More...

The next day was the infamous Pionjar Day (pronounced POON-jar). Colin split us into three groups and we would rotate so everyone could have a turn. Tabitha, Churchill, and I were first. As I think I’ve said already on here, the Pionjar is kind of like a giant gas-powered drill that is used to break up rocks although instead of the bit spinning like a drill, I think it just vibrates really hard. Standing up on its bit, it comes up to like a few inches above my waist. It is heavy and awkward and smelly, but so much fun. Colin had to help everyone quite a bit at first. Sometimes he would have to help people hold it, sometimes he would grab the bit and put it where it needed to be, and sometimes he would just point to where you should aim. Everyone got much better pretty quickly and didn’t need as much help. Let me tell you, that thing is a good workout. It works your upper body because it’s so heavy and it works your legs because you usually have to squat and lunge in all different ways to get it at the right angle, all while the Pionjar is shaking your whole body. I wish we had gotten a little more time with it.

Unfortunately, my group’s turn with the Pionjar only lasted between 10:00 break and lunch. Then we rotated out, and got stuck on the same project all afternoon. While we were Pioning, another group was working on rehabbing a pretty long section of the old trail. Rehabbing is what we did to that old campsite, where we try to make it disappear and grow new vegetation. The group that was working on it while we were Pioning had already tilled and duffed it, so all that was left was filling it with dead branches. Sounds easy, right? Not when most of the dead branches already seem to have been found. It felt like we were making almost no progress because the section of trail was so long and it took so long to find branches. Tabitha and I getting stuck working on the same tedious job for long periods of time seemed to be a recurring theme. We worked in small groups or pairs a lot on Emory, but I was always with Tabitha when it was a task that would slowly drive you crazy.

It rained after work again that day. We had already scheduled who would be cooking every night, and the system was that you always clean up the day before you cook. Tabitha and I were cooking the next day, so we had to clean and wash dishes in the rain. And Amy and my rain fly still leaked, even after we covered all the seams with duct tape after the first time it rained. Grr. Never use a Crappy Tent.

Yeah, this one is short. It was a busy weekend. I’m doing my best!

Oh, but I realized that I haven’t mentioned this bit of news: I applied to be a Team Leader for next year, and I got the job! Well, sort of. Each unit has two TLs who don’t go out in the field with a team, they work in the office. One is a Support Team Leader (STL) who does…something I’m not really sure of. They all have different jobs, even though they have the same title. It’s confusing. But the other is the Unit Development Assistant (UDA – pronounced YOU-da), who is like the right-hand man of the Unit Leader. This person is responsible for making sure all the field TLs get in all the necessary paperwork (and there’s a lot) and apparently also provides emotional support for those poor stressed out TLs. Also, if there’s a national disaster, UDAs and STLs are usually the first people to be sent out. Also, if something happens to a field TL where they can’t stay out with their team anymore, the UDA from their unit will usually be sent to take over their team. So long story short (whoops, too late for that), I’m going to be the Sun UDA next year! I start September 7.

And now the library is about to close, so I need to post this thing and make like a tree and get out of here. (Back to the Future reference, anyone?)