It has been forever since I posted a blog entry and my little corner of the world has gone through many changes. I should have written about them at the time, but the longer I waited, the more piled up and the more daunting the task became. So here goes…
There are three major topics I guess I am going to blog about: Sea Camp, The New Job and The Fate of George. You can skip to any that interest you if you don’t want to read every detail.
Sea Camp
I was hired at ODU as a counselor for Sea Camp for the 7 weeks of camp. Every week was a new group of kids doing the same activities as last week. The first week I thought was great. I liked working with the kids and the activities were fun too. At that time, I thought I could do this for a career. What a great job! And it was. I was paid well. I spent a majority of time on the beach. We went to interesting places and got to be part of special programs for kids. Kayaking! Rock Climbing! Sailing! Ocean collection cruises. There were, of course, the problem children, but I learned to deal with them quickly enough. Fast forward a couple weeks and now the downside has begun to emerge. Surprisingly, the kids weren’t the down side. Granted I did get tire of hearing ‘What time is it?’, ‘Where are we going?’ etc. (By the last week I just refused to answer those questions.) But the real problems came with the coworkers. I know that everyone has moments of personality conflict, but I found that when you mix adults in a stressful situation who are used to running their own little kingdom and don’t set up any kind of hierarchy for leadership, things can just go badly. I don’t want to say more than that because I had enough of the talking behind the back this summer. Also, all of those interesting places that were so great during that first week were pretty boring by the fifth time through. By the end of Sea Camp, I was ready for it to be over. I was tired of wearing the neon green shirt every day. I was tired of being responsible. I was tired of many things. Overall though, it was a good experience and I got a great tan out of the deal.
New Job!
I was hired as the Adult Education Specialist at the Norfolk Botanical Garden while I was still a Sea Camp Counselor. I started immediately after finishing up at Sea Camp. I have now worked two full weeks there and I love it! My job is to coordinate all the adult classes at the Botanical Gardens. There are parts of the job that are menial, but I want that too, so I can leave brain power for all the hobbies that I enjoy. The best part is that I get to take all the classes that I couldn’t really afford before as part of my job! This month for example, I am going to be doing floral design certification course all month. Once I get a handle on my job, I will be able to suggest more classes and certification programs, teach some classes myself and find teachers for others. The people have been great to work with too! I think that some of the back-biting that went on a Sea Camp, just served as a contrast for everyone at NBG. You walk in and you can tell that everyone loves their job and that they really care. I find it very comforting that if I do my job to the best of my ability, I will not stand out and I will not be given that ‘look’ for making others look bad by comparison.
I had to laugh though about life’s little jokes yesterday. During the last week of Sea Camp, there were many “Thank God I don’t have to do this again” comments. One of those was about Kayaking. I was so tired of the same old canal route and whining children. During my orientation meeting at NBG, they asked if I could monitor the Kayaking on an upcoming Sunday. Inwardly I laughed over the irony, but outwardly agreed. It would be two weeks away and it would adults. That kayaking trip was yesterday and the weather was beautiful. I was to get to have my own kayak…no partner to work with, no kid that I have to paddle around. Then as we are about to leave, I see that there is a boy crying because he is scared for his mother who is going kayaking and because no he wants to go now too. Sigh…I tell the mom that I have been teaching kids how to kayak all summer and that he can come with me if he wants to. So I find myself chatting away with an 11yr old boy instead of investigating all the plants and critters along the shoreline like I had wanted to. He wasn’t anything like the kids from this summer though. I hardly had to paddle for a change :). So over all, work has been good. I think now though, the honey moon is over and I will be very busy this coming month.
What happened to George?
For those of you that were worried about George from my last post, rest assured that he is fine. He’s gone tranny, but is having a great time as Veronica.
In other News, I posted some new art pictures at the other blog. Check ‘em out!
There are three major topics I guess I am going to blog about: Sea Camp, The New Job and The Fate of George. You can skip to any that interest you if you don’t want to read every detail.
Sea Camp
I was hired at ODU as a counselor for Sea Camp for the 7 weeks of camp. Every week was a new group of kids doing the same activities as last week. The first week I thought was great. I liked working with the kids and the activities were fun too. At that time, I thought I could do this for a career. What a great job! And it was. I was paid well. I spent a majority of time on the beach. We went to interesting places and got to be part of special programs for kids. Kayaking! Rock Climbing! Sailing! Ocean collection cruises. There were, of course, the problem children, but I learned to deal with them quickly enough. Fast forward a couple weeks and now the downside has begun to emerge. Surprisingly, the kids weren’t the down side. Granted I did get tire of hearing ‘What time is it?’, ‘Where are we going?’ etc. (By the last week I just refused to answer those questions.) But the real problems came with the coworkers. I know that everyone has moments of personality conflict, but I found that when you mix adults in a stressful situation who are used to running their own little kingdom and don’t set up any kind of hierarchy for leadership, things can just go badly. I don’t want to say more than that because I had enough of the talking behind the back this summer. Also, all of those interesting places that were so great during that first week were pretty boring by the fifth time through. By the end of Sea Camp, I was ready for it to be over. I was tired of wearing the neon green shirt every day. I was tired of being responsible. I was tired of many things. Overall though, it was a good experience and I got a great tan out of the deal.
New Job!
I was hired as the Adult Education Specialist at the Norfolk Botanical Garden while I was still a Sea Camp Counselor. I started immediately after finishing up at Sea Camp. I have now worked two full weeks there and I love it! My job is to coordinate all the adult classes at the Botanical Gardens. There are parts of the job that are menial, but I want that too, so I can leave brain power for all the hobbies that I enjoy. The best part is that I get to take all the classes that I couldn’t really afford before as part of my job! This month for example, I am going to be doing floral design certification course all month. Once I get a handle on my job, I will be able to suggest more classes and certification programs, teach some classes myself and find teachers for others. The people have been great to work with too! I think that some of the back-biting that went on a Sea Camp, just served as a contrast for everyone at NBG. You walk in and you can tell that everyone loves their job and that they really care. I find it very comforting that if I do my job to the best of my ability, I will not stand out and I will not be given that ‘look’ for making others look bad by comparison.
I had to laugh though about life’s little jokes yesterday. During the last week of Sea Camp, there were many “Thank God I don’t have to do this again” comments. One of those was about Kayaking. I was so tired of the same old canal route and whining children. During my orientation meeting at NBG, they asked if I could monitor the Kayaking on an upcoming Sunday. Inwardly I laughed over the irony, but outwardly agreed. It would be two weeks away and it would adults. That kayaking trip was yesterday and the weather was beautiful. I was to get to have my own kayak…no partner to work with, no kid that I have to paddle around. Then as we are about to leave, I see that there is a boy crying because he is scared for his mother who is going kayaking and because no he wants to go now too. Sigh…I tell the mom that I have been teaching kids how to kayak all summer and that he can come with me if he wants to. So I find myself chatting away with an 11yr old boy instead of investigating all the plants and critters along the shoreline like I had wanted to. He wasn’t anything like the kids from this summer though. I hardly had to paddle for a change :). So over all, work has been good. I think now though, the honey moon is over and I will be very busy this coming month.
What happened to George?
For those of you that were worried about George from my last post, rest assured that he is fine. He’s gone tranny, but is having a great time as Veronica.
In other News, I posted some new art pictures at the other blog. Check ‘em out!
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