Update:
Everyone quit all at once in a blinding flash of comradery. Like a candle in the wind. The troops are limited to:
myself,
one other instructor,
nice boss,
mean boss
and mean boss’ husband the groundskeeper
They called in some folks to help from another site, so we got three more girls.
Girl 1
Girl 2
Girl 3
This week is the clean-up week, so really all you need to be able to do is be strong enough to do manual labor (lifting, moving, dusting, sweeping, picking garbage from between beds with dental picks, etc). But that would be too easy:
Myself – having to stop every 5 minutes to sneeze and/or blow my nose because of all the dust
Other instructor – severe head cold: almost lost his voice – had to miss a day
Mean boss – in the big city in meetings for two days straight
Nice boss – covering for mean boss with office duties, cleaning with us and cooking because mean boss chased away all the cooks with her meanness
Mean boss’ husband – recovering from a botched bout of home dentistry followed closely by a visit to the real doctor (massive amounts of jaw pain and lack of sleep)
Girl 1 – can’t stop talking about herself and broadway show tunes
Girl 2 – no notes
Girl 3 – no notes
I think I finally understand the term “motley crew”. That would be this remnants of a once-happy work force.
.
We’re hoping mean boss is in the big city because she’s getting fired, but I think that dream might be more of a fantasy than reality. I wrote an e-mail to HR* explaining additional reasons why she should be fired.
*I didn’t explain that after the orange-throwing incident, my co-workers used every resource imaginable to report the poor managerial skills of mean boss. As a result, the head of HR drove all the way out to us to meet one on one with us regarding a number of incidents that are potentially “fireable.” She was very nice. We talked about the world series and she let me pet her Labradoodle. I liked her.
Other news: We all went to a rural town of 2000 people in the southeastern part of the state for a Halloween party at our recently fired friend’s parents’ house. We drank a little, dressed up a homemade piñata as Mean Boss and beat her to the point of decapitation with a broken broom handle. We then went dancing at a Mexican restaurant where I put back Bloody Mary’s with authority. And I danced for probably about two hours. We showed up and were the first ones on the dance floor. When we left, it was a party. I was dressed as a Shakesperean actor complete with make-up and I only received one negative (not quite homophobic, but pushing that envelope) comment the entire night. Dancing with good friends after you’re a little liquored up is apparently a lot of fun!
It’s very strange having everyone gone from camp like this. I’m here for just two more days. I guess I should pack at some point. A plus tard!
Thursday, November 4, 2010
Wednesday, October 27, 2010
Disaster!
I guess I’m not sure where to start about the events of today. A summary is probably in due order. Two days ago, I was standing around with two of my co-workers and what was once an innocent dare, “I’ll bet you I can throw this orange over our manager’s house,” became a complete and utter meltdown for the entire staff of this camp.
The first orange was lofted with grace and dignity and cleared the house that was maybe 50 yards away. The second orange fell short and hit the front of the house with a resounding thud, the magnitude of which would change our lives completely. Did that sound melodramatic? I hope so, everyone reading this knows that there’s nothing I love more than melodrama. NOTHING.
Melodrama aside, shit went down today hard. That mis-placed orange was never cleaned up and when our boss returned from her weekend trip, she called her boss back in the city and brought him out here to get our co-worker fired. And fired he was. He was fired under the guise of “insubordination” and “making her feel disrespected and uncomfortable”.
To have this situation make sense, you need to understand the living situation that we are a part of. Work = our lives. In most professional situations, you have a day of work and then you come home and are NOT at work. We live 30 miles from the closest city of over 30 people. The closest city of 10,000 is about 80 miles away. We cannot go anywhere. We have to get along with each other. There is no other option.
Everyone has hated our boss since way before I started work here 41/2 months ago. Everyone except her husband and her best friend, the cook. I haven’t developed a reason to be particularly upset with her personally aside from the fact that on numerous occasions, she has been so abrasively condescending and rude to my co-workers that I was rendered speechless wondering if I was imagining the conversation. She is awful to people that I respect and love and that is absolutely a reason to be upset with someone.
My coworker that got fired may be the most honest-to-goodness, kind, happy person I’ve known in a long time and she fired him for throwing an orange at her house and citing feeling uncomfortable. It’s like one of those underdog stories where there’s a tyrannical government and the blue-collar workers have to rise up to overthrow the government once one of theirs has fallen.
