First I admitted my ambition. Then I talked about donations. Now, the marathon is almost 3 weeks behind me and I suppose it's time I spoke about how it went. So here's the skinny.
First, and most important, I raised just over $800 for the Lasallian Volunteers! My goal was $1000, and I'm still hoping to reach it. If you are willing to help me, please check out the instructions in this older blog post. If you already donated, THANK YOU!, and be expecting a little something from me in the mail soon. Now, for the run itself.
Friday, December 3, Mike, Denny, and I landed in Memphis, TN where we met the other 47 or so participating volunteers, plus probably another 30 LV alumni, not to mention a whole community of Christian Brothers. PAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRTTTTTYYYYYY!!!! Ok, maybe we didn't party that much, but don't blame us for that, we had to run a marathon the next day. We spent Friday afternoon wandering Memphis a little bit, hydrating, and enjoying a pasta dinner/carbo-loading session courtesy of the Bro's at Christian Brother's University. It was an early night for most, with an air of nervous excitement permeating our dreams as we psyched ourselves up for our respective races.
Saturday, December 4, the 5k runners got up a little earlier than everybody else because they had to be on the start line for a 7:15AM gun. The big business (aka the half-marathon and the full-marathon) started at 8:00. I was especially nervous as I headed out to the start for several reasons. First, I HAD NEVER EVER EVER RUN A MARATHON BEFORE! Even though I trained for months before the race, even though I'd done the long runs, even though my training had culminated in a 20 miler, I still wasn't sure I could do it. This fear was made much worse by reason number two: the week before the marathon I found that a muscle on the outside of my right thigh had gone past the point of mere soreness that had been irritating me for several weeks and instead progressed to actual pain. What was wrong with it? Would I be able to finish? The third reason I was so nervous as I approached the starting line: time corrals. There are runners at the start who have shirts and signs that say what time they will be running the marathon in. If you want to run a 5 hour race, stand by the guy with the 5 hour sign on his back. Well, I wasn't sure what my time should be. In my training I had planned for 10 minute miles, a 04h22m marathon. But then I found out how much faster some people go, some not terribly fit, not particularly well-trained people, and I thought to myself, "well, shouldn't I be able to go that fast, at least?" So, I decided to have my trepidations meet my expectations in the middle, at the 04h05m mark. A pre-race run to the porta-john and I was ready to go. I guess.
As the race began, I was pacing with 2 other LVs, Christine and Gosia. Things were going well for me until about mile 3. Then that silly muscle started to hurt, right at the point where it inserts on the outside of the knee (by the way, I have since found out what that is, it's called the ilio-tibial band, and the issue is apparently that it rubs on the femur slightly and can become tendinous if overused). Well, I kept running, just kind of powering through the mild pain, for another 5 miles or so. But then it really started to hurt, so I stopped to stretch it. That was a MISTAKE. It still hurt when I stopped and the stretching did nothing, the first couple steps back on the course were 100x worse than before I had stopped. Nonetheless, I decided to catch up to Gosia (Christine had dropped behind) so I picked up the pace a bit to close the distance. The weird thing: as soon as I accelerated the pain went away completely. I didn't feel it at all. But when I caught up to Gosia and slowed down again, the pain was back. Obvious solution? Go fast for the whole race. So I did. Kind of.
I picked up my pace around mile 8.5 and kept it up for about 10 miles. I passed hundreds of people, including the half-marathoners (who run on the same course), and felt great. But eventually my stamina ran out. Around mile 18 or 19 I just couldn't keep that speed. I had to slow down. And as soon as I did the pain was back. But now I only had a few miles left, I couldn't quit. So I just kept running. It was, in a word, terrible. My muscles all over hurt, that stupid IT Band was excruciating, I was out of energy, and only mental determination kept me going. From mile 19ish to mile 23ish was miserable. People on the sidelines would say as I ran by that I "make it look easy" or that I am "doing great." Bullsh*t. Complete and utter lies. The look of pain on my face, the uncoordinated stumbling I was doing as I went, surely gave away the struggle I was going through inside. But I kept running.
By mile 23, every mile felt like 4. I remember passing the mile 23 mark and thinking it should have been 24. Had I somehow gotten lost and gone in a loop? I was sure I had passed 23 already. But apparently not. What felt like half an hour later I passed 24. Shouldn't that have been 25? I tricked myself into continuing by believing in between mile markers that I had gone farther than I had. Finishing the race seemed so much more realistic when I thought it was not as far as it really was. It's like being on a long hike and always believing the end is just at the top of the hill. There's always another hill, but somehow you can keep going when you think there's only one. And so I kept running because I kept lying to myself.
When I got to mile 25, even lying to myself was almost not enough. I became so exhausted at one point in mile 25 that I stopped. Just for a second, but it was enough. My next step was excruciating. My IT Band was screaming at me to just sit down and do nothing. let them carry me off the course, it wouldn't matter. but I couldn't. I had trained so hard, had worked myself up so much for this race, that I couldn't stop. When would I ever run another? What would I tell the people who had donated to this effort? It just didn't seem like an option. So I kept going.
Mile 26 came with a blessing. A couple came up on me and offered a couple words of encouragement. They were local, so they pointed out where we were going. The stadium was in sight. I didn't want to lose them, so I picked up my pace enough to stay with them. We chatted and we ran. It was not a distraction from the pain, but it was a reason to ignore it. They were funny, too. As we were running, a man walking the other way on the course said (I don't know why people insist on saying this) "Yeah! You guys make it look easy." Well, I was fed up with it. "You're a damn liar!" I called back to him. The woman said to me, "don't worry, we know him. I'll hit him for that later."
The couple stayed with me to just a couple hundred yards short of the finish, then there was the single hardest moment on the entire course. You are going up a small hill (but even small hills seem huge after 26.1 miles) and there is a U-turn. Literally, you have to do a complete 180 degrees, running uphill, on a pivot. You have to break stride and turn. It was perhaps the most exhausting moment I can remember. There was a group of LV's just above that point who had done the half-marathon and the 5k. They were cheering for me as I came by. But it was just after that turn, and I simply couldn't muster a response. I wanted to. I really wanted to give them high-5s, or to call back, or to do something to acknowledge them, but i couldn't. That turn, less than 200 yards before the end, was as much as I could take. All I could focus on after that was moving forward. it took all my mental strength to continue. The hill finishes and there is a left turn into the stadium, then a left turn down the 1st base line (you come in through the outfield) and most people seemed to speed up just then. They wanted to finish strong. I wanted to finish strong, too, but just finishing was all I had the might for.
About 3 steps after the finish I bent down and put my hands on my knees to rest. i let my head just hang. A woman came up and put a finisher's medal around my neck, handed me a space blanket, and said "Do you need medical help?" That's how terrible I looked, I guess. When someone is asking if you need a doctor, you can't be looking too good. I think I managed to muster a "no," grabbed a couple bottles of water, then walked out onto the grass and stopped moving. I laid down and stayed down for 10, 15, 20, 30 minutes, I don't even know. I started to get chilly after a while so I moved into the sun, then I continued my motionless state in the Memphis sunshine for another hour, at least. Other LV marathoners finished and joined me. I think I looked the worst of anybody. Ricky still had the energy to jog other people in as they finished. I couldn't even muster the will to stand. But I finished.
Eventually the lure of free post-race food and drink motivated me to stand. I took the stairs up the stadium one at a time. I moved slowly to the bag check and got my stuff, put my pants on over my shorts, and shuffled my way to the food tent. I ate the best pizza of my life (I think it was Dominoes, and it was cold, but I loved it), then headed down Beale Street to find the other LVs. We spent a little time there then headed back to CBU for a delicious BBQ dinner.
Let me tell you a bit about this dinner. One of the sororities at CBU found out we were there and cooked us some authentic southern BBQ. They started roasting the pork early that morning and roasted it all day. It was served with baked beans, amazing cole slaw, and mashed potatoes. I'm not a huge fan of BBQ, but if it tasted like that all the time, I definitely would be. Additionally, one of the LV alums local to Memphis managed to acquire a keg of Ghost River Brewing Company (Memphis local) beer to go with the dinner. The evening tasted delectable.
On the morning of Sunday, December 5th, there were a couple sore heads and some late sleepers, but most everybody was in good condition to travel, and many planes home were caught. Denny, Mike, and I had stressful connecting flights both going and coming, but luckily (I guess) Delta never departs on time, so we managed to make them. I was exhausted, and still having some very real trouble with stairs, but Monday was back to work, so back to work it was.
My recovery has been going pretty well, though as you might suspect about a person such as myself, I have definitely pushed my IT band too far, too fast. My job pretty much requires basketball in the day to day, and I also took kids on a 7 mile hike this week, so I've put myself back a bit, but I feel better daily nonetheless, so I hope to be fully fit again soon. I have some other things I would like to write about from work lately, but this post is certainly long enough already, so I am going to let them wait for my next update. Until then, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. As always, please feel free to post comments or send me an email.
Alex
PS> The stats on my finish - Overall place, 367/2427. Place in age group, 15/76. 6.2 mile mark-57m51s; 9m20s pace. 13.1 mile mark-01h56m04s; 8m52s pace. 20 mile mark-02h52m07s; 8m37s pace. finish line-03h49m34s; 8m46s pace.
Monday, December 20, 2010
Thursday, November 4, 2010
Dealing with a Minor Crisis
I've had a bit of a realization as I have tried to write these blogs: I am not a particularly good writer. There are so many things I really ought to write about, but when I start trying to put them on paper, they sound trivial or boring. The good news, though, is that I looked at the "stats" on this blog, and found that not many people are reading it ... so at least I'm not worried about lots of people thinking I'm boring, just some. But whatever.
