Time.

This past weekend I went to New Orleans, and on our way home we stopped at one of our fellow TL's houses for some home-cooked southern food and good conversation. This house had clocks. A grandmother clock. A mantel clock. A skeleton movement clock. They all made beautiful noises, and they all reminded me of my Dad and my home. But they also reminded me of time.

Time somehow not only manages to slip away from you while here at NCCC, but it also seems to consume you while you're also consuming it. You never have enough, and you're always completely absorbed in it. Time is a strange concept. That's all it is, a perception and a concept. It passes differently to each person and sometimes seems to be moving so slowly, or sometimes too quickly. It's standardized on a clock, but not in our heads. But it's also something people never stop thinking about. I know it never leaves my head. I find myself saying, "I have time." or, "I don't have time."I even say, "I need a minute." or ask, "Do you have a minute?" or, "How much time do I have?" "What time do you want this by?" and "What time should I be there?" come out of my mouth daily. I know I have x amount of minutes before my next scheduled activity or event, and I plan everything, practically down to the second. Perhaps I should try being present in the exact moment I am in, and stop thinking about how much time I have. Because really, all I have is time, and it's going to keep consuming me if I don't try to slow it down and make the most of each moment.

There's an update in the works on my past 25 days. It's been quite the ride, and I just want to let you know that I'm still here.

Frustration. Flexibility. FEMA.

I am FEMA Flexible. I am FEMA Flexible. I am FEMA Flexible. I am FEMA Flexible. I. AM. FEMA. FLEXIBLE. 

If I say it enough, it'll be true, right?

More like if I type it enough, it starts to look like a foreign word. Anyway, yesterday was our first interaction with FEMA. We went to Baton Rouge, LA to the FEMA JFO (Joint Field Office) for our equipment issuing. Each person received (or was supposed to receive) a Smartphone (AT&T Blackberry), a Laptop (Dell), and a little thing that connects us securely to Wi-Fi. We all waited in a room and went in two at a time and got our equipment. Then we were sent to another room to get everything activated, registered, and set up. After waiting for over an hour and a half, probably closer to two, and being back in forth on the phone with the helpdesk company and getting new passwords, someone finally listened to me that I couldn't log in to my computer. It turns out that it was a network issue where I was sitting, and nothing to do with the passwording that they told me was the problem. The only reason that this was frustrating was because it happened to someone who was sitting a couple places away from me and they moved him to a new location and got him going. As I was sitting there watching other people finish all of the processes, I wasn't even close to starting. My biggest fear at that point was that everyone was going to be waiting for me at the end, tired and hungry, and I wouldn't be able to leave yet so they'd be waiting on me. This ended up being mostly true. I don't feel like explaining all of the problems individually, especially since it will make me re-live the stresses of it all, but it shouldn't have taken 5 hours to complete these tasks. I actually still haven't finished, because I couldn't get my Wi-Fi connector set up with my computer and we had to leave. I'll sit down over the weekend and try again. It was extremely difficult to stay composed and calm, but I definitely shut down for a while and didn't want to talk to anyone. I'm not really proud of the fact that I let my frustration take over but I also didn't have anywhere to direct it. I feel like that might happen again and I need to handle it differently next time. However, when we go through and do this with our corps members, I am going to go back with the attitude that it is a different day and there is potential that they took the time to work out the kinks.

I would also like to mention that Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays are our PT days. Since we left at 5:30am, we didn't do morning PT, so we were supposed to do it when we returned. We got back at 8pm. Hats off to those who played basketball in the sweltering gym, but I wasn't about to push myself any harder. Nicole guided me through an outstanding yoga session, which felt great on my body and my mind. I felt so much better and it was a perfect way to release all of the negative energy from the day. I hope to keep up with it a little bit, because it was incredibly healing and refreshing. 

Now after that, lets get positive. Today was supervisor training, which we will continue tomorrow. We had an amazing instructor and I loved everything he had to say and everything he taught us. It wasn't only good advice and information and tools for being a team leader, but they are things that can be used anywhere in life. If you have 20 minutes, watch this video here, I think that these lessons will stick with me. It is a Ted Talk video, which I already love and I hadn't seen this one before. I highly recommend that you check it out. We learned a lot about situational leadership and adapting our leadership styles. I'll do a full update after its all over but I really enjoyed it and I'm looking forward to tomorrow. We also have 6:30am Zumba for PT tomorrow, but I'm not as excited for that- I've never been really good at Zumba, but I'll put in a solid effort.  

I'm also getting super into the episode of Project Runway that's on right now (they're making outfits out of carnival prizes) so I'm going to leave you with this until next time :)