Preparing for the Intercept River Visit
We currently have an Intercept course out on the river, and tomorrow I'm going on a river visit with the Course Director. I was explicitly told by the Program Director that all I would be doing on the river visit is observing.
But what I heard was that I would be getting paid eighty dollars a day to go canoeing and camping. Yes, please.
The group of participants on this course is a little unnerving, though, because they are all my age (more or less). I know that I'm "very mature for my age", and that no one thinks that I'm under twenty-one, but it's really strange to think of how much more my life is together and coherent compared to these participants. And I feel a lot less nervous about going out full-time on a course in autumn since I realized that it doesn't really matter how much I know about being a Wilderness Instructor as long as I know more about what's going on than the participants do. As long as I look like I've got my act together (and I've been doing that for twenty years), then they'll think that I know what I'm doing.
Now that we have a course on the river, I feel like my job as the Logistics Coordinator has more purpose. Instead of doing random odd jobs that no one else has the time or will to do, I actually have a plan, a purpose, an outcome to achieve. I pack out this food and this gear to this group so that they can continue on their way. With the work that I'm doing and the talks that I've had with the Instructors that come in and out of this Alabama base, I'm going to be unbelievably prepared for my New Staff Training in early September. After that twelve-day training I'll probably be on my first course as an Intern Instructor in October. I'm pretty excited about that.
In other news, my brother found a place for us to live (in Tallahassee). From what I hear it's a two-bed, one-bath quadraplex off of Park Avenue just east of Blairstone Road, which is right around the corner from where Lee and I used to live on Blairstone. I will probably be back in Tallahassee either from July 27-July 29 or from July 29-July 31 to pack and move all of my stuff from Aintree over to the new place. I'm not at all looking forward to living with my brother, and I need to keep telling myself that I will almost never be there, even when I am in Tallahassee.
But what I heard was that I would be getting paid eighty dollars a day to go canoeing and camping. Yes, please.
The group of participants on this course is a little unnerving, though, because they are all my age (more or less). I know that I'm "very mature for my age", and that no one thinks that I'm under twenty-one, but it's really strange to think of how much more my life is together and coherent compared to these participants. And I feel a lot less nervous about going out full-time on a course in autumn since I realized that it doesn't really matter how much I know about being a Wilderness Instructor as long as I know more about what's going on than the participants do. As long as I look like I've got my act together (and I've been doing that for twenty years), then they'll think that I know what I'm doing.
Now that we have a course on the river, I feel like my job as the Logistics Coordinator has more purpose. Instead of doing random odd jobs that no one else has the time or will to do, I actually have a plan, a purpose, an outcome to achieve. I pack out this food and this gear to this group so that they can continue on their way. With the work that I'm doing and the talks that I've had with the Instructors that come in and out of this Alabama base, I'm going to be unbelievably prepared for my New Staff Training in early September. After that twelve-day training I'll probably be on my first course as an Intern Instructor in October. I'm pretty excited about that.
In other news, my brother found a place for us to live (in Tallahassee). From what I hear it's a two-bed, one-bath quadraplex off of Park Avenue just east of Blairstone Road, which is right around the corner from where Lee and I used to live on Blairstone. I will probably be back in Tallahassee either from July 27-July 29 or from July 29-July 31 to pack and move all of my stuff from Aintree over to the new place. I'm not at all looking forward to living with my brother, and I need to keep telling myself that I will almost never be there, even when I am in Tallahassee.