Shortly after I came to Albany, I had 5 days of Therapeutic Crisis Intervention (TCI) training. I felt like I had a pretty good grasp of what was going on throughout the training, and when I started working with the kids, I felt like I was pretty effectively utilizing it. It's interesting how perspective changes over time, though. There was a minor incident with a frequently problematic student tonight. I was running a Spades tournament for the evening activity and he was losing at his table. He was dealt a very poor hand and, in an attempt to force a re-deal, dropped a card under the table and tried to claim he hadn't been dealt the proper number. Well, a staff member saw the whole thing and called him out on it, which set him off. "He's cheating! He misdealt and now he's trying to blame it on me! I picked that card up off the floor! I'm not cheating! It should be a re-deal!" etc. I was working on de-escalating the situation (an effort the other staff sadly made no effort to aid) even as the other kids in the room were working as hard as they could to escalate it. The student who was caught cheating frequently gets in fights, and they seemed to think it would be sporting to edge him into violence tonight. Well, with great difficulty I got him to go outside with me to remove him from the situation, and he calmed down a little bit. But then he decided he should go back inside. And then he quit the game. But then he wanted back in the game. And then he was back to arguing about whether or not he had cheated. In the end, I managed to bring him down far enough toward his baseline behavior that I was able to get him to leave and go back to his division (where the students live).
Ideally, I would have been able to get him and his peers to a place where he could stay and finish the game, but I'm just not there yet. I think I handled the situation alright, but I also realize how overconfident I was 2 months ago, and how overconfident I probably still am. There are a lot of times when I find that I can't de-escalate a situation, or worse, that I am sometimes the cause of the situation, and I'm still growing in my ability to deal with these kids very fragile emotional states. It is so easy to bounce some of these boys from baseline to near-crisis, but so impossible to bring them back down. There are nights, especially when we play 5 on 5 basketball, that I have to step away from the situation for a couple minutes to calm myself down before I can even dream of being effective at helping them. The TCI process always starts with "What am I feeling right now?" because if we as child care workers enter into a situation with anything other than the welfare of the student in the forefront of our mind, we are almost guaranteed to fail. The most common mistake I've seen anybody make (and I don't excuse myself from the list of culprits) is failing to ask this question before engaging with a student, and the outcome can be grim if the staff fails to deal with him/her-self before dealing with a boy whose emotional coping capabilities are nearly nonexistent.
Shortly after I came to Albany, I had 5 days of Therapeutic Crisis Intervention (TCI) training. I felt like I had a pretty good grasp of what was going on throughout the training, and when I started working with the kids, I felt like I was pretty effectively utilizing it. It's interesting how perspective changes over time, though. There was a minor incident with a frequently problematic student tonight. I was running a Spades tournament for the evening activity and he was losing at his table. He was dealt a very poor hand and, in an attempt to force a re-deal, dropped a card under the table and tried to claim he hadn't been dealt the proper number. Well, a staff member saw the whole thing and called him out on it, which set him off. "He's cheating! He misdealt and now he's trying to blame it on me! I picked that card up off the floor! I'm not cheating! It should be a re-deal!" etc. I was working on de-escalating the situation (an effort the other staff sadly made no effort to aid) even as the other kids in the room were working as hard as they could to escalate it. The student who was caught cheating frequently gets in fights, and they seemed to think it would be sporting to edge him into violence tonight. Well, with great difficulty I got him to go outside with me to remove him from the situation, and he calmed down a little bit. But then he decided he should go back inside. And then he quit the game. But then he wanted back in the game. And then he was back to arguing about whether or not he had cheated. In the end, I managed to bring him down far enough toward his baseline behavior that I was able to get him to leave and go back to his division (where the students live).
Ideally, I would have been able to get him and his peers to a place where he could stay and finish the game, but I'm just not there yet. I think I handled the situation alright, but I also realize how overconfident I was 2 months ago, and how overconfident I probably still am. There are a lot of times when I find that I can't de-escalate a situation, or worse, that I am sometimes the cause of the situation, and I'm still growing in my ability to deal with these kids very fragile emotional states. It is so easy to bounce some of these boys from baseline to near-crisis, but so impossible to bring them back down. There are nights, especially when we play 5 on 5 basketball, that I have to step away from the situation for a couple minutes to calm myself down before I can even dream of being effective at helping them. The TCI process always starts with "What am I feeling right now?" because if we as child care workers enter into a situation with anything other than the welfare of the student in the forefront of our mind, we are almost guaranteed to fail. The most common mistake I've seen anybody make (and I don't excuse myself from the list of culprits) is failing to ask this question before engaging with a student, and the outcome can be grim if the staff fails to deal with him/her-self before dealing with a boy whose emotional coping capabilities are nearly nonexistent.
Tuesday, September 28, 2010
LVs Running in Memphis
I have a confession to make. It's something I've been thinking about announcing for 2 months now, but I've been afraid. Afraid of saying something, of committing myself to a thing I might not be able to follow through on. But as I think more and more about this thing, I also prepare myself more and more for its eventuality. And so it is finally time for me to come out with it, to risk failure but strive for success. I am going to run the Memphis Marathon on December 4. It will be more than twice the longest distance I had ever before run, and that worried me when I signed up, but my long training runs have broken in the double digits, and I'm still alive and (mostly) healthy. So, hopefully I'll make it. There's been some stiffness and occasional pain in my right knee and both my ankles, but nothing debilitating by any means, and those have been my biggest problems so far. I'm keeping my fingers crossed and putting rubber on the road.
Having announced my plan to run the Memphis Marathon, I have to also tell you all that it would never have even occurred to me to do this if not for the fact that my whole program (the LVs) is involved. Of the 57 volunteers, almost all are running in one of the three races, either the full marathon, the half marathon, or the 5k. We are doing this in an effort to raise money for the program. Each person's goal, even those not running, is $1,000 for a total volunteer contribution of $57,000. For me to reach my goal, I need your help. There are just over 50 people on my "blog update" list, and if every one of those people donated just $20, my goal would be met. Can you help me do this? You know from my blog what I've been up to and who your donation ultimately serves, so if you consider my current endeavor worthwhile, I hope you will consider aiding the future of this program financially.
There are 2 WAYS TO MAKE A DONATION. The best for us is if you send a check to the main office in Washington D.C. The check needs to be made out to Christian Brothers Conference and needs "LV Marathon - Alex Branch" on the memo line. You can send the check to
Lasallian Volunteers
Hecker Center, Suite 300
3025 Fourth Street, NE
Washington, DC 20017
The second way to make a donation is via our online fundraising website, LVs Running in Memphis This is less preferred because the host company for the page takes a small cut from each online donation. Snail mail donations will also show up here, but don't lose the cut.
Many (though not all) of you will receive some snail mail from me regarding fundraising as well, so please be on the lookout for that.
Finally, there is one other interesting bit of news from the Volunteers. We have a new recruiting video, "I am an LV"! You can check it out on the LV website, HERE. It will introduce you to some of the other Volunteers serving around the United States and show you what else we're up to.
Peace.
Alex
Having announced my plan to run the Memphis Marathon, I have to also tell you all that it would never have even occurred to me to do this if not for the fact that my whole program (the LVs) is involved. Of the 57 volunteers, almost all are running in one of the three races, either the full marathon, the half marathon, or the 5k. We are doing this in an effort to raise money for the program. Each person's goal, even those not running, is $1,000 for a total volunteer contribution of $57,000. For me to reach my goal, I need your help. There are just over 50 people on my "blog update" list, and if every one of those people donated just $20, my goal would be met. Can you help me do this? You know from my blog what I've been up to and who your donation ultimately serves, so if you consider my current endeavor worthwhile, I hope you will consider aiding the future of this program financially.
There are 2 WAYS TO MAKE A DONATION. The best for us is if you send a check to the main office in Washington D.C. The check needs to be made out to Christian Brothers Conference and needs "LV Marathon - Alex Branch" on the memo line. You can send the check to
Lasallian Volunteers
Hecker Center, Suite 300
3025 Fourth Street, NE
Washington, DC 20017
The second way to make a donation is via our online fundraising website, LVs Running in Memphis This is less preferred because the host company for the page takes a small cut from each online donation. Snail mail donations will also show up here, but don't lose the cut.
Many (though not all) of you will receive some snail mail from me regarding fundraising as well, so please be on the lookout for that.
Finally, there is one other interesting bit of news from the Volunteers. We have a new recruiting video, "I am an LV"! You can check it out on the LV website, HERE. It will introduce you to some of the other Volunteers serving around the United States and show you what else we're up to.
Peace.
Alex
Friday, September 24, 2010
La Salle School for boys: An agent of healing since 1854
I've been promising for a while now to tell everybody out there just what it means to be at La Salle School - what this place really is, who the kids are, and what we do. Well, let the promising end. Here we go...
THE AGENCY
La Salle School has undergone a lot of changes since its founding by the Brother of the Christian Schools back in the mid-1800s. For more than a century, this place was essentially an orphanage. The kids were like any other kids, except for the primary identifying characteristic of their not having homes. So, we took them in and took care of them. La Salle began undergoing changes in the 60s, 70s, and 80s, however, and continues to change even today. We are now a facility with essentially 3-4 primary programs: day school, residential treatment, after school center, and evening reporting center. Two of these programs, day school and after school center, are voluntary. Parents choose to enroll their children in the day school or in ASC because they believe their child will benefit from the La Salle environment and opportunities. The other 2 programs are not optional. Our residential treatment center and the evening reporting center serve court adjudicated boys. ERC students live at home, go to school at other schools, and come to La Salle for evening recreation, classes, counseling, etc. I have nothing to do with the ERC, however. My job focuses entirely on the Residential Treatment Center (RTC).
RESIDENTIAL TREATMENT CENTER
Boys in the RTC are court mandated to be at La Salle, usually for 6-12 months. They end up here for a variety of reasons. Some because the homes they live in are simply too volatile due to alcoholism, drug abuse, physical abuse, neglect, etc on the part of the parents. Those boys tend to end up at La Salle longer than the usual 6-12 months. There are a couple boys starting college right now through our independent living program who have been at La Salle since they were 11 years old. This is not common, but it does happen. 50% of our boys are in La Salle's Juvenile Sex Victims and Offenders Program (JSVOP - Prounounced J-sop). They are here for 2 reasons. First, they are a sex victim or offender. Second, La Salle is one of (if not THE) only treatment facility in the state of New York that does not segregate JSVOP from the rest of our clients. Our facility is fully integrated, meaning there is no special division, special bedroom, or special anything to separate JSVOP clients from the other boys.
