11/03/02: Holy cow it's already November! And I'm 23 now, too. Something like 18 days left until graduation and heading home.

So we finished up Round 4. The last few weeks weren't very interesting. They were cold, though. Brr. The last three people on disaster came back, so we once again had all eleven of us together in the same house. I strained my back at work one day, lifting and mixing concrete, so I was out of work for two and a half days.

I got to spend two weekends in New York City! It was great, I love it there. I stayed with Kristin, who kept trying to persuade me to just move there already. Someday I will. When I have enough money! Did an ISP at the Central Park Zoo one morning, it was crazy busy and there were all kinds of people. It was a lot of fun. I even got to speak French!

So let's see. My birthday was also the travel day. It was a crazy day, very busy nonstop. The drive, once we finally got going, went fine. The lovely New England fall foliage was on display during the trip down the New Jersey Turnpike. The drive didn't last forever like some have. We went grocery shopping (woohoo! I am excited to have my own food to eat--not to mention dishes. The house in Bridgeport had like ten plates and six glasses--one for every two people. That sucked.). That evening the whole team (pretty much) met to go out for dinner for my birthday!! The team was great--they sang to me a few times and we had a nice toast. And someone got me a little cake, a black cat cake. Very cute. After dinner some of us went to the Rendez Vous and had a good time dancing and catching up with folks we haven't seen for two months.

The next few weeks are a lot of cleaning, and getting ready to go. I've already started packing some stuff away to ship out soon. Notably books and papers, which abound after nearly ten months. Did you know, I've read over fifty books this year in NCCC? At the end of the year I shall post the list. Anyway, and we'll be doing lots of team stuff, emotional closeout, reflection, bonding, etc. We've already started with the "remember when" craze. We all talk about how strange it will be to live on our own again. I'll be living in a house with just my mom. No AmeriCorps people, no uniforms, no team members, no one to play Boggle with (I have converted several teammates into avid Bogglers-woo!), no one who knows what I've just lived through. BUT-- I will be excited to see people, have a car to drive (one that's NOT a fifteen-passenger van), have a working washer/dryer in the house, a normal bed, no house inspections, no limits on food-shopping. I'm certainly ready to move on, we all are, but I know that the transition will be tough, lonely and sad.