Wednesday, April 12, 2006
Back after a long time...I finally decided to update, and blogger decided to not work lol. So this is being typed in a normal document thing and I’ll transfer it later. I’m sure you care. I know this is really long but I had a lot to catch you all up on!
Spring Break was a while ago and I went to Mississippi. It wasn’t exactly what I was hoping for and to be honest a lot of the trip made me pretty miserable, but I can look back now and see the good things. Bad stuff=mostly the kids that I went with. There were a lot of freshmen who haven’t yet outgrown the clicheness of middle school and it drove me insane. I tried to be friendly to everyone and got looks like I was (to steal a phrase from J.K. Rowling) a sea slug. Lovely. Not everyone was horrible, but no one talked to me unless I specifically started talking to them (hmm sounds kinda like much of the Apex crowd lately anyway, so that part I could deal with), but some of them were openly hostile. On the last day, a girl was holding the baby (I’ll explain all that stuff later) while the lady we worked for gave us “goody bags.” Since the girl had her hands full with the baby, I offered to take her goody bag to the bus for her. She snatched it out of my hands, glared at me, and turned to the kid next to her and asked him if he would hold the goody bag for her. I mean...seriously...it was a bag of candy...did she really thing I was going to steal it or something? I never did anything to her so I just thought that was really dumb. There were a lot more incidents like that too, but talking to Dave and Matt each night kept me fairly sane, so I’ll get on to the rest of the trip.
It was amazing to see all the damage that still remains after so many months. The first major sign of damage I saw was the fishing boat jammed under a bridge, swept in by the current. Then came the giant M above a mcdonalds, which was bent over nearly in half. Both of these were just on the way down before we even reached the town we were staying in. We went on a tour later to see the hardest hit areas nearby, which were closest to the ocean. It was unbelievable. Houses are completely caved in, some are cleared and only have foundations left. Clothes and random things are stuck in piles of trees where they were picked up by tornados. Hotels and churches that were destroyed reminded me of pictures I’ve seen of Iraq. And 7 monthsish later, there are still people living in tents beside the remains of their homes.
Our assignment was a roofing job...which did not make me happy at all...because I dislike heights and because I had just started a new migraine medicine a few days earlier that made me a little dizzy and kept me from focusing well...a bad combination for a roofing job lol. So, already the outcast, I became the only person who didn’t want to go on the roof. Great. The first morning I didn’t do much but after that I found things to do on the ground. I helped pick up the old shingles from the ground as the others threw them down, and I put them into piles to be hauled off later. Then the leaders decided to rent a trailer dumpster thing so I helped load the singles into it. I never knew how heavy shingles were until then lol....1 foot by 3 feet by around 6 inches or so is one package...and each package weighs 60 to 80 lbs depending on the different types. I don’t know exactly but I couldn’t lift a package lol. So lets just say I made a lot of trips from piles to dumpster. I was glad to be working though, because it was a good distraction from the fact that no one liked me. I also picked up a bunch of things...from broken glass to beads to toys to driftwood...it was unbelieveable how many things were swept into the yard by the flood water. The house we worked on was 35 feet above sea level, two streets away from the water, and it flooded 8 feet on the outside and nearly 7 inside. 45% of the house was destroyed. The owners had to strip it to studs and brick and do most of the repairs themselves, without insurance money because they didn’t have flood insurance. Then, to top it all off, they had just had a baby. Litterally. She came home from the hospital one night, by 7am the following morning, they were driving to a relative’s house because water was coming into their yard. And she was 5 weeks premature with respiratory problems.
The couple we worked for, Chris and Kristeigh, were unbelieveable. They were wonderful and helpful and kind and greatful. We couldn’t have gotten a better family. Kristeigh always wanted to give us treats-she bought us snow cones every day (they have a snow cone truck instead of an icecream truck...and they’re the fancy flavors kinds and really good), ice cream, and all sorts of things we didn’t need like that but I know she just wanted to express how greatful she was for our help. Like me, she doesn’t like heights, so she completely understood why I didn’t want to get on the roof. So that was nice. She and I painted doors for the inside of her house and she let me play with the baby, Savannah, a lot. Savannah is adorable. Kristeigh says that she is extremely tolerant because she spent her first few months without electricity, air conditioning, and she’s used to the noise of construction, so very little bothers her.
