Comments:
Good day all! Since high school I've done a pretty good job of avoiding the grown up life--some of it purposely and some of it just happened on its own. I feel like my travels are a huge part of who I am and where I'm at in life. I backpacked through Europe for three months in 1998, and lived in Australia for nine months in 2001-02 stopping for two weeks in Tahiti on the way there and Fiji for two weeks on the way back. I still dream of living in Australia and have been back twice (2005 and 2008) for three weeks each time. I'm not a very good surfer, but by damn I love it!
After I got back from living in Australia, I got a job at a treatment center for troubled youth. We usually have over 100 teenagers there at a time with all sorts of issues/problems. I've done several things there that tally up to six years of employment at the same place (makes me feel all grown up--sort of). For the three years leading up to last August, I had potentially the best job I ever will in terms of job satisfaction. I was a Recreation Specialist which essentially means that I got paid to provide opportunities for kids to learn to climb, ski, snowboard, fish, mountain bike, barbecue, etc. My specialty was barbecue. It really was a great job and I miss it almost daily. I was lured away from this job by the education department to become a teacher. I teach US History which is ironic because I hated history in high school, but the coolest part of the job and the way they hooked me was to develop an outdoor classroom where I take a group of kids camping for about a week at a time and we develop a curriculum based on the environment we are in. Though I miss my old job, this aspect of my new job keeps me invested and I've been asked to present at a national conference in Texas later this year, which is pretty cool I guess.
Other than that, I play in a band with some friends I work with. We usually perform a couple of times a month--sometimes at pretty decent venues and other times at pretty dodgy venues. I almost got married once (2005) but it didn't work out, I graduated SUU in 2000 I think, and I bought a small house in Ogden a year ago. I can't really think of anything else. Cheers.
