This weekend was nuts! I had some serious time for contemplation and realized that I had never spent a weekend away from civilization before without my family. Correct me if I’m wrong, loyal followers. There were two big events for the weekend:
1. Punk rock concert!
2. Desert conference in Young Life/ ex-Raj Neeshi-sexually-exploratory Camp
Most of the rest of the staff had tickets to go see Against Me! – two hours east of camp. They are a punk rock band from Gainsville, Florida, who to me sound like a more screamy, less musical version of Dropkick Murphy’s. Those of you who know me are probably thinking – screaming punk rock in the middle of nowhere – sounds like Adam’s cup of tea. This is sarcasm. It was a strange concert. Overall, I had a wonderful evening, but a few things about punk rock shows aren’t very fun: getting punched in the nose in the midst of a mosh-pit a week after smashing myself in the face with my own tennis racquet, paying $20 to see a show and having them take up one of the three hours that you spend there, and returning home piss-drunk at 3:15am, just four and a half hours before you are supposed to wake-up and represent your place of employment at an intellectual, ecological seminar. Did I mention that the final 20 minutes of the drive home is a winding country road that mimics the path of a first-time alcoholic taking a walk-the-line test on the side of a road? If you’ve been drinking whisky, beer, and a couple of Irish Car-bombs with a generous quantity of Jameson, whipping along that road at 3am feels kind of like dying. I had to stay awake, however, because one of my co-workers was driving my car and was probably just as tired as I was (but a lot less drunk). I would stay awake and try to act social as long as possible before I had to pass out again to fight off the desire to vomit up the Domino’s pizza I ploughed through earlier in the evening. We stopped in my favorite park in Madras to pee in the bushes, stretch our legs and curse the fact that he last hour we spent crammed into the back of my car was only the first half of our 2-hour journey starting at 1:15 am.
Oh, right, the concert itself! I had never been moshing before and it turns out that drunk me decided it would be a great idea to pick up the flannel I found on the ground after the concert and take it home with me as a souvenir – a free one at that. I also got a sweet hat that I found on the ground earlier in the night. FREE SOUVENIRS! WOO! The event itself was alright. Turns out Against Me! and their famous song that has something to do with being a teenage anarchist didn’t really play to my social distresses as much as the rest of my fellow concert-goers. It was pretty fun though experiencing a new cultural phenomenon and doing something I just would never have done if I hadn’t been going with my then co-workers and now friends. I got to see my good buddy with his punk Jedi curl from the summer there as well – it has since been bleached-blonde to enhance his Jedi powers, so that’s great.
41/2 hours later I woke up to begin the second leg of my fantastic desert weekend: the desert conference, which is held at this ridiculous place where the Rash-Neeshi used to live and preside over his countless number of free-loving cult-members. Check out Wikipedia if you don’t know anything about this episode of US history. There’s an out-of-service airstrip to welcome you that theoretically used to be able to accommodate 747s. After that it gets even more ridiculous: zip lines into a man-made lake with a “blob”, a nice swimming pool with chaise-lounges, a whiffleball field with a fence, (I did not hit it over, but my co-worker did – we spent about 20 minutes trying: awesome!), a huge grassy field for many purposes, an orchard, three lodges that double as hotel rooms and meeting halls, countless dorms, a dining complex (I don’t use this term lightly) that could theoretically cater to 700 people using 5 banquet rooms, and I’m sure there’s more that I didn’t get a chance to check out. Perfectly manicured, lush, green lawns everywhere. AND THIS IS IN THE MIDDLE OF THE DESERT! The middle of nowhere. It takes about 20 minutes before you reach a paved road and then it takes another hour before you reach a town of more than 100 people (another 3 or so before you hit a town with more than 500). This is Young Life Washington Family Ranch. The lectures were interesting, but kind of repetitive. There was a lot of talk about expanding/ creating new wilderness areas to protect the deserts of the John Day basin – Cathedral Rock, and the Painted Hills are just a few of the notable ( I do use this term lightly) landmarks in the area. I saw four 90-minute presentations, but the best of all was the last guy who was supposed to talk about birding in the area. He was about 70 years old and had maybe 30 overhead projector laminations that he had an assistant put up and he would name the bird and maybe add a little about their migration patterns: maybe. He sometimes couldn’t identify the bird because the quality of the laminations was so poor. This was compared with folks who were discussing new legislation on wind energy vs. solar energy, the creation of wilderness areas and GIS-mapping technology outbreaks. It was really awkward and kind of embarrassing, but it was also rather hilarious. He had a ridiculous drawl and would pronounce the state to our north as “Warshington.” Great end to a long, caffeine-riddled day of lectures. They provided us with two delicious meals and free local microbrews as well as one keg of something from Deschutes Brewery. Delicious! All free! The $20 registration fee was paid for by my employer. I was supposed to go with my boss, the maintenance guy, and four other instructors. My boss and the maintenance guy ended up going to a different conference in a different city and two of the other instructors stayed and slept in because they were “sick” (they were at the concert with me the night before). So in the end, there were just three of us there, but we had a good time.
