The Longest Day Ever

We had PT this morning, so the day started at 5:00 am with pushups, crunches, rope jumping and other fun things of that nature. PT ended at 6:30, and I sprinted back to the dorm room, only to find someone else was already in the shower.

She was in there for ten minutes, which, trust me, is a really really long time in the Americorps setting. I jumped in the shower as soon as she was done, and was out again in literally under a minute. There was no time today for things like soap or shampoo; just enough time to rinse the big clumps of dirt and the majority of the PT sweat off.

I grabbed all my gear, and was at the van by 6:50. We left at 6:52 for the galley. When we got there, I had to help load up all our lunches for the afternoon. We finished that at 7:05, and I had 10 minutes to run inside, shovel down breakfast in an almost in-human fasion, and be back at the van by 7:15.

Then I spent the rest of the day putting up drywall at a Habitat for Humanity site. There weren't enough lifts for all the teams there, so my job was to hold 30-50 lb. sheets of drywall to the ceiling (over my head), while people who had only just learned to use a drill and hammer, tried to screw it to the studs. Normally, several people would have shared this job, but in my group today, I was the only one tall enough to stand on a box and hold something to the ceiling.

If you really want to commiserate with my day, see how long you can hold your arms over your head. When it starts to really burn after a couple of minutes, imagine holding a third of your body weight over your head for 15-20 minutes at a time... all day long. If you think that's hard, try doing it in a house, with no ventilation, in the deep south, in the summer, while breaking in a new pair of boots.

At about four o'clock, I packed my gear and my Tarzan arms into the van and we headed back to the dorms. Thus ends the longest day ever. Tomorrow, I will get up and do it all over again.