(here's a picture of me from a couple months ago. I have to post it on here so I can put it on my profile. Actually, I don't look like this now because I dyed my hair RED with magic henna, but it's been losing color rapidly. I bought this shirt in Fargo just before Christmas. Do you like it? Funny, because I'm wearing it right now.)

The River is Rising!

I got an excited call from my supervisor on Friday because the Red River is flooding, as I understand it does every year, but when she said she wanted my help coordinating a Concordia College Flood Response I didn't know what to think. My first thought was that houses were under water. This has not been the case yet, though I was told the river has gone up three feet a day and is expected to crest at 37 feet on Wednesday - which is 3ft less than it was during the Flood of '97 which I learned in Hurricane Relief training was serious business.

So, we're not dealing with houses under water yet, just trees, parks, baseball fields, one basketball court that I saw with the water up to the headboard and one bridge submerged. Students are mobilizing to fill sandbags and help homowners dyke their property. Roads are closed and the city is putting up dykes in the street to stop the water from coming into town. That's the good news.

The bad news is it's supposed to rain. It was supposed to rain all day yesterday but it didn't, but it's raining now and we don't know when it will stop or how high the river is going to get - so we keep our fingers crossed and our phones on and wonder right now if classes will be canceled tomorrow so students can go out and help homeowners prepare to deal with rising water.

Personally I'm sick of rising water. I saw that basketball hoop today and I didn't expect to be so affected by the image - but I've seen a lot of crazy stuff this year, and I haven't yet written a post about my Mississippi trip.

Also this weekend I was on a board retreat for a nonprofit in town. I'm on the board of the People Escaping Poverty Project which does a lot of really cool grassroots organizng around issues that affect people in poverty and mobilizng them towards change. I'm really proud to be part of this organization and wish I could stay in the community longer so I could contribute more, but I learned a lot this weekend about strategic planning, framing issues, fundraising and more. I get to go to PEPP organizer training for three Saturdays in April and I'm really looking forward to learning a lot there.

All in all it was a busy weekend - but I also managed to finally hammer out those Peace Corps application essays! I hope to send in my application within the next week. Now I'm tired and hungry and doubtful I can make it to the grocery store and back before it's time to work out and watch The West Wing - so I'm just updating the ol' blog to say look for an upcoming Vital Stats April.

And Brokeback Mountain comes out on DVD Thursday. If you don't hear from me for a while you know why.