The highlight of the trip, however, was this girl who worked for the organization that put on the conference. She gave a presentation that wasn’t phenomenal because she was clearly nervous, but was insightful and well-prepared. She was beautiful and young (c. 25 years-old), but she captured my heart in the span of one delirious day. I wanted to try to talk to her during the drinking hour before dinner, but I was too scared. The final event of the evening was a keynote speaker (Edward Norton’s father – don’t ask, I didn’t get it. He was terrible. My problem is when people think it’s a good idea to have a famous person’s parents speak at a function. IF YOU CAN’T GET THE FAMOUS PERSON, THEN THEIR PARENTS ARE JUST SOME OTHER PERSON WHO DOESN’T REALLY HAVE ANYTHING IMPORANT TO SAY! COME ON, PEOPLE!) During the speech, this girl came in and stood next to me. There were plenty of places to stand but she stood right next to me and then she inched closer to me. The next part was verified by my co-worker, but we later decided that she kept looking over at me every 30 seconds or so during the speech. She was wearing jeans and a flannel shirt with moccasins and no socks. She was also coyly twirling her hair, which may have been absent-minded, but there in that moment, was the cutest thing I’ve seen in a good long time. She also was frequently scratching her back and removing her moccasins in public, which are unattractive qualities in most walks of life, but somehow in this situation, made her feel more real. More down-to-earth. I don’t know, it was weird. While she was looking at me, I also was looking over at her and would look away whenever she looked at me because I’m afraid of pretty girls. She then walked in front of me and leaned on the counter in front of her in a potentially, but not necessarily - in fact very unlikely - provocative fashion. She then proceeded to look behind herself at me again off and on during the speech. No one was speaking during this speech – no one. Not even whispers. There was no way I could get away with talking to her. My heart was racing, I was sweating like a pig (thank you Italian father and Jewish mother for the best sweating genes ever. I’ve got thermoregulation by evaporative cooling down pat). In the end, my coworkers and I decided that since the speech sucked so hard, we were going to leave in the middle, which we stealthily did. I realize I’m building this up for some sort of dramatic moment where she races out of the lodge and shouts, “No, stop! I’ll never love another like I love you!” We then run into each other’s arms and passionately kiss in the streets during a rainstorm. But, alas, this is the desert: there are no rain storms and my overly active imagination let me down once again. She did not come running and the three of us (my co-workers) drove home that night, while one of my co-workers very strangely was discussing how easy it is to get around child-pornography laws in foreign countries – strange and uncomfortable for sure.
