Sunday, October 30, 2011

All For An Internship


 September 16-18
 


So there was the good, bad, and ugly parts to this weekend. I went up to Peel Forest Outdoor Pursuits Centre in the hopes that I could get some climbing in and have an internship confirmed on paper so I can graduate in December.

       Well, the stress of the weekend started with trying to get there. I won’t go into how bad NZ public transportation is other than to mention that the bus driver went past my stop (where the director of my target program was waiting for me) by 3 towns/stops (about 25 minutes past). I came to the decision that I will be hitchhiking or car-pooling with friends from now on. Because of the stressful and exhausting day, I ended up breaking my vegetarian rule that night and bought a burger for dinner (the meat was from a farm 15 km away-so I figured the footprint wasn’t that bad). Then, I awoke Saturday morning to discover that I had a cold. I thought at first it was merely a stuffy nose, but soon realized, as I slowly made my way up Mount Peel, that I also had probably had a fever. After my hike I didn’t do too much the rest of the weekend, except for talk with Andre (director of PFOPC), get a tour of the Centre, be entertained by watching his beautiful three year old daughter running around everywhere with her father in tow, and sleep in the sun by on a river.
Despite my poor show of my enthusiasm and energy for outdoor recreation and just bumming around the pursuit centre, I did get a contract signed with Andre, confirming my an internship position (well, once the visa is changed it will be definite). So now that he’s seen me at my worst, his impressions can only improve, right?
Though I didn’t climb, I did learn about a couple of climbing places near by which helped to plan my adventures for the following weekend.

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