Entry from May 31st

Do you remember the first day you walked into a new place full of people you have never met before?  If there wasn't any real previous instruction, everyone probably just stood around trying to make small talk while a couple people casually and quietly stood around the periphery analyzing the scene or waiting for a chance to jump in to something familiar.  Yesterday, I was one of those peripheral analysts.  Even after all my training in leadership, communication, and simple ice breakers, I am still often awkward in new environments.  After a couple hours of name games and active socializing, however, I (along with all my fellow peripheral folk) are chatting up a storm and socializing with our new friends like we have known each other for weeks, now hours.  Now, after our first full day of intensive Crew Leader training I am beginning to get excited to see the Corps Members I will be leading through this exacting same thing.  On the topic of these first couple of days, let me lay out the details of just what has happened thus far and what is supposed to happen in the near future.  To start things off, all the summer's Crew Leaders (save my Co-Lead, who is teaching abroad until June 10th) arrived at the West Monitor Barn in Richmond, VT yesterday and soon started our first round of classroom training which included an overview of VYCC history, VYCC Crew Education workshops, Crew Supervision and Support workshops, a quick overview of some of the projects the crews will be completing this year, and a look at the type of crews we will be leading this year (I will be leading the Junior Leadership Development Crew — the same crew I was on last summer).  These workshops and classroom time carried on into the next day's work, also.
As I lay for the second night on the hard lean-to floor, I am beginning to prepare mentally for the most physical 9 days I may have this entire summer as we jump into our technical skills training in the following few days.
To get yourself oriented, here is a map of the West Monitor Barn in Richmond.  The lean-tos we have and will be occupying for our near-month-long training are closer to the top-left of the farmland hidden away in the woods: