5 months later

My fingertips are raw and there is chalk caked in the cracks around my fingernails. My adrenaline rush has made the skin on my arms stretch so tight it feels it'll tear open, but I shove the unpleasant image aside and continue climbing my way up on the ‘yellow brick road’, which is what they call this particular route on the rock wall here.

Just over two months ago I could barely make it up the easiest route, and now I’m able to do this particularly difficult one (for a noob like me) twice in a row, though not without successfully transforming into a floppy noodle. I can’t even undo the clip that attaches me to the rope from how weak I feel after the second climb.

Bouldering= climbing left to right,
no harness needed

This has become a part of my daily life out here in St. Cloud. I teach, I study, I climb. Repeat.

Let me back up, in case you’re behind: I’m a first-semester graduate student at St. Cloud State University working towards my Master’s in TESL (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages).

Five months ago, I was dumped unceremoniously by Delta back into Michigan after an almost-year abroad, like Europe had simply been babysitting me and now I was back.

I landed with my head spinning and have remained in a similar state ever since. I had barely 3 weeks back home to get through reverse-culture-shock and do some hummingbird-watching and then drove my way through Chicago and cheese curds to arrive in St. Cloud, Minnesota to start my training as a graduate assistant, also known as that one time they tried to summarize the essence of teaching the English language to a diverse group of students in a couple weeks.

Oh run-on sentences, how I’ve missed you.

Five months later. Here are some basic facts:

• ·      Yesterday was my last day of teaching
• ·      Today is my last day of classes
• ·      Next week is exams
• ·      I’m a Graduate Assistant (like a TA) which means:
• ·      I was an instructor in the IEC (Intensive English Center)

o   The IEC is broken up into levels, pre-level 1 to 4. Level 4 is the level they (exchange students) need to pass in order to take college classes.

o   I taught two classes: level 4 Listening/Speaking & level 4 Reading

• ·      I live in a house with several other females 15 minutes (walking) from campus
• ·      Here is a picture of the house, taken months ago:

I like it here. I liked teaching. I more or less liked my classes. I like the people. I like the state. I like the teeny accent, which I have apparently picked up a little of. Some of the vowel sounds just feel better, ya know? Melk and bayg just rolls off the tongue a little more easily.

Minnesota is like Michigan but with straighter highways and pronouncing “aunt” the British way. It’s generally sunnier, and a bit colder in winter, but the famous snow has yet to fall. Well, we got this preview a couple weeks back but it’s evaporated back up to where it came from until it feels like staying longer:

Looking out the front of my house

about 2 hours later

Next morning

St. Cloud is… well, a town. On a superficial level, St. Cloud is like the 9^th bland person you meet at a party with whom you listlessly recite and repeat the basics, like some boring party robot (“I’m ____ from ____ and I study ____ and hope to ____ in the future… how about you?”). You don’t really get any particularly good or bad impression of this person, but neither do you remember a word the person just said 5 minutes after talking to them. This is St. Cloud.

But then you randomly run into them in the bookstore and see them holding your favorite novel of all time and spend the rest of the evening having an incredible conversation with them. You click and proceed to get to know each other over a few weeks and discover all their wonderful little quirks and don’t even associate the first meeting with them to the person you know now. This is St. Cloud.

One of these great, hidden quirks of St. Cloud is Quarry Park, where I spent my first couple months wandering in my free time:

As for SCSU’s campus itself, it’s pretty standard. It’s practically miniscule compared to Michigan State, and I like that everything from my office to my classes to where I teach is all within a few minutes of each other.

Just before it got too cold, I spent a wonderful weekend hiking and climbing along the Superior Hiking Trail, a few hours north of here, higher than the mitten of Michigan! 

Arriving at night and hiking a couple miles to the site

Waking up to this!

coffee and oatmeal

See the train?

hello.

climbing! erm... descending first

my very first time, it took me a bit to get used to it

quite the rush

sun going down

sunset 

It was my friend Kevin (who I met through the sort of ‘Outdoors club’ here) who introduced me to climbing, and I’ve been hooked ever since. I know I’ve dabbled around in all sorts of sports and activities in my 23 years, everything from ballet to rugby, but climbing was not one I saw coming. For me, walls were not interesting and going up them held approximately just as must interest.

All I know is that I’ve got some sort of climbing bug now. I love the challenge of every different route, of learning ways to use my body to reach the top. I love that I’m actually using my upper body even if I have been constantly sore for 2 months. I love the little climbing community who congregates at the wall every night from 6-9 and helps each other out, telling crazy climbing stories and giving advice and encouragement to the climber as they belay them.

I love that it helped me survive this first semester. Knowing the wall’s hours pushed me to work harder throughout the day in order to finish in time so that I could climb and leave any bad energy at the top of a challenging route. I love that it’s one of the best workouts I’ve ever gotten and that I’ve actually got a bit of upper body strength now.

Teaching this semester has been by far one of the most challenging experiences of my life, and never have I ever loved a job so much. Never have I been so pushed, so inspired, so frustrated and overwhelmed, so happy and sad. It was the most rewarding semester of my life.


I was even able to combine my two new loves:

Some of my students and I at the rock wall
(okay so I bribed them with extra credit)

And finally, the last two classes, where several of my students sadly didn't show up, so all aren't represented here:

Level 4 Reading Fall 2011 

Level 4 Listening/Speaking Fall 2011

I'm currently writing this from the lounge area down by the rock wall. I was bouldering and remembered I wanted to finish this.

Anyway, I miss you all, from my family back in Michigan to Anne-Marie in Senegal (who can’t even read this), to Mike in Scotland and Alberto in Spain, to Elisa in France and Mohgee in South Korea, to Zach in Virginia and Caro and Jan in Germany...to everyone so far away. Hope to hear from you soon,

Love,

Katie