We arrived in Wapello three days ago, and I can't really say we didn't know what to expect, what with the roughly eight to 10 briefing meetings about what our tasks would be. Still, even though the element of surprise isn't here, the excitement still exists. This morning we got up and ran a whopping four and a half miles (which was awful for me). In the words of Gimli "I'm wasted on cross country, we dwarves are natural sprinters, very dangerous over a short distance."
For the next 8 weeks my team and I will be doing prescribed fires for over 1,000 acres of fields, also we will be responsible for environmental education classes to elementary and middle school aged kids. My specific programs will be bird adaptations, Owls, frogs, toads, and animal tracking. We will be going into the class rooms to teach, and also on a few special occasions be doing night time owl tracking. That will last throughout the month of April, it will be nice to surround myself in childcare work, especially after all the tireless hours of training.
Well, that is all for now, just thought I would check in.
Good night,
Jonathan Hesson
Saturday, March 19, 2011
Thursday, March 17, 2011
In the beginning, God created work.
Well, it has officially been over a month since I flew to Chicago, to fly to Iowa, to start my new job with my sworn enemy, the government. I figured that if I couldn't beat them, I might as well join them. This isn't about proper grammar, cool clothes, cool music, or anything like that. It is about how I feel, how I misinterpret the interstellar matter that has turned into what we call life, and how I intrepidly challenge, persistently, the mysteries that plague me.
This hopefully will become a stream of consciousness that let's me reveal myself to the world that I have been fighting against and for, for all of my early adult life. I hope that it will be a gift to those of you who care enough to occasionally say "I wonder how Jonathan Hesson is doing?"
So this is what's up, last night was the induction ceremony for NCCC Class 17 Vinton, Iowa and I was one of the lucky inductees. It was an arduous month of constant instruction on everything from just simply using a kitchen, changing a tire, driving safety, to the more complex and anthropological teachings of diversity and equal opportunity trainings.
There were over 200 people brought to this campus from all over the United States underneath a conglomerate of personal prerogatives, which as time goes on I hope to understand better. We were placed into teams of nine people including a tenth member who was to be our team leader. 18 of the over 200 people were chosen to represent the NCCC's wild fire fighting teams. We are not too far different from other teams, but we are teams that are more focused towards prescribed fires, and wild land fire fighting.
It is a wonderful thought that I can face one of my greatest fears face to face in this manner, these are the we live for here in this program, seeking out the things that make us not feel so comfortable and standing toe to toe with those fears.
I along with the many others here including my fellow teammates (Oak 6), have survived the training, and the initial adjustments of dropping your life to go on an "adventure," and we are ready to go out and find whether or not this world is worth fighting for.
It is getting late and I am getting tired, my future posts shouldn't be this long, it's just that it has been over a month and I haven't posted anything or had much interaction with anyone outside of Oak 6. Hopefully the posts will be many and filled with insight and wonder.
Good night,
Jonathan Hesson
P.S. Please do comment if there are any questions, I would love to explain things about what it is going on, and how the NCCC works.
This hopefully will become a stream of consciousness that let's me reveal myself to the world that I have been fighting against and for, for all of my early adult life. I hope that it will be a gift to those of you who care enough to occasionally say "I wonder how Jonathan Hesson is doing?"
So this is what's up, last night was the induction ceremony for NCCC Class 17 Vinton, Iowa and I was one of the lucky inductees. It was an arduous month of constant instruction on everything from just simply using a kitchen, changing a tire, driving safety, to the more complex and anthropological teachings of diversity and equal opportunity trainings.
There were over 200 people brought to this campus from all over the United States underneath a conglomerate of personal prerogatives, which as time goes on I hope to understand better. We were placed into teams of nine people including a tenth member who was to be our team leader. 18 of the over 200 people were chosen to represent the NCCC's wild fire fighting teams. We are not too far different from other teams, but we are teams that are more focused towards prescribed fires, and wild land fire fighting.
It is a wonderful thought that I can face one of my greatest fears face to face in this manner, these are the we live for here in this program, seeking out the things that make us not feel so comfortable and standing toe to toe with those fears.
I along with the many others here including my fellow teammates (Oak 6), have survived the training, and the initial adjustments of dropping your life to go on an "adventure," and we are ready to go out and find whether or not this world is worth fighting for.
It is getting late and I am getting tired, my future posts shouldn't be this long, it's just that it has been over a month and I haven't posted anything or had much interaction with anyone outside of Oak 6. Hopefully the posts will be many and filled with insight and wonder.
Good night,
Jonathan Hesson
P.S. Please do comment if there are any questions, I would love to explain things about what it is going on, and how the NCCC works.
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