Going forward. I’ll try to submit an entry daily, it’s actually a lot of fun and stress relieving, but they should be getting shorter…I hope. Continuing on with my Park Ranger Training & Wilderness First Responder Course adventures for my friends & family back home, today was the first day of WFR…enjoy.
First Day of Class!
If you’re reading this then that means I survived my first day back in “school”. Today was the first day of the Wilderness First Responder (WFR) course at NAU and although I went through a school like setting for similar training at the Monmouth County Park System, this time around I knew things were going to be A LOT different.
I woke up just before 7AM to the tune of that damn rooster crowing on my Droid. Just as I did the day before, my throat was very dry and it took a while to loosen what felt like dried up scratchy puzzle pieces in the back of my throat. Typical morning, brushed the teeth, got dressed and began making my lunch and toasted a whole wheat bagel thin with cream cheese for breakfast. I plugged the Finding Nemo “First Day of School” scene on my Facebook wall and quoted the ever popular “Back to School” song from Billy Madison as my status and headed out my bedroom door. The next step of the day was unlike anything I’d ever done before. Prior to exiting the house I handed Jane, who I found out last night could work with Walter Hobbs at Greenway because she writes children’s books (Elf), my first ever rent check! I’m so grown up! Better late than never. I did one last supply check and belted out “Let’s Do This!” and then Nick & I were on our way.
When I got in the car I saw I had “Good Luck” texts from Laura & Maureen and I started to feel a little less uneasy, then I decided this morning would be the first time Nick got a glimpse of the real Jeff Ward. Maybe it was part delirium, part nerves, part awesomeness, but I began singing songs about every sign & billboard we passed on our 15 minute drive through downtown Flagstaff. I probably freaked him out but he seemed cool with it haha. Drawing from his mental notes of our recon mission from the day before, Nick said “screw this parking lot crap” and we parked in a parking garage; probably illegally since we don’t get parking passes. Finding our way to the classroom was little easier today despite a minor detour thanks to some closed doors blocking hallways. When we arrived in the lobby our instructor Matt greeted us (just imagine my friends Reagan Barry, Sean Cox, & Bob from the Biggest Loser mashed into one dude and that’s Matt) and then we proceeded into a classroom usually reserved for yoga classes with the gym and a room littered with cardio equipment surrounding us.
We passed the CPR practice dummies and sat at the first visible seats at a table in the back of the room. There were instructions on the dry erase board to pick up some forms and make a table tent name tag to put in front of us. The class soon filled with the mix bag of 28 people out to one day possibly safe somebody’s life. The class ranged from kids who looked like they were barely old enough to be in college to a much older crowd, men and women possibly in their 50s. We got a brief outline of what’s expected of us including this little curveball, we’ll be doing partner or group oral presentations starting in 2 days but we never went over any of the topics. As expected, there was one of those famous go around the room and introduce ourselves to everybody. The only 2 things we had to say were our first names and our favorite kind of cheese. The teenager inside me couldn’t help but sneak into my brain just for a second and giggle thinking about responding, “fromunda cheese.” It’s a good thing I can control that little rascal, I opted for American; the most popular selection was pepper jack…really?
As the class progressed just about everybody fell into some kind of stereotypical student. First and foremost, this was the first class I’ve seen where almost EVERY student had an interest in what was going on and everybody seemed very cool. There were the know-it-alls, the ask-it-alls, the participants, the coasters, the kid that wouldn’t stop playing with his cell phone, and the student that probably thought they could teach the class better than the instructor…so at least “schooling” in Arizona is no different than it is in NJ. Myself, I was basically a participant and then would stare blankly at the instructor for the most part. My favorite students were the 5 others that I met who will also be participating in the Park Ranger Training Program, but more on them later.
Most of the morning was consumed by CPR, which I never get tired of learning because being in a situation that requires applying it is one of the scariest things I can ever imagine. This was also the best CPR I’ve ever had because we basically worked along with the instructional video. We practiced for hours than we had a practical exam and a written exam. Nick & I REGULATED the practical and the written wasn’t too difficult then it was lunch time!
During one of our 5 minute breaks I recognized one of my potential ranger trainees from the Facebook group started, Travis. It turns out he’s from New York and he was the only other student that opted for American in that cheese exercise…must be a tri-state thing. During the lunch break I recognized another trainee and before I knew it there were 4 or 5 of us chatting about the program. We all had similar fears and uncertainties. Three of us just arrived on Sunday, none of us thought we were ready for the physical portion of the program, and we come from all over the map; New York, New Jersey, Arkansas, California, & Illinois. Those of us that shared all had different degrees; crim & psych, geology, biology, history. I immediately felt more relieved about this whole program.
After lunch we spent the rest of the afternoon doing patient assessments, which involved a bunch of acronyms and mock scenarios. The cool thing about this class is you don’t really need to take that many notes as our instructors outlined most of the information just as one would who was jotting down notes. Some of the scenarios required going outside and lying on the ground. At one point I was a choking victim and I had to press a granola bar between my tongue and the roof of my mouth until my partner cleared the airway…not fun when you have a stuffy nose and have to breathe out of your mouth. We wrapped up for the day and it was time to go home.
Just before leaving for the day, Matt addressed the issue of parking. The issue is apparently nobody knows what’s going on with parking. One of the regular students informed us that parking services has recently bypassed issuing warnings and tickets and now jumps straight to putting a boot on your car. The panic on Nick’s face was almost eerie. As we were walking out to the car I started saying all the pretend tough guy stuff I was going to say to parking services if there was a boot on Nick’s car including the new stable name I made up for us. “We’re from Jerzinois, we park where we want.” Nick wasn’t impressed when I pretended that there was a boot on the passenger side hahaha. We headed home, thought of stopping to get food but opted to just grub at home. Tired of always being the passenger, I called car trucker guy to see what was going on with my car…supposedly it’ll be here tomorrow after 5. We shall see.
All in all it was a good day; a bit different from my regular schedule but only about a week left of it before the real fun begins. I actually gotta go do homework, even though that nor quizzes count against me if I don’t do them since I’m not taking this for a credit course…pretty sweet.
Funny Things I Heard Today (or thought I heard)
1.) Doodoo…I actually heard that but it obviously wasn’t what my immature brain had registered. It was something like “do do this”. Funny either way.
2.) “Deez Nuts” – I couldn’t even type that without laughing. I was in the back of the classroom and the instructor was listing allergies and it was actually bees, nuts. Again, it got a good silent chuckle out of me which saved my brain from totally imploding.
1 New Flagstaff Observation:
1.) Vending machines are expensive! $1.50 for Reese's?!?!?!?!
Hope everybody at home is doing great! Thank you to the people that I don’t know that are responding to my little blogging experiment. Your words of encouragement are well received.
Mount Up!!!
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