That night, I looked her email up on her company’s website and wrote her an email saying that I thought she was very beautiful and I wished that I had the opportunity to speak with her. If she ever comes through the area around camp, she should email me and let me know and I could take her on some hikes or something. It was dumb, but I felt that I really ought to let her know that I thought she was so pretty and cute. She twirled her hair at me! What was I supposed to do!?!? I felt that in the very least, everyone can stand to be told that they’re beautiful, you know? That always makes someone feel good, even if it’s a little creepy. In the very most, she liked me too and maybe we could somehow meet, even though I believe her company is stationed in this part of the state. In any case I haven’t heard back from her, and at this point, I don’t really expect to hear anything, which is fine. Just a fun, little one-day crush.
Furthermore, one of our cooks quit. This is after two other quit over the summer due to, let’s just call it a “disagreement with the manager.” Now we just have one cook, so the other half of cooking duties are getting split up and I’ll definitely be doing some dinner-cooking next week when I’m working maintenance. I’m pumped. I don’t know jack-crap about cooking for two people, not to mention 100. It’s gonna be an adventure.
I must sleep now. You probably do too after trying to get through these entries. Just a couple days in my shoes. I hope you enjoyed. I certainly enjoy writing them. Until next time, my friends.
Monday, September 27, 2010
We are but men, ROCK!
Whew! What a couple days of craziness! I just got finished with dinner and teaching my first geology and minerology course. I can’t begin to tell you the amount of anxiety coursing through my veins before my lesson started. I had many reasons to feel uncomfortable teaching a class about rocks and minerals and these are just a few of those reasons:
1. I think geology is extremely boring
2. I don’t understand fundamental aspects of geology – although my knowledge multiplied infinitesimally over the past week.
3. At the end of my lesson I finally figured out what a mineral is
The lesson plan is vague and is chock full of information that is helpful in teaching college-aged students, but not so much for teaching 11 year-olds. One of my coworkers said she did these activities in college. Another bothersome concept was that I already knew a little bit about rocks, but the entire lesson plan was about minerals, with the mention of rocks as an afterthought (crap)!
The idea was that I had to lay down the law about what a mineral was (even though I didn’t – but do now- fully comprehend the idea of a mineral.) A mineral is a solid, crystalline geologic structure that is made up of the same molecules. Rocks are then made up of multiple minerals. Seems simple enough, right? I then went on to describe a number of tests you could do determine characteristics of an unknown mineral to try to make it a known mineral. For example, if you pour HCl on a piece of Calcite, it effervesces, or if you can scratch the mineral with your fingernail, you know that it is one of the softer minerals and you can locate it on the Moh’s hardness scale. They had to positively identify 12 minerals in 45 minutes, by finding their: hardness, color streak (when you rub the mineral on a plate), color, luster (metallic or non-metallic – I didn’t bother to explain this one and realized in hind-sight I should have), cleavage (I was shocked and baffled to discover that no one laughed at that one. I remember laughing at that one when we learned rocks and minerals in 8th grade), test magnetism, taste the mineral (if it’s salty, then it’s halite aka table salt), and pour HCl on it. I did my utmost to make sure I didn’t let anyone lick the pieces of clear, quartzy-looking minerals (calcite, halite and quartz) that I had put hydrochloric acid on – I think I succeeded. I made sure they asked me before they tasted them for this reason and this one kid asked me if he could taste every single mineral! Even black and gray minerals that were clearly not salt! COME ON!
These kids are remarkably sharp in general, however – from a French-American school in Portland – so I’m looking forward to teaching less stupid children (like last week’s). It just means I have to know what I’m talking about!! Eek! The final verdict of my lesson was that roughly half the kids finished and I have to grade the papers and turn them back in to their teacher for an actual grade – which is exciting, but will be sad for the little girl who finished 3 of 12 and the other half of the students who aren’t overachieving little shits (like I was at that age…) who did not finish either. I guess that’s the heart-breaking part of being a teacher in a real institution (not outdoor school). Tomorrow, I’m teaching my newly discovered specialty – Geology and Paleontology hike and Team Challenge – both of which I know, so I’m going to go hot-tubbing with my new instructor friend! Exciting! For those of you who reading who know camp pretty well, he looks like a piece of broccoli. Tata for now. I will try to get my next entry in later tonight to sum up the mayhem that was this weekend.
