The Unthinkable

I finished the book last night that I mentioned in one of my last entries.  The Unthinkable.  It was amazing.  Talk about getting the thoughts going.  When I ride on the bus into the city, I am constantly thinking about the hazards around me and if something were to happen how would I react.  The book looked at how people react in disasters and why.  It kind of made me feel like everyone should go through some sort of disaster simulation to know how they will react.  But, then I started to think about no matter how hard you can't absolutely be prepared for anything.  While so many people focus on the recovery part of a disaster after the initial impact, everyone overlooks the preparedness part.  Can we really be 100% prepared?  After a disaster occurs most people don't want to anticipate the next one.  This is something I have been thinking about as I have offered to do outreach in St. Bernard's Parish regarding disaster preparedness.  I just completed a 200 slide curriculum which how to be prepared in a disaster and I am wondering if the people like those in St. Bernard's would even be receptive to it.  Most of them lost everything.  My Uncle Bruce and Aunt Gini dealt with devastating flooding at their house on the Delaware and yet they did everything in their power to be prepared for the next flood event.  The man on CNN talking about shrink wrapping his house...that was my Uncle Bruce.  At the dinner table last night he was talking about how after the news discovered what he had done, FEMA had contacted him about the idea.  Little did they know that it was an example in their flood avoidance guide book.  Shows you how much they know their projects.  Being the personality type of a 2, I am always wanting to fix things.  This gives me more motivation to get further into the field.  However, I feel like I have hit a huge road block.  I need experience to get a full time job. I have lots of experience but not in what people want of course.  I feel like people are overlooking some important elements when they hire.  I hate that you have to put your personality on a piece of paper.  I am sucky at describing myself.  And to get hired on that?!  I am grateful for Lisa, who saw my abilities and how essential I was.  Now I just need to make a little money for what I am doing.  Although I now have some really cool stuff on my resume.  While employers aren't going to care that I got sent to Brooklyn by myself on the subway, they are going to care that I have attended conferences, worked on developing this exercise that we will be carrying out on July 12th and I am managing volunteers!!   Anyways, I have rambled but these are some of my recent thoughts as I impatiently await what the Lord has in store for me in the coming months.  While I really have no control over it or way to be 100 % prepared, I can take the steps to participate, not anticipate (as the Boston BFF used to say).  Pray for patience for Megan!!

polka dots

So yesterday morning the first thing that I saw when I came out of Port Authority was a polka dot concrete truck.  There was multiple.  How awesome is that.   

The last thing I saw before I went into Port Authority was the shooting of a movie.  There were gunshots and you should have seen how peoples heads turned.  It was crazy. And then these three cops came cruising around the corner.   

Umbrellas

In a city of millions of people on a normal day you may find it difficult to maneuver the sidewalks. There are those people who are walking so fast that they are almost running, then there are those who waddle along.  It makes life interesting everyday.  Yesterday things got even more interesting when the rain drops started to fall from the sky and the umbrellas started to go up.  The already narrow and crowded sidewalks on 8th ave were now ever more crowded.  Umbrellas spiked edges had to be dodged to maneuver sidewalks and you basically had to fear for your life.  Whereas elbows could normally be thrown, people now had metal weapons.  It was crazy. My umbrella got bumped many times as I walked past Madison Square Garden on the way back from my meeting.  But i almost got really stabbed when i was walking to the bus at the end of the day.  The best part of it was the fact that at that point it hadn't rained for 2 hours.  I have now decided that while umbrellas keep you dry and that can be helpful...they can be deadly too.  (besides the fact that they also can serve as lightning rods).  

I also saw an interesting sight that has not left me.  On my way to work, i think it is on 37th street and 8th Ave there are people lined up outside the dunkin donuts.   At first i thought it was for the walk up window but i later realized that they were waiting for something.  The women were always on one corner lined up, most of them of latino descent, and the men were on the opposite corner.  They all are about the same height and many of them look similar. I figured maybe they were waiting for a clothing manufacturer or textile company to open up.  Working in the Fashion District, there are all sorts of fabric shops and clothing companies so this is not an out there notion.  However, yesterday i learned what goes on at the corner.  A man comes down 37th St to the corner and says how many people he needs and what for.  He then chooses (i don't know how) who he will take for the day.  The women scramble to get picked.  The Korean man took just one yesterday when I was passing by.  I am not sure why this so astounded me.  But as i have thought about it, I am surrounded by people who dont necessarily have to struggle to earn money everyday.  And yet these women and men stand at the corner everyday in hope that they will be able to make a few dollars.   They probably don't get paid what they are supposed too, but to them it is work.   When i walk past that corner everyday i feel like i have left the united states even though i am not usually there more than 2 minutes.  This corner represents the reality of some of the lives of immigrants in this country. I would say that for me it was a culture shock, but i cant say that because at this point, after seeing so much in New Orleans, I am not surprised that this occurs everyday.   The government is not to blame for either case.  

