What an awesome year it’s been!!!!! Hopefully by now, most of you received my Christmas card and hopefully everyone had a great Christmas season with family and friends! My year was an adventurous one and here we go:
December- September
During 10 days in December, I stayed at Yosemite National Park and under went the Wilderness 1st Responder course through Wilderness Medicine Institute which is part of the National Outdoor Leadership School. Check out their website at WMI. So this course was 10 days and your probably wondering what is a Wilderness 1st Responder? It’s an 80-hour curriculum which includes standards for urban and extended care situations. Special topics include but are not limited to: wound management and infection, realigning fractures and dislocations, improvised splinting techniques, patient monitoring and long term management problems, up-to-date information on all environmental emergencies, plus advice on drug therapies. Emphasis is placed on prevention and decision-making, not the memorization of lists.
I have to say that this was one of the most challenging courses I've ever done just because of the religion (Christian Science) that I was brought in and didn't have a lot of knowledg
e into the human anatomy and the medical/ trauma issues that goes on with clients in the wilderness. Each day was lecture classes with practical scenario which were fun and to the point. These scenarios tested our knowledge in doing a patient assessment, managing their vitals, and how to evacuate them. It was also challenging because we were all perfectly ok so we had to make things up and discover new problems (which I learned I was a great at)! Could you imagine having to act a heart attack and screaming out of the top of the lungs plus you also have a fracture to the right clavicle (which is the hard bone that goes both ways to the shoulder and is near the neck). Now why would I take such a class you might ask? As a lot of you already know, I work with youth day in and day out and by having these tools on how to work with people who have trauma/ medical issues, I can treat them right there without it getting worse. I also work in the camp field where Im always taking kids in the back country, so it really makes me fell comfortable to know that I can actually save lives in the wilderness with the appropriate medical/trauma treatment! Well if you didn't hint it, I am now a certified WMI Wilderness 1st Responder aka (WFR). It was by far the highlight to end my year and the WMI instr
uctors where amazing!!
As for school, I took 3 classes and did well on my finals! The classes I took where Government, Art Appreciation, and Technology for Educators. I LOVED the Tech for Ed class just because I LOVE TECHNOLOGY. Did you know that kids will spend 150,000 hours playing video games up to their high school graduation and only 15,000 hours of reading a book? Interesting fact right…. well it’s totally true. Besides school, I found a part time job working for Picture People which is a family portrait studio located in malls across the country. I was a photographer and man was it loads of fun! I’ve been doing photography for 3 years now in the camp setting but never in the studio setting. When I went to the interview, I was hired on the spot because the day before, I had gone to Wal-Mart and spent $125 to create an “outstanding portfolio” of the different freelance I’ve done with the camps and schools! The mangers were awesome and really took the time to teach me every thing about capturing families! While working for Picture People, I got to capture kids, babies, families, grandparents, and maternity (which was something new… and honestly didn’t know I was really great at it). I would share some of the photos, but because I worked for them, the photos belong to the company and cant leave the studio.
SUMMER 2008
(20 minutes southwest of Pueblo, Colorado). It’s kind of weird on how I found this camp to be honest! You see I’m an active member of the American Camp Association and I had gone to different schools in the Parker area to apply for other positions while working at Frontier and at one of the school office had a colorful pamphlet of YMCA Camp Jackson. Now this is odd because schools aren’t suppose to advertise for camp just because most of the Douglas County Schools have VERY ACTIVE before and after school programs that run during the summers. Well anyways! I called the director of the camp and told him that I was interested in apply and he seem to be really excited about me too. On Friday June 13th at 830pm, I got a call from the director saying that I
was accepted to work for them! After I hung up, I went right to my stuff and left at 12am and drove straight to Pueblo, Colorado to make it for training school that Monday. This was the first summer ever where I was late in applying for camp and the camp that I’ve always worked at in Buena Vista, Colorado was already full and done hiring at that time.
YMCA Camp Jackson would have to be the BEST experience I’ve had in a LONG time. I’ve worked for youth camps for the past 6 years and I’ve never had a Camp Director that was SO SUPPORTIVE towards its staff and made training school fun and fast. I was also VERY IMPRESSED with the camp as a whole in just how it operated. Even the staff I thought where really mature and great role models towards the YCampers which is sadly not always the case.
I was hired as a senior counselor and I also worked in the mountain sports program where I taught kids how to rock climb, hike and live off the land. I also lead kids in team building and initiatives which was loads of fun! I also had the experience to go rafting in the middle of July with 12 middle schoolers! That was one of my highlights of the whole summer!! Here is why! We hired the Ft. Carson Rafting to guide us on the Arkansas River which runs through Buena Vista, Colorado. When we got at the River Runners spot, we were greeting with our guides! The trip leader had asked me if these kids were capable of g
oing through the whole run since some of it is challenging. I told him YES since I’ve been on the run before and I honestly wasn’t going to limited my kids (off all things!) So we got out after it took 40 mins to load our 2 boats and spent 3 days on the Ark!! It was loads of fun and the kids had a great time!
I also served camp as a Photographer and this wasn’t apart of the job description. I decided that I wanted to give back, and what a better way to capture the moments that are worth a thousand words! This summer, I ended up taking over 1,800 photos. I took photos of every day camp, from meals, to programs, to camp fires. The coolest thing about doing this was I was able to show my photos off in a camp slide show to the campers and parents on the last day of camp. I had great feedback from the parents. Parents were even asking how much it would cost to get CDs of the photos. Check out the photos for yourself!! I created a Shutterfly Gallery and you can view it at: www.ymcacampjackson.shutterfly.com. You will need a password, and that’s: cjcamper. Please let me know if you have any problems getting in, but I don’t anticipate it.
Spring
As for the springs, I found myself working for the Town of Parker, Recreation Department! It was loads of fun. I was a Birthday Party Host and hosted about 3 parties each weekends. A lot of you already know, but I was also a volunteer soccer coach. Yep that’s right! I was the head coach for the Parker Sharks and I had 15 1-2 grade boys. It was a great season because I was able to see the kids improve in their skills and see polite sportsmanship on the field. I also recruited a parent to be my assistant. He was a cool person to work with and the kids loved him also. To give back to the team, I decided not to waste the parent’s money on trophies that break. I spoke a graphic designer and created t-shirts for the whole team and family. I thought this was really cool… and didn’t realize I have the potential of designing t-shirts. The photos that you see of the t-shirt is what was created for the team. I had a designer created
the logo, but I created the idea. Our team did great for kids playing the first time. We won 6 out of 8 games and the parents were so supportive. Im really glad I had the opportunity to coach. The kids and I had lots of fun on our Monday practice and Saturday games. They knew from the begging that the main purpose of the season was to have fun and learn new soccer skills that they could take with them the next season. Yes winning is fun… but we learned so much because our main goal wasn’t playing to win!
As for now
WFR) for those kids that get hurt or need assistance. I start Jan 12th with a week of training and then our first group comes in Jan 26. I will be working with coed six graders at this residential youth camp.
Would love to hear from you! Please note that my email has changed… my trevail domain expired with AOL so I have a new domain which doesn’t expire at all! My new email is mich...@auranches.net and my cell phone for those that don’t know it is (720) 563-7431