1. I think geology is extremely boring
2. I don’t understand fundamental aspects of geology – although my knowledge multiplied infinitesimally over the past week.
3. At the end of my lesson I finally figured out what a mineral is
The lesson plan is vague and is chock full of information that is helpful in teaching college-aged students, but not so much for teaching 11 year-olds. One of my coworkers said she did these activities in college. Another bothersome concept was that I already knew a little bit about rocks, but the entire lesson plan was about minerals, with the mention of rocks as an afterthought (crap)!
The idea was that I had to lay down the law about what a mineral was (even though I didn’t – but do now- fully comprehend the idea of a mineral.) A mineral is a solid, crystalline geologic structure that is made up of the same molecules. Rocks are then made up of multiple minerals. Seems simple enough, right? I then went on to describe a number of tests you could do determine characteristics of an unknown mineral to try to make it a known mineral. For example, if you pour HCl on a piece of Calcite, it effervesces, or if you can scratch the mineral with your fingernail, you know that it is one of the softer minerals and you can locate it on the Moh’s hardness scale. They had to positively identify 12 minerals in 45 minutes, by finding their: hardness, color streak (when you rub the mineral on a plate), color, luster (metallic or non-metallic – I didn’t bother to explain this one and realized in hind-sight I should have), cleavage (I was shocked and baffled to discover that no one laughed at that one. I remember laughing at that one when we learned rocks and minerals in 8th grade), test magnetism, taste the mineral (if it’s salty, then it’s halite aka table salt), and pour HCl on it. I did my utmost to make sure I didn’t let anyone lick the pieces of clear, quartzy-looking minerals (calcite, halite and quartz) that I had put hydrochloric acid on – I think I succeeded. I made sure they asked me before they tasted them for this reason and this one kid asked me if he could taste every single mineral! Even black and gray minerals that were clearly not salt! COME ON!
These kids are remarkably sharp in general, however – from a French-American school in Portland – so I’m looking forward to teaching less stupid children (like last week’s). It just means I have to know what I’m talking about!! Eek! The final verdict of my lesson was that roughly half the kids finished and I have to grade the papers and turn them back in to their teacher for an actual grade – which is exciting, but will be sad for the little girl who finished 3 of 12 and the other half of the students who aren’t overachieving little shits (like I was at that age…) who did not finish either. I guess that’s the heart-breaking part of being a teacher in a real institution (not outdoor school). Tomorrow, I’m teaching my newly discovered specialty – Geology and Paleontology hike and Team Challenge – both of which I know, so I’m going to go hot-tubbing with my new instructor friend! Exciting! For those of you who reading who know camp pretty well, he looks like a piece of broccoli. Tata for now. I will try to get my next entry in later tonight to sum up the mayhem that was this weekend.
Wednesday, September 22, 2010
In the beginning...
Thus begins the blog. For those of you who are unaware of my situation, I am an outdoor sciences instructor whose name shall remain nameless, at a camp that shall remain nameless due to the publicity of this blog. I teach outdoor education to 6th and 7th graders throughout the duration of the fall. Too much ridiculousness goes down on a daily basis to prevent me from sharing it with the world through the shameless, tawdry projection known as the internet. I figure if Steve Blake’s wife has a Twitter account that people follow, why shouldn’t I have a blog for the things that truly are interesting (or at least I find them to be).
I started work last week as the kitchen helper. Each instructor has to “do time” as the kitchen helper throughout the fall and I got mine done early. I was also required to shadow other instructors as they taught, which meant that I was working non-stop for two days straight (6:30am-8:30pm). This might be a reasonable expectation if I was either paid hourly, or was given overtime for working more than 8 or 9 hours a day (is that really what normal people’s work hours are like?). This was the time, however, that I was supposed to be learning how to teach. I worked here during the summer, so I picked up a few of the lessons from that, but the fall outdoor school programs are different, so as it turns out, I will be throwing out most of my previous knowledge anyway. But this all happened last week.
