Entry from June 14th

Today was our last day of official Spike and Classroom Training and thus begins what we call Pre-Program Week.  During this upcoming week before our Corps Members arrive, we must finalize and tidy-up all our remaining paperwork, do our bulk grocery shopping, load up our work trailer, complete our worksite visits, and last but not least begin representing the VYCC as leaders and ambassadors for this organization outside the West Monitor Barn.  With the completion of our training and the majority of my concrete educational experience for this summer wrapped up, we Crew Leaders were finally given our long-awaited uniforms.  For the most part sans holes and stains, dressed with VYCC and AmeriCorps pins, and with a shiny new nametage reading Jay Snowdon: Conservation Corps Leader, my neat and folded uniform gave me a whole new sense of responsibility which came long before I even touched it with my own hands.  I had touched it with my eyes and in doing so, it touched me.  It reached out and assured me I would always have support from the HQ staff.  It told me I can do it.  In general, it became not a weight to bear on my shoulders but a symbol of responsibility, education, environmental stewardship, and something for my Corps Member to look up to and think, I can't wait to have pins and a nametag, just as I thought almost a year ago when I looked up at my Crew Leader's clean green uniform (one of my Crew Leaders from last year, Chris Ricker, is now my Field Supervisor and the person I will go to with most of my questions). 
I am writing this entry without a computer and therefore without the objectives I outlined at the beginning of this internship.  That being said, I can only slightly recall what I wrote but know even now that I didn't write nearly enough.  I learned far more during training than I thought was possible in those few weeks and know that this is only the tip of the iceberg. 
I can't wait for my Corps Members to get here.