The First Two Months and All That Jazz: Installment I

(entry started 10/26/09, finished 10/28/09)

First of all, thank you to everyone who wrote me little notes in the comment section or via email about how much they enjoyed reading my last entry. I'm keeping this blog primarily to have a place where I can spill all my thoughts on everything that happens during the course of this IslandWood journey, but I also wish I could bring everyone I love here to share this incredible place with me, so knowing that you're reading my words and enjoying them is the next best thing.

Since I spent the whole last entry writing about the physical place of IslandWood, I feel like I should try to summarize what I've been doing here since I arrived on August 26th. Wow, today is October 26th. I just realized I've been here exactly 2 months.  In some ways it feels like it's just flying by. I already know that when the time comes to leave this place, I'll look back and wonder where it all went.  It will be one of those years that slips through my fingers like sand and I'll just have to scramble to catch as many seashells as I can as it goes by.  On the other hand, however, it feels like much more than 2 months have passed.  We've done so much and I've already learned so much that it seems impossible that it all fit into just a little over 8 weeks. Mind-boggling, in fact. I literally just counted the weeks on the calendar over and over again thinking I must be making a mistake somewhere since there's no way for it all to have fit. But it's true. 2 months. 8 1/2 weeks. 62 days. Countless moments of discovery.

The theme of the first week was "Sense of Place". It was a time for us to figure out where we had come, why we were here, and how this place was going to cradle our year of growth as educators and people. We did solo walks along the trails guided by notecards with inspirational and thought-provoking quotes, questions to ponder, and small actions to take, such as touching moss and counting the bird calls we could hear.  We were led through the forest blindfolded to touch various leaves, taste berries, wrap our arms around tree trunks, feel the soil, and other experiences excluding our sense of sight. At one point I was led to a small lean-to fort that had been made with sticks propped against a large Douglas Fir tree. I felt around blindly and figured out what it was then found the entrance and crawled inside.  I sat there with my back against the trunk imagining the small fort around me.  The staff ended the activity by leading us to a clearing among tall cedar trees, laying us down while still blindfolded, and sprinkling sticks, pieces of bark, and cedar sprigs on our bodies.  In the silence that followed, it felt like we were getting a glimpse of what it might feel like to return to the earth someday when our lives have been lived to their fullest.

The theme of the second week was "Making Connections".  Our 'Natural History & Ecology' and 'Classroom Management' courses started, both focusing a lot on small group discussions, interactive projects, and brainstorming sessions.  The grads come from a wide variety of backgrounds, and those backgrounds began to come out of the woodwork during the class discussions as people talked about different experiences they had had while teaching public school, doing scientific fieldwork, working at summer camps, being part of co-ops, living on the streets of Seattle, being in the army, being home-schooled, working at bike shops, rehabilitating wild animals, and hailing from all parts of the U.S. As I began to get to know my fellow grads both in the classroom and out, I got more and more excited about this eclectic group of people I was going to be spending the next 10 months with.

During the second week, we also got to know the rest of our IslandWood family a little better at the 'All Staff and Grad Picnic'. We traversed the grounds on a geo cache hunt in teams then ate catered Mexican food while the sons and daughters of staff broke open piñatas and made ice cream in ziploc bags filled with ice and rock salt. That weekend brought an intensive Wilderness First Aid training, which counted as Wilderness First Responder re-certification for me. The 16 total training hours were chock full of acronyms to help us remember treatment protocol (ABC = airways, breathing, circulation & R.I.C.E. = rest, ice, compression, elevation), practicing bandage wraps on each other, and lots of fake injuries, blood, and symptoms that we had to treat in outdoor scenarios. It was a lot to re-learn and remember in two days but I passed my re-certification practical skills exam and written test, so I guess I could save someone in the backcountry if it came down to it.  I hope....

During these first few weeks, there was a prevalence of blackberries along the trails, beside the roads, and around the graduate commons so we all had perpetually stained fingertips, ate homemade blackberry jam, and watched the fawn triplets and their mother nibble the sweet berries off the vines.

The third week was a blast. Since we here at IslandWood are big believers in experiential learning, what better way to learn how to teach IslandWood curriculum to 4th-6th graders than to be the students ourselves?! So that week, we split into groups with staff instructors to simulate a condensed School Overnight Program (SOP) week, so for four days we got to be the kids!

We cranked the Floating Classroom to the middle of the pond to take water samples.

We collected water invertebrates to inspect under microscopes.

 We hiked down to the harbor to look for crabs and measure the tidal changes, we did a scavenger hunt at the cemetery, we learned the ABCs of the ecosystem (Abiotic, Biotic, Cultural), made a model of the watershed, did mind-maps in the Treehouse and the Learning Tree, ate in the dining hall, sang songs at campfire, and slept in the bunk beds in the student lodges on-campus.

  It was a full and exhausting week but very fun since we were experiencing so many aspects of IslandWood that we had only heard about, but now were living! Plus, it was one big grad slumber party the night we spent in the lodge since we're never all together at night since some grads live off-campus and even those who live on-campus are split up among cabins and the grad lodge. I slept in a room with Ally, Lindsey, and Minna, who are three off-campus grads. It was interesting to talk to them as we drifted off to sleep that night about our reflections of the program so far, our hopes for the year ahead, and the differences between on and off-campus living.

The following weekend, I had my first big excursion into Seattle.

I stayed with Katya in her little studio apartment and helped her adopt a cat from the Humane Society (who now has a wonderful new home with Hillary, the IslandWood graduate program coordinator since Katya couldn't keep her).