This week, I began teaching! Very exciting! I had been losing sleep over the idea for the past three nights (that’s just how I roll, I suppose).
Allow me to begin by saying that I am not new to teaching. I taught outdoor science education as a student leader at the public middle school’s outdoor program in high school and part of college. I learned my way around those lesson plans like the back of my hand after spending 8 weeks there spread over 6 years. We taught from laminated note cards provided by our lead instructors, so we really just had to be good at reading, and pretending like we knew what we were talking about it, summarized appropriately as “fake it ‘till you make it.” It required no research, and if you were good enough at it, you really didn’t need to see it taught before you felt comfortable taking the plunge and teaching yourself.
In spite of the fact that I had previous teaching experience, this is different. We are given vocabulary words, concepts and recommended activities that everyone else ignores because they require extraneous amounts of prep time, which is extraordinarily limited. What I end up teaching becomes some sort of twisted cacophony of various instructor’s ideas combined with cracked out ideas from the book. The chemical formula for this equation would look like this (I’ve been thinking scientifically, ok? BACK OFF!)
Instructor 1’s intro + (instructor 2’s lesson plan + instructor 3’s lesson plan) + alternative teaching method listed in the syllabus + instructor 4’s ‘outro’ = BEST LESSON EVER (with a slight amount of disunity and tangential thoughts)
I find myself getting excited about some semi-related thought and following it for awhile until I realize that I’ve deviated a great distance from the originally intended fact or concept.
It’s funny because my education is in theatre…. and general biology/ marine biology, so OF COURSE I’M TEACHING GEOLOGY IN THE MIDDLE OF A HIGH DESERT!!! HOORAY!! I enjoy teaching here, but I really feel like my skills would be put to better use if I were teaching more biology and less geo/paleo, but I always love an opportunity to expand my skill set. My 5-hour geo/paleo lesson combined with a beastly 4-mile, 500’ elevation gain and lost hike went extraordinarily smoothly, as did my reptiles and amphibians lesson and team challenge activity. Tomorrow, I’m off to teach the geo/ paleo loop again packed with animal physiology, which I’m going to bullshit my way through for 90 minutes. It’s gonna be a party
Random fun fact of the day: 6th grade cheerleaders are just as ditzy and clueless as high-school cheerleaders
Random science fact of the day: When snakes are eating, they can’t breathe. They have two lungs: one below the other, which they fill with air prior to prey consumption. I’ll bet that’s why you don’t hear of very many asthmatic gopher snakes!
Feel good moment of the day: There was a very quiet girl that I noticed the first day during rec-time who was sitting by herself far away from the other children. I asked her if she was okay and when she said ‘yes’, I went on my merry way because I had a lesson to prep. Today, I signed up for rec-activity leading and after being suggested by another instructor, I decided to take out the Play-dough and a big piece of butcher paper with pens and colored pencils and see who wanted to create (gasp) ART with me. This girl came over and spent almost the entire time drawing various things and they were very good. She was very quiet and humble and after about 30-40 minutes went on her morose and sullen way. Strange, but I was glad I was able to provide an alternate entertainment for a child who clearly was not a big sports fan. Side note – This child with a curly fo-hawk spent 15 minutes making chickens out of Play-dough, axes out of Play-dough and mercilessly chopping their heads off leaving behind pools of Play-dough blood. Ah, to be a middle-school boy again…
Until next time, my friends and whoever else took time out of their day to read one tired, yet humored and decently satisfied young teacher’s thoughts. Thank you and goodnight.