Four people are quitting by the end of the week, leaving five of us to clean camp for the final three days of my time here next week. It’s going to be miserable. Camp is divided into two teams and it seems like no one is going to end up winning. All of the employees are hell-bent on getting my boss fired for a lack of professionalism, rightfully stating that if the orange incident was enough to get someone canned, then we should be able to get her canned every time we feel uncomfortable or disrespected. The nature of living with your co-workers is that you see people at their best and at their worst. You can’t be your best 24 hours a day. Even I can’t.
He will be missed and now the group is working on making this camp more beautiful by having our manager removed. Hopefully she won’t be able to run this camp into the ground as quickly as she is going at the moment.
Always fight the man. Always!
The first orange was lofted with grace and dignity and cleared the house that was maybe 50 yards away. The second orange fell short and hit the front of the house with a resounding thud, the magnitude of which would change our lives completely. Did that sound melodramatic? I hope so, everyone reading this knows that there’s nothing I love more than melodrama. NOTHING.
Melodrama aside, shit went down today hard. That mis-placed orange was never cleaned up and when our boss returned from her weekend trip, she called her boss back in the city and brought him out here to get our co-worker fired. And fired he was. He was fired under the guise of “insubordination” and “making her feel disrespected and uncomfortable”.
To have this situation make sense, you need to understand the living situation that we are a part of. Work = our lives. In most professional situations, you have a day of work and then you come home and are NOT at work. We live 30 miles from the closest city of over 30 people. The closest city of 10,000 is about 80 miles away. We cannot go anywhere. We have to get along with each other. There is no other option.
Everyone has hated our boss since way before I started work here 41/2 months ago. Everyone except her husband and her best friend, the cook. I haven’t developed a reason to be particularly upset with her personally aside from the fact that on numerous occasions, she has been so abrasively condescending and rude to my co-workers that I was rendered speechless wondering if I was imagining the conversation. She is awful to people that I respect and love and that is absolutely a reason to be upset with someone.
My coworker that got fired may be the most honest-to-goodness, kind, happy person I’ve known in a long time and she fired him for throwing an orange at her house and citing feeling uncomfortable. It’s like one of those underdog stories where there’s a tyrannical government and the blue-collar workers have to rise up to overthrow the government once one of theirs has fallen.
Four people are quitting by the end of the week, leaving five of us to clean camp for the final three days of my time here next week. It’s going to be miserable. Camp is divided into two teams and it seems like no one is going to end up winning. All of the employees are hell-bent on getting my boss fired for a lack of professionalism, rightfully stating that if the orange incident was enough to get someone canned, then we should be able to get her canned every time we feel uncomfortable or disrespected. The nature of living with your co-workers is that you see people at their best and at their worst. You can’t be your best 24 hours a day. Even I can’t.
He will be missed and now the group is working on making this camp more beautiful by having our manager removed. Hopefully she won’t be able to run this camp into the ground as quickly as she is going at the moment.
Always fight the man. Always!
Sunday, October 24, 2010
My computer is completely messed up. It passed away in the middle of the night, so I don’t think it felt anything. I am writing on it currently, but all the colors are all messed up. Microsoft word is still relatively legible. Just gotta get by for the next two weeks until I can get back to Portland and try to make my brother fix it.
We just finished up our beer science weekend. What a wonderful experience. I was paid to lead hikes. There were a number of workshops that the participants had a chance to rotate through that taught about beer-making, home-brewing and all sorts of complicated things I didn’t understand. One of the workshops was a hike led by me. When I wasn’t hiking, I was helping one of the presenters pour beer for his taste-test and pushing next on his powerpoint presentation. His presentation was about what makes beer go bad, such as being overly oxidized, exposed to UV light, bacterial growth and things like that. It was pretty interesting from a biological and chemical stand-point. My hikes were pretty uneventful: I did the same thing four times, and had some interesting conversations. The folks who attended this workshop were very, very friendly and good-natured. Even though I knew nothing about beer-making, I felt included through their jokes and stories.
