Push ups to the stars

Welcome to the end of one of the longest weeks of my life, thus far :). This was the first full week we all spent with our teams which was really great, I seem to have a real solid group of individuals to spend the next ten months of my life with which is really encouraging. We spent it mostly in and out of trainings with a few things sticking out in my mind.
Last Sunday two friends and I drove down to San Francisco to visit my aunts Pat and Eileen which was a really, really great trip. Caitlin, a girl from my floor and fellow foodie, and I got connected with Zach, another guy from my floor who was planning on driving down to visit a visiting family member in the area so we hitched a ride with him. Aside from the two hours spent in the car trying to park during what seemed like the busiest day in the history of San Francisco, we enjoyed all of our time in the city. Caitlin and I especially liked getting to visit a great cafe that Pat and Eileen brought us to for dessert. Cafe Gratitude features a raw, vegan cuisine including some delicious desserts which we all sampled and some great coffee drinks which were delicious as well. I highly suggest it and look forward to returning!
One other exciting event that took place this week was the beginning of PT or, Physical Training. We were introduced to PT at 5:30 on Thursday morning by Willie Holmes, the PT coordinator for the entire campus. Willie Holmes is quite an entertaining guy but I'm not sure if even he could make me excited to wake up two hours before the sun does to exercise. Honestly, I am somewhat excited to be doing PT, however I still can't get psyched about the early time frame. Although if I'm going to be hitting up Cafe Gratitude for dessert in the near future, I might appreciate the expertise of Mr. Holmes :).
Thursday, Friday and today, Saturday, were three very long days. We had a training on Thursday called Hands of Peace which lasted from 9am to 4pm and was a lot of team building, active listening and other trainings which really allowed us to learn a lot about the other members of our team and some within our unit. Friday we had Red Cross First Aid certification which lasted from 9am to 4pm as well. The certification will last for a year, however, and we now all know several emergency procedures which, hopefully, we won't need to utilize. Today we sat from 8am to 4 pm in a diversity training session which dealt with team diversity and how our backgrounds and experiences play into things like how we deal with conflict as well as diversity outside of our team on project sites and in the communities we'll be serving. Although all three days were incredibly long they were really great ways to get to know my team as well as think a lot about how my background and my past have influenced me and why I'm here.
Above is a snapshot of the schedule for my team for a few days last week. If you notice from 4:30 to 5:00 on Thursday we had a training called "Mendocino Briefing", this was an information session on the service trip we'll be going on next week. Camp Mendocino , where "campers learn respect for others and themselves while gaining character and leadership skills", is run by Boys and Girls Clubs of San Francisco and is located in the redwoods! We'll be spending Tuesday afternoon through Thursday morning at the camp and do some service work while we're there but also get to do a lot of exciting activities with other members of our unit.
I think I mentioned this the last time I updated but the days here really do feel like they consist of two or even three days. Generally we'll have PT in the mornings then breakfast and then trainings until lunch and those 7 hours feel like a whole day. Then we have more trainings after lunch and then dinner which feels like a whole NEW set of 24 hours. I've been spending my after dinner hours with a group of people who live on the same floor as me and we've all been engaging in exciting activities like talking in the laundry room until 3am, watching episodes of Arrested Development on DVD in the dorm lounges and going to Thai Food at a tiny place across the street. Tomorrow is my day off and I'm planning on using that time to bake some cookies, go into downtown Sacramento to accompany a friend of mine who is getting a tattoo and, most importantly, catching up on much needed sleep. Whew.
I hope you're all doing well, enjoying the last few nice weeks of fall and thinking of me, sitting here in shorts :)
love,
--Walker

ps. I updated my address on the side bar, whenever you mail me something it must now have listed my team name (Green 5) so that it can get to me faster :)