I still haven't made official medical clearance, but I have decided that I am going anyway. Everyone assures me that official word will be coming tomorrow. I am supposed to leave Friday. This isn't much warning. Dave and I are putting together my web page and he's about to fall asleep. Today, I spent a half hour with the guy at Office Depot, buying a handheld PDA with email capabilities. When he left to figure the price, I started thinking about the monthly internet bills. He came back and I bailed. I hope he doesn't work on commission. If you see Chuck at St. Joseph, MO's Office Depot, tell him he's a great guy. Tomorrow I go shopping in Kansas City for thermal socks and long underwear.

September 30, 1999 3:43 pm, Barnard MO top

I am in packing hell. How do you pack for 10 months and every climate? I got my air tickets yesterday and had to say goodbye to Bill, who will be driving overnight tonight. I still can't believe that I'm really going.

I am worried about running the mile and a half. It has nothing to do with having rheumatoid arthritis -- I am a whimp. I don't run or jog regularly because it's hard on my feet, and, well, I'm a whimp. Suddenly I am envisioning junior high P.E. all over again where I am twenty laps behind everyone else. I know I can work as hard as is required of me: I can hike or scrape paint all day if they tell me to. But I am not a bit sure about running.

1:23 am (technically Oct. 1)

Well, I freaked out on packing and shoved everything I own into a suitcase and left what wouldn't fit. I have brought only clothes, no pictures or books. This is strange of me. I now realize that I should plan this more like a camping trip (1 sweatshirt, two jeans, etc.) instead of a move. Oh well, the big bags are packed.

Bill -- mom's bf, see the about me page -- drove 700 hundred miles in one day so that he could come home in time to take me to the airport. He was supposed to be driving a truck and staying all night in Minn. I said bye to everyone, including Dave. There was a dinner at my house, and then I got up to town too late to say "bye" to Mr. Duvall, my hapkido instructor. I searched the bars for my friend Kenton but didn't find him. *sigh* You would think that I was going to war.

October 1, 1999 2:55 Pacific Standard Time. The Hub, San Diego top

Think of the worst hell you can imagine. Triple it. That was my torment today. No, NCCC hasn't been that bad -- I've only been here a few hours. But imagine being a chronic journal-writer with NO WRITING UTENSIL!! Bill offered me the use of his pen this morning and I gave it back to him. I regret that now.

I'm now writing with a pen that I found in the bathroom. Sanitary, it's not, but after longing for a pen all day, it felt like a gift from heaven. Let's hope I don't gnaw on it.

Especially since the bathrooms aren't very clean. My custodial past is haunting me -- Time to break out the Scrub N Shine. And I wonder why the urinals are so dirty in a girl's dorm.
9:39 pm PST my bed

I'm so tired that I can't move. My floor is so dirty that I don't want to move anyway in fear of knocking my pillow off the bed. I love the huge room but it gets a "yuck" rating on cleanliness. Phyllis would have fired someone for this.

Saying "goodbye" this morning was hard. I wanted to turn around and run back down the airplane loading ramp to Mom and Bill. On the plane, I sat in front of a baby, across the asile from a dog, and by an elderly couple. The lady was trimming her perfectly-abled husband's fingernails for him -- WHILE WE WERE EATING!! Although this was a sobering reminder of the dangers of the heterosexual paradigm of marriage, it was all good because I didn't care. I was excited about getting a window seat on the flight over the Grand Canyon. Dave and I (before we were Dave and I) got to see the Grand Canyon from the air once before when we were on the Sigma Tau Delta trip to California. It was amazing. I was a mile or so above my sister in Flagstaff, Az and she had no idea. I was looking forward to trying to find her street this time.

But no. An elderly (aunt elderly, not grandma elderly) woman WAS IN MY SEAT! Her husband was beside her. She asked if I wanted my place back. Overburdened with a huge backpack and a nervous bladder, I had to say no. It was only right, I kept telling myself, growling when the pilot waxed poetic about the beauty of this flight. Grrrrr.....

Upon arriving, I was totally embarassed about my huge suitcases. A NCCC member met me and loaded them into the van. About 9 other girls and a male and female leader were standing around by the van, waiting for two more members to arrive. A get-to-know-you game of hackey sack insued. I was thankful for the hackey lessons Dave gave before leaving. I was tired and uncomfortable allready and I didn't want to show off my lack of coordination as a first impression on the group. But all was good. We played for about an hour, hitting pedestrians and traffic. It was very California -- and very hot! By the end of the wait, I was bonded with the girls.