There is an important bit of philosophy behind this, a philosophy permeating this agency. We believe that these boys, all of them, are just like any other boys. They've made some bad decisions, they've been put in some unhealthy situations, they've been deprived of the social training required to live successfully with other people, and they cause a lot of trouble, but they are still good boys. We are technically part of the Juvenile Justice System in New York State, but we are not a youth detention facility, we are a treatment agency. The sign at the front of the school says "An Agent of Healing Since 1854" because we are not jailers or police officers, but social workers. We believe these boys can be helped, and we are doing our best to fulfill our potential as healers by helping them fulfill their potential as humans.
Philosophy aside, there are some other demons our boys are struggling with. Many who come here also have major issues with truancy. 100% of our boys have a DSM-IV diagnosis, and about 50% have a 2nd or 3rd DSM diagnosis. A DSM-IV diagnosis means the client has a psychological or behavioral disorder categorized in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, fourth edition (1994). About half the disorders are partially defined by "clinically significant distress or impairment in social, occupational, or other important areas of functioning" (Wikipedia). 70% of the boys at La Salle are on psychotropic medications. About 62% of our boys screen in for chemical dependency when they arrive. Several boys have high-need medical conditions, as well.
MY JOB
My title is "Recreation Coordinator." What do I do? I run after school recreation programs for boys in the RTC. There are 70-80 boys in RTC, and the recreation department serves them in a couple ways. First, we are a complement to the work being done in the school, in therapy, with the social worker, and in the divisions (where they boys live on campus). The idea is that through recreational activity, boys can build confidence, learn new coping skills, and practice utilizing more effective coping skills. I also consider it an important part of our job to do something much simpler than help kids out of their emotional crises...we also provide a distraction. Rec is the kids' best opportunity to get out of the division, to do something preserving a semblance of a 'normal' teenage life. Basketball, flag football, cards, chess, softball, dodgeball; these things provide an alternative focus, something besides "being at la salle sucks." And I think that matters. In addition to the after school rec programs, we also do off-campus trips. Camping, canoeing, hiking, rock climbing, theme parks, professional sports games, concerts, museums, etc. These trips happen once every 1-2 weeks, typically, and sometimes more. Some trips challenge the boys to do something they aren't comfortable with (like rock climbing today), some are a chance to feel privileged, some are just fun. The trips also give us (the rec staff) a chance to get to know kids better 1 on 1. A typical backcountry (I use the term loosely) trip is 2 rec staff to about 6 kids, so there's a lot more chance to interact, talk, and build up relationships. It's benefit on both ends.
So what else do I say about this place? I can't say that I have a full grasp yet of what goes on here, but I'm excited about the philosophy, I'm excited about the boys, and I'm excited about the job. As I come up with more wonderful things to tell you, you will get to read them.
Until then,
Alex
PS. As always, please feel free to comment or email me with questions and thoughts.
THE AGENCY
La Salle School has undergone a lot of changes since its founding by the Brother of the Christian Schools back in the mid-1800s. For more than a century, this place was essentially an orphanage. The kids were like any other kids, except for the primary identifying characteristic of their not having homes. So, we took them in and took care of them. La Salle began undergoing changes in the 60s, 70s, and 80s, however, and continues to change even today. We are now a facility with essentially 3-4 primary programs: day school, residential treatment, after school center, and evening reporting center. Two of these programs, day school and after school center, are voluntary. Parents choose to enroll their children in the day school or in ASC because they believe their child will benefit from the La Salle environment and opportunities. The other 2 programs are not optional. Our residential treatment center and the evening reporting center serve court adjudicated boys. ERC students live at home, go to school at other schools, and come to La Salle for evening recreation, classes, counseling, etc. I have nothing to do with the ERC, however. My job focuses entirely on the Residential Treatment Center (RTC).
RESIDENTIAL TREATMENT CENTER
Boys in the RTC are court mandated to be at La Salle, usually for 6-12 months. They end up here for a variety of reasons. Some because the homes they live in are simply too volatile due to alcoholism, drug abuse, physical abuse, neglect, etc on the part of the parents. Those boys tend to end up at La Salle longer than the usual 6-12 months. There are a couple boys starting college right now through our independent living program who have been at La Salle since they were 11 years old. This is not common, but it does happen. 50% of our boys are in La Salle's Juvenile Sex Victims and Offenders Program (JSVOP - Prounounced J-sop). They are here for 2 reasons. First, they are a sex victim or offender. Second, La Salle is one of (if not THE) only treatment facility in the state of New York that does not segregate JSVOP from the rest of our clients. Our facility is fully integrated, meaning there is no special division, special bedroom, or special anything to separate JSVOP clients from the other boys.
There is an important bit of philosophy behind this, a philosophy permeating this agency. We believe that these boys, all of them, are just like any other boys. They've made some bad decisions, they've been put in some unhealthy situations, they've been deprived of the social training required to live successfully with other people, and they cause a lot of trouble, but they are still good boys. We are technically part of the Juvenile Justice System in New York State, but we are not a youth detention facility, we are a treatment agency. The sign at the front of the school says "An Agent of Healing Since 1854" because we are not jailers or police officers, but social workers. We believe these boys can be helped, and we are doing our best to fulfill our potential as healers by helping them fulfill their potential as humans.
Philosophy aside, there are some other demons our boys are struggling with. Many who come here also have major issues with truancy. 100% of our boys have a DSM-IV diagnosis, and about 50% have a 2nd or 3rd DSM diagnosis. A DSM-IV diagnosis means the client has a psychological or behavioral disorder categorized in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, fourth edition (1994). About half the disorders are partially defined by "clinically significant distress or impairment in social, occupational, or other important areas of functioning" (Wikipedia). 70% of the boys at La Salle are on psychotropic medications. About 62% of our boys screen in for chemical dependency when they arrive. Several boys have high-need medical conditions, as well.
MY JOB
My title is "Recreation Coordinator." What do I do? I run after school recreation programs for boys in the RTC. There are 70-80 boys in RTC, and the recreation department serves them in a couple ways. First, we are a complement to the work being done in the school, in therapy, with the social worker, and in the divisions (where they boys live on campus). The idea is that through recreational activity, boys can build confidence, learn new coping skills, and practice utilizing more effective coping skills. I also consider it an important part of our job to do something much simpler than help kids out of their emotional crises...we also provide a distraction. Rec is the kids' best opportunity to get out of the division, to do something preserving a semblance of a 'normal' teenage life. Basketball, flag football, cards, chess, softball, dodgeball; these things provide an alternative focus, something besides "being at la salle sucks." And I think that matters. In addition to the after school rec programs, we also do off-campus trips. Camping, canoeing, hiking, rock climbing, theme parks, professional sports games, concerts, museums, etc. These trips happen once every 1-2 weeks, typically, and sometimes more. Some trips challenge the boys to do something they aren't comfortable with (like rock climbing today), some are a chance to feel privileged, some are just fun. The trips also give us (the rec staff) a chance to get to know kids better 1 on 1. A typical backcountry (I use the term loosely) trip is 2 rec staff to about 6 kids, so there's a lot more chance to interact, talk, and build up relationships. It's benefit on both ends.
So what else do I say about this place? I can't say that I have a full grasp yet of what goes on here, but I'm excited about the philosophy, I'm excited about the boys, and I'm excited about the job. As I come up with more wonderful things to tell you, you will get to read them.
Until then,
Alex
PS. As always, please feel free to comment or email me with questions and thoughts.
Thursday, August 26, 2010
Orientation and community.
So I'm trying to keep this blog, but really, I'm failing horribly. It seems like every time I've tried to sit down and write, I've found that either my mind has gone blank or I've been uncomfortable posting my real thoughts for just anyone out there. To get things going, I sat down last night and wrote on paper instead, and I came up with what I hope is some good stuff. I won't write it all here, but most of it is in the words that follow...
ORIENTATION: WAY too long. I am virtually incapable of enjoying time spent in groups of more than 5, and I am almost totally incapable of enjoying outings with 56 strangers (OK, I knew some already, so let's say 51 or so), so twelve days with that many people, all the time, was not the greatest thing for me. I'm just not that kind of socialite. There's always too much gossip, too much intrigue, too many cliques. It might not have been so difficult for me if it had been shorter, but even in a small group twelve days is a long time for me, and with that many, it was bordering on interminable for me by the end. All that being said, though, I gladly admit these were not unenjoyable (if that's a word) people. I probably didn't become lifelong friends with any of them in twelve days, but I don't think I made any enemies, either (I hope?). I didn't laugh hysterically, or cry my eyes out, but I definitely learned a few things, probably even some things I haven't yet realized. There were a lot of life experiences, there were a lot of perspectives, and there was a lot of sharing, so it certainly wasn't all bad, it just wasn't really me.
MY COMMUNITY: I live with 5 other men - 3 Brothers (FSC) and 2 Lasallian Volunteers.
Br. Richard is awesome. He's kind of like the grandfather in our house. As community director, he's in charge of how the house is run, and as a person, he's very much my style. Short. Bald. Tight skinned. Tough. IRISH. He tells you what he's thinking, has an almost subversive sense of humor, and makes no bones about being generous and good-hearted. All around, he's just a good guy.
Br. Bernard is more of an introvert and less likely to be the comic of the group, which is of course why so much of what he says is hilarious! He's a beachcomber who never throws ANYTHING away if he thinks there could ever be a use for it, he's a stickler for tradition, and he's an accountant. He's a little checked out from the community and the school, but he's content to take care of the business and do his own thing so long as you're content to let him.