Everyone got tanked both nights. The brewery that co-sponsored this event brought one keg, but it got completely drained the first night (there was no miracle of the beer that lasted two nights). So the next day, one woman drove all the way back to the big city to pick up more beer and after her 7-hour journey, returned with a full keg and also a pony keg, both of which were not finished and both of which we subsequently get to keep!! They also showered us in gifts: a t-shirt, a 22-oz bottle of specialty beer, a tasting glass and a temporary tattoo for all. They also took the presenters and staff into the back room and gave us a private tasting of 10 or so of their delicious beers and also probably the best whiskey I’ve ever tasted. All as a thanks to US! I WAS ALREADY GETTING PAID AND ON TOP OF THAT, SO MUCH DELICIOUS BEER AND WHISKEY! It was sort of like the most wonderful thing ever. I then got out the gopher snake and brought him around to everyone so they could pet or hold him. We also brought out the bearded dragon and milk snake after having brought out the owl the night before. Turns out, when beer-makers get loaded up, they want to play with animals! Who knew? There was also a moderately interesting lecture and beer-tasting activity led by the keynote speaker, a professor of fermentology from the state university. He brought in some of his beer that they brew at the school. One of them was a stout brewed in whiskey barrels, so it still had a woody, whiskey flavor in addition to the rich, almost sweet stout flavor. Soooo good.
It was just so bizarre having kegs of delicious beer and beer-making stations set up in our teaching spaces. There are usually children and we don’t let them mention drugs, alcohol or other vulgarity. Today, we got to shake off the hangover and clean up after the mayhem. It took the better part of the morning. It will be sooo bad if it turns out I missed a beer bottle in one of the cabins normally used to house children. Sooo bad.
One week of maintenance, one week of clean-up and then I’m out of here. I don’t know what to think about all of this. I’m done teaching! Aah! Weird. It will be good to get back to Portland, but I'm certainly going to miss this lifestyle from time to time.
Listening to Pagliacci right now. Love it!
We just finished up our beer science weekend. What a wonderful experience. I was paid to lead hikes. There were a number of workshops that the participants had a chance to rotate through that taught about beer-making, home-brewing and all sorts of complicated things I didn’t understand. One of the workshops was a hike led by me. When I wasn’t hiking, I was helping one of the presenters pour beer for his taste-test and pushing next on his powerpoint presentation. His presentation was about what makes beer go bad, such as being overly oxidized, exposed to UV light, bacterial growth and things like that. It was pretty interesting from a biological and chemical stand-point. My hikes were pretty uneventful: I did the same thing four times, and had some interesting conversations. The folks who attended this workshop were very, very friendly and good-natured. Even though I knew nothing about beer-making, I felt included through their jokes and stories.
Everyone got tanked both nights. The brewery that co-sponsored this event brought one keg, but it got completely drained the first night (there was no miracle of the beer that lasted two nights). So the next day, one woman drove all the way back to the big city to pick up more beer and after her 7-hour journey, returned with a full keg and also a pony keg, both of which were not finished and both of which we subsequently get to keep!! They also showered us in gifts: a t-shirt, a 22-oz bottle of specialty beer, a tasting glass and a temporary tattoo for all. They also took the presenters and staff into the back room and gave us a private tasting of 10 or so of their delicious beers and also probably the best whiskey I’ve ever tasted. All as a thanks to US! I WAS ALREADY GETTING PAID AND ON TOP OF THAT, SO MUCH DELICIOUS BEER AND WHISKEY! It was sort of like the most wonderful thing ever. I then got out the gopher snake and brought him around to everyone so they could pet or hold him. We also brought out the bearded dragon and milk snake after having brought out the owl the night before. Turns out, when beer-makers get loaded up, they want to play with animals! Who knew? There was also a moderately interesting lecture and beer-tasting activity led by the keynote speaker, a professor of fermentology from the state university. He brought in some of his beer that they brew at the school. One of them was a stout brewed in whiskey barrels, so it still had a woody, whiskey flavor in addition to the rich, almost sweet stout flavor. Soooo good.
It was just so bizarre having kegs of delicious beer and beer-making stations set up in our teaching spaces. There are usually children and we don’t let them mention drugs, alcohol or other vulgarity. Today, we got to shake off the hangover and clean up after the mayhem. It took the better part of the morning. It will be sooo bad if it turns out I missed a beer bottle in one of the cabins normally used to house children. Sooo bad.
One week of maintenance, one week of clean-up and then I’m out of here. I don’t know what to think about all of this. I’m done teaching! Aah! Weird. It will be good to get back to Portland, but I'm certainly going to miss this lifestyle from time to time.