My bags were unloaded at the campus and I got my room. I spent all of September hearing how I was too delicate for AmeriCorps and then they stick me on the 3rd floor! I lugged two huge bags up the steps and broke the strap on one. They said NCCC was physically grueling and they were right.

My room is huge. HUGE! Gigantor. Twice the size of NWMSU dorm with 4 times te closet space and a full size fridge. Okay, so it's filthy and I got sunscreen everywhere after my huge tub of it exploded in the bag. Did I mention the hot water in the showers? No? That's cause there is none.

Went to meetings, got a bank account, got an ID taken and had to discourage an overfriendly guy by saying I was married. I should have told him I was gay, but he might like that sort of thing. That heterosexual paradigm can sure come in handy sometimes!

My roommate is an 18-year-old from DC with rheumatoid arthritis who also lost her Dad to cancer. That's eerie. We'll have a lot to talk about.

Internet access is trickier than I thought. Four Internet computers, 230 lonely people desperate for email. Gotta look into to the public library soon. Perhaps I was too hasty to dismiss Chuck in Office Depot.
Gotta take a cold shower early tomorrow morning, so I'm calling it a night.

October 2, 1999 7:15 PST Sitting on the Galley Steps top

I'm waiting for the breakfast shuttle and I'm watching a sailboat go by. Nice. I think I'll always try to live close to an ocean.
10 am PST: waiting for a computer

I'm waiting to use a computer. I got on at 8 am but only got to type a little bit before the line formed. Now I'm in the line again. The girls on the computers now announced that they had no intention of moving. *sigh*

I'm going to Target to buy disks so that I can type this on another computer and simply use my limited time to upload. I hope Dave finds me a cheap laptop.

I feel good and I'm really confident about this place. I've even discovered how to take an AmeriCorps shower. I turn the hot water on full blast, go into my room, change, gather stuff, brush my teeth and then return to the shower. Feels like a sauna Not sure how environmentally responsible that is.

This morning, I found the hotel where Dave will be staying. I sense that a lot of my family will come through there. It's walking distance.

The airplanes fly low - really low. We were setting on the steps and watching a Fed Ex plane come in for a landing. It was like Wayne and Garth in "Wayne's World." It's that low! I would love to sit and watch for Dave's plane and just leave him to fend for himself at the airport. The Southwest Airlines airplanes seem to use the runway by our base the most.

At breakfast, two intoxicated Navy women started yelling "AmeriCorps Sucks!" from a balcony. I expected to be harassed by Navy men, but not Navy chicks. Kinda' surprised me.

October 3, 1999: On a picnic table, waiting for brunch top

I would like to say "hi!" to the whole English Dept. at Northwest. Thanks for reading. Didn't I say that I was going to get a worldwide following? Suddenly, I'm shy. Let's hope Dave catches my typos.

I tried to do an entry last night, but ended up talking on the phone for hours. Then I crashed on my new $7.99 Jersey pillow from Target. I deserved it.

Yesterday, I got to experience the joys of PT - physical training or pure torture. We did as many set-ups and pushups as possible for 2 minutes. No one hardly made two minutes. I was proud - I managed to do average to above average. However, they didn't let us do girl's pushups and they didn't let me do mine on my knuckles. Still, average is good, average is what I am aiming for.

And then - THE MILE AND A HALF!! (said with dread and fear). I was scared - I don't run unless someone is chasing me. I have such horrible traumatic memories of junior high P.E. I was sick and didn't know it yet. That was so awful and I became a really unhappy defensive brat to try to cover the humiliation.

About three teams ran together, which made the total number about 45 people. I planned to run 30 seconds and then walk 90, just like my learning-to-run web site told me to do. However, I couldn't bear the shame of letting myself fall out of the pack after 30 seconds, so I ran for a minute. Bad bad idea. I managed to keep the 30/90 pace the whole time, something that I was also proud of. I ended up 7th or 8th to the last with a time of 20 minutes or so, but I wasn't one of the people vomiting at the end of the run. Half of the run was on a road by palm trees and a harbor. I felt like I was in a Sega car racing game and had clicked the California track. The only way I kept breathing was by counting in Korean. Other runners wondered why I kept saying "hanna, do, hanna, do" and I wondered if I was hallucinating when I actually began to hear Mr. Duvall counting.

At the last hundred yards, a girl that I had passed suddenly got a strong kick and passed me. Everyone cheered for her. Nice, but it was embarrassing to have everyone cheer at me getting my butt kicked.

