Leaves aturnin' and a fire's burnin'...

Being here is an experience. (Just a random picture, not in MD)

It's interesting; last week we were asked to draw (as a class training exercise) on butcher paper 1st, what our home looked like. Then what other various parts of home looked like: 1) most comforting spot, 2) a place you go a lot, 3) a natural place around home, 4) a place where you go to congregate with friends, 5) where you go to be alone, and 6) what it looks like from your bedroom window. The 1st question was very vague and ambiguous and it got me thinking; this is the first time in my life where I havent been able to positively say where my home is. I took these questions in the sense of place rather than structure. What I drew was a meshing of 3 drawings that remind me of places I feel that "home sense". I drew representations of Lopez Island, Arcata, and my planet. This was a very weird and contemplative exercise for me to find 3 places home and not just one. I'm not sure if I should realy delve in to this and come to terms with it or just let it sit and not ponder too much. Just relying on something I know works 100%---the flow.

I've been pondering lately what my next step after this will be. I plan on spending thanksgiving in NY, making it to Lopez for "the end of the world" :), and then taking care of my mom after her surgery (100% commitment to this). But after alla that I'm not too sure where I'll go. I have an obvious draw and want to return to Arcata and get a job doing building projects for people and just trying to build up some money and re-connect to my community. I really want to get fully back into silks so I can start instructing sometime soon. Get some sort of summer job. Adventure. Next fall I'm thinking of starting my 2-year associates degree at Seattle Central Community College (click to see) 
to enter in to the carpentry/woodworking/boat building program. I think I just want to be an artisan of goods like sail boats, houses, knives, prints, and other things for "making a living". I also want to do seasonal work and spread myself that way as well. So we'll see where the universe takes me, it's an exciting ride.

Last week we had very light programming--meaning that we had small school groups come and it wasnt too intense. I had two night hike nights and those were fun and went well. We teamed up with my friend Kate's nighthike groups and had some fun big group games/night interactions. Kate and I also had this AMAZING stream studies class with a group of 7th graders. It was soo fun and reminded me of alla those labs where we'd go to Jacoby Creek or local Arcata streams and just play, study and look at macroinvertebrates all day. I got to be the leader and wear waders (and fall in wearing waders..hah), catch bugs, teach kids how to catch them, and then talk about different adaptations of stream critters (like the clams that were everywhere). It was the best! Loved it!

Two weekends ago me and 2 friends went to DC for a night of dancing and city life. Every big city is within 2 hours of here. That's really great! It was a fun city night walking the main drag, dancing at DC's premier gay dance club (music was so-so), and just getting out of the Echo Hill area. It's great here, but is sometimes suffocating, which is why it rocks to have freinds with cars who want to get away.

This last weekend was the fall equinox and I spent it pretty mellow-ly :) Wrote a letter to universal new beginnings and lit it on fire. The day of the equinox me and 3 of my buddies sailed on the Chesapeake for 5 hours. We swam, laughed, and tacked. I love how sailing is non-passive. You cant just sit there, it takes the whole crew to counter balance and pull the jib and alla that sailor schtuff. Very fun! Though I have no aspirations of sailing the ocean, I think I just will stick to bays and lakes.

I plan to get a new tattoo very soon. I tend to do this at transitional periods of life. I'm excited. I really want a plecoptera nymph or an argus pheasant feather.

I guess this is a popular song right now, but I really enjoy it. Definitely relatable, but not too much. I also think it has a beautiful melody.

Sprout Out!

Real Kids! Ah....

There it is! This is the "Green House" and it is where I am/will be living until November. Like I said in the last post it's an old plantation house. It used to live on the banks of the Chesapeake Bay in Chestertown, MD but it was moved (like they move many houses) to it's current location. It is on-campus and just a short run down a gravel road to get from the tents where the kiddies sleep to the house. I share my room with Zu (Zuzanna) and our room is the 2 windows on the right side (from this view). My other house-mates are my co-workers Dani, Clarence, Koddee, and Kiva. Everyone besides Koddee and I are from the East/Eastcoast. Koddee is from Montana and I'm from the furthest west location. The rest of my co-workers are great people as well. Four of them are interns and just out of highschool. It's interesting to have them as peers because of the job we have (working here) and knowing we are in very different stages of life.

Okay now on to the 1st week with kids (last week):
On Monday a school came just for a day program (10th graders). It was a a good intro to hanging out with/and teaching kids, but without so much pressure of a week long hardcore schedule. We did fun things to build group dynamics and personal strength.