Listening to Pagliacci right now. Love it!
Thursday, October 21, 2010
High school... again
This last week, we had a group of high school students that stretched our resources to the max. On average, our services comfortably support around 80 middle school students. This was 130 high school students. Big difference. We had a group of girls sleeping in a large tent at the base of the climbing wall and we threw spare mattresses and cots anywhere we could fit them. It was madness and mayhem the entire week. I'm going to use my congratulatory letter I wrote to the staff as a way of summarizing my experience. 2 hours after the high school group left, a group of 70 4th and 5th graders showed up and most of the instructors (myself excluded) taught them today while the rest of us were cleaning. I also taught an archaeology class earlier in the week that explored an abandoned homestead, which was really cool! I hope you enjoy.
__________________________________________________________
I just finished cleaning up from our big week and I was with my own thoughts for a while, which gave me time to reflect and appreciate what just happened.
We did something unthinkable. Looking at this week from afar, I'm sure I'm not the only one who was extremely nervous about the prospect of 130 high-schoolers pouring out of all corners of camp. This was a task that had any of a number of different ways to fail tremendously.
I think it would have failed tremendously had it not been for such a dedicated, persevering and intelligent group of employees. Each and everyone one of us stepped up to the task and worked together to make a beautiful week for a tough group of kids whose demographic we do not have a lot of experience with. [new guy 1 and new guy 2] worked their asses off to figure out how to teach material they maybe had never even thought about before. It was like a dance we all did the whole week to steer clear of each other on the trails, in teaching spaces, in [the dining hall], and my goodness, was it an elegant dance.
I did not spend a lot of my time in the kitchen directly, but from my observations of the way the meals went, there was plenty of delicious food for every meal in spite of the fact that even with the volunteers, the shifts being worked by the cooks were even longer than they normally are and were endured without complaints.
There was a moment today when I was cleaning and I was watching [names] leading their tours of 4th and 5th graders around camp just about 2 hours after our group of high-schoolers left. Your vocabulary, your speech patterns, your general demeanor switched flawlessly back into elementary school mode, keeping these excited little faces and bodies engaged on the tour. [boss2] was enthusiastically leading her teachers and chaperones around on their own tour after two days of KP/ programming coordinator! [boss1] was hard at work in the kitchen making hamburger buns from scratch on top of everything else she does and [names]and myself were moving mattresses and heavy boxes all around camp, yet EVERYONE IS STILL ABLE TO SMILE!!
Maybe it's just that I haven't been doing all this quite as long the rest of you, but this is remarkable. This job we do I solemnly believe is something most people do not have the mental and physical strength to endure, not to mention intelligence, quick-thinking and passion that is evident in each and every one of you. I don't think we were able to congratulate each other quite as much as we should because of the other school group coming in today, but we really ought to stand to back and look at what we were able to accomplish as a team.
I don't know where I'm going to be in the next stage of my life, but I am just so honored and proud to be a part of this team because we really are making a difference in the world. Thank you all for everything. There's a lot of love here.
Affectionately yours,
[me]
__________________________________________________________
I just finished cleaning up from our big week and I was with my own thoughts for a while, which gave me time to reflect and appreciate what just happened.
We did something unthinkable. Looking at this week from afar, I'm sure I'm not the only one who was extremely nervous about the prospect of 130 high-schoolers pouring out of all corners of camp. This was a task that had any of a number of different ways to fail tremendously.
I think it would have failed tremendously had it not been for such a dedicated, persevering and intelligent group of employees. Each and everyone one of us stepped up to the task and worked together to make a beautiful week for a tough group of kids whose demographic we do not have a lot of experience with. [new guy 1 and new guy 2] worked their asses off to figure out how to teach material they maybe had never even thought about before. It was like a dance we all did the whole week to steer clear of each other on the trails, in teaching spaces, in [the dining hall], and my goodness, was it an elegant dance.
I did not spend a lot of my time in the kitchen directly, but from my observations of the way the meals went, there was plenty of delicious food for every meal in spite of the fact that even with the volunteers, the shifts being worked by the cooks were even longer than they normally are and were endured without complaints.