I started work last week as the kitchen helper. Each instructor has to “do time” as the kitchen helper throughout the fall and I got mine done early. I was also required to shadow other instructors as they taught, which meant that I was working non-stop for two days straight (6:30am-8:30pm). This might be a reasonable expectation if I was either paid hourly, or was given overtime for working more than 8 or 9 hours a day (is that really what normal people’s work hours are like?). This was the time, however, that I was supposed to be learning how to teach. I worked here during the summer, so I picked up a few of the lessons from that, but the fall outdoor school programs are different, so as it turns out, I will be throwing out most of my previous knowledge anyway. But this all happened last week.
This week, I began teaching! Very exciting! I had been losing sleep over the idea for the past three nights (that’s just how I roll, I suppose).
Allow me to begin by saying that I am not new to teaching. I taught outdoor science education as a student leader at the public middle school’s outdoor program in high school and part of college. I learned my way around those lesson plans like the back of my hand after spending 8 weeks there spread over 6 years. We taught from laminated note cards provided by our lead instructors, so we really just had to be good at reading, and pretending like we knew what we were talking about it, summarized appropriately as “fake it ‘till you make it.” It required no research, and if you were good enough at it, you really didn’t need to see it taught before you felt comfortable taking the plunge and teaching yourself.
In spite of the fact that I had previous teaching experience, this is different. We are given vocabulary words, concepts and recommended activities that everyone else ignores because they require extraneous amounts of prep time, which is extraordinarily limited. What I end up teaching becomes some sort of twisted cacophony of various instructor’s ideas combined with cracked out ideas from the book. The chemical formula for this equation would look like this (I’ve been thinking scientifically, ok? BACK OFF!)
Instructor 1’s intro + (instructor 2’s lesson plan + instructor 3’s lesson plan) + alternative teaching method listed in the syllabus + instructor 4’s ‘outro’ = BEST LESSON EVER (with a slight amount of disunity and tangential thoughts)
I find myself getting excited about some semi-related thought and following it for awhile until I realize that I’ve deviated a great distance from the originally intended fact or concept.
It’s funny because my education is in theatre…. and general biology/ marine biology, so OF COURSE I’M TEACHING GEOLOGY IN THE MIDDLE OF A HIGH DESERT!!! HOORAY!! I enjoy teaching here, but I really feel like my skills would be put to better use if I were teaching more biology and less geo/paleo, but I always love an opportunity to expand my skill set. My 5-hour geo/paleo lesson combined with a beastly 4-mile, 500’ elevation gain and lost hike went extraordinarily smoothly, as did my reptiles and amphibians lesson and team challenge activity. Tomorrow, I’m off to teach the geo/ paleo loop again packed with animal physiology, which I’m going to bullshit my way through for 90 minutes. It’s gonna be a party
Random fun fact of the day: 6th grade cheerleaders are just as ditzy and clueless as high-school cheerleaders
Random science fact of the day: When snakes are eating, they can’t breathe. They have two lungs: one below the other, which they fill with air prior to prey consumption. I’ll bet that’s why you don’t hear of very many asthmatic gopher snakes!
Feel good moment of the day: There was a very quiet girl that I noticed the first day during rec-time who was sitting by herself far away from the other children. I asked her if she was okay and when she said ‘yes’, I went on my merry way because I had a lesson to prep. Today, I signed up for rec-activity leading and after being suggested by another instructor, I decided to take out the Play-dough and a big piece of butcher paper with pens and colored pencils and see who wanted to create (gasp) ART with me. This girl came over and spent almost the entire time drawing various things and they were very good. She was very quiet and humble and after about 30-40 minutes went on her morose and sullen way. Strange, but I was glad I was able to provide an alternate entertainment for a child who clearly was not a big sports fan. Side note – This child with a curly fo-hawk spent 15 minutes making chickens out of Play-dough, axes out of Play-dough and mercilessly chopping their heads off leaving behind pools of Play-dough blood. Ah, to be a middle-school boy again…
Until next time, my friends and whoever else took time out of their day to read one tired, yet humored and decently satisfied young teacher’s thoughts. Thank you and goodnight.
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