Br. John is a man who I do not seem to see eye-to-eye with. My goal with him is simply to find a common ground on which we can meet with tolerance and goodwill, because our personalities clash in a very real way. We aren't about to get in a shouting match or anything, but we're also not likely to intentionally initiate conversation with one another. To me, John's biggest redeeming factor is that he has a genuine interest in the kids' success, and if anyone needed something from him, I don't think he would hesitate to provide it.
The two volunteers in my community are Denny and Mike, and these guys are great. Denny has an enthusiasm and personality that is infectious. He's the kind of guy that drives you crazy if you're on the outside looking in, but who is invaluable if you're part of his crowd. He's an organizer, an enabler (in a good way), a good listener, a sincere speaker, and a genuinely nice person. I think Denny could hurt somebody by accident, but I'm sure he could never do it intentionally. He would give up so much to help his friends, and all his actions seem to come from his good humor and kindness combined. He is one of the few people I have ever met who I feel I can say "this person deserves all the good that will come his way." And believe me, there will be a lot. He is bound for the top of whatever he does, because leadership fits him.
Mike is a totally different guy, awesome in his own unique way. His strength comes from within him. He is searching for a direction in life and, while he will enjoy this year of service, I don't think he'll find what he's looking for here. Where some (Denny included) seek validation and support from others, Mike is trying to find something that will allow him to validate himself from within. He isn't truly confident anywhere, and he has some fear in him, but I think that when he finds his home he will flourish, grow, and give back. I think Mike is in this program somewhat on a whim, as another part of his search, but I also think he's in it because he cares about contributing to the causes of people who need him. There is a depth of feeling in Mike that is hard to tap but (I think) once tapped will be virtually bottomless. When he finally finds himself truly balanced, he will be a center of calm in a turbulent world, the place tossed ships and lost people find respite and renewal.
So how does all this fit together? I can't say I know, but I think it's either a jigsaw with all the right pieces, or a depth charge. Mike, Denny, and I have begun bonding really well. I think the three of us really have the ability to support one another like brothers through the coming year, and I think we will. I also think there might be times when we won't even like each other, but don't all brothers have those times? I already know that if those guys ask me for something, I probably won't have the ability to say no. In the 4 weeks we've been together, I have become attached to them in a way I certainly didn't expect. I look up to Denny as the second year volunteer who can do more to guide me into and through this next couple months than anyone else, and I look to Mike as the man who will be there to remind me what's what when I need it, but who will need to remind him of the same from time to time.
So, I hope this entry begins to paint a picture for you of what's going on in my life at the moment. I will try to put up another entry soon that talks more about my school and what I do there. Until then, feel free (as always) to leave me comments or send me an email with questions you have. If you sent me an email last time I posted and I haven't responded yet, please forgive me. I'm a bit busy, but I will be getting to them soon (I hope).
-Alex
ORIENTATION: WAY too long. I am virtually incapable of enjoying time spent in groups of more than 5, and I am almost totally incapable of enjoying outings with 56 strangers (OK, I knew some already, so let's say 51 or so), so twelve days with that many people, all the time, was not the greatest thing for me. I'm just not that kind of socialite. There's always too much gossip, too much intrigue, too many cliques. It might not have been so difficult for me if it had been shorter, but even in a small group twelve days is a long time for me, and with that many, it was bordering on interminable for me by the end. All that being said, though, I gladly admit these were not unenjoyable (if that's a word) people. I probably didn't become lifelong friends with any of them in twelve days, but I don't think I made any enemies, either (I hope?). I didn't laugh hysterically, or cry my eyes out, but I definitely learned a few things, probably even some things I haven't yet realized. There were a lot of life experiences, there were a lot of perspectives, and there was a lot of sharing, so it certainly wasn't all bad, it just wasn't really me.
MY COMMUNITY: I live with 5 other men - 3 Brothers (FSC) and 2 Lasallian Volunteers.
Br. Richard is awesome. He's kind of like the grandfather in our house. As community director, he's in charge of how the house is run, and as a person, he's very much my style. Short. Bald. Tight skinned. Tough. IRISH. He tells you what he's thinking, has an almost subversive sense of humor, and makes no bones about being generous and good-hearted. All around, he's just a good guy.
Br. Bernard is more of an introvert and less likely to be the comic of the group, which is of course why so much of what he says is hilarious! He's a beachcomber who never throws ANYTHING away if he thinks there could ever be a use for it, he's a stickler for tradition, and he's an accountant. He's a little checked out from the community and the school, but he's content to take care of the business and do his own thing so long as you're content to let him.
Br. John is a man who I do not seem to see eye-to-eye with. My goal with him is simply to find a common ground on which we can meet with tolerance and goodwill, because our personalities clash in a very real way. We aren't about to get in a shouting match or anything, but we're also not likely to intentionally initiate conversation with one another. To me, John's biggest redeeming factor is that he has a genuine interest in the kids' success, and if anyone needed something from him, I don't think he would hesitate to provide it.
The two volunteers in my community are Denny and Mike, and these guys are great. Denny has an enthusiasm and personality that is infectious. He's the kind of guy that drives you crazy if you're on the outside looking in, but who is invaluable if you're part of his crowd. He's an organizer, an enabler (in a good way), a good listener, a sincere speaker, and a genuinely nice person. I think Denny could hurt somebody by accident, but I'm sure he could never do it intentionally. He would give up so much to help his friends, and all his actions seem to come from his good humor and kindness combined. He is one of the few people I have ever met who I feel I can say "this person deserves all the good that will come his way." And believe me, there will be a lot. He is bound for the top of whatever he does, because leadership fits him.
Mike is a totally different guy, awesome in his own unique way. His strength comes from within him. He is searching for a direction in life and, while he will enjoy this year of service, I don't think he'll find what he's looking for here. Where some (Denny included) seek validation and support from others, Mike is trying to find something that will allow him to validate himself from within. He isn't truly confident anywhere, and he has some fear in him, but I think that when he finds his home he will flourish, grow, and give back. I think Mike is in this program somewhat on a whim, as another part of his search, but I also think he's in it because he cares about contributing to the causes of people who need him. There is a depth of feeling in Mike that is hard to tap but (I think) once tapped will be virtually bottomless. When he finally finds himself truly balanced, he will be a center of calm in a turbulent world, the place tossed ships and lost people find respite and renewal.
So how does all this fit together? I can't say I know, but I think it's either a jigsaw with all the right pieces, or a depth charge. Mike, Denny, and I have begun bonding really well. I think the three of us really have the ability to support one another like brothers through the coming year, and I think we will. I also think there might be times when we won't even like each other, but don't all brothers have those times? I already know that if those guys ask me for something, I probably won't have the ability to say no. In the 4 weeks we've been together, I have become attached to them in a way I certainly didn't expect. I look up to Denny as the second year volunteer who can do more to guide me into and through this next couple months than anyone else, and I look to Mike as the man who will be there to remind me what's what when I need it, but who will need to remind him of the same from time to time.
So, I hope this entry begins to paint a picture for you of what's going on in my life at the moment. I will try to put up another entry soon that talks more about my school and what I do there. Until then, feel free (as always) to leave me comments or send me an email with questions you have. If you sent me an email last time I posted and I haven't responded yet, please forgive me. I'm a bit busy, but I will be getting to them soon (I hope).
-Alex
Thursday, August 12, 2010
The beginning of a story...
One of the boys told me a bit of his story the other day. The short of it is something like this:
His mom kicked out of the house when he was 13. He didn't have any other family to take him in, so he moved in with a friend and started selling drugs to support himself. He's bounced around, crashing at various friends' places over the years, and was most recently living with his girlfriend. But they just broke up, so he's got a home visit this weekend in which he's packing up all his stuff and looking for a new place to live.
But I hope to see him back here on Monday.
His mom kicked out of the house when he was 13. He didn't have any other family to take him in, so he moved in with a friend and started selling drugs to support himself. He's bounced around, crashing at various friends' places over the years, and was most recently living with his girlfriend. But they just broke up, so he's got a home visit this weekend in which he's packing up all his stuff and looking for a new place to live.
But I hope to see him back here on Monday.
Sunday, August 8, 2010
From Albany, NY!
Timeline since graduation:
Graduation: May 22, 2010. Moraga, CA. Bachelor of Arts degree. Valedictorian.
Move out of my apartment, and onto the floor of somebody else's: May 24, 2010. Walnut Creek, CA.
Start full time temp job at SMC Admissions: May 25, 2010. Moraga, CA.
Work 8:30-4:30, M-F: May 25 through June 30.
Mail everything I own, minus one backpack, to the east coast: June 30.
Cyber-hitchhike (via couchsurfing.com) from Oakland to Seattle: July 1-2, 2010.
Chill in Seattle with Michelle and her flatmates: July 2-5.
Hitchhike from Seattle to Montana: July 6.
Have an awesome time in Montana: July 7-15.
Attend Rachel Richardson-Osredkar's wedding: July 16, Pleasanton, CA.
Fly to Albany, NY: July 19-20.
Lasallian Volunteers Site Visit: July 20-22, 2010. LaSalle School, Albany, NY.
LV Orientation/Retreat: July 23-August 2, 2010. Philadelphia, PA.
1st day of service (aka work): August 3, 2010. Albany, NY.
Move in to my room in the Brother's house: August 3, 2010. Albany, NY.
Camping trip in the Adirondacks with 6 students and my supervisor, Ken Hackett: August 4-5.
Weekend: August 5-6.
Back to work: today!
Okay, now that's over with, here's a bit of what's been going on in a more user-friendly format. Summer after graduation was a bit of a whirlwind. After school ended I had to move out of my apartment on campus, so I moved in with my friend Celine in Walnut Creek and slept on her floor while I worked in the Admissions Office at Saint Mary's for another 5-6 weeks. Had a pretty good time and pretty much financed my cross-country move, which was good. After I finished work, I caught a ride to Seattle with a couple girls I met through couchsurfing.com, a traveler networking website that is absolutely awesome. If you are reading this and you think you're a little bit of a free spirit (or want to become one) I definitely recommend checking it out. I've met CSers all over the world, and the experience has always been awesome.
