With a cherry on top.

Recently the folks who specialize in working with our kids in the cities came up to train on our low and high ropes course so they can tag-team facilitation on-property in May and July. It's always so great when we work on curriculum in Blairstown because they get to feel the PBC experience. A, the poet of the bunch, always says "it's nice to see you all in your native habitat." Just like our participants, they are definitley out of their comfort zone at first, and then they always seem to do more than they thought they could, surprising themselves with their ability to complete challenges. Also, it was exciting for us (Pinja, CO2 and I) as staff on property to get to participate in some of the elements, instead of just facilitating them. They got a TON of information yesterday, and yet for facilitation of our Triangle Tension Traverse, everyone brought out all the energy we could muster, and in the pouring rain, we completed the element, then the sun came up and dried up all the rain, creating a rainbow. The debreif was short and sweet, facilitation superb, and then when we got back into the main area of camp we were lucky enough to run into this vision of prehistoric cool-ness:

It's 5 AM here in Vancouver, WA

Intrepid readers, I was awoken while sleeping by my coughing, got into the shower to try and loosen some of the shit in my lungs. I tried to go back to bed and just creaked open the laptop and kept coughing. Not really a problem, if I was staying at the Hilton on my own. Instead of keeping my sometimes-supervisor Heather up through the remaining wee hours, I put on my bra and Five Fingers, finger-combed my moist tresses and here I sit in the Hilton lobby. (Digression: They re-sized women's FiveFingers, where the W40 are a little large for me the NEW W40 fit me perfectly at the heel. They also come in blue and leaf-green with grey.) Yesterday was my first day at my first international AEE conference, and the first session I went to was on the postmodern student, to me the solution to the student that wants to smoke on expedition or bring iPods, I would bring that back to the student. How do you think that will change your experience? That of your peers? And you blend it, saying things like, when I have my iPod on, I tend to have a harder time paying attention to others; how does wearing your iPod affect you? Also, my supervisor Dave recently told me that it is valuable to seek to understand, then be understood, to create a healthy repor and relationships. Coming to this conference shows me where my organization is really quite strong (I was well-trained as a facilitator), and where we are lacking (inter-organization communicaton, well-defined positions, poor utilization of resources at times, diversity of staff and recruiting of alumni). This has very little to do with me, being a peon at the front-lines. I work with students in schools and on-property, and I really make change. However you can train people to be in my position. People need to grow and have experience to hold the positions which are currently open, so there's not a lot I can do to help. As far as conferences go, I think this conference is pretty fantastic, and I am thrilled that The Ivy sent 8 individuals to learn and grow from it.

The Post In Which I Own My Prejudice.

I had two different groups of participants to facilitate this past week. The first were a group of high school peer leaders (seniors) from New Brunswick, NJ, where 400 students began in their class and just 175 will graduate in June. The second were from a wealthy private school in Manhattan. The first group was at my place of work to get stuff done; they chose their co-leaders for the year on day two of three. The ninth grade Manhattanites were in Blairstown to "bond." When New Brunswick left, I knew each and every name, and the colleges they were applying to. I knew where they worked after-school, what got on their nerves, who had a tendency to lead and who to follow. Of the second group, I couldn't tell you names. Didn't retain the neighborhoods, save one Hoboken and one Spanish Harlem in the bunch. The girls were nice, but easily distracted. They're young, 14. They also have been to more foreign countries (mine: 0), go on vacation every summer, attend camp for weeks on end, and prefer salad to fast food. Most of them. Some are on scholarships, but overall these girls were a challenge for me. I didn't grow up poor. I was in the upper-middle class in the suburbs of D.C., living in a house that was practically palatial. But we bought our piano used from the neighbors down the street. We grew our own vegetables, tomatoes, strawberries. I split wood with a sledgehammer and bomb, for crying out loud! Prince George's County, MD was (is?) the capital of Afro-American wealth in the States. White flight led to being half-white when I was six and 85% black by the time we moved when I was 16. I relate more to the kids who came in the beginning of the week, minority-majority students who often needed to overcome gang and drug culture from D.C. as their families escaped into the suburbs. I went to schools where the stalls could be looked over, where there were parenting classes for the teen mom's-to-be, where a student once had her head bashed in by a sink behind my high school. And so, even though I'm sporting a hipster scarf like the Manhattanites, and faced few obstacles to graduating high school, applying for then atttending college, I don't feel the same as those girls. I feel jealous, angry, unsophisticated, and befuddled: how do I challenge you? What are your struggles? And how do I help you get something out of experiential education? A question I'm working on answering at the moment. To be fair, October through May I will be working in my schools with our Primary Service Population, "underserved urban youth," who are the groups who I find easier a repor with. I've experienced racism as a white person, and it wasn't fair, it didn't feel good (though I'm happy I've had the experience of being a minority, if it makes sense). It's not fair to pass that prejudice on to my own pale students now. It's not appropriate, logical, or productive.

How many blueberries?

I survived my first foray into canning as an adult a few weeks ago. My co-worker/friend Christine and I, along with fellow co-worker Nancy, all picked wild blueberries in some harrowing mosquitoes off of the Appalachian Trail. I also canned some Shiro plums (read: the very pretty bright-yellow Japanese variety) with lemon. More pectin as thickener next time, but overall it was a very pleasing experience. We picked for 4.5 hours, yielding 18 jars of what I am calling "Wild Organic Free-Range Blueberry Jam" from the hills of the Delaware River Valley. Truly a feat considering how tiny the wild berries were, I think. I also deemed it was time this month to invest in a new climbing harness, a tent, sleeping bag, and pad of my own. I paid all of this month's bills already, and October will be lean for me to save up for my Association for Experiential Education conference in the beginning of November, which will be around $750, we think.