Day 9

Well, I made it home, but I figured I better write a final entry to wrap things up. I didn't write anything Friday because I was pretty sick, I think with food poisoning. Needless to say, that was a long night and I was quite glad that I already had Sunday morning off, because there is no way I would have made it in to headquarters at 8 am.

Anyways, I spent most of my last two days continuing the work I did Friday, which was closing cases in CAS. Between myself and Carla, a manager who came to headquarters after shutting down health services in the South region headquarters, we closed around 45 cases in those two days (which is a lot, in case you were wondering). It was constant work but that was fine with me. Sunday I took things a little slower, though, since I still wasn't feeling great. I had a late flight (9:30 pm) out of Newark, so I was able to work all the way until 6:00, get out-processed, and leave for the airport. I wasn't really ready to leave, as 10 days is pretty short for a deployment and there was still plenty of work to be done. Flatteringly, the HS lead Teresa and Carla didn't want me to leave, either. So, we said our goodbyes, they tried one more time to get me to stay longer, and I headed out.

All in all, it was a good deployment. I got a ton of good administrative experience, and I netted an excellent evaluation from Teresa. Most importantly, I was able to help a lot of people, even if most of it was indirect. I was happy to help Teresa keep the ship afloat so that the people in the field could do their job. It is a little bittersweet, though, as my future with the Red Cross is uncertain. I am unsure of what I will be doing after graduation, and I fear that it will be a job that won't let me continue to deploy.  I suppose I can't worry about that now, though. I'll worry about how to get 10 days off from work when I get there. After all, who knows, I might end up deploying to New York in a couple weeks once winter break starts.