we will be working so read it and get excited for me.http://www.wildlandsconservancy.org/preserve_pioneertown.html
And here are some pictures of some of the national parks that are close by that we will be visiting

Joshua Tree: taken from http://www.thewondermap.com/adventure-trips-california-national-parks/

San Bernadino taken from https://foursquare.com/v/san-bernadino-national-forest/4c37b02d2c8020a105838900
Here I will leave you a picture from Pioneertown which is going to be my new home next month for a month and a half!

                                          Thanks for reading and don't forget to serve others!!

                                           

The one where I am in the right place

HERE I AM IN SUNNY SACRAMENTO!! Except it's really not that sunny today but it's a welcome change. So I have survived my first 4 days in AmeriCorps NCCC and I am LOVING it!! I can already feel positive changes in my life happening.... here's how it went!!

Wednesday Oct 14th

The day that everyone partly dreads and partly wants to pee their pants from excitement from. The day we all fly out to start a new adventure. I, of course, forced my brothers to come with me and my mom to the airport at 3:00 in the morning... my last act of torture on them.

I got to the Dallas Fort Worth airport and met the first of my Amerifriends at the airport. We all hit it off right away and were chatting and laughing like we have been friends for years. At that moment my nerves vanished and was replaced with straight up excitement! Shout out to all of my Dallas airport friends!!

                                                                      Lake Tahoe!!

Once we landed in Sacramento (which is definitely more flatter than I pictured it but it's no Kansas) the rest of the day was spent doing paper work, settling in my dorm with my awesome roomates, and meeting all of the amazing people that I have been waiting to meet.

Thursday Oct 15th

Today is the day that I have been waiting months for... MET MY SWAGGY TEAM!! We are blue 5 and I couldn't be happier with my team. We are crazy as heck but it's so great. Luckily we have a team leader who is super patient with us. Besides that we mainly did more in processing and shots and stuff. Shout out to my team mate Sheila who held my hand while I got my shots. I don't have a picture of my whole team yet but you all better look forward to it to be posted because we are SEXY!

                 We got our uniforms today... basically my ootd for the next 10 months so holla.

Friday/Saturday Oct 16/17th

Our first days of CTI (corps training institute) the stuff that somebody with a cray cray mind like myself usually has a hard time with but I know it's very important so I have been doing a pretty good job at paying attention. I'm sure you all don't want me to get into super details about that so yay pictures.

                                     When  you have breaks in training, it's time for selfies.

It was our team leader's birthday so we "surprised" him with balloons and party hats.... except he saw us with giant bags of balloons soooo he wasn't surprised.

Not all of Blue five but most of us!!

Thanks for reading and don't forget to serve others!!

The one where I start a blog

Hello beautiful people!! I am Kalene ( I'm pretty sure everyone reading this already knows me but whatever) Fowler and I am leaving for AmeriCorps NCCC in less than 2 weeks so here I am writing this blog. I've always wanted to have a blog but I never really had any reasons to start one.... I am not a fashionista, I am not a mom with life hacks for everything, I don't cook, and I am not one of those people that has the money to just travel the world always ( I wish!!)

              This is the campus I will be on when I'm at my home base( stolen from the FB page)


So here I am writing a blog finally about my future AmeriCorps experience! What is AmeriCorps NCCC might you ask?? Well I feel like I am not great at explaining it so I will let the information from the page I got do the talking. According to myamericorps.com, "AmeriCorps NCCC (National Civilian Community Corps) is a full-time, team-based residential service program for young people ages 18-24. The mission of AmeriCorps NCCC is to strengthen communities and develop leaders through team-based national and community service. Members are assigned to our regional campuses, located in Denver, CO; Sacramento, CA; Baltimore, MD; Vinton, IA; and Vicksburg, MS. NCCC requires a 10-month commitment of its members, who serve on teams of 8-12 people. Teams are assigned to service projects throughout the region of their campus which serves 8-12 states and can expect to complete between 4-6 projects during their term of service. Service projects are developed in conjunction with local sponsoring organizations throughout the region and address critical needs in the areas of natural and other disasters, infrastructure improvement, environmental stewardship and conservation, energy conservation, and urban and rural development. NCCC's focus on responding to priorities in the area of natural and other disasters includes disaster preparedness, relief and recovery "

5 campuses? Which one will you be serving at Kalene? That is a great question!! For those of you who don't know, I will be serving in the *drumrolls* PACIFIC REGION which is based in Sacramento, California. I could possibly be serving in any states that are blue. So basically, yes I got the best campus but I would have been happy anywhere.

The AmeriCorps staff sends you a duffle via UPS and whatever I can fit in this duffle and a school sized backpack carry on is all I can take with me. I guess you can say I am really going to learn the important things in life.

                           I can fit half of my body in this bag so I am really not too worried.

 Well I made blog not only to hear myself talk ( which I enjoy) but for people that wanted to keep up with my adventures and travels or maybe for people who might be interested in this program and want to see what it is like. ( If you know of anybody who might like this program tell them about my blog, yes I am promoting myself!) If you are interested in NCCC and want some more information or want to apply this is the link ( http://www.nationalservice.gov/programs/americorps/americorps-nccc ) I am going to try and update weekly but I could possibly have a project where I don't have internet or knowing myself will get lazy and only update once every blue moon BUT I WILL TRY TO UPDATE WEEKLY! I hope you all keep up!
Thanks for reading and don't forget to serve others!!
PS this is my first blog post ever so have mercy!!