The 3rd and Final Intensive

January 16-27, 2011

With this being my last intensive before graduation, I felt like an experienced veteran. I knew what to expect for the most part. I knew it would be intense. I also knew new dynamics would unfold with new faces that had just entered the program. Camp Wesley Woods near the Smoky Mountain National Park was our first destination.

Our focus this time around was Adventure Based Counseling. A very fancy term for what I had been doing during my challenge course years. Be familiar with much of the information, I didn’t feel overwhelm with information. Instead, this allowed me to just have fun. To watch others, who had never done anything like it before, be challenged and encouraged.

Other assignments involved being dropped off at an unknown location with 3 other people. Then with a map and list of items, we were sent out to find out as much information about the area as we could. We walked through the town of Townsend, TN talking with librarians, artists, musicians, political leaders, and local historians – people that have spent their whole life in this small town and others that came for different reasons and fell in love with it.

This intensive also led us to some interesting places. We visited a landfill (talk about experiential learning!), an environmental school in the Smokies, and a tree house. Yes. A tree house. This visit wasn’t really a school related function. It was a optional activity on our day off. I am so glad I didn’t opt out. I didn’t expect what I saw.

Stepping lightly, I was a bit nervous to move too quickly at first. I imagined this tree house really wasn’t regulated by any building codes. Within minutes my fears faded, as I was climbed up the staircase to the highest point.

As I reached the top, I knew little of the ministry that was behind the tree house. One only had to look out the window to see what it was all about.

After our day off, we changed locations and moved to a different part of Tennessee to experience another challenge course. This facility was very familiar t me as I had been their with my Challenge Course Facilitator class during the previous two fall semesters.

Again by this time, all of us were becoming more like a family– cooking meals for each other, staying up late to play cards, frustrations and laughter. I found myself surprised one morning. Conversation and statements I barely remember having made came to life before my eyes.

Greg and Casey were on breakfast crew. Pancakes were on the menu. I remembered mentioning the day before that my mom used to make pancakes in the shape of the first letter of my name. Well, that morning, they took it to the next level. I felt honored to receive their beautifully crafted masterpiece as Laura and Lauren also receive their flippantly-mentioned hippo and Minnie Mouse.

Our final destination was Atlanta where we visited Winshape, a conference center own and founded by Chick-fil-a, the PMI factory, and one of the best nature interpreters in the Southeast, Jerry Hightower.

Uncle Jerry was a common thread through all of the intensives, reminding us that learning should by interactive and fun. Prime example: the Scat Rap. Just like each person that was on each intensive, all brought a unique element that will always be connected to this experience and forever etched into my memory.

The Joys of Winter

January 10, 2011

What is winter without snow? Cold. Winters in Tennessee have little except cold. Not this winter. Everything shut down in the local area because of snow. Usually in the South everything would shutdown with only a half an inch on the ground. Being from the North, I can only shake my head. But this time, the complete shutdown was called for. With 6 inches of snowfall in one night, most places with the proper equipment would find it challenging to keep up.

With the University closed, the beautiful hills of Tennessee were open for fun. My boss just happened to have an AMAZING hill in his back yard. With an open invitation, the girls of Apt B bundled up and grabbed some trash bags.

People came and went in waves. Some arrived with tubs you would see being pulled behind a boat, others came with snowboards and even some skis.

The trash bag method was new to most. I had many surprised looks, but after I showed them how it was done, the girls gave it a go. Like a torpedo we shot down the hill. I walked away a little sore as always, but also with the satisfaction that this winter would not bare the label: cold.

Bring in the New Year

January 3, 2011

When traveling in the uncertain times of winter, one can hardly expect everything to go smoothly. My trip back to Tennessee did not by any means fail to match these expectations.

With my eye on the mend and interesting discoveries made about my medical condition, I made it out of England with little problem. I almost laughed out loud when I walked onto a 767 and saw the layout of the plane. No personal entertainment station on the set in front of you. Instead, 3 small screens hung from the center of the plane toward the front. A true blessing, as I am sure I would not have been able to resist the movie selection (as always) and given my eye some rest.

After landing in Raleigh are 5:30pm, the weather entered the scene. My next flight, from Raleigh to DC, was canceled. Next flight out…9:10….the next morning. Stranded. Lovely.

In moments such as these, I am thankful for 1.) having all of belonging in my carry-on 2.) my cell phone 3.) my past wanderings– creating friends in many places. After a few phone calls, brilliantly, my long time friend Ginger picked me up on her way home for work. The next morning, she dropped me off once again on the way to work. I arrived at the airport early enough that I was able to race through security and walk onto an earlier flight.

The weather’s involvement in my travels from this point on proved to be no more of an issue. Laura picked me up in DC and off we were to her house once again. In two days, we ventured to Annapolis, completed a tough puzzle, and enjoyed the wither activity of ice-skating.

With the Laura’s car loaded we headed back to Tennessee but not without one pit stop along the way. My mother’s house has become a regular stop on the journey from Highland, MD to Collegedale, TN. Spending New Year’s Eve and day was a treat as we made new years hats out of a 2010 calendar. As Laura and I were full of confidence in our ability to do puzzles, we decided to pick up a couple of puzzles from the dollar store to collectively do as we awaited the New Year to roll in.

The hours spent on one puzzle with little result made me reexamine my abilities. I wondered if this was a sign for the year to come: frustrating…impossible…incomplete. No. Those didn’t seem right. It was possible to complete the puzzle, little by little, in time. Thus we drove into Tennessee with our incomplete puzzle feeling not defeated but…humbled.