There was a moment today when I was cleaning and I was watching [names] leading their tours of 4th and 5th graders around camp just about 2 hours after our group of high-schoolers left. Your vocabulary, your speech patterns, your general demeanor switched flawlessly back into elementary school mode, keeping these excited little faces and bodies engaged on the tour. [boss2] was enthusiastically leading her teachers and chaperones around on their own tour after two days of KP/ programming coordinator! [boss1] was hard at work in the kitchen making hamburger buns from scratch on top of everything else she does and [names]and myself were moving mattresses and heavy boxes all around camp, yet EVERYONE IS STILL ABLE TO SMILE!!
Maybe it's just that I haven't been doing all this quite as long the rest of you, but this is remarkable. This job we do I solemnly believe is something most people do not have the mental and physical strength to endure, not to mention intelligence, quick-thinking and passion that is evident in each and every one of you. I don't think we were able to congratulate each other quite as much as we should because of the other school group coming in today, but we really ought to stand to back and look at what we were able to accomplish as a team.
I don't know where I'm going to be in the next stage of my life, but I am just so honored and proud to be a part of this team because we really are making a difference in the world. Thank you all for everything. There's a lot of love here.
Affectionately yours,
[me]
Tuesday, October 19, 2010
She responded!
[And this is a blog I wrote a few days ago, but was apparently too tired to successfully send]
The girl from the desert conference responded to my heartfelt email. Here is the the email word for word that she wrote in response about three weeks after I wrote her my original email
[my name],
Thanks for your kind email. I do have a boyfriend, and he is not big and scary but he is a really great guy. I appreciate your compliments and I will revisit them any time I need a reminder or a day-brightener.
Best of luck in [The City]
[her name]
The city name and our names have been edited out to maintain anonymity.
We have a group of high school kids this week, so we're stepping up our material to make it withstand high schoolers. But they're from an alternative learning school, so they really aren't very smart.
We dissected grasshoppers today and I was trying to talk with one of the teachers and explain why I thought mammal dissection was a valid lab for high schoolers (fetal pigs probably) and that potentially, if you are dissecting an arthropod with an open circulatory system and cerebral ganglion in place of a brain, that really isn't going to be furthering any students' interests about medicine and human physiology. But they are an alternative school, so they can do whatever they want to. They exhaust me.
The girl from the desert conference responded to my heartfelt email. Here is the the email word for word that she wrote in response about three weeks after I wrote her my original email
[my name],
Thanks for your kind email. I do have a boyfriend, and he is not big and scary but he is a really great guy. I appreciate your compliments and I will revisit them any time I need a reminder or a day-brightener.
Best of luck in [The City]
[her name]
The city name and our names have been edited out to maintain anonymity.
We have a group of high school kids this week, so we're stepping up our material to make it withstand high schoolers. But they're from an alternative learning school, so they really aren't very smart.
We dissected grasshoppers today and I was trying to talk with one of the teachers and explain why I thought mammal dissection was a valid lab for high schoolers (fetal pigs probably) and that potentially, if you are dissecting an arthropod with an open circulatory system and cerebral ganglion in place of a brain, that really isn't going to be furthering any students' interests about medicine and human physiology. But they are an alternative school, so they can do whatever they want to. They exhaust me.
Sunday, October 17, 2010
Update
I woke up this morning at 5:45 to cook breakfast for a group of college students and it is midnight:15. How did I get roped into this? Tomorrow we are required to do sexual harassment training, which is funny because:
A. Of the eleven staff members here, 8 of them are either in serious relationships with each other or are married to each other. One more has a girlfriend elsewhere
and B. We have three weeks left before the end of the year.
It will be a party, for sure. At least I get to sleep in until 10!!
This last week was pretty crazy, just like every week, I suppose. I had to teach two classes I had never taught before. One was a class about the weather, which I made quite informative, but I feel like I fell short in the making it interesting department.
The other class was an invasive species mapping class. I used the information I had gained by doing research on invasive grasses of the arid steppelands of the eastern part of the state and adapted it to 8th graders. We collected soil temperature, distribution %, declination and general appearance data and pooled our separate data collections to create a complete set of data for a number of locations around the area. In the end, they presented their findings and we walked our way through the scientific method. I had their principal shadowing this class, so I was extremely nervous. On his eval of camp, he said this particular class was his favorite!! I think that means I did something right. The kinds ended up loving it too. One particular girl mentioned that she thought it was going to be boring because of the name, "Ecological Mapping" and should be changed to something cooler like "killer plants!". All that made me feel okay with screwing up the weather class, which I understand is not necessarily a legitimate trade-off.
