I've been at my job for more than a month now, and I'm starting to like it more than I thought I would. I didn't really think that I would enjoy teaching in a classroom, but I've done it about six times now and I'm starting to get the hang of it. I still wouldn't want to be a full-time, one-class teacher, but it's nice to get the kids about environmental stuff when I get to leave them in their teacher's hands after in 45 minutes. So far I've brought in animal pelts and skulls, planted seeds and talked about soil, and played water-cycle and water conservation games.

Besides that, I'm in the process of planning a fishing day where kids and their parents come out to fish at a stocked lake and there are stations for things like fish painting, a casting contest, and aquatic invertebrate searches (so creepy crawlies in the water). Plus there's free food. It's pretty cool, but it's a huge project and I'm learning a lot while organizing it.

I'm also trying to get a field trip together and a trails project, as well as an invasive species early detection training/group. This is all on top of other things people have me doing.

Oh, and for my personal CAP project, I'm trying to organize a community garden in Dufur. Since I've never had a garden in my life, this is going to be a daunting task! But it's fun.

Anyway, that's all work... on the personal side, I've done a lot of hiking and fun stuff on the weekends. I hiked the rest of the Siouxon with Wayne and Chris, went cross-country skiing for the first time with some people (that was AWESOME!), and then sort of half-assed an attempt up Mt. Saint Helens on the weekend that a dude died in the crater... we turned back, because we weren't really expecting to get up there. Now tomorrow, Astoria and the coast!! Woo!