I Owe Ioway All I Owe, And I Know Why

I think the State Fair song sums it up nicely. We needed Oklahoma State or LSU to lose, and Iowa State delivered last night. Now my beautiful Crimson Tide has a chance to get back into the National Championship game. Even if we don't, it still looks like I'll be going to New Orleans in January.

This week was super busy with work. I taught five classes in five days. Some went better than others. Monday night was a quick second half of client casework with some great volunteers. Then I had a great dinner while getting to know our newest VISTA Cody followed by a string of reality television shows with Sarah.

Tuesday I taught the most fun class of any I have so far. It was a little disappointing that no one but Sarah and my two coworkers came, but we still had a great time. The class was a Shelter Simulation that involved talking through different scenarios and making decisions as if we were running a real Red Cross Shelter. There were some great one liners from this activity including "I'll make you a sandwich and tell you a joke." Then Sarah and I got home just in time for Ringer. If you guys aren't watching it, you should definitely catch up!

Wednesday, James and I took a little field trip to a Holiday Mail for Heroes card making party at the state office in Hoover. Every holiday season the Red Cross collects holiday cards to be sent to active American troops and those in Veterans hospitals around the world. We were the first two there and had five cards made before many more people showed up. After a quick lunch we picked up some dessert a McDonald's  and came back to town just in time for Mike and I to head to Panola, Alabama, for a Disaster Services: an Overview course.

This was an odd experience. I've never felt like I've been in a more rural part of Alabama, and this includes Guin and many other small towns. We got there thirty minutes early and had to sit in a grass parking area in the dark for twenty of those minutes. I thought it was great to be able to teach this course to a volunteer fire department, but I had heard that there were complaints from them about the Red Cross response during the tornado. My half of the class went very well, so I assumed the other half would. I apparently assumed incorrectly. I guess every class can't go as well as others.

This was evident in the class I taught Thursday morning. I somehow ended up with incorrectly made participant manuals and a classroom without a proper computer to show the powerpoint on. The class was filled with great people, but they were unimpressed with my preparedness. It made me look bad even though it wasn't my directly my fault that either thing occurred.

After I returned to Tuscaloosa, I went to check out an apartment possibility in town. The price was great, but the experience of looking at it was not. One of the roommates is leaving because he doesn't like the other. This was red flag number one. If they can't live with each other, how can I live with one of them? Then on my way home from seeing it, one of them texted me asking if I was seeing anyone. This was red flag number three because red flag number two was the fact that the first message he sent me was "I have a question????"

That night I taught Disaster Services: an Overview to the Shelton State Corps. They were all great even if one of them asked me "Who the f*** are you?"before we began. All the classes this week were obviously very unique. After class I went to watch the remake of The Parent Trap with Georgia and Sarah. It's always nice to see Lindsey Lohan before the fall. We also spent a good amount of time loling over Harry Potter pictures on the internet.

Friday was a pretty slow day at work. The nurses that were supposed to take to our class didn't show up at the office out of confusion or apathy. It has not been proven which. Natalie and I had a great lunch and catchup at Buffalo Phil's, which was beyond tasty. I am so glad that we've gotten this extra year to spend time with each other.

As soon as I reached work post lunch and voice lesson, I had to start a fire case with a client whose home at burned down the night before. Everyone who could do casework had left the office, so it was just Cody and me handling everything. It really proves how far we've come that we often run the office on our own now. I couldn't even imagine doing that months ago. I even got my fire case into the computer system with just a minor malfunction that was easily corrected.

Now I'm in Disney World, but I want to save that for another blog post. I may do two to encompass the whole trip. I also want to include pictures which never works out when I do it from my Mac. Until then I hope you are all enjoying how the football stars have aligned to get Alabama back in the number 2 slot in the BCS rankings. I've never watched the end of so many non Alabama football games in my life. Roll Tide.