a crazy little life

The birthing of my first nephew will most likely be tomorrow! I can not believe it has been 8+ months since my sister told me she was pregnant. Going home in three weeks will be weird. Home will never be the same. I am extremely excited and also nervous. I know she will be the best mom ever. Maybe not as good as my mom though ; )

Spike is going well. I am a handy lady. I have been mudding which i recently discovered is also call spackaling(sp)? Uncle Ray must be proud. We usually listen to my ipod while we work which Im very fortunate of. The other day I was in low spirits and needed some uplifting so I put on the RENT soundtrack. That didnt work out so well. Steph my good hungarian buddy was not impressed. Who doesnt like rent? Rent is the happiest thing ever. Instead of rent they put on Trisha's ipod and we spent the remainder of the day listening to death metal and Ta Tu.

We work with Americorps Vistas. They are sorta like us but dont do direct service like we do. The excellent part of working with the vistas are the rugged boys. Mere Mere and I have been fighting over one specific babe who steph let me know was "stupid" and "does know use the blood circle tecnique". A blood cirlce is holding your tool arms length and spinning in a circle. NO ONE enters the blood cicle.

Cedar Rapids for the most part is devastated. It is depressed and gloomy every day, hence the playing of RENT. We needed some cheering up. My TL Michael has some kick ass stories about enimas and such so they also help us get through the day.

Thanksgiving was a blast. Rob Thomas and I ventured to Lauren Suerth's home in Minnesota. Minnesota is beautiful! Very cold but awesome. We ate alot, drank great wine compliments of her mom Mary, and did some thrift shopping in Minneapolis. I got this great blue dress that makes me look like Im from the 40's which is my all time favoirte time erra except for the womens sufferage and that crap.

Tomorrow is back to work! Home in three weeks. Every day I love it here. Every day I am homesick and want to quit. And every day I learn some new. It's a mind screw I tell ya.

Wild!

Dear friends and family. We have new readers Kate Potter and Mere Mere. Hello girls.

The girls on the Vinton, Iowa campus have gone mad. Actually, I cant decide if it's mad or not. About 20 girls so far have shaved their heads. During the shaving the shavey is put in a chair in the center of a room with around 30-40 people crowding them. Music is put on while the shaving occurs. Sometimes techno, which makes it even weirder. The other night, it was Eminem. Everyone cheers them on and takes millions of photographs. The shaveys are obviously nervous but keep a smile on their face the whole entire time.

What I want to know is why? The feminist side of me wants to think it's empowering. That these girls are doing it to liberate themselves of vanity or making sure their hair is nice. Some of these girls have BEAUTIFUL locks of thick hair. In alot of literature Ive read from the medieval period, they would shave females heads when they wouldn't convert to paganism. This makes me think of that. Not all of these girls are gay as some of you readers may think. Are the doing it for attention? maybe.

I kinda of think they may be doing it because we are in an environment where it will be accepted. No one is judging them...much. When I called me parents(hi mom and dad) to joke with them that i am going to shave my head i heard my dad say in the background, "don't come home". Joking I'm sure. What do their parents think of this? What do their boyfriends think of this? It's very strange and has me thinking mucho.

I'm not going to lie, it has crossed my mind to join the epidemic. I am just curious to see what it would be like. What my emotions would be like and how I would react to it. I wouldn't do it though because I'm a big baby, my parents would be pissed, i have a huge head, and i have super curly hair so i would like a fro girl.

I will keep everyone posted on this head shaving epidemic. It is blowing my mind and I'm curious to see what other people think. Cheers.

my bffs here. rob thomas, and lauren.

Woops

I posted my address wrong. lo siento!

lyndsay senerchia
americorps, nccc, cedar 7
1004 G avenue
Vinton, IA
52349

Paddy's Wedding

all of us! modeling for red bull???---->

leah,linda,lisa,lyndsay!

church

I know this doesn't have too much to do with NCCC buuuuuuuuttt this past weekend I went to a wedding! My great great friend Patrick who I befriended in Australia over 3 years ago(wow) got married! Friday I headed to Chicago to pick up my date Linda. We met up with Dan, Leah, Lisa and Kyle and went to a veterans bar and sang karaoke. Strange amount of people from New Jersey there! Someone even knew Hayley!

Getting less than 5 hours of sleep, we all woke up at 7 and trucked to Milwaukee. The church ceremony was very very religious. It's been a while since Ive been to a church and was a little strange for me but beautiful. Ellen looked gorgeous and Paddy looked a little awkward as usual.

The reception was sooo much fun. Everyone danced like crazy and laughed the night away. I made his mom dance alot which is always a good time and his groomsmen were supper fun. I was sad to leave my Michigander friends but Im only 4 hours away so Im sure Ill see them again.

First spike starts next week!

Here are some Pics!

When Marsh Attacks

Hello friends and family! Today is my 3d day on the Nahant Marsh in Davenport, Iowa. This is our first mini spike which I was semi disappointed about. This weekend was Halloween and I was super excited to dress up as a lion and go out with the friends Ive made on campus. We found out very last minute that we were going to be traveling to davenport and not coming home till Monday night.

It was an awesome experience. A great transition and taste of what kind of work will come in the future. We arrived on Friday morning, about 9am. Two of the head marsh guys gave us a slight orientation of what we would be doing and why we would be doing it. This marsh is quite beautiful as you can see in the picture. The other picture is where we would be staying. We all sleep on the floor of this center. There is a little kitchen area and a little shower/bathroom. So much fun with my team but any longer than this I think I would go crazy. Unfortunately I think I'm going to have to get used to these living conditions.