I'm about to pass out. Goodnight, friends. I've got much more to talk about that I didn't get to.
Ducks are # 1 in the country! Cool!
A. Of the eleven staff members here, 8 of them are either in serious relationships with each other or are married to each other. One more has a girlfriend elsewhere
and B. We have three weeks left before the end of the year.
It will be a party, for sure. At least I get to sleep in until 10!!
This last week was pretty crazy, just like every week, I suppose. I had to teach two classes I had never taught before. One was a class about the weather, which I made quite informative, but I feel like I fell short in the making it interesting department.
The other class was an invasive species mapping class. I used the information I had gained by doing research on invasive grasses of the arid steppelands of the eastern part of the state and adapted it to 8th graders. We collected soil temperature, distribution %, declination and general appearance data and pooled our separate data collections to create a complete set of data for a number of locations around the area. In the end, they presented their findings and we walked our way through the scientific method. I had their principal shadowing this class, so I was extremely nervous. On his eval of camp, he said this particular class was his favorite!! I think that means I did something right. The kinds ended up loving it too. One particular girl mentioned that she thought it was going to be boring because of the name, "Ecological Mapping" and should be changed to something cooler like "killer plants!". All that made me feel okay with screwing up the weather class, which I understand is not necessarily a legitimate trade-off.
I'm about to pass out. Goodnight, friends. I've got much more to talk about that I didn't get to.
Ducks are # 1 in the country! Cool!
Monday, October 11, 2010
The True Renaisance Man - Eat your heart out Danny DeVito
Last week was pretty crazy too. I was supposed to be working maintenance, but as it turned out, I ended up doing maintenance, teaching and cooking all in one week. I did not see that one coming when I took this job a month ago. When I took the job, I knew I would be working occasional maintenance weeks because there weren’t enough openings for instructors every week. This was fine with me because of my theatrical carpentry background. I’ve always enjoyed fixing things, and THIS WAS THE FIRST 9-5 JOB I’VE EVER WORKED IN MY LIIIIIIIIIIIIFE!! How relaxing! I worked maintenance for the first two days and on the third day, I was supposed to help cook from around 2-8pm. 6-hour day. The reason for this is that our dinner cook quit and normally the maintenance guy or the camp manager cooks the dinners (ridiculous, I know). Incidentally, they are great cooks, so it usually turns out fantastic, but this week they were going out of town for three days for some meetings and their anniversary (they’re married, I don’t know if I mentioned this). This left the poor, breakfast cook to cook three consecutive breakfasts and two consecutive dinners by herself. They then decided to throw me in to help her with dinner, not knowing if I would be any help or not. FORTUNATELY FOR THEM, I AM A MAN OF MANY SKILLS. A RENAISSANCE MAN, IF YOU WILL. I LAUGH IN THE FACE OF DANGER. I LOOK AT TASKS THAT ARE DAUNTING TO SOME MEN or women AND I GO ABOVE AND BEYOND THE CALL OF DUTY TO COMPLETE THEM THOROUGHLY, HUZZAH! She’s really beautiful and the only other single member of the staff here, so it turned out to be alright with me. She let me make the salads and open cans of vegetable or fruits, but I also cut all the onions she needed because she cries too much when she cuts them and also the chicken because she is grossed out by raw meat (+2 man points, woo! -1 grammar point for that last sentence, meh).
This would all have been fine and dandy, if I hadn’t also been teaching for one of the instructors who had fallen ill (too much box wine, Hamm’s and sitting in wet clothing from the rafting trip is apparently not the best thing for your immune system). I learned that I would be filling in for her at 8:32am when one of my bosses knocked on my door and asked me if I would lead the 5-hour paleontology hike that started at 9:00am. I, of course, acquiesced, threw on some clothes, grabbed some breakfast and was out on the trail in a jiffy. I returned from my hike at 2:00pm, put away my teaching supplies and reported to the cook I was assisting to begin dinner prep. She told me I could take a break if I wanted, so I read some national geographic and just sat down for about 20 minutes.
FACT: A certain species of anemone fish (like clown fish) mates, then the female dies and the male transforms into a female and then mates with a different male. HOW CRAZY IS THAT?!! It’s pretty funny to imagine if that was how humans worked. Maybe people would be more ok with gay marriage?