That night, everyone went to Tijuana or Gaslamp. About 70 of us were standing at a bus stop when I realized that: 1) I was tired 2) I had no idea where I was headed or how to get back 3) was at the California equivalent of Freshman week at the Outback. I bailed, went home, made phone calls and didn't regret any of it.
Ocean Beach, 1:20 pm

I love this. I'm watching half-nekkid people frolic in the sand. I love the ocean. The breeze is cool, the sun is hot, and Mom says its about 40 degrees in Missouri. I think I might be getting a little sunburned. I might want to buy more sunscreen. It's a nice way to spend an October day.
5:00 pm Horton Plaza

Our three-hour tour is ending up like another famous three-hour tour. It's been six hours since Brian first loaded us into the van for a tour of San Diego. It'll be a miracle if our higher-than-permitted van doesn't get beached in the parking garage.
7:05 p.m.: My room

Not much time to write. I think others are noticing my constant withdrawal to the journal. When I lost my pen, Anthony said, "Maybe that means something." Everyone seems so desperate to bond and I need a little more space. Ten months will draw us close anyway.

I've been seeing a lot of stuff that reminds me of Donna, my aunt who died almost a month ago. She liked Native American stuff and I see so many things that she would have loved to buy. I can't believe that I am not going to buy her a souvenir and then tell her about where I bought it. She would have liked that I was doing this.

The fact that I left so soon after her death upset my family. I can understand it. All of a sudden, I live in a world of dumb, random chance. If Donna's heart can stop and start four times and then give out months later because they laid her flat one day to weigh her, then my plane can fall out of the sky or a car can go off the side of the road. You look at people you love as little targets on map, targets that fate might or might not hit. It's like they're wearing little digital countdown clocks and my time with them is ticking away, yet here I am in California. I haven't felt this vulnerable since my Dad died. When did I stop panicking when my Mom came home late? I forget how long it took.

I almost bought Dave a stuffed beagle at FAO Schwartz, but the eyes didn't look right on it. I can't wait till I can take him around to all the places we went today. First, Brian's 3-hour-tour stopped at Castillo, a monument to the first European to land in CA? I don't remember for sure - I'll have to check the brochure. Spanish men in loincloths demonstrated a friendship dance. Aye! I took mucho photos.

Then we went to Ocean Beach. I love the shopping. I'll soon be a hippie chick - a very broke hippie chick. I considered purchasing a sarong. However, I'm saving my shopping till we hit Tijuana. Tammy was asked for coke. Amusing.

Then we went to the Presido. In a classic B movie mistake, I decided to take a different branch of the hiking trail. Bad move. Kathy and I ended up on a winding path above a scenic Interstate, but we made it back to the van in time. Next: Balboa Park, where I had to 'fess up and show my bare left hand to the guy I lied to. He is on my team now and I couldn't keep a fictional husband up for ten months. Besides, the rumor was starting to spread. That heterosexual paradigm always defeats us in the end. Let this be a lesson.

Next: Gaslamp and Horton Plaza. There was no place to parallel park, so we piloted the van toward the garage. Clearance was 6'8" and the van scraped the little bouncy warning bar. We had to go in to turn around, but no turn-around sites to be found. So we drove. Brian stuck his hand out the window to check each beam before we eased under it. It was close. I was dunking and cringing. We all were expecting the roof of the van to suddenly be ripped away as a beam peeled it off like a can opener. But we made it. Horton Plaza is a Willy Wonka mall with crossings and escalators everywhere. I searched for a hair cut (no luck) and got plenty of alone time to wander and be homesick.
9:30: The Hub
We're watching "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory." I'm homesick.

I bonded with my roomie a little. She's been totally into this guy all weekend and he told her he's gay. What's so funny is that she had a boyfriend come to terms with his homosexuality while she was dating him. So this is déjà vu to her. It was tragically funny.

October 4, 1999. 3:45 pm MEPS top

I am almost totally nekkid and I am not alone. About 30 girls are sitting on a bench, dressed in blue paper gowns. After the first hour, we're really beginning to loosen up. They let us put our undergarments back on, which makes me feel so much more secure, especially since these gowns gap in the back. It's somewhat breezy.