Note: I need to get checked off to teach more science based classes, so I will be doing that soon.

Wednesday through Friday of last week 3 separate school groups came. All were private schools with a 6th-8th grade range. We (the group I had with my co-teacher) tried to teach survival skillz to 8th graders and it was very challenging to get them to hold their attention for any amount of time. They would listen for about 10 seconds then be gone like they'd never heard anything we said. 8th graders are the most challenging. Then the rest of the week we got to work with 6th graders who were really attentive, sweet, and super smart. They were impressive. Took them on a night hike and played night games, watched the stars, and had an all around good time. I encountered a kid who was high energy, very smart, and obviously annoyed the pants off of his classmates. But he was so great and it was interesting to meet a kid who I suspect might have a hard time getting through middle school and high school. To meet this boy from this perspective is an interesting one. I remember kids like him in elementary school or middle school and remember how (as a peer) I thought they were annoying and hard to deal with, but now as an adult and teacher I think he was the coolest kid outta that group. Perspective shifts are very cool. That night I was on the schedule to read a bedtime story to a tent of 7th grade girls (standard practice with boys/girls to help them get to sleep and stop thinking about bugs and scary outside things), so I did that and it was nice. It's amazing how scared all the kids are of bugs and nature.

For the weekend it was 1st Friday arts night in Chestertown, then we had a ladies night gathering at another staff housing in town called the "Swamp House". It is on the swamp :) That was a ton of fun to just hang out with friends and not have to do/worry about work stuff. Definitely a different dynamic. Went to the farmer's market on Saturday and almost went sailing Sunday, but there was no wind.

This week started yesterday with 4 school groups coming in with grades ranging from 5th-7th. I got to hang out yesterday with a sweet bunch of 7th graders. It's amazing how deep they could take concepts and articulate their thoughts on metaphors for life and things like that. And how well (compared to the 8th graders) they worked as a cohesive team and learned from mistakes and lessons of earlier in the day activities. One young girl told me I should be an inspirational speaker, which I took to mean that I inspired her. That was really cool. It's different when those words come from a kid.

Also, another funny thing that all groups i've had have been really interested in is if my real name is Sprout. I tell them "yes", but then they ask if my parents named me that and I don't want to lie so I say "no". Some stop there, but there have been a few kids who ask me what my parents named me and I say "that doesn't really matter, because now my name is Sprout" and with those time where a kid has inquired further they've had one of their classmates say something to the effect of "maybe it's not appropriate to be asking that" or "it's rude to ask about that". I'm fine with being asked what my real real name is, but it was interesting to see these young kids being so aware that they could see how inquiring further could be offensive in some way :D Hanging with kids is fun.

I have my morning off, which is why I'm writing this. Though I probably wont be updating as regularly as when I was on Lopez because the internetz here is very very very slow (it took 30 mins to load the picture in this post).

I hope everyone who is reading this is doing well in life, school, work, adventures, and other endeavors. Cheers to now!

Sprout Out!

Maryland is the South??

Here I am in Maryland (not related to the picture). I chose this picture because it is a great representation of the main town I live near and, I suppose, Maryland as a whole. Very Colonial. Very water based. It kinda reminds me of a movie based in The South. Super humid at this time of year (yesterday I was sweating from morning 'til night-with breaks only while swimming in The Bay or cold showering). This isn't me complaining, but trying to give you a picture of how it is here. It's really exciting how different everything is here; the culture, plants, climate, people. I'm loving the drastic change, it's great.

So I've been here for a week. The first week we didn't work with kids, it was the training week. It was cooler than any training week I've ever had. We played games, went sailing, night hiking, canoeing, visited an arboretum (Adkin's Arboretum), and much more. My upcoming Fall job is going to be really great. I will be payed to have fun. I'm so excited. There is a zip line here. I live in a house with 5 other naturalists on campus--it's called The Green House. It's an old plantation house and is really homey, nice and welcoming. Also, since it's on campus it's a great hang out spot on Fridays after work.

Our first group of the season arrives tomorrow. I'm scheduled to co-teach a few classes throughout the week and I will solo teach a really exciting class called Nighthike. The way they let us teachers teach here is pretty much completely up to us. It's very free form and personal. With the Nighthike I get to take a group of 12 kids out at night and introduce them to different nature aspects of the night....ah, I'm so excited.

There are about 30 staff here and we're all, for the most part, in the same age group. I really like that. I feel like i want to go garden right now, but I will def. post again after I experience my first week of kids or before. Hope all is well!

Sprout Out!