So, I went up to Seattle to visit Michelle, a good friend of mine from high school, then I hitch-hiked over to Montana to see my mom and some of my other friends who just finished school (or didn't). Notably, I also took a side trip down to Butte, MT for the National Folk Music festival, "Somebody shoot that thang!", which was awesome. I flew back to CA for the wedding of a good friend of mine, then came out to Albany to really get underway with my post-grad life.
I am serving for at least the next year (and probably the next two) with the Lasallian Volunteers. The LV program is founded around the Lasallian tradition(which I will explain shortly) and each year places volunteers all around the country in schools and social services centers aimed at helping poor and underprivileged populations. There are 57 volunteers this year living in 22 Lasallian communities from San Francisco to New York, and lots of places in between. We perform work that ranges from teaching elementary, middle, and high school to tracking students in inner city schools, to caring for the elderly. I myself am working at La Salle School in Albany, NY in the outdoor recreation department. On a day-to-day basis, myself and 2 other volunteers run the afternoon and evening programs for the boys (it's an all-boys school) - basketball, softball, etc. and on about a weekly basis we also organize and run off-campus trips like camping, rock climbing, or caving. Our typical work day starts at noon and ends at 8 or 8:30, with a break for dinner, though our day in full starts at 7:30 with morning prayer.
The school is a residential facility for court adjudicated boys typically sent here for anywhere from 6-12 months. Most of our boys are relatively local, coming from towns/cities within about an hour's drive from Albany, but we do have some boys from further away. None of our boys are from New York City. Boys end up at La Salle School for any number of reasons, most of which I have not yet heard about, but I will fill you in on that as I get a better handle on it.
So, a couple things about the Lasallian tradition, in hope of giving you some idea of what drives this whole program: In the Rule of the Brothers of the Christian Schools (aka the De La Salle Christian Brothers) it says: "The Institute is concerned above all with the educational needs of the poor as they strive to become aware of their dignity and to live and be recognized as human beings and as children of God." It also says, "The Brothers are entrusted with their mission by the Institute, a mission especially to the poor. As a community they become increasingly conscious of the reasons for the poverty that surrounds them and so become earnestly involved in the promotion of justice and human dignity through the educational service they provide." The basic idea, which comes all they way from Saint John Baptist de la Salle way back in the late 1600's, is that education provides an outlet by which the poor can be raised up out of their poverty. Though the number of people committed to living a religious life as a Brother shrinks every year, the number of people involved with the mission is continuously growing. In the LV Program, our commitment is threefold: to Faith, Service, and Community. "This is really a triple movement: seeing reality, looking upon it with the Word of God, being committed to actions that transform. This plan is what all authentic Lasallians should try to live out. The encounter with God in Lasallian terms will never be an individual search, but a community adventure; it will never mean running away from the world, but it will mean commitment and service in the world."
So, the idea behind the Lasallian tradition is that through the values of faith, service, and community, and by the virtue of education, we can make positive changes in the world. The work is not easy, but it is valuable and rewarding. This is something I am proud to be part of.
Mmm, I am sure I have much more to say about the LVs, my site, and my new life, but I'm afraid I have been at this computer too long already, so I hope you have enjoyed this post, and I will do my best to write more as things come up. Also, please take some time to explore the links I provided for the LVs, the Brothers, and de la Salle. If you have any particular questions you'd like me to answer, don't hesitate to leave a comment or send me an email!
Alex
Graduation: May 22, 2010. Moraga, CA. Bachelor of Arts degree. Valedictorian.
Move out of my apartment, and onto the floor of somebody else's: May 24, 2010. Walnut Creek, CA.
Start full time temp job at SMC Admissions: May 25, 2010. Moraga, CA.
Work 8:30-4:30, M-F: May 25 through June 30.
Mail everything I own, minus one backpack, to the east coast: June 30.
Cyber-hitchhike (via couchsurfing.com) from Oakland to Seattle: July 1-2, 2010.
Chill in Seattle with Michelle and her flatmates: July 2-5.
Hitchhike from Seattle to Montana: July 6.
Have an awesome time in Montana: July 7-15.
Attend Rachel Richardson-Osredkar's wedding: July 16, Pleasanton, CA.
Fly to Albany, NY: July 19-20.
Lasallian Volunteers Site Visit: July 20-22, 2010. LaSalle School, Albany, NY.
LV Orientation/Retreat: July 23-August 2, 2010. Philadelphia, PA.
1st day of service (aka work): August 3, 2010. Albany, NY.
Move in to my room in the Brother's house: August 3, 2010. Albany, NY.
Camping trip in the Adirondacks with 6 students and my supervisor, Ken Hackett: August 4-5.
Weekend: August 5-6.
Back to work: today!
Okay, now that's over with, here's a bit of what's been going on in a more user-friendly format. Summer after graduation was a bit of a whirlwind. After school ended I had to move out of my apartment on campus, so I moved in with my friend Celine in Walnut Creek and slept on her floor while I worked in the Admissions Office at Saint Mary's for another 5-6 weeks. Had a pretty good time and pretty much financed my cross-country move, which was good. After I finished work, I caught a ride to Seattle with a couple girls I met through couchsurfing.com, a traveler networking website that is absolutely awesome. If you are reading this and you think you're a little bit of a free spirit (or want to become one) I definitely recommend checking it out. I've met CSers all over the world, and the experience has always been awesome.
So, I went up to Seattle to visit Michelle, a good friend of mine from high school, then I hitch-hiked over to Montana to see my mom and some of my other friends who just finished school (or didn't). Notably, I also took a side trip down to Butte, MT for the National Folk Music festival, "Somebody shoot that thang!", which was awesome. I flew back to CA for the wedding of a good friend of mine, then came out to Albany to really get underway with my post-grad life.
I am serving for at least the next year (and probably the next two) with the Lasallian Volunteers. The LV program is founded around the Lasallian tradition(which I will explain shortly) and each year places volunteers all around the country in schools and social services centers aimed at helping poor and underprivileged populations. There are 57 volunteers this year living in 22 Lasallian communities from San Francisco to New York, and lots of places in between. We perform work that ranges from teaching elementary, middle, and high school to tracking students in inner city schools, to caring for the elderly. I myself am working at La Salle School in Albany, NY in the outdoor recreation department. On a day-to-day basis, myself and 2 other volunteers run the afternoon and evening programs for the boys (it's an all-boys school) - basketball, softball, etc. and on about a weekly basis we also organize and run off-campus trips like camping, rock climbing, or caving. Our typical work day starts at noon and ends at 8 or 8:30, with a break for dinner, though our day in full starts at 7:30 with morning prayer.
The school is a residential facility for court adjudicated boys typically sent here for anywhere from 6-12 months. Most of our boys are relatively local, coming from towns/cities within about an hour's drive from Albany, but we do have some boys from further away. None of our boys are from New York City. Boys end up at La Salle School for any number of reasons, most of which I have not yet heard about, but I will fill you in on that as I get a better handle on it.
So, a couple things about the Lasallian tradition, in hope of giving you some idea of what drives this whole program: In the Rule of the Brothers of the Christian Schools (aka the De La Salle Christian Brothers) it says: "The Institute is concerned above all with the educational needs of the poor as they strive to become aware of their dignity and to live and be recognized as human beings and as children of God." It also says, "The Brothers are entrusted with their mission by the Institute, a mission especially to the poor. As a community they become increasingly conscious of the reasons for the poverty that surrounds them and so become earnestly involved in the promotion of justice and human dignity through the educational service they provide." The basic idea, which comes all they way from Saint John Baptist de la Salle way back in the late 1600's, is that education provides an outlet by which the poor can be raised up out of their poverty. Though the number of people committed to living a religious life as a Brother shrinks every year, the number of people involved with the mission is continuously growing. In the LV Program, our commitment is threefold: to Faith, Service, and Community. "This is really a triple movement: seeing reality, looking upon it with the Word of God, being committed to actions that transform. This plan is what all authentic Lasallians should try to live out. The encounter with God in Lasallian terms will never be an individual search, but a community adventure; it will never mean running away from the world, but it will mean commitment and service in the world."
So, the idea behind the Lasallian tradition is that through the values of faith, service, and community, and by the virtue of education, we can make positive changes in the world. The work is not easy, but it is valuable and rewarding. This is something I am proud to be part of.
Mmm, I am sure I have much more to say about the LVs, my site, and my new life, but I'm afraid I have been at this computer too long already, so I hope you have enjoyed this post, and I will do my best to write more as things come up. Also, please take some time to explore the links I provided for the LVs, the Brothers, and de la Salle. If you have any particular questions you'd like me to answer, don't hesitate to leave a comment or send me an email!
Alex
Friday, June 4, 2010
Valedictory Address - Saint Mary's College of CA, May 22, 2010
Dear Saint Mary’s Class of 2010,
What is the point of an education?
At the beginning of this year, my father wrote me a birthday letter. In it, he said:
“Just keep in mind that up until now you have only been preparing for the fun part of life. One more year of school and the preliminaries will be behind you and you can get on with the game of life. I don't have any idea what life holds for you so just hang on and enjoy the ride.”
At about the same time, a good friend of mine, who tends to be what you might call a ‘free spirit,’ sent me a famous quote from Father Alfred D. Souza. It said:
“For a long time it seemed to me that life was about to begin – real life. But there was always some obstacle in the way, some unfinished business, a debt to be paid. At last it dawned on me that these obstacles were my life. This perspective has helped me to see there is no way to happiness. Happiness is the way.”
These are two seemingly opposite philosophies, one focused on life’s journey, the other on its destination; but both of them are right, and, in a way, they are not so different after all.
In one sense, we are finishing a preliminary. Some of us will walk across this stage and be honored for 2 years of work on a nursing degree, some of our classmates have already gone on from here after three years working toward engineering degrees, most of us are being honored today for 4 years on one of the many other degrees offered by Saint Mary’s College. For a lucky few of us it has been 5 or more years of hard work to get to this day.