After my national geographic break, I helped cook dinner for the next four hours, then ate dinner, prepped for my evening lesson with these kids and led a night hike, which was, of course, eventful for its own reasons. I had a child who was theoretically in 5th grade, but looked and acted like he was in 3rd grade and was apparently terrified of the dark. The key to night hike is that we don’t use our flashlights and we walk around in the dark and listen and feel for cool things. We also lead brief activities and do a little astronomy to boot. Once this child figured out what exactly we were doing (even though we explained it a thousand times earlier, he decided he was terrified and started crying and freaking out, which of course made the rest of the children develop fear of the dark. It didn’t help that I inadvertently stopped them for an activity next to a pile of cow bones we use to teach vertebrate physiology structures. After a fair amount of panic from this child, I gave him my red flashlight (we can’t use white light because it wrecks your night vision and actually makes most of the activities impossible) and this seemed to pacify him relatively thoroughly. I then thought we had stepped off the trail because we had crossed over a log I didn’t remember, which did not help ameliorate the group’s fear of the dark, but I distracted them with candy and shiny things until they forgot about their troubles. I then pointed out some constellations, tried to have a conversation about comprehending the vastness of the universe, but when it got steered in the direction of God vs. the Big Bang Theory, I decided to steer clear and took them back on their merry way.
We then had campfire. That was a 12.5 hour day with one 20-minute break to rest my legs and read National Geographic. (sigh)
I just had a really relaxing weekend here at camp with just a few people. I got to sleep in and I feel rested and ready to tackle a new week of maintenance/teaching/ maybe a little bit of cooking again if I want to. I have to go to sleep though now. Tomorrow, I will be building a shed for our new telescopes. I actually know how to do that!!
Goodnight.
This would all have been fine and dandy, if I hadn’t also been teaching for one of the instructors who had fallen ill (too much box wine, Hamm’s and sitting in wet clothing from the rafting trip is apparently not the best thing for your immune system). I learned that I would be filling in for her at 8:32am when one of my bosses knocked on my door and asked me if I would lead the 5-hour paleontology hike that started at 9:00am. I, of course, acquiesced, threw on some clothes, grabbed some breakfast and was out on the trail in a jiffy. I returned from my hike at 2:00pm, put away my teaching supplies and reported to the cook I was assisting to begin dinner prep. She told me I could take a break if I wanted, so I read some national geographic and just sat down for about 20 minutes.
FACT: A certain species of anemone fish (like clown fish) mates, then the female dies and the male transforms into a female and then mates with a different male. HOW CRAZY IS THAT?!! It’s pretty funny to imagine if that was how humans worked. Maybe people would be more ok with gay marriage?
After my national geographic break, I helped cook dinner for the next four hours, then ate dinner, prepped for my evening lesson with these kids and led a night hike, which was, of course, eventful for its own reasons. I had a child who was theoretically in 5th grade, but looked and acted like he was in 3rd grade and was apparently terrified of the dark. The key to night hike is that we don’t use our flashlights and we walk around in the dark and listen and feel for cool things. We also lead brief activities and do a little astronomy to boot. Once this child figured out what exactly we were doing (even though we explained it a thousand times earlier, he decided he was terrified and started crying and freaking out, which of course made the rest of the children develop fear of the dark. It didn’t help that I inadvertently stopped them for an activity next to a pile of cow bones we use to teach vertebrate physiology structures. After a fair amount of panic from this child, I gave him my red flashlight (we can’t use white light because it wrecks your night vision and actually makes most of the activities impossible) and this seemed to pacify him relatively thoroughly. I then thought we had stepped off the trail because we had crossed over a log I didn’t remember, which did not help ameliorate the group’s fear of the dark, but I distracted them with candy and shiny things until they forgot about their troubles. I then pointed out some constellations, tried to have a conversation about comprehending the vastness of the universe, but when it got steered in the direction of God vs. the Big Bang Theory, I decided to steer clear and took them back on their merry way.
We then had campfire. That was a 12.5 hour day with one 20-minute break to rest my legs and read National Geographic. (sigh)
I just had a really relaxing weekend here at camp with just a few people. I got to sleep in and I feel rested and ready to tackle a new week of maintenance/teaching/ maybe a little bit of cooking again if I want to. I have to go to sleep though now. Tomorrow, I will be building a shed for our new telescopes. I actually know how to do that!!
Goodnight.
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