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.
:)
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