CALM before the STORM

Saturday January 9, 2010
CALM before the STORM!

I’m going to try to keep this one brief!!

For those who don’t already know, or haven’t already figured out; the next chapter of my life has recently begun:

The much anticipated month of December brought my good friend and housemate from Australia, Mel (anie)!! We had an awesome month of adventures spanning from Niagara Falls to Washington DC!!

About a week before Christmas, I was sitting at Baltimore’s inner harbor (harbour) with Mel sharing the American experience of a Ben and Jerry’s ice cream cone and pointing out the flag on Ft. McHenry when my phone rang. A day or two before, I had left a phone message to check in on my application status at Southern Adventist University so when I saw (Tennessee) appear on the screen of my phone I was pretty confident I knew whose voice I would hear on the other end.

Sure enough, it was Mike Hills, who I had been in contact with about my application to the Outdoor Education Master’s program as well as a position as a Graduate Assistant.

Okay – lets speed things up here . . .
*I was accepted into the program as well as offered a graduate assistantship (which covers tuition!!)

*I was asked to arrive by January 4th and was given the number of a girl who lives in an apartment on campus with other female GAs

*December 30th took Mel to the airport in the morning :( (really starting to dislike airports)

*Dec 30th – Jan 1st – packing and New Year’s Eve partay at our house!

*Jan 2nd - Three days after hugging Mel goodbye at the airport, Dad and I were climbing into our fully loaded cars and headed South-bound, ten hours down to Collegedale Tennessee, near Chattanooga!

*Jan 3rd – arrived in Collegedale (after spending the night with a lovely couple from church who has retired in Knoxville, TN and graciously let us stay with them) moved into the apartment and met two of my three new housemates . . . Here we go again folks!

Okay, I’ll admit it, I am sort of getting tired of starting over and might possibly, probably, likely, be ready to settle down, somewhere , after grad school, but yeah it’s still exciting to be different places and meet different people. I think I’m going to like it down here . . . once it warms up!! I expected it to be warmer since I was coming south but it has been just as cold as Maryland and we even had a dusting of snow (and ice) this week! It was kind of amusing to see the south’s reaction to snow. The schools closed early pretty much as first sight of snow, the university was closed the next day, bread and milk were flying off the shelves at the store, and sadly, there were many accidents due to people not knowing how to drive in these types of conditions.

"Student Park Cave" on campus! "Managed by the Outdoor Leadership Program"

The apartment is nice: Laundry room, nice kitchen, living room, two bedrooms, and one bathroom. If you have paid attention and done the math here you will have just come to the realization that this means four girls sharing one bathroom and two in each bedroom. Yes, this is a bit of a step backwards as I have been spoiled the past year and a half (besides summer camp) and gotten used to my own room and bathroom, however it has worked out just fine so far; no fights over the bathroom and my roommate is really nice!

Spaghetti dinner with Christina (roommate) and Heather!
None of us are overly into cooking but we try once in a while!

Dessert provided by undergrad Tyler! From Left: Tyler, Heather, Christina, and Lauren (Ren)

You may also have picked up on the name of the school: Southern Adventist. Before any assumptions are made: I have not converted to Seventh Day Adventist (apparently correctly pronounced with the emphasis on the “AD” instead of the “VEN” and often referred to as ”SDA”). In looking into doing a master’s program I was looking for a school that offered Outdoor Education from a Christian perspective and offered graduate assistantship that covered tuition. This school was just about the only one that covered all of those criteria!!

Things have been pretty slow so far but I know they are all going to pick up at once and soon so I’m trying to make the most of this time while I have it! We have a 10 day intensive where much of our course work is covered which runs January 17th – 26th. Part of the intensive this semester will be spent in Atlanta, GA (about 2 hours away). Our theme this intensive is "using nature as a learning tool". We will be exploring curriculum from a variety of outdoor organizations and visiting places like the aquarium, the zoo, schools with strong environmental programs and lots of outdoor centers (centres). I’m pretty excited! And might have to blog about it when I get back!

After this intensive is when the three of us new GAs will sit down with our uhhh supervisor? person and discuss, determine our roles. There are three positions open, or opening, at the moment. One involves working with SOAP Southern Outdoor Adventure Program, which coordinates, organizes, advertizes, and run activities for students on campus. Another is working with outside groups who we run activities for: low ropes, high ropes, team building, some on our site some on theirs. And the third is a unique and new position working with the Chattanooga Boys and Girls club getting an outdoor ed component going for their four sites in the area.

So that’s sort of an overview of life at the moment. Not sure how much time I am going to have once things get rolling here so wanted to at least get one post up before things get busy!
Hope all is well with everyone; that you all had a wonderful Christmas and are off to a great start to 2010!! :)

P.S. I'm thinking I should change the name of my blog to Messin' Around Down South :-P