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!