It's medical in-processing. Welcome to my military physical. It's like an episode of "Ellen" or something. A doctor with a thick German accent just examined me "to zee if you are za gurl." I am.
4:05 pm MEPS Waiting Room

I’m clothed now and infinitely more secure. After being nekkid for almost 2 hours, clothing feels like a luxury. The girls and I have bonded strangely after doing exercises together wearing only bras and underwear.
Things I have learned: I can’t duck walk and Hanes Her Way does not provide the sort of coverage that I need when I am going to be modeling them in a group of strangers. I thought that nothing could be as bad as having to pee with the door WIDE OPEN so that the nurse could make sure I wasn’t cheating on my drug test. However, the nekkid underwear duckwalk was one of the weirdest moments in my life.
First my file was lost and so I was way behind everyone because they had to make me a new one. Then the eye chart in the machine I was using was completely different than the nurse’s cheat sheet. I was convinced that I was either blind or crazy by the time we got it figured out. After learning that I really did know my alphabet, I joined 20 fidgety girls in the bathroom line. They told us to drink plenty of water so that we would be able to .. ahem … overcome anxiety about the circumstances. WE DID. Our eyes were turning yellow.
To take our minds off of this situation, we joined the hearing test/claustrophobia chamber. We were herded into a 5ft by 10ft soundproof room, sat on barstools facing a wall, and told to put on our headphones and not to move until the test was finished. He pulled the curtains between us, shut the door and left.
My test was over. I could feel people growing more and more restless. Barstools started shifting. I should hear shuffling through the headphones, but they didn’t let us out. All I had for sensory input was a blank wall and soundproof headphones. I knew that they were probably tallying the results, but I couldn’t help but wonder if this was the importance of the experiment – if there was a class of psychology graduate students watching us from a one-way mirror saying, “look at how the blonde one is panicking.” I was about to break down the damn door. I was gonna go nuts.
They sprung us but still no relief – the bathroom line was longer than ever. I visited with the doctor about my medical history and the line hadn’t moved at all.
Finally, I made it into the bathroom and I didn’t even care who was watching me by that point -- which was a good thing because there were two nurses and about five other girls in there. But I thought that the humiliation was finally over.
Wrong again. I was ushered into a big room where around 30 girls sat on a bench, all deeply embarassed, wearing paper gowns. I too joined the paper gown club and cowered into a small corner, hoping no one saw me.
But it was a long wait and the humor of the situation soon got to us all. As we lined up to be taken into a private exam room with the scary doctor, we were told that everything we were wearing under the gown was not acceptable. Try to shimmy out of your bra wearing a paper towel and then try to do it gracefully. It was awful.
After the exams, we were allowed to put undergarments back on. But then we had to line up in rows and drop the gowns. That’s right. Twenty girls lined up in three lines, facing a panel of old male doctors, wearing next to nothing, wanting desperately to curl up and die. Rachael said she felt like we were in a concentration camp. The second group sat on the bench and tried not to watch.
We were told to do arm circles and squats, which didn’t do anything to help the coverage situation. Then we did the duck walk. The doctor was getting irritated with us and yelling. He was used to Navy guys in boxers, I think. We had to walk toward our doctor one at a time, then turn around and walk back. Tammy started singing, “I do my little turn on the catwalk…I’m to sexy for my shirt/ too sexy for my shirt…” We died laughing, which made the doctors more angry.
The ride home was full of nekkid stories (“Oh man, she actually touched my butt!”). There are only two guys on our team and they felt slightly overwhelmed. Derick: “Guys pretend things like this never happened.” But it was truly a bonding experience for us girls. When they said I would come to know my team intimately, I didn’t know they meant so soon.

October 5, 1999 top
Um...I'm a slacker.

October 6, 1999 : 8 am on the steps before muster
I’m a buff girl. I’m a buff girl. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. *does the buff girl dance*
This morning, for the second morning in a row, I awoke at 4:40 am, made my bed, did calisthenics, and ran two miles in the dark. It wasn’t exactly voluntary. Yesterday, that two miles was completely crushing, mentally and physically. Today I rocked. I stayed in sight of the pack the whole time. At the palm trees, where I was crying yesterday, I was humming the theme from “Chariots of Fire” today. My time was a startlingly medicore 25:23 but that’s okay. Considering that my 1.5 mile time was 20 minutes, this was an improvement. It’s cause I’m buff, I tell you. I’m going for 24 tomorrow. I skipped the Galley (cafeteria) went home and took a nice nap with my stuffed bunny.
Yesterday was 1st aid training. Nothing significant other than I got paired with my team leader. Nothing like having to bind, bandage and splint a male authority figure. I was less than confident about having to get so close to him.
During CPR class, we were learning how to help a choking victim. I got paired with a guy I hadn’t met. The instructor told us to freeze and there I was, the victim, with a guy on back with his arms around me. I said, “And I don’t even know your name.” Everyone laughed. It was weird though.
I went to play frisbee with some people on my team to calm down. It was a really beautiful spot to play in; the sun was going down and the harbor lights were coming on. Sea gulls were everywhere. Sometimes I feel like I’ve stepped into a post card. I can’t actually live here. When we run in the morning, part of our path is by the harbor on a road lined with palm trees and I feel like I’ve stepped into the “California” track on a Sega car racing game.
7:11 pm
Today was diversity training. We learned different techniques to use in getting to know a community. One was map making, where we drew maps and compared what we thought was significant to what other groups thought was significant. The place had nice comfy chairs. Too comfy after a 5 am run. We were a hard group to manage and sometimes, people were absolutely rude to the facilitator.
We gave into the urge and ate at the Golden Arches. Four of us walked home together and shared deep, meaningful conversation (ask Tammy what that means.) Susan is from Illinois, Tammy is from Idaho and Erin is from Sacramento, so Erin was laughing at how awestruck we were at the sunset and palm trees. I can’t believe I live here. It’s the most amazing place.
Tomorrow, I’m going to run the track in 24 minutes, cause I’m a buff girl. Oh yeah.

