Living.

A few of you are curious about my future living situation(s). So am I.

In FEMA Corps and true NCCC fashion, we will move around a lot. We will stay wherever we can. My first two months will be on campus in Vicksburg, and I'll have a room and a roommate, a fellow TL like me. From what I have gathered from Nick's Blog and Andy's Blog We will stay on the same floor as the other TLs and the CMs will be in other buildings. We'll do rounds and check on them like RAs at my college do. It will be dorm-ish style living, with a kitchen that we cook in, likely as a team. When we leave and we go on our "spikes" - the assignments we have at other locations - we can stay anywhere. I know we train with FEMA and stay in some government campus thing there (yes, that is a technical term). When some of the FEMA Corps teams went to help with Sandy Relief, space was so limited that they stayed ON A FREAKING BOAT. Yeah, you read that right. They LIVED on a BOAT. Read more about that by Andy here. They stay in a lot of extended stay motels, so I won't be living the glamourous life but I'll be living and helping people who might have a hell of a lot less than I do, so I'm not going to be too upset about it.

Now about food. Our budget will allow us to shop as a team at our local Wal-Mart, mostly for Wal-Mart brand items. I hear they eat a lot of pasta and have the same types of meals. If you know me well, you know how I feel about food. I love to cook, but I don't eat meat or dairy and I am usually pretty picky about what I fuel my body with. However, there is this great natural instinct that animals are equipped with called SURVIVAL. I really hope I can still avoid meat, and I really don't want dairy (or the migraine that comes with it) but I have a feeling that other than those two requirements, for the next year of my life I might just put my requirements aside in the name of staying alive. Nutrition is important, healthy eating and clean eating are also important, but I might need to be more flexible. I am going to see how well I can maintain a vegetarian/dairy-free diet (something tells me I might need to eat eggs) with AmeriCorps, but now that I am also soy-free my protein sources are limited and I may need to make adjustments. Dairy and soy are closer to allergies while meat is a choice based on my beliefs. I will have to seriously consider my values, but I'll play it by ear. I won't be eating like a queen and I won't be dining at any 5-star restaurants with expensive bottles of Spanish wine anytime soon, but I'll be eating regular meals. Again, that's still a lot more than some people have access to, so I better shut up and eat it with a smile.