I also wanted to share about the book that I am reading.  I have this sudden thirst for knowledge....I think it is because I know i won't get tested on it.  But, I came across this book called The Unthinkable: Who Survives when disaster strikes and why.  It is by Amanda Ripley.  You should definitely check it out.  The statistics and stories are fascinating.  I am not going to give it away but I can tell you that it is along the lines of the work that I am currently doing in a way.  If you want to know more about that.  I would love to share.   For now I have to eat dinner and do some laundry. 

IAEM

Well the second week at WCC went much smoother than the first that is for sure. On monday, while i was filing away in the heat, we got a call from someone in west africa was calling to see if we were offering relief there. The answer was that unfortunately we were not.  My thoughts wandered to think about the rest of the world and them finding our phone number to call for disaster relief.  Incredible and beyond fathomable!  The past two days I had the pleasure of spending with Lisa (the Exec Dir and Founder) at the International Association for Emergency Managers Region II conference in Fair Lawn.  The topic was Campus and School Safety but they talked about a lot of other things and I got to be a booth idiot.  Or so my father said.  I got meet some really awesome people and learn a whole lot.  The one on one interaction with Lisa also helped me to have some serious conversation about my future in the field and where I will be after my adventure at WCC.  Lisa has entrusted me to various projects for the summer and really wants to hear my feed back about a lot of things.  I had to go through some FEMA curriculum and see how it applied to the curriculum that I have been working and see where those things can be integrated.  We also discussed the possibility of teaching some sort of disaster preparedness to the St. Bernard Parish communities. I think that would be an awesome opportunity as part of the outreach with Church of the Presentation.   We had a New Orleans reflection night last night, and I was once again reminded how fortunate I am and how awesome this team is. I really hope that God will bless me with an opportunity to return to region.  Maybe it will be to teach disaster preparedness.   Lisa spoke today regarding the curriculum that we teach and she is a very powerful speaker.  I love the fact too that she wants to immerse me in as much as possible so that I can really learn.   If you are interested in learning more, our website www.worldcares.org has a lot of cool stuff and my work email is dptm@worldcares.org. But i only check it at the office!!   I almost forgot to talk about my new friend Suleyman.  He is working on one of our projects and holds a PHD physical scientist from the Naval Research Institute.  He cracked me up all day yesterday. He is from turkey and is just really funny and his favorite word is dude.  picture a little turkish man going "dude" all day. hehe. 

I also have to note that my Boston BFF has much more exciting blogs than I.  There are always fun pictures to post and her apartment looks awesome.  Anyways, I hope to have more exciting news soon.

the A

So...yesterday was a very interesting day. The meeting at OEM that I was supposed to go to with the Executive Director Lisa, ended up being a meeting I went to by myself.  They told me 10 minutes after we were supposed to leave that i was going to be going by myself.  After i almost cried and wet my pants, i got over my fears and decided that i could do it.  They were awesome about it and gave my specific directions and we looked at google to examine the area i would be going too.   I then got on the A which is the 8th Ave express headed downtown.  Some tourists got on after me and were headed in the wrong direction and realized it after like 4 stops.  It reminded me of the adventures of naive David and Megan.  Anyways, I made it to Brooklyn and back without a problem.  It was a meeting regarding reaching out the immigrant community and getting disaster preparedness information out to them.  Interesting, but i was totally overwhelmed and didnt really have the slightest clue what was going on.  it was great.  Anyways, the office was boring because the others were working on this major grant and i had a lot of questions that they didnt have time to answer.  next week should be interesting.  

Reality

So the real world started today...

I took the NJ transit into the city for the first day of my internship. I spent 6 hours in a cubicle in from of the computer learning the Disaster Volunteer curriculum and the Leading and Managing Spontaneous Unaffiliated Community Volunteer curriculum.  It looks like my primary project will be dealing with Con Edison which should be interesting and I will have to have a Spanish translator to talk to people in one of the council members office. How cool is that!!  I will be traveling with the executive director to various meetings and will have to learn the subway system.  If anyone has heard the David and Megan take the subway story you know that this is a scary thought.  I get to travel to Brooklyn on Wednesday for a meeting at the Office of Emergency Management at the Immigration Center.  We will see what the week brings!!! Stay tuned for updates.