Change is in the Air

Well, my "last" day of work was today, and I'm in a rush to wrap everything up by tomorrow. My lease ends tomorrow, I have to sell my car, finish packing, give away the last remnants of my belongings, and take a couple more boxes to FedEx to ship home. I then fly home for two months, including a 2.5 week trip to Taiwan and Australia to visit family, which will be a blast! Also, living with my parents for the next 2 months will be good preparation for living with host families for 4-5 months, especially after years of living on my own!

I may or may not be back in town, depending on if work grants me a leave of absence (LOA). No LOA means I have to come back on Jan 6th to officially separate, while an LOA means I get to stay home. Not exactly sure why the rules differ--I've been trying for the last week to have someone explain why I had to be here on my last day if I separated, and I was told I had no choice but to be here. Talking to people who have left other companies, it seems like standard practice, so there must be some type of legal precedence. Now this other scenario pops up at the last minute, where I may not have to come back! I already have my plane tickets for Jan 6th, so I guess I'm just super-prepared.

Thank you everyone for all of the farewell parties and well wishes! I will definitely miss all of you--please keep in touch! Leave me a comment or send me an e-mail at the address to the right. It has been a fun several years at work and in town, and who knows what will happen in the next two years.

Learning From Experience

Saturday the 8th was the final exam for my Outdoor Emergency Care class that I've spent the last 12 weeks teaching. This is a class that I was in charge of, where I was very lucky and had a solid core of about 20 other instructors to assist me, so I did not have to actually teach every class. The support I had was amazing. We taught basic first aid for the local Ski Patrol, with class Tuesdays and Thursdays, from 6-10 PM both nights. It was a huge time commitment for the students, and I am proud of every single one who survived. Though I will admit severe frustration at times, trying to get students motivated to learn and practice, I have also personally learned a lot from this experience. I really wish I could stay on and teach it all over again, but next time do it better--I already have some ideas of things I would like to try differently. Hopefully after PC, I will have the opportunity to do so. Working with my Ski Patrol over the last year or so has been a blast, and I will really miss the organization and the people.

The experience of being an instructor and nominally in charge of everything was interesting. The teaching and facilitating skills that I have been working on have already proven useful at work, and I am sure will be great PC skills as well (plus dealing with frustration). From what I have heard, PC service is a great learning experience, maybe one of the most profound learning experiences of your life. I can't wait!

Now that my marathon of teaching is over, and my students happily graduated on to bigger and better things, I have time to focus on my move home. I have been extremely lucky in that I received my invite ~6 months before staging, as opposed to the (rumored) minimum of 6 weeks. I can't even imagine trying to sell all of my furniture, leave my job, move home, etc., in 6 weeks time; I am very impressed with the people who pull it off! But, the downside to starting early is that I am now living mostly furniture-less. I have been using Craigslist for the first time ever, and it's amazing how fast things can sell if priced right (i.e. low). Oddly enough, my bed was the first thing that sold. So, for the last couple of weeks, I have actually been sleeping on the floor in a sleeping bag and using a camping Thermarest pad. I guess it will be good practice for PC!