But these degrees are preliminaries. They lead into graduate study opportunities, work opportunities, scholarship and travel opportunities. They are something that simply needed to be done. Our years here, however, have not just been preliminaries. The full term of our college experience has been about more than just this day.
At Weekend of Welcome in 2006, my group spoke with Ed Biglin, the Chief Technology Officer for CaTS, and he asked us a question. He said, “I have in my briefcase a Saint Mary’s diploma with the President’s signature, but blank lines where a name and major are waiting to be filled in. For $160,000 we can fill in all the blanks, and it’s yours. Who wants it?”
After the time we’ve had to grow as people here at Saint Mary’s, would you want it? Would you give up the time you’ve spent doing service? What about your favorite professor? Your best friends? What about your cultural experiences, Oasis dances, Outdoor Adventures trips, Church confirmations, travel abroad experiences, January Terms, movie nights, classes with the Christian Brothers, seminar discussions, and athletic events. What about everything else that didn’t necessarily come from a textbook?
Saint Mary’s is more than just a degree, it is an experience. Nowhere on my degree will it indicate that I lived in a Brothers’ community in New Zealand and taught high school math for three months, nowhere will it show that I travelled to Houston to support the men’s basketball team in the Sweet 16, nowhere will it show that I once climbed Halfdome in a snowstorm with one of my best friends from Saint Mary’s.
My father said the fun part of life is next, and I hope he’s right. But I also hope, for each of us, that some of the fun part of life has already gone by, and that today is one of the most fun parts we’ve ever experienced.
As we now move to a new phase of our lives, I also think of the admonition my father left me with, to hang on and enjoy the ride. Life is full of obstacles, and most of us probably have no real idea what we are about to get into. Law school, grad school, med school, business, volunteering, living on our parents’ couch until we figure things out; there is a lot of uncertainty in our futures, and those uncertainties come with trials. But, as Father Souza says, these trials are life. Every time one is passed, another blocks the way. The challenge is to stop looking at life as an obstacle course and rather to see it as a roller coaster.
Like a roller coaster, life has peaks and valleys, long climbs and fast drops, sometimes it even goes upside down. These so-called obstacles are what make the roller coaster interesting. They make it what it is. When the ride finally ends, the parts we remember are the parts where we were scared or excited, startled or tossed around in our seats. They are the parts where we had to hold on the hardest and, when we look back, they’re the parts we smile about. So like my father said, “hold on and enjoy the ride.”
Now, my classmates have all been in seminar enough to be wondering at this point when I will finally get back to the original question: what does all this have to do with the point of an education? Go back to Ed Biglin’s $160,000 degree. If the point of an education were just to learn the stuff in the textbook, we would all have skipped the tests and taken the diploma.
Instead, we toughed out years of hard work so that we could have an experience, so that we could add some twists and turns to our roller coaster, and that is the point of an education. To talk about being a life-long learner, you really have to talk about roller coaster construction, because the education is in the obstacles, and you are not just on the ride, you are building it.
Before I give up this place of honor, there’s one more thing I want to say to you all. I can see behind you to all the parents, grandparents, aunties, uncles, sisters, brothers, cousins, nieces, nephews, friends and supporters sitting in the stadium, and I know that not a single person who will walk across this stage got here all by him- or her-self. Whether your parents, your high school teachers, a Saint Mary’s donor, a staff member or a professor, whoever it is, make sure that soon, before the novelty of today wears off, you call those people, you send them a card, you do what it takes to let them know how thankful you are. For my family out there, please know that I am thankful for you. And for my classmates sitting before me, this could all have been a lot different, but I enjoyed the ride. Congratulations class of 2010, and thank you.
What is the point of an education?
At the beginning of this year, my father wrote me a birthday letter. In it, he said:
“Just keep in mind that up until now you have only been preparing for the fun part of life. One more year of school and the preliminaries will be behind you and you can get on with the game of life. I don't have any idea what life holds for you so just hang on and enjoy the ride.”
At about the same time, a good friend of mine, who tends to be what you might call a ‘free spirit,’ sent me a famous quote from Father Alfred D. Souza. It said:
“For a long time it seemed to me that life was about to begin – real life. But there was always some obstacle in the way, some unfinished business, a debt to be paid. At last it dawned on me that these obstacles were my life. This perspective has helped me to see there is no way to happiness. Happiness is the way.”
These are two seemingly opposite philosophies, one focused on life’s journey, the other on its destination; but both of them are right, and, in a way, they are not so different after all.
In one sense, we are finishing a preliminary. Some of us will walk across this stage and be honored for 2 years of work on a nursing degree, some of our classmates have already gone on from here after three years working toward engineering degrees, most of us are being honored today for 4 years on one of the many other degrees offered by Saint Mary’s College. For a lucky few of us it has been 5 or more years of hard work to get to this day.
But these degrees are preliminaries. They lead into graduate study opportunities, work opportunities, scholarship and travel opportunities. They are something that simply needed to be done. Our years here, however, have not just been preliminaries. The full term of our college experience has been about more than just this day.
At Weekend of Welcome in 2006, my group spoke with Ed Biglin, the Chief Technology Officer for CaTS, and he asked us a question. He said, “I have in my briefcase a Saint Mary’s diploma with the President’s signature, but blank lines where a name and major are waiting to be filled in. For $160,000 we can fill in all the blanks, and it’s yours. Who wants it?”
After the time we’ve had to grow as people here at Saint Mary’s, would you want it? Would you give up the time you’ve spent doing service? What about your favorite professor? Your best friends? What about your cultural experiences, Oasis dances, Outdoor Adventures trips, Church confirmations, travel abroad experiences, January Terms, movie nights, classes with the Christian Brothers, seminar discussions, and athletic events. What about everything else that didn’t necessarily come from a textbook?
Saint Mary’s is more than just a degree, it is an experience. Nowhere on my degree will it indicate that I lived in a Brothers’ community in New Zealand and taught high school math for three months, nowhere will it show that I travelled to Houston to support the men’s basketball team in the Sweet 16, nowhere will it show that I once climbed Halfdome in a snowstorm with one of my best friends from Saint Mary’s.
My father said the fun part of life is next, and I hope he’s right. But I also hope, for each of us, that some of the fun part of life has already gone by, and that today is one of the most fun parts we’ve ever experienced.
As we now move to a new phase of our lives, I also think of the admonition my father left me with, to hang on and enjoy the ride. Life is full of obstacles, and most of us probably have no real idea what we are about to get into. Law school, grad school, med school, business, volunteering, living on our parents’ couch until we figure things out; there is a lot of uncertainty in our futures, and those uncertainties come with trials. But, as Father Souza says, these trials are life. Every time one is passed, another blocks the way. The challenge is to stop looking at life as an obstacle course and rather to see it as a roller coaster.
Like a roller coaster, life has peaks and valleys, long climbs and fast drops, sometimes it even goes upside down. These so-called obstacles are what make the roller coaster interesting. They make it what it is. When the ride finally ends, the parts we remember are the parts where we were scared or excited, startled or tossed around in our seats. They are the parts where we had to hold on the hardest and, when we look back, they’re the parts we smile about. So like my father said, “hold on and enjoy the ride.”
Now, my classmates have all been in seminar enough to be wondering at this point when I will finally get back to the original question: what does all this have to do with the point of an education? Go back to Ed Biglin’s $160,000 degree. If the point of an education were just to learn the stuff in the textbook, we would all have skipped the tests and taken the diploma.
Instead, we toughed out years of hard work so that we could have an experience, so that we could add some twists and turns to our roller coaster, and that is the point of an education. To talk about being a life-long learner, you really have to talk about roller coaster construction, because the education is in the obstacles, and you are not just on the ride, you are building it.
Before I give up this place of honor, there’s one more thing I want to say to you all. I can see behind you to all the parents, grandparents, aunties, uncles, sisters, brothers, cousins, nieces, nephews, friends and supporters sitting in the stadium, and I know that not a single person who will walk across this stage got here all by him- or her-self. Whether your parents, your high school teachers, a Saint Mary’s donor, a staff member or a professor, whoever it is, make sure that soon, before the novelty of today wears off, you call those people, you send them a card, you do what it takes to let them know how thankful you are. For my family out there, please know that I am thankful for you. And for my classmates sitting before me, this could all have been a lot different, but I enjoyed the ride. Congratulations class of 2010, and thank you.
Saturday, February 27, 2010
Recap of the last...month and a half?
Okay, so I have to admit up front that I am about the cheat on this blog post. I wrote a pretty detailed letter to my Dad when I got back from NZ, and I'm just copying and pasting that letter here. The only notable edition I'm making is that, in the 7th paragraph, my paper is now due this Monday, and I've written a bit more of it. Still have a long weekend ahead, though (but not long enough).
New Zealand was awesome, and being back at school sucks. Lol. I had a great time, but what else would you expect when I spent 8 weeks living off my savings and worrying about little to nothing? I mostly just kayaked all the time, but did get to a few other things on the side, including a day of rock climbing and a couple days of farming. Fun story, I helped a friend of mine give shots to 700 sheep. Which is to say, I gave shots to 700 sheep, because he was drenching them (which means he stuck a tube down their throat and blasted their stomachs with parasite killer). I actually think I got the better job, since all I had to do was grab a loose flap of skin behind their ear, shove a big needle in it, and push a lever to deliver the shot. Got myself in the thumb twice, as well, but I didn't inject myself with anything, so no worries. Mostly the shot was just vitamin B12, anyway, so it wouldn't have mattered too much.
By far, kayaking was the highlight of my trip. It took about a week to get everything sorted out in Christchurch when I got there, what with having to wait for Johanna to arrive before I could pick up the car, then getting a set of boats that we could only hold onto for a week, and also having a social event to attend in the city, but eventually the trip did get underway. Interestingly, after one day on an easy river near Christchurch, Johanna decided she wasn't as keen on whitewater kayaking as she thought she would be, so I drove her out to Arthur's pass where she went and did some tramping, and I ended up kayaking without her for the entire trip. I went up to a place called Murchison in the northern part of the south island and spend almost 2 weeks there just paddling. There's probably 15 rivers with decent paddling that are all within a 20 or 30 minute drive of Murch, so heaps of people camp there around Christmas/New Year and just paddle every day. I got in with a group of really good paddlers willing to show me a few things and I had an awesome time. My paddling ability went cruising skyward, and I'm a real confident grade 3 paddler at this point. I've started taking on some grade 4 rapids here and there, but it's not well within my ability yet, so I'm being pretty choosy about what I'm willing to run and what I'm not.