I was amazed by the gratitude that was shown to us while we were there. At dinner, our waiter gave us all free chips and salsa because we were on a mission trip. In a grocery store, we were given a discount. The pizza place donated one free small pizza for each volunteer worker. One day, we were sitting in a parking lot eating breakfast, and a car pulled up beside our bus. The man in the car noticed that the side had our church name on it, and he asked us if we were doing a mission trip. We said yes, and he gave us $50 to go towards a nice meal. I was like...wow. He probably lost a lot in the storm too, and there are sooooo many work teams down there now...and he chose to give us money just because we’re spending a few days helping out. We ended up using the $50 towards a $200 gift certificate to Walmart for Kristeigh, Chris, and Savannah. We were trying to ease their financial stress a little and especially pay them back for the snowcones and icecream, because we had not been allowed to pay. Then, when we gave Kristeigh the gift card, she had another surprise for us: a snowcone maker. She said that’s how she wants us to remember our trip. So our youth group now has a snowcone maker and flavorings for it. She also insisted on giving us the tools she had bought, saying that they didn’t need them anymore and we could use them for another project. We objected, saying “what if this happens again?” and she answered, “Well then the tools will be gone so it won’t matter.” I’m still amazed at her strength in the situation. Her stories of the storm were incredible...including one of her 80 year old neighbors who strapped themselves together, stood on a counter for nearly 8 hours as the water came in and receeded, and survived. Those were the good stories. There were sad ones, like a man whose wife and child were swept away by the water and drowned, and there were some that truely showed that disasters can bring out the worst in some people. A neighbor stayed home through the storm, but could not get to his staircase by the time he realized the water level was so high, so he chopped a hole in his ceiling and stayed in the attic with his dogs. That’s the “cool” part. Then he waited until everyone else left their homes, raided them, not for food, but for jewelry and other valuables. Then there was a story of a church that shocked me. The church, in another state unaffected by the storm, had taken a collection of diapers and formula and sent it to Kristeigh. Less than 2 weeks later, a letter arrived from the church. It was a very angry, sarcastic letter, telling Kristeigh how rude she was for not sending them a thank you card and telling her how difficult it was for them to send supplies. Kristeigh said they didn’t even have full postal service yet, much less time to worry about thank you cards, though I told her she should never have to worry about that anyway. She and Chris took several hours off from working on their home to make a video of the storm damage, and they sent it to the church to explain why they hadn’t had time to send them a thank you card yet. It made me smile to know that she stood up for herself like that. Oh and one final stupidity story and then I’ll move on because I know this is really long. They got a FEMA trailer a few weeks after the storm, mostly because of the baby. It was a disability trailer, also for the baby, though it didn’t really make sense to worry about bars in the bathtub and widened doors for a newborn baby but w/e. I guess they had to think long term. They weren’t allowed to go in the trailer for a few more weeks though, not until it could be hooked up to land lines for electricty and water and such. That in itself I thought was dumb because I’d rather live in a trailer without electricty and water than live in a tent without them either. Then, they finally moved back into their home but FEMA wasn’t ready to move the trailer. So it’s still in their yard. While other people 7 months later are still living in tents. Kristeigh invited some people from down the street that were living in their car to come live in the trailer. FEMA found out somehow and kicked them out. So basically a trailer is going to waste while people down the street are homeless.
Other news...Tornado in Georgia...one of my relatives was killed in it. An 11 year old boy...my cousin’s nephew, not really sure what that makes him to me but he’s close with a lot of my close family. The tornado came out of nowhere while he and his brother were outside playing, they ran towards my cousin’s house, where they were at the time, and the younger one was slower and the older one kept going...My cousin ran out to get the boys and found the younger one on the ground, dead. Help took forever to arrive because of fallen trees and power lines, but they say he died instantly so it wouldn’t have mattered. A tree was lying beside him so they’re assuming he was hit with it or picked up and smashed into it as he ran. It’s really sad and I feel horrible for his family...He had an older brother and a younger sister and the divorced father is in jail...a bad situation made worse by mother nature.
-bed, finished wednesday-
Umm...happier news...Prom was this weekend! I got my hair done by a friend of my brother who also did my highlights, which was cool, and I really like the way it turned out. A bunch of people came over to my house for pictures, and then we went out to Kabuki for dinner. They definitly overbooked reservations or something because we didn’t sit down until about an hour after our reservation, which was rediculous. So we got to prom pretty late, but oh well. Marc and I mostly wandered around talking to people and we danced a few times. There were two chocolate fountains, so that was cool...except the only thing I ate was a marshmallow coated in chocolate and discovered it was waaaaay too big for my mouth hahaha so I could barely even chew it...it was interesting. Then a bunch of us went back to my house and had a sleepover after party. I’m still amazed that I was able to talk my parents into it lol. They bought earplugs and kept their door closed and said we weren’t too noisy for once. It was a fun night. I just posted pictures on my picture site, link on the right, and I should have Mississippi ones up soon, hopefully before I go to bed tonight but it depends how slow they upload. Anyway...g’night!
