Don't Quit Your Day Job

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-Francoise de Motteville



Well, believe it or not faithful readers, Soarpheat, AKA Chris McEachron for the first time ever has a full time 9 to 5 job. Pretty crazy huh? Anywho, I'll get to that shortly. When I last left you, I believe I was about to head off into the wild blue (hot) yonder back in Baja. It was a really cool course actually. My students were a hoot, a lot of fun and a pretty highly functioning group. My co-instructors were great as well, I had a lot of fun and learned a bunch from both of them. One of my co-instructors was a guy named John, and this was actually the second time in a row that I had worked with him. And yes, I'm ready to do a third should the opportunity arise. I also worked with a guy named Stritty, who bore an eerie resemblance to my cousin Mike, that is if Mike had pursued WoW (Water of White) instead of Wow (World of Warcraft). It was definately neat to see what that side of Mike would have been like, and not at all surprisingly, Stritty and I got along famously.

As I'm currently running low on batteries, I'll be somewhat brief. Remember that whale that I saw die on Isla San Marcos back around Thanksgiving? We went back to that same island and lo and behold, the whale was still there. It was almost as neat to see the remains of the whale months later and know that the last thing that it saw was me. I think that experience in November changed me somehow, at least as far as how I relate to whales. Don't quite know how, but it think it did. Some of you will be pleased that I finally started taking pictures again and so there are some pictures that go along with this entry, including those of a long dead sperm whale. We had some nutty weather this last course, and ended up sitting on the beach watching no less than 8 Nortes howl through the Sea of Cortez. I would say though that over all, this last course was a really fun and growth filled course for me, and I look forward to applying some of my newfound confidence and competence in my forthcoming course and beyond.

After the course was over, I hitched a ride with a buddy up to San Diego, stayed there for something like 9 hours or so, and then hopped a flight the next day to Louisville. The aforementioned rush was necessary due to the fact that the very next day I was due to start work at the Life Adventure Center in Versailles (that's pronounced Ver-SAY-uls) doing challenge course facilitation and other random tasks (Austin Powers reference... anybody get it) around the LAC farm. At the time of this publication, I've been there for 2 1/2 weeks, and although I really like the job and the people and all that stuff, I find that my body is still trying somewhat unsuccessfully to adjust to this new work schedule. It's hard for me to relax completely in just a few hours, an adaption I think to having to be totally and completely "on" for 30 days, 24/7 and then having a couple weeks to relax. At work here, I'm completely on during the day, start to relax, and then switch back on before I'm all the way there. It's very confusing, and I'm exhausted. LOL, I don't know how so many people do this day job thing and don't get so completely pooped. As for weekends, those are just totally bizarre. As numerous friends who have rejected my invites to go out and party on a Tuesday night will tell you, the concept of a weekend hasn't existed for me for a while. I was either working... or not. The day of the week had little or no bearing on that. Now it does though, and I have to admit it's pretty neat to have my free time at the same time as other people. Now they have to be more creative when they reject my invites. :)

***Warning: Philosophical Content***

Over the past couple months, I've realized something that apparently was pretty important to me before it was qualified, but now that it is, it is even more so. Everybody has goals with their lives. Maybe their goal is to make a lot of money, to raise a family, or even to go to heaven, or whatever. Regardless of the goal, a person is a success as a human being if they dedicate the majority of their time alive towards achieving that goal. For me, since I don't care too much about starting a family right now, and even less about money and heaven, exultation and joy in my life are those goals. Therefore, the way that I can quantify whether or not I am working towards my goals is by checking how much of my time is spent doing something that I love to do. Since I spend most of my time working, my job must therefore give me constant exultation and joy if I am to actively pursue my life goal (the meaning of my life if you will) and only in that way can I possibly validate my existence as a human being at this time in my life. That is why I do what I do, and am willing to accept all of the various sacrifices that I make to continue to do it. I can't say how anybody else should live their lives, as often other people's goals are different than my own (this part was also a recent revelation, as some of you I'm sure will realize). So yeah, basically in a nutshell, that's the purpose of my life at this point in time. See why there was a warning?

As for the future, I'm going to be here (Versailles) until May 23. The next day, I'm driving with some friends to the Outer Banks in North Carolina for a New Zealand reunion, an event that I am hugely looking forward to. After that, I'm heading up to Alaska with NOLS, another event that I am hugely looking forward to. Following that, it's back to KY for my friend's (Eric's) wedding, and then almost immediately up to the UP Michigan to hang out with my Uncle Dave and a McEachron reunion. Finally, the last piece of this story is that I'm planning a trip to Russia in August to help some Russian students with their english and help their teachers to become better experiential educators by sharing my experience on the subject. It's going to be an awesome next couple of months. This is Soarpheat, signing out.

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