October 7, 1999 topI'm a sore girl. Oh yeah. *falls over*

Oct 8 3:40 pm Mission Beach top
My shorts are wet and I am covered in sand. I'm getting sunburned. I have purchased a hackey sack. I'm so California now.
10:06 pm (by my new Iron Man Watch)
Things I have learned this week:

• I need more coverage than Hans Her Way gives.
  
• No matter how badly I fear that I may have neglected my showers in my janitorial career, worse showers exist.
  
• I am not the worst runner in the world.
  
• My sandals give me blisters.
  
• 15 people in a 15-person van is a tight fit.
  
• Phone cards are my friend.
  
• I'm a buff girl!
  

This morning, they didn't time our run, so I had nothing to go by. I did come in a little ahead of my roommate, who is being recruited by Division 1 Lacrosse teams. She said she ran the same pace yesterday and got a 23. I heard a girl a few minutes after me said her time was a 26, so I'm giving myself a nice 24 to round out the week. I went out and bought my own damn stopwatch.

What a week. Suddenly, 14 strangers are my teammates and I'll have to live with them for 10 months. All week long, my stomach hurt. You know when you are really sick and you cough so much that your stomach muscles wear out? That's how mine feel from all the set-ups. In the early mornings while the rest of the team is doing 100 crunches, I'm more likely to be lying on my back thinking, "Is that Polaris?" But I feel amazing. I feel like I did after I broke my first board. Nothing can stop me.

Today, we did team-building stuff. We couldn't speak and were to line up alphabetically by last name. Patrick is deaf and a few people know sign language, which we tried to use. When we were done, Patrick protested "Signing IS speaking." so they took sign language away from us too. Next we did birthdays and hometowns (I'm the oldest on the team by 1 day). Then we were blindfolded and had to line ourselves up by a number that we had picked. It was awful. I got disoriented and turned around. Somehow, we got into our spaces, but I touched many members in inappropriate places along the way.

After a discussion of group norms, we played a game of cross/uncross. It's one of those games that you have to figure out while you are playing it. I can't give away the secret, but I was one of the last to figure it out and I felt really stupid.

Next we went to Mission Bay to do one more activity. Two people were blindfolded, two couldn't speak. We were given two 2x4s and two ropes. Somehow, we had to get everyone in the team across a 15-ft? 20ft? space of grass, that had become acid for our purposes and would eat us alive. Well, we made it by making skis out of the 2x4s, but we ran out of time. I was one of the last to be rescued before we ran out of time and half our team was lost to the acid tidal wave. Ooops. But we worked together real well.

Then we got to play in the ocean. Wow. I can't believe that I can do this anytime I want by taking a 10 minute bus ride. I live here. We stood in a group and looked down. the waves would give us vertigo and suck the sand out from under our feet, but the first person to step would lose. It was so much fun. We screamed and giggled like little kids. Tammy went out and jumped waves that were bigger than she was. I was a little concerned, but she survived.

Oct. 10, 11:31 pm PST 3rd floor payphone top

Here I am, dozing with my head against a cinderblock wall, sitting in the chair by the floor payphone, waiting to hear from Dave. He left at 4 today. I watched and watched that plane until it taxied behind a Southwest Airlines plane, and then I still stood there, hoping that it would come back by when it took off. I waited so long that I began to wonder if I'd lost it. I'm wondering that now as I sit here by the phone that I can hear perfectly well from my room. I'm dozing against my stuffed bunny and writing with the phone message pen that I've ruthlessly stripped from the ribbon that ties it to the phone. I'm envisioning air disasters and freeway pileups, although I know it's probably more like a delayed plane and long boring tedious airport lines. I'm almost speaking out loud to the phone. Ring…please….

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