so I joined the California Conservation Corps couple weeks ago; just finished my first week of actual work after the first week of training, and it's pretty tight. I was homeless before this (staying with a friend, but shit wasn't working at all) so having a place to live and eat is great, but there are a lot of drawbacks. For example, the computers in the lab (like the one I'm using right now) have all this high-school style website blocking and login gates and it makes me so pissed. This
isn't high school, don't understand why we gotta put up with this shit. It doesn't help that my phone's contract is still unpaid and even if it wasn't the service where I'm at is so awful I wouldn't even be able to use it.
in the training they spout all this trash about maintaining "corpsmember morale" when it's really just bullshit. a lot of the people living here constantly have to deal with the superiors not knowing shit/overworking the members and being reluctant as all hell to give them anything like compensatory time off, allowing them to transfer to a different center, or actually worthwhile recreational activities to improve life at this particular one. It's my understanding that other centers in the state are a little newer and I'm staying in a very old one, one of the
oldest, in fact.
outside of how dismal being stuck on center is (you can leave on your off time if you have a car but I don't :'(), the actual work is pretty great and I go to bed happy about what I'm doing. over the last week I spent most of my work hours being in a crew of corpsmembers helping CalTrans clear blackberry vines and trees out of a ditch near the road to improve visibility. I got to operate a massive weedeater, a pullsaw, and even got to use a chainsaw
some of the other corpsmembers here are cool, but I'm unfortunately rooming with some really stupid girls that are always blasting music/movie audio to the point where I don't even bother to stay in my dorm.
so anyways, if anyone's wondered why I haven't posted much/in a while it's because I've been doing that. I'm really sad that I missed all the E3 hype but it seems like it was kinda lame from what I've caught up on. I miss all you guys (especially esch
) and I hope I can check in more often in the future once I have my phone up again. The admin says they're going to have wifi for the corpsmembers at some point but just like in any other state agency I'm gonna assume that'll take a fucking eternity.
EDIT: oh and just recently I found out the only mentally distinguished mentally-challenged kid on center has a crush on me and I had to break it to him that I was gay, which seemed to fly right over his head. yeah. fuck my life.