I went out to dinner at an open-air Mexican restaurant with Yitka, then we went to Gasworks Park to see the cityscape at night. As we stood in the grass chatting with a homeless man who had struck up a conversation with us and taking pictures of the silhouettes of families and friends enjoying the night on one of the hills, we glanced up at the night sky and saw the longest, brightest shooting star we had ever seen! It started on one side of the sky and shot across the darkness with a brilliantly bright tail trailing behind and fell almost to the horizon! It was so long that we heard the exclamations of people all over the park as others pointed it out to them.  Later, one of my professors told me that he had read in the newspaper that it wasn't actually a shooting star and was really a Japanese satellite at the end of its lifetime crashing through Earth's atmosphere!

Sunday morning I went out to French brunch with Rachel, who I haven't seen for three years.

Then Katya and I explored Pike Place Market, had delectable corn-on-the-cob Ecuadorian style with fresh cheese, and generally wandered around the city getting to know Capital Hill and Downtown Seattle.

Katya and I finished the weekend off with fancy drinks at the Tex-Mex restuarant her boyfriend works at then booked it back to the apartment so I could catch the ferry with Sarah.

I came back to the island that evening and went apple-picking with Minna, her daughter Anneli, and Ally the following morning. Minna's dad owns the Northwest College of Art so we strolled around the college's old estate land, picking wormy apples, unripe pears, and sour crab apples and climbing cedar boughs. It was a nice casual way to get to know all of them, plus I got a bagful of fresh apples and pears out of it!

The next week, we were split into the cohorts that we'll be in for the whole fall quarter, Cohort A and Cohort B. The cohorts have now have been given a variety of nicknames, such as (in A & B order) Cohort H2O (due to the torrential rainstorms that have occurred their teaching weeks) & Cohort H1N1 (due to swine flu sweeping through our cohort), Cohort "My golly, there's something really incredible going on here" (I have no idea why) & Cohort Survivors (due to us surviving swine flu, a horrible car crash, and an owl attack, respectively, all within the last month). Cohort A's mascot is the Unicorn and Cohort B's mascot is the Tiny Horse (long story... stemming from our Natural History class on tracking). I'm in Cohort B and there's definitely some competition between the two cohorts, although it's all playful. As you can see, a tiny horse is not afraid to take on a huge unicorn. ;)

Anyways, that week (Sept. 14), we were split into our cohorts. My cohort spent that week learning about our liaison duties, observing a liaison visit at a school in Seattle (which turned out to be my liaison school, Roxhill Elementary!), getting our UW orientation since we're technically also UW grad students, having more 'Natural History & Ecology' and 'Classroom Management' classes, and then rejoining Cohort B on Friday for training on how to use and debrief the Teams Course with kids. The Teams Course is a low ropes course with element names like Nitro, Islands, Mohawk Walk, Whale Watch, and Spiderwebs, all involving some challenge for a team to accomplish by working together. For instance, on Mohawk Walk, the team must get all members from the beginning to the end while tightrope-walking a foot off the ground between a few trees by holding onto each other and dangling ropes. The kids learn a lot about teamwork from the Teams Course and sometimes magic can happen with groups you never thought could work together but somehow pull through and form a bond that lasts the rest of the week.

(a small section of Mohawk Walk)

That weekend, most of the grads and many of the education staff went camping on Dungeness Spit, up near Sequim. I carpooled with Ilya, Minna, and her adorable 2-year old daughter Anneli.  A major bridge was stuck open on the way up, so we sat in traffic for a couple hours and then later got lost while trying to find the campground but we had a blast joking around and walking Anneli up and down the side the road while waiting for the bridge.

I ended up starting to get sick the first night of camping, so I went home the next afternoon instead of staying the whole weekend like originally planned, but it was still fun with a boisterous group around the campfire the first night and a blustery hike along the ridge above the spit the morning before I left.

I spent the next few days with a moderate case of swine flu, being the fourth grad to come down with it. It  spread like wildfire, especially in Cohort B, and about half the grads ended up coming down with it at some point.

When I finally started feeling better, I joined in mid-week to shadow IslandWood alumni who had come back to teach a week of SOP so that we could see what a real SOP week is supposed to look like with kids and an experienced instructor. The alumna I shadowed was named Corwine and she was great! We figured out that we had actually met briefly last January when I toured campus and she had shown me her cabin, which turns out is Sarah's side of my cabin this year! Corwine had a real knack for working with the kids. Our group was from St. Thomas independent private school and consisted of very smart, goofy, creative kids. Corwine, Greta (who was shadowing with me), and I had a lot of fun with our St. Thomas kids and it was fantastic to finally be in the field with kids! My first experience with an actual SOP campfire was wonderful. The kids performed all the songs and skits, and they were hilarious! I sang, cracked up, and cheered, and then was contentedly reflective during the closing slideshow of pictures of the kids exploring IslandWood all week. I learned a lot from observing Corwine, although I wish I had not been sick because I missed out on a couple days of shadowing her that I think would have been very valuable.

That weekend, I went into town for a bit with Susie and Greta while the weather was still nice to experience the Farmers Market and Mora's infamous ice cream, which seriously deserves the reputation. I had one scoop of sabayon (marsala wine and egg custard) and one scoop of Mexican chocolate on a gluten-free cone. Blissfully delicious!

And that concludes the first installment of my 2-month reflection! I've already written the second installment, but I didn't want to overwhelm you by posting a single entry that would take ages to read so I'll post the second installment in a few days.

Thanks for reading, everyone!

As always, I love hearing your thoughts and feedback, so please don't hesitate to drop a quick comment.

Love to all,

Zoë