After Murch I went back to Christchurch to switch boats, then headed down Queenstown way. I stopped near MountCook on the way and did a day of rockclimbing with a couple gals I met in Murch, which was cool, then went the rest of the way and did some paddling around Queenstown with a few people I'd met along the way. Only spent a couple days in Queenstown because most of the water around there is far and above my paddling ability, but it was a nice stop anyway. The area is beautiful, which was definitely a plus, and I found a free campsite at one of the river takeouts, which was also quite nice.
From Queenstown I headed up the west coast with a gal who found me through an online travelers' community called couchsurfing.com. She ended up being a complete nitwit, and I was glad to see her go after a couple days in the car with her, but whatever, it's all good. After I offloaded my cyber-hitchhiker, I met up with some people from Christchurch and we did a couple easier rivers around Hokitika. We had a few beginners with us, so it wasn't anything major, but the rivers were absolutely gorgeous and had a few fun places to stop and play in little waves and whatnot, so it was all good. One of the rivers we did near Hoki is called the Crooked, and it flows out of a glacier. The color was awesome, and the water was freezing. One of our beginners fell out of her boat 3 times, and I think she was a little wet and miserable by the end of the river, but she kept a brave face on, so good for her.
From Hoki, I finished the loop up to Murch and did a couple more day paddling there with a guy I met passing through. Ended up having an awesome time the second time through because of how much my paddling had improved. Went out and confidently did a couple harder rivers, and on the way out we stopped at Maruia Falls and dropped it. Amazing experience. Maruia is a huge waterfall, about 10 meters tall, spans the whole river. Adrenaline rush in the extreme. WAterfalls are cool, though, because they're a lot easier to take on than something like a cliff jump or a bridge jump. When you're going off solid land you can always stop yourself, but in a river, once you leave that last eddy, there's no turning back, and leaving an eddy is real easy.
Anyway, after Murch I went back to Christchurch and crashed with a friend of mine for 4 or 5 days. He works from 4 AM until about noon, so we went and played in the surf in the afternoons, which was heaps of fun. I got a fair bit of important work done in the mornings while Dan was at work, as well, which was definitely a good thing. I had a 16 page paper due the Monday I got back, and I had a bunch of stuff I had to do for a job application, and I managed to get all that more-or-less done before I left NZ.
Back here in the USA, things are not nearly so adrenaline pumping, though in some ways exciting nonetheless. I'm excited to be graduating in May, though I don't know how I'm going to survive this semester. Most of my classes aren't too bad, but my senior essay is due in something like 3 weeks, and I am not nearly as far on it as I ought to be. I had a hard time focusing on schoolwork in NZ, what with people always coming up and asking if I wanted to go paddle, so I haven't really made any progress on my paper since October, when I wrote the initial proposal. I'm not too worried about getting through it, but it is definitely a little stress ball in the back of my mind, and may become a big stress ball before the end of all this.
Besides that, though, I'm taking 3 music activity classes, so I'm getting to play a lot of trombone this semester, and i'm also taking my regular academic classes. This term shouldn't be as hard as most of my others because i'm not taking any upper division math classes and I only have 4 academic classes instead of the overloaded 5 i usually take, so that's good. I'm thinking that after i've finished my thesis i might actually be able to find the time to go out and have a bit of fun this semester, and that would be nice.
I'm applying for jobs, now, as well. The application I was working on in New Zealand was for Teach for America, which is an organization that places teachers in disadvantaged schools. I just had my final interview with them last Tuesday and I should hear back about whether or not I've been accepted on March 8. I'm pretty confident they will hire me, but you never know, maybe I screwed up my interview and just don't even know. In addition to TfA, I'm also planning on applying to Lasallian Volunteers, which is (as the name indicates) a volunteer organization through the brothers that run my school. I think I like the opportunities I could get through LV better than what I could do after TFA, so I'm leaning that way, but I have to wait until I'm a little farther along in their hiring process to decide. And, I guess if everything were to go pear-shaped, I could always work on the ranch for the summer and figure out my life from there.
That's about the long and short of it all, though I'm sure I could go on for ages about my time in New Zealand. I'm not sure when i'll post again next, hopefully relatively soon.
New Zealand was awesome, and being back at school sucks. Lol. I had a great time, but what else would you expect when I spent 8 weeks living off my savings and worrying about little to nothing? I mostly just kayaked all the time, but did get to a few other things on the side, including a day of rock climbing and a couple days of farming. Fun story, I helped a friend of mine give shots to 700 sheep. Which is to say, I gave shots to 700 sheep, because he was drenching them (which means he stuck a tube down their throat and blasted their stomachs with parasite killer). I actually think I got the better job, since all I had to do was grab a loose flap of skin behind their ear, shove a big needle in it, and push a lever to deliver the shot. Got myself in the thumb twice, as well, but I didn't inject myself with anything, so no worries. Mostly the shot was just vitamin B12, anyway, so it wouldn't have mattered too much.
By far, kayaking was the highlight of my trip. It took about a week to get everything sorted out in Christchurch when I got there, what with having to wait for Johanna to arrive before I could pick up the car, then getting a set of boats that we could only hold onto for a week, and also having a social event to attend in the city, but eventually the trip did get underway. Interestingly, after one day on an easy river near Christchurch, Johanna decided she wasn't as keen on whitewater kayaking as she thought she would be, so I drove her out to Arthur's pass where she went and did some tramping, and I ended up kayaking without her for the entire trip. I went up to a place called Murchison in the northern part of the south island and spend almost 2 weeks there just paddling. There's probably 15 rivers with decent paddling that are all within a 20 or 30 minute drive of Murch, so heaps of people camp there around Christmas/New Year and just paddle every day. I got in with a group of really good paddlers willing to show me a few things and I had an awesome time. My paddling ability went cruising skyward, and I'm a real confident grade 3 paddler at this point. I've started taking on some grade 4 rapids here and there, but it's not well within my ability yet, so I'm being pretty choosy about what I'm willing to run and what I'm not.
After Murch I went back to Christchurch to switch boats, then headed down Queenstown way. I stopped near MountCook on the way and did a day of rockclimbing with a couple gals I met in Murch, which was cool, then went the rest of the way and did some paddling around Queenstown with a few people I'd met along the way. Only spent a couple days in Queenstown because most of the water around there is far and above my paddling ability, but it was a nice stop anyway. The area is beautiful, which was definitely a plus, and I found a free campsite at one of the river takeouts, which was also quite nice.
From Queenstown I headed up the west coast with a gal who found me through an online travelers' community called couchsurfing.com. She ended up being a complete nitwit, and I was glad to see her go after a couple days in the car with her, but whatever, it's all good. After I offloaded my cyber-hitchhiker, I met up with some people from Christchurch and we did a couple easier rivers around Hokitika. We had a few beginners with us, so it wasn't anything major, but the rivers were absolutely gorgeous and had a few fun places to stop and play in little waves and whatnot, so it was all good. One of the rivers we did near Hoki is called the Crooked, and it flows out of a glacier. The color was awesome, and the water was freezing. One of our beginners fell out of her boat 3 times, and I think she was a little wet and miserable by the end of the river, but she kept a brave face on, so good for her.
From Hoki, I finished the loop up to Murch and did a couple more day paddling there with a guy I met passing through. Ended up having an awesome time the second time through because of how much my paddling had improved. Went out and confidently did a couple harder rivers, and on the way out we stopped at Maruia Falls and dropped it. Amazing experience. Maruia is a huge waterfall, about 10 meters tall, spans the whole river. Adrenaline rush in the extreme. WAterfalls are cool, though, because they're a lot easier to take on than something like a cliff jump or a bridge jump. When you're going off solid land you can always stop yourself, but in a river, once you leave that last eddy, there's no turning back, and leaving an eddy is real easy.
Anyway, after Murch I went back to Christchurch and crashed with a friend of mine for 4 or 5 days. He works from 4 AM until about noon, so we went and played in the surf in the afternoons, which was heaps of fun. I got a fair bit of important work done in the mornings while Dan was at work, as well, which was definitely a good thing. I had a 16 page paper due the Monday I got back, and I had a bunch of stuff I had to do for a job application, and I managed to get all that more-or-less done before I left NZ.
Back here in the USA, things are not nearly so adrenaline pumping, though in some ways exciting nonetheless. I'm excited to be graduating in May, though I don't know how I'm going to survive this semester. Most of my classes aren't too bad, but my senior essay is due in something like 3 weeks, and I am not nearly as far on it as I ought to be. I had a hard time focusing on schoolwork in NZ, what with people always coming up and asking if I wanted to go paddle, so I haven't really made any progress on my paper since October, when I wrote the initial proposal. I'm not too worried about getting through it, but it is definitely a little stress ball in the back of my mind, and may become a big stress ball before the end of all this.
Besides that, though, I'm taking 3 music activity classes, so I'm getting to play a lot of trombone this semester, and i'm also taking my regular academic classes. This term shouldn't be as hard as most of my others because i'm not taking any upper division math classes and I only have 4 academic classes instead of the overloaded 5 i usually take, so that's good. I'm thinking that after i've finished my thesis i might actually be able to find the time to go out and have a bit of fun this semester, and that would be nice.
