Transitioning from training to work!

Finished with training, ready to work! October 2nd, 2012


This last Sunday, September 30th, we departed from Anniston, Alabama. My team Summit Five, got stationed in Atlanta, Georgia! After arriving here in Atlanta at our hotel we will be staying at for the next month, at least, I got very excited. There are ten people on my team and two rooms for all of us, which means it's five people to a room. The living space is small, but it's definitely better than what I was expecting, and it could be a lot worse. Our hotel is actually in a city outside of Atlanta called Suwanee. Our hotel is within walking distance of almost anything we could possibly want. Dunkin' donuts, Applebee's, Outback Steakhouse, a movie theatre, walmart, tons of restaurants, and it's a beautiful scenery as well. I have a feeling I will be spending too much money here, but hey what do I have to loose right? Another ironic thing that happened yesterday was we were under a tornado watch for quiet a few hours. We found out about it while still at work, and had an hour drive home to the hotel. We get home and the rain started getting really heavy and wind was picking up as well. I just decided to take a nap because I knew there wasn't anything I could personally do to make things better. Needless to say, I took a nap from 5 pm to 9:30 pm.

After settling into our hotel room's Sunday night, we all started getting ready for our first day of work out into the field the next morning. We are currently working out of the Region Four Headquarters office for FEMA. The office is about an hour drive away from our hotel so mornings creep up on us. Monday morning was our first day of work/getting to know the FEMA staff here at the Headquarters office. Everyone was very welcoming and was so happy we were here to help them for the next month or longer. Each corps member has a designated office space where we will be working on our assignments for the next few weeks. We were given a list of assignments that were open to us to work on. A few examples are media package, social media monitoring, private sector, tribal, etc. I was put in the media package section as of right now, which means I will be working on a variety of things to inform and relay the message on how we can handle the media out in the field and what exactly is okay to say, and what is not. I could do this by making a PowerPoint, doing a role play activity, or whatever came to mind to make the lesson creative. Today we will actually be starting on our assignments here with FEMA!

This is my first blog post since I left home, I apologize. I will try to post one at least once a day now that I have WiFi access. 

To all my friends and family, you know I love and miss you like crazy!