I thought instead of going week by week with the little things about my days, that I would just tell you about a few of the big things that have been happening out here in California for me and share some more photos.
High Trails Update:
Belay Specialist- At work I’ve been getting more comfortable with our tasks, the classes, and the students. It’s starting to feel more like a routine and it doesn’t stress me out too much. I was on cabins for a while straight which was fun because one of the weeks I got to be Belay Specialist. This means that while I am with my cabin group at night, during the day I have to set up and take down the climbing wall. I also stay for each class to be an extra belayer. It was a lot of work because I didn’t really get much time off that week but I had fun and it was nice to see the extra money on the pay check.
Moving on up- Also at work I have finally moved up a level. I’m not at Level 2 which means that I completed a certain number of work days and experience days, I’ve done a number of observations, and I’ve written a book report. (sounds like homework huh?) Because I’m now at Level 2 I’m eledgable for pro-deals, I got a t-shirt, and I get a little more of my health insurance paid for. Pretty good huh? It was a lot of work but now I just need to move up to Level 3 that’s when the real bump is. I get $5 more a day in pay! Woohoo!
Line dancing twice- This past week our staff changed around our evening programs so that the students cold be inside for a period of time each night. This meant that both groups have line dancing on the same night. I taught line dancing this week and it was actually really fun to do it back to back. I felt much better about my teaching this time than when I taught for the first time. I was much more relaxed and had a lot more fun. I still need to work on counting them in to start at the right spot, but that will come in time.
Observation- At High Trails we get observed twice each season. One is a full evaluation and the other is a flash evaluation. On the day that John was going to come out to the field with me they told me that I was going to get evaluated on one of my classes. Talk about pressure huh? I was pretty nervous and John helped me study the night before but it’s a good that when I’m teaching I can usually block out any observers. The person coming out to watch me was Dawn. She is the boss, Drizzt’s wife. I’ve worked with her through my project area and line dancing. We have a pretty good relationship. She’s actually from Minnesota and told me she sees a lot of herself in me. That’s nice. I wasn’t too worried about the whole thing but I wanted to be prepared and do my best. After the class I felt okay about it. I taught the Earthworks class which is all about Geology. It’s certainly not my strongest class but I felt I gave it my best shot. Dawn and I met the following day to discuss the feedback. She made some good observations, some that I was already aware of and gave me some great suggestions for the next class. Over all she said I was doing well and that she’s excited to see how I progress through the year. My score wasn’t high enough to move to a level where I can rewrite lesson plans but that’s okay. I had a lot of odds against me with the class, the location, and the students. Just ask John. J
I’ll let you know when I have flash evaluation. That’s when the administration can evaluate you with out warning on any form of job task. It could be when we are running a meal, belaying, something in the cabins…. It’s usually not class related. I don’t know when that will happen. Hmm…
No water pressure!- Last week had a bit of a catastrophe in the middle of the day. On Wednesday my director made an announcement on our radios that they were having trouble with the water pressure at camp and that we weren’t allowed to use certain bathrooms. I didn’t think much of this since I had taken my group away from camp for the day and if they had to go to the bathroom they would have to go Happy Tree anyways. Then later he came on the radios to say again that the problem on effected all of the bathrooms and that we should start to be more conservative with the water that we had with us. Now I was a little more concerned. This was obviously a big problem. I decided to take a second to make this a teachable moment for the kids to think about water concervation and to tell them that there isn’t that much clean water for us to drink in our world. They listened and it maybe stuck with a couple of the students. I think it was more of a scare for me because this is where I live and if I don’t have water??? That wouldn’t be good!
Once we got back to camp for switch over is when I really saw the problem hit the hardest. My director was telling the cabin instructors that they couldn’t have their students shower that night and that all of the toilets had to be flushed the old fashion way with a bucket and water.
Dinner time was interesting. We had enough water to cook with but we couldn’t wash any dishes because of the water pressure and there wasn’t hot water to wash them by hand. Some how we still got dinner out to all the students but ended up using every dish in the kitchen.
Thankfully the problem was solved by morning so we were up and in business to go for the day. It was quite the reality check for me and now is just another reminder to conserve water where you can. If you need any ideas of how just talk to my students, they come up with some great ideas. Shorten the shower, turn the sink off while you’re brushing your teeth, save the water while the shower water is warming up and use it to water your plants. They are only 6th graders but they’ve got some good ideas!
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