I'm applying for jobs, now, as well. The application I was working on in New Zealand was for Teach for America, which is an organization that places teachers in disadvantaged schools. I just had my final interview with them last Tuesday and I should hear back about whether or not I've been accepted on March 8. I'm pretty confident they will hire me, but you never know, maybe I screwed up my interview and just don't even know. In addition to TfA, I'm also planning on applying to Lasallian Volunteers, which is (as the name indicates) a volunteer organization through the brothers that run my school. I think I like the opportunities I could get through LV better than what I could do after TFA, so I'm leaning that way, but I have to wait until I'm a little farther along in their hiring process to decide. And, I guess if everything were to go pear-shaped, I could always work on the ranch for the summer and figure out my life from there.
That's about the long and short of it all, though I'm sure I could go on for ages about my time in New Zealand. I'm not sure when i'll post again next, hopefully relatively soon.
Sunday, January 10, 2010
Half-way Through
Hey Everybody,
I've been in New Zealand again since December 14 or so, but haven't been able to communicate back much due to a general lack of convenient internet facilities as well as being a bit more interested in going out and having fun than locking myself down at a computer and writing about what I could at that moment be doing.
Regardless, I have a couple minutes here at a computer, and it's dark outside so there's not much else to be doing, so I thought I'd fill you all in.
It took about a week from my arrival to get going on everything. Johanna flew into Auckland instead of Christchurch, so I had to wait for her to travel overland (and sea) to get to Christchurch before dealing with the acquisition of a car, which we are renting together. That was Monday and Tuesday. Wednesday night we managed to get hold of kayaks through the Christchurch Whitewater Canoe Club, and Thursday saw us finishing off a few details in Christchurch (our last paper due for Seminar) then heading north a ways to go paddle the Hurunui River on Friday. The top section of the Hurunui is grade 2 and was a good way to get our feet wet, but proved a bit too stressful for Johanna. We had arranged to be back in Christchurch Saturday for a social paddle down the Avon, which runs through the middle of the city, so we took off from the Hurunui after one short run.
Saturday was a good opportunity to meet people in the club, and was an enjoyable afternoon with a bit of a barbecue feed at the end. Johanna decided she wasn't too keen on kayaking right away, so we returned her hired boat to the club and I gave her a lift into Arthur's Pass, where I said goodbye to her for several days as she traipsed off into the back country.
Having left Johanna in the high country, I went and tried (and failed) to meet up with a friend near Oxford, a bit inland from Christchurch. That plan falling through, I instead went out and stayed on farm in Scargill with Donald, a good ol' bloke I met at the paddling social. I had to be back in Christchurch Wednesday night to make a boat swap, so I hung out with Don until Wednesday morning then headed back to Christchurch.
In the city again, I swapped out the LiquidLogic Remix I was paddling for a pretty ancient looking Thunderbird with some of the hardest rails I've seen on a boat. They're so sharp it makes the RPM look like a sea kayak... but that's not important. What is important is that I arranged to go paddle the Hurunui again that Friday with Bill, Linda, and Becs. Bill and Linda run the gear shed, and Becs is the trip coordinator for the club. It was nice to go out with some people who knew the river because they took me down the gulley section, which is class 3 (whitewater classes in NZ go from 1-very easy to 6-you'd better be f***ing awesome). In the meantime, namely Christmas Eve day, I went surfing in the Thunderbird at Sumner, which is on the edge of Christchurch.
After the paddle with Bill, Linda, and Becs, I managed to score the club's new boat, a Riot Thunder, off of Linda, since she didn't plan on using it again. The only rule - give it to Debbie on the 6th of January, or I will hunt you down and hurt you... I took the boat and headed up to Murchison the same day, which brings me to the best part of my trip so far.
Murchison is the class 2-3 kayaking capitol of New Zealand. There's heaps of rivers up there, heaps of paddlers (especially around Christmas/New Year), and heaps of fun. From Christmas day until January 6 I paddled 2-3 times daily and progressed from a so-so class 2 paddler to a semi-competent class 3 paddler. Sweet as. I met up with some ol' boys from the club, basically all the guys in charge, and they taught me heaps in the 4 or 5 days I was paddling with them. After they left for Hokitika (the class 4-5 capitol of New Zealand), I hooked up with some freelance paddlers who were rocking it as well. I took a brief break from river-shredding to get some safety under my belt, attending a pretty full-on river rescue course at the NZ kayak school on the 2nd and 3rd of January. Learned heaps, but need to invest in some gear now...
Anyway, left Murch on the 6th to bring Debbie's boat to Christchurch, picked up a new boat on the 7th, and am hanging out with Dan English, a cool guy I met in Murchison who is also in the club. We've been surfing this weekend out at New Brighton, and tomorrow I'm planning on heading back up to Murchison for another week or so. There's some cool club trips going out next weekend and the weekend after, so I might try to come back this way to get on those, but we'll see what happens. The paddlers are starting to empty out of Murch, so I might try to head down Wanaka / Queenstown way in the coming weeks to see if I can find some paddlers around there.
Ah, I should also mention that Johanna came safely out of Arthur's pass and met me in Murch, did a couple day trip up to Nelson with some Israeli gal she met, then I dropped her off in Nelson Lakes Nat'l Park for a tramp, and met up with her again here in Christchurch this weekend. She's traipsing off to Queenstown this week, but I'll probably catch up with her again in 2 weeks or so. She's decided she isn't kayaking, so I'm just freelancing it right now with club members and anyone else I can find who has a whitewater kayak on the roof of their car.
I hope everybody had a Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, and all that jazz. Now that 2010 is underway, don't forget to check the use by dates on the dairy in your fridge. :-)
Alex
I've been in New Zealand again since December 14 or so, but haven't been able to communicate back much due to a general lack of convenient internet facilities as well as being a bit more interested in going out and having fun than locking myself down at a computer and writing about what I could at that moment be doing.
Regardless, I have a couple minutes here at a computer, and it's dark outside so there's not much else to be doing, so I thought I'd fill you all in.
It took about a week from my arrival to get going on everything. Johanna flew into Auckland instead of Christchurch, so I had to wait for her to travel overland (and sea) to get to Christchurch before dealing with the acquisition of a car, which we are renting together. That was Monday and Tuesday. Wednesday night we managed to get hold of kayaks through the Christchurch Whitewater Canoe Club, and Thursday saw us finishing off a few details in Christchurch (our last paper due for Seminar) then heading north a ways to go paddle the Hurunui River on Friday. The top section of the Hurunui is grade 2 and was a good way to get our feet wet, but proved a bit too stressful for Johanna. We had arranged to be back in Christchurch Saturday for a social paddle down the Avon, which runs through the middle of the city, so we took off from the Hurunui after one short run.
Saturday was a good opportunity to meet people in the club, and was an enjoyable afternoon with a bit of a barbecue feed at the end. Johanna decided she wasn't too keen on kayaking right away, so we returned her hired boat to the club and I gave her a lift into Arthur's Pass, where I said goodbye to her for several days as she traipsed off into the back country.
Having left Johanna in the high country, I went and tried (and failed) to meet up with a friend near Oxford, a bit inland from Christchurch. That plan falling through, I instead went out and stayed on farm in Scargill with Donald, a good ol' bloke I met at the paddling social. I had to be back in Christchurch Wednesday night to make a boat swap, so I hung out with Don until Wednesday morning then headed back to Christchurch.
In the city again, I swapped out the LiquidLogic Remix I was paddling for a pretty ancient looking Thunderbird with some of the hardest rails I've seen on a boat. They're so sharp it makes the RPM look like a sea kayak... but that's not important. What is important is that I arranged to go paddle the Hurunui again that Friday with Bill, Linda, and Becs. Bill and Linda run the gear shed, and Becs is the trip coordinator for the club. It was nice to go out with some people who knew the river because they took me down the gulley section, which is class 3 (whitewater classes in NZ go from 1-very easy to 6-you'd better be f***ing awesome). In the meantime, namely Christmas Eve day, I went surfing in the Thunderbird at Sumner, which is on the edge of Christchurch.
After the paddle with Bill, Linda, and Becs, I managed to score the club's new boat, a Riot Thunder, off of Linda, since she didn't plan on using it again. The only rule - give it to Debbie on the 6th of January, or I will hunt you down and hurt you... I took the boat and headed up to Murchison the same day, which brings me to the best part of my trip so far.
Murchison is the class 2-3 kayaking capitol of New Zealand. There's heaps of rivers up there, heaps of paddlers (especially around Christmas/New Year), and heaps of fun. From Christmas day until January 6 I paddled 2-3 times daily and progressed from a so-so class 2 paddler to a semi-competent class 3 paddler. Sweet as. I met up with some ol' boys from the club, basically all the guys in charge, and they taught me heaps in the 4 or 5 days I was paddling with them. After they left for Hokitika (the class 4-5 capitol of New Zealand), I hooked up with some freelance paddlers who were rocking it as well. I took a brief break from river-shredding to get some safety under my belt, attending a pretty full-on river rescue course at the NZ kayak school on the 2nd and 3rd of January. Learned heaps, but need to invest in some gear now...
Anyway, left Murch on the 6th to bring Debbie's boat to Christchurch, picked up a new boat on the 7th, and am hanging out with Dan English, a cool guy I met in Murchison who is also in the club. We've been surfing this weekend out at New Brighton, and tomorrow I'm planning on heading back up to Murchison for another week or so. There's some cool club trips going out next weekend and the weekend after, so I might try to come back this way to get on those, but we'll see what happens. The paddlers are starting to empty out of Murch, so I might try to head down Wanaka / Queenstown way in the coming weeks to see if I can find some paddlers around there.
Ah, I should also mention that Johanna came safely out of Arthur's pass and met me in Murch, did a couple day trip up to Nelson with some Israeli gal she met, then I dropped her off in Nelson Lakes Nat'l Park for a tramp, and met up with her again here in Christchurch this weekend. She's traipsing off to Queenstown this week, but I'll probably catch up with her again in 2 weeks or so. She's decided she isn't kayaking, so I'm just freelancing it right now with club members and anyone else I can find who has a whitewater kayak on the roof of their car.
I hope everybody had a Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, and all that jazz. Now that 2010 is underway, don't forget to check the use by dates on the dairy in your fridge. :-)
Alex
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