Time to Shuffle

My ten weeks in Arkansas have come to an end, but this beautiful state gifted mewith many new experiences: using a chainsaw, eating venison, attempting to fell a tree (and accidentally creating a hazard zone while doing so, oops!), overcoming my fear of snakes, swimming my very first half mile, an MRI (which, sadly, still did not help identify what exactly is wrong with my knee), building firelines for a prescribed forest burn, playing Magic (a very addicting card game), building trail stairs and bridges, perfecting delicious recipes (if you want good spaghetti carbonara, I am your girl!), splunking (exploring caves), and above all, living in a wooden cabin in the gorgeous Ozark woods with eight amazing individuals.

Beautiful park in Arkansas, right before we went splunking (caving)!

LIFE IS BEAUTIFUL :)

It was now time for our second transition week, a week where all AmeriCorps members return to the gorgeous Colorado Height University to debrief, catch up with friends from other teams, watch some incredible sunsets up on the hill, frequent 4G's an average of... every evening, test their skills at the bowling alley, test their lungs at baselines in mile high elevation, and above all, RELAX.

Nature, however, decided to throw us a curve ball on our travels back to Texas. A huge snow storm which grounded all the vehicles right outside of Colorado due to poor road conditions. Thankfully the storm came and passed, but not before getting our van stuck in the snow (yes, I am blaming it ENTIRELY on the snow because I have already had enough people laugh at me for getting a 15 passenger van stuck in 2 feet of snow... Tip for future NCCC members: AmeriRumors spread fast!)


What can I say? Just because I am from Russia doesn't mean I know how to drive in snow!

At the Denver campus, the third round is something we refer to as "shuffle round," meaning all the corps members get shuffled from their original teams. It gives us the opportunity to pick a project based on our own personal preference rather than ranking them alongside our team. It also means that we will be taken out of the comfort zone of living and working with the people we have spent the last 4 months with and adjust to something new. This, of course, made me very nervous. This, of course, was very silly, because I got EXTREMELY lucky with my shuffle team!

Over transition week, we spent some of our days in meetings, some of our days catching some sun taking naps outside (my favorite!), and on Kat's (my AMAZING new teammate and girlfriend!) birthday we headed to Golden, CO, a beautiful town at the foothills of the Rockies to go on a hike and then check out the Coors Brewery. It was an amazing day full of friends, laughs, good FREE beer and a most delicious veggie burger (vegan for Lent once again)!