First Snow Week

Teaching in the Snow
This week we started out with 6 inches of snow. Everyday was an experiment of gear, teaching strategies and figuring things out. The kids were so excited when they got off the bus. Many of them had never seen snow before. We had to be really strict with them so that they didn’t go run and try to make snow angel in their shorts. :)

First things first, the students went with their cabin instructors to get set up in their cabins and to get properly dressed for the snow. Many of them didn’t come with the right gear so we had to outfit them with our “Green Gear.” This is heavy duty water proof stuff used previously by the military. It’s pretty funny to see them all dressed. It’s also a pain to get on and they hate it, but it keeps them dry which keeps them warm. I had a couple students who brought those Converse All-Stars to wear all week as their shoes. Thank goodness we had gear for them. Minnesotans know how to do it but these guys have no idea. :)

It was hard at first to teaching the snow because I had to adapt some of my activities and sometimes we simply ran out of time because it takes so much longer for the students to hike in the snow. One thing I learned quickly is that poker chips as teaching tool do not work because they sink in the snow and the white ones are impossible to find.  I’m still learning and adjusting…

9 and 1/2 fingers
On Thursday night I had an eventful evening when I was helping prepare the second meal for the kids. I was helping by cutting lettuce but as I was cutting, I accidentally cut a little bit of my finger off. Yep. It didn’t even really hurt which is why I was more concerned about finding my finger piece than I was about the pain. We had just gotten new knives and so it gave me a pretty clean cut. I chopped off the corner of my nail and a bunch of skin. After putting some pressure on it I went to see our medic and she took good care of me by wrapping it up and things. It was funny to see some of my friends’ reactions. Some wanted to see the piece I chopped off and others could hardly come near me. They all made a joke of the fact that I had to keep my hand above my head to stop the bleeding. I held my pointer finger up so it looked like I was giving myself bunny ears. My friends mimicked me to be funny. They also made jokes like, “Sharon, do you have a question? You hand is up.” It was pretty funny!

The only trouble was that after a full day we couldn’t get it to stop bleeding. Then we talked to Drizzt the director and he suggested I go to the doctor to make sure we were doing the right things. My friend Ange took me to the ER late after work because we had to wait for the Workman’s Comp papers. When I got there they were surprised that I waited until then to get in. They didn’t really do much that we weren’t already doing but they gave me a tetanus shot wrapped the cut with an antibiotic thing. The nurse did a funny job with the gauze which you can see from the picture below. It looks like a hammer!


I’ll keep you posted and try to take picture of it once it finally starts to heal. The only thing that sucks is that now I have no chance at a hand modeling career! Bummer right?