Spring Break was a while ago and I went to Mississippi. It wasn’t exactly what I was hoping for and to be honest a lot of the trip made me pretty miserable, but I can look back now and see the good things. Bad stuff=mostly the kids that I went with. There were a lot of freshmen who haven’t yet outgrown the clicheness of middle school and it drove me insane. I tried to be friendly to everyone and got looks like I was (to steal a phrase from J.K. Rowling) a sea slug. Lovely. Not everyone was horrible, but no one talked to me unless I specifically started talking to them (hmm sounds kinda like much of the Apex crowd lately anyway, so that part I could deal with), but some of them were openly hostile. On the last day, a girl was holding the baby (I’ll explain all that stuff later) while the lady we worked for gave us “goody bags.” Since the girl had her hands full with the baby, I offered to take her goody bag to the bus for her. She snatched it out of my hands, glared at me, and turned to the kid next to her and asked him if he would hold the goody bag for her. I mean...seriously...it was a bag of candy...did she really thing I was going to steal it or something? I never did anything to her so I just thought that was really dumb. There were a lot more incidents like that too, but talking to Dave and Matt each night kept me fairly sane, so I’ll get on to the rest of the trip.
It was amazing to see all the damage that still remains after so many months. The first major sign of damage I saw was the fishing boat jammed under a bridge, swept in by the current. Then came the giant M above a mcdonalds, which was bent over nearly in half. Both of these were just on the way down before we even reached the town we were staying in. We went on a tour later to see the hardest hit areas nearby, which were closest to the ocean. It was unbelievable. Houses are completely caved in, some are cleared and only have foundations left. Clothes and random things are stuck in piles of trees where they were picked up by tornados. Hotels and churches that were destroyed reminded me of pictures I’ve seen of Iraq. And 7 monthsish later, there are still people living in tents beside the remains of their homes.
Our assignment was a roofing job...which did not make me happy at all...because I dislike heights and because I had just started a new migraine medicine a few days earlier that made me a little dizzy and kept me from focusing well...a bad combination for a roofing job lol. So, already the outcast, I became the only person who didn’t want to go on the roof. Great. The first morning I didn’t do much but after that I found things to do on the ground. I helped pick up the old shingles from the ground as the others threw them down, and I put them into piles to be hauled off later. Then the leaders decided to rent a trailer dumpster thing so I helped load the singles into it. I never knew how heavy shingles were until then lol....1 foot by 3 feet by around 6 inches or so is one package...and each package weighs 60 to 80 lbs depending on the different types. I don’t know exactly but I couldn’t lift a package lol. So lets just say I made a lot of trips from piles to dumpster. I was glad to be working though, because it was a good distraction from the fact that no one liked me. I also picked up a bunch of things...from broken glass to beads to toys to driftwood...it was unbelieveable how many things were swept into the yard by the flood water. The house we worked on was 35 feet above sea level, two streets away from the water, and it flooded 8 feet on the outside and nearly 7 inside. 45% of the house was destroyed. The owners had to strip it to studs and brick and do most of the repairs themselves, without insurance money because they didn’t have flood insurance. Then, to top it all off, they had just had a baby. Litterally. She came home from the hospital one night, by 7am the following morning, they were driving to a relative’s house because water was coming into their yard. And she was 5 weeks premature with respiratory problems.
The couple we worked for, Chris and Kristeigh, were unbelieveable. They were wonderful and helpful and kind and greatful. We couldn’t have gotten a better family. Kristeigh always wanted to give us treats-she bought us snow cones every day (they have a snow cone truck instead of an icecream truck...and they’re the fancy flavors kinds and really good), ice cream, and all sorts of things we didn’t need like that but I know she just wanted to express how greatful she was for our help. Like me, she doesn’t like heights, so she completely understood why I didn’t want to get on the roof. So that was nice. She and I painted doors for the inside of her house and she let me play with the baby, Savannah, a lot. Savannah is adorable. Kristeigh says that she is extremely tolerant because she spent her first few months without electricity, air conditioning, and she’s used to the noise of construction, so very little bothers her.
