UPDATES

It has been a REALLY long time since I have updated. Getting to the internet and having enough time to do everything I need to do is tough.

We are working at the Noxubee Wildlife Refuge still, working on several different projects and conducting prescribed burns. We've been having a TON of fun. Working hard and getting things done. We have had a bit of ups and downs with our team, including one member leaving and going to another team. That was tough, but it seems to be for the best.

Last weekend myself and two girls from our team traveled to New Orleans for Mardi Gras! We had a wonderful, safe time. We were able to see the many different sides of Mardi Gras including the Bayou Cajuns, Uptown Parades, Mid-City Zulu Parade, and the French Quarter. It was great! We stayed with some friends from RTNO and were able to see a bunch of different people that we know down there. There are some pictures to show some of the floats.

We just found out we will be going to Taylors, South Carolina next round and Theodore, Alabama. In SC we will be working for a camp for special needs children and in AL we will be working for a Food Bank. I'm really excited to travel to another state and work for an organization that is associated to what I hold most dear to my heart. The camp will be fun and we will be doing a lot of different types of work to help get ready for the summer sessions.

In other news, I've started hearing back from Graduate schools. I will be traveling to Tempe, AZ for an interview at ASU! I was also waitlisted at the University of Washington, which isn't the best news but is not totally bad either. I'm sure I will be hearing back from the rest soon enough, so keep your fingers crossed for me!

So, below are some pictures of what we have been up to lately!

The forest is on fire...

The forest, the forest, the forest is on fire! So this week we had fire training this week. We have been back on campus for about a week, learning a lot in the classroom. Much of what we learned was about fire behavior, safety, and the policies and procedures surrounding forest firefighting. Although it was 32 hours of sitting in a classroom watching videos and looking at PowerPoints, it was really interesting.

Today we went to the Military Park a looked at 2 sites that will need prescribed burns. We hopefully will be helping with these during the 3rd Round of our projects. It will be really cool to get to burn some areas and implement some of what we learned in real life situations.

Today we also went back to the Military Park at sundown and watched the sunset from the top of a hill. It was so beautiful and fun to be with my team. We were able to see a different part of the park which was cool. This park is so incredible, I cant wait for my parents to come visit so that they can see it. Dad, you will eat it up! So many cool monuments to see! After that we went to this public water fountain in downtown and ran through it. It was just fun to hang out and relax a little bit after a long week of training.

We will be heading back to Lafayette tomorrow morning, so internet will be limited. We start work with Habitat for Humanity on Wednesday, but in the meantime we will be working with an organization I set up a project with called Earthshare Gardens. They are a nonprofit organic farming company that works with the community to educate about healthy agriculture and put together community gardens for organic farming. I'm really excited to work with this organization and can't wait to see the garden on Monday!

I'm hoping this weekend to get a bunch of work done in terms of Graduate School applications.

Talk to you all soon!