I stared at the 3x5 card quizzically. In theory, the process should have been
easy. Check a box, fill in a
blank, and be on your merry way.
Yet, I was bewildered, flipping the card over and over in my hand
looking for the “other” option.
Cal Poly Graduate Status Survey
Tell us what you’re up to
__ Employed full time
Employer
_____________________
Job
Title ______________________
Salary
________________________
__ Employed part time
Employer
_____________________
Job
Title ______________________
Salary
________________________
__ Actively seeking employment
__ Grad school
Name
of institution _____________
City,
State ____________________
Degree
_______________________
I am none of those things. I am an indentured servant intern, an unpaid one at
that, and on July 20th, when my internship ends, I have no idea what
I’m going to do. However, I’m
pretty sure it will be along of the lines of climbing and adventuring, and not
so much in the direction of employment. In fact, it hadn’t occurred to me until
the moment I looked at the card, which was handed to me moments before my
graduation, that maybe I should have been searching for a job. The thought had literally not crossed
my mind. My peers buzzed around
me, some of them starting jobs the following Monday, some had interviews lined
up, and a couple fretted that they hadn’t landed something yet (some made me
think that maybe there should have been a desperately seeking employment option). I stared at the card for another second,
took my pencil, unceremoniously scrawled “INTERN” over all the other options,
and turned it in. I was briefly
worried that I should have a job lined up too, but quickly came to my senses. What would I, a freshly minted
graduate, who loves spontaneity, who can’t stay in one place for more than a
few months at time, being doing with a job? Let’s get real.
 |
| For real! |
 |
| My amazing siblings :) |
As many of you know (if anyone actually reads this,
especially when I’m not talking about climbing!), I have been interning with
Wilderness Inquiry for the past two months. I transplanted to Minneapolis on May 1. It was literally like I got plucked
from one life, and dropped into an entirely different and separate one. Nothing about my ‘new’ life relates to
my old one. I don’t have my
dogs. I didn’t know anyone when I
got here. I don’t go rock
climbing. I’m supposed to be
leading trips in boats. Boats. Who
am I? I feel like David in ‘David
After Dentist’, the popular YouTube video of a young kid waking up from dental
surgery asking, “is this real life?”
I feel like I’m living in an alternate universe. Something about it feels so temporary,
like after its over I will migrate back to the mountains and it will all be
some surreal memory of that time I lived in the Midwest. Did that really happen? Did I spend the whole summer with Chums
on my sunglasses so I wouldn’t lose them in the water? Do I own a 30 liter
drybag? This is not a bad thing,
no not in the least. It is more so
an intriguing thing. It makes me
think about people living a certain way their whole life, being afraid of
change, or just being too far into their comfort zone to ever get off the
couch. I hope this experience will
remind me to never get stuck, to never settle, and to be in constant pursuit of
the things I am passionate about.
Because this is real
life. And I can make it what I
want. I can get up and transplant,
try something new, fail, succeed, learn and live and do. (Except I need my dogs before I
do anything else). And that’s your
piece of Lo Pat philosophy for the day!
 |
| Lake Superior |
Speaking of transplanting, I actually just moved to
Wisconsin (I told you I couldn’t stay in one place for long). WI has a base camp on the shore of Lake
Superior right by the Apostle Islands.
They run sea-kayaking trips from here, (Superior is way more like an
ocean than a lake) and recently built a warehouse on the property and
transferred up all the kayak gear from the warehouse in Minneapolis. The next step was hiring a permanent
staff member to manage the warehouse and base camp, and be the trip director
for the Apostle Islands sea-kayaking trips. After that happened, I was asked if I wanted to work at the
base camp for the rest of the summer as well. Hell yea! I get
to run around in the forest, chill on the shore of the lake, sleep in a tent
every night, pee and poop in a composting toilet and cook my dinners on a
Coleman stove, I have no cell phone service, but I have wifi, so really, what
more could I want? Although it
sounds like all rainbows and butterflies, I have actually been working very
hard since arriving here on Friday (think 12+ hour days that include lots of
manual labor). In the past 2 days
I have watched three of our big tents that stay up all summer long
spontaneously commit suicide, (think poles snapping and punching through tent
fabric, tents collapsing, all sorts of fun stuff) which has resulted in me
taking down, setting up and moving probably 1,237 tents. For real. Also I have wheelbarrowed around and spread enough woodchips
to reconstitute forests across the state.
Seriously, so many woodchips.
So, that’s what’s up with me. What’s up with you?
Also, I'm going to take more pictures tomorrow and post them, I promise :)