I was amazed by the gratitude that was shown to us while we were there. At dinner, our waiter gave us all free chips and salsa because we were on a mission trip. In a grocery store, we were given a discount. The pizza place donated one free small pizza for each volunteer worker. One day, we were sitting in a parking lot eating breakfast, and a car pulled up beside our bus. The man in the car noticed that the side had our church name on it, and he asked us if we were doing a mission trip. We said yes, and he gave us $50 to go towards a nice meal. I was like...wow. He probably lost a lot in the storm too, and there are sooooo many work teams down there now...and he chose to give us money just because we’re spending a few days helping out. We ended up using the $50 towards a $200 gift certificate to Walmart for Kristeigh, Chris, and Savannah. We were trying to ease their financial stress a little and especially pay them back for the snowcones and icecream, because we had not been allowed to pay. Then, when we gave Kristeigh the gift card, she had another surprise for us: a snowcone maker. She said that’s how she wants us to remember our trip. So our youth group now has a snowcone maker and flavorings for it. She also insisted on giving us the tools she had bought, saying that they didn’t need them anymore and we could use them for another project. We objected, saying “what if this happens again?” and she answered, “Well then the tools will be gone so it won’t matter.” I’m still amazed at her strength in the situation. Her stories of the storm were incredible...including one of her 80 year old neighbors who strapped themselves together, stood on a counter for nearly 8 hours as the water came in and receeded, and survived. Those were the good stories. There were sad ones, like a man whose wife and child were swept away by the water and drowned, and there were some that truely showed that disasters can bring out the worst in some people. A neighbor stayed home through the storm, but could not get to his staircase by the time he realized the water level was so high, so he chopped a hole in his ceiling and stayed in the attic with his dogs. That’s the “cool” part. Then he waited until everyone else left their homes, raided them, not for food, but for jewelry and other valuables. Then there was a story of a church that shocked me. The church, in another state unaffected by the storm, had taken a collection of diapers and formula and sent it to Kristeigh. Less than 2 weeks later, a letter arrived from the church. It was a very angry, sarcastic letter, telling Kristeigh how rude she was for not sending them a thank you card and telling her how difficult it was for them to send supplies. Kristeigh said they didn’t even have full postal service yet, much less time to worry about thank you cards, though I told her she should never have to worry about that anyway. She and Chris took several hours off from working on their home to make a video of the storm damage, and they sent it to the church to explain why they hadn’t had time to send them a thank you card yet. It made me smile to know that she stood up for herself like that. Oh and one final stupidity story and then I’ll move on because I know this is really long. They got a FEMA trailer a few weeks after the storm, mostly because of the baby. It was a disability trailer, also for the baby, though it didn’t really make sense to worry about bars in the bathtub and widened doors for a newborn baby but w/e. I guess they had to think long term. They weren’t allowed to go in the trailer for a few more weeks though, not until it could be hooked up to land lines for electricty and water and such. That in itself I thought was dumb because I’d rather live in a trailer without electricty and water than live in a tent without them either. Then, they finally moved back into their home but FEMA wasn’t ready to move the trailer. So it’s still in their yard. While other people 7 months later are still living in tents. Kristeigh invited some people from down the street that were living in their car to come live in the trailer. FEMA found out somehow and kicked them out. So basically a trailer is going to waste while people down the street are homeless.
Other news...Tornado in Georgia...one of my relatives was killed in it. An 11 year old boy...my cousin’s nephew, not really sure what that makes him to me but he’s close with a lot of my close family. The tornado came out of nowhere while he and his brother were outside playing, they ran towards my cousin’s house, where they were at the time, and the younger one was slower and the older one kept going...My cousin ran out to get the boys and found the younger one on the ground, dead. Help took forever to arrive because of fallen trees and power lines, but they say he died instantly so it wouldn’t have mattered. A tree was lying beside him so they’re assuming he was hit with it or picked up and smashed into it as he ran. It’s really sad and I feel horrible for his family...He had an older brother and a younger sister and the divorced father is in jail...a bad situation made worse by mother nature.
-bed, finished wednesday-
Umm...happier news...Prom was this weekend! I got my hair done by a friend of my brother who also did my highlights, which was cool, and I really like the way it turned out. A bunch of people came over to my house for pictures, and then we went out to Kabuki for dinner. They definitly overbooked reservations or something because we didn’t sit down until about an hour after our reservation, which was rediculous. So we got to prom pretty late, but oh well. Marc and I mostly wandered around talking to people and we danced a few times. There were two chocolate fountains, so that was cool...except the only thing I ate was a marshmallow coated in chocolate and discovered it was waaaaay too big for my mouth hahaha so I could barely even chew it...it was interesting. Then a bunch of us went back to my house and had a sleepover after party. I’m still amazed that I was able to talk my parents into it lol. They bought earplugs and kept their door closed and said we weren’t too noisy for once. It was a fun night. I just posted pictures on my picture site, link on the right, and I should have Mississippi ones up soon, hopefully before I go to bed tonight but it depends how slow they upload. Anyway...g’night!