The marsh is slowly turning into a forest. Our job was mainly to clear the dogwoods out of the area. The dogwoods are NOT native to the area and are invasive to the marsh. They would like to keep it prairie land and these trees would be turning it into a forest. Our job was to pull these plants/trees and then hall them to the road using a John Deere Gator which made me feel bad ass. Not only did we pull Dogwoods but not too long ago there was a huge storm which knocked down a butt load of trees so we cleaned all the trees up too. After Friday night we had PT and it was torture. Keep in mind it's 20 degrees here.

Saturday we worked 8-5 and then went out to Rock Island. This area is called the "quad cities". We went to a bar/restaurant and watched the game which was lot of fun. Today we explored the town on our day off and went to an awesome museum called Figge. I am exhausted and have a full day of work tomorrow.

I miss my family and friends alot and keep on having dreams about my sister's baby!!! Myself and a few of the Jersey boys have talked about driving home for Christmas. Probably the most logical thing to do. Thanksgiving will be spend with my bff from here, Lauren and Rob Thomas, and her family in Minnesota. Close by. Wish I could go to Taos but I cant afford it. : (

Hope everyone is enjoying reading about my travels, more exciting ones to come!

Address

my new address:
Americorps NCCC Lyndsay Senerchia Cedar 7
1004 G Avenue
Vinton, Iowa
54329

mail me something good!!!!!!

Monday Not So Funday

Weekend was fun! Saturday night a pack of 20 girls ventured out to the local bar. I have alot of girlfriends at home but do not particularly like going out in a mob of young girls. This time it was fun. We walked into the bar playing country music with heaps of locals and it was as if we were in a movie. It seemed like the music stopped and everyone just stared at us. We all grouped off and got tables. Pitchers of very cheap beer which is a plus when you re getting paid $75 a week!
We ended up meeting alot of the locals who were AWESOME. I talked to a cute blond local who was a mechanic and had 5 brothers with names that sounded like, billy, bobby, jimmy, etc. It was fun and they couldn't BE more welcoming. They are really happy to have us corp members in Vinton and this made everyone feel very welcome.
Me Laura and Lauren left the bar around 1 and walked the mile back to the Braille school. When we got in we made some grilled cheeses and talked about the night. We then went back to our dorm to find people playing apples to apples which I fell in love with when the kids I used to babysit for(Dustin,Emma,Nora) had me playing it this summer. The cute bearded boy was playing and I found out he has read The Time Travelers Wife!!!
The next day yesterday, a car of 5 of us explored Cedar Rapids. We all stocked up at target and also got some thermals from Dick's which were not cheap and kinda a bummer to spend money on. Cedar Rapids was nothing special and later when we got home I realized we hadn't gone far enough to see the downtown which is very silly and stupid of us. Another day.
Last night I was exhausted and hung out in the lounge room called Palmer. I hung with 3 boys from Jersey who I love spending time with because they remind me of my friends from home. One is very nerdy and one of my favorite people here, one is TJ, a kind teddy bear from south jersey, and one is David from N. Jersey who has studied abroad in Africa and is very interesting. We watched the Phillie's game. I actually enjoy watching baseball from time to time. I told them I would never be able to bring them home because my Father is a Yankee's fan and they said they respect that, haha.
This morning we mustered at 6am. I am exhausted. We were in the auditorium for 4 hours training for driving the group van. Just had lunch and after we train for another 4 hours. Tonight at 7 there is a revealing on our permanent teams! We are all very exacted and nervous! Being put on a not so good team will damper out time here but I'm pretty sure everyone is going to love each other(fingers crossed).
I miss everyone back home alot! Em, send me a picture of the belly! How are you feeling? Thanks for telling me the dogs say hi, you re all crazy. Marion if you re reading this, there is a boy here that is identical to Dustin! I'll try to put a picture up. I'm pretty sure that is what Dustin will look like in 15 years, haha.
I'm anxious to get this training out of the way and go on spike! 3 more weeks!

Amerihardcorps

Today is my second FULL day in Vinton, Iowa. I created a blog for friends and family who are semi interested in what I'm doing in the middle of no where. Driving here, I was amongst millions of corn fields and not very excited. Nervous more than anything. After a million hour drive I arrive in Vinton, "the city of lights"? Why it's called that I do not know. I also had my book on tape which was terrible but got me throught he whole trip.

I walk into the gym shaking with nervousness and I swiftly become pushed along a strip of people shoving papers in my face and telling me certain things that I need to do. Super intimidated I go up to my new room with my arms full of papers and crap. I arrive in my dorm like room. My roommate is a very peppy southern girl from Kentucky(oh no). So far we get along very well. Doesn't seem like she will be my best friend but we will get along fine. My neighbors are Faith from Florida, Laura, Sara from Virginia(who has already tried to hook me up with a cute bearded boy), and Lauren from Minnesota. very nice girls. No one is too clicky yet, I guess because we don't have out groups set. I love them all so far. This is a picture of some of them.

Breakfast is at 6AM!!!!!!! Oh my god, I need to get used to this. We are put into temporary teams until we get our permanent teams of 12 on Monday. We do EVERYTHING with our teams so if we don't like them, we are shit out of luck.

We train hard core until November 13th and after that we are put on our first spike. A spike is when we leave the school for months at a time and do some sort of huge project. I cant wait for my first spike!

Everything else is good. I miss family and friends like crazy and i miss Tink and Steve most of all! Isn't that weird? Tomorrow we have our physicals and then we explore the town some more. Sunday me and some chicks are going to drive into Cedar Rapids the nearest city and explore! I am home sick but having an amazing